US 12276396

I'll search for this specific patent number and any related litigation.

Let me search more specifically for the litigation and any CAFC appeal involving this patent.

Let me search for whether this specific patent is asserted in that case and whether any CAFC appeal exists.

US Patent 12,276,396 B1 — Summary

Bibliographic Data (from USPTO/Google Patents record)

Abstract: "A light holding system having a light holder with wings that define an outer contoured surface. A channel extends inwardly of the outer contoured surface and has a bottom wall and lateral walls. The bottom wall has a ridge wall having a retention barb extending from a bottom surface. The wings are resiliently bendable between an uninstalled and an installed position. In the uninstalled position the tips of the wings are at a first distance from the retention barb and in the installed position the tips of the wings are at a second distance. The second distance is greater than the first distance. An end cap having an outer shell and a coped portion within the end may receive the light holder in the coped portion."

Technology in plain terms: A snap-in extruded aluminum/plastic LED strip holder for recreational-vehicle ceilings. A retaining strip is fastened to a roof joist between adjacent ceiling panels; the holder's backside barb snaps into the strip's grooved nubs, while its two resilient "wings" spring outward against the ceiling panels. Bending the wings into the installed position mechanically flexes the strip channel's lateral walls inward so they grip the LED strip (no adhesive needed) and simultaneously stores spring tension that holds the whole assembly tight against the ceiling. End caps cover the holder ends and house wire connections outside the joist footprint.

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

Claim 1 (RV-ceiling environment; the holder alone): For an RV ceiling where a retaining strip with nubbed groove is fastened to a joist — an elongate light holder having (a) wings forming an outer contoured surface with tips, (b) a channel beneath that surface with overhanging walls near the opening, lateral walls, and a bottom wall, (c) a ridge wall extending from the channel's bottom surface on the opposite side, carrying a retention barb. The wings are resiliently bendable between an uninstalled state (tips a first distance from the channel opening) and an installed state (tips a nearer second distance from the opening); in the installed state the wings are biased away from the opening, back toward the uninstalled position. Essentially: the spring-loaded, barb-backed extrusion that snaps into the ceiling strip and spring-grips the LED strip.

Claim 6 (RV-with-panels environment; adds structural detail): Same core holder, but: the panels abut a joist with the retaining strip fastened between the panels; the overhanging walls extend toward each other and are narrower than the channel's internal width; the retention barb is spaced from the bottom surface and has a portion wider than the ridge wall. This claim adds the "narrow mouth, wide interior" channel geometry and the barb-wider-than-ridge snap geometry.

Claim 11 (general panels; broadest scope): Same holder as claim 6's core, but the environment is generalized to any adjacent panels (not limited to an RV ceiling), retaining the "barb spaced from the bottom surface, portion wider than the ridge wall" limitation, plus the resilient wings biased away from the opening when installed. This is the broadest, environment-agnostic version.

Dependent claims 2–5 (on claim 1), 7–10 (on claim 6), and 12–14 (on claim 11) add: inclined/catch surfaces on the retention barb (2, 7); inclined and catch surfaces on the overhanging walls (3, 8, 13); terminal edges closer to each other than the lateral walls (4, 9); and LED-strip capture with biased lateral walls in the installed position (5, 10, 14).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 Docket Search

• District court: The patent's Google Patents record flags a case in the Indiana Northern District Court — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888. A complaint analysis confirms Claim 1 of the '396 patent is asserted against ABC Marketing's "Stellar Lighting" LineLite Track and End Cap products, incorporating the detailed element-by-element allegations made for the related '127 patent (Compl. ¶¶114–118). Related patents 12,181,127, 12,352,411, and 12,352,412 are also asserted in the same case. As of the January 30, 2026 docket entry, the case is in early pretrial phase (preliminary infringement/invalidity contentions and claim-construction exchanges scheduled through spring 2026).
• CAFC 2026 docket: I found no Federal Circuit appeal docket for patent 12,276,396 in the searches performed. My CAFC searches returned only unrelated Section 122 tariff appeals (e.g., State of Oregon v. Trump, Nos. 2026-1804/1805). Because the district court case is still in pretrial/claim-construction stages as of early 2026, no appeal would be expected yet.

Uncertainty note: The CAFC absence finding is based on general web searching rather than a direct query of the PACER/CAFC docket system, so I cannot rule out a recently filed or non-public appeal. The litigation details derive from third-party complaint analyses (Ex Parte/Docket Alarm), not the court docket itself.

I'll search litigation databases for this specific patent number.

Empty results. Let me try alternate sources and phrasings.

Let me check Unified Patents' litigation portal and look for any other cases involving this patent.

Known Litigation Involving US Patent 12,276,396 B1

One case is known. A second wave or additional defendants could not be confirmed in my searches.

Case 1 — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc.

Sources:

• Google Patents record for US 12,276,396 B1 (flags the Indiana Northern District case via Unified Patents litigation data): https://patents.google.com/patent/US12276396/en
• Docket Alarm docket entry for Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (Ind. N.D., filed Oct. 28, 2025): https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/
• Complaint analysis for 3:25-cv-00888 (Ex Parte / third-party docket analytics): https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/innd/3:25-cv-00888/doc/analysis/1
• Unified Patents litigation portal entry for the case: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Indiana%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A25-cv-00888

The '396 patent's role in the case

The complaint analysis I retrieved walks the accused "LineLite Track" element-by-element against four Sigma patents in the same family:

• US 12,181,127 B1 — Claim 1 asserted (Compl. ¶¶71–77 show the wings / channel / ridge wall / retention barb / resilient-wing elements mapped to the accused track, plus the end-cap coped portion).
• US 12,276,396 B1 (the subject patent) — Claim 1 asserted. Per the prior complaint analysis in this file, the '396 element-by-element allegations are incorporated at Compl. ¶¶114–118 and track the same structural mapping used for the '127 patent.
• US 12,352,411 B1 — Claim 8 asserted (Compl. ¶¶147–148).
• US 12,352,412 B1 — Claim 1 asserted (Compl. ¶¶180–181).

Contradiction / verification flags

1. The '396 section of the complaint analysis was not reproduced verbatim in my re-retrieval. The search snippet I obtained this round surfaced the '127 (¶¶71–77), '411 (¶147–148), and '412 (¶180–181) sections, but the returned text was truncated before the '396 block. The '396 mapping at ¶¶114–118 rests on the earlier complaint analysis in this file, not on text I re-verified this round. That mapping is numerically consistent with the surrounding paragraphs (i.e., ¶¶114–118 falls between the '127 and '411 blocks), but I flag it as not independently re-confirmed in this pass.

2. Filing date. The docket analytics source gives October 28, 2025 as the filing date. The Google Patents record for the '396 patent lists a litigation link to this case but does not itself state a filing date. I found no conflicting date.

Litigation search results — what I could NOT confirm

• No Federal Circuit appeal. I found no CAFC docket (including any 2026 appeal number) naming Sigma Switches Plus or the '396 patent. My CAFC-oriented searches returned unrelated matters (e.g., tariff/Section 122 appeals such as State of Oregon v. Trump, Nos. 2026‑1804/1805). This is consistent with the case still being in claim-construction/pre-contentions phase as of spring 2026 — an appeal would not yet be ripe.
• No other district court case. I found no second suit asserting the '396 patent against any other defendant in another district.
• No ITC Section 337 investigation was identified for this patent.
• No IPR/PGR. No AIA post-grant proceeding (IPR or PGR) against the '396 patent appeared in my searches. (Note: the '396 patent itself cites only US 2017/0055319 A1 to Charles Brian Rogers as prior art of record, so any invalidity challenge would be relatively easy to check against the file history.)

Methodological caveat

These results come from third-party litigation aggregators (Docket Alarm, Ex Parte complaint analytics) and the Unified Patents portal link embedded in the Google Patents record — not from a direct PACER or CAFC docket query. PACER charges for docket access and I cannot authenticate to it here. Consequently, I cannot rule out a very recently filed case, a sealed complaint, a non-public appeal, or a case in a court/venue not indexed by these aggregators. If you need court-record-grade confirmation of the '396-specific counts and the current docket state, a direct PACER pull of 3:25-cv-00888 (and a CAFC docket search for any Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing appeal) is the appropriate next step.

Bottom line: One known litigation — Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind., filed Oct. 28, 2025) — in which claim 1 of US 12,276,396 B1 is among the asserted claims. Status: open, in early pretrial through at least the spring 2026 claim-construction exchange. No other litigation and no appellate proceeding are known.

I'll start by verifying the structured PTAB record and then hunting for any AIA trial activity that may not yet be indexed by the USPTO Open Data Portal.

The ODP block reports no AIA proceedings, but I need to check whether filings appeared after the last ingest — especially since the PGR window closed 2026-01-15, opening the IPR window.

The "Stellar" hits are an unrelated party (Stellar LLC v. Motorola). Let me query the PTAB/unified portals and the newly-appeared Vista Mfg case directly.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 12,276,396 B1 ("LED light holding system")

Search status caveat up front: my live searches were terminated by a step limit before I could complete a direct PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm docket pull. Everything below rests on (a) the canonical structured ODP block in this prompt and (b) the searches that did return. I flag where that matters.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 12,276,396: 0 (zero). Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denied, 0 PGR/CBM ever filed. The canonical USPTO Open Data Portal record in this prompt states plainly that the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, CBM, or derivation proceeding naming this patent or naming Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. as patent owner.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not a hardened patent — it is an untested one. No claim of the '396 patent has ever been canceled, and no claim has ever been affirmatively upheld after an AIA trial. Every one of the 14 claims is unadjudicated at the Board and carries the § 282 presumption of validity. The practical consequence runs both ways: a defendant gets no free kill (there is no FWD to point at), but also suffers no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and inherits a genuinely open IPR field. The only real constraints are the statutory windows and the § 315(b) one-year bars running in the parallel Indiana cases.

Because the count is zero, there are no per-proceeding profiles to write — I will not manufacture proceeding numbers or outcomes. What follows is the verified-absent list, the adjacent docket facts that matter, and the strategic read.

No proceedings to profile — verification performed

Flag on a deliberate non-finding: the Motorola Solutions v. Stellar LLC Director Review decision that appears in my results (Acting Director vacating institution on Fintiv grounds, March 2025) is unrelated to this patent. "Stellar" there is a patent owner in a different technology; "Stellar Lighting" here is merely the accused brand name. Do not conflate them in a brief.

Adjacent record that a defendant must know (not PTAB — district court)

• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.) — filed 2025-10-28. Scheduling entry dated 2026-01-30: preliminary infringement contentions by 2026-02-16; preliminary invalidity contentions by 2026-03-16; claim terms exchanged by 2026-03-30; preliminary claim construction and extrinsic evidence by 2026-04-01. Asserted in that case: claim 1 of the '396 patent (plus the '127, '411 and '412 family patents). Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/
• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind.) — a second, newer infringement suit, reported by the Ex Parte case aggregator with a date of 2026-08-24 and "Pending Judge Assignment." This is a fresh lead: a brand-new defendant is the most likely party to file the first IPR against the '396 patent. Medium confidence on the date — verify on PACER before relying on it. Source: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/innd/3:26-cv-01242/sigma-switches-plus-inc-v-vista-mfg-inc
• CAFC: no appeal found for the '396 patent, consistent with the prior section's finding — and expected, since no PTAB FWD and no final judgment exist to appeal.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 12,276,396 has been canceled, narrowed, or sustained in any AIA trial. The full claim set 1–14 remains live: independent claims 1 (RV-ceiling environment), 6 (RV panels, adding overhanging walls narrower than the channel internal width, plus barb spaced from the bottom surface and wider than the ridge wall), and 11 (generalized to adjacent panels, broadest scope), together with dependents 2–5, 7–10, and 12–14. The same is true across the family: my searches found no PTAB activity against US 12,181,127 B1 or the CIPs US 12,352,411 B1 / 12,352,412 B1 either. Counter-intuitively, that means the dependent claims here are unusually valuable to the patent owner and unusually dangerous to a defendant — claim 5 (and its twins 10 and 14) adds the LED-strip-capture-and-bias limitation on top of the narrow environment claims, so knocking out independent claim 11 alone would still leave the patent owner asserting practically identical scope through claim 12–14. Any IPR strategy that challenges only claim 11 and its dependents leaves claims 1/6 and their dependents untouched.

Estoppel landscape — a clean slate, which cuts against the defendant. Because no IPR or PGR was ever instituted, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to anyone, and no petitioner is barred from raising grounds it did not raise. The flip side is that no helpful estoppel binds the patent owner either. The live clocks are the § 315(b) one-year bars: if ABC Marketing was served in late October/November 2025, its IPR bar falls roughly October–November 2026 — i.e., within weeks of today (2026-09-12); Vista Mfg's bar would fall roughly August–September 2027 on the reported 2026-08-24 filing. Prior art is fully available to a first petitioner: the reference of record, US 2017/0055319 A1 (Rogers, "Continuous Light Strip, System and Method"), applied only in ex parte prosecution, plus the family-cited art — US 6,939,029 B1 (Kuryakyn modular light assembly), US 9,062,838 B1 (Merrill, downwardly-extending light fixture), CH 658115 A5, CN 205979311 U (a T-type binding strip with a stopping barb — structurally evocative of the claimed retention barb), and CN 116045245 A. One hard limit: IPR is confined to patents and printed publications under § 311(b), so public-use / on-sale system art cannot be raised at the PTAB — it must be preserved in the district court case.

Window and pattern signals. The '396 patent issued 2025-04-15 as a B1, so it had no pre-grant publication: the PGR window ran 2025-04-15 → 2026-01-15 and is now closed. As of today, § 112 grounds are off the table at the PTAB for this patent — all that remains is IPR under § 102/§ 103 over patents and printed publications, first available 2026-01-15. For the family, the '127 patent (issued 2024-12-31) has been IPR-eligible since roughly 2025-10-01, and the '411/'412 CIPs (issued 2025-07-08) since roughly 2026-04-08. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain — the "Unified Patents" link on the patent's Google Patents page is a litigation-data link, not a Unified Patents filing, and I found no aggregator petition. There is likewise no serial-petitioner pattern because there has been no petitioner at all. The one structural caution for a would-be petitioner is discretionary denial: the N.D. Ind. case is already past claim-term exchange and preliminary claim construction (spring 2026), and the current Director practice weighs the expected district court trial date against the statutory FWD date in deciding whether to deny institution on Fintiv grounds — so a petition filed late in 2026 on a case with a 2027 trial date risks denial on that basis.

One substantive contradiction worth flagging (validity, not procedure). The '396 patent's abstract states the installed-position distance "is greater than the first distance," while every claim (1, 6, 11) and the specification state the opposite polarity — the installed-position (second) distance from the opening is nearer than the uninstalled (first) distance, with the wings biased away from the opening when installed. This is a specification/abstract inconsistency, not a claim inconsistency, so it is unlikely to decide anything — but it is exactly the kind of material a defendant would probe in a § 112 indefiniteness or written-description sidebar if indefiniteness were litigated (and, with the PGR window closed, that fight must happen in district court).

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant today, there is no FWD to link to — say so plainly and do not characterize the absence as a win. The correct framing for a demand-letter response or a stay motion is: no AIA trial has ever been instituted against this patent; all 14 claims are presumptively valid under 35 U.S.C. § 282; and the patent owner has prevailed by default only. Do not imply the claims were "sustained" — they were never tested. Conversely, do not concede that the patent is "hardened."
2. Preserve and file fast if you intend to petition. § 315(b) gives ABC Marketing only until roughly October–November 2026; Vista Mfg until roughly August–September 2027. Because the PGR window closed 2026-01-15, your only AIA vehicle is IPR. If you file, statutory milestones are: institution decision within 6 months of the petition (35 U.S.C. § 314(b)) and FWD within 12 months of institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)).
3. Do not put all your weight on independent claim 11. Claims 1 and 6 carry narrower but still commercially sufficient scope, and dependents 5, 10 and 14 add the biased-lateral-wall LED-strip capture. A petition targeting only the broadest independent claim produces a weak commercial result.
4. Verify the two open docket facts before acting: (a) confirm service dates in Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing, No. 3:25-cv-00888, to fix the § 315(b) bar (https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/); and (b) confirm the existence, date and service of Sigma Switches Plus v. Vista Mfg, No. 3:26-cv-01242, which I could not verify beyond a third-party aggregator page (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/innd/3:26-cv-01242/sigma-switches-plus-inc-v-vista-mfg-inc).
5. Re-run the canonical check directly, because my live verification was incomplete. Query PTAB E2E by patent number and by party at https://ptab.uspto.gov, cross-check the PTAB decisions page at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions, and check https://www.courtlistener.com for any Federal Circuit appeal naming Sigma Switches Plus. My inability to complete those direct queries — and the ODP ingestion lag — are the two reasons a recently filed petition (particularly one filed by Vista Mfg after the 2026-08-24 suit) could exist without appearing in this report. The finding of "zero proceedings" is high-confidence as of the ODP ingest date and medium-confidence as of today, 2026-09-12.

I'll research the ownership chain for this patent, starting with the patent's Google Patents legal events and Sigma Switches Plus's corporate profile.

Now let me look for the specific assignment record and the prosecuting attorney (who is typically the recording correspondent).

Let me try to pin down the recorded assignment details and the prosecuting/recording attorney.

Ownership-Chain Reconstruction — US 12,276,396 B1 ("LED light holding system")

Scope and source caveat (stated up front, because it affects every line below). I built this section from the Google Patents legal-events mirror of the USPTO assignment record (the authoritative text supplied in this file) plus corporate/registry corroboration. My live verification was cut off before I could complete a direct pull from the USPTO Assignment Center, so reel/frame numbers and the correspondent-of-record name for the single recorded conveyance were not retrieved and are reported as unretrieved rather than guessed. This is a real gap, not a rounding error — the correspondent field is the specific field this task asks me to capture. Everything I do report is grounded; everything I could not confirm is labeled.

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Inventors

Pattern assessment — the classic red flags are absent, and the inverted signal is present.

• No inventor exodus. All three inventors are still associated with Sigma Switches Plus. The same trio (Brian Rothbauer, Adrian Byers, Nick Rothbauer) is the inventor set on all four Sigma Switches Plus grants/applications indexed by the assignee profile (4 published applications, last publication 2025-07-03; 4 grants, last grant 2025-07-08 — i.e., the '127, '396, '411 and '412 family). A three-person, family-and-employee inventor team that stays put is the signature of a small operating manufacturer's in-house product-development pipeline, not of a portfolio assembled for sale.
• No assignor-side abandonment. There is no evidence of any inventor departing within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of an inventor retaining or re-acquiring rights. There is exactly one conveyance in the chain.

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Original assignee

Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. — 4703 Wyland Dr., Unit A, Elkhart, IN 46516. Named as assignee on the face of the patent, as applicant at filing (2024-08-05), and as the assignee of the sole recorded conveyance (recorded 2024-08-19).

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Assignment timeline

One recorded conveyance exists — the original inventor-to-employer assignment. There are no post-issuance transfers, no security interests, no name changes, and no mergers in this chain.

• 2024-08 (execution date not stated in the record — executed on or before the recording date; the application itself was filed 2024-08-05) / recorded 2024-08-19 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED / Frame NOT RETRIEVED
  • Conveyance: Assignment — the Google Patents legal-events mirror records the event as "ASSIGNED TO SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. — ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)."
  • Assignor: BYERS, ADRIAN; ROTHBAUER, BRIAN; ROTHBAUER, NICK (all three named inventors, jointly)
  • Assignee: SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. (Elkhart, IN)
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED. This field is the one this task most wants, and the sources I could reach did not expose it. The recording is almost certainly handled by the same outside patent firm that prosecuted the application (the firm of record on the '396, '127, '411 and '412 family), but I will not name a firm I did not verify — that would be fabrication. If the same correspondent recurs across the four family recordings (four assets, one day-apart recording window in Aug 2024), that is the expected profile of a single operating company's outside counsel, and would NOT be a repeat-player NPE tell.
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer assignment of the original application (App. No. 18/794,130), filed 14 days after the application's 2024-08-05 filing date and ~4 months after the 2023-12-26 provisional (Ser. No. 63/614,739). This is housekeeping to perfect title for the company that already was the applicant — not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Family picture (same assignee, no transfers): the sibling grant US 12,181,127 B1 ("LED light holder system," App. 18/794,008, filed the same day) and the two continuations-in-part US 12,352,411 B1 and US 12,352,412 B1 (Apps. 19/081,577 and 19/081,606, filed 2025-03-17) all sit with Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. The published applications US 2025/0207763 A1 and US 2025/0216060 A1 likewise. No chain-of-title divergence anywhere in the family.

Search strings to close the gap directly: patent 12,276,396; application 18/794,130; provisional 63/614,739; assignor names "Rothbauer, Brian", "Rothbauer, Nick", "Byers, Adrian"; assignee "Sigma Switches Plus". The record is at the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/), which also serves the legacy Patent Assignment Search index (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Search by patent number, then open the 2024-08-19 entry to read the reel/frame and correspondent cover-sheet fields.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12276396
    2023 : Provisional filed by three inventors
    2024 : Non-provisional filed 5 Aug
         : Inventors assign to Sigma Switches Plus
         : Assignment recorded 19 Aug
         : Small entity status set 16 Aug
    2025 : Patent issues 15 Apr
         : Suit filed against ABC Marketing
    2026 : Second suit filed against Vista Mfg

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification. There is exactly one recorded conveyance in this chain — the three named inventors (Adrian Byers, Brian Rothbauer, Nick Rothbauer) assigning their interest to Sigma Switches Plus, Inc., recorded 2024-08-19, which is the ordinary inventor-to-employer perfection of title for the company that was already the applicant on App. No. 18/794,130 (filed 2024-08-05, priority to provisional 63/614,739 of 2023-12-26). No shell LLC, no cascade, no security interest, no bankruptcy, no defensive aggregator, and no pre-suit transfer appears — the only assignment predates the first suit by ~14 months. The assignee is a small, family-run, Elkhart-based RV electrical-components manufacturer that sells product into the very market where it is now suing ABC Marketing (Stellar Lighting's LineLite Track) and Vista Mfg — i.e., a competitor-versus-competitor fight over a component Sigma actually makes, which is the definition of an operating-company assertion rather than an NPE campaign. Confidence is high on the ownership conclusion (single-transaction chain, no opaque entities) and medium on the "practices the claims" prong (no Sigma product page for the ceiling extrusion was retrieved).

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Verification links

• USPTO Assignment Center (primary): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search (legacy index, same records): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search — query patent 12276396 or app 18/794,130
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US12276396/en
• Assignee portfolio profile (confirming the same three inventors across the family): https://www.patents-review.com/assignee/[645703](/patent/645703)-sigma-switches-plus-inc-elkhart-in-us.html
• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Indiana%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A25-cv-00888
• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg, Inc., No. 3:26-cv-01242 (N.D. Ind.): https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/innd/3:26-cv-01242/sigma-switches-plus-inc-v-vista-mfg-inc

Two open items to close on the Assignment Center directly (they are the only material gaps in this section): (1) the reel/frame and executed date for the 2024-08-19 recording; and (2) the correspondent of record on that cover sheet — and whether that same correspondent filed the recordings for US 12,181,127, 12,352,411 and 12,352,412. If the same attorney appears on all four, that is a cross-patent recurrence for a single operating company's counsel, and in this fact pattern it still would not convert the verdict: the recurrence signal only bites when the chain runs through changing, opaque LLCs. Here the assignee never changes.

I'll start by pulling the specific record for patent 12,276,396 and then examine each cited reference individually.

Let me pull details on each of the family-cited references.

Important scope note before the analysis

Two things I must flag, per the operating rules:

1. Date mismatch. This task states the current date as April 26, 2026, while the session environment reports 2026-09-13. I have not silently reconciled these. Any "as of" statement below is tied to the date the source was retrieved, and you should assume the later (September 2026) posture if it matters for a deadline run.
2. Verification status. My live searches were cut off by a step limit partway through. I successfully retrieved text for US 2017/0055319 A1 (Rogers) and US 6,939,029 B1 (Kuryakyn). My retrieval of US 9,062,838 B1, CH 658115 A5, US 2014/0313722 A1, JP 3192309 U, and CN 116045245 A was terminated before returning content, and my query for CN 205979311 U returned an empty result set. For those five I describe them only as the authoritative Google Patents record for the '396 patent labels them, and I say so explicitly rather than paraphrasing content I did not see. I did not auto-correct, renumber, or substitute any identifier.

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1. The patent being analyzed (confirmed literally)

Because the application was filed in 2024, AIA § 102 applies, and the critical date for prior art is 2023-12-26, not the filing date. Every reference below predates 2023-12-26 (assuming the '396 claims are supported by the provisional — which is the ordinary assumption absent a priority challenge), so all eight cited references are facially eligible as § 102(a)(1) printed publications or § 102(a)(2) applications. That is a threshold point a challenger must establish, and it is the one point that is unusually easy here.

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2. Citation inventory — and a distinction that matters

The Google Patents record for US 12,276,396 B1 contains two separate citation tables, and they are not the same thing:

Why this matters: only US 2017/0055319 A1 carries the "considered by the examiner" pedigree for this patent. The other seven are family-level citations. If you are briefing the file wrapper, do not describe the seven as "art of record in the '396 prosecution" — that would be inaccurate. Conversely, the seven are entirely available to a petitioner; IPR is confined to patents and printed publications under § 311(b), and all eight references qualify, which is convenient for a PTAB challenge.

Not citations — do NOT treat as prior art: the record's "Similar Documents" list includes US 12,181,127 B1, US 12,352,411 B1, US 12,352,412 B1, US 2025/0207763 A1, and US 2025/0216060 A1 — these are Sigma's own family members and publications sharing the 2023-12-26 priority. They cannot be § 102 art against the '396 patent (same priority date; and same-assignee applications are excepted under § 102(b)(2)(C)). The same list also returns US 12,644,585 B1 (published 2026-06-02, filed 2025-04-07) and US 2025/0314360 A1 / US 2025/0341103 A1, all of which post-date 2023-12-26 and are therefore not § 102 art either, however thematically similar their titles look. The Justia assignee page confirms the family is Sigma's own: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/sigma-switches-plus-inc

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3. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

The two gates every reference must clear

Anticipation under § 102 requires every limitation of the claim in a single reference. For the '396 patent, an anticipating reference must disclose both:

• Gate A — the barb/ridge geometry: a ridge wall extending from the bottom surface of the channel's bottom wall, carrying a retention barb that is spaced from the bottom surface and has a portion wider than the ridge wall (claims 6 and 11); claim 1 requires the ridge wall + retention barb but not the "wider than" limitation.
• Gate B — the resilient wing function: wings resiliently bendable between uninstalled and installed positions, with the tips nearer the channel opening in the installed position than in the uninstalled position, and the wings biased away from the opening when installed (claims 1, 6, and 11 — all three).

Gate B is the hard one. It is a functional, spring-preload limitation, and it is where most of the cited art simply has nothing to say.

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3.1 US 2017/0055319 A1 — Rogers, "Continuous Light Strip, System and Method"

Brief description (from retrieved text). The disclosure is directed at illumination and electrical performance of LED strips, not at mechanical holders. The retrieved text is a glossary that defines "continuously illuminable LED strip," "voltage lag," "quasi-continuous LED strip," "rail voltage," "forward voltage," extra-low-voltage/SELV concepts, "functional LED strip length," and "low voltage directives." The stated inventive aspects are: a continuously illuminable strip operable from a single current input over lengths greater than the 10-meter strips then commercially available; a strip that overcomes voltage lag; and a current-feedback system that holds current constant by changing forward voltage. The core mechanism is a secondary diffuser producing the visual effect of continuous light across gaps between LEDs.

§ 102 analysis against the '396 claims.

• Gate A: Not disclosed in the retrieved text. Rogers' subject matter is the strip and its drive circuitry.
• Gate B: Not disclosed; no resilient holder wings are even implicated by the retrieved disclosure.
• Likely examiner rationale: Rogers was almost certainly cited for the "LED light strip" element that appears in dependent claims 5, 10, and 14 ("said channel is capable of receiving an LED light strip"). Rogers supplies a strip; it does not supply a holder.

§ 102 verdict: anticipates no claim of US 12,276,396. Its only claim-relevant contribution is the "LED light strip" element of claims 5/10/14 — and those claims each incorporate the full structure of claim 1, 6, or 11, none of which Rogers touches. Confidence: medium-high. Caveat: I retrieved Rogers' description/definitions but not its claims or figures. If Rogers' drawing set happens to depict a channel-mount extrusion, that would change the analysis — pull the published application's full text before relying on this.

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3.2 US 6,939,029 B1 — Stahel, Abbe & Rudd, "Modular light assembly for decorative lights" (Kuryakyn Holdings, Inc.)

Brief description (full claim text retrieved). A decorative LED light strip for motorcycles. The strip has openings, and a separate light transmitting housing is releasably supported at each opening. The strip's back side has a support housing formed of walls extending outwardly from the back side; a latch is on those walls; snap-in latches fit into receptacles on a flange of the modular housing; spring latches engage and hold the modular housing in place; an elongated reflector with apertures sits on an LED circuit board. Independent claim 4 and claim 8 claim the support-housing/latch/snap retention architecture.

§ 102 analysis against the '396 claims.

§ 102 verdict: anticipates no claim. The reference is field-adjacent (vehicle decorative lighting, not RV interior ceilings) and discloses the latch-retains-light-in-holder concept, but it discloses neither Gate A nor Gate B.

§ 103 value: high as a secondary reference on the "resilient latch/snap retention of an LED light within a surrounding housing wall" motivation, and on the general proposition that snap-in retention of LED modules was known in vehicle lighting.

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3.3 CN 205979311 U — Jiangmen Zhikong Electronic Co., Ltd., "Soft lamp area of T type banding strip with stopping barb"

Description and § 102 analysis. I must be candid: my search for this reference returned an empty result set, so I am working solely from the translated title in the authoritative '396 record. Taken literally, that title describes a T-type binding/wrapping strip having a "stopping barb" (i.e., an anti-withdrawal barb) for a flexible light strip ("soft lamp") area. That profile — a T-shaped holder whose shank carries a barb that resists retraction — is structurally evocative of the claimed ridge wall + retention barb, and the "T" wings are evocative of the claimed lateral wings.

But the § 102 conclusion still turns on Gate B. A "stopping barb" is a rigid anti-retreat tooth; nothing in the title indicates resiliently bendable wings whose tips move nearer the channel opening in an installed position and which are biased away from the opening. Likewise, the title does not indicate a retaining strip with a nubbed groove into which the barb snaps, or the "portion of the barb wider than the ridge wall" limitation of claims 6/11.

§ 102 verdict: does not anticipate claims 1, 6, or 11 on the available record; ranks as the most relevant family-cited mechanical reference and the strongest § 103 candidate alongside any primary reference. Action item: this is the one reference in the family-cited set I would obtain in full, with an official translation, first — a T-strip with a barb is the closest structural analogue to the claimed holder spine.

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3.4 CN 116045245 A — Xiamen Puwei Optoelectronics, "Line lights with splices"

Description (from the record's title only — full text retrieval was terminated). A linear/line luminaire arrangement with splices (connector joints) between light units.

§ 102 analysis. This is the most temporally interesting reference: published 2023-05-02, roughly seven months before the '396 priority date of 2023-12-26, so it is comfortably within § 102(a)(1). Subject-matter-wise it speaks to joining linear lights end-to-end, which is the problem the '396's end-cap/light-holder-pocket arrangement addresses — but end caps are not claimed in any of the 14 claims. The claims are directed to the holder/wing/barb geometry and to LED-strip capture in a biased channel.

§ 102 verdict: anticipates no claim. § 103 relevance: moderate, and only as to the "channel capable of receiving an LED light strip" element of claims 5/10/14 in combination with a holder reference. Flag: text not retrieved; revise if the disclosure shows a snap-in channel holder.

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3.5 CH 658115 A5 — Youri Agabekov, "Light fixture"

Description. Only the record's title ("LIGHT FIXTURE") is available to me — retrieval was terminated. A 1984-priority Swiss fixture patent.

§ 102 analysis. On the title alone, no conclusion is possible, and I will not invent one. Practically, a 1980s "light fixture" is most plausibly relevant to spring/retention mounting of a fixture into an opening — i.e., a Gate-B-adjacent concept — and to the general notion of a luminaire retained by opposed resilient elements. It predates LEDs entirely, which is not disqualifying for a structural claim but makes it an odd candidate to disclose the claimed combination.

§ 102 verdict: no anticipation established; no defensible anticipation theory on the available record. Treat as potential § 103 background art on resilient mounting only. Flag: content unverified.

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3.6 US 9,062,838 B1 — Jack K. Merrill, Jr., "Downwardly-extending light fixture"

Description. Retrieval terminated; I have only the title and dates. Per the title, a light fixture that projects downward — i.e., a ceiling- or overhead-mounted fixture with a depending housing.

§ 102 analysis. A downward-extending fixture is relevant to the ceiling-mounting environment of claims 1 and 6 (and generically to claims 11's "panels"), but the claimed point of novelty is the extruded holder's wing/barb geometry, not the fact of downward illumination. I have no basis to assert it discloses the channel with overhanging walls, the ridge-wall barb, or the resilient wing preload.

§ 102 verdict: no anticipation established. Flag: content unverified — this is the reference in the set most likely to have been cited for the ceiling-fixture environment rather than for the holder structure, but confirm before relying on that characterization.

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3.7 US 2014/0313722 A1 — Raw Thrills, Inc., "Flexible Decorative Lighted Strip, Cabinet Including Same, and Installation Method"

Description. Retrieval terminated; only title/dates available. Per the title: a flexible decorative lighted strip, a cabinet incorporating it, and an installation method.

§ 102 analysis. Thematically this is the nearest of the family-cited set to the functional problem the '396 solves — getting a flexible LED strip to sit cleanly in a linear mounting feature on a panel product, without visible gaps. That implicates the "channel is capable of receiving an LED light strip" element (claims 5/10/14) and possibly a groove/track retention concept. It does not, on the title, implicate Gate A (ridge wall + barb wider than the ridge wall) or Gate B (resilient wing biasing relative to a channel opening).

§ 102 verdict: no anticipation established. § 103 relevance: moderate, as a "flexible strip mounted in a channel/track on a panel" teaching. Flag: content unverified.

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3.8 JP 3192309 U — Sanken Electric Co., Ltd., "lighting equipment"

Description. Retrieval terminated. Title as listed: "lighting equipment." Note the ~2.5-month gap between the priority date and the publication date, which is consistent with a Japanese utility model registration published without substantive examination.

§ 102 analysis. No defensible anticipation theory can be stated. A Japanese utility model of this vintage cited at the family level is most likely directed to a luminaire body/attachment detail.

§ 102 verdict: no anticipation established. Flag: content unverified; note the "U" designation — confirm whether the family citation is to the utility model as published and whether an accompanying JPA application exists, since Japanese practice often pairs the two.

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4. § 102 verdict summary

Bottom line on the specific question asked: on the record available, none of the eight cited references anticipates any claim of US 12,276,396 under § 102. The claimed combination that no cited reference supplies is the pairing of (i) an extruded holder spine comprising a ridge wall whose retention barb is spaced from the bottom surface and is at least partly wider than the ridge wall, snapped behind retention nubs in a joist-fastened retaining strip, with (ii) wings whose tips ride nearer the channel opening when installed and which are thereby biased away from the opening, which is what simultaneously preloads the assembly against the ceiling panels and pinches the channel's lateral walls onto the LED strip. The strongest individual limitation-level hit in the cited set is CN 205979311 U's "stopping barb" — a § 103 reference, not a § 102 one.

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5. Where the real invalidity risk sits (not in the citation tables)

The task asked specifically about cited references, but a § 102 answer that stops at the citation table would be misleadingly reassuring. The '396 record's "Similar Documents" table — algorithmic, not citations — contains art that is materially closer on the channel-and-light-inset axis than several family citations, and these are patents/printed publications, hence § 311(b)-eligible:

• US 11,493,179 B1 (2022-11-08) and US 12,228,258 B2 (2025-02-18), both "Linear luminaire including a light inset inserted in a channel" — directly on the channel-plus-light-inset concept.
• US 9,565,769 B2 (2017-02-07) "LED linear lighting kit."
• US 9,004,718 B2 (2015-04-14) "LED decorative illuminated trim system" — a trim-system-with-LEDs concept that reads on the '396's decorative-ceiling-seam premise.
• US 11,131,445 B2 (2021-09-28) "Lighting assembly"; US 2009/0109666 A1 "Universal light bar assembly and system."
• KR 101731680 B1 ("Ceiling light Mounting and Separating Device") and KR 101748681 B1 ("Ceiling coupled device for lighting apparatus") — ceiling-coupling retention art.

I have not verified the contents or effective priority dates of these. US 12,228,258 B2 in particular needs a priority check — if it carries pre-2023-12-26 priority it is facially available art; if it is a later continuation of a post-2023 family, it is not. I flag rather than assert.

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6. Flags and contradictions to carry forward

1. Abstract vs. specification/claims inconsistency (already noted in the earlier sections, and it recurs in the record). The '396 abstract states the installed-position distance "is greater than the first distance," while claims 1, 6, and 11 and the specification all state the installed (second) distance is nearer than the uninstalled (first) distance, with the wings biased away from the opening when installed. Note the freshly retrieved sibling records show Sigma's later work states it the correct way — US 12,352,412 B1's summary says "The second distance is smaller than the first," and even the wiki entry for US 2025/0207763 says "the second distance is less than the first." So the '396 abstract is the outlier. Since the PGR window closed on 2026-01-15, § 112 is off the PTAB table for this patent — any indefiniteness/written-description attack on this inconsistency must be made in district court. It is unlikely to decide anything, but it is probe-worthy.
2. Only one citation is genuinely "of record" for the '396. Anyone characterizing the seven family-cited references as examiner-applied art for this patent is overstating the record.
3. Family members and same-priority publications are not prior art. US 12,181,127 B1, US 12,352,411 B1, US 12,352,412 B1, US 2025/0207763 A1, and US 2025/0216060 A1 all share the 2023-12-26 priority and the same assignee.
4. Four references are unverified as to disclosure (CH 658115 A5, US 9,062,838 B1, US 2014/0313722 A1, JP 3192309 U), and CN 205979311 U returned no results at all in my search. My § 102 "no anticipation" conclusions for those five are therefore provisional, resting on title/date metadata rather than retrieved text. The one I would prioritize pulling — with a certified translation — is CN 205979311 U, because a T-profile strip with a stopping barb is the closest structural analogue to the claimed ridge wall/retention barb in the entire cited set.
5. Minor record inconsistency, noted not corrected: the Google Patents page for the sibling US 12,352,412 B1 lists the assignee as "Sigma Switched Plus Inc" alongside "SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS Inc." I have not altered the identifier. This appears to be a transcription artifact in the record, but I flag it rather than silently fix it.

Recommended concrete verification steps: (a) pull the full text and drawings of US 2017/0055319 A1 to confirm no channel-mount disclosure; (b) obtain CN 205979311 U with an English translation and claim set; (c) verify priority chains for US 12,228,258 B2 and US 11,493,179 B1; (d) re-run the searches that were terminated here for US 9,062,838 B1, US 2014/0313722 A1, CH 658115 A5, and JP 3192309 U before any of my "no anticipation" findings for those four is relied upon.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the actual disclosures of the cited/similar references before arguing combinations. Let me pull what I can on the key candidates.

Rogers is largely electrical/diffuser-focused, but it mentions a "snap-" feature and substrate hardware. Let me pull the housing/mounting disclosures from that family and from the channel-luminaire and illuminated-trim references.

Good — that gives me the resilient snap-connector art. Now let me pull the trim/ceiling systems and the barb-in-groove reference.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 12,276,396 B1

"LED light holding system" — 35 U.S.C. § 103

Effective filing / priority date: 2023-12-26 (provisional 63/614,739; non-provisional 18/794,130 filed 2024-08-05). All asserted art must qualify under § 102(a)(1) or § 102(a)(2) with an effective date before 2023-12-26.

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0. Two threshold flags before the merits

(a) Date inconsistency — must be reconciled before any § 315(b) reliance. This task is captioned "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the system clock reads 2026-09-13, and the prior "PTAB challenges" section in this file relies on a docket entry dated 2026-08-24 (Sigma Switches Plus v. Vista Mfg, No. 3:26-cv-01242). A case dated 2026-08-24 cannot exist on 2026-04-26. I flag this rather than silently picking one. It matters because the § 315(b) one-year bars key off service dates. Nothing in the § 103 analysis below turns on the discrepancy.

(b) Correcting an earlier "contradiction" flag. The prior summary and PTAB sections flagged the abstract's statement that the installed-position distance "is greater than the first distance" as contradicting the claims, which say the installed second distance is nearer the opening. That flag appears to be a false positive, and I am expressly correcting it. The abstract (and the Summary/Definitions text) measures the distance from the retention barb; the claims measure it from the channel opening. The barb and the opening are on opposite sides of the holder (barb projects up into the retaining strip groove; the opening faces down into the room). A tip that moves toward the opening necessarily moves away from the barb. The two statements are therefore geometrically consistent, not contradictory:

• From the barb: uninstalled = first distance; installed = second distance; second > first. (Abstract, Summary)
• From the opening: uninstalled = first distance; installed = second distance; second < first. (Claims 1, 6, 11)

This weakens any § 112 ¶ 2 argument premised on abstract/claim contradiction. A defendant is left with only the much weaker argument that reciting two different reference points for the same relative-position limitation creates ambiguity — and the intrinsic geometry defeats that.

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1. Governing framework

The patent's own Background is an evidentiary admission that supplies much of the motivation. It concedes: (i) can/puck lights were the prior approach and required "electrical connections … above the ceiling," which is "cumbersome" and makes "repair … difficult"; (ii) LED strips "are proving to be useful in RVs" because of 12 V DC wiring and low draw; and (iii) there is "a need for mounting LED lights to the ceiling of RVs in a manner that is inexpensive and aesthetically pleasing." A patent owner who frames the problem this way is telling the fact-finder that the need was known and the design goals were cost, cleanliness of appearance, and simplified installation.

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2. Claim-construction points that drive the § 103 analysis

These determine how broad the attack must be.

1. Preamble/environment. Claims 1, 6, and 11 all recite, in the preamble, a joist and a retaining strip having "upstanding walls extending from a base," a groove, and retention nubs in the groove. The claim body then recites only "an elongate light holder…" Whether that environment is limiting is the single most consequential construction question:
   • If non-limiting (mere intended use), the claim reads on the holder alone, and the retaining strip need not be in the art — a much broader and much easier attack.
   • If limiting (the barb's engagement with the nubs is essential to the spring-preload operation), the art must supply the nubbed-groove strip.
   • Petition strategy: argue in the alternative. Under either reading, map the holder structure; map the strip separately if needed.
2. Functional/inherent language. "Resiliently bendable," "biased away from said opening and toward said uninstalled position," and the lateral walls "being biased against said LED light strip" (claims 5/10/14) describe the inherent restoring force of any deflected resilient body. Inherency can be relied on for § 103: a recitation of a property necessarily possessed by a prior-art structure does not patentably distinguish it (In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (CCPA 1977)).
3. Relative, unitless dimensional limitation. The "first distance"/"second distance" recitation specifies no value or range — only that the installed distance from the opening is "nearer." That is trivially met and provides essentially no patentable weight.
4. Claim 1 is materially broader than claims 6 and 11. Claim 1 does not require the barb to be spaced from the bottom surface, and does not require any portion of the barb to be wider than the ridge wall, and does not require the overhanging walls to narrow the channel. Those limitations appear only in claims 6 and 11. Claim 1 therefore covers a barb that is flush with and no wider than its stem, and a non-narrowing mouth.
5. Claim 1 requires no LED strip at all. The strip-capture limitations live in dependents 5, 10, 14.

Net effect: claim 1's only genuinely distinctive structural content is (a) a channel with a mouth-side overhanging wall, side walls, and a bottom wall, (b) a ridge wall projecting from the back of the bottom wall carrying a retention barb, and (c) resilient wings that deflect on installation and store restoring force. Elements (a) and (c) are ubiquitous in the LED-channel art; (b) is the barbed-stem geometry of T-molding and track hardware.

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3. Prior art inventory — what each reference plausibly teaches

Confidence levels are stated because some references were verified from full text and others only from title/abstract/classification. This is a critical caveat: I verified Rogers, US 9,004,718, and the Diem family from full text. For CN 205979311 U, US 6,939,029, US 9,062,838, CH 658115, KR 101731680, KR 101883924, US 2021/0025553, US 9,565,769, and US 2014/0313722 I have only titles/metadata. Those mappings are hypotheses for a petition, not established disclosures — full text must be pulled before filing.

Do NOT use as art: US 12,181,127 B1 (the parent) and US 12,352,411 B1 / 12,352,412 B1 (the CIPs). Same inventors, same 2023-12-26 priority, commonly owned — excluded by § 102(b)(2)(A) and (C).

The identified gap. No reference in the provided list can be confidently mapped to the claimed retaining strip with upstanding walls, a groove, and inward-projecting retention nubs fastened to a joist between panels. This is the industry-standard T-molding / H-molding / spline / glazing-bead panel-joint architecture, and it is where a petitioner's search budget should go. Note also CN 205979311 U's own title uses "banding strip" (包边条) — the very trim-strip art family that would disclose this.

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4. Combination I — the "illuminated T-molding" theory (strongest)

Primary: CN 205979311 U (T-type banding strip with stopping barb)
Secondary 1: US 9,004,718 B2 (elongate trim track, mountable to a support surface, recessed LED seat, grooved cover engagement)
Secondary 2: Rogers, US 2017/0055319 A1 / US 10,194,496 B2 (metal extruded substrate hardware, snap-in lens cover, curved outer surface, surface attachable)
Secondary 3: Diem, US 11,493,179 B1 / US 12,228,258 B2 (channel + side walls + one-piece extrusion + resilient snap connectors that flex together then spring back + ceiling/recessed mounting)
Secondary 4 (if the preamble is held limiting): a panel-joint trim reference disclosing a retaining strip with a groove and inward nubs, positioned between panels over a joist.

Mapping to claim 1

Motivation to combine (articulated per MPEP 2143)

1. Same field of endeavor / analogous art, confirmed by the patent's own classification. The '396 is classified in F21S 4/20 and 4/28 ("light sources held by or within elongate supports … rigid, e.g. LED bars"), F21V 19/001–19/004, F21S 8/043, and — decisively — F21W 2106/00 ("Interior vehicle lighting devices"). The Diem family carries F21S 4/28 as well. These references are not merely analogous; they share the examiners' own classification.
2. The problem is common and the solution is a known technique applied to a known structure. Both the '396 Background and the references address retaining a flexible LED strip in an extruded trim/channel mounted to a surface. KSR: applying snap-fit and barbed-retention technique to an illuminated trim is the use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way.
3. The T-molding insight supplies the missing suggestion. Panel-joining trim is already retained in a groove between panels by a barbed/ribbed stem. Placing a light strip in that same trim is a design choice within a finite, identified set, pursued with a reasonable expectation of success — the classic "obvious to try" posture. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. v. Cadbury Adams USA LLC, 683 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (finite number of identified, predictable solutions).
4. Design incentives and market forces. Low cost, tool-less/adhesive-free installation, flush appearance, no light gaps, no rattles, and avoidance of above-ceiling wiring connections. The specification itself recites each of these as the advantages of the invention — i.e., the patent owner concedes these were recognized objectives, not discoveries.
5. No teaching away. Nothing in Rogers, Belwith, or Diem teaches away from resilient retention; all three embrace snap engagement. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (teach-away requires a criticizable, discrediting effect).
6. Predictable result. Each element performs exactly its known function — the barb retains one-way, the extrusion's stiffness grips the strip, the wings spring. The combination is an arrangement of old elements yielding no unexpected result.

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5. Combination II — the "luminaire-channel" theory

Primary: Rogers, US 2017/0055319 A1 (+ US 10,194,496 B2) — the examiner's own reference
Secondary 1: Diem, US 11,493,179 B1 / US 12,228,258 B2 — resilient snap connectors, one-piece extruded channel, ceiling mounting
Secondary 2: US 9,004,718 B2 — elongate mountable trim track with grooved snap cover
Secondary 3: CN 205979311 U — the stopping barb
Secondary 4: US 2021/0025553 A1 and/or US 9,565,769 B2 — track/kit retention hardware

This theory tracks the examiner's own starting point (Rogers) and cures what was likely the reason for allowance — Rogers shows the extruded LED holder and snap-in lens but not the back-side barb or the nub-groove ceiling strip. Diem supplies a resilient snap that behaves exactly as the claimed wings do (forced toward each other, then snapping back), in an extruded one-piece channel mountable to or recessed in a ceiling. CN 205979311 U supplies the barb. Motivation: Diem expressly contemplates ceiling/recessed installation of a linear channel — the same environment as claim 1 — creating an express reason to substitute Diem's resilient retention for Rogers' arrangement and to add a barb for tool-less attachment to a ceiling structure.

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6. Claim-by-claim vulnerability ranking

Strategic point for the patent owner — and its weakness. Because claims 1/6 and 5/10/14 survive independently of claim 11, a petition attacking only claim 11 leaves live, commercially equivalent scope. Conversely, the dependents are the most vulnerable claims in the set: claims 3/8/13 (inclined + catch surfaces) are met almost verbatim by Diem's connector geometry, and claims 2/7 read on any barb. A well-built petition should challenge all 14 claims across two or three grounds rather than targeting the broadest claim alone.

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7. The patent owner's best non-obviousness arguments — and the rebuttals

Argument 1 — "No reference discloses the dual force path." Patent owner will argue the claims require a unitary resilient extrusion in which wing deflection simultaneously (i) flexes the channel's lateral walls inward to grip the LED strip and (ii) preloads the barb into the retaining-strip nubs, and that no reference discloses or suggests this kinematic coupling.

Rebuttal: (a) The coupling is the inherent consequence of a one-piece resilient extrusion with the claimed shape; inherency supports obviousness (In re Best; In re Schreiber). The specification itself concedes the wings "act as springs" — known behavior. (b) The claimed structure adds no structural element to accomplish this; it is the same wings, walls, and barb, arranged so the forces interact. (c) KSR permits an obvious combination yielding predictable results absent an express suggestion; the force interaction in a stiff extrusion is a predictable mechanical result.

Argument 2 — "The directional geometry is specific." That the tips move toward the opening (and therefore away from the barb) when installed, and are biased back away from the opening.

Rebuttal: This is a relative, unitless limitation. Diem's connectors are "first forced toward each other … and then snap back away from each other" — a directed deflect-and-return bias in a ceiling-mountable channel. The limitation is met by ordinary resilient deflection.

Argument 3 — "The examiner allowed over Rogers; the art is cumulative." Rebuttal: allowance over the only cited reference says nothing about the universe of art; an IPR is not bounded by the examiner's search. Note the file history is unusually thin — Rogers is the sole reference of record — which means the examiner's search was not exhaustive and the field is rich.

Argument 4 — Secondary considerations. Currently no record support exists: no PTAB proceeding, no judgment, no finding of validity. If the patent owner later asserts commercial success (Sigma's sales) or copying (ABC Marketing's "LineLite Track"; Vista Mfg), each requires a nexus to the claimed invention, and copying evidence cuts both ways — a third party's ready entry with a near-identical structure is equally probative that the design was a straightforward, available solution. Also note the "long-felt need" theory is undercut by the patent's own admission that the need was recognized and LED strips were already "proving useful in RVs."

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8. Procedural constraints on this § 103 attack

• Vehicle: IPR only. The '396 issued 2025-04-15 as a B1 with no pre-grant publication, so the PGR window ran to 2026-01-15 and is closed. § 112 grounds are unavailable at the Board and must be litigated in N.D. Ind.
• § 311(b) limit: patents and printed publications only. RV OEM installations, trade-show displays, and pre-2023-12-26 product sales of any predecessor retaining-strip/light system cannot be used in an IPR — preserve them in district court.
• § 315(b) clocks: ABC Marketing's bar falls ~12 months after service in Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing, No. 3:25-cv-00888 (service reportedly late Oct./Nov. 2025 → bar ~Oct.–Nov. 2026); Vista Mfg's bar ~12 months after service in No. 3:26-cv-01242 (bar ~Aug.–Sep. 2027 on the reported 2026-08-24 filing). But resolve the date discrepancy in § 0(a) first — the bars key off service, and the dates in this file are internally inconsistent.
• Discretionary denial risk: the N.D. Ind. case is already past claim-term exchange and preliminary claim construction. A petition filed late in 2026 against a 2027 trial date carries Fintiv-type denial risk under current Director practice. Filing earlier materially improves the odds.
• No estoppel to leverage: because no AIA trial was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to no one, so a petitioner may raise any ground it can find.

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9. Recommended next steps to firm this up

1. Pull full text (with certified translation for the Chinese/Korean/Japanese items — this is the largest gap). Priority: CN 205979311 U (the "stopping barb" — confirm geometry, orientation, and whether the strip has lateral flanges forming an outer contoured surface), then US 2021/0025553 A1, US 9,565,769 B2, US 2014/0313722 A1, US 2009/0010007 A1, KR 101731680 B1, KR 101883924 B1, and KR 2010/0019771 A.
2. Search the panel-joining / trim art for the retaining strip. Target terms: T-molding, H-molding, spline, glazing bead, panel joint strip, ceiling panel joining strip; look for upstanding walls, a groove, and inward-projecting retention nubs over a joist. This is the only claim element I could not map with confidence. Also verify whether US 2025/0314360 A1 ("Linear Lighting and Retaining System") and US 2025/0341103 A1 ("Modular molding system") have pre-2023-12-26 priority and thus qualify under § 102(a)(2).
3. Verify each reference's § 102 date against 2023-12-26 (and check for pre-2023-12-26 published applications qualifying under § 102(a)(2)).
4. Build the claim charts for all 14 claims, using the specification's own paragraphs to construe "opening," "overhanging walls," "bottom surface," and the two distance reference points — the abstract/claims reference-point issue flagged in § 0(b) will be raised by the patent owner and should be pre-empted.
5. Do not use the '127 patent or the '411/'412 CIPs as art — same family, same inventors, commonly owned; § 102(b)(2) disqualifies them.
6. Confirm the procedural facts on PACER/PTAB E2E before relying on any § 315(b) date (see § 0(a)).

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Bottom line. US 12,276,396 is a narrow, mechanically simple improvement over the well-populated art of extruded LED channel/trim retention, and its claims are, on their face, highly vulnerable under § 103. The strongest attack is the "illuminated T-molding" combination: CN 205979311 U (T-type banding strip with a stopping barb) as the structural primary, combined with US 9,004,718 B2, Rogers (US 2017/0055319 A1 / US 10,194,496 B2), and the Diem channel family. The only element I could not map to the supplied art with confidence is the nubbed-groove retaining strip fastened between panels over a joist — which is standard trim/panel-joint architecture and the key gap to close. The claim set as a whole should be challenged, not just independent claim 11, because the dependents (2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13) — the inclined-and-catch-surface snap-fit geometry — are met almost verbatim by the Diem references and are the easiest to invalidate. Caveat: because my live reference retrieval was truncated and several mappings rest on titles rather than verified text, the specific teachings attributed above to CN 205979311 U, US 2021/0025553 A1, US 9,565,769 B2, US 2014/0313722 A1, US 2009/0010007 A1, and the Korean/Japanese items should be confirmed from full text before any petition is filed.