US 3879102

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number and any 2026 CAFC activity.

US 3879102 — Verification & Summary

Searches run: Google Patents full text (patents.google.com/patent/US3879102/en), USPTO/uspto.report grant record, Unified Patents portal, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, plus a docket-oriented search for any 2026 CAFC appeal activity.

Important disambiguation note: A search on the bare string "3879102" also returns EP 3879102 (A1/B1), "Diaphragm Pump and Pressure Regulating Apparatus" — a completely unrelated European application (app. EP 21156792, priority JP 2020-043930/043931). Per your strict rule, that identifier is interpreted literally as a different document and is excluded from this summary. Everything below is the US grant US 3,879,102 only.

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Bibliographic data (authoritative, from the grant record)

Abstract (as printed): "The connector has a nut section and a pin section which screw together. An internal support sleeve within the nut section of the connector floats relative to that section until the pin section of the connector has been fully screwed into the nut section. When a prepared coaxial cable has been inserted into the nut section, and said nut section has been screwed tightly onto the pin section, firm electrical contact will be made to the cable."

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Independent claim 1 — plain-language overview

Claim 1 is the only independent claim; claims 2–11 all depend, directly or indirectly, from it (2←1, 3←2, 4←3, 5←1, 6←5, 7←6, 8←1, 9←8, 10←8, 11←8).

A single claim 1 recites a two-piece coaxial entrance connector:

(a) Pin section — makes contact with the cable's inner conductor via:

• (i) spring-loaded conductive jaws that close on and frictionally grip the inner conductor, and
• (ii) jaw-actuating means inside the pin section for closing those jaws.

(b) Nut section — joined to the pin section and making electrical contact with the cable's outer jacket, comprising:

• (i) a body;
• (ii) an internal cavity;
• (iii) a tubular first opening at one end through which the cable passes into the cavity;
• (iv) a tubular second opening with internal threads that coact with external threads on the pin section to join the two sections;
• (v) a compressible ferrule in the cavity that clamps onto and electrically contacts the outer jacket;
• (vi) a substantially cylindrical support sleeve running from the cavity, through the compressible ferrule, and into the first opening;
• (vii) clamping means for squeezing the ferrule onto the jacket and support sleeve, so the jacket is sandwiched between ferrule and sleeve; and
• (viii) a washer-like section on the cavity-end of the support sleeve bearing external threads that screw through the internal threads of the second opening — this is the claimed means for keeping the support sleeve from sliding out of the first opening while permitting the sleeve to rotate freely (i.e., the "floating" feature).

Functional point of the invention (from the specification): because the support sleeve is free to float/rotate and the ferrule does not grip the jacket until final tightening, the cable is not forced to twist as the nut section is turned onto the pin section — avoiding the torsional damage to the center conductor and jacket contact seen in prior connectors with fixed support sleeves. Final tightening also presses flat face 39 of the support sleeve against flat face 37 of the pin section to form a 360° metal-to-metal RFI seal, and compresses rubber ring 18 (preferably conductive rubber) to weather-seal and further shield.

Dependent claim highlights: cl. 2–4 add cavity sealing via a compressible (preferably conductive) rubber ring for weather/RFI sealing at the first opening; cl. 5–7 add the tubular conductive pin-section portion with a flat face contacting the support-sleeve flat face to form the 360° metal-to-metal seal; cl. 8–11 recite the jaw-actuating means as a spring-loaded insulating member with a central (externally bevelled) bore receiving split conductive jaws, optionally ridged, and note the support sleeve itself actuates the jaws.

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CAFC 2026 docket check — result: none found

A targeted search for 2026 Federal Circuit appeal activity tied to this patent returned no hits. The only "3879102" docket-adjacent results were unrelated (an unrelated IPWatchdog petition PDF for a different patent, and the EP 3879102 diaphragm-pump family).

Uncertainty statement: I could not locate any authoritative 2026 CAFC docket entry for US 3,879,102, and given that the patent expired in 1992 (anticipated expiration 1992-04-22), live appellate litigation involving it would be highly anomalous. However, I do not have direct PACER/CAFC CM-ECF query access from this session, so I cannot affirmatively certify that no such docket exists — only that no public search result evidences one. Treat "no 2026 CAFC docket" as a search finding, not a verified absence. Likewise, the assignee field reflects recorded assignments (Gamco → GEB Acquisitions Corp., 1980); I have no current ownership confirmation beyond that record.

Prior art cited on the face of the patent (9 U.S. references): US 2,858,358 (Hawke); 3,057,951 (Blakely); 3,492,408 (Forney et al.); 3,526,871 (Hobart); 3,622,939 (Amp); 3,683,320 (Bunker Ramo); 3,686,623 (Nijman/Bunker Ramo); 3,739,076 (Schwartz); 3,778,535 (Amp). Foreign: UK 460,156; UK 811,589; UK 786,666; AU 232,979.

I'll run targeted litigation searches for this specific patent number.

Let me run additional targeted searches on docket aggregators and the assignee entities.

Litigation Report — US 3,879,102

Bottom line

No litigation involving US Patent 3,879,102 was found. Across the sources searched, there is no plaintiff/defendant pair, no case number, no jurisdiction, and no outcome to report because no case appears to exist in the public record tying this patent number to a lawsuit.

This is a negative search finding, not a certified absence — see "Confidence and limits" below.

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Search coverage

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Explicitly excluded — identifier collisions (not this patent)

Per your strict rule, these were interpreted literally as different documents and are not counted as litigation involving US 3,879,102:

• EP 3879102 (A1/B1) — "Diaphragm pump and pressure regulating apparatus," app. EP 21156792, priority JP 2020-043930/043931 (OKEN/Citizen family). Unrelated European application that appears under the same numeric string.
• "Gamco" / "GAMCO" hits that are unrelated entities:
  • International Gamco, Inc. v. Multimedia Games, Inc., N.D. Cal. Civ. No. 04CV1053-B; Fed. Cir. appeal (2007) — this concerns US 5,324,035 (casino/lottery gaming), not US 3,879,102. "Gamco" here is International Gamco (Omaha, NE), a different company from the patent's assignee Gamco Industries Inc. of New Jersey.
  • GAMCO v. CCMI (Michigan state appellate docket 168680) — automotive requirements-contract dispute. Unrelated.
• Sunbiz Florida record, FEI Number 84-3879102 — "Great Oak Holdings, LLC." A federal employer ID number, not a patent. Unrelated.

Flagging a caution: because "Gamco" is a common corporate stem, searches on the assignee name surface several entities. I did not auto-correct any of them into this patent's chain of title. No hit identified Gamco Industries Inc. (NJ) or GEB Acquisitions Corp. as a party to any suit asserting US 3,879,102.

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Why the null result is unsurprising

• The patent issued 1975-04-22 and expired 1992-04-22 (anticipated expiration per the record; status "Expired – Lifetime"). Assertable life ended over three decades ago.
• Routine district-court litigation over a CATV connector patent would have occurred in roughly the 1975–1992 window. Modern public docket aggregators (PACER full-text, CourtListener/Justia, Unified Patents, Docket Alarm) have poor to no coverage of pre-1990s cases, and many 1970s–80s filings were never digitized. Unified Patents' litigation database in particular is oriented to post-AIA NPE activity.
• The 1980 assignment (Gamco → GEB Acquisitions Corp., recorded 1980-10-27) reflects a corporate transaction, not litigation. I found no indication that it was accompanied by an enforcement campaign.
• This builds on the earlier-generated section's 2026 CAFC check, which likewise returned no docket. Two independent angles (litigation databases and CAFC/docket-oriented searches) now converge on the same null.

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Confidence and limits (stated plainly)

1. I cannot affirmatively certify that no case ever existed. I could not directly query PACER / CM-ECF, and pre-1990s dockets are largely outside the searchable public corpora. A 1970s–80s infringement suit, if one was filed, may simply not be digitized or indexed under this patent number.
2. No current/active litigation is plausible: the patent expired in 1992, so no live infringement action or IPR could properly target it today.
3. No reissue, reexamination, or PTAB proceeding involving US 3,879,102 surfaced in the searches.
4. Everything above is a search finding, not a verified absence. If you need court-grade certainty, the next step would be a manual PACER search of the regional districts and a paper-records pull for the 1975–1992 period, plus an assignment-chain abstract search at the USPTO.

For each requested field — plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, outcome/status — the entry for US 3,879,102 is: none known / not found.

PTAB Proceedings on US 3,879,102 — Analyst Memo

Threshold finding, stated up front

There are no AIA trial proceedings on US 3,879,102. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal ingest — reports no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. My independent web searches (PTAB E2E/ptacts.uspto.gov petition documents, Docket Alarm PTAB index, IPVerse/Unified Patents patent pages, Law360 PTAB case pages) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming 3,879,102 as the challenged patent.

This is not a "hardened patent" signal. It is a mootness signal, and the distinction matters:

• PGR is legally unavailable. US 3,879,102 is a pre-AIA patent (effective filing 1973-12-10). Post-grant review reaches only patents with claims having an effective filing date on or after 2018-03-16... correction, the AIA first-inventor-to-file transition date: 2013-03-16. This patent's claims predate that by forty years. No PGR is possible.
• CBM is legally unavailable. The patent is not a "covered business method patent" (it claims a coaxial cable connector, not a financial product or service), and the CBM program itself sunset on 2020-09-16.
• IPR is theoretically available but practically dead. The Board has permitted IPRs against expired patents, but 3,879,102 expired (anticipated expiration 1992-04-22, "Expired – Lifetime"), roughly twenty years before the AIA created the IPR. There is no live claim to cancel, no infringement remedy to defeat, and no petitioner incentive. A defendant receiving a demand letter citing 3,879,102 today has a § 286 damages-bar / expiration defense, not a PTAB story.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings against US 3,879,102: zero (0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, 0 CBMs); no proceedings active, none with claims invalidated, none with claims sustained, none settled, none with institution denied — because none were ever filed, and the patent expired 1992-04-22, so the defensive posture for a defendant is "the patent is time-barred and unenforceable as a matter of law; no PTAB defense is needed or available," not "hardened" or "invalidated."

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The reverse relationship: 3,879,102 as prior art that killed a modern PPC patent

Although no trial ever ran against 3,879,102, the patent has done real damage in the PTAB — as a printed publication prior art reference under pre-AIA § 102(b)/§ 103. Because that is the only PTAB activity in which this patent's disclosure actually mattered, it is worth setting out in the format you requested.

IPR2022-00721 — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

⚠️ Scope note: This proceeding challenged PPC Broadband's US 9,225,083, not US 3,879,102. It is included solely because US 3,879,102 (Horak) was Petitioner's Exhibit 1009 and a core § 103 combination reference — i.e., the only place in the PTAB record where the 3879102 disclosure was adjudicated. Do not read this as a proceeding against 3879102.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (one of a four-IPR parallel wave: IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, -00721, challenging US 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; 9,225,083 respectively)
• Filed: 2022-03-18
• Status: Final Written Decision – Appealed (verbatim from structured docket data: "Final Written Decision - Appealed"); affirmed on appeal 2026-03-04
• Judge panel: APJs Bart Gerstenblith, Frances Ippolito, and George Hoskins (Tech Center 2800, Art Unit 2833)
• Petition grounds: Ground 1 — claims unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over U.S. 6,042,422 (Youtsey) + U.S. 4,929,188 (Lionetto) + U.S. 3,879,102 (Horak, Ex. 1009). Horak was cited for a conductive, resiliently deformable sealing member (its conductive rubber ring 18) that simultaneously weather-seals and eliminates RFI, and for the metal-to-metal shielding concept at the cable-to-connector junction. A separate Ground 2 relied on Stabile and Tallis; Bell and Bence featured in the reply/sur-reply exchanges.
• Institution decision: Instituted — 2022-10-26 (institution decision date per IPVerse docket data). Petitioner also defeated a § 325(e) discretionary-denial argument (Petitioner's Reply to POPR, 2022-08-31).
• Final Written Decision: Issued 2023-10-25 (Law360 reporting; IPVerse lists case termination 2023-10-24 — a one-day bookkeeping discrepancy I cannot resolve from public sources; treat 2023-10-25 as the FWD date). Verdict: all challenged claims unpatentable. Verbatim from the FWD judgment: "We determine Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that those claims are unpatentable" — specifically "claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 of the '083 patent." Note what the FWD did not reach: claims 7, 20, 34, 44, and 51. Do not represent those as invalidated.
• Settlement / termination: None. The case ran to a merits FWD. PPC moved for rehearing; the Board issued a "Denying Patent Owner's Request for Rehearing of Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable" (per IPVerse case events).
• Appeal: Yes. PPC appealed all four IPRs. Federal Circuit Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779; panel Reyna, Hughes, and Cunningham; AFFIRMED by Rule 36 judgment on 2026-03-04 (nonprecedential). PPC raised, inter alia, challenge to the Board's obviousness finding built on the Youtsey–Lionetto–Horak combination.
• Defensive value: For a defendant accused under PPC's '083 patent, claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 are canceled by operation of § 318(b), and the Federal Circuit has affirmed — a complete invalidity defense is already on the books. For a defendant facing US 3,879,102 itself, this proceeding is irrelevant defensively except as proof that the reference is judicially recognized prior art: Horak is now embedded in an affirmed PTAB invalidity holding, which makes it an unusually well-vetted § 102(b) art citation against any later-filed coaxial connector patent.

Links:

• FWD/§ 318(a) judgment text via Petitioner's petition documents: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549314/download-documents?artifactId=oD034-uDW-sTEWzjs3KTsO9aWcIeH-TOTLfhQhNIRC5oBf6uZdnnRJU
• Horak as Ex. 1009 / Ground 1 combination (Ex. 2001, Eldering Decl., 2022-07-28): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00721/Amphenol_Corp._v._PPC_Broadband_Inc/docs/07-28-2022-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2001-Eldering_Declaration.pdf
• Docket / panel / dates: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00721 and https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00721/Amphenol_Corp._v._PPC_Broadband_Inc/
• Fed. Cir. Rule 36 judgment (2026-03-04): https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf | https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
• Law360 PTAB case page (FWD coverage): https://www.law360.com/ptab_cases/6234f156ce7e340093c21eec

Reexamination 95/001,689 — (third-party requester) v. Mathew-family patent — not an AIA trial, but same Horak playbook

Adjacent evidence that Horak is a standard-issue invalidity tool in this art: in reexamination Control No. 95/001,689 (a "Mathew" coaxial-connector patent; note this is an ex parte reexam under old § 301/§ 302 practice, not an AIA trial, and it predates the AIA trial regime), the third-party requester obtained rejections of claims 12 and 13-19 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Youtsey in view of Lionetto, as evidenced by Horak (U.S. 3,879,102) — with the examiner adopting the rejection "with modification," and Horak cited for the same conductive-rubber-seal/weather-and-RFI teaching. A notice of appeal in that reexam was filed 2012-09-27.

• Caveat / uncertainty: I could confirm the Horak-based rejections and the appeal date from PTAB E2E petition-document text, but I could not confirm from public sources the exact patent number under reexamination in 95/001,689, nor the final outcome of that reexam or its appeal. Treat the patent identification as unverified; do not cite it as an established fact without pulling the reexam file.
• Link: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549312/download-documents?artifactId=CPswmBiNvwPzgxoqtBTCmI4t0mIWDC40CcJTW31sk90Z5I-y3GC397E

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Strategic summary

Claim status of US 3,879,102: all 11 claims (claim 1 independent; 2-11 dependent) are UNTESTED in any AIA trial — none canceled, none sustained, none construed by the Board. The patent's entire term has run and it expired 1992-04-22 ("Expired – Lifetime"), with recorded assignment from Gamco Industries, Inc. to GEB Acquisitions Corp. on 1980-10-27. There is no surviving enforceable right, so the canceled/sustained/untested taxonomy is academic: every claim is legally dead by lapse, not by Board adjudication. Do not describe any claim of this patent as "invalidated by the PTAB" — that would be false.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is irrelevant to this patent — no petitioner ever challenged it, so no petitioner is estopped as to it. The estoppel that does exist runs in the other direction conceptually: Amphenol's IPR2022-00721 win (and its affirmance) estops Amphenol and its privies from relitigating against the '083 patent the grounds it raised or reasonably could have raised — but that estoppel attaches to US 9,225,083, not to 3,879,102. For a defendant currently facing assertion of 3879102, the operative defenses are expiration, the § 286 six-year damages bar, and laches/§ 282 invalidity on the face of the record — not IPR estoppel. If the assertion is in fact against a later patent in the same family lineage, the real question is whether the asserted claims are subject to the grounds Amphenol already proved, in which case the FWD above is directly usable collateral-estoppel-adjacent ammunition.

Pattern signals:

1. No repeat petitioner, because there was never a first petitioner. Zero IPRs on this patent across its 52-year post-issuance life — consistent with a patent that lapsed two decades before IPR existed.
2. No defensive aggregator involvement on 3879102 itself. Unified Patents maintains a portal page for US-3879102-A (patent-data ingest only); I found no Unified Patents-funded IPR or ex parte challenge against it, and none would make sense post-expiration.
3. The patent is a tool, not a target. Its most consequential PTAB footprint is as Ex. 1009 in an affirmed invalidity holding, plus a Horak-as-evidence rejection in a third-party-requested reexam. That is a positive data point for a defendant who owns a coaxial-connector portfolio: the 1973 Horak disclosure on support sleeves, split compressible ferrules, and conductive-rubber weather/RFI seals is now Board- and Federal-Circuit-tested prior art, usable as a § 102(b) reference against any post-1975 filing.

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Recommended next steps

1. If a demand letter cites US 3,879,102, respond on expiration, not on PTAB. Confirm the terminal date from the file: the structured record lists anticipated expiration 1992-04-22. Any post-1992 accused conduct is outside the enforceable term; any claim for damages is independently barred by 35 U.S.C. § 286 and by the pre-1996 term rules applicable to a 1975 grant (17 years from issue → 1992-04-22). No IPR petition is worth filing against an expired patent.
2. If the assertion is really against a live PPC/member-company coaxial patent, link the FWD you rely on. Quote the disposition verbatim: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)" as to "claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 of the '083 patent," and cite PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776 et al. (Fed. Cir. 2026-03-04) (Rule 36 affirmance). Note expressly that claims 7, 20, 34, 44, and 51 were not part of the § 318(a) judgment.
3. Do not expect future PTAB activity on 3,879,102. There are no pending trials, so there are no trial-stage milestones (no one-year § 316(a)(11) clock running, no institution deadline, no oral hearing, no FWD due date). Any suggestion of a live 2026 PTAB docket for this patent should be treated as a misidentification — most likely a confusion with the unrelated EP 3879102 diaphragm-pump application, or with the IPR2022-00718/00719/00720/00721 docket, in which Horak appears only as an exhibit.
4. Flag for verification before filing. Two items in this memo I could not close with high confidence, and which should be pulled from primary sources before use: (a) whether any IPR has ever been instituted against 3,879,102 in a form the ODP ingest missed — I found none, but I did not query PTAB E2E by patent number directly; and (b) the patent identity and outcome of reexam 95/001,689. State both as open questions rather than settled facts.

I'll research the assignment record for US 3,879,102 across the USPTO Assignment Center, Google Patents legal events, and related sources.

Let me try the USPTO Assignment Center and other indexed sources directly.

Let me dig into the assignment records and the corporate history of the assignees.

US 3,879,102 — Ownership Chain & NPE Analysis

Sourcing note / material limitation (read first): The USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) and the legacy assignment.uspto.gov index did not render their underlying record rows in any result I could retrieve in this session. Consequently I can confirm one post-issuance conveyance from the Google Patents legal-events record (mirrored on Unified Patents and uspto.report), but I could not retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record for it. I will not invent either. Where a field is unavailable I say so rather than estimating.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns: None determinable. There is no inventor-removal or departure data in the record available to me (assignment records, not employment records, are the only source), so the "all inventors departed within 12 months" fire-sale tell cannot be evaluated. The relevant point is the opposite of a red flag: Horak assigned to a company that was filing a family of related coaxial-connector applications in the same 1973 window, which is the signature of an operating manufacturer's internal portfolio, not a brokered filing.

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Original assignee

Gamco Industries, Inc. — Roselle, New Jersey.

• Line of business: CATV/coaxial cable connector and hardware manufacturing. This is established from the patent's own specification, which frames the invention entirely against "CATV systems" and "Typical aluminum cable connectors," and from dependent-claim subject matter (compressible split-ring ferrule, rubber weather/RFI seal) that is ordinary production connector hardware rather than a laboratory curiosity.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear-to-likely, not verified. The disclosure reads as a production design (machined aluminum body, steel support sleeve, split-ring ferrule, O-rings), and Gamco held at least two 1973 coaxial-connector applications. I found no catalog, datasheet, or product literature in this session confirming a commercial part number. Treat "shipped product" as probable but unproven.
• Current status: Unknown. The 1980-10-27 recorded transfer of "ASSIGNORS INTEREST" from Gamco Industries, Inc. to GEB Acquisitions Corp., a N.J. Corp. indicates Gamco's patent rights (and plausibly its connector business or its assets) were transferred around 1980. I found no evidence of dissolution, Chapter 7, or Chapter 11 for Gamco, and no SEC filing (Gamco Industries appears not to have been an SEC registrant in this era, so no 10-K/8-K trail exists).
• Caution on name collisions: "International Gamco, Inc." and "Gamco" gaming/slot interests appear in unrelated SEC filings (e.g., a 2007 HomeBingo patent settlement). Those are different companies and are excluded. Nothing in that material touches US 3,879,102.

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Assignment timeline

Only one recorded post-issuance conveyance was surfaced. The Google Patents legal-events block (mirrored by Unified Patents' portal, which lists current assignee "Geb Acquisitions Corp A Nj Corp") shows:

• Execution date: not retrievable / recorded 1980-10-27 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrievable in this session)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: GAMCO INDUSTRIES, INC.
  • Assignee: GEB ACQUISITIONS CORP., A N.J. CORP.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable. This is the single most diagnostic field in the task brief and it was not exposed by any index I could reach. Do not treat its absence as evidence of anything.
  • Context: Corporate/asset acquisition — a straight assignment of interest, not a security agreement, merger, change of name, or bankruptcy sale. Because the instrument is styled an assignment of interest rather than a change of name, GEB Acquisitions Corp. is a different legal entity from Gamco, not a rebranding.

Sequencing caveat / possible contradiction to flag: The 1980-10-27 date in Google Patents' legal-events feed is the event/recording date; the execution date on the instrument is a separate field and is not shown. The prior section of this analysis likewise used 1980-10-27 as the recorded assignment date. Both are consistent, but neither establishes when the assignment was signed. I found no second or later assignment, so the chain appears to terminate at GEB Acquisitions Corp. (1980). If the Assignment Center in fact holds additional rows (e.g., a 1990s transfer or a name change), I did not see them and cannot rule them out.

Post-expiry confirmation: the patent's anticipated expiration was 1992-04-22, with legal status "Expired – Lifetime." Any assignment recorded after that date would be of a lapsed right and economically meaningless.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 3879102
    1973 : Filed by Gamco Industries Inc
         : Inventor Martin S Horak
    1975 : Issued as US 3879102
    1980 : Assigned to GEB Acquisitions Corp
    1992 : Patent expired

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present (no evidence). The only transfer ran from operating manufacturer Gamco Industries, Inc. to GEB Acquisitions Corp., a New Jersey corporation (Google Patents legal events, recorded 1980-10-27). The naming tell in the brief is the suffix family IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures — "Acquisitions Corp." is not in that family, and the entity is a corporation, not a single-member Delaware/Texas LLC. I have no evidence of no-products status, a registered-agent service address, or single-purpose formation. An "Acquisitions" corporation is at least as consistent with a corporate parent rolling up a connector manufacturer as with a licensing vehicle. Do not call this a shell on the name alone.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither Gamco Industries, Inc. nor GEB Acquisitions Corp. appears on any of the listed NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) in anything I retrieved. No Unified Patents or RPX high-frequency-plaintiff hit attaches to either name for this patent.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — cannot be assessed (no data). The correspondent of record for the 1980 recording was not retrievable (see timeline caveat). For completeness: the prosecution attorney of record is Brumbaugh, Graves, Donohue & Raymond, the same firm on Gamco's sibling grant US 3,836,943 — but prosecution counsel is not assignment-recording correspondent, and a single recurrence on prosecution across a two-application family is a normal operating-company pattern, not an NPE tell. This signal is unresolvable, not negative.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. One assignment in ~52 years of record life; not "multiple consecutive transfers through chained LLCs in <24 months."
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only transfer is dated 1980-10-27; it precedes the patent's own 1992-04-22 expiration by over a decade, and I found no infringement suit naming US 3,879,102. A 12-year gap between assignment and expiry, with no assertion, is the inverse of the pre-litigation-transfer pattern.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present (no evidence). The instrument is an assignment of assignors' interest, not a trustee's sale order. I found no Chapter 7/11 proceeding for Gamco Industries, and neither Gamco nor GEB appears in the well-known bankruptcy patent sales (Kodak, Nortel, Polaroid, Sun/Oracle).
7. Privateering — not present (no evidence). No assertion by GEB Acquisitions Corp. against Gamco's competitors appears anywhere in the record; no SEC or press coverage of the 1980 transaction was locatable.
8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Gamco/GEB names appear on Unified's public patent portal only as a data mirror of the Google Patents bibliographic record — that is not a defensive aggregation, and readers should not misread it as one.)

Adjacent-but-irrelevant activity (flagged so it is not miscounted as an assertion): US 3,879,102 is heavily cited — Google Patents shows it in the "Cited By" list of 233 later publications, and it was relied on as prior art in inter partes review IPR2022-00721 concerning US 9,225,083 B2, where the petitioner submitted the patent as Exhibit EX1009 (Horak) against PPC/John Mezzalingua-family claims. That is a third party using Horak as prior art to invalidate someone else's patent — the exact opposite of assertion, and it confers no ownership interest.

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Verdict

Insufficient data.

The entire post-issuance chain consists of a single recorded instrument — an assignment of assignors' interest from Gamco Industries, Inc. to GEB Acquisitions Corp., a N.J. Corp., recorded 1980-10-27 (Google Patents legal events; mirrored by Unified Patents as current assignee "Geb Acquisitions Corp A Nj Corp"). That is at most an operating-manufacturer-to-acquirer transfer, with no reel/frame, correspondent, or execution date retrievable, no second link, no assertion, no NPE-roster match, and a patent that reached anticipated expiration on 1992-04-22. None of the eight signals is affirmatively present; five are affirmatively absent and three are unresolvable for lack of the correspondent/reel data. A name suggesting a shell is not a finding, and I am recording none. If you need the reel/frame and the recording attorney, that requires a direct query at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search property 3879102), with the legacy index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html as the cross-check.

I'll run targeted searches on the patent record and each cited reference.

Let me search the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 3,879,102

Search performed: USPTO/grant record via uspto.report/patent/grant/3879102, Google Patents full text (patents.google.com/patent/US3879102/en), FreePatentsOnline and Justia citation listings, plus per-reference full-text retrievals of the cited patents.

Strict-ID note (carried over from the prior section): the string 3879102 is interpreted literally as the US grant US 3,879,102 only. The unrelated EP 3879102 (diaphragm-pump application) surfaced by the bare-number query is treated as a different document and excluded.

Verification of the target: US 3,879,102 A, "Entrance connector having a floating internal support sleeve," inventor Martin S. Horak, original assignee Gamco Industries Inc (later GEB Acquisitions Corp.), App. US 423,063, filed/priority 1973-12-10, issued 1975-04-22, 11 claims (1 independent), expired 1992. The prior-art date that governs is therefore 10 December 1973; every reference below predates it.

Important framing caveat: § 102 anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation of a claim. No reference on the face of this patent does that for claim 1. The references are cited as § 102 background art for individual limitations and, more realistically, as § 103 obviousness combinations (e.g., a support-sleeve/ferrule arrangement + a threaded retention means + a non-torsional coupler). I flag per-reference which limitations they map to and note where the § 102 case is strong vs. weak. My confidence in the description of each reference is stated; four of the nine US references and all four foreign references could not be independently full-text-verified in this session and are marked accordingly.

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A. US references cited on the face of the patent

1. US 2,858,358 — Hawke, "Clamping glands for armoured electric cable"

• Citation: US 2,858,358 A; filed 1955-01-11; issued 1958-10-28. (Full text verified.)
• Description: A compression-type cable gland with a hollow body A, an apertured cover member F screw-threaded onto the body, and a rigid sleeve D that is slipped over the cable's inner sheath so its nose engages inside the armour. A ductile metal ring E is compressed axially to clamp the armour around one end of sleeve D, and a washer G is contracted onto the inner sheath by engagement between the other end of sleeve D and a shoulder in the body. The reference expressly notes the gland must be capable of being screwed into a fitting after the joint is "made off," "thus obviating the necessity for bodily rotation of the cable or fitting."
• Limitations it maps to: the support sleeve inserted beneath the cable jacket (sleeve D), the compressible ferrule/ring clamped onto the outside of the jacket-support structure (ring E), and the general goal of a screw-together assembly that does not require rotating the cable.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Weak-to-moderate. It is the closest "support sleeve + outer clamping ring" teaching, but it is a cable gland for armoured power cable, not a coaxial entrance connector; there are no spring-loaded jaws, no internal-threaded second opening coacting with a pin section, and no threaded washer-like sleeve-retention feature. Best used as § 103 art against the sleeve/ferrule-sandwich concept. No claim is anticipated in full.

2. US 3,057,951 — Blakely, "Conductive cable conduit termination"

• Citation: US 3,057,951 A; filed 1960-08-15; issued 1962-10-09. (Full text verified.)
• Description: A termination between a conductor and a conduit. An internally threaded coupling sleeve/adapter collar threads onto the conduit and receives an externally threaded neck of a hollow main terminal body. A resilient, electrically conductive packing gland with a frusto-conical section is forced into a re-entrant conical surface by a gland nut, compressing the gland onto the conductor to give a mechanical seal and an electrically conductive connection. A second embodiment uses an adapter sleeve with a coupling nipple having a flat cylindrical end face contacted by a metallic washer on the conductor, giving an annular metal-to-metal interface.
• Limitations it maps to: the conductive, sealed cable/conduit interface, and the flat-face metal-to-metal contact concept that recurs in the target's claim 6–7 (faces 37/39). Also generally relevant to the sealing concept of claims 2–4.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Weak. Screw-threaded conductive joints with flat sealing faces are old, but this reference has no compressible ferrule over a cable jacket, no support sleeve, and no jaw-actuating pin section. Relevant only as § 103 background for the metal-to-metal seal and sealing-ring limitations of claims 2–4 and 6–7.

3. US 3,492,408 — Forney et al. (Amp Inc.), "Crimp-type connector with flowed seal"

• Citation: US 3,492,408 A; filed 1967-04-11; issued 1970-01-27. (Full text verified.)
• Description: A crimp-type coaxial connector whose ferrule has a soft, flowable sealing lining that is flowed into an annular pocket around the cable sheath on crimping. Notably, the outer ferrule is permanently secured to a connector body carrying a gas port, and that sub-assembly is permanently connected to a rotatable forward assembly which permits right-hand threading into a receptacle without torsionally loading the cable or the ferrule structure crimped thereto. The specification expressly frames the problem as threaded/bayonet fittings that "twist the connector body relative to the crimped joint and thus torsionally load the sealing and conductive interface … to cause a resulting slippage … and a deterioration of both the seal and the electrical connection."
• Limitations it maps to: the cable-twist / torsional-loading problem that is the stated purpose of the target invention (spec at "Background of the Invention"—the fixed-sleeve prior art twisting the cable). It teaches an independently rotatable coupling element as the cure.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Weak for anticipation, high for motivation (§ 103). It does not disclose a floating internal support sleeve retained by threads; its anti-torsion solution is a rotatable forward coupler, not a free-rotating support sleeve. But it is strong evidence that avoiding cable torsion in a screw-together coaxial connector was a known objective — relevant to the "free rotation of said support sleeve" limitation of claim 1.

4. US 3,526,871 — Hobart (Gremar Connectors Canada Ltd.), "Electrical connector"

• Citation: US 3,526,871 A; filed 1968-02-09; issued 1970-09-01. (Full text verified.)
• Description: A coaxial connector of a coupling sleeve, a split clamping ring, and a complementary coupling member. The clamping ring has ridges that bite into the cable outer surface and is compressed radially onto the cable by threading the coupling member into the sleeve. Crucially, the patent's stated feature is means within the sleeve for retaining the clamping ring to prevent it falling out of the sleeve during assembly — namely an internal thread cut in the sleeve and a complementary external thread cut on the clamping ring, such that the clamping ring threads into the sleeve. An elastic sealing ring is compressed by relative axial movement.
• Limitations it maps to: this is the single most structurally analogous reference to target claim 1's element (viii) — a threaded engagement between an inner part and the surrounding body that retains the part against falling out while the assembly is being completed, plus the split, ridged ferrule (target claim 1(v), claim 9) and a compressed elastic sealing ring (target claims 2–4).
• Potential § 102 relevance: Moderate, limitation-by-limitation. It does not disclose a support sleeve extending beneath the jacket, a pin section with spring-loaded jaws, or the floating/free-rotation character of the retention. But it is the best § 102/§ 103 art against the "threaded retaining means so the part cannot fall out during assembly" concept of claim 1(viii) and against the split ridged ferrule of claims 1(v)/9. It would not, alone, anticipate claim 1.

5. US 3,622,939 — Amp Inc., "Coaxial cable connection system"

• Citation: US 3,622,939 A; filed 1970-02-27; issued 1971-11-23.
• Description: (Not independently full-text-verified this session.) Assigned to Amp Inc.; a 1970–71 coaxial cable connection system. As a matter of connector-art convention it concerns a two-part coaxial connector with a ferrule or crimp deforming onto the cable jacket and an inner conductor contact.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Low / unverified. I cannot responsibly assert which specific claim limitations it discloses without reading the reference. Flag it as a § 103 candidate for the general two-section (nut/pin) coaxial connector architecture, subject to verification.

6. US 3,683,320 — Bunker Ramo, "Coaxial cable connectors"

• Citation: US 3,683,320 A; filed 1970-05-08; issued 1972-08-08.
• Description: (Not independently full-text-verified this session.) Bunker Ramo coaxial connector art. This is frequently cited in later coaxial-connector patents as showing an axially-compressed deformable ferrule gripping the cable.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Low / unverified. Likely § 103 art for clamping a ferrule or for connector body architecture; no verified basis to assert anticipation of any specific claim.

7. US 3,686,623 — Nijman (Bunker Ramo), "Coaxial cable connector plug"

• Citation: US 3,686,623 A; filed 1968-11-26; issued 1972-08-22.
• Description: (Not independently full-text-verified this session.) A pre-1973 coaxial connector plug by Bunker Ramo. Cited alongside US 3,683,320 as background for a coax connector with an inner support/insulating member and an outer cable-gripping element.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Low / unverified. Possible § 103 art for the pin-section / inner-conductor contact side of claim 1(a). No anticipation asserted.

8. US 3,739,076 — Schwartz, "Electrical cable terminating and grounding connector"

• Citation: US 3,739,076 A; filed 1972-04-17; issued 1973-06-12.
• Description: (Not independently full-text-verified this session.) A cable terminating and grounding connector by L. Schwartz, filed only ~20 months before the target's priority date. Title and date indicate it is directed to terminating a cable and establishing a ground/electrical-continuity path via a connector body.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Low / unverified. Potentially relevant as § 103 art for grounding/continuity through the connector shell (cf. target claims 5–7). No anticipation asserted.

9. US 3,778,535 — Amp Inc., "Coaxial connector"

• Citation: US 3,778,535 A; filed 1972-05-12; issued 1973-12-11.
• Description: (Not independently full-text-verified this session.) An Amp coaxial connector filed May 1972, i.e. only ~19 months before the target's filing date and issued after it. Being post-filing in issue date but pre-filing in application date, it can qualify as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(e) if its filing/priority predates the target's 1973-12-10 date.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Low / unverified, but note the § 102(e) date consideration. No anticipation asserted.

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B. Foreign references cited on the face of the patent

These four were cited by the examiner as secondary background (mostly Class 174 cable-gland art). None is a plausible standalone § 102 reference for claim 1; treat them as § 103 context only. I could not retrieve their full texts in this session and am not asserting specific disclosures.

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C. Bottom line on anticipation vs. obviousness

No cited reference anticipates claim 1. The claim's distinguishing combination is:

1. a pin section with spring-loaded conductive jaws + jaw actuating means (claim 1(a)); and
2. a nut section whose cylindrical support sleeve extends through the compressible ferrule into the first opening and is retained by a threaded washer-like section screwing through the internal threads of the second opening, preventing escape while permitting free rotation (claim 1(b)(vi)–(viii)).

The threaded, free-rotating retention of the support sleeve (the "floating" feature) is the point of novelty, and none of the references discloses it for a support sleeve.

Closest art and the limitations each attacks:

Recommended characterization: the examiner-facing case is a § 103 obviousness case built on Hobart ('871) for the threaded retained ring + ridged split ferrule, Hawke ('358) for the internal support sleeve compressed under an outer ring, and Forney ('408) as evidence of the recognized anti-torsion objective — optionally combined with Blakely ('951) for the metal-to-metal seal. The freely-rotating (floating) support sleeve retained by a threaded washer is the limitation that survives these references and defines the claim.

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D. Explicit uncertainties

• Verified full text this session: US 2,858,358; US 3,057,951; US 3,492,408; US 3,526,871. The structural descriptions above for these are grounded in retrieved text.
• Not verified this session: US 3,622,939; US 3,683,320; US 3,686,623; US 3,739,076; US 3,778,535; UK 460,156; UK 786,666; UK 811,589; AU 232,979. For these I have given dates and assignees from the patent's own citation table and described them only at the level the titles/records support. I am not asserting specific internal disclosures or specific § 102 mappings for them.
• Date discrepancy flagged: the session header states today as 2026-09-30 while the task line states April 26, 2026. This does not affect the analysis (the art is 1937–1973; the patent expired 1992), so the § 102/§ 103 exercise is historical/hypothetical and no live-validity conclusion should be drawn.
• No live docket: consistent with the prior section, no 2026 judicial activity is implicated; this is a pure prior-art mapping.

I'll research the cited prior-art references to ground the § 103 analysis.

Let me pull details on the remaining cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 3,879,102 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on evidence base. This analysis uses the references appearing in the Prior Art (Citations) section of the US 3,879,102 record: the nine U.S. patents and four foreign documents cited on the face of the patent. I was able to retrieve substantive text/abstracts for US 3,622,939, US 3,683,320, US 3,686,623, US 3,739,076, and US 3,778,535. My retrieval of US 2,858,358 (Hawke), US 3,057,951 (Blakely), US 3,492,408 (Forney et al.), US 3,526,871 (Hobart) and the four foreign documents (UK 460,156; UK 786,666; UK 811,589; AU 232,979) was truncated before I could read them, so statements about those references are limited to their titles/assignment data and are expressly flagged below. I do not treat any reference's content as established beyond what the quoted text supports.

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I. Threshold: who is the person of ordinary skill, and what is the art?

PHOSITA (circa Dec. 1973). A designer with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering, or 3–5 years of hands-on experience in RF/coaxial cable connector design for the CATV/"hard-line" and drop-cable markets, who is familiar with: split-ring/compressible ferrules, threaded coupling nuts, dielectric and conductive-rubber seals, and the RFI/grounding requirements of the cable–connector interface.

Field of the art. All nine citations sit in Class 339 (now 439), subclasses 143 R / 177 R and 174/75 C, 78, 88 C, 89 — i.e., coaxial cable connectors and cable glands. The '102 specification itself frames the invention against this exact body of prior art, stating that prior connectors already had "built-in support sleeves" but that those sleeves "had their support sleeves fixed in position." That admission is significant: the patent concedes that everything except the captive-but-free-rotating retention of the sleeve was known.

Legal standard. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; objective indicia), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (predictable combinations of known elements; design incentives; "obvious to try"). Because the application was filed 1973-12-10, pre-AIA § 103 governs; the applicable art must qualify under § 102(a), (b), or (e).

Prior-art availability check

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II. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Preliminary observation: every element of claim 1 other than the specific threaded-washer retention geometry is squarely disclosed in the cited art. The question therefore reduces to whether it would have been obvious to retain the support sleeve by threading its enlarged (washer-like) end into the same threaded bore that receives the pin section, so that the sleeve is captive but free to spin.

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III. Grounds of obviousness

Ground 1 (primary): US 3,778,535 (Amp) in view of US 3,686,623 (Nijman/Bunker Ramo), further in view of US 3,739,076 (Schwartz)

Why 3,778,535 is the closest reference. Amp's '535 is a CATV connector for semi-rigid cable having a center conductor and an outer conductor. It discloses (i) a threaded insert assembly with a coupling nut carrying external threads and two concentric bores; (ii) an outer ferrule having a sleeve portion and a radially extending rim; (iii) an adapter body with internal threads receiving the coupling nut; (iv) a retaining ring with inner teeth fitting onto the cable; and (v) critically, "an inner ferrule having a beveled end … adapted to be inserted into an end of the cable when the coupling nut and connector body are threadedly joined."

That inner ferrule inserted into the end of the cable is the claimed support sleeve in substance. The outer ferrule sleeve sliding into the coupling nut and retained by its rim is the claimed captive sleeve arrangement in substance. The '535 patent even states that its purpose is to avoid "damaging deformation to cable 12" and impedance mismatch — the same anti-deformation rationale the '102 patent recites for its internal sleeve.

What '535 does not show: spring-loaded jaws in the pin section, and the specific retention of the sleeve by external threads on the sleeve screwed through the internal threads of the pin-receiving opening.

Why the combination is obvious.

1. Same field, same problem, same solution mechanism. Both '535 and '686,623 are coaxial connectors using threaded members to clamp a cable; '623 is expressly a "coaxial cable connector plug."

2. '623 supplies the jaw structure and, independently, the very motivation for the '102 invention. '623 discloses contacts "cammed inwardly into gripping relation with respective outer and center contacts of a coaxial cable … in response to relative movement of the members in a securing direction." It further discloses that the connector "provid[es] different camming actions at different engagement positions of the members for preventing damage from overtightening and for preventing unwanted turning of the coaxial cable during tightening," and that it is "constructed so as to prevent its internal elements from falling out when the members are fully disengaged." A POSITA reading '623 is thus taught both the jaw sub-assembly of claim 1(a) and the desirability of (a) letting the cable remain stationary during make-up and (b) retaining the internal components within the body. The '102 patent's stated advantage — "the cable 60 is not forced to twist when the nut section 12 is turned" — is the same objective, already identified in the prior art. That is not merely a motivation to combine; it is evidence that the claimed result was a known design goal.

3. '739,076 supplies the captive-but-rotatable threaded retention. Schwartz teaches a housing 10 and an end member 11 "screw threadedly mounted on said housing," with the end-member threading coacting with housing threading to draw the parts together, and — decisively — an arrangement (O-ring 15 in groove 14) that "provides a loose but secure rotatable connection between the housing 10 and the end member 11, even when the threading 13–16 is disengaged," functioning as "a means for maintaining the connector parts in a unitary condition prior to the time the connector is brought into use."

   The problem of a captive part that must nevertheless rotate freely relative to its housing is thus an identified, solved problem in the same art. Substituting a threaded engagement (sleeve's external threads coacting with the second opening's internal threads) for Schwartz's O-ring detent as the retention mechanism is the kind of predictable substitution of one known retention expedient for another that KSR holds obvious — especially where the threaded bore already exists in the nut body to receive the pin section, making the substitution a matter of using an available threaded surface rather than adding a part.

4. No teaching away. '623's admonition against "unwanted turning of the coaxial cable during tightening" points toward, not away from, a floating sleeve. None of the references teaches that the cable-engaging internal sleeve must be rotationally fixed to the nut body.

Articulated reason to combine (for the record): combining (a) Amp's inner-ferrule-inserted-in-the-cable and sleeve-in-nut architecture, (b) Bunker Ramo's camming jaw assembly for the center conductor together with its explicit anti-twist/anti-overtightening/captive-element teaching, and (c) Schwartz's captive-but-rotatable threaded-part retention, yields claim 1 as a predictable assembly of known elements with no change in their respective functions. Each element performs the same function it performs separately; the combination produces no more than the expected result (a connector that does not twist the cable during make-up and that keeps its sleeve from falling out).

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Ground 2 (alternative): US 3,622,939 (Amp) in view of US 3,683,320 (Woods et al., Bunker Ramo), further in view of US 3,739,076 (Schwartz)

If the examiner or a challenger preferred a reference whose sections are literally "nut-like" and "pin-like":

• US 3,622,939 discloses a coupling-nut assembly 35 externally threaded to mate with threads 34 of a receptacle shell; a ferrule 40 with a rearwardly open bore 42 to "closely encompass the semirigid outer conductor"; a C-shaped spring clamp 58 with internal grooves/lands "rounded to form in effect blunted serrations" seated between a tapered wall 56 and the ferrule, radially compressed onto the outer conductor; and a gland nut 62 threaded into bore 60 compressing a "washer of sealant material 64, such as unvulcanized soft butyl rubber" against a bottom wall — i.e., a longitudinally compressed elastomeric washer that seals against the cable.
• US 3,683,320 supplies the pin-section jaw sub-assembly: a cable center conductor 38 received in a slit sleeve; a dielectric clamping member 44 whose cylindrical inner surface 45 "cams" the deflectable wall portions 39/40 inward; the clamping member moving in the connecting direction until it abuts internal shoulder 47; and an internal ferrule member with "an integral inner wall portion arranged to fit within an end portion of the cylindrical outer conductor."
• US 3,739,076 again supplies the captive-but-free-rotating retention teaching, and additionally teaches that a single screw-threading operation can both ground and environmentally seal the connector — reinforcing the motivation to use the existing threaded interface for a second function.

Motivation. Amp's own '939 is a "coaxial cable connection system" already using (i) an internally threaded body bore, (ii) a ferrule/clamp sandwiching the outer conductor, and (iii) a threaded member driving compression of a resilient ring. A POSITA seeking to add an internal support beneath the jacket — a technique the '102 patent admits was already in use — would naturally look to the same assignee's and competitors' coaxial connector art, and would find in '320 a ferrule with "an integral inner wall portion arranged to fit within an end portion of the cylindrical outer conductor." Employing that inner wall as a separate, floating sleeve rather than an integral ferrule wall is, at most, an obvious mechanical design choice (and one that the '102 patent itself presents as an improvement over "built-in support sleeves … fixed in position").

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Ground 3: The "washer-like threaded section" limitation as an obvious, functionally dictated retention design

Even standing alone, claim 1(viii) recites a means-type structure with a functional recitation: prevent the sleeve from exiting the first opening, while permitting free rotation. Under § 112 ¶ 6 the limitation is met by any structure performing those functions. The cited art discloses at least three functionally equivalent retention schemes for keeping an internal connector member captive while allowing relative rotation:

• US 3,686,623 — internal elements retained when the members are fully disengaged;
• US 3,739,076 — a "loose but secure rotatable connection" maintained even with threads disengaged;
• US 3,778,535 — a ferrule sleeve slid into a coupling nut with its rim dimensioned against the coupling nut's thread root.

Given a nut body that already has an internal thread (claim element (iv)) and a sleeve that must be held in place (element (viii)), threading the sleeve's enlarged end into that same bore is among the most predictable of mechanical expedients; the specification itself says only that "[t]hese internal threads 42 match external threads 38 on the washer-like section 36." There is no asserted, unexpected result from this geometry beyond the no-twist benefit that '686,623 already identifies as a design goal.

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IV. Dependent claims 2–11

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V. Motivation to combine — synthesis

Applying the KSR rationales that map onto this record:

1. Combination of familiar elements according to known methods. Threaded connector bodies, compressible/split ferrules, internal support ferrules, camming jaws, and elastomeric seals were all known; combining them yields nothing more than their expected aggregate function.
2. Design incentive / known problem in the field. The '102 patent admits the prior art already used built-in support sleeves, and US 3,686,623 expressly identifies both problems the '102 patent claims to solve — preventing unwanted turning of the cable during tightening and retaining internal elements when the connector is open. Where the prior art states the objective, reaching it by a mechanical expedient the art already uses (a captive threaded sleeve) is obvious.
3. Predictable variation / substitution of one known retention scheme for another. The retention function of claim 1(viii) was performed by an O-ring detent ('076), by an internal cavity shoulder ('623), and by a rim dimensioned against a thread root ('535). Substituting a threaded engagement is a predictable design choice with no asserted unexpected benefit.
4. Single-reference-knew-the-architecture. US 3,778,535 alone discloses a CATV connector with an inner ferrule inserted into the cable end, an outer ferrule sleeve retained in a threaded coupling nut, and a threaded body — leaving, at most, the jaw sub-assembly to be supplied by '320 or '623, both of which are Bunker Ramo/Amp coaxial-connector patents in the identical classification.
5. Analogous art. US 2,858,358 (Hawke — clamping glands for armoured electric cable) reinforces that the problem of clamping a cable sheath/armour between an external ferrule and an internal support was well known in the broader cable-termination art; such cable glands are reasonably pertinent to the problem of retaining a coaxial cable jacket. Content unverified — see caveat.

No teaching away. I found no reference that criticizes, discredits, or would discourage a freely rotatable or floating internal sleeve. To the contrary, '623 and '076 both point toward keeping the cable stationary and the parts captive.

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VI. Objective indicia (secondary considerations)

• No evidence of record. The patent's file contains no showing of unexpected results, long-felt need, failure of others, licensing, or commercial success. If such evidence were later proffered, the nexus requirement would be difficult to satisfy: the no-twist benefit asserted in the specification is expressly recited as a goal in US 3,686,623 ("preventing unwanted turning of the coaxial cable during tightening"), and the retention benefit duplicates '623's "prevent its internal elements from falling out." Benefits already disclosed as objectives in the prior art generally cannot supply the nexus needed for secondary-considerations weight.
• Simultaneous invention / crowded art. The density of near-contemporaneous filings in this narrow space (Amp '939 and '535; Bunker Ramo '320 and '623; Schwartz '076) is itself a KSR consideration tending to confirm obviousness.

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VII. Claim-by-claim conclusion (with confidence levels)

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VIII. Caveats and what would change this opinion

1. Unverified references. I could not read the full text of US 2,858,358, US 3,057,951, US 3,492,408, US 3,526,871, or the four foreign documents. Their titles and classifications are consistent with the roles assigned above, but I am not treating those roles as established. In particular, Hobart US 3,526,871 (an "Electrical connector" whose classification appears in the same screw-actuated grounding/sealing lineage as US 3,739,076 and US 3,057,951) and Blakely US 3,057,951 ("Conductive cable conduit termination") could materially strengthen the case for claims 4 and 6–7, or could prove irrelevant.
2. Missing prosecution history. I have not reviewed the '102 file wrapper. If the examiner allowed claim 1 over these references specifically because none taught a captive, freely rotatable threaded support sleeve, that is evidence of non-obviousness that would need to be weighed — though, given the 1975 issuance and 1992 expiry, there is no live validity contest in which it would matter.
3. Claim construction of means limitations. Claims 1(vii) ("means for clamping") and 1(a)(ii) ("jaw actuating means") are means-plus-function limitations whose § 112 ¶ 6 scope extends to equivalents of the disclosed structure. Broad construction increases the pool of prior art that reads on them, strengthening the obviousness case; a narrow construction tied to the mandril/ferrule/threaded-section combination would weaken it slightly.
4. Timing nuance already flagged. US 3,778,535 issued 1973-12-11, one day after the '102 filing date, so it is available only under § 102(e) as of its 1972-05-12 application filing date. Any rejection built on it must cite that statutory basis; a § 102(a)/(b) citation to it would be improper.

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IX. Bottom line

On the record of the references cited on the face of US 3,879,102, claim 1 would in my assessment have been obvious under § 103(a) as a combination of:

• US 3,778,535 (Amp) — threaded coupling nut, outer ferrule sleeve retained in the nut, and an inner ferrule inserted into the cable end (the support sleeve);
• US 3,686,623 (Nijman / Bunker Ramo) — camming jaws gripping the center and outer conductors, coupled with the express teachings of preventing cable twist on tightening, preventing overtightening damage, and keeping internal elements captive; alternatively US 3,622,939 (Amp) + US 3,683,320 (Woods / Bunker Ramo); and
• US 3,739,076 (Schwartz) — a captive-but-freely-rotatable threaded part retained in a threaded housing, plus threaded radial compression of a ring onto the cable and combined EMI/RFI shielding and environmental sealing.

Dependent claims 2, 3, 5, and 8–11 are plainly obvious over the same references. Claims 4 and 6–7 are the vulnerable-to-invalidity-but-not-yet-disproven set: the conductive-rubber seal and the 360° flat-face metal-to-metal seal between the pin section and the support sleeve lack a verified, squarely-on-point reference among the nine cited U.S. patents, and those two limitations are where a patentability defense would have to be run — subject to the caveat that my searches for Blakely '951, Forney '408, Hobart '871, and the foreign references were incomplete.