US 7453233

I'll verify the patent's current status and check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity before summarizing.

US 7,453,233 B2 — Quick Reference Summary

Searches run: Google Patents (authoritative full text), Unified Patents portal, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, USPTO.report, and open-web queries for 2026 CAFC dockets and PTAB/reexam records referencing "7453233." No 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming this patent was found.

Bibliographic data

Note a minor source discrepancy (not auto-corrected): Unified Patents lists priority 2001-02-28, application date 2007-05-15, grant 2008-11-17, expiration 2025-08-10 — each one day earlier than Google Patents/USPTO. This is most likely a time-zone/date-convention artifact, but I am reporting both rather than reconciling them.

Abstract (verbatim, per the granted patent)

"An adapter for providing a source of power to a mobile device through an industry standard port is provided. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the adapter comprises a plug unit, a power converter, a primary connector, and an identification subsystem. The plug unit is operative to couple the adapter to a power socket and operative to receive energy from the power socket. The power converter is electrically coupled to the plug unit and is operable to regulate the received energy from the power socket and to output a power requirement to the mobile device. The primary connector is electrically coupled to the power converter and is operative to couple to the mobile device and to deliver the outputted power requirement to the mobile device. The identification subsystem is electrically coupled to the primary connector and is operative to provide an identification signal."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims (21 claims total; independents = 1, 15, 21)

Claim 1 — the adapter (apparatus). A USB adapter with four cooperating parts:

1. a plug unit that takes energy from a wall/car/air power socket;
2. a power converter that regulates that energy into a power output;
3. an identification subsystem that generates an identification signal indicating the adapter can deliver substantial energy through the USB connector before device enumeration completes; and
4. a USB connector wired to both the converter and the identification subsystem, able to carry both the power output and the identification signal.

The key inventive point versus the USB specification: the adapter tells the mobile device "you need not wait for USB enumeration before drawing significant current."

Claim 15 — the method (identification by invalid two-line state). A USB adapter method: receive power input from a socket → generate a regulated DC output → generate an identification signal that allows the indication that the adapter can send substantial energy before enumeration completes → present that signal at the USB connector where it indicates an invalid USB state using two data lines → supply the power output on a power pin.

Claim 21 — the method (both data lines high). Same method, but the identification signal is specifically configured to propagate over a USB connection with each of the two data lines being a high state.

Selected dependents: Claim 2/3 — direct socket coupling (North American, UK, European, Australian, airplane, automobile); claim 4/5 — interchangeable plug adapters; claims 6–8 — identification signal as a voltage level on one or more data lines, implemented by hard-wired connection or by a USB controller; claims 9–11 — a switch to disconnect/reconnect the power output; claims 12–13 — a second USB connector with data lines coupled through the identification subsystem, optionally powered; claim 14 — a battery receptacle plus battery charging subsystem (the FIG. 4 external-battery embodiment). Method dependents 16–20 mirror the hard-wired/voltage-level and connect/disconnect features.

The disclosure also describes an optional fallback: if the mobile device does not recognize the identification signal, the adapter can toggle Vbus on/off to simulate disconnect/reconnect and periodically feed energy (col. describing the "fooling" cycle).

Litigation / docket check (per the sources retrieved)

• Post-grant/PTAB: An ex parte reexamination 90/014906 record includes an expert declaration walking through claims 1–8, 15–18, and 21 of this claim set (Kerai and Yang+Matsumoto obviousness grounds). I could not confirm from the retrieved material that this reexam was docketed against 7,453,233 specifically, though the claim numbering matches this patent exactly. Flagging this as probable but not confirmed.
• District court (from the Google Patents litigation panel): N.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00638; E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-00118, 2:21-cv-00281, -00282, -00283; D. Del. 1:20-cv-00550, -00551, 1:21-cv-00339, -00340. Third-party reporting indicates Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC asserted the '233 patent (along with 7,239,111, 8,624,550, and 6,936,936) against Anker in D. Del. (2021), and the asserted patents are described as already expired while the litigation continued.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no 2026 Federal Circuit appeal docketed for US 7,453,233 or its family in the retrieved results. My searches returned unrelated 2026 CAFC matters (Spero v. Mercedes-Benz, 2025-1306; Contour IP v. GoPro, 2026-2012; Sung v. Samsung, 2026-1197). I cannot rule out a non-indexed or very recently filed appeal.

Explicit uncertainties

1. Exact grant date: Google Patents/USPTO say 2008-11-18; Unified Patents says 2008-11-17. Reported both.
2. Priority date: 2001-03-01 (Google Patents) vs. 2001-02-28 (Unified Patents).
3. Reexamination docket 90/014906 — likely this patent based on exact claim-set match, but not independently confirmed.
4. No confirmed 2026 CAFC activity. Given the patent expired in 2025, any live 2026 appeal would most plausibly concern validity rulings (reexam/PTAB) or damages/settlement in the still-pending district court matters, none of which I could locate.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7453233/en · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/7453233 · https://patents.justia.com/patent/7453233 · https://cmosedu.com/jbaker/expert_witness/2021/Ex_Parte_Reexamination_90_014906.pdf · http://m.iprdaily.cn/news_38407.html

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7453233. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me dig deeper into the specific litigation cases involving this patent.

Let me search for details on the specific case numbers and outcomes.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,453,233

Important framing note: I was able to retrieve the Google Patents page for US 7,453,233 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7453233/en), which lists a set of associated court cases, plus several corroborating secondary sources. I could not individually verify every listed case against PACER/Unified Patents before my tool budget ran out. I have therefore separated the cases confirmed to specifically assert the '233 patent from those listed only at the patent-family level, where the '233 patent may or may not have been asserted. Patent numbers and case numbers are reproduced literally as found.

Patent owner / context

• Patent: US 7,453,233 B2, "Adapter system and method for powering a device."
• Original assignee: Research In Motion Ltd. (BlackBerry). Current assignee: Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC ("FISI"), which acquired the portfolio from BlackBerry in Nov. 2015. FISI is characterized in reporting as a patent-assertion entity backed by Centerbridge Partners.
• Status: Expired – Lifetime, expiration adjusted to 2025-08-11 (per Google Patents).

Cases CONFIRMED to involve U.S. 7,453,233

1. Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC v. Belkin Inc. and Belkin International, Inc.

• Plaintiff: Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC
• Defendants: Belkin Inc.; Belkin International, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Case No.: 1:20-cv-00550
• Filing date: April 23, 2020
• Grounding: The court's AO 120 "Report on the Filing of an Action Regarding a Patent" from this docket lists the asserted patents as US 7,239,111 B2; US 8,624,550 B2; US 7,453,233 B2; US 6,936,936 B2; and US 8,330,422 B2 (source: docketalarm AO 120 PDF, https://www.docketalarm.com/patentapps/US/11-749,680/... and the Google Patents litigation link for 1:20-cv-00550).
• Outcome/status: I could not verify a final disposition. Unknown/unconfirmed as of this research — treat as reported-case-with-unverified-outcome.

2. Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC v. Fantasia Trading LLC (Anker)

• Plaintiff: Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC
• Defendants: Fantasia Trading LLC (Anker; also reported as "Anker HK" / Fantasia USA)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Case No.: 1:21-cv-00339
• Filing date: March 5, 2021
• Grounding: RPX report (March 5, 2021) identifies FISI's suit against Fantasia Trading as 1:21-cv-00339; a Chinese-language IPRdaily article (Nov. 2024) states FISI sued Anker HK and Fantasia USA on March 5, 2021 in the District of Delaware asserting No. 7,239,111, No. 8,624,550, No. 7,453,233, and No. 6,936,936.
• Outcome: Jury verdict (Delaware federal jury), reported March 7, 2025 — the jury found Anker Innovations infringed FISI's patents with its USB charger products and awarded more than $13.6 million in damages (Law360).
• Current status: Post-trial / ongoing. The Nov. 2024 IPRdaily reporting stated FISI's Anker litigation was still pending (though the asserted patents had expired) and that Anker was negotiating a settlement.

Cases listed by Google Patents for this patent's family (assertion of '233 NOT individually confirmed)

The Google Patents "Family has litigation" section lists the following additional matters. Because that section is tied to Family ID 26955880, these may involve sibling patents (e.g., 6,936,936; 7,239,111; 7,834,586; 8,232,766; 8,624,550) rather than the '233 patent specifically. I did not independently confirm '233 was asserted in each:

Additional note: A Darts-ip "first worldwide family litigation" link is also attached to the patent page for Family 26955880.

Related FISI cases that do NOT appear to involve '233 (for scope clarity)

The FISI cases against LG (2:16-cv-01425, E.D. Tex.), Huawei (2:16-cv-01424, E.D. Tex.), Samsung (2:17-cv-00145, E.D. Tex.), and ZTE (3:17-cv-01827, N.D. Tex.) are frequently cited as part of FISI's USB-charging campaign. However, the claim-construction order in the LG matter expressly lists the patents at issue as US 7,239,111; 7,791,319; 7,834,586; 7,893,655; 7,999,514; 8,232,766; and 8,624,550 — not 7,453,233. I therefore do not list those as '233 litigation.

Bottom line

• Confirmed '233 cases: FISI v. Belkin (D. Del. 1:20-cv-00550, filed 4/23/2020) and FISI v. Fantasia Trading/Anker (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00339, filed 3/5/2021) — the latter produced a ~$13.6M+ plaintiff jury verdict in March 2025.
• Likely/related: FISI v. Cyber Power Systems (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00340).
• Unverified defendant identities / outcomes exist for the remaining E.D. Tex. and D. Del. case numbers listed above; I could not confirm them before exhausting my search steps and will not guess.
• No CAFC appeal of a '233-specific judgment was confirmed in my search.

If you need defendants, docket-level details, or final dispositions for the unverified case numbers (2:20-cv-00118; 2:21-cv-00281/-282/-283; 1:20-cv-00551; 3:19-cv-00638), those should be pulled directly from PACER / Unified Patents' litigation portal, which I was unable to fully query here.

I'll verify the structured-data default against public sources before writing anything.

Let me run targeted checks on the patent owner, the assertion campaign, and any Unified Patents–style challenge.

Now let me pin down whether any IPR specifically targeted the '233 patent (as opposed to its Fischer-family siblings).

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 7,453,233. The canonical structured block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent, and my independent web searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, or final written decision (FWD) directed at the '233 patent. The breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied — all 21 claims (1–21) are untested at the PTAB.

The bottom line for a defendant is not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" — it is the opposite framing, and a much better one: no petitioner has ever put this patent's claims at risk, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to any of its claims, and the patent reached the end of its adjusted term on 2025-08-11. Whatever leverage the demand letter claims, it is litigation leverage from the district court campaign, not PTAB-tested leverage.

⚠️ Two caveats, stated up front. (1) I could not run an exhaustive party-name sweep of PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb); a petition that was denied institution leaves a thin public footprint. If one exists for the '233 patent, it is almost certainly in that "filed and denied" category, and it would not change the estoppel analysis below. (2) There is a different '233 patent in the wild — Philips North America's activity-monitoring patent litigated against Garmin in C.D. Cal. (2:19-cv-06301), which had an instituted IPR with an FWD due 2021-10-27. That is not US 7,453,233 and none of that analysis transfers here.

Proceedings on US 7,453,233

None. There is no proceeding to itemize. I will not invent proceeding numbers, panels, or dispositions to fill this section. If you need certainty for a § 315(b) or estoppel argument, docket the patent directly at PTAB E2E rather than relying on a secondary aggregator.

Adjacent proceedings — these are NOT on the '233 patent

These are worth knowing because they are the closest thing to a PTAB record for the Fischer family, and because the prior art they generated is reusable. Do not cite any of these as a proceeding on the '233 patent.

Key context, from FISI's own Patent Owner Preliminary Response in IPR2021-00395: "In 2017-2018, eighteen (18) petitions were filed against the Fischer family patents. In that wave of petitions, the Board denied institution in 13 instances." The '233 patent is conspicuously absent from that wave — despite issuing from the same specification as the '111 patent, which was challenged.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 21 claims of US 7,453,233 (independents 1, 15, 21, plus dependents) are UNTESTED — none canceled by the PTAB, none sustained by the PTAB. That is a genuine "no data" result, not a patent-owner win. The contrasting data point that matters: in the family's 2021 round of petitions, the Board canceled every challenged claim of the '586 patent (IPR2021-00599, FWD 2022), and FISI abandoned claims 1, 2, 9–11, and 18 of the '187 patent by statutory disclaimer rather than defend them. So the family's track record against the Board's art is mixed-to-bad on the sibling patents, while '233 rides untouched. If your case theory turns on claim 1 or claim 21, understand that you would be the first challenger.

Estoppel landscape — this is the defendant-favorable part. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is patent-specific: it bars a petitioner and its privies from raising, in litigation, grounds they raised or reasonably could have raised in an IPR of that patent. Because no IPR was ever instituted on the '233 patent, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to any '233 ground. Every prior-art theory is on the table — § 102 and § 103, in the district court and in an IPR. Note also that a defendant's involvement in the sibling-patent IPRs (LG, ZTE, TCT/TCL, Huawei, Samsung) does not estop '233 grounds; only those specific patents are affected. And the family litigation already produced a useful § 315(e)(2) fight: in FISI v. ZTE, N.D. Tex. 3:17-cv-01827, the court denied FISI's motion for partial summary judgment of no invalidity, rejecting the estoppel theory as to grounds on which institution had been denied (order).

Pattern signals. FISI ran a broad assertion campaign — Delaware, E.D. Tex., N.D. Cal., plus Mannheim, Germany — and the Google Patents family page carries Unified Patents litigation data (E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-00118, 2:21-cv-00281/282/283; D. Del. 1:20-cv-00550, 1:20-cv-00551, 1:21-cv-00339; N.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00638). Unified Patents appears here as a litigation-data aggregator, not as a petitioner — I found no Unified Patents IPR against this patent or its family. The '233 patent was specifically asserted against Anker and Fantasia USA in D. Del. (1:21-cv-00340), filed 2021-03-05, alongside the '111, '550, and '936 patents; the parallel claim-construction decision is on CourtListener. Note the timeline: the asserted patents in the Anker case had all expired, and per reporting from 2024 the parties were in settlement discussions while the case remained pending — a strong tell that the campaign is running on past damages, not prospective relief.

Expiration — the single most important fact. The structured data shows legal status "Expired - Lifetime" with adjusted expiration 2025-08-11 (entry dated 2025-08-11). The Unified Patents portal lists 2025-08-10 with priority 2001-02-28; Google Patents lists priority 2001-03-01. I am flagging that one-day/one-day discrepancy rather than resolving it — get the certified term from the face of the patent and the PTA/terminal-disclaimer record before you rely on it. Either way, the patent expired in 2025. Since today is 2026-09-30, there is no prospective infringement, no injunctive relief, and damages are confined to the § 286 six-year lookback. Any assertion of this patent today is a backward-looking damages play, which generally means the patent owner's pressure point is settlement cost, not a real injunction threat.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration. Confirm the exact expiration date from the patent's face plus any PTA/terminal disclaimer. If it is 2025-08-11, the patent owner cannot allege ongoing or future infringement. Ask for the accused-product sales windows and map them against that date.
2. Check the § 315(b) clock before considering an IPR. If your client was served with a complaint asserting the '233 patent more than one year ago, an IPR is barred outright. Combined with expiration, an IPR is likely pointless — you would be paying for a validity ruling on a patent that can no longer be infringed.
3. Do not assume estoppel cuts against you — it doesn't. No IPR ever instituted on '233, so no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists on any '233 ground. Build the invalidity case unconstrained.
4. Reuse the family's prior art. The sibling IPRs generated a ready-made art set against the shared specification: Dougherty (US 7,360,004), Morita (JP 2000-165513A), Shiga (US 6,625,738), Kerai (US 6,531,845), Zyskowski (US 2003/0135766), Casebolt (US 6,625,790), the Cypress enCoRe controller datasheet, and USB 1.1/2.0. The Morita/SE1 and Dougherty-based theories were litigated hard on the siblings; the Board's reasons for rejecting them (e.g., Morita's dock only operating in two host/peripheral modes; SE1 being a power-on signal) are the attacks you must cure, not repeat — the PTAB has already said these versions of those arguments fail.
5. Bucket the claim set. Each of claims 1, 15, and 21 is an independent claim with distinct limitations (claim 1 apparatus/identification subsystem; claim 15 method requiring an invalid USB state using two data lines; claim 21 method requiring each of the two data lines being a high state). Individually analyze the dependents — claims 10–11 (switch disconnect/reconnect) and 14 (battery receptacle + charging subsystem) have no PTAB treatment anywhere in the family and are the least-precedented claims.
6. Pull the district court dockets for the FISI cases linked above to find which specific claims of '233 were asserted against which products, and whether any defendant already ran and lost an invalidity defense — that is the closest available substitute for an FWD in this case.
7. If you must confirm the zero-count, docket it yourself. Search PTAB E2E by patent number and by real party in interest (Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC / Holdings LLC; BlackBerry Limited; Research In Motion). My conclusion of "no PTAB activity on file" rests on the ODP structured block plus searches — it is not a substitute for a certified docket print.

I'll reconstruct the assignment chain from USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference the litigation/NPE data. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records, reel/frame numbers, and correspondent details.

Let me look for exact reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondent of record.

Data-availability note (read first)

I could not retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center detail records (reel/frame, execution date, and the correspondent of record) for US 7,453,233 in this session — the Assignment Center is a script-driven database that does not expose values to the crawl/search surfaces I could reach before hitting the tool ceiling. Accordingly:

• The assignment chain, conveyance types, assignors and assignees below are taken from the Google Patents "Legal Events / Reassignment" panel reproduced in the authoritative full text supplied for this analysis. Those are real, recorded events.
• Reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondents are reported as NOT RETRIEVED, not filled in. I am not going to invent reel/frame values — an invented reel/frame is worse than a blank, because every downstream analyst will treat it as ground truth.

The correspondent field is the single most valuable tell in this exercise and it is exactly the field I could not read. Treat the "Repeat correspondent" signal as unclear pending a manual Assignment Center pull (path: assignment.uspto.gov → "Patent Number" 7453233 → open each of the four hits).

Inventors

Pattern flag — late-recorded inventor assignment. The five inventors are recorded assigning to Research In Motion Limited only on the Google Patents reassignment event dated 2013-11-03 — roughly 12 years after the 1 March 2001 priority filing and 5 years after the 18 Nov 2008 grant. A normal employment assignment is recorded within days or weeks of filing. A 2013 recordation suggests either (a) a confirmatory / "clean-up" instrument filed in a batch, or (b) an original assignment that simply went unrecorded until a diligence exercise. I cannot tell which, because I do not have the execution date.

Notable date coincidence: the inventor→RIM recordation and the RIM→BlackBerry change-of-name recordation are both stamped 2013-11-03 in the Google Patents event set. That is consistent with a single batch of assignment filings executed around the BlackBerry rebrand (RIM formally changed its legal name to BlackBerry Limited in 2013). It is not evidence of anything improper, but it means the 2013 date reflects recordation timing, not the economic event — an important caveat for anyone doing date math on this patent.

There is no evidence that the inventors departed RIM within 12 months of filing, went to a competitor, or were involved in a fire-sale. The "all inventors gone within a year → portfolio fire-sale" heuristic does not fire here. (All five are long-tenured RIM/BlackBerry-area inventors per patent-count profiles.)

Original assignee

Research In Motion Limited (Waterloo, Ontario), later BlackBerry Limited.

• Issued-patent assignee: Research In Motion Ltd. Google Patents "Original Assignee: Research in Motion Ltd"; Unified Patents lists original assignee as BlackBerry Ltd (post-rename retrospective mapping — a source-convention discrepancy, not a contradiction).
• Primary line of business: two-way wireless messaging devices; the BlackBerry smartphone platform. It shipped products embodying the claims — the patent family arises out of RIM's own BlackBerry USB charging architecture (the FIG. 1 mobile device, the charging/power-distribution subsystem 58, and the reference to provisional 60/273,021 "System and Method for Adapting a USB to Provide Power for Charging a Mobile Device"). This is a practice-the-invention assignee, not a paper filer.
• Current status: Operating. Research In Motion Limited changed its legal name to BlackBerry Limited in 2013. BlackBerry remains an operating public company (exited handset manufacturing; now software/security, IoT, and an active patent-licensing program). No bankruptcy, no Chapter 7/11, no dissolution.

Assignment timeline

All four events below are recorded reassignments. Execution dates and reel/frame are not available (see data note).

• Executed: NOT RETRIEVED / recorded ~2013-11-03 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST
  • Assignor: FISCHER, DANIEL M; HABICHER, MICHAEL F; LUONG, QUANG A; MALTON, JONATHAN T; RADUT, DAN G
  • Assignee: RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Confirmatory employment/assignment instrument — the original inventors' rights to the operating company, recorded long after filing.

• Executed: NOT RETRIEVED / recorded ~2013-11-03 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: CHANGE OF NAME (see document for details)
  • Assignor: RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED
  • Assignee: BLACKBERRY LIMITED
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Change of name only — RIM → BlackBerry Limited. No change in beneficial ownership.

• Executed: NOT RETRIEVED / recorded ~2015-12-17 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST
  • Assignor: BLACKBERRY LIMITED
  • Assignee: FUNDAMENTAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — the BlackBerry→FISI portfolio sale (a multi-million-dollar transaction with Centerbridge Partners per RPX/IAM reporting; FISI announced as formed in Delaware in 2015). This is the economic event that converted a practicing operating company's patents into an assertion campaign.

• Executed: NOT RETRIEVED / recorded ~2016-12-01 — Reel NOT RETRIEVED

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST
  • Assignor: BLACKBERRY LIMITED
  • Assignee: FUNDAMENTAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Second BlackBerry→FISI recordation roughly 12 months after the first. The two-record pattern is itself a finding — RPX reports the campaign acquisition as "over 55 US assets" (IAM/RPX elsewhere say ~158 assets, 56 US), so the split is most plausibly a first tranche plus a supplemental/corrective instrument, not two independent sales. I cannot confirm the purpose from the reco`rd without the reel/frame and the instrument text. This 2016-12-01 date also lands essentially on top of the first FISI assertions (December 2016 Texas filings), which is worth pulling once the execution dates are known.

If the Assignment Center in fact shows additional events (e.g., a SECURITY AGREEMENT, a RELEASE, or a CORRECTION), I did not see them; the four above are all that the authoritative event set reflects.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7453233
    2001 : Priority provisional filed
    2002 : Non-provisional filed by RIM
    2008 : Patent issued to RIM
    2013 : Inventors assign to Research In Motion
         : RIM renamed BlackBerry Limited
    2015 : BlackBerry assigns to FISI
    2016 : Second assignment to FISI
         : FISI launches USB charging suits
    2019 : Apple DJ action filed
    2021 : Suits against Anker and Cyber Power
    2025 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. BlackBerry Limited (operating, ships products) transferred to Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC, a licensing-only Delaware LLC formed in 2015 (RPX), backed by the private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners, with no products in commerce. This rests on the recorded 2015-12-17 and 2016-12-01 assignments plus RPX's entity profile — not on naming alone. Caveat: I could not verify the LLC's registered-agent address or single-membership from the record itself.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT. FISI does not appear on the legacy litany (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, MPHJ, Round Rock, etc.), but it is independently classified as an NPE by RPX ("an NPE with active campaigns") and has a United Patents litigation portal entry for this patent. RPX counts ~20 suits since late 2016 against Apple, Samsung, LGE, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, TCL, BLU, Hon Hai/Belkin, Aukey, Jasco, Coolpad, plus Anker/Fantasia (1:21-cv-00339) and Cyber Power (1:21-cv-00340). This is a documented high-frequency plaintiff, which satisfies the signal on evidence rather than on the LLC's name.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (not retrievable). This is the signal the task most wants and the one I could not read. The hypothesis to test on a manual pull: whether one recording attorney or firm appears as correspondent on the 2015-12-17 and 2016-12-01 BlackBerry→FISI instruments, and whether that same correspondent also appears on the ~55–158 sibling asset records from the same transaction. Recurrence across the two recordations on this patent would be a finding; a single appearance would not. Governance-side corroboration does exist for a recurring cast: Texas public records identify Kapu Kumar, Paul Seaman, and Paul Riley (ex-IPVALUE) plus Eugene Davis as FISI "governing persons," and FISI initially retained TnT IP LLC (Craig Thompson, Ozer Teitelbaum). That is management recurrence, not correspondent recurrence — do not conflate the two.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (mild). Two consecutive recordations into the same assignee (FISI) within ~12 months (2015-12-17, 2016-12-01), immediately preceded by two same-day events in 2013-11-03 (inventor→RIM and RIM→BlackBerry). Four recorded events compress into two clusters roughly 24 months apart. The chain does not run through a daisy-chain of differently-named LLCs (RIM→BlackBerry→FISI is a clean three-hop), so this is a moderate, not an extreme, signal.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT. The second BlackBerry→FISI recordation (2016-12-01) falls within days of the campaign's first Texas filings (FISI "began targeting mobile device manufacturers with a series of Texas lawsuits" in December 2016). The bulk transfer itself (2015-12-17) is ~12 months pre-suit. The 2016-12-01 instrument specifically lands in the pre-suit window, which is exactly the pattern of a clean-up/supplemental assignment executed to perfect standing before filing. Confirm against the executed date on the reel once retrieved.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. BlackBerry / RIM never filed Chapter 7 or 11, and this was not a bankruptcy-estate sale. It was a negotiated, private, multi-million-dollar asset sale by a solvent operating company to a PE-backed buyer.

7. Privateering — PRESENT (qualified). An operating company (BlackBerry) transferred a defined portfolio to a PE-funded NPE that then asserted broadly across BlackBerry's competitive space (Apple, Samsung, LGE, Huawei, ZTE, and the whole USB-charging ecosystem). BlackBerry retained licensing upside via the transaction economics rather than by suing directly. RPX/IAM coverage ("Backed by the private equity firm Centerbridge Partners and asserting former BlackBerry patents") supports the privateering characterization on evidence. Apple's 2019 DJ action (N.D. Cal. 3:19-cv-00638) is the mirror image — a target suing to clear the transferred former-BlackBerry patents.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The inverse ("neutralized") finding does not apply; the patent went pro-assertion, not defensive.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals fire on concrete, dated events: (i) a shell-entity transfer of 2015-12-17 / 2016-12-01 moving the patent from operating assignee BlackBerry Limited to the PE-backed, licensing-only Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC (formed in Delaware 2015, no products, per RPX), and (ii) a documented high-frequency asserter — RPX classifies FISI as an NPE with ~20 suits since late 2016, including the Anker/Fantasia (1:21-cv-00339) and Cyber Power (1:21-cv-00340) actions that name this patent. The 2016-12-01 recordation sitting inside the pre-suit window, plus the RIM→BlackBerry change-of-name as the only intervening step, completes the opco-to-asserter picture. The single missing corroborator is the correspondent of record on the two BlackBerry→FISI instruments — retrieving it would likely upgrade the "repeat correspondent" signal from unclear to either present or not present, and it is the one item I could not read.

Verify at:

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 7,453,233 across USPTO and related databases.

Let me pull the full "References Cited" list and details for the key USB/power-adapter references, plus the reexamination grounds.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,453,233 B2 ("Adapter system and method for powering a device")

Scope note (builds on the summary already generated). Direct PatentCenter full-text retrieval was not exposed through the queries available to me, so the citation record below comes from two mirrors that reproduce the printed-patent "References Cited" record: Justia (justia.com/patent/7453233) and Google Patents (patents.google.com/patent/US7453233/en), plus the ex parte reexamination request 90/014906 and a PTAB petition directed to family members. I did not auto-correct any number, date or inventor name; where a source and my training data disagree, I report the source.

Statute. Because this patent claims priority to 2001-03-01 and its application chain predates the AIA, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102 applies — this is expressly stated in the reexamination request (90/014906, p. 2: "Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. section 102 applies to the '233 Patent."). So §102(a), (b) and (e) are the operative subsections. Note the consequence: several references cited on the face of the patent issued after the 2001-03-01 priority date and can only be §102(e) art (as of their filing dates), not §102(a)/(b) art — I flag each below.

1. The single most relevant prior art (the references that actually map to the claims)

The face-of-patent citations are largely generic charger/power-supply art. The art that actually reads on the challenged claims was raised post-grant. Ranked:

Additional family-level art used in a parallel PTAB petition (No. 1546974, directed to family members '187/'550 — not to the '233 reexam): US 7,766,698 ("De Iuliis") combined with Kerai and Zyskowski (claims 1, 3, 6, 10, 12–13, 15). I flag the attribution to avoid conflating proceedings.

2. References cited on the face of US 7,453,233 (U.S. patent documents)

Reproduced from the printed record (Justia). Titles for this group are not carried in the retrieved record, so I characterize the subject matter conservatively and flag it. Note the concentration of supercapacitor / battery-charger art (Tokin NPL, Weimer, Nielsen, Cioffi, etc.), which matches the parent "Multifunctional Charger System" patents (US 6,936,936 / 7,239,111); I infer these were carried into the continuation's record rather than cited against the enumeration claims — flagging that inference as unconfirmed.

Non-patent literature cited on the face:

• Electric Double-Layer Capacitors, Vol. 2, Tokin Corp., Cat. No. EC-200E, Oct. 25, 1996, 40 pgs.
• Supercapacitor: User's Manual, Vol. 2, Tokin Corp., Jan. 1997, 47 pgs.
• "Charging Big Supercaps," Portable Design, Mar. 1997, p. 26.

These three are capacitor-art publications relevant to claim 14 (battery receptacle + charging subsystem) at most — they say nothing about USB enumeration or identification signalling.

(For completeness — not prior art): the "Cited By (13)" list on Google Patents (e.g., Sony US 2010/0153594; Pericom US 8,237,414; Apple US 9,021,159; Leviton US 11,092,3941) post-dates the '233 priority date and is forward citation only.

3. Secondary prior-art candidates surfaced by a validity tool — NOT part of the official citation record

A Limestone IP validity report lists these as high-"search-efficiency" art for US 7,453,233. They are algorithmic candidates, not the face-of-patent citations, but several are the most on-point USB/enumeration art available, so I list them separately:

4. Claim-by-claim summary of the strongest §102/§103 positions

5. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as resolved)

1. Statutory note on later-issued facial citations. US 6,211,649; 6,252,375; 6,255,800; 6,283,789; 6,668,296; 6,738,856 all issued after 2001-03-01 and are not §102(a)/(b) art; they can only be §102(e) art as of their filing dates. I verified the filing date only for 6,211,649 (1999-03-25); the others are unverified.
2. Kerai — patent number unconfirmed. The reexam quotes Kerai's abstract (2:45–3:36, 5:24–5:59, Fig. 3) but the retrieved material does not give its number. I have deliberately not guessed a number.
3. Matsumoto filing date unverified. US 6,904,488's §102(e) date depends on a filing date I could not confirm.
4. Facial-citation provenance. The presence of supercapacitor NPL (Tokin) and pre-2001 charger art on the '233 face suggests these were inherited from the parent "Multifunctional Charger System" record. Inference, not confirmed.
5. Descriptions for facial citations #1–#18, #21–#26 are characterized by inventor/date only; titles were not in the retrieved record and I have not fabricated them.
6. This analysis is a prior-art/validity landscape, not a patentability or infringement opinion, and the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2025-08-11 per Google Patents; 2025-08-10 per Unified Patents), so the art matters mainly to the reexam 90/014906 record and the still-pending district-court matters.

Sources: https://justia.com/patent/[7453233](/patent/7453233) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US7453233/en · https://cmosedu.com/jbaker/expert_witness/2021/Ex_Parte_Reexamination_90_014906.pdf · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1546974 · https://s3.amazonaws.com/report.limestoneip.com/xfP4NeZY1q2mPddF0RJq6U.basic.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6184652B1](/patent/US6184652B1)/en · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/6184652

I'll research the prior art record for this patent — particularly the reexamination references mentioned in my earlier section — before constructing the § 103 analysis.

I have the core prior-art record. Let me verify reference dates, the reexam outcome, and any IPR activity.

Preliminary: one correction to the earlier summary

My earlier section flagged as "probable but not confirmed" that ex parte reexamination 90/014906 was directed at US 7,453,233. The reexamination request document now retrieved confirms this directly — the request states: "Requestor requests that the Examiner institute reexamination of Claims 1‑8, 15‑18, and 21 ('Challenged Claims') of the '233 Patent" and identifies the '233 Patent as asserted against Anker in Fundamental Innovation Systems International LLC v. Anker. It also states: "The '233 Patent has not been subject to inter partes review." I am treating that earlier uncertainty as resolved in favor of the document.

Also confirmed: the requester's dates in the record (provisionals 60/273,021 filed 2001‑03‑01 and 60/330,486 filed 2001‑10‑23) match the Google Patents data, so the one‑day Unified Patents/PTO discrepancy remains a source artifact, not a substantive conflict.

Obviousness analysis — US 7,453,233 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

1. Governing framework and dates

Caution on which date governs which claim. Whether the '233 claims are entitled to 2001‑03‑01 for all of their elements is the single most important § 103 threshold question here, because two of the strongest references (Kerai, and possibly Matsumoto) have U.S. filing dates after 2001‑03‑01. Under In re Hilmer, 359 F.2d 859 (CCPA 1966), a reference's foreign priority date cannot be used as its § 102(e) date — only its U.S. filing date. So if the '233 claims prove entitled to 2001‑03‑01, Kerai drops out as § 102(e) art and survives only as § 102(a)/(b) art from its 2002 publication; if the claims are entitled only to 2001‑10‑23 (plausible for the "invalid USB state on two data lines" and "both data lines high" limitations), Kerai applies directly as § 102(e) art.

2. Level of ordinary skill

The record's framing (Baker declarations) is a POSITA with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field, plus roughly 2–4 years of experience designing USB‑connected or portable‑device power circuits, or equivalent education/experience — with familiarity with the USB 1.1 Specification (Sept. 1998) and USB 2.0 Specification (April 2000), including bus enumeration, the 100 mA unconfigured / 500 mA configured current limits, and the electrical states of the D+/D− lines.

3. Prior art inventory (verified in the retrieved record)

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 (primary) — Kerai in view of Yang: claims 1–8, 15–18, 21

Where each element comes from. Yang supplies the adapter half of claim 1: a plug unit tied to a household/automobile socket [1b], a DC conversion stage producing the USB‑interface voltage [1c], a USB socket [1a]/[1e], and two pull‑up resistors on D+ and D− that are, in substance, the claimed "identification subsystem" [1d]. Kerai supplies the identification semantics and the charging‑before‑enumeration behavior: a battery charging circuit that draws power from the USB port [1c], a handset that reads the high/high condition on D+/D−, and switch 28 that closes "before any USB enumeration is performed or completed" so the data‑line voltage supplies the battery‑charging circuit [1d], [1e]. Kerai's "held high when the connection is inactive" and its Fig. 3 tapped‑high embodiment meet claims 6, 7, 8 and the "each of the two data lines being a high state" limitation of claim 21; the two‑line high/high condition is the SE1 state that USB 2.0 defines as never‑valid, meeting the "invalid USB state using two data lines" limitation of claim 15.

Motivation to combine (articulable from the references themselves, per KSR).

1. Same field, same problem. Both address charging a mobile handset over a USB connector when the upstream device is not a USB host. Kerai's own stated purpose is to avoid carrying a dedicated charger by charging from a laptop's port; Yang's stated purpose is to charge from household AC or a car socket. Substituting Yang's wall/car adapter for Kerai's laptop is the substitution of one known upstream power source for another with a predictable result.
2. Yang cannot enumerate, so the signaling problem is created and solved by the same combination. Yang's transformer has no USB host controller and therefore cannot perform enumeration. A handset built to Kerai's scheme needs precisely the high/high D+/D− condition to know it is attached to a charge‑only source. Using Yang's two pull‑ups to generate the state Kerai's handset is already designed to read is "a combination of familiar elements according to known methods" yielding no more than expected.
3. The specification concedes the mechanical/electrical elements are conventional. The '233 disclosure describes the plug unit as "a conventional plug unit," the power converter as "of conventional construction such as a switching power converter that converts 115 VAC to 5 VDC," and the charging subsystem 316 as performing "in a substantially similar manner to charging subsystem 58." This cuts against non‑obviousness of [1b]–[1c].

Vulnerability. Kerai's U.S. filing date (2001‑05‑25) postdates the 2001‑03‑01 priority date. If the patent owner establishes full support in the '021 provisional for every challenged limitation, Kerai is not § 102(e) art and reverts to § 102(a)/(b) art from its January 2002 publication — which would then also postdate 2001‑03‑01. The requester's chain therefore depends on the challenged claims, or at least the "invalid state / both lines high" limitations, being entitled only to the 2001‑10‑23 provisional. This must be resolved on the priority record before Ground 1 can be relied upon.

Ground 2 — Yang in view of Matsumoto: claims 1–8, 15–18, 21

This pairing inverts Ground 1 and is stronger on the motivation prong because Matsumoto articulates the problem itself. Matsumoto discloses a portable device whose single USB connector accepts either a PC or an AC adaptor, with "discriminating means" that (a) identifies the source of supply and (b) avoids the enumeration/communication process, moving directly to charging and normal device operation, when the adaptor is the source. Matsumoto expressly gives the reason — that host‑communication "entails the problem that even if the user gives the portable electronic device a command for data reproduction, the main CPU is unable to rapidly execute device operation processing," so communication is unnecessary when only charging. That is the functional equivalent of the claim 1 requirement that the identification signal indicate the adapter "is configured to send substantial energy through the USB connector before completing device enumeration," and of claim 15's "allows an indication that the USB adapter is configured to send substantial energy … before completing device enumeration." Yang supplies the socket‑powered adapter, the plug unit, the converter, and the D+/D− pull‑ups that physically realize the discriminating signal.

Motivation: one reference teaches the problem (device must distinguish host from charge‑only adaptor and skip enumeration), the other teaches a low‑cost, host‑less adapter that inherently cannot enumerate and that already terminates its data lines in the state a discriminating device would read. Combining them is the ordinary engineering step of implementing a known discrimination scheme on a known alternative power source.

Ground 3 — Kerai or Yang in view of USB 2.0 (or USB 1.1): claim 15 ("invalid USB state") and claims 6–8

Claim 15 requires the identification signal to "indicat[e] an invalid USB state using two data lines." USB 2.0 § 7.1.7 / Table 7‑7 define SE1 (both D+ and D− above ~0.8 V) as a state the bus must never intentionally generate and that triggers device reset and port disconnection — i.e., literally an invalid USB state — and USB 2.0 § 7.1.7 also teaches the hard‑wired pull‑up resistor R_pu on D+ (or D−) to a voltage, the structure claimed in dependent claim 7. A POSITA seeking to signal "no host present" using only the two data lines is driven to the one data‑line state that cannot be mistaken for legitimate USB signaling (SE0, J‑state, K‑state). Yang's and Casebolt's pull‑ups, Kerai's tapped high lines, and Shiga's microcontroller‑driven SE1 are alternative, well‑known implementations of that same signal — meeting claims 7 (hard‑wired) and 8 (USB controller) respectively, with predictable results and interchangeable design choices.

Ground 4 — Dougherty in view of Shiga and USB 2.0: claims 1, 6–8, 16

This is the ground the petitioner in the parallel LGE proceeding pressed against the family's '586 patent, and it has a prosecution‑history hook here: the Examiner already rejected the parent '936 claims as anticipated by Dougherty, and the applicant overcame Dougherty by adding the SE1/hard‑wired limitations that now appear in '233 claims 6–8. Because '233 and '936 share a specification, using Dougherty as the structural base and Shiga/USB 2.0 for the SE1 signal is an orthodox, non‑hindsight combination.

Counterweight (must be recorded): the Board in IPR2018‑00495 declined to institute on a Dougherty + Shiga combination, reasoning that "Petitioner has not shown how modified laptop and docking station of Dougherty would predictably handle SE1 signals in the course of normal USB communication" and "Nor has Petitioner shown that replacing the USB enumeration in Dougherty with an SE1 signal would allow the docking station … to act successfully as a USB adapter." That holding does not bind the '233 claims, which (unlike the '586 claims) do not recite a USB hub/host architecture, but it is a warning that the Dougherty‑based ground requires a careful showing that the modified docking station's data paths are handled so the SE1 state is not disruptive.

Ground 5 — Plug‑unit / plug‑adapter claims 2–5

• Claim 2 (direct socket coupling): Yang's transformer coupling to "regular household AC 110V/220V" and the automobile supply.
• Claim 3 (North American / UK / European / Australian / airplane / automobile): Yang teaches household and automobile; Hahn teaches interchangeable plugs for United Kingdom, United States, Europe, and Australia.
• Claims 4–5 (a separate plug adapter): Hahn's interchangeable‑plug power supply; and the '233 specification itself describes the plug adapters as conventional and "releasably attached."

Motivation: travel/voltage compatibility — the express purpose of universal plug‑adapter sets, and expressly contemplated in the '233 specification ("When traveling to a locale which does not have the North American power socket … an alternate plug adapter … may be selected by the user").

Ground 6 — Switch claims 9–11 and 20

Claim 9's "switch configured to couple the power output to the USB connector" is met by Kerai's switch 28, under the control of interface ASIC 21, connecting VBUS through diode 100 to the charger control circuit; the on/off control attributed to the identification subsystem is met by Kerai's ASIC control and by Dougherty's docking power switching. For claim 20's connect/disconnect method step, the '233 specification's own fallback (toggling VBUS on/off to simulate disconnect and force re‑detection) is a known reset‑by‑power‑cycling technique. Motivation: device safety and forcing re‑enumeration/detection in devices that do not recognize the identification signal.

Note: the 90/014906 requester did not challenge claims 9–14 or 19–20. The strongest of those is the switch group; the absence of a challenge is not evidence of patentability.

Ground 7 — Auxiliary‑connector claims 12–13

Claim 12 (second USB connector with data lines coupled through the identification subsystem) and claim 13 (second power output to that connector) are met by the ordinary USB hub/docking architecture of Dougherty, combined with the adapter references. Motivation: pass‑through data synchronization while charging — the '233 specification's own stated purpose for the auxiliary connector — and simultaneous powering of multiple devices, which the specification calls an option. The combination adds a conventional downstream port to a conventional charging adapter with predictable results.

Ground 8 — Claim 14 (battery receptacle + charging subsystem): the weakest claim

Claim 14 requires a battery receptacle on the adapter plus a charging subsystem between the converter and the receptacle. Gilbert (rechargeable battery plus voltage‑regulator recharge circuit in a bus‑powered device) and Kerai (charger control circuit 19 and battery 15) teach battery charging but not a receptacle on the adapter for a detached battery, and neither was applied to this limitation in 90/014906. Absent an additional reference to a conventional desktop/spare‑battery charger standing alone, claim 14 is the claim on which a non‑obviousness argument is most likely to succeed. A practitioner attacking this claim should search pre‑2001 stand‑alone battery chargers in the same device family, not rely on the '936/'111 family disclosures (same inventors, same priority — not "another" under § 102).

5. Claim‑by‑claim assessment

6. The patent owner's counterarguments — and what the record does and does not answer

These grounds are not free wins; the family's litigation history shows exactly where the fault lines are:

1. Hindsight / "identification signal" as a term of art. The patent owner's most effective argument (made in the family IPRs) is that the prior art used the high/high state for other purposes — Zyskowski and Shiga as a wake‑up signal, Kerai's Fig. 3 to harvest power from otherwise‑idle lines — not as a signal identifying the power‑source type to a non‑enumerating adapter. Coupled with W. L. Gore & Assocs. v. Garlock ("to imbue one of ordinary skill with knowledge of the invention in suit … is to fall victim to the insidious effect of a hindsight syndrome"), this is a genuine obstacle. It is defeated only by evidence that a POSITA would have understood the static SE1 condition on the data lines as a power‑source/charge‑only indicator, not by attorney argument. Kerai's express statement that the lines "are held high when the connection is inactive," read with Yang's host‑less charger, is the best available evidence — but note the requester in a parallel matter conceded the art's purposes were distinguishable, drawing a Board finding that the combination "would not predictably handle SE1 signals in the course of normal USB communication."
2. Priority date. As above, Kerai's (and possibly Matsumoto's) U.S. filing dates must be verified against the '021/'486 provisional support. This is the single highest‑value factual dispute.
3. "Substantial energy … before completing device enumeration." This must be mapped to actual pre‑enumeration charge current (Kerai's abstract and Fig. 2 VBUS path; Matsumoto's "usual device operation processing" without enumeration). The USB 1.1 allowance of 100 mA pre‑configuration complicates any argument that "substantial" means only >100 mA.
4. Claim 15's "invalid USB state." This phrase does not appear as such in the specification; it is squarely a USB 2.0 SE1 characterization. Expect a construction fight (potentially indefiniteness), and pin the term to USB 2.0 § 7.1.7/Table 7‑7 rather than to the patent's own disclosure.
5. No secondary‑consideration record. I found no evidence of unexpected results, long‑felt need, industry praise, or copying tied by nexus to these claims. Commercial success of BlackBerry devices would not establish a nexus to a "USB adapter" claim. The fact that the '936 family was allowed only after amendment to add the SE1 and hard‑wired limitations also undercuts any argument that the broad genus of claims 1/15/21 was non‑obvious over Dougherty.

7. Explicit uncertainties and things I could not verify

1. Matsumoto's and Yang's exact dates (U.S. filing date for US 6,904,488; publication/citation date for CN 2410806 Y) were not verified in this pass. Both matter under Hilmer.
2. Casebolt's, Shiga's, Zyskowski's, Gilbert's, Hahn's, De Iuliis's patent numbers and dates were not verified; I have quoted and attributed them only as they appear in the reexamination and IPR papers.
3. The outcome of reexamination 90/014906 (whether it was ordered, and whether any claim was confirmed, cancelled, or amended) is not established by what I retrieved. Nothing above should be read as an adjudication; these are potential § 103 grounds.
4. Priority‑date entitlement: I could not retrieve and compare the '021 and '486 provisional texts against the issued claim language, which is the decisive issue for the Kerai/Matsumoto § 102(e) dates.
5. Consistent with my earlier section, no 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming this patent was found; the patent expired 2025 (2025‑08‑10/11, per source).

Primary sources: https://cmosedu.com/jbaker/expert_witness/2021/Ex_Parte_Reexamination_90_014906.pdf · https://cmosedu.com/jbaker/expert_witness/2021/Ex_Parte_Reexamination_90_014899.pdf · https://cmosedu.com/jbaker/expert_witness/2022/Ex_Parte_Reexamination_90_015020.pdf · https://patents.google.com/patent/US7453233/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/[6531845](/patent/6531845) · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2018-00274/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7834586/docs/01-24-2018-Petitioner/Exhibit-1012-12-US_Patent_6,531,845_Kerai.pdf · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2018-00606/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6936936/06-14-2018-Patent_Owner/Preliminary_Response-7-Patent_Owner_Preliminary_Response/ · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1545782/download-documents?artifactId=YhiWaDOxIfO6k1t3uHYZ5_oz6AdBN-9Ojk46xbstOhJLSKSasnQDOF8 · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1546974/download-documents?artifactId=LaN60zI-qQAf9irOEGzvn4q7rdMjORG2g81dQ_84u_YAEZKnlj9BISU