US 6859831

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

Let me pull the actual claim text and check for any 2026 Federal Circuit activity.

Let me get the actual claim language and check that 2026 Federal Circuit matter.

US 6,859,831 — Analyst Summary

Scope note on sourcing: The authoritative full text you supplied is truncated — it ends mid-sentence in the detailed description ("…the other will become a"). It contains no claim set. So bibliographic data and the abstract below are grounded in the supplied text plus verified third-party reproductions; the claim overview is necessarily partial and is flagged as such.

1. Bibliographic data

Note on my own tool returns: Several hits for "6859831" were false positives for the same digit string in unrelated contexts — an FCC equipment-authorization exhibit ID, and citations of the number inside other patents' IDS/ITC papers. Those are not this patent and I have excluded them.

2. Abstract (verbatim, as reproduced on the patent)

The Wireless Integrated Network Sensor Next Generation (WINS NG) nodes provide distributed network and Internet access to sensors, controls, and processors that are deeply embedded in equipment, facilities, and the environment. The WINS NG network is a new monitoring and control capability for applications in transportation, manufacturing, health care, environmental monitoring, and safety and security. The WINS NG nodes combine microsensor technology, low power distributed signal processing, low power computation, and low power, low cost wireless and/or wired networking capability in a compact system. The WINS NG networks provide sensing, local control, remote reconfigurability, and embedded intelligent systems in structures, materials, and environments.

3. Ownership chain, government interest, and family

• 2000-10-04 filed by Sensoria; 2001-02-01 assignment from the eight named inventors to Sensoria Corporation.
• 2002-11-06 grant of security interest (Bruggere / Hummer Winblad entities); released 2006-02-24.
• 2004-02-06: "CONFIRMATORY LICENSE" recorded to the UNITED STATES AIR FORCE — i.e., a Government-interest record consistent with the DARPA/Air Force funding described in the specification. A government license/rights (35 U.S.C. 202–203) should be assumed unless the record shows otherwise.
• 2006-05-19 assigned to Borgia/Cummins, LLC (with a 2010 corrective assignment fixing "Willington" → "Wilmington").
• 2015-12-06 Benhov GmbH, LLC (by merger from Borgia/Cummins).
• 2021-10-14 Intellectual Ventures I LLC.
• Same-day (2000-10-05) PCT filings in the Sensoria portfolio include WO 01/26227, 01/26328, 01/26329, 01/26330, 01/26331, 01/26332, 01/26333, 01/26334, 01/26337, 01/26338 and WO 01/26068 — i.e., this patent is one of a coordinated family. Commonly co-cited siblings by the same inventors/assignee include US 6,732,630; 6,826,607; 6,832,251; 7,020,701; 7,797,367; 7,844,687; 8,140,658 and 7,484,008, plus the published continuation US 2010/0201516 ("Apparatus for Compact Internetworked Wireless Integrated Network Sensors (WINS)"). I have not independently verified the exact parent/continuation relationships for each of these.

4. Plain-language overview of the disclosure (the substance the claims are drawn to)

The specification (which I can read in full from your excerpt) discloses a two-tier node and a self-organizing network:

• Two-processor node architecture. A low-power preprocessor (with a Sensor Interface Processor + control processor, e.g. Z180) runs continuously on micropower for sensing, threshold/alarm detection, and platform management, and powers the higher-level "WINS processor" up and down so the application processor (e.g. Windows CE or QNX Neutrino host) runs at low duty cycle. A software watchdog on the preprocessor can reboot the application processor.
• Layered, open APIs. Sensing, signal processing, communication, platform control and networking APIs; resource-usage parameters flow up the stack and priority parameters flow down; "WINS Basic" macro language to program the preprocessor from the processor.
• Self-organizing multihop mesh. Frequency-hopped spread spectrum 2.4 GHz modems with base/remote (master/slave) hierarchy, cluster assembly by flooded "assembly packets" that oscillate base/remote role assignments and increment cluster number, multi-cluster bridging, energy-aware routing (directed diffusion), and aggregation of messages near sinks.
• Gateway to the Internet. Gateway nodes bridge the low-power sensor network to Ethernet/telephony/satellite; remote users control nodes and view data (seismic record + triggered camera image) through browser pages, and can download code.
• Also disclosed: distributed self-location (TDOA ranging, sparse GPS anchors, beamforming), security/jam resistance, PicoWINS tag nodes on flexible polymer substrates, and vehicle/automotive and asset-management embodiments (consistent with the B60R 25/10 and B60R 2325/101, /105 classifications of record).

5. Claim overview — partial, with explicit uncertainty

What I can verify from retrievable claim text:

• Claim 1 is an apparatus claim to a "node." This is established because dependent claim 54 recites "The node of claim 1, wherein the node is contained in a sealed and waterproof system," and another dependent claim recites "The node of claim 1, wherein the environment is at least one of electronic equipment, mechanical equipment, electro-mechanical equipment, a facility, a structure, a material, a transportation system, a vehicle, an outdoor area, an indoor area, a mixed indoor and outdoor area, a biological system, an animal, and a person."
• There is at least one independent means-plus-function claim, with a retrieved fragment: "…means for coupling the network node, said node comprising at least one sensor, and a plurality of network elements among an environment and at least one remote computer; means for collecting data from the environment; means for receiving signals that remotely control the network node; means for providing node information from the node to the plurality of network elements…" (the source contains an apparent typographical duplication, "an a plurality of network elements," which I am reproducing literally rather than correcting). That fragment maps directly onto the disclosed node functions: sense the environment → collect data → accept remote control → report node information to other network elements/remote computer.
• Claim count: at least 54 claims (claim 54 exists), of which claim 1 is independent and the great majority are dependents. The exact number of independent claims is not verified.

Uncertainty statement: I do not have authoritative verbatim text for the full claim 1 preamble/body, for any second independent apparatus claim, or for any independent method claim in this patent. I therefore decline to paraphrase "each independent claim" beyond the two items above. (Careful distinction worth flagging: the closely related US 7,020,701, "Method for collecting and processing data using internetworked wireless integrated network sensors (WINS)," is the sibling that carries the method-type claims — do not attribute 7,020,701's claims to 6,859,831.) Anyone needing claim charts should pull the grant from USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents PDF directly.

6. Search of CAFC / litigation docket activity — result

• No 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket entry involving US 6,859,831 was found in my searches. I cannot state that none exists; a docket-specific query (CourtListener / PACER / CAFC docket) would be needed to confirm a negative.
• The closest 2026 Federal Circuit item surfaced was In re: Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., Fed. Cir. No. 26-123 (docket entries dated January 13, 2026, signed by Joseph Matal), which references "…v. Intellectual Ventures II LLC, IPR2025-00840 (Sep. 19, 2025)." This is not established as involving 6,859,831. Two reasons for caution: (a) the party named is Intellectual Ventures II, whereas 6,859,831 is recorded to Intellectual Ventures I; and (b) the IPR number cited is unrelated on its face. Treat as a lead to check, not as a match.
• Documented IPR/litigation-adjacent appearances of 6,859,831 are as prior art or cited reference (e.g., petitioner exhibits in IPR2023-00078, American Honda Motor Co. v. Intellectual Ventures), including a foreign-office citation of columns 67–76 / Figs. 22, 36, 50, 51 against another applicant's claims. None of these show 6,859,831 itself as the challenged patent.
• Practical relevance point: with an adjusted expiration of 2022-11-06 and "Expired – Lifetime" status, the patent cannot support ongoing injunctive relief in 2026, though pre-expiry damages and appeals of earlier judgments are not foreclosed by expiry.

7. Bottom line

US 6,859,831 is the foundational Sensoria/UCLA "WINS NG" node patent — priority 1999-10-06, filed 2000-10-04, granted 2005-02-22 — claiming a compact, low-power, layered sensor node (with a means-plus-function counterpart claim) that senses an environment, receives remote control signals, and reports to other network elements and a remote computer, and that (per dependents) is sealed/waterproof and deployable in environments ranging from equipment and structures to vehicles and biological systems. Originally Sensoria, via Borgia/Cummins and Benhov to Intellectual Ventures I LLC; subject to a recorded U.S. Air Force confirmatory license; now expired. I found no verified 2026 CAFC docket activity for this patent, and I could not verify the full claim set — the source text you provided stops before the claims.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6859831 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search for the patent's known owners (Intellectual Ventures, Benhov GmbH) and specific litigation databases.

Litigation Search: US Patent 6,859,831

Bottom line up front: Based on the searches I was able to run, I could not verify — with the specificity you require (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, outcome) — any district-court or ITC case in which US 6,859,831 was itself specifically asserted as a patent-in-suit. I found considerable activity involving patents in the same family and the same current owner, but the sources returned do not let me confirm that '831 specifically was pleaded in any of those cases. I am flagging this rather than attributing related-family litigation to this patent.

Per your instruction, I interpret the identifier literally: the subject patent is US 6,859,831 B1, "Method and apparatus for internetworked wireless integrated network sensor (WINS) nodes," application no. 09/685,018, filed October 4, 2000, granted February 22, 2005, priority date October 6, 1999. The record indicates it is Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration November 6, 2022).

What I can confirm from the sources returned

Ownership chain (relevant because it dictates who could sue)

From the Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6859831B1](/patent/US6859831B1)/en):

So the only realistic litigation-capable owners were Sensoria (early), Borgia/Cummins/Benhov (a non-practicing monetization vehicle), and finally Intellectual Ventures I LLC.

Family-adjacent IV litigation (leads, NOT confirmed '831 assertions)

Multiple documents reference '831 as part of a commonly-asserted IV sensor-network group — typically listed alongside US 6,832,251; US 6,735,630; US 6,826,607; US 7,020,701; US 7,847,687; US 8,140,658; and US 7,797,367. This group appears in IV's assertion campaign against mobile/telecom defendants (e.g., Lenovo, OnePlus, Zebra, Bank of New York Mellon) reflected in 2023–2025 dockets:

• Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. v. Lenovo Group Limited, No. 6:23-cv-00307 (W.D. Tex., filed Apr. 26, 2023) — per IV's mandatory notices in IPR2024-01226.
• Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. v. OnePlus Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., No. 6:23-cv-00290 (W.D. Tex., filed Apr. 20, 2023).
• Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. v. Zebra Technologies Corporation, No. 6:23-cv-00292 (W.D. Tex., filed Apr. 20, 2023).
• Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. v. The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., No. 3:25-cv-00631 (N.D. Tex., filed Mar. 15, 2025).
• Intellectual Ventures I/II LLC v. Zebra Technologies / Lenovo, No. 3:25-cv-00231 (S.D. Cal., filed Jan. 31, 2025) — subpoena-enforcement action re the '443 patent.

Important caveat: The mandatory-notice document I retrieved ties these cases to US 7,646,835 ('835). It does not establish that '831 was asserted in any of them. I cannot confirm '831 was pleaded in these or any other complaint.

PTAB lead (again, family — not '831)

• American Honda Motor Co., Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures, IPR2023-00078 — concerns US 7,891,004 (the petitioner's Exhibit 1011 file history cites '831 as background prior art/related material, which is how '831 shows up in the docket). This is an IPR, not district-court litigation, and the patent at issue is not '831.

What the searches did NOT find

• No complaint, ITC Section 337 action, Fed. Cir. appeal, or PACER/Unified Patents/RPX case record identifying 6,859,831 as an asserted patent.
• No reported decision on '831 (no claim-construction, invalidity, or § 101 ruling).
• The frequent appearances of "6859831" in search results are almost entirely prior-art citations, IDS listings, and IPR exhibit file histories — not litigation captions. For example, '831 is cited as an X-category reference in EPO supplementary search reports and in various patentability searches; that is prosecution/prior-art usage, not litigation.

Recommended verification path (since I could not conclusively confirm)

To nail this down, these sources should be queried directly for the patent number (I was unable to complete them within my search budget):

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search "6859831").
2. RPX Insight / RPX Empower — patent-level "asserted in" lookups.
3. PACER — full-text docket search for "6,859,831" and "6859831" across districts (particularly W.D. Tex., E.D. Tex., D. Del., C.D. Cal.).
4. FreeLaw Project / CourtListener — RECAP docket search.
5. USPTO PTAB — search for IPR/PGR/CBM naming the '831 patent as "the challenged patent" (I found none).
6. ITC EDIS — Section 337 investigations.

Honest assessment

If you need a definitive statement for a clearance or due-diligence opinion, my searches support only this: US 6,859,831 sits within a patent family and portfolio (now held by Intellectual Ventures I LLC) that has been litigated extensively against mobile/telecom and financial-services defendants, but I have not found a single verified case in which '831 itself was asserted. I would not represent to a client that no such case exists without running the patent-number-specific queries in the sources listed above. If you'd like, I can attempt those queries individually to try to surface any '831-specific caption.

I'll verify the structured block's default against live sources before writing anything up.

Let me run a few more targeted checks — the WINS family and the Sensoria/IV entity — before concluding the default holds.

Let me run two final confirmation searches — one on the sibling WINS-family patents and one on the PTAB docket aggregators.

PTAB Proceedings Analysis — US 6,859,831

Verification note up front: The canonical structured block ("PTAB proceedings on file") states the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. I independently ran five web searches against PTAB docket aggregators (Docket Alarm, ptacts.uspto.gov petition documents, IPVerse PTAB-case tables), CAFC coverage (IPWatchdog, midpage), and the WINS patent family. Every hit referencing "6859831" was the patent appearing as a prior-art citation, a family-list entry, or a file-history exhibit — never as the subject patent of an IPR, PGR, or CBM. One representative example: an exhibit in American Honda Motor Co. v. Intellectual Ventures, IPR2023-00078 (which challenged US 7,891,004, not this patent) lists 6859831 only as a cited reference. I could not complete a final round of family-level searches before hitting my tool-call limit; see the caveat at the end.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,859,831: 0 (zero active, zero instituted, zero invalidated, zero sustained, zero settled, zero denied). There is no PTAB proceeding to report, so the per-proceeding template below is empty by design rather than by omission. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "the patent has been hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "its claims have been canceled." It is a third posture: the patent carries no PTAB record at all — no invalidity findings, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to borrow, and no Board-sanctioned claim construction — and it is now expired, which changes the entire defensive calculus away from PTAB and toward the damages lookback window.

Why the absence is real, and what it does and does not prove

• It is a true zero on the structured data, not a parsing artifact. The ODP block is explicit, and my independent searches are consistent with it.
• The absence is mildly surprising given the patent's profile. Per the classification and citation data retrieved, US 6,859,831 is a foundational "sensor network + Internet gateway" patent with heavy forward citation (one retrieved source tallies 223 citing references; EPO/PCT search reports repeatedly cite it as an "X" (single-reference) anticipation document against later wireless-sensor applications). Patents with that citation density and that owner profile (see below) frequently attract AIA challenges.
• The absence is not proof the patent was never asserted. I searched specifically for assertion activity and found no district-court complaint, demand-letter campaign, or litigation naming US 6,859,831 — but declining-to-assert and not-being-indexed look identical from search alone. Treat "never asserted" as unverified.

Ownership and status chain (relevant to who could have petitioned, and when)

The AIA trial window (PGR since 2012-09-16; CBM since 2012-09-16 and sunset 2020-09-16; IPR since 2012-09-16) overlapped the Sensoria → Borgia/Cummins → Benhov ownership period. A petitioner could have filed at essentially any point from 2012 through 2022 and still had a live patent to attack. No one did, on the record available to me.

Strategic summary

1. Claim status: there is no PTAB claim-level record, so all claims are "UNTESTED," not "SURVIVED." This is the single most important distinction in this report. Because no Final Written Decision issued, no claim of 6,859,831 has been canceled, and no claim has been upheld. I cannot quote an FWD disposition — quoting claim numbers or holdings here would be fabrication, and the constraint against it governs. The patent's claims remain presumptively valid under § 282 as issued, narrowed only (if at all) by whatever occurred in the original prosecution and by any certificates of correction/reissue — none of which my sources show for this number. Anyone who tells you "claims 1–5 were canceled" or "the patent survived two IPRs" is inventing a record.

2. Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty, which cuts against the patent owner, not for it. Because no petitioner ever instituted a trial, no party is estopped from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground — against this patent or otherwise. Concretely for a defendant being asserted against today: every prior-art ground remains theoretically available, because there is no prior IPR to anchor a reasonably-could-have-raised bar. Note the asymmetry, though: with the patent expired, an IPR's primary practical payoff (killing live claims prospectively) is largely gone, so the rational uses of the IPR statute on this patent are narrow (see next steps).

3. Pattern signals: none, because there is no pattern. No repeat petitioner (no petitioner at all). No PTAB-to-CAFC appeal chain, since there is no Board decision to appeal. No defensive-aggregator filing — I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar entity involvement on this patent. The IPVerse table of "latest PTAB cases involving Intellectual Ventures" shows a dense, ongoing IV campaign (American Airlines, Docker, Tesla, Lenovo filings across 2025–2026), but those proceedings target other IV patents — chiefly IV II numbers on wireless-hotspot and DRM technology, not the WINS family. That is the relevant competitive context: IV is litigious and PTAB-experienced, but this specific asset sits outside the current fracas.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion of US 6,859,831:

1. Do not build a PTAB strategy as your first move. There is nothing to invalidate prospectively. The patent's legal status is Expired – Lifetime, expired 2022-11-06. Infringement can only be past-tense.
2. Attack the damages window first — that is your best lever. Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, recovery is limited to six years before the complaint's filing. If a complaint is filed on or after 2026-09-21 and the patent expired 2022-11-06, only pre-expiration conduct reaching back six years is even theoretically compensable. Map the plaintiff's earliest notice (demand letter, license offer, pre-suit correspondence) and the six-year cutoff; that math may dispose of most or all of the claim economically before any merits briefing. Also confirm there was no intervening lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees that would shorten the enforceable window further.
3. If you do want a Board ruling — e.g., to obtain an estoppel-generating invalidity finding for parallel litigation — your grounds are wide open.* No § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists. You may raise any § 102/§ 103 combination on any claim. Be aware of two practical constraints: (a) instituting an IPR on an expired patent is permitted (see Ericsson Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, 901 F.3d 1374, on the expired '831 Ericsson patent — note that is US 5,602,831, a different patent that is not this one and whose IPR record must not be conflated with it), but (b) the Board has historically applied Phillips rather than BRI to expired-patent claims, which alters your claim-construction posture. Consider whether an ex parte reexamination (no estoppel, no § 315 bar, cheaper) is a better vehicle given that prospective injunctive relief is off the table.
4. Confirm the chain of title to title-to-sue before anything else. This patent passed Sensoria → Borgia/Cummins → Benhov → Intellectual Ventures I LLC, with a 2010 corrective assignment curing a misspelled assignee city ("Willington" → "Wilmington") and a 2004 U.S. Air Force confirmatory license. IV's assertion history includes a standing/ownership challenge (see Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Erie Indemnity Co., where defendants moved to dismiss on standing for lack of ownership on other IV patents). A title defect or missed recordation in this four-hop chain is a jurisdictional defense worth pleading, and it is cheap to test.
5. Do not link to a Final Written Decision — there isn't one. If plaintiff's counsel or a broker represents otherwise, the correct response is: "Identify the proceeding number." No PTAB proceeding number exists for US 6,859,831 in the ODP record, and my searches found none.

Caveat I want on the record: I reached my tool-call limit before completing (i) a direct Docket Alarm / PTAB E2E lookup by patent number and (ii) family-level searches on the sibling WINS patents (US 6,735,630; 6,826,607; 6,832,251; 7,020,701), which might have absorbed challenges aimed at the same disclosure. Given the structured block is authoritative and search was consistent with it, I assess confidence that no AIA trial has been instituted on US 6,859,831 as high. Confidence that no petition was ever even filed and denied is slightly lower (denied petitions are less consistently indexed), though still the foundation of the analysis. If you are relying on this for a filing or an opinion letter, run the two pending checks against PTAB E2E directly at https://ptacts.uspto.gov and the patent's Google Patents page at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6859831/en before signing.

Sources consulted: structured ODP block for US 6,859,831 (canonical); https://patents.google.com/patent/US6859831/en (status, ownership chain, expiration, classification); ptacts.uspto.gov petition documents; docketalarm.com PTAB case pages; IPVerse IV PTAB-case table; https://ipwatchdog.com/2018/08/31/federal-circuit-vacates-ptabs-decision-failure-consider-ericsson-reply-brief/ and midpage report of Ericsson Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, 901 F.3d 1374 (cited only to illustrate expired-patent IPR practice — it concerns US 5,602,831, not this patent).

I'll research the assignment record for US 6,859,831, focusing on reel/frame numbers, correspondents of record, and the NPE-signal evidence.

Assignment Chain Analysis — US 6,859,831 B1

Patent: US 6,859,831 B1 — "Method and apparatus for internetworked wireless integrated network sensor (WINS) nodes"
App. No.: 09/685,018 | Filed: 2000-10-04 | Issued: 2005-02-22 | Priority: 1999-10-06
Status: Expired — Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2022-11-06)

Source limitation, stated up front: The Assignment Center detail views (which carry the correspondent-of-record field) were not retrievable in the searches I was able to complete. The reel/frame values below are those expressly recited in the record of this patent itself (Google Patents legal events carry the "previously recorded on reel/frame" strings from the USPTO corrective-assignment filings, and an IPR exhibit reproduces the corresponding assignment document). Where I could not retrieve a reel/frame or a correspondent, I say so rather than supplying a number. No reel/frame below is inferred or estimated.

Inventors

Caveat on the table: The eight names are confirmed from the face of the patent. The individual employer at the October 2000 filing date is not documented in the sources I retrieved — I am not certifying any row. What is supported: (a) all eight executed the 2001 assignment to Sensoria Corporation (the original assignee), and (b) the specification attributes the WINS/LWIM and AWAIRS programs to UCLA and Rockwell Science Center with DARPA funding, which is consistent with the academic affiliations of Kaiser and Pottie. Individual employment status should be confirmed against the assignment documents themselves.

Unusual patterns: The requested test — "all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing" — cannot be run on this record. Post-filing inventor departures do not generate recorded assignments; the only inventor-side event on this patent is the 2001 conveyance to Sensoria. There is therefore no departure trail here. What is observable is a corporate distress pattern on the assignee side (below), which is the more meaningful signal for this chain.

Original assignee

Sensoria Corporation — San Diego, California. Founded 1998; total raised ~$11.4M; sole disclosed investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (Series B March 2000, Series C October 2002, Series D July 2006).

• Primary line of business: wireless mesh/broadband communications equipment and wireless sensor networks — public safety, municipal, campus and military/homeland security deployments; the company's own descriptions cover tracking, equipment monitoring, physical security, unattended ground sensors and vehicle communications.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Sensoria was a real, revenue-generating hardware company that commercialized the WINS research lineage (developed under DARPA/Air Force sponsorship — hence the 2004 confirmatory government license below). It was not a paper entity at the time of filing. This matters: the shell-entity finding below attaches to the transferees, not to Sensoria.
• Current status: Operating business acquired by Tranzeo Wireless Technologies Inc. (TSX:TZT), announced January 2007 (~$2.5M). Critically, the patent portfolio was carved out and sold to Borgia/Cummins, LLC in May 2006 — roughly eight months BEFORE the operating business was sold. I did not verify Tranzeo's own subsequent corporate fate in this search and make no claim about it.

Assignment timeline

Everything in this list is drawn from the patent's own legal-events record. Reel/frame is given only where the record recites it.

• 2001-02-01 (executed; recorded 2001-02-01) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (inventor→company)
  • Assignor: Newberg, Fredric; Gelvin, David C.; Girod, Lewis D.; Kaiser, William J.; Merrill, William M.; Pottie, Gregory C.; Sipos, Anton I.; Vardhan, Sandeep
  • Assignee: Sensoria Corporation
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved (the Assignment Center correspondent field did not surface in any indexed source I could reach)
  • Context: Original conveyance to the operating company — routine founder/inventor assignment at formation of the patent estate.

• 2002-11-06 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Grant of Security Interest (Patents)
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: Bruggere, Thomas (as secured party); Hummer Winblad Technology Fund IV, L.P.; Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (collateral agent and secured party)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — venture lenders taking a security interest over the IP. This is the origin of the distress pattern: the patents are already collateral by 2002.

• 2004-02-06 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Confirmatory License (see document for details)
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: United States Air Force
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved (government-interest filings of this type are routinely handled by the funder's patent counsel)
  • Context: Government-interest confirmation — evidenced DARPA/Air Force sponsorship of the underlying WINS work. Not an ownership transfer; it encumbers the title record.

• 2006-02-24 (recorded) — Reel 017286/0142 ✅ (reel/frame expressly recited in this patent's record)

  • Conveyance: Termination and Release of Intellectual Property Security Interest
  • Assignor/Releasing parties: Hummer Winblad Venture Partners IV, L.P.; Hummer Winblad Technology Fund IV, L.P.; Bruggere, Thomas (the latter two added by corrective assignment, below)
  • Assignee/Released party: Sensoria Corporation
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization release — the lenders clear their lien. Timing is the tell: the lien is released in February and the portfolio is sold in May.

• 2006-05-19 (recorded) — Reel 017636/0792 ✅ (reel/frame expressly recited in this patent's record and reproduced in IPR2023-00078 Ex. 1011)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: Borgia/Cummins, LLC, 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Fire-sale / portfolio divestiture — the IP is separated from the operating business and moved to a Delaware holding LLC, months before the operating company itself is sold.
  • Flag — recurring assignee address: the Borgia/Cummins address, 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808, is a mass registered-agent / corporate-services address, and it is the same address later used by Benhov GmbH, LLC (recited as the applicant address on WO2008019347A2 and on the face of US 9,396,746 B2). Two successive assignees sharing one registered-agent address is a concrete chaining indicator rather than a naming inference.

• 2010-07-23 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correcting assignee's city of residence, previously misspelled "Willington")
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: Borgia/Cummins, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Change of name/address only — administrative correction to the 017636/0792 recording; no change in ownership.

• 2010-10-01 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (adding two executing parties to the conveying-party data previously recorded at reel 017286/0142)
  • Assignor: Bruggere, Thomas; Hummer Winblad Technology Fund IV, L.P.; Hummer Winblad Venture Partners IV, L.P.
  • Assignee: Sensoria Corporation
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Record hygiene on a dead chain — correcting the 2006 lien release four years later; typical of a holder assembling a clean chain of title for enforcement.

• 2015-12-06 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved (Google Patents legal events list this as "MERGER")

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Borgia/Cummins, L.L.C.
  • Assignee: Benhov GmbH, LLC, Wilmington, DE (same registered-agent address)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg / aggregation — the LLC is merged into an IV-style holding vehicle. Note the distinctive naming: a "GmbH, LLC" Delaware shell appearing in the same enumerations as Intellectual Ventures Holding 70/71/72 LLC and Bernhausen Fugh GmbH (per the KIPO-compiled IV entity list).

• 2021-10-14 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Benhov GmbH, LLC
  • Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (current assignee of record)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — the patent is consolidated into the IV I entity that holds the asserted family.

• 2022-11-06 — Adjusted expiration; patent expired.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6859831
    1998 : Sensoria founded in San Diego
    1999 : Priority date for the WINS family
    2000 : Application filed by Sensoria
    2001 : Inventors assign to Sensoria
    2002 : Security interest to Hummer Winblad
    2004 : Confirmatory license to US Air Force
    2005 : Patent issued
    2006 : Security interest released
         : Assigned to Borgia Cummins LLC
    2007 : Sensoria operating business sold to Tranzeo
    2010 : Two corrective assignments recorded
    2015 : Merged into Benhov GmbH LLC
    2021 : Assigned to Intellectual Ventures I LLC
    2022 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (moderate-to-strong).
Evidence: the May 2006 transfer at reel 017636/0792 moved the patent from the operating company (Sensoria, a product-shipping hardware vendor) to Borgia/Cummins, LLC, a Delaware LLC whose only recited address is 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808 — a mass registered-agent/corporate-services address. That LLC was subsequently merged into Benhov GmbH, LLC, which sits at the same address and holds a portfolio spanning disk drives, hearing aids, SRAM, media streaming and vehicle internetworks — the signature of an aggregation vehicle, not an operating business. I found no product evidence for either entity. Caveat: I could not retrieve a registered-agent filing naming the agent of record or the single member, so the "single-member LLC / registered-agent service" sub-tests are supported by address and conduct rather than by a corporate filing I read directly.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (strong).
The current assignee is Intellectual Ventures I LLC (2021-10-14), and the intermediate Benhov GmbH, LLC is listed by Unified Patents with Parent Company: Intellectual Ventures LLC (see the Unified Patents patent pages for US 2017/0289323 and US 2012/0079149, which show "Parent Company: Intellectual Ventures LLC … Behnov Gmbh LLC … Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC"). IV is a listed high-frequency plaintiff; Benhov GmbH, LLC is itself the named patent owner in PTAB proceedings (e.g., IPR2017-00934, petitioner K/S HIMPP, patent 8,768,147). The same IV I entity is reportedly asserting family members against Lenovo, OnePlus and Zebra in 2023–2025 W.D. Tex. actions.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data not retrieved).
I was unable to retrieve any correspondent-of-record for any recording in this chain. Every field above reads "not retrieved" for a reason: the Assignment Center detail data (which is where correspondent/attorney appears) did not surface through the sources I could reach, and I will not name an attorney or law firm without a reel/frame to anchor it. This is the single highest-value gap in this report — the correspondent on reels 017636/0792 and 017286/0142 is exactly where the repeat-player tell would show up.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT under the 24-month chained-LLC test, but see the 2006 compression.
The LLC-to-LLC hops are spaced 2006 → 2015 → 2021, well outside 24 months. However, the 2006 sequence is compressed and orderly and belongs in the record: lien release recorded 2006-02-24 (reel 017286/0142) → portfolio assignment recorded 2006-05-19 (reel 017636/0792) → operating company sold January 2007. Three title events in eleven months, framed by a secured-lender release, is a textbook pre-sale title-clearing sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — UNCLEAR.
The last transfer to an assertion-capable owner is 2021-10-14. I could not verify that '831 itself was asserted (my earlier litigation search found no verified caption naming 6,859,831 as a patent-in-suit), so I cannot measure the transfer-to-suit interval for this patent. If the '831 patent was swept into the 2023 W.D. Tex. family campaign as an unasserted portfolio member, the interval would be ~17–30 months — outside the 6-month window. The patent also expired 2022-11-06, which sharply limits any assertion thesis.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT as a bankruptcy; adjacent distress facts PRESENT.
I found no Chapter 7/11 filing for Sensoria. What the record does show is distress of a different, well-documented kind: IP pledged as collateral in 2002-11-06, lien released 2006-02-24, entire patent estate sold to a holding LLC 2006-05-19, and the residual operating business sold for a modest ~$2.5M in January 2007. Functionally this is a fire-sale of the estate, but the label "bankruptcy fire-sale" would be inaccurate.

7. Privateering — UNLIKELY / NOT PRESENT.
Sensoria did not sell to an NPE to go sue its competitors; it sold its IP and then sold itself, exiting the business. There is no evidence Sensoria retained a beneficial interest or used the transferee as a proxy litigator. On the available record this is a monetization exit, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Intellectual Ventures I LLC, the inverse of neutralization. No RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN encumbrance appears anywhere in the record.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals are independently supported by citable record entries: (i) a shell-entity transfer, in which the patent left the operating company Sensoria at reel 017636/0792 (recorded 2006-05-19) for Borgia/Cummins, LLC at the mass registered-agent address 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808, later merged into Benhov GmbH, LLC at the same address; and (ii) a known asserter in the chain, since Benhov GmbH, LLC is identified by Unified Patents as having parent company Intellectual Ventures LLC, and the current assignee of record is Intellectual Ventures I LLC (2021-10-14). The 2006 sequence of lien release at reel 017286/0142 (2006-02-24) followed by portfolio assignment three months later, with the operating business sold off eight months after that, corroborates that this patent chain was assembled for licensing/assertion rather than for products. Two qualifications belong on the record: I could not verify any case in which '831 itself was asserted, and the patent expired 2022-11-06, so the assertion value of this specific patent is historical.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 6859831). Mirror index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

I'll run targeted searches for the cited prior art references of US 6,859,831.

I have the beginning of the examiner-cited reference list. Let me pull the complete list from additional sources.

I hit my search-step limit before I could complete two of the follow-up queries, so the list below is what I recovered plus an explicit statement of what remains unretrieved. Here is the prior-art analysis you asked for.

Prior Art Analysis — US 6,859,831 B1

Subject patent (interpreted literally, no auto-correction): US 6,859,831 B1, Method and apparatus for internetworked wireless integrated network sensor (WINS) nodes, application no. 09/685,018, filed 2000-10-04, priority 1999-10-06, granted 2005-02-22 (B1, i.e., no pre-grant publication). Inventors: Gelvin, Girod, Kaiser, Merrill, Newberg, Pottie, Sipos, Vardhan. Original assignee Sensoria Corp.

Governing law: Because the effective filing date predates 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies. Every reference on the face of this patent issued before both the 2000-10-04 filing date and the 1999-10-06 priority date, so each qualifies as prior art — most under § 102(b); the latest-issued ones (1999 issue dates) under § 102(a).

Three mandatory caveats before the list

1. I still do not have the claim text. The authoritative full text you supplied terminates mid-sentence in the detailed description and contains no claims. As established in the earlier sections, claim 1 is an independent apparatus claim to a "node"; there is at least one independent means-plus-function claim; claim 54 is a dependent. Any claim-by-claim § 102 mapping produced without the claim set is provisional by definition. I label the mappings below as plausible targets, not anticipation conclusions.
2. I could not open the USPTO-native record (Patent Public Search / PPUBS or PatentCenter) within my search budget. The reference list below is drawn from a third-party reproduction of the '(56) References Cited' block on the '831 front page (SumoBrain, mirroring the printed grant), cross-checked against Google Patents family pages. Verify against the grant PDF before relying on it.
3. The recovered list is truncated. The reproduction I retrieved cuts off at US 5,907,491 (1999-05-25). The front page of a 2005 B1 grant of this length almost certainly continues with additional U.S. references, plus Foreign Patent Documents and Other References (non-patent literature). Those remaining entries are not in my data and I will not guess at them.

A. U.S. patent documents cited in US 6,859,831 (examiner-cited prior art)

Dates shown are the issue/publication dates as printed. Filing dates were not returned by my sources — I am not supplying them rather than inferring them.

Inventor-overlap note on #14 (US 5,659,195, Kaiser et al., 257/415). William J. Kaiser is a named inventor of '831. If this is the same Kaiser, it is an inventor's own earlier patent. It still qualifies as § 102(a)/(b) art on its 1997-08-19 issue date, but for obviousness purposes pre-AIA § 103(c) common-ownership/inventive-entity considerations and any § 102(e) interplay would need to be checked against the actual assignee record at the time. Verify inventor identity and assignment before relying on this reference.

Numbering caution on #12. The printed citation my source reproduces is US 5,475,687 (Markkula, Jr. et al., 1995-12-12, class 370/85.1) bearing the title "Network and intelligent cell for providing sensing, bidirectional communications and control." A different patent with that identical title, US 4,918,690, also surfaced in my results (it is a citing patent, i.e., its page lists '831). I am reporting the number literally as printed and flagging that the title/number pairing should be confirmed on the grant face — I am not correcting either number.

B. Not-cited-in-'831 references that are nonetheless highly probative

These were not cited against '831. They appeared against sibling Sensoria applications in foreign search reports, and I list them because a competent invalidity analysis must consider them even though the examiner did not stamp them on '831:

C. Which references are most relevant, and the § 102 bottom line

Ranking by apparent technical proximity to what '831 actually claims (a compact low-power node that senses an environment, accepts remote control, and reports to other network elements and a remote computer, and — per the dependents — is sealed/waterproof and deployable across environments from equipment and structures to vehicles and biological systems):

1. US 5,475,687 (Markkula, Jr. et al.) — intelligent network cell with sensing and bidirectional communication and control. Closest to the claim-1 "node" concept and to the disclosed control-loop application.
2. US 5,295,154 / US 5,428,636 (Meier / Meier et al.) — RF LAN of remotes into a base. Closest to the wireless node-to-gateway topology.
3. US 5,241,542 (Natarajan et al.) — battery-efficient scheduled access. Closest to the low-duty-cycle, energy-conserving communication limitation.
4. US 5,732,074 (Spaur et al.) — mobile wireless node, long-range reporting. Closest to the "gateway to external network" concept.
5. The Canada et al. family (4,520,674; 5,726,911; 5,852,351; 5,854,994; 5,907,491) — the single largest block of cited art, all directed to machine-condition monitoring with remote transmission. Collectively they map onto the condition-based-maintenance embodiments, and one of them is the actual subject of an IPR exhibit path I found (IPR2023-00078, Exhibit 1011, file history of US 7,891,004, reproduces '831 at entries 20 and 30 of an IDS table — i.e., '831 used as background, not challenged).

§ 102 conclusion — stated honestly:

• None of the references I recovered discloses, in a single reference, the full combination recited in the '831 claims as allowed: a two-tier node in which a continuously vigilant micropower preprocessor (Sensor Interface Processor + control processor) senses and threshold-detects while power-managing a higher-level processor that runs at low duty cycle, combined with layered open APIs, self-organizing multihop networking, and gateway internetworking to the Internet with downloadable code and database linkage. The examiner cited extensively in the sensing, alarm, RF-LAN, low-power-MAC, and machine-monitoring arts, but the specific preprocessor/processor power-domain partition — the architectural heart of the '831 specification — does not appear in any recovered reference.
• Every recovered reference was before the examiner and the claims still issued. Therefore, as to the claims as granted, the examiner necessarily concluded that none of them anticipated under § 102, and that they did not render the claims obvious in whatever combinations were argued. A § 102 anticipation attack rebuilt from this same list, without new art or new claim construction, is weak on its face.
• The strongest § 102 candidates on paper are US 5,475,687 (if it discloses a sensing + bidirectional + control cell with the same node-level arrangement) and US 5,241,542 (if a single claimed node's communication limitation is fully met). Both require element-by-element verification against the granted claim language, which I do not have.
• Most useful cross-check I found: later search reports citing '831 as X-category art map the claimed subject matter to columns 6:45–7:50, 9:29–11:52, 23:33–27:32, and 67:31–76:34 and Figs. 22, 36, 50, 51 (see EP 3 452 903 A4, supplementary search report, US 6859831 B1 cited X for claims 1–15). That column map is the best available proxy for locating the load-bearing claim elements while the claim text is unavailable, and it indicates the asserting claim set is directed at the network/architecture columns (23–27, 67–76) — not merely the sensor front end.

D. Two accuracy flags on my own output

• A Docket Alarm extract shows an application numbered 09/684,388, filed 2000-10-04, first named inventor GELVIN, art unit 2431, examiner Moorthy. That is not '831 (whose application number is 09/685,018); it is a same-day sibling. Do not attribute art unit 2431 / examiner Moorthy to '831 without confirming on the '831 file wrapper.
• I did not find any IPR, PGR, CBM, or district-court proceeding in which '831 is the challenged patent. Every appearance of "6859831" in my results was either (a) a front-page citation, (b) an IDS entry, or (c) a search-report citation. That is consistent with the earlier litigation section; I did not find anything that contradicts it.

E. What you should pull directly to complete this analysis

1. The '831 grant PDF from USPTO PatentCenter (or Google Patents) — the complete (56) References Cited block, including the entries after US 5,907,491, the Foreign Patent Documents, and the Other References. My list is ~23 U.S. entries and is incomplete.
2. The '831 file wrapper — the examiner's actual § 102 and § 103 rejections, which references were applied to which claims, and the applicant's amendments. That is the only authoritative source for "which reference was applied to which claim."
3. The full claim set (claims 1–54+), without which no element-by-element § 102 chart can be closed out.
4. WO 99/17477 (Honeywell) — the highest-value uncited reference found; obtain its full text and compare against the network architecture columns identified in Section C.

I am flagging explicitly that I do not know, with high confidence, the complete cited-reference list for this patent, and that the claim-level anticipation targets above are title-, class-, and column-map-derived inferences rather than verified disclosures.

I'll gather the actual prior-art references cited against this patent and the contemporaneous literature before building the §103 analysis.

Let me pull the full cited-references list and the contemporaneous non-patent literature.

Let me retrieve the remainder of the cited-references list and the key contemporaneous non-patent art.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 6,859,831

Subject patent: US 6,859,831 B1, Method and apparatus for internetworked wireless integrated network sensor (WINS) nodes — Appl. No. 09/685,018; filed 2000-10-04; priority 1999-10-06; granted 2005-02-22; now Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2022-11-06).

0. Scope, limitations, and contradictions I am flagging up front

1. I was not given a populated "Prior Art section" to work from — the earlier sections supplied to me for cross-reference are the Patent summary and Litigation summary only, and neither contains a prior-art table. I therefore reconstructed the prior art of record from (a) the "Domestic Patent References" listing reproduced for this patent, (b) the prior-art figures and admissions inside the specification itself (FIGS. 1–7, each expressly captioned "prior art"), and (c) contemporaneous literature. Every reference below is identified with the source I actually saw.
2. The authoritative text still contains no claim set. The excerpt ends mid-sentence in the detailed description ("…the other will become a"). My claim-level analysis is therefore limited to the two items verified in the earlier section: independent claim 1 (an apparatus claim to a "node," per dependent claim 54's "The node of claim 1…") and the independent means-plus-function ("means for…") claim fragment. Any element-by-element § 103 chart you need for an opinion must be run against the granted claim set (USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents PDF / Espacenet).
3. Date discrepancy in my instructions: the header of the earlier work states today is 2026-09-21; this task states April 26, 2026. I do not resolve this; I note it because it affects the litigation/status discussion, not the § 103 analysis.
4. Reference contents are inferred from titles and general field knowledge, not from verified full text. I state where I am inferring. I have not paraphrased specification lines of any cited reference.
5. Reexamination flag: my searches surfaced an ex parte reexamination certificate confirming claims 2–4, 6–8, 10–12, 14–16 and cancelling claims 1, 5, 9, 13 (a 16-claim patent). '831 has at least 54 claims, so that certificate is almost certainly for a different patent (the accompanying reference list is home-automation/Echelon/X10/Metricom material, consistent with the Petite/StatSignal family, and the same list references "U.S. Appl. No. 09/271,517 … Thomas D. Petite"). I am not attributing it to '831 — but if '831 ever had claim 1 cancelled in reexam, that materially changes everything below, so verify.

1. Governing law and level of ordinary skill

• Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) applies (filed 2000-10-04; the AIA §§ 102/103 regime is inapplicable). The controlling framework is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): the "expansive and flexible approach," where a motivation to combine may be supplied by design incentives, market forces, common sense, "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions," or a "simple substitution of one known element for another." See MPEP § 2143 for the exemplary rationales.
• PHOSITA (proposed): a person with a B.S. in electrical engineering or computer science and 2–4 years of experience (or equivalent) in embedded systems design — specifically low-power microcontroller/DSP-based data acquisition, RF modem and protocol design (spread spectrum, TDMA duty cycling, master/slave media access), and networked monitoring/control. By October 1999 this person would have been familiar with the packet-radio, wireless-LAN, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)/remote-machine-monitoring, and alarm/security literatures below. I recommend this as an express finding because it materially drives obviousness.
• Means-plus-function claims: the independent "means for…" claim is governed by pre-AIA § 112 ¶ 6; per In re Donaldson Co., 16 F.3d 1189 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (en banc), it is construed to cover only the structure disclosed in the specification and equivalents thereof. For § 103 purposes, prior art must disclose structure performing each recited function (or an equivalent). Two consequences: (a) the claim is narrower than its functional language reads, which helps the patentee; (b) a purely functional recitation with no disclosed algorithm/structure creates a § 112 ¶ 6 indefiniteness exposure, which helps the challenger.

2. Critical date and which references actually qualify

Important exclusion: Pottie & Kaiser, "Wireless integrated network sensors," Commun. ACM 43(5):51–58 (May 2000) (DOI 10.1145/332833.332838) is frequently cited in this field, but it published after the 1999-10-06 priority date and is authored by two named inventors of '831. It is therefore (i) not § 102(b) art (less than one year before filing, and it is the inventors' own work) and (ii) not § 102(a) art "by others" as to Pottie and Kaiser. Do not build a § 103 rejection on it. The same caveat applies to Sohrabi/Gao/Ailawadhi/Pottie, "A self-organizing sensor network," 37th Allerton Conf. (Sept. 27–29, 1999) and to Asada et al., "Wireless Integrated Network Sensors: Low Power Systems on a Chip," ESSCIRC 1998, because of overlapping inventorship. They remain useful as evidence of the background knowledge of a PHOSITA (i.e., to show what was "well-known"), which is a legitimate § 103 use (In re Nilssen).

Usable third-party/contemporaneous art that predates the priority date (identified in my searches, not necessarily of record in '831): Kahn, Katz & Pister, Next Century Challenges: Mobile Networking for "Smart Dust," MobiCom '99 (Aug. 1999); Estrin/Govindan/Heidemann, "Embedding the Internet," CACM (May 2000 — too late); the Metricom Ricochet and HomeRF/Bluetooth materials (1998–2000, useful only as to the state of the art, and mostly too late or non-enabling for § 102).

3. The claimed subject matter, as best it can be reconstructed

I can verify only the following, and I treat it as the analysis baseline:

Working characterization for § 103: the invention, as claimed, is best read as (a) a single network node comprising at least one sensor, data-collection means, a wireless transceiver, means for receiving remote-control commands, and means for reporting node information to other network elements and to a remote computer; (b) sealing/waterproofing and environment-agnostic deployment (dependents); and (c) a self-organizing, multihop, low-power mesh with a gateway to an external network (functional/structural support in the specification). Nothing above requires the specific two-processor (preprocessor + host) architecture as a claim element — I could not verify any claim reciting it, and the analysis below does not assume one. If a claim does recite it, see § 5, Combination 2.

4. The prior art of record (from the "Domestic Patent References" listing) and the admitted prior art

The listing I retrieved (truncated at US 5,907,491; verify the full list against the grant):

Caveat: I saw this list through a third-party reproduction (sumobrain.com mirror of the patent's front page), not the USPTO PDF. The list is truncated after US 5,907,491; additional 1999–2000 references (and the foreign/NPL lists) are almost certainly of record and unverified here.

Admitted prior art (AAPA) — the specification's own FIGS. 1–7. These are the strongest § 103 tools in this file, because the applicant labeled them "prior art" and described them in detail:

• FIG. 1 control network: sensors + master + actuators "tightly coupled," master controls sensor parameters, "raw measurements are forwarded to the master," master "reports the results to a computer network" and "accepts new programming from that network."
• FIG. 2 sensor network: sensor nodes + master + user interface, "hand registered," master controls sensor parameters, reports over a "long range communication link," with "downloading of new programming… via the master."
• FIG. 3 AWAIRS network: nodes with "extensive signal processing… to reduce communications"; "multiple processors of differing types"; "ranging devices for position location"; "cooperative behaviors such as data fusion, beamforming, and cooperative communications"; "the network is self-organizing, and will establish routing to minimize energy consumption. Multihop routing is supported"; nodes "may directly connect to a computer and user interface"; "Data aggregation may be included."
• FIG. 4 distributed signal processing: a node "designated as a fusion center," decisions relayed by "specific protocol," end user "may request further information from any of the sensor nodes."
• FIG. 5 self-organization: TDMA frame with invitation slots, "contention-free channel assignments," "energy-aware" routing, "high priority messages … routed for low latency."
• FIG. 6 self-location: GPS/hand-registered anchors + RF/acoustic TDOA ranging (four-node minimum), distributed or centralized solving, beamforming.
• FIG. 7 sensor/Internet connections: camera sensor interfaced to a computer; images posted to a publicly available WWW site; "the images placed on a web site may be downloaded and modified using remote computers"; "the trigger level can be controlled remotely via the web site."

That last item is close to dispositive of the "means for receiving signals that remotely control the network node" and "means for providing node information … to at least one remote computer" limitations standing alone, as the applicant's own admission.

5. Specific § 103 combinations

Combination 1 (primary — highest-confidence rejection): admitted AWAIRS network + admitted FIG. 7 Internet-connected sensor system + Canada '491

• Basis. AAPA (FIG. 3) discloses a self-organizing, multihop, energy-aware, distributed-signal-processing wireless sensor network with multiple processors, ranging/position location, data fusion, beamforming, data aggregation, and direct connection to a user interface. AAPA (FIG. 7) discloses a wireless sensor (camera + seismic) whose data is wirelessly conveyed to a computer and published on the Web, with a remotely settable trigger level and remote download/modification. US 5,907,491 (Canada) discloses a wireless machine-monitoring and communication system — a commercially deployed, wireless-linked sensor-to-hub monitoring platform.
• Mapping (for the verified limitations). "At least one sensor" and "means for collecting data from the environment" ← FIG. 3's nodes (and FIG. 7's seismic/camera pair); "means for providing node information from the node to a plurality of network elements" ← FIG. 3's multihop cooperative messaging plus FIG. 4's decision relay; "means for receiving signals that remotely control the network node" ← FIG. 7's remote trigger-level control; "coupling … to at least one remote computer" ← FIG. 7's Web-published images and remote downloading of programming.
• Motivation. The specification's own background supplies it in express terms: the stated deficiency of the prior art is that these systems "either lack ease of use, ability to use standard development tools to extend them, and/or ability to operate in variable or hostile environments," and that the physical world should be "seamlessly connected to the many resources available through the Internet and other networks." A PHOSITA seeking remote access to a deployed sensor network had explicit reason to take the admitted self-organizing mesh (FIG. 3) and add the admitted Internet/Web remote-access path (FIG. 7), because FIG. 7 demonstrates that the combination was already being practiced for a single node. Combining is a scale-up of a known, working arrangement, and scaling is a predictable engineering result.
• Strength: Strong on the verified claim features. Weakness: the FIG. 7 system is the applicant's own admitted art, which is fine (AAPA is fully usable to show what was known), but the combination produces a system argument that depends on how claim 1 actually reads.

Combination 2 (for any claim reciting the two-processor low-power architecture, if such a claim exists): Markkula '687 + Natarajan '542 + Crawley '246 + Severson '029 (optionally + Shaw '758)

• Basis. US 5,475,687 (Markkula) discloses a networked "intelligent cell" providing sensing, bidirectional communications and control — i.e., a node that senses, is remotely addressed, and acts. US 5,241,542 (Natarajan) discloses battery-efficient operation of a scheduled-access (TDMA-type) protocol. US 4,928,246 (Crawley) discloses synchronous multi-channel data acquisition. US 4,951,029 (Severson) discloses a micro-programmable (microcontroller-supervised) security system. US 5,745,758 (Shaw) discloses allocating time slots according to bandwidth capability.
• Mapping. A low-power supervisory element that runs continuously while a higher-power processing element is duty-cycled is the natural and predictable implementation of Natarajan's battery-efficiency teaching applied to Markkula's intelligent sensing cell, with Crawley supplying the sampling front end and Severson supplying the supervisory microcontroller.
• Motivation. KSR's "simple substitution of one known element for another" and "design choice" rationales, reinforced by the specification's own admission that the tradeoff is a design option: "[i]n another embodiment, some of the more frequently invoked of these functions can be performed by special purpose processors, to reduce power consumption at the cost of reduced flexibility," and that the platform "can be upgraded or modified by substituting the processor component or upgrading only the preprocessor." An applicant's statement that a contested arrangement is a power-vs-flexibility design tradeoff is an admission of obviousness to try (In re O'Farrell; MPEP § 2144.04). Where a claim recites "means for managing power," a PHOSITA implementing Natarajan's battery-efficiency objective would predictably arrive at a supervisory/woken-processor split.

Combination 3 (for sensor-type and surveillance dependents): Vance '524 + Chatwin '820 + Severson '029 + Meier '154/'636

• Vance (integrated acoustic network), Chatwin (electronic surveillance with transceiver), and Severson (micro-programmable security system) supply acoustic, infrared/motion, and magnetic intrusion-sensing nodes networked to a central monitor; Meier's RF LAN supplies wireless local-area networking with multiple access points / roaming. Together these disclose a networked plurality of heterogeneous physical-threat sensors with wireless reporting — which is what the specification's own § 6 and the security embodiments describe.

Combination 4 (for the dependent claims directed to sealing, environment, vehicle, and GPS/location): Canada family ('674, '911, '351, '994, '491) + Zicker '564 + Beckert '164 + Spaur '074

• The Canada/CSI family discloses machine monitors deployed in industrial/outdoor environments and packaged for such use (supporting "sealed and waterproof" and "electronic/mechanical equipment" and "facility/structure" dependents). Zicker '564 (adaptive vehicle alarm detection and reporting) and Beckert '164 (vehicle computer system) supply the vehicle and transportation-system environments; the '831 classification of record (B60R 25/10, and the B60R 2325/101 Bluetooth / 2325/105 RFID cross-references) confirms that the Office itself treated the vehicular anti-theft/monitoring art as the same field of endeavor. Spaur '074 supplies wired/wireless interworking for the "automatically choosing the more secure or lower power mode" concept. GPS-based absolute position for nodes was notorious by 1999 (surveying, vehicle telematics, and the FIG. 6 admission), so any dependent reciting GPS anchors is plainly obvious over Canada '491/'994 + FIG. 6 AAPA.

Combination 5 (gateway / Internet-protocol dependents): Canada '491 + Spaur '074 + Dolin '529

• A gateway bridging a low-power sensor network to Ethernet/IP was the ordinary commercial architecture of remote monitoring by 1998–1999 (Canada '491; Spaur '074 for mobile-to-wired interworking; Dolin '529 for networked data objects). A dependent claim reciting "a gateway" or "coupling the node to the Internet" adds nothing patentable over these.

6. Consolidated motivation-to-combine rationales (KSR/MPEP § 2143)

1. Same field / analogous art. All references are drawn from wireless monitoring, sensing-and-control, low-power RF networking, surveillance, or remote telemetry — the identical field, and reasonably pertinent to the problem the inventor faced.
2. Common problem. Energy, bandwidth, scalability, and remote access are the stated problems in the '831 background; each reference addresses one of them.
3. Design incentive / market forces. The World Wide Web was public from 1993; the specification itself says the goal is to connect the physical world to "the many resources available through the Internet." The commercial incentive to add Web/browser remote access to an existing sensor network is the kind of "design incentive" and "market force" KSR sanctions.
4. Predictable results. Networking sensors to a hub and exposing the hub to a remote client yields predictable aggregation and monitoring results without a change in operating principle — the KSR "predictable variation."
5. Finite number of identified, predictable solutions. The mesh + gateway + browser-control architecture was one of a small set of known configurations; the specification's own figures 1–7 enumerate essentially that set.
6. Design-choice admissions by the applicant. The power-vs-flexibility and processor-substitution passages (§ 1 and § 5, Combination 2) admit that the contested allocation of function was a design option.
7. Well-known-technique rationale. TDMA duty cycling, master/slave spread-spectrum clustering, threshold-based wake-up, and TDOA ranging were all notoriously known; using them in the claimed combination is applying a known technique to a known structure to yield a predictable result.

7. Anticipated rebuttals and objective indicia — and why they are weak here

8. Weaknesses in the § 103 case — be candid with your client

1. No claim set = no chart. The strongest material fact limiting this analysis is that the granted claims are not in the source text. A § 103 opinion that does not map each limitation to a reference is not an opinion; it is a hypothesis. Everything above is a framework and candidate combinations, not a finished rejection.
2. Overlapping inventorship disqualifies the most on-point references. The best contemporary literature (Pottie & Kaiser, CACM May 2000; Sohrabi/Pottie; Asada/Pottie/Kaiser) is either the inventors' own work or post-priority, so the deep technical detail available for a WINS-focused rejection is not usable as § 102/§ 103 art — it is usable only to establish the PHOSITA's level of skill and what was well-known.
3. The prior art of record here is old and mostly analogue. Abrams (1983), Canada '674 (1985), Vance (1987) are pre-Internet-era and their collective teaching of Internet connectivity is thin; the Internet-specific teaching has to come from the applicant's own FIG. 7 admission (which is fine) or from later references (which risk priority problems). Combination 1 leans heavily on AAPA for this reason.
4. The "Internet" hook is applicant-supplied. A rejection built primarily on the applicant's own background statements is defensible but invites the argument that the specification's "prior art" description of FIG. 7 is over-broad or not enabled. Expect that fight.
5. Dependent-claim survival risk. With 54+ claims and claim 1 extremely broad, it is plausible that the broad independent claims are the vulnerable ones while a handful of dependents reciting specific structure (e.g., the Sensor Interface Processor with programmable anti-aliasing filters, the dual-mode modem simultaneously joining two clusters, the software watchdog reboot) are not rendered obvious by the above. A complete invalidity position likely requires art not present in my results — e.g., a reference disclosing the dual-mode, two-cluster-simultaneous modem.
6. A dark-horse possibility that cuts the other way: if '831's claim 1 is a purely functional means-plus-function claim with no disclosed structure or algorithm, the patentee faces § 112 ¶ 6 indefiniteness (and, on the apparatus side, a Williamson v. Citrix (Fed. Cir. 2015) failure-to-structure risk). That is a § 112 problem, not § 103, but it is often the easier attack — and note it is measured under post-AIA law only for the standard, not the statute applicable here.

9. Conclusion

Bottom line: On the record I can verify, US 6,859,831 has significant, articulable § 103 exposure, but I cannot responsibly say the claims are invalid, because the claims are not in the source text.

• The single strongest combination is: admitted prior art AWAIRS network (specification FIG. 3) + admitted prior-art Web-published, remotely-controllable sensor system (FIG. 7) + US 5,907,491 (Canada, Wireless machine monitoring and communication system), motivated by the applicant's own stated objective of seamlessly linking sensor networks to the Internet. This combination reaches the verified functional limitations (sense → collect → receive remote control → report to network elements and a remote computer) and is anchored in the applicant's own admissions, which are the least contestable evidence in the file.
• Supporting combinations for the power-architecture, sensor-type, environment/vehicle, sealing, and gateway dependents: Markkula '687 + Natarajan '542 + Crawley '246 + Severson '029; Vance '524 + Chatwin '820 + Meier '154/'636; the Canada/CSI family + Zicker '564 + Beckert '164 + Spaur '074; and Canada '491 + Spaur '074 + Dolin '529.
• Practical context: with an adjusted expiration of 2022-11-06 and "Expired – Lifetime" status, § 103 validity in April 2026 matters only for pre-expiry damages/enforcement or appeals of earlier determinations; and no verified docket naming '831 itself as an asserted patent was found (see the earlier Litigation section). If the objective is a validity opinion for a past period, note that a pre-AIA claim-construction standard applies, which can favor the patentee.

Verification path to close the gaps (in priority order):

1. USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents PDF for Appl. 09/685,018 — pull the complete granted claim set and any reexamination certificate. (Confirm whether the 16-claim reexam certificate in my results touches '831.)
2. Global Dossier — confirm the complete "References Cited" list (the one I retrieved stops at US 5,907,491) and the foreign/NPL lists.
3. Confirm whether any of the over-100 family siblings (US 6,832,251; 6,826,607; 6,732,630; 7,020,701; 7,797,367; 7,844,687; 8,140,658; 7,484,008) were rejected over the same art — a sibling's prosecution history is excellent evidence of what the Office considered obvious.
4. For any claim reciting the dual-mode, two-cluster-simultaneous modem or the SIP, search art outside the "Domestic Patent References" list — the record I retrieved does not contain a clear primary reference for those specific features.

Cited sources for the above: the '831 record at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6859831B1](/patent/US6859831B1)/en; the "Domestic Patent References" reproduction at https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Method-apparatus-internetworked-wireless-integrated/[6859831](/patent/6859831).html (truncated list, third-party mirror); Pottie & Kaiser, CACM 43(5):51–58 (May 2000), https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/332833.332838 (identified and excluded as non-prior-art); Sohrabi et al., "Protocols for self-organization of a wireless sensor network" reference list, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/[878532](/patent/878532)/references.