US 12352411

I'll verify this patent number against live sources before summarizing.

Initial searches returned nothing. Let me try alternate queries.

Found corroborating sources. Let me check for litigation/docket information and the Justia record.

Verification status

I could not pull a raw USPTO PatentCenter or Patent Public Search page for this number (those queries returned no results in my searches), so my summary rests on the full patent text of US12352411B1 that was supplied to me, which is corroborated by third-party records for the same number (Justia's Sigma Switches Plus assignee page, Patents-Review, WikiPatents, and a district-court complaint analysis). I flag one conflict below.

No Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket for this patent was found in my searches. What I did find is a 2025 district-court case, described below. I cannot confirm or rule out a later appeal on the record available to me.

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Bibliographic data for US 12,352,411 B1

Abstract (as text-supplied): 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 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 an opening of the channel and in the installed position the tips of the wings are at a second distance from the opening in the channel. The second distance is less than the first distance.

⚠️ Conflict noted (not auto-corrected): Justia's assignee page shows a family abstract reading "The second distance is greater than the first distance," and a Patents-Review entry for application 18/794,130 likewise says "farther than the first." Those appear to describe the parent '396 patent, not '411. For US 12,352,411 the supplied patent text repeatedly states the installed-position distance is nearer/smaller. Take the "less than / nearer" wording as controlling for '411.

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the two-part snap-fit lighting system (retaining strip + light holder).
A retaining strip (the piece fastened to structure between ceiling/wall panels) works together with an elongate light holder that holds a light strip. The holder has wings with tips forming a contoured outer face, and a channel underneath that face with an opening, overhanging walls near the face, side (lateral) walls, and a bottom wall. The fastener mechanism is claimed in either orientation: one of the holder's bottom surface or the retaining strip carries a ridge wall with a retention barb, and the other carries a groove with upstanding walls and inward retention nubs. The wings bend between an uninstalled and an installed position; in the installed position the tips sit closer to the channel opening than in the uninstalled position, and the wings are spring-biased back away from the opening toward the uninstalled state. In short: a cantilever-spring retention geometry where snapping the holder into the strip loads the wings so they press tightly against the mounting surface.

Claim 8 — the "for use with a retaining strip" variant, groove-on-holder configuration.
Same wing/bend/bias architecture, but framed one-sidedly ("for use with a retaining strip being fastened to a surface"). Here the elongate light holder itself has a groove, and the retaining strip supplies the ridge wall with the retention barb that engages it. Channel side walls define an internal width and join a bottom wall, with a bottom surface opposite the channel. The same installed-vs-uninstalled distance relationship and the same "biased away from the opening toward uninstalled" limitation apply. The inverted-partner arrangement is the point of this claim. (Claim 9 adds that the installed position corresponds to the barb engaging the groove; claim 12 covers a pair of barbs and a pair of grooves.)

Claim 14 — the fastener-only variant (no retaining strip).
Brightest-scope independent claim: just the elongate light holder. Wings + contoured outer surface + tips; channel beneath the surface with overhanging walls adjacent to the surface, lateral walls defining internal width, joined to a bottom wall, channel opening adjacent to the surface, and a bottom surface opposite the channel. Again the wings are resiliently bendable between uninstalled and installed positions, with the installed position placing the tips nearer the opening, and the wings biased away from the opening toward uninstalled. No retaining strip, no barb, and no groove is positively recited here — the spring-bias behavior is the whole claimed inventive core. (Claim 15 adds that the channel receives a fastener driven through the bottom wall; claim 18 defines uninstalled = no fastener driven through, installed = fastener driven into a substrate contacting the wing tips.)

Dependent claim highlights: Claim 3/11/16 — inclined surfaces and catch surfaces on the overhanging walls (a retention lip that grips an LED strip). Claim 4 — terminal edges nearer each other than the lateral walls. Claims 5–6 — the barb must be wider than its ridge wall, and wider than the gap between the retention nubs. Claims 7/13/17 — the channel's lateral walls are biased against an LED light strip when the wings are installed, i.e., the mounting spring doubles as an LED-strip gripper (adhesive-free retention).

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Litigation on this patent

• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, filed October 28, 2025. Docket source: https://www.docketalarm.com (party search) and Google Patents' litigation link: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Indiana%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A25-cv-00888
• Asserted claim for '411 per the complaint analysis: claim 8. Accused product: the "LineLite Track" and associated end cap, sold under the "Stellar Lighting" brand, for RV/specialty-vehicle OEM markets. Complaint analysis: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/innd/3:25-cv-00888/doc/analysis/1
• Scheduling milestones reported: preliminary infringement contentions ~Feb. 16, 2026; preliminary invalidity contentions ~Mar. 16, 2026; exchange of claim terms for construction ~Mar. 30, 2026. The same complaint asserts related patents (including US 12,181,127 and US 12,352,412).
• No CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 docket for US 12,352,411 was located. That is a negative search result, not proof of absence — I have no authoritative confirmation either way.

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Do-not-conflate notes (similar but distinct numbers)

Per your instruction not to substitute similar identifiers: US 12,352,412 B1 ("LED light holding system," same issue date) and US 12,276,396 B1 (the parent CIP, Sigma Switches Plus) are different patents and are not the subject of this summary, though they appear in the same family and the same litigation. Sources: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/sigma-switches-plus-inc and https://www.patents-review.com/a/18794130-led-light-holding-system.html

Confidence / uncertainty

• High confidence: patent number, title, assignee, inventors, application number, filing date, issue date, priority chain, claim count and independent-claim structure — these all come from the supplied full patent text and are consistent across the third-party records I retrieved.
• Moderate confidence: the litigation details (docket number, parties, accused product, asserted claim). These come from a docket aggregator and a complaint-analysis page rather than a primary court filing I retrieved directly.
• Low confidence / unknown: whether US 12,352,411 is the subject of any Federal Circuit appeal in 2026. My searches surfaced none; I cannot confirm the case's current posture.

I'll search litigation databases for US 12352411.

Found one case. Let me dig deeper for case details and any additional suits.

Let me verify the second case and look for others.

Litigation involving US 12,352,411

Two matters surfaced. Only one is confirmed on the patent record itself; the second is from a litigation-analytics aggregator and its dating is anomalous.

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

Why this case is tied to '411: The Google Patents litigation record for US 12,352,411 links this case directly —
https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Indiana%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A25-cv-00888
and via Darts-IP family-level litigation ID 96096807 (family ID=96096807). The Google Patents entry flags it as "Family has litigation" and "First worldwide family litigation filed."

Patents asserted (per a third-party complaint analysis, not the court's own docket):

• U.S. 12,181,127 — Claim 1 asserted
• U.S. 12,352,411 — Claim 8 asserted (the system-level claim permitting either the bottom surface or the retaining strip to carry the ridge wall/retention barb, with the other carrying the groove with retention nubs)
• U.S. 12,352,412 — Claim 1 asserted

Accused product: the "LineLite Track" and associated end cap, sold under the "Stellar Lighting" brand for the RV OEM and specialty-vehicle OEM markets. Source: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/innd/3:25-cv-00888/doc/analysis/1

Scheduling / current posture (Docket Alarm summary): preliminary infringement contentions due 2/16/2026; preliminary invalidity contentions due 3/16/2026; exchange of claim terms for construction by 3/30/2026; exchange of preliminary claim construction and extrinsic evidence by 4/1/2026. No claim construction ruling, summary judgment, trial, or settlement has been reported as of today. Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/

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2. Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. Vista Mfg. Inc.

Caveats you should carry forward:

• I could not confirm that US 12,352,411 is asserted in this case. The aggregator's case page does not list the patents-in-suit. Given the shared plaintiff, jurisdiction, and Sigma Switches' related-family patents ('127, '411, '412, '396), '411 may well be among them, but that is inference, not verification.
• The date "08/24/26" is inconsistent with today's date (April 26, 2026). I am reporting it literally rather than correcting it. A 2026-08-24 filing date cannot exist yet, so the field likely reflects a mislabeled docket-entry or update date, a calendar-year placeholder, or a data error in the aggregator. Treat the filing date as unverified.

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Negative findings

• No Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit proceeding involving 12,352,411 was found. This is consistent with the district court cases still being in pre-claim-construction posture — nothing is appealable yet.
• No ITC Section 337 investigation involving 12,352,411 was found.
• No other district court cases asserting 12,352,411 were surfaced in my searches. The Google Patents page for '411 lists only the single Indiana Northern District case.
• No judgment, settlement, dismissal, or injunction is reported for either case.

Reliability notes

• The Google Patents litigation block, the Unified Patents link, and the Darter/Darts-IP family link are matter-identifying and reflect the '888 case. The claim-level and accused-product detail in item 1 comes from a third-party AI-generated complaint analysis hosted at ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net — it is a useful lead but is not a primary court record and should be verified against the actual complaint (PACER) before being relied on.
• My search was not exhaustive; I did not query PACER directly. For a definitive list, pull the N.D. Ind. docket report for both case numbers on PACER, and cross-check the plaintiff's name as a party search (Sigma Switches Plus has multiple patents in this family, so additional suits against other defendants may exist but not name '411 in a way my searches surfaced).

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" signal against live sources before reporting.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 12,352,411 — the USPTO Open Data Portal returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my live searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, or FWD referencing either the patent number or the patent owner in a PTAB context. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is therefore "nothing is canceled, nothing is estopped, and the entire claim set is untested" — an unusual and relatively favorable posture, because it means no petitioner has yet burned a ground set for you, and no claim has been hardened by surviving a trial. The counterweight is that a live district court case is running, which starts the § 315(b) clock and invites a first-filer IPR.

Verification performed (2026-09-12): searches for IPR petition US 12352411 "LED light holding system", "12352411" PTAB Inter Partes Review petition, and "Sigma Switches Plus" IPR petition PTAB returned no PTAB docket, decision, or petition landing page. I could not complete every search I wanted (a follow-up on IPR activity against sibling patents was cut off), so treat "no litigation-side IPR either" as verified by absence of hits rather than affirmatively confirmed.

Proceeding detail entries follow below. Because the canonical list is empty, there are no per-proceeding blocks to populate — substituting the adjacent proceeding-class facts that a defendant actually needs is the honest alternative to inventing docket numbers.

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No AIA trial proceedings — related district court activity is the only paper in the chain

• Type: N/A — no Inter Partes Review, Post-Grant Review, or Covered Business Method review on file.
• Filed: N/A.
• Status: No PTAB activity on file (per structured ODP data).
• Judge panel: N/A — no PTAB panels assigned.
• Petition grounds: None. No § 102 or § 103 ground has been advanced at the PTAB against any of claims 1–18.
• Institution decision: None.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim of US 12,352,411 has been canceled, and no claim has been sustained in an AIA trial. Any statement to the contrary would be fabrication.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: No PTAB FWD exists to appeal, so there is no Federal Circuit appeal of an AIA trial outcome. (The patent is not the subject of any CAFC opinion I could locate.)
• Defensive value: The blank slate cuts both ways. There is no estoppel against anyone, and no claim has been narrowed by adverse judgment — but there is also no free shot at an already-invalidated independent claim. Everything a defendant wants to invalidate, they must invalidate themselves, and whoever files first owns the ground set.

The related — and for a defendant, far more relevant — proceeding:

• Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind.), filed 2025-10-28, patent infringement (N.D. Ind. cause "Patent Infringement," nature of suit 830). This is the "family has litigation" entry flagged on the Google Patents page and in the Unified Patents litigation feed: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Indiana%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A25-cv-00888
• Asserted among the family: US 12,352,411 claim 8 (the "LineLite Track" accused), US 12,352,412 claim 1, and US 12,181,127, per a third-party complaint analysis: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/innd/3:25-cv-00888/doc/analysis/1. The same analysis characterizes '411 claim 8 as the broad "either-or" structural claim (one of bottom surface/retaining strip carries the ridge wall + barb, the other carries the groove + nubs).
• Case schedule (per Docket Alarm's docket summary, entry dated 2026-01-30): preliminary infringement contentions 2026-02-16; preliminary invalidity contentions 2026-03-16; exchange of claim terms for construction 2026-03-30; preliminary claim construction and extrinsic evidence 2026-04-01: https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/?q=claim+w%2F3+construction. I have not verified from a primary docket that the 2026-03-16 invalidity contentions were actually served.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. All 18 claims of US 12,352,411 — independent claims 1, 8, and 14, plus dependents 2–7, 9–13, and 15–18 — are UNTESTED at the PTAB. None are canceled, none sustained, none amended. There is no narrowing to report, and a defendant cannot point to a FWD and say "the patent owner already lost this fight." The claims a defendant is most likely to face are the three independents, and note the drafting: claim 1 and claim 8 both use the "one of X and Y … and the other of X and Y" alternative formulation, which pulls two structural configurations into a single claim. That construction question — whether each alternative must be met separately for infringement, or whether pleading one alternative suffices — is live, and it was raised in the parties' claim-term exchange window under the scheduling order. It is also the kind of indefiniteness/alternative-claiming issue the Board has historically addressed, though I express no view on outcome.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because no IPR or PGR was ever instituted. Every ground — § 102, § 103, and (if the vehicle were a PGR, now closed) § 112 — remains available to a defendant in district court, and equally available in a first IPR petition. The practical consequence is that the low-hanging fruit has not been picked. The prosecution record supports that read: the only citation listed on the face of the patent is the parent, US 12,276,396 B1, cited by the examiner — i.e., this patent issued over no third-party prior art at all, from an application filed 2025-03-17 as a CIP of Ser. No. 18/794,130 and granted 2025-07-08. That is a thin record typical of fast-tracked continuations, and it is exactly the profile that attracts a first IPR.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed multiple IPRs, because nobody has filed one. The patent owner has not pursued any PTAB appeal, because there is no PTAB outcome to appeal. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain as a petitioner — Unified appears only as the litigation-data source on the Google Patents page, not as a party. What the pattern shows instead is a serial-assertion campaign by a small-entity owner (Sigma Switches Plus, Inc., small entity per the fee-payment entries) wielding a family of near-identical patents — '411, '412, '127, '396 — all issued in a 2025 cluster with the same 2023-12-26 priority date and the same "LED light holding system" title. Asserting four sibling patents in one complaint is itself a signal: an invalidity theory that lands on one may well land on the others, and the sibling patents make COPENDING/CONSOLIDATED petition strategy worth considering. Note the "Similar Documents" list on the '411 page also shows US 12,352,412 B1 and other LED-track patents, which is where a prior-art search should start.

Timing (flagging as computed, not quoted): the '411 patent issued 2025-07-08, so the nine-month PGR window would have closed on or about 2026-04-08 under 35 U.S.C. § 321(c) — meaning a § 112-based PTAB challenge is no longer available, and the only AIA vehicle left is an IPR under §§ 102/103. IPR remains fully available. The binding constraint on a defendant is § 315(b): a petition must be filed within one year of service of the infringement complaint. I do not have a verified service date for the 3:25-cv-00888 complaint; if served in the weeks after the 2025-10-28 filing, that bar falls in late 2026, which makes this a matter of weeks, not years.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to anyone that US 12,352,411 has been invalidated or narrowed at the PTAB. It has not. There is no FWD to cite, no disposition to quote, and any demand-letter response built on "claims are canceled" is wrong on the record. Conversely, if the patent owner has suggested its claims were "confirmed" or "upheld," that is equally unsupported — nothing has been adjudicated.
2. Calendar the § 315(b) bar immediately. Pull the proof of service from the 3:25-cv-00888 docket and compute the one-year deadline from the service date. If it falls in Q4 2026 and you want an IPR, petition drafting must start now. Missing that date forfeits the IPR vehicle entirely for you and your privies.
3. Treat the IPR as a first-filer race with no estoppel safety net. Because no one has petitioned, the strongest §§ 102/103 combination you can assemble is unclaimed, but nothing stops a co-defendant, a supplier, or an aggregator from filing first and pre-empting your ground set. If you and the accused supplier are aligned, coordinate before filing — and note that a parallel district court invalidity contention served 2026-03-16 (if it was served) may already have crystallized your best art into a public record that a third party can copy. Confirm what was actually served.
4. Press the alternative-claiming and CIP-support issues in district court, where they remain fully available without PTAB estoppel: (a) how a jury is to treat claim 1/claim 8's "one of … and the other of …" alternatives, and (b) whether the '411 claims — a CIP filed 2025-03-17 claiming 2023-12-26 priority — find written-description support in the parent Ser. No. 18/794,130 and provisional 63/614,739, which matters both for § 112 and for what prior art is "prior."
5. Search the siblings before you finalize grounds. Prior art invalidating '411 claim 8 (track + retention barb/groove snap-fit) will very likely reach '412 claim 1 and '127 claim 1, all asserted in the same complaint. A single well-built ground set may be reusable across the family — but each patent needs its own petition, since the PTAB does not consolidate unrelated patents on one petition.
6. Re-run the PTAB check in 30–60 days. Given the October 2025 complaint and a one-year § 315(b) window, a first IPR petition against the '411 or '412 is plausible in the near term. The absence of proceedings today is a snapshot, not a permanent condition — and at the PTAB, the statutory trial clock runs to a FWD within 12 months of institution, so once a petition lands, the outcome lands fast.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record from the authoritative patent text first, then cross-reference ownership, product, and litigation evidence via search.

Strong litigation signal found. Let me dig into the counterparty, the assignee's product line, and the assignment correspondents.

Let me attempt to retrieve the assignment reel details and confirm the assignee's commercial activity.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 12,352,411 B1

Patent: US 12,352,411 B1 — "LED light holding system"
Application: US 19/081,577 · filed 2025-03-17 · granted 2025-07-08 · publication US 2025/0207763 A1 (2025-06-26)
Priority: 2023-12-26 (Prov. 63/614,739) via CIP of US 18/794,130 → US 12,276,396 B1
Family ID: 96096807 · Anticipated expiration: 2044-08-05

Source note / limitation. The reconstruction below is drawn from the Google Patents legal-events mirror of the USPTO assignment record that was supplied in the authoritative patent text, plus corroborating litigation and company sources. I was not able to reach the Assignment Center primary record to read the correspondent of record field for any of the three reel/frame entries — that field is not exposed in the mirror. I flag every place where that gap matters rather than filling it in.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• No inventor-departure signal. The classic precursor to a portfolio fire-sale — all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing — is absent. The inventors assigned to the operating company (execution date 2025-03-06, eff.), and that company is the entity now asserting the patent. Ownership never left the inventors' side of the table.
• Two of three inventors share the surname Rothbauer (Brian, Nick). Combined with the 1983 founding date at Sigma Switches Plus and the small headcount (10–49), this is consistent with a family-run operating business. I state this as an observation about naming, not a finding about control — I have not verified corporate officers, shareholding, or Indiana SOS filings.
• The assignment was executed 2025-03-06, eleven days before the 2025-03-17 filing date, and recorded on the filing date. That ordering (assignment first, then file-and-record) is an obligation-to-assign workflow typical of employee/founder inventors, and cuts against any "inventors retained rights and later sold to an asserter" theory.

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Original assignee

Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. — Indiana corporation, Elkhart-region switch and component manufacturer. The Google Patents record names it as both original assignee and current assignee, with the disclaimer that listed assignees "may be inaccurate."

• Primary line of business: Manufacturer and distributor of dust-resistant rocker switches with self-cleaning contacts for the appliance, automotive, marine, computer and electronics industries; also supplies metal-stamped parts, injection-molded parts and complete assemblies, including illuminated switches and indicator lights (Thomasnet company profile). Founded 1983; 10–49 employees; annual sales ~$1–4.9M.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, on the available evidence. The patent's own specification frames the invention as a commercial product for RV ceilings ("LED light strip holding system… typical for installation in an RV"), and the company is now litigating that product line against a named market competitor. The litigation posture — an operating manufacturer suing a competing supplier — only makes sense if Sigma Switches Plus sells an embodying product. I did not independently retrieve a Sigma Switches Plus catalog page for the specific light-holding track, so treat "ships an embodying product" as strongly supported but not photograph-confirmed.
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, acquisition or wind-down indicators appear in the assignment record, the litigation record, or the company profile. Entity status changed from undiscounted to small entity on 2025-03-20, and a small-entity fee status is inconsistent with a shell designed to hide scale.

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Assignment timeline

Three recorded entries exist. All three are the same inventor→operating-company conveyance plus a housekeeping correction — there is no post-issuance transfer of any kind.

• 2025-03-06 (executed) / recorded 2025-03-17 — Reel 070534/0046

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: Brian Rothbauer; Adrian Byers; Nick Rothbauer
  • Assignee: SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. (Indiana)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the source record — unverified. The mirror does not carry the correspondent field. This is the single most important gap in this reconstruction; see signal 3 below.
  • Context: Original acquisition — founders/employees convey the invention to the operating company on the day the application was filed.

• 2025-04-03 (recorded) — Reel 070726/0700

  • Conveyance: Assignment (effectively the same instrument re-recorded; effective date 2025-03-06)
  • Assignor: Brian Rothbauer; Adrian Byers; Nick Rothbauer
  • Assignee: SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. (Indiana)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the source record — unverified.
  • Context: Duplicate/defective recording. This is the entry the corrective assignment later identifies as bearing the wrong application number.

• 2025-04-04 (recorded) — Reel 070996/0617

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment — "TO CORRECT THE APPLICATION NUMBER FROM 19081557 TO 19081577 PREVIOUSLY RECORDED UNDER REEL AND FRAME 070726/0700"
  • Assignor: Brian Rothbauer; Adrian Byers; Nick Rothbauer (confirming)
  • Assignee: SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. (Indiana)
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the source record — unverified.
  • Context: Change of record only — no change in beneficial ownership. Note the transposition: 19/081,557 → 19/081,577. The corrected-away number sits immediately adjacent to this application and is plausibly the sibling application that issued as US 12,352,412 B1 (same title, same 2025-07-08 issue date). Inference, not confirmed.

Reading of the chain: three recordings, one beneficial owner, one transaction. The double recording plus a corrective is a docketing artifact, not a transfer pattern.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 12352411
    2023 : Provisional filed by inventors
    2024 : Parent application filed as CIP
    2025 : Inventors assign rights to Sigma Switches Plus
         : Application filed Mar 17
         : Corrective assignment recorded Apr 4
         : Patent issued Jul 8
         : Suit filed vs ABC Marketing Oct 28
    2026 : Litigation ongoing

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present.
No assignment out of the operating company to a licensing vehicle exists in the record. All three reel/frame entries (070534/0046, 070726/0700, 070996/0617) run inbound to SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC., an Indiana manufacturer founded 1983 with a Thomasnet commercial profile, 10–49 employees, and small-entity fee status (set 2025-03-20). No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" assignee appears anywhere in the chain. No shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
Neither the current assignee nor any assignor matches the named NPE roll (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Note the limits of this call: this is based on the named list, not a live query of the RPX and Unified Patents high-frequency-plaintiff directories, so I state it as no match found rather than cleared. The claim-signal here is the opposite of an NPE: the plaintiff is the original assignee and a competitor in the accused product's own market.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (source gap).
This is the one signal I cannot resolve. The correspondent of record is not carried in the mirror of the assignment data, so I cannot test whether one attorney or firm filed all three recordings — nor whether that name recurs across the family (US 12,276,396; US 12,352,412; US 12,181,127). I am not going to name a correspondent I did not read. To close this properly, pull each of 070534/0046, 070726/0700 and 070996/0617 in USPTO Assignment Center and read the correspondent field directly. Given that all three recordings are the same instrument for the same assignee across three weeks, a single recurring filer is the expected result — but expected is not observed, and I flag it as unresolved.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
Three recordings in 19 days, but zero change in beneficial ownership: two are the same conveyance and the third is a corrective to fix a transposed application number. The <24-month chained-LLC test requires consecutive transfers between distinct assignees sharing a correspondent or principals. Nothing of the kind appears.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present.
The suit (filed 2025-10-28) was brought by the original assignee, 7.5 months after the last recorded assignment date (2025-04-04) and ~7.7 months after the assignment's execution (2025-03-06). No assignment was made within 6 months before suit, and no assignment was made to enable assertion. Standing was clean from the outset.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
No Chapter 7/11 indicators, no trustee or liquidating-agent assignee, no bulk portfolio transfer. Sigma Switches Plus is characterized as an operating small business and is actively litigating.

7. Privateering — not present.
Privateering requires an operating company to hand the patent to a third-party NPE that asserts on its behalf. Here the operating company asserts its own patent in its own name. No SEC filings are implicated — the assignee appears to be privately held and below reporting thresholds.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present.
No RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN entry anywhere in the chain. The patent is live and asserted, i.e. the inverse of neutralized.

Additional litigation evidence (corroborating, from outside the assignment record):
Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. v. ABC Marketing, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00888 (N.D. Ind., filed 2025-10-28), Nature of Suit 830 (Patent). The complaint asserts claim 8 of US 12,352,411 (Compl. ¶147) against the "LineLite Track" and associated "End Cap" sold by ABC Marketing under the "Stellar Lighting" brand (Compl. ¶¶19, 21, 39–40, 148), marketed for the RV OEM and specialty vehicle OEM markets (Compl. ¶¶26, 52). Co-asserted patents include US 12,181,127 (claim 1) and US 12,352,412 (claim 1), all three asserted against the same accused track-and-end-cap hardware. Scheduling order milestones run into March–April 2026 (infringement contentions 2026-02-16; invalidity contentions 2026-03-16), so the case is open and ongoing as of today. Court data classifies the patent owner as an operating company. Complaint analysis · Docket 3:25-cv-00888

One prosecution curiosity worth noting for completeness, though it is not an ownership signal: the examiner's only citation is US 12,276,396 B1 — Sigma Switches Plus's own parent application/patent in the same family, cited against this CIP. Family-member citation is a validity/priority consideration, not a chain-of-title one.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain contains no transfer at all beyond the original inventor→company assignment: three recordings (reels 070534/0046, 070726/0700, 070996/0617, March–April 2025) all name SIGMA SWITCHES PLUS, INC. as assignee, and the third is expressly a corrective assignment fixing a transposed application number rather than a conveyance. The assignee is a 1983-vintage Indiana switch manufacturer with a commercial product profile and small-entity fee status, and it is asserting US 12,352,411 claim 8 in its own name against a named competitor's competing product in its own market (Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing, No. 3:25-cv-00888, N.D. Ind., filed 2025-10-28, accusing the "Stellar Lighting" LineLite Track / End Cap in the RV OEM channel). Eight of the eight NPE signals resolve to not present; the remaining one — repeat correspondent — is unresolved due to a source gap, and cannot, on its own, move the verdict.

Verify the chain directly: USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 12,352,411) · legacy index. When you pull it, read the correspondent field on reels 070534/0046, 070726/0700 and 070996/0617 — that is the only open question left in this ownership picture.

I'll verify the patent against live sources and pull its citation record before analyzing prior art.

Let me pull the citation record from Justia and other databases for this exact number.

Search status and scope (read first)

USPTO direct-search result: negative. As flagged in the previously generated section, queries aimed at USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Public Search for this number returned no retrievable page in my searches. My second pass this session again produced no primary USPTO record. I am therefore not able to report a USPTO-hosted citation list directly; the citation record below comes from the full patent text supplied to me (Google Patents front page for US12352411B1), which is internally consistent with third-party records for the same number.

Scope discipline honored: everything below relates to 12352411 alone (i.e., US 12,352,411 B1). US 12,352,412 B1 and US 12,276,396 B1 are treated as different numbers; '396 appears below only because the patent itself cites it.

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1. The complete citation record of US 12,352,411 B1

The '411 front page carries exactly one citation:

Critically, there is no separate "cited by the applicant" class of art, no IDS-type list of third-party references, and no NPL on this patent. The single entry is the examiner citation of the applicant's own parent.

Do not misread the "Similar Documents" table on the Google Patents page as a citation record. That list is Google's algorithmic similarity output (it even includes a later Sigma Switches Plus filing, US2025/0314360 A1, published 2025-10-09, and US 12,460,780 B2, published 2025-11-04 — both after '411 issued, so neither can be prior art to it under any subsection of § 102). I discuss the genuinely pre-priority entries from that list in Part 3 as unverified candidates, clearly labeled as non-citations.

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2. The sole cited reference: US 12,276,396 B1

Full citation

• US 12,276,396 B1 — "LED light holding system"
• Inventors: Brian Rothbauer; Adrian Byers; Nick Rothbauer (identical inventive entity to '411)
• Assignee: Sigma Switches Plus, Inc. (identical to '411)
• Application: 18/794,130, filed August 5, 2024
• Earliest priority: December 26, 2023 (provisional 63/614,739)
• Issued: April 15, 2025
• Status on '411: cited by examiner (*)
• Relationship to '411: this is the parent application of the '411 continuation-in-part. The '411 specification states: "This Application is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. application Ser. No. 18/794,130 filed on Aug. 5, 2024, which claims the priority of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/614,739, filed Dec. 26, 2023." Google Patents' "Related Parent Applications" table for '411 lists US 18/794,130 / US 12,276,396 B1 as Continuation-In-Part.

Brief description (as disclosed in the record available to me)

'396 is directed to the same RV ceiling/wall light-strip holding system family. Its summary, as retrieved from Patents-Review for application 18/794,130 (https://www.patents-review.com/a/18794130-led-light-holding-system.html), describes: panels abutting a joist with a retaining strip fastened therebetween; the retaining strip having upstanding walls defining a groove containing retention nubs; an elongate light holder with wings defining an outer contoured surface and having tips; a channel beneath the contoured surface with lateral walls joined to a bottom wall; a ridge wall extending from a bottom surface of the bottom wall with a retention barb spaced from that bottom surface, a portion of the barb being wider than the ridge wall; and wings resiliently bendable between uninstalled and installed positions.

The decisive difference in that record: '396 expresses the wing geometry relative to the retention barb —

"The uninstalled position locates the tips of the wings at a first distance from the retention barb and the installed position locates the tips of the wings at a second distance from the retention barb. The second distance is farther than the first."

'411 expresses the wing geometry relative to the channel opening, and inverts the sense:

"The uninstalled position locates said tips of said wings at a first distance from said opening and said installed position locates said tips of said wings at a second distance from said opening and said second distance being nearer than said first distance with respect to said opening, when said wings are in said installed position said wings being biased away from said opening and toward said uninstalled position."

These are consistent with each other geometrically (measuring to the barb and to the opening move in opposite directions when the wings flex), but they are different claim limitations.

§ 102 analysis — which claims of '411 could US 12,276,396 B1 potentially anticipate?

Bottom line: none, on two independent grounds.

(a) Legal ground — '396 does not qualify as prior art to '411 at all.

• '396 is not "by another": it names the same three inventors and the same assignee as '411. It therefore cannot be § 102(a)(2) art (which requires a patent "naming another inventor") and cannot easily be § 102(a)(1) "otherwise available to the public" art attributable to a third party.
• '396 issued April 15, 2025 — after '411's filing date of March 17, 2025 — so '396 was not a patent or printed publication "before the effective filing date" of '411 under § 102(a)(1).
• Even if '396 were treated as § 102(a)(2) art, the common-ownership exception of § 102(b)(2)(C) would disqualify it (same assignee, Sigma Switches Plus, Inc.).
• This is the normal, expected posture for a CIP: the parent is cited on the child's face for continuity/completeness, not because the examiner used it as a rejection. A single examiner citation of the applicant's own parent is conventionally a double-patenting / continuity citation, not a § 102 rejection.

(b) Merits ground — even assuming '396 were prior art, it does not disclose an element present in every independent claim of '411.
Each of independent claims 1, 8, and 14 requires the tip-distance relationship to be measured "from said opening" of the channel, with the installed position nearer to that opening, and the wings "biased away from said opening and toward said uninstalled position." As retrieved, '396's disclosure states the distance relationship from the retention barb and with the second distance farther (not nearer). A reference that does not disclose a limitation appearing in every independent claim cannot anticipate any claim under § 102.

If one nonetheless performed an element-by-element mapping treating '396 as art, it would map to much of the structural subject matter of claims 1, 8, and 14 (retaining strip; elongate light holder; wings; tips; outer contoured surface; channel beneath the surface with lateral walls joined to a bottom wall; ridge wall with retention barb wider than the ridge wall; groove with upstanding walls and retention nubs) and to the general subject matter of dependents 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17 — but it supplies no teaching of the claimed opening-referenced tip geometry or the "biased away from the opening" limitation, so it would fail on claims 1, 8, and 14 and, derivatively, on every claim depending from them. I flag that I did not retrieve the full claim text of '396 in this session and so cannot rule out that '396 elsewhere discloses opening-referenced geometry; that would need the '396 claim set and spec checked directly (see Confidence, below).

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3. Other potentially relevant art — NOT citations of record (clearly labeled)

Because '411 has only one cited reference, I searched more broadly. The following come from the Google Patents "Similar Documents" panel on '411's own page and are the only entries in that panel with publication dates before '411's December 26, 2023 priority date (i.e., the only ones that could theoretically be § 102(a)(1) art). I did not retrieve these documents or their claims this session; descriptions below are inferred from the titles only, and the filing dates shown are unknown to me — only publication dates are from the '411 page.

Excluded as temporally impossible prior art to '411 (published after the Dec. 26, 2023 priority date and after '411's March 17, 2025 filing date, so usable only as § 102(a)(2) art if effectively filed earlier — unverified): US 12,181,127 B1 (2024-12-31), US 12,228,258 B2 (2025-02-18), US 12,460,780 B2 (2025-11-04), JP 7555466 B2 (2024-09-24), US 2025/0314360 A1 (2025-10-09), US 2025/0207763 A1 (2025-06-26, this is '411's own pre-grant publication), US 12,352,412 B1 (2025-07-08).

Do-not-conflate reminder: US 12,352,412 B1 ("LED light holding system," appl. 19/081,606, same issue date 2025-07-08, and — per the Google Patents page for '412 retrieved this session — the same CIP parent, US 18/794,130) and US 12,181,127 B1 ("LED light holder system," 2024-12-31) are different patents. Neither is a citation of '411, and neither is the subject of this analysis. Note also that if US 12,181,127 B1 shares the Sigma Switches Plus inventive entity/assignee, it would face the same § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership obstacle.

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4. Answer to the direct question

"For each patent citation of 12352411, give full citation, publication/filing date, description, and which claims it potentially anticipates under § 102."

There is exactly one patent citation on US 12,352,411 B1: US 12,276,396 B1 (Sigma Switches Plus, Inc.; appl. 18/794,130; filed 2024-08-05; priority 2023-12-26; issued 2025-04-15; CIP parent of '411). It potentially anticipates no claim of '411, because (i) as the commonly owned parent of a CIP naming the identical inventive entity and issuing after '411 was filed, it is not prior art under § 102(a)(1) or § 102(a)(2) (and § 102(b)(2)(C) would except it in any event), and (ii) on the merits, its recorded disclosure states the wing-tip distance from the retention barb, whereas the opening-referenced tip-distance and "biased away from said opening" limitations appear in all three independent claims (1, 8, 14) of '411.

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5. Contradictions / flags against the previously generated section

1. Confirmed, not contradicted: the earlier-noted abstract conflict is real and now corroborated by a third source. WikiPatents for US 2025/0207763 A1 (the '411 pre-grant publication) reads "The second distance is less than the first distance" (https://wikipatents.org/20250207763._Led_Light_Holding_Sy_(Sigma_Switches_Plus,_.)), matching the '411 grant text; Justia's assignee page reads "greater than"; Patents-Review for app. 18/794,130 reads "farther than." Per your rule, I take the '411 grant text ("less than / nearer") as controlling for '411, and treat the "greater/farther" wording as belonging to the parent '396.
2. New datum: Patents-Review also carries a 2025 publication, US 2025/0216060 A1, whose summary uses "smaller than the first" and the "one of the retaining strip and the elongate light holder has a ridge wall… the other… has a groove" phrasing. That phrasing matches the claim-1 language of US 12,352,412 B1 retrieved this session. I therefore believe US 2025/0216060 A1 is the '412 pre-grant publication, not '411 — but I did not confirm this, and I am not asserting it.
3. Litigation consistency: the previously generated section said the asserted claim is claim 8 — consistent with claim 8 being the variant where the light holder carries the groove and the retaining strip carries the barb, which is the partnership configuration a competitor's track product would practice.

Confidence

• High: citation count (one patent citation, zero foreign, zero NPL) and the identity/dates of US 12,276,396 B1 — from the supplied full patent text of '411, corroborated by Patents-Review for 18/794,130.
• High: the § 102 legal conclusion that '396 is not prior art to '411 (same inventive entity/assignee; parent of a CIP; issued after '411 was filed).
• Moderate: the merits conclusion that '396 lacks the opening-referenced limitation — based on the retrieved '396 summary, not its full claim set/specification.
• Low / explicitly unknown: filing dates, claim content, and actual § 102 applicability of every entry in Part 3. I retrieved titles and publication dates only; I did not open those documents. They are candidates for further searching, not findings.

I'll ground the § 103 analysis in the actual references rather than titles alone. Let me pull details on the candidate art.

Let me pull the remaining candidate references, especially any showing flexible wings loaded against a mounting surface.

Obviousness Analysis — US 12,352,411 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note (building on the Prior Art section, not repeating it). As established earlier on this page, US 12,352,411 has exactly one citation of record — US 12,276,396 B1, its own CIP parent — and that reference is not § 102 prior art (identical inventive entity and assignee; issued 2025‑04‑15, after '411's 2025‑03‑17 filing; § 102(b)(2)(C) would except it in any event). There is therefore no § 103 ground that can be built on the face of the patent. Every ground below is built on art that is not of record, drawn from the "Similar Documents" panel flagged as unverified candidates in the Prior Art section. This session I opened and verified the disclosures of four of them. I label verified vs. unverified throughout; nothing here should be filed without checking the full texts.

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1. Level of ordinary skill (Graham factor 1)

A POSITA here is a mechanical/product design engineer with ~2–4 years of experience in extruded-profile design for architectural or vehicle interior lighting (or a bachelor's in mechanical engineering plus equivalent shop experience), familiar with:

• aluminum/plastic extrusion design, including undercut-free snap-fit geometry and cantilever latch design (deflection, strain limits, preload);
• linear LED channel/track systems and the mounting of light strips in extruded channels;
• panel-joint trim and concealed-fastener installation practice (T‑molding, raceway covers, door jamb stops, RV ceiling trim).

This is not a high-skill bar. The asserted subject matter — a snap-in extruded light holder — sits squarely at the intersection of two mature arts (extruded LED channel systems and panel-joinery trim), and the Supreme Court's admonition in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), applies: a POSITA is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton."

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

Four points must be settled before drafting grounds, because each changes what art is needed:

1. Three independent claims, two configurations each. Claims 1 and 8 recite "one of [bottom surface / retaining strip] … and the other …" — a single claim covering both barb‑on‑strip/groove‑on‑holder and groove‑on‑strip/barb‑on‑holder. Under § 112, invalidity must be established for each alternative. (This alternative-claiming issue was flagged earlier on this page; it cuts against the patent owner in an obviousness fight, because the drafter has conceded that the two orientations are interchangeable — see § 5, Ground 3.)
2. Claim 8's preamble is "for use with a retaining strip," but the body recites "said retaining strip having a ridge wall including a retention barb." The only antecedent is the preamble. This will be construed either (a) narrowly, requiring the accused strip, or (b) as a stated intended use that does not import the strip into the claim. The body also contains a garbled recitation — "said bottom wall having a bottom surface opposite said channel spaced from said bottom surface." Expect the parties to fight over it. For § 103 purposes, the narrower reading (strip required) is the conservative assumption; the ground set below satisfies both.
3. The "wing" limitations are functional/positional. "Wings defining an outer contoured surface," "tips," and the whole first-distance/second-distance device are recitations of position and bias direction, not of new structure. The question a POSITA would have asked is not "how do I invent a wing?" but "will my flange deflect, and by how much?"
4. "Outer contoured surface" is indefinite on this record. It is not defined by any structural boundary in the specification; the '411 spec merely says the wings "cooperate to form an outer contoured surface 45 that spans the width of the elongate light holder 40." Expect a § 112(b) challenge in parallel; it also means the limitation cannot carry much § 103 weight.

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3. Reference inventory — what each verified reference actually discloses

I verified the following this session. All four predate the December 26, 2023 priority date, so every ground below survives regardless of how the CIP effective-filing-date question resolves (see § 9).

R1 — US 11,493,179 B1 (Diem GmbH), "Linear luminaire including a light inset inserted in a channel"

Filed 2021‑11‑15 (Ser. No. 17/527,111); issued 2022‑11‑08. Verified from the full claim set and description at Justia and IPIQ.

Discloses: a linear channel (12) with a channel base wall (16) and two channel side walls (18, 20); a linear light inset (14) with a cover; channel connectors (44, 46) on the side walls; cover connectors (38, 40) configured "for being snapped onto one of the channel connectors to create a form fit connection." Critically, its claim 16 states:

"during the inserting … the cover connectors are first forced toward each other by the channel connectors … and then snap back away from each other."

Claim 5–6 disclose the connector's outwardly extending section contacting a "securing surface" facing the base wall (anti-drop) and an inwardly extending section contacting an "abutment surface" facing away (anti-overinsertion). Claim 7 claims an "insertion section tapering inward … toward the channel base wall" — an inclined lead-in. Claim 8/6 disclose alignment surfaces facing toward each other centering the cover. Claim 11–12 disclose a wire securing clip on the base wall and a fastener fixed to the base wall.

What it supplies: the channel-with-side-walls-and-bottom architecture; the light-strip-in-channel architecture; snap-fit retention with inclined lead-in surfaces, a wider-than-neck barb, and catch surfaces; resilient "forced together then snap back" behavior; anti-rattle centering; a fastener into the base wall.

What it does not supply: any element outside the channel that contacts a mounting surface; any "wing."

R2 — US 9,565,769 B2 (Elemental LED, Inc.), "LED linear lighting kit"

Filed 2014‑02‑19 (Ser. No. 14/184,475); issued 2017‑02‑07. Verified from the abstract and description at FPO and Google Patents.

Discloses: "A plurality of mounting clips are attached to a surface and a plurality of LED light strips are springably secured to the mounting clips. … The extrusions in which the LED light strips are mounted may include recessed open grooves approximately the same width as the LED light strips." Its FIG. 3 extrusion 300 has open channels 310, 315 bounded by ledges 320 and sides 325; the sides include inner lips 330 and grooves 335 "used in securing a light diffuser or lens."

What it supplies: an extrusion with a channel whose inwardly projecting lips retain a translucent lens/strip; an LED strip springably secured (resilient, not adhesive, as an express alternative to the "layer of adhesive 305" it also discloses); mounting clips fastened to a surface.

What it does not supply: surface-contacting wings.

R3 — US 11,168,852 ("Channels and lenses for linear lighting")

Application is a continuation of Ser. No. 17/130,935 filed 2020‑12‑22, claiming priority to provisional 63/037,885 filed 2020‑06‑11 (verified from the specification text at Justia). Assignee and exact issue date not verified this session; the specification expressly builds on US 9,279,544, which Elemental LED lists on its virtual marking page, suggesting common provenance — inference only.

Discloses:

• A channel (11) with an H-shaped cross-section and an upper compartment (22) housing the light strip and a lower compartment (24).
• A cover-lens (14) with "a pair of depending legs (44, 46)" whose outward sides "deflect inwardly slightly to seat the cover-lens" — i.e., resilient deflection on installation.
• U-shaped mounting clips (70) with "upwardly-extending sidewalls with projections (72) that are complementary in shape to the rounded grooves (40) of the lower sidewalls …" — the clips "carry an opening (74) to secure a fastener," and "the fastener secures the mounting clip to the exterior surface."
• Endcaps (50, 52) with "a pair of projections (56, 58) … to insert into the lower compartment … and have features (60) that complement and insert into the rounded grooves (40)."

What it supplies — and this is the most important find this session: an external part carrying male projections that engage female grooves in the light-holder/channel member (the barb/groove reversal of claim 8), in a pair (claim 12's "pair of retention barbs … pair of grooves"), retained by snap/interference fit, with the external part fastened to the mounting surface, and a cover whose legs resiliently deflect to seat. It also supplies end caps that engage the channel's grooves, which is directly relevant to the '411 commercial embodiment and its asserted infringement theory.

What it does not supply: wings that form the outer contoured surface and bear against the mounting surface.

R4 — US 9,004,718 B2 (Belwith Products, LLC), "LED decorative illuminated trim system"

Filed 2013‑04‑24; issued 2015‑04‑14. Verified from the abstract/description at Espacenet and Patents-Review.

Discloses: "at least one mountable base track … The base tracks include a recessed LED seat and two substantially parallel attachment grooves. … a cover with two rails … disposed adjacent the base track such that the rails engage with the attachment grooves" — "such as by snap fitting or sliding." Also an end cap (148) with a mounting slot (152) for receiving a suitable fastener (154) for attaching the housing to a structure such as a wall, and a decorative element with opaque areas over a translucent cover (light-concealment at terminations).

What it supplies: a two-part track + cover trim system, snap- or slide-engaged, adhesiveless, with two parallel attachment grooves, fastener mounting, and opacity management at the cover/decorative element.

R5 — Unverified candidates (content NOT opened this session — treat as leads only)

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4. The one honest gap

No reference I verified this session discloses a light holder with cantilevered wings whose tips bear against the mounting surface and which are spring-loaded toward the channel opening when installed. That is the crux of claims 1, 8, and 14, and it is the limitation on which this patent will live or die.

Everything else in the independent claims — the channel, the lateral walls and bottom wall, the opening, the overhanging walls, the snap barb and groove with inclined and catch surfaces, the wider-than-neck barb, the resilient snap engagement, the strip held without adhesive, the fastener through the bottom wall — is squarely in the verified art.

There are three ways to close the gap, in descending order of strength:

(a) Find the flange/leaf-spring trim reference. The wing is a cantilever leaf spring that is preloaded by bearing on the mounting surface. That structure is ubiquitous in adjacent arts — recessed-luminaire trim retainers and torsion-spring clips, snap-in bezels, glazing beads, and panel-joint moldings with flexible flanges. Search CPC F21V17/16 (snap joints), F21V21/088 (clips; clamps), F21S8/043 (ceiling-mounted by rigid support), B60Q3/00 (vehicle interior lighting), E04F19/02/–06 (moldings and joint covers), E04B9/30, and the US class for joint covers (52/716). Search strings worth running: "resilient" "flange" "biasing" ceiling panel light trim; "leaf spring" extrusion "against the ceiling"; "snap-in" trim ring "spring tab"; RV ceiling "light strip" molding retaining strip.

(b) Use the specification's own admission plus the structural identity argument (§ 5, Ground 5).

(c) Rely on the design-choice/inherency rationale — that the recited distances are the inevitable geometric consequence of pressing a flanged holder against a surface, and the claim therefore recites a result, not a structure.

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5. Grounds of rejection

Throughout, I identify the primary reference (teaches most elements) and secondary references (supply the remainder), and I keep the gap identified in § 4 visible rather than burying it.

Ground 1 — Claims 14, 15, 17, 18: R1 in view of R3 (and R2)

Dependent claims:

• Claim 15 ("channel receives a fastener driven through said bottom wall"): R1 claim 12 (fastener fixed to the channel base wall) and R3 (clip opening 74 receiving a fastener into the exterior surface). Driving a screw through an extrusion base into a ceiling is the baseline practice of the entire surface-mounted linear-luminaire art.
• Claim 16 (overhanging walls with inclined surfaces + catch surfaces facing the bottom wall): R1 claim 7 (insertion section tapering inward — the inclined lead-in) plus claim 5/6 (securing surface facing the base wall = catch surface; abutment surface facing away). Near-verbatim structural correspondence.
• Claim 17 (lateral walls biased against an LED strip held in the channel): R2 "springably secured"; R3 (legs deflect to seat, imparting lateral load); R1 (alignment surfaces center the cover). The patent's own specification concedes this is nothing more than the flexing of a resilient holder: "the flex of the lateral walls 64 tightens the lateral walls 64 against the LED light strip 80."
• Claim 18 (uninstalled = no fastener through the channel; installed = fastener driven into a substrate contacting the tips): a condition-of-use limitation. See Ground 5.

Ground 2 — Claim 1 and its dependents 2–7: Ground 1 + a panel-joint retaining strip

Claim 1 adds only: (i) a retaining strip; and (ii) one of the strip/bottom-surface having a ridge wall with a retention barb, the other having a groove with upstanding walls and inward retention nubs.

• The groove-with-inward-nubs element is the least well covered by the art I verified. It is the ordinary geometry of any T-slot, raceway, or wire-duct cover retention, and of track-lighting rails — the leads to pull are KR 10‑0745191 B1 and US 7,364,346 B2 (both flagged but unopened in the Prior Art section; sources: US 9,004,718 citations, [parent page table]).
• The "strip + snap-together two-part trim" concept is supplied by R4 (base track with two parallel attachment grooves + cover with rails engaging them "such as by snap fitting or sliding") and R3 (mounting clip with male projections snapping into the channel's female grooves).
• The barb geometry (claims 2, 5, 6) is supplied by R1 with unusual precision: an outwardly extending section wider than the intermediate section/ridge, engaging a securing surface, with a tapered insertion section as the inclined lead-in, and with "catch surfaces facing said ridge wall." R3's hemispherical projections 72 in rounded grooves 40 supply the "portion of said retention barb wider than … a distance between said retention nubs" (claim 6) — that interference is the snap.

Motivation (claim 1–specific): a POSITA seeking to install a concealed LED strip at a panel joint (the '411 specification's stated RV use) would use the panel-joint molding already present between ceiling boards as the mounting interface, and would fasten the light holder to it by the snap geometry already standard in the track/trim art (R3, R4, R1), rather than by visible screws.

Ground 3 — Claim 8 and dependents 9–13 (the asserted claim): R2 and/or R3 + R1/R4

Claim 8 is the reversed configuration: the holder has the groove, the strip has the ridge wall with the barb.

1. The reversal itself is the argument. A POSITA reading R3 sees the male projections (72) on the mounting clip and the female grooves (40) on the channel member, with the clip fastened to the exterior surface — i.e., barb on the mount, groove on the holder, exactly claim 8. R1 shows the opposite orientation (snap features on the insert engaging features on the channel). R4 shows the opposite orientation again (rails on the cover engaging grooves in the track). Between R1, R3, and R4, both orientations of the same snap coupling are in the art, applied to the same class of product (an extruded LED carrier and its mount). Reversing which of two mating parts carries the male feature is a classic reversal of parts / obvious design change with no change in function — the barb must pass the nubs and catch behind them either way. MPEP § 2144.04 (design changes and tolerances) and KSR, 550 U.S. at 417, 421 (predictable variations; "design incentives"; "market forces") supply the rationale. I cite MPEP § 2144.04 for the general proposition; I have not verified the precise subsection numbering and would confirm before quoting it.
2. Claim 9 (installed position corresponds to the barb engaging the groove): inherent in the engagement.
3. Claim 10 (overhanging walls extending toward each other and narrower than the internal width): R2 lips 330; R1 connectors 44, 46; R3 projections 36/ledges 127.
4. Claim 11 (inclined + catch surfaces on the overhanging walls): R1 claims 5–7.
5. Claim 12 (pair of barbs, pair of grooves): directly met by R3 — a pair of projections 72 engaging a pair of rounded grooves 40 — and by R4's "two substantially parallel attachment grooves."
6. Claim 13 (lateral walls biased against the LED strip): as Ground 1, claim 17.

Why this matters for the live case: claim 8 is the claim asserted in Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing, No. 3:25‑cv‑00888 (N.D. Ind.). If claim 8's actual scope requires only a holder with a groove + resilient wings "for use with" a strip carrying a barb — the narrower construction flagged in § 2 — then the accused LineLite Track track-plus-end-cap assembly maps onto the R3 clip-and-channel pairing almost element-for-element.

Ground 4 — Claims 3, 4, 7, 11, 13, 16, 17 (overhanging-wall lip + strip-grip subfamily)

These all reduce to: (i) an inward lip at the channel mouth with inclined and catch surfaces, and (ii) lateral gripping of the strip. R1 (inclined insertion section 39d/41d + securing surface 45a + abutment surface 45b), R2 (inner lips 330 and grooves 335 "used in securing a light diffuser or lens"), and R3 (cover legs with large complementary features, "deflect inwardly slightly to seat") collectively disclose both. Claim 4's "terminal edges nearer to each other than said lateral walls" is simply the definition of an inward lip. The patent's own text confirms the function is conventional: the catch surfaces 56 and terminal edges 60 merely "narrow the channel 48."

Ground 5 — The fallback: single-reference + inherency/design-choice (the contested ground)

If the flange/leaf-spring reference of § 4(a) cannot be found, the remaining theory is that the first-distance/second-distance and "biased away from said opening" recitations are not structural limitations at all, and that any flanged holder pressed against a surface reads on them:

• The distance from the tips to the channel opening necessarily shrinks when a cantilevered wing is pushed toward the opening, and the bias necessarily points back toward the free state whenever the wing is elastically loaded. The claim recites the inevitable geometry of any resiliently deflected cantilever, not a structural feature. The inherency line — In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (CCPA 1977), and the § 103 corollary that a limitation which is the inherent and expected result of the disclosed structure cannot confer patentability — is the vehicle.
• For claim 18, the uninstalled/installed states are defined solely by whether a fastener has been driven. An apparatus claim is not saved by reciting an intended-use condition: In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (a claimed "dispensing top for popping popcorn" was anticipated by a prior art funnel because the claim's structure was the same and the use was not a structural limitation). R1's base-wall fastener (claim 12) and R3's clip fastener (opening 74 into the exterior surface) anticipate the "installed" state.
• Caveat: this ground is a genuine fight. Patent owners routinely survive it by arguing (i) the magnitude of deflection and the resulting preload are non-obvious parameters, and (ii) the claim requires a specific resting geometry. Expect a genuine dispute about whether the "second distance" is inherent or an affirmative structural relationship. I would not lead with Ground 5.

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6. Motivation to combine — the KSR rationales, stated explicitly

A § 103 ground fails if it merely stacks references. The following rationales are supported by the '411 specification itself (which is the patent owner's own problem statement, and thus powerful):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. R1–R4 are all linear-LED-in-an-extruded-carrier systems concerned with holding a light strip concealed along a surface without visible hardware. KSR permits combination where "the improvement [is] more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."
2. The patent admits the goals were known. '411 background: "There is a need for mounting LED lights to the ceiling of RVs in a manner that is inexpensive and aesthetically pleasing"; the traditional bezel approach "required electrical connections be made above the ceiling. This is cumbersome… repair of any such light difficult." The wings-based solution is responsive to a recognized, articulated problem.
3. Stated advantages are the expected consequences of a preloaded spring. '411 asserts that the resilient wings "(a) prevent… rattling," "(b) produce a clean appearance with no gaps," and "(c) enable… hold[ing] on to the LED light 80 without the use of adhesive." R2 discloses exactly the adhesiveless alternative — the strip is "springably secured" — and R3 the resilient seat. Rattle suppression via interference fit is the ordinary reason to preload a snap feature. These are predictable results, not unexpected ones.
4. Tolerance accommodation is the classic design incentive for compliance. The '411 specification dwells at length on the D2/D3 relationship and the variability of ceiling-board thickness and "cut length of the elongate light holder 40 may not be consistent." Tolerance stack-up is a recognized design problem, and a compliant spring element is the standard, obvious answer. That supplies a strong "design need" motivation.
5. The two-part track/trim architecture was already standard. R4 (base track + snap cover) and R3 (clip + channel grooves) mean a POSITA had both the reason and the ready means to place a light carrier on a separate mount engaging by snap fit.
6. Design incentives / market forces (KSR). Tool-free click-in installation, reduced parts count, adhesive elimination, serviceability (light-strip replacement), and aftermarket RV retrofit are all competitive pressures documented by the very existence of the Elementsal LED, Diem, Belwith and Qtran product lines.
7. Combinability is reinforced by the references themselves. R3 and R2 both come from the same commercial lineage (Elemental LED's channel-profile line, per its virtual marking page), and both address channel-plus-lens-plus-clip retention — the sort of shared origin the Federal Circuit treats as evidence of combinability.

Anticipated "teaching away" arguments, and why they should fail

• "R2 secures the strip with adhesive 305." R2's own abstract discloses the strip "springably secured" to mounting clips; a preference for one of two disclosed techniques is not a teaching away (KSR: "a reference … does not become a teaching away simply because it discloses a less preferred alternative"). Moreover, FPO's FIG. 3 description shows the adhesive securing the strip in one channel while lips/grooves secure the lens in another — both techniques coexist in the same reference.
• "R1's connectors deflect inward and snap outward; '411's wings deflect toward the opening." That is a directional difference, not a teaching away — and R3's cover legs "deflect inwardly slightly to seat," so deflection in both senses is disclosed in the same art. A POSITA designing a preloaded flange is not deterred by a differently-oriented latch.
• "No reference suggests putting wings outside the channel." This is the real vulnerability of the grounds, and it is why § 4(a) matters. It is an argument about the primary reference, not about motivation to combine.

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7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4) — nothing in the record supports them yet

No objective evidence of non-obviousness appears in anything reviewed on this page. The only argument available to the patent owner today is the pending litigation itself (Sigma Switches Plus v. ABC Marketing, No. 3:25‑cv‑00888 — see the litigation section above), from which copying, commercial-success, and industry-praise arguments will presumably be built. Expect the following, and the counters:

One further reflexive point: the patent's own prosecution record cuts against it. '411 issued over a single citation — its own parent — meaning the examiner never had R1–R4 in front of him. That is precisely the profile in which § 103 grounds are most productive, and it is why the examiner's citation of the parent reads as a continuity/double-patenting citation rather than a merits rejection.

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8. Where these grounds can fail — and how to shore them up

1. The wing limitation (§ 4). This is the single point of failure. Priority action: find the flange/leaf-spring trim art. Absent it, every independent claim ground rests on the contested inherency theory in Ground 5.
2. The retaining strip with inward nubs (claim 1). Unverified in my searches. Pull KR 10‑0745191 B1 and US 7,364,346 B2 and run the raceway/T-slot/panel-joint-molding searches listed in § 4(a). If the nub geometry is genuinely absent from the art, claim 1 (but not claims 8 and 14) becomes materially harder.
3. Claim 8's preamble/antecedent problem (§ 2). Pin down the construction early — it determines whether the strip is even part of the claim and therefore how much art you need.
4. Claim 1/8 alternative format. Both orientations must be met. Ground 3 does this; Ground 2 covers only the barb-on-holder alternative unless the raceway art is found.
5. The "outer contoured surface" indefiniteness play. A § 112(b) ruling that the term is indefinite does not invalidate; it makes the claim unenforceable-as-construed only in the practical sense. Do not conflate a § 112 win with a § 103 win.
6. Do not oversell the number of references. Four or five references stacked on a simple mechanical claim invites a "you needed five references" rebuttal. Plead the strongest ground tightly — R3/R4 + R1 + the flange reference — rather than all five.
7. The sibling patents do not help you via § 102. US 12,276,396, US 12,352,412 and US 11,181,127 are commonly owned and (at least for '396) share the identical inventive entity, so § 102(b)(2)(C) and the "by another" requirement block their use as § 102(a)(2) art against '411. They remain useful as evidence of the breadth of the genus and of what the art considered routine — a § 103-adjacent use — but not as anticipating references. (That is the correct reading of the "do-not-conflate" instruction: different numbers, different records, no § 102 help.)

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9. The effective-filing-date lever (CIP-specific, and potentially decisive)

'411 is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 18/794,130 (filed 2024‑08‑05; issued as US 12,276,396 B1), which claims provisional 63/614,739 (2023‑12‑26). A CIP claim gets the earlier date only for subject matter disclosed in the parent. As flagged in the Prior Art section, the parent expresses the wing geometry relative to the retention barb with the second distance "farther," whereas every independent claim of '411 recites the geometry relative to the channel opening with the second distance "nearer" and adds "biased away from said opening and toward said uninstalled position."

If that opening-referenced geometry is new matter, the effective filing date for claims 1, 8 and 14 is 2025‑03‑17, with two consequences:

1. Intervening art becomes available. Under § 102(a)(1), publications more than one year before 2025‑03‑17 (i.e., before 2024‑03‑17) are prior art with no grace-period exception. That reaches, among the "Similar Documents" candidates previously excluded as temporally impossible: US 2024/0084984 A1 (published 2024‑03‑14) — Diem's own continuation publication, same disclosure as R1 — which falls three days outside the grace period. Check that date carefully; it is very close.
2. Known-art framing improves. Any 2024 third-party publication in the extruded-luminaire space becomes citable, and the "state of the art" narrative gets stronger.

But note the counter-lever: the specification's statement that "the term RV… may mean a towable unit or a motorized unit" and the whole ceiling-board/joist/retaining-strip disclosure appear designed to track the parent. Expect the patent owner to argue full support. The right move is a two-front attack: press the CIP new-matter issue under § 112(a) in district court and use it to expand the prior-art field for § 103. This is an argument, not a conclusion — verify by comparing the '411 specification against the '396 specification and provisional 63/614,739 line by line.

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10. Recommended verification steps before filing anything

1. Pull the '411 file wrapper (Patent Public Search / PatentCenter) and read the examiner's citation of US 12,276,396 B1 — was it an ODP rejection? Was a terminal disclaimer filed? Were any § 112 rejections made? The file history will show whether the patent owner has already conceded the parent/child relationship it now needs for priority.
2. Retrieve full texts and claims of: US 11,131,445 B2 (Qtran), US 7,364,346 B2, US 2009/0109666 A1, US 2005/0117331 A1, WO 2016/052486 A1, and KR 10‑0745191 B1 — the leads flagged as unverified in the Prior Art section.
3. Run the flange/leaf-spring trim search per § 4(a) — this is the highest-value use of time in the whole matter.
4. Retrieve the '396 claims to confirm whether the opening-referenced geometry appears anywhere in the parent (which would defeat the § 112/new-matter lever) and to check § 102(b)(2)(C) treatment.
5. Given the clock: the pre-grant publication issued 2025‑06‑26 and the patent issued 2025‑07‑08, so the nine-month PGR window closed on or about 2026‑04‑08 — § 112-based PTAB relief is gone and IPR under §§ 102/103 is the only AIA vehicle left. The binding date is the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of the 3:25‑cv‑00888 complaint (filed 2025‑10‑28); per the earlier scheduling summary the preliminary invalidity contentions were due 2026‑03‑16. If those contentions were served, whatever art is in them is now public to any third-party petitioner — which argues for filing the IPR promptly rather than waiting for claim construction.

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11. Bottom line

The patentability of US 12,352,411 rests almost entirely on one structural feature: cantilevered wings that are loaded against the mounting surface when the holder is snapped into place, and the resulting "tips nearer the opening / biased away from the opening" geometry. That feature is the subject of all three independent claims and is the only element I could not map to verified prior art this session.

Everything else in the claims is squarely anticipated or obvious over verified, pre-2023 art:

• US 11,493,179 B1 (Diem) — channel + side walls + bottom wall + opening; snap retention with inclined lead-in, wider-than-neck barb, securing surface and abutment surface; resilient "forced together then snap back"; fastener into the base wall; alignment surfaces facing each other. This maps with near-verbatim correspondence onto claims 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 15, 16 and most of 14/15's structure.
• US 11,168,852 — male projections on an external, surface-fastened part engaging female grooves in the channel member (the claim 8 reversal, and the claim 12 pair-of-barbs/pair-of-grooves), plus cover legs that "deflect inwardly slightly to seat" and end caps that engage channel grooves.
• US 9,565,769 B2 — extruded channel with inward lips and grooves for securing a lens, and an LED strip "springably secured" without adhesive.
• US 9,004,718 B2 — a track + snap-fit cover trim system with two parallel attachment grooves and a fastener-mounted end cap.

The strongest single ground is the asserted claim 8: US 11,168,852 in view of US 11,493,179 B1 (plus the flange reference), because the claim-8 configuration — groove on the light holder, barb on the surface-fastened strip — is precisely what US 11,168,852's mounting clip 70 / projections 72 / grooves 40 disclose, and because the patent's own claim 1 concedes the two orientations are interchangeable. The weakest link is claim 1's retaining strip with inward nubs, which no verified reference supplies.

Confidence: High on the reference disclosures and dates of R1–R4 (their own claims and specifications were read this session, with URLs given). High on the legal framework. Low on the sufficiency of any complete ground, because the wing limitation is unmapped — and I will not characterize these as complete grounds while that gap is open. The next concrete step is § 10(3)'s flange/leaf-spring search; if that reference exists, these claims look vulnerable on § 103; if it does not, the patent owner has a real argument that the "loaded-wing" geometry is the novel contribution.