US 7845976

I'll verify the patent details against live sources before summarizing.

Verification note

I searched USPTO/Google Patents, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and general docket material. I found no Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket activity for US 7,845,976, and no PTAB/IPR proceedings mentioning it. The only litigation I could substantiate is a 2012 E.D. Ark. case (below). I also found one source that states the priority date as 2004‑11‑23 rather than 11‑24 (Unified Patents listing); the patent document itself and Google Patents both say 2004‑11‑24, and I treat the patent text as authoritative. Treat the "CAFC 2026" portion of your request as unverified / no results found rather than as a negative assurance.

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US 7,845,976 B2 — Bibliographic summary

Abstract (verbatim): "A connector having a conductive member is provided, wherein the connector comprises a connector body capable of sealing and securing a coaxial cable, and further wherein the conductive member, such as an O-ring, physically seals the connector, electrically couples the connector and the coaxial cable, facilitates grounding through the connector, and renders an electromagnetic shield preventing ingress of unwanted environmental noise."

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

All three independent claims share the same setting: a coaxial cable connector that couples a prepared cable (center conductor / dielectric / outer conductor) to an equipment port.

Claim 1 — Post + coupler + body + resilient conductive grounding seal

A coaxial cable connector comprising:

• (a) a tubular post, first end inserted into the prepared cable between the dielectric and outer conductor;
• (b) a coupler whose first end is secured over the post's second end, with a central bore whose portion near the coupler's second end engages the equipment port;
• (c) a body member secured to the post, extending about the post's first end to receive the outer conductor — and importantly the body member contacts the coupler; and
• (d) a resilient, electrically-conductive grounding seal disposed between the tubular post and the coupler.

Plain reading: the novel point is that a springy, conductive seal sits in the post/coupler interface, independent of whether the body/nut touch each other, so grounding continuity doesn't depend on the parts being perfectly torqued together.

Claim 16 — Post + threaded coupler + body + conductive member between post and coupler

Same general structure, but the coupler is expressly a threaded coupler (threads onto the port), and the fourth element is a conductive member positioned between the post and the threaded coupler so as to (i) make a physical seal and (ii) provide an unbroken electrical circuit between post and coupler, so that grounding extends through the conductive member to the port when coupled.

Claim 19 — Post + coupler nut + body + conductive member forming an annular seal

Again the same structure with a coupler nut. The fourth element is a conductive member located to (i) facilitate an annular seal between the coupler nut and the post (barrier against moisture/contaminants) and (ii) make an electrical connection with the port so as to act as a conductive seal when physically pressed against the port, thereby shielding against unwanted electromagnetic interference.

Practical distinction among the three: claim 1 recites the seal as resilient and between post and coupler while requiring body–coupler contact; claim 16 adds the express "unbroken electrical circuit / grounding to the port" functional language and a threaded coupler; claim 19 adds the "annular seal against contaminants → conductive seal when pressed against the port" functional language.

Dependent-claim numbering anomaly (worth flagging, not correcting)

• Claims 17 and 18 recite "The coaxial cable connector of claim 15…" — but claim 15 is a dependent claim about the post being non-conductive, and claims 17/18 are body-material limitations that logically belong to claim 16. This appears to be a drafting error in the printed patent. Under the operating rule I have not "fixed" it; I report it as it appears. This kind of misdependency can matter to validity/enforceability analysis.
• Claims 20 and 21 properly depend from claim 19.

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Family and related filings

• Parent (abandoned): US 10/997,218 (pub. US 2006/0110977 A1), filed 2004‑11‑24.
• Sibling continuations in the same family (all priority 2004‑11‑24): US 12/397,087 → US 7,828,595 B2; US 12/427,843 → US 7,833,053 B2; US 12/941,709 → US 7,950,958 B2.
• Foreign/PCT members: EP 1815559 B1; KR 101041494 B1; CN 101095264 B; BR PI0518268 A2; DK 1815559 T3; ES 2371431 T3; WO 2006/057737 A1 — all stemming from the 2004 priority.
• Later filings claiming priority to the '976 application itself: PCT/US2010/029212 (WO 2010/117790 A2) and TW 099109728 (TW 201036283 A), both filed/dated 2010‑03‑30 — i.e., claiming priority from the 2009‑03‑30 filing date, not the 2004 priority.

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Litigation / docket search results

• PerfectVision Manufacturing Inc v. PPC Broadband Inc, No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark.) — the only case I found asserting US 7,845,976. Source: Stanford NPE Litigation Database, https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[7845976](/patent/7845976) (also cross-referenced from the Google Patents "Family has litigation" link to Unified Patents: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Arkansas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/4%3A12-cv-00623).
• Google Patents additionally lists a Darts‑IP "first worldwide family litigation" link for family ID 36461498.
• No CAFC 2026 (or other Federal Circuit) docket, appeal, or PTAB trial involving 7,845,976 appeared in my searches. Given the patent's stated expiration on 2024‑11‑24 and "Expired – Lifetime" status, active 2026 appellate activity is unlikely, but I cannot affirmatively rule it out.

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Explicit uncertainties

1. CAFC 2026 dockets: No results. I do not have an authoritative way to query the Federal Circuit docket directly here, so I cannot confirm a negative with high confidence.
2. Assignee identity: The patent front page as rendered by Google Patents lists "PPC Broadband Inc" as both original and current assignee, which conflicts with the recorded assignment chain (John Mezzalingua Associates → MR Advisers → PPC Broadband). The '976 issued in 2010, before the renames, so the front-page assignee rendering may be auto-populated from current ownership. I flag this rather than resolve it.
3. Priority-date discrepancy: Unified Patents shows 2004‑11‑23; the patent and Google Patents show 2004‑11‑24. I did not auto-correct either.
4. Inventor name spelling: rendered as "Roger Mathews" (one "t" in Mathews); one secondary source (Justia, in a different patent's reference table) also lists "Mathews." I have not independently confirmed whether the correct legal name is "Mathews" or "Matthews."
5. Claim 17/18 misdependency on non-existent antecedent "claim 15" (see above) is described as printed, not corrected.

I'll search litigation databases for US 7,845,976.

Let me dig into the specific case and look for other assertions.

Bottom line

Based on searches of litigation aggregators (Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Unified Patents portal, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, vLex/Casetext) and general web sources, exactly one civil action appears to name US 7,845,976 as a patent-in-suit — a 2012 declaratory-judgment action in the Eastern District of Arkansas that ended in a stipulated dismissal. I found no Federal Circuit appeal, no PTAB trial (IPR/PGR/CBM), and no ITC Section 337 investigation in which the '976 patent is identified.

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1. The one substantiated case

Original patents-in-suit (six): US 8,192,237; US 7,845,976; US 7,950,958; US 8,075,338; US 8,157,589; US 8,167,646.
Later added by amendment: US 8,313,353; US 8,313,345; US 8,323,053; US 8,323,060, plus the then-pending "Ehret Patent" (application 13/075,406).

Key procedural milestones (relevant to the '976 record):

• Doc. #37 (June 10, 2013) — denied PPC's Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss (holding PPC's conditional "covenant not to sue" did not divest jurisdiction under Already v. Nike), denied transfer to N.D.N.Y., granted PerfectVision's second motion to amend, and denied PerfectVision's motion to enjoin PPC's New York action.
• Doc. #81 (June 3, 2014) — ordered supplemental briefing in light of Nautilus v. Biosig.
• Doc. #102 (Aug. 29, 2014) — claim-construction opinion. Notably the court construed "resilient" to mean "comprised of materials such that [it] ordinarily will return to its original shape after being depressed or deformed." That construction is directly pertinent to claim 1 of the '976 patent, which recites a "resilient, electrically-conductive grounding seal."
• Doc. #88 (July 3, 2014) — e-discovery order.
• Doc. #110 (Jan. 13, 2015) — agreed dismissal.

Source: CourtListener docket 5500269, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5500269/perfectvision-manufacturing-inc-v-ppc-broadband-inc/ ; order PDF: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ared.91234/gov.uscourts.ared.91234.110.0.pdf ; Stanford NPE database: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[7845976](/patent/7845976) ; case narrative: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/perfectvision-mfg-inc-v-888858935

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2. Related proceedings that do not involve the '976 patent

Listing these so the record is not confused:

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc., No. 5:13-cv-00134 (N.D.N.Y.) — PPC's own infringement suit against PerfectVision over the "Ehret Patent" (referred to in that opinion as the "'481 patent"), filed while the Arkansas DJ action was pending. The N.D.N.Y. court dismissed PPC's infringement claim under the first-to-file rule on June 25, 2013, directing PPC to assert it in Arkansas. The '976 patent is not identified as asserted in that case. Source: https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-york/nyndce/5:2013cv00134/92912/18/0.pdf
• Unified Patents "family litigation" link (Darts-IP family ID 36461498) — Google Patents flags "First worldwide family litigation filed" for the family. This is a family-level flag across the '976/'595/'053/'958/'589 family and does not by itself establish foreign litigation specifically on the '976 patent; I could not open the Darts-IP record to confirm which member was asserted.
• Google Patents "Family has litigation" pointer — resolves to the same Arkansas case (Unified Patents litigation ID, E.D. Ark. 4:12-cv-00623). No additional case is listed there.

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3. Disambiguation — other numbers that are not this patent

Search noise surfaced several unrelated items bearing the digits 7845976 or similar; explicitly excluded:

• US 9,107,597 (My Nemesis, LLC v. Edan, S.D. Cal. 3:17-cv-03817) — a medical ECG patent, different number and different technology.
• US 6,784,557 (Adeia/Samsung IPR) — different number.
• Dockets In re Mark Corrinet (9th Cir., "Docket ID 7845976"), a Santa Catarina, Brazil municipal pay-progression notice (Publication No. 7845976), and a Brazilian corporate filing — not patent litigation.
• PTAB petitions referencing a "'597 patent" / "'185 patent" (Ideahub/PGR2022-00044 line, and USB/streaming cases) — different patents entirely.

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4. Cross-reference to prior generated section

No contradiction with the earlier "Litigation / docket search results" section — this confirms and expands it. Two additions and one flag:

• Addition: The prior section listed the case but not its filing date (Oct. 4, 2012) or outcome (Doc. #110, agreed dismissal without prejudice, entered Jan. 13, 2015; each side bearing its own costs).
• Addition: The earlier section did not capture that the E.D. Ark. court issued a claim-construction opinion on "resilient" (Doc. #102, Aug. 29, 2014) that bears on claim 1 of the '976.
• Flag (date inconsistency, not corrected): Your task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, while the environment record for this matter states 2026-09-30. I have not reconciled these; it does not affect the results, since no '976 activity was found in either period. As previously noted, I also cannot affirmatively rule out an unindexed 2026 CAFC docket.

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5. Limits of this search (stated expressly)

• I searched aggregator and secondary sources, not PACER directly. A PACER/RECAP full-text query on "7,845,976" could conceivably surface additional district-court cases where the patent was pleaded but never reported by commercial databases. I did not verify a true negative across all 94 district courts.
• PPC Broadband/John Mezzalingua conducted broad connector patent assertion campaigns against competitors (e.g., PCT International, Holland Electronics, Times Fiber and others). I found no search result affirmatively listing the '976 patent in any of those campaigns, so I do not list them; treating the patent's 2024-11-24 expiration and "Expired – Lifetime" status, new assertions are in any event unlikely.

If you need court-grade certainty, the next step would be a paid full-text search on Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or PACER's Case Locator for "7,845,976."

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" baseline against live sources before drafting.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings have ever been filed against US 7,845,976 — the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM on file, and my independent searches of PTAB materials (PTAB E2E/PTACTS-hosted papers, Docket Alarm PTAB case listings, Federal Circuit opinions, and the Google Patents "PTAB" panel on the patent page, which shows litigation but no trial section) surfaced none. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened-by-IPR patent, but it is a worn one — it is expired (anticipated expiration 2024-11-24) after a single 2012 declaratory-judgment action, so the real defensive posture is "no injunction risk and a short damages tail," not "someone else already killed the claims."

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding template below cannot be filled in for this patent without fabricating numbers, which I will not do. I instead give (a) an explicit verification record, (b) the adjacent IPR record in the same PPC portfolio that a defendant will actually care about, and (c) strategy.

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Verification record (what I checked, and the limits)

Caveat, stated plainly: I hit the tool-call limit before I could directly query PTAB E2E by patent number, so I cannot elevate this from "no evidence of any proceeding" to "affirmatively confirmed absence by direct E2E query." Given the patent expired 2024-11-24 and that the structured ODP block is the designated canonical source, I treat count = 0 as the operative answer. This is consistent with (not contradictory to) the previously generated section's statement that "no PTAB/IPR proceedings mentioning it" were found — no contradiction to flag.

Why zero is plausible rather than surprising here: every AIA vehicle is either unavailable or pointless. PGR is unavailable because the '976's effective filing date is 2004-11-24 (pre-AIA; PGR requires an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16). CBM is unavailable on the merits — a coaxial cable grounding seal is not a "financial product or service" — and the CBM program sunset in 2020 anyway. That leaves IPR as the only door, and by the time PPC's post-2009 continuity patents became the litigation targets, challengers (Corning Gilbert, Corning Optical, Times Fiber/Amphenol, PCT, PerfectVision) spent their petitions on the later, live patents where injunctions were actually on the table.

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The adjacent record a defendant actually needs (NOT proceedings on '976)

These are portfolio-family IPRs on different patents. Do not cite them as outcomes for 7,845,976.

Corning Gilbert Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — IPR2013-00340, -00342, -00345, -00346, -00347 (coaxial connector family)

• Type: Inter Partes Review. Status: instituted; FWDs issued finding all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious over U.S. Pub. 2006/0110977 ("Matthews") in view of JP 2002-015823 ("Tatsuzuki").
• Federal Circuit: Corning Optical Commc'ns RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc., 815 F.3d 739 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ("PPC I") — affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, remanded, on claim construction of "continuity member" and on the Board's treatment of objective indicia. Docket Nos. 2015-1361, -1364, -1366, -1368, -1369 (Judges Moore, O'Malley, Wallach).
• Remand / appeal round two: Corning Optical Commc'ns RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 2017-1362, 2018-07-03 (nonprecedential) and the companion appeal at 17-1362 (2018-07-03) — originals Matthews + Tatsuzuki, with the Board again finding the claims obvious as to the '320/'060/'353 patents; Corning withdrew after settling with PPC and the PTO intervened. See https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/17-1362/17-1362-2018-07-03.pdf
• Defensive value: The critical takeaway is who was the art. "Matthews" is US 2006/0110977 A1 — i.e., the published parent application of the very patent you are reading (Ser. No. 10/997,218, filed 2004-11-24). It is devastingly effective prior art against PPC's post-2004 patents. It is not prior art to the '976 itself (same priority chain — you cannot anticipate or obviousness-combine a patent's own ancestral application against it).

Corning Optical Communications RF LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — IPR2014-00440, -00441, -00736

• Type: IPR. Status: instituted, then dismissed and institution decisions vacated for failure to name all real parties-in-interest (Corning Inc. and Corning Optical Communications LLC funded/controlled). Request for rehearing denied. See https://natlawreview.com/article/board-to-petitioner-no-rpi-no-ipr
• Precedential status (important, and current): Director Squires designated IPR2014-00440 as precedential and de-designated SharkNinja v. iRobot (IPR2020-00734), restoring strict § 312(a)(2) RPI enforcement — with heightened scrutiny for OFAC/USTR-listed foreign actors. Source: https://www.lexology.com/library/document.ashx?g=a4b46d22-2f20-4ce9-b0ac-c8f5ac7a5249 (the source does not state the year unambiguously; I flag that rather than guess).

Other PPC-patent IPR activity (context only)

• IPR2015-01952 / -01955 — Corning v. PPC on the '136 patent; -01955 institution denied (Paper, 2016-04-15; panel Cocks, Ward, Fink), no reasonable likelihood.
• IPR2016-01570 / -01572 / -01573 — Corning Optical / Corning Inc. / Corning Optical Communications LLC v. PPC on the '338 patent and '481 patent family (filed 2016-08-09). PPC's power of attorney (Barclay Damon; Christopher W. Day) filed 2016-08-30: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01573/...
• IPR2022-00946 / -00947 / -01087 / -01088 — PPC Broadband as Petitioner v. Times Fiber Communications (Amphenol real party) on the '342, '471, '016, and '771 patents; consolidated oral hearing 2023-09-20 before APJs Gerstenblith, Hoskins, Ippolito. PPC became a serial petitioner, not just a patent owner.
• IPR2025-00833 — Belden Inc. and PPC Broadband, Inc. as co-petitioners v. CommScope on the '697 patent; institution denied, Director Review denied. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557693](/patent/1557693)/...

None of the above names 7,845,976 as the challenged patent.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all 21 claims UNTESTED. Claims 1, 16, and 19 (the independents) and every dependent claim survive without any AIA adjudication. There is no FWD to quote, because there isn't one. The narrowing that did occur in this family happened to later, different patents (the continuity-member line) — not to the '976. Anyone telling you "the '976 was invalidated in IPR" is confusing it with the '320/'060/'353/'481/'338 patents. Separately, the printed patent carries a real drafting defect: claims 17 and 18 recite "The coaxial cable connector of claim 15" — but claim 15 is the "post is non-conductive" dependent claim, while 17/18 are body-material limitations that logically belong to claim 16. That misdependency is a live § 112(b) indefiniteness/antecedent-basis hook, described as printed and not corrected (see prior section).

Estoppel landscape: clean slate — and permanently so. Because no IPR was ever filed, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone, and there is no petitioner/privy class barred from raising grounds in district court. Conversely, nothing is pre-litigated for a defendant either. Note two asymmetries that favor a defendant: (1) the Matthews/'0977 publication that Corning successfully weaponized against PPC's later patents is unavailable against the '976 for the same-family reason above, and (2) the '976's § 102(b)/§ 102(a) art window closes at 2004-11-24, so any art a defendant wants to use must predate that — a narrower needle than the later patents, but the 2012 PerfectVision invalidity contentions and the Corning/PCT contention sets (LIT15A–F etc.) are a ready-made roadmap for what exists in that window.

Pattern signals. PPC/Belden is highly litigious on this portfolio (dozens of district court cases plus ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-650 and 337-TA-938; Corning Gilbert, Corning Optical, PCT International, PerfectVision, Times Fiber/Amphenol) and is now on both sides of the PTAB — a frequent Patent Owner and an aggressive Petitioner (IPR2022-00x on the '342/'471/'016/'771 patents; IPR2025-00833). No defensive aggregator appears in the chain for the '976 — I found no Unified Patents petition; Unified appears only as the source of the litigation-data link on the Google Patents page. Also relevant: Corning settled and withdrew from the Federal Circuit appeal (its unopposed motion 2017-06-30, granted 2017-07-10), so there is no adverse appellate holding on the '976 line to bind anyone.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent that any PTAB proceeding exists for 7,845,976. The correct statement to a court or a client is: no IPR, PGR, or CBM has ever been filed against this patent, per the USPTO ODP record; the patent expired 2024-11-24. If you need belt-and-suspenders confirmation, run a direct PTAB E2E "Patent Number" search on 7845976 and save the screenshot — I was unable to complete that direct query.

2. Lead with the expiration, not with validity. With anticipated expiration 2024-11-24 and status "Expired – Lifetime," there is no injunction exposure and damages are confined to the § 286 six-year lookback (i.e., roughly sales from 2020-09-30 forward, if any live assertion exists). Ask the plaintiff on what date it first gave notice and what pre-expiration sales remain recoverable. An IPR is very likely poor value: for an expired patent, claims are construed under Phillips, the patent owner cannot amend, but you also cannot stop a damages case — you'd be paying PTAB fees for a defense you may get free in court.

3. Attack the paper, not the trial record. With zero estoppel and zero prior PTAB construction of "resilient, electrically-conductive grounding seal" (claim 1), "conductive member positioned in a location between the post and the threaded coupler" (claim 16), and "conductive seal when the conductive member is physically pressed against the coupled equipment port" (claim 19), the claim-scope fights are all first-impression. Prioritize: (a) the claim 17/18 misdependency and its § 112(b) antecedent-basis consequences, (b) whether "resilient" in claim 1 is a structural or functional limitation, and (c) the fact that the '976 issued in 2010 from a 2004 priority date means all art must pre-date 2004-11-24.

4. Mine the 2012 E.D. Ark. record. PerfectVision Mfg., Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark.) is the only case I could substantiate asserting the '976, and PerfectVision's invalidity-contentions exhibits for sibling PPC patents are indexed in later PPC patents' IDS sections — a fast route to the 2004-era prior-art universe.

5. If you nonetheless file an IPR: mind the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of the complaint on you or your privies, and mind the newly hardened § 312(a)(2) RPI requirement under now-precedential IPR2014-00440 — name every funding/controlling affiliate, including any co-defendant indemnitor, up front. There is no statutory trial deadline to track today because no trial exists; if you file, expect the standard ~6-month institution decision and a 1-year statutory FWD deadline from institution.

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Explicit uncertainties

1. Direct PTAB E2E by-patent query not completed (tool limit). The count-of-zero rests on the canonical ODP block plus corroborating searches; it is strong but not an E2E-confirmed negative.
2. No FWD, panel, or settlement to report for the '976 — I have deliberately left those fields empty rather than populate them from the other PPC patents' decisions.
3. Year of the Director Squires RPI memorandum designating IPR2014-00440 precedential is not stated in my source; I did not infer it.
4. Sibling IPR numbers (IPR2013-00xxx, IPR2014-004xx, IPR2015-0195x, IPR2016-0157x, IPR2022-01xxx, IPR2025-00833) are quoted exactly as they appear in the sources; they are not proceedings on 7,845,976 and should not be cited as such.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,845,976 through available sources before writing up.

Let me dig further for the actual reel/frame records and assignee-chain details.

Let me try to retrieve the actual assignment records directly.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,845,976 B2

Verification limitation up front: I was unable to retrieve the actual USPTO Assignment Center records (reel/frame, correspondent, execution date) for this patent through the search tools available to me. The USPTO Assignment Search interface (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html / https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) is a query-driven application that did not surface into search results, and no third-party page reproduced the reel/frame text. Accordingly, the post-issuance events below are taken from the Google Patents "Legal Events" tab and the assignment chain rendered on the patent page — not from a direct reel/frame pull. I have not fabricated reel/frame numbers or correspondent names. Where a field could not be verified, I say so.

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Inventors

• The '976 application is a continuation of Ser. No. 10/997,218 (filed 2004‑11‑24); Mathews is the sole named inventor across the family.
• Corroborating employer link: the later PCT publication in the same portfolio (WO 2012/054373 A3, "Dielectric sealing member…") lists "MATHEWS, Roger… 238 Rider Avenue, Syracuse, New York 13207" as inventor and John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. as applicant, with the agent of record being Stephen R. Yoder, c/o John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., 6176 East Molloy Rd., East Syracuse, NY 13057. Syracuse is PPC's home city, which is consistent with (but not proof of) employee-inventor status.
• Unusual-pattern check — no signal. This is a single-inventor patent, so there is no "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern to observe. The event that actually moved the portfolio was corporate, not personnel: founder-CEO John Mezzalingua sold PPC in 2012 (per his 2021 House testimony bio: "John spent twelve years as CEO of PPC… which he sold in 2012"), which is what set up the 2013 name-change recordings below.

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Original assignee

John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (d/b/a PPC) — a corporation organized under Delaware law, principal place of business 6176 East Molloy Road, East Syracuse, New York (per PPC's own complaint language, e.g., John Mezzalingua Assocs., Inc. d/b/a PPC v. PerfectVision, N.D.N.Y.).

• Shipped a product embodying the claims? Yes — clearly. PPC is a long-standing manufacturer of coaxial cable connectors for the CATV/broadband industry and is described as "a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of coaxial cable connectors." The '976 family covers the "continuity/grounding seal" connectors that PPC commercialized.
• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of F-type and related coaxial cable connectors (an operating product company, not a licensing vehicle).
• Enforcement posture as owner: PPC affirmatively sued competitors on this portfolio — e.g., John Mezzalingua Assocs., Inc. d/b/a PPC v. Thomas & Betts Corp. and Belden, Inc. (W.D.N.Y. 6:11‑CV‑06327); PPC v. PCT International (W.D. Tex. 5:09‑cv‑00410; later N.D.N.Y. 5:13‑cv‑0135); John Mezzalingua Assocs. d/b/a PPC v. Corning Gilbert, Inc. (N.D.N.Y. 5:12‑cv‑00911). It was also the defendant/patent owner in the Corning Gilbert IPR wave (IPR2013‑00345 and related).
• Current status: operating, not dissolved or bankrupt. The entity was retitled through the 2013 name-change recordings to PPC Broadband, Inc., which is still active (it continues to file new applications — e.g., US 10,965,063 "Connector Having A Grounding Member" — and to litigate, e.g., Times Fiber Communications v. PPC Broadband, D. Del.). Note the front-page rendering discrepancy flagged in the earlier section: Google Patents shows "PPC Broadband, Inc." as original assignee, which is an artifact of current-ownership backfill rather than the name on the 2010 grant.

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Assignment timeline

Direct Assignment Center pull: not obtained. Google Patents' Legal Events tab records two post-issuance reassignments, both typed "CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)":

• 2013‑02‑12 (execution/recording date per Google Patents Legal Events) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: JOHN MEZZALINGUA ASSOCIATES, INC.
  • Assignee: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (no correspondent-of-record data obtainable from the sources I could search)
  • Context: Internal reorganization / change of name only — no sale of assets, no licensing entity.

• 2013‑02‑13 (execution/recording date per Google Patents Legal Events) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
  • Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorganization / change of name only — completing the retitling to the current operating name.

Notes on the chain:

1. A single, unexplained intermediate entity. "MR ADVISERS LIMITED" appears only as a one-day way-station between the two recorded name changes. It carries none of the classic NPE naming suffix ("IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures"), and both conveyances are typed as change of name rather than assignment, which on its face indicates corporate retitling consistent with the 2012 sale of the PPC business. I could not confirm what MR Advisers Limited is, because I could not pull the underlying assignment documents (which would carry the recorded explanation). Treat this as an open item, not a finding.
2. The inventor-to-company assignment (2004/2009) is not in the Legal Events feed. Google Patents' legal-events list captures post-grant records only; the original assignment from Mathews to John Mezzalingua Associates (if recorded) would need a direct Assignment Center name/serial search to confirm. Not retrieved.
3. Correspondent-of-record — could not be established. Per your framing, this is the highest-value tell. I have no assignment-record correspondent data for either entry. The only attorney of record I could substantiate anywhere in this portfolio is Stephen R. Yoder (prosecution agent on the related PCT), and a related reexamination request listed the owner's address as c/o Schmeiser Olsen & Watts, 22 Century Hill Drive, Suite 302, Latham, NY. Those are prosecution correspondents, not confirmed assignment-record correspondents — I flag them only as a lead, not as evidence of a repeat-player recording firm.

If a direct Assignment Center search returns nothing beyond the two 2013 entries above, that is itself normal and expected for an operating company that simply retitled itself — it does not suggest an NPE chain.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7845976
    2004 : Parent application filed
         : Inventor Mathews assigned to John Mezzalingua Associates
    2009 : Continuation 12 414 159 filed
    2010 : Patent issued to John Mezzalingua Associates
    2012 : Founder sells PPC business
         : Competitor suits filed by PPC
    2013 : Change of name to MR Advisers Limited
         : Change of name to PPC Broadband Inc

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The chain contains no transfer to a licensing entity — the only two recorded post-issuance events are the 2013‑02‑12 and 2013‑02‑13 "Change of Name" conveyances (per Google Patents Legal Events, reel/frame not retrievable) that retitle John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband, Inc., i.e., corporate renaming, not an NPE acquisition. The original and current owner, PPC Broadband, Inc., is a Delaware manufacturer of coaxial connectors that ships products embodying the claims and has enforced this family itself against actual competitors (PerfectVision, E.D. Ark. 4:12‑cv‑00623; Corning Gilbert, N.D.N.Y. 5:12‑cv‑00911; PCT International; Thomas & Betts/Belden). Signals 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all not present; signal 3 is unassessable because no assignment-record correspondent could be retrieved — a data gap, not a finding.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7845976)
• Legacy USPTO Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events / assignment chain: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7845976/en
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database (case categorized "Product company"): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7845976

I'll search for the USPTO record and the prior-art citations of US 7,845,976.

The initial searches surfaced citation lists from other patents but not the front-page "References Cited" for US 7,845,976 itself. Let me target that specifically.

Scope, method, and candid limits

Two things constrained this task, and I want them on the record before the analysis:

1. The Google Patents rendering I fetched for US 7,845,976 contains a "Cited By (71)" section but no "Patent Citations" section. That is a gap in the fetched document, not evidence that the patent cites nothing. To recover the front-page list I relied on the issued-PDF front page (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b5/c0/e3/c5b4796b0e0df2/US7845976.pdf) and on the twin patent US 7,828,595 (same specification, same priority 2004‑11‑24, same inventor, filed 2009‑03‑03), whose front page carries what appears to be the same list.
2. The '976 front-page "References Cited" list is very long (the sibling '595's list runs well into the hundreds of U.S. patents, beginning in 1928). Search snippets returned only fragments. I therefore verify and report the portion I actually retrieved, mark clearly what I am not verifying, and do not fabricate entries, titles, or holdings for references I could not pull.

I did not substitute any near-number patent. Explicitly: US 7,845,978 ("Tool-free coaxial connector," Chen, Dec. 2010) and US 7,845,980 ("Connector with integral seal," Dec. 2010) appear in citation tables alongside 7,845,976 and are different patents; they are excluded from this analysis.

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1. USPTO record confirmation (no auto-correction applied)

Contradiction flagged: the front page as printed names John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. as assignee. Google Patents' HTML header renders "PPC Broadband Inc" as both original and current assignee. As I noted in the prior section, the recorded chain is John Mezzalingua Associates → (2013‑02‑12) MR ADVISERS LIMITED → (2013‑02‑13) PPC Broadband, Inc. The patent document itself is authoritative for the 2010 as-issued assignee, and it says John Mezzalingua Associates.

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2. The "(56) References Cited" section of US 7,845,976

2a. Verified verbatim from the issued PDF front page

U.S. Patent Documents (verified entries, in printed order):

Foreign Patent Documents: CA 2096710 A1 — 11/1994

Other Publications: Supplementary European Search Report, EP05813878, Feb. 6, 2009, 11 pages.

Because US 7,282,595 is a twin of '976, the independent snippet from the '595 PDF (identical opening sequence, identical CA 2096710 A1 foreign reference, identical "Supplementary European Search Report EP05813878" NPL entry) corroborates that '976's front-page list is the same corpus. It also confirms that the reference list was inherited from parent 10/997,218 (filed 2004‑11‑24).

2b. Retrieved from the twin/sibling front page (US 7,828,595) — proxy, not individually re-verified against the '976 PDF

Representative mid-list entries (1985–1989), e.g.: 4,540,231 Forney, Jr. (9/1985); 4,545,637 Bosshard et al. (10/1985); 4,580,862 Johnson; 4,583,811 McMills; 4,588,246 Schildkraut et al.; 4,593,964 Forney, Jr. et al.; 4,596,434 Saba et al.; 4,598,961 Cohen; 4,600,263 DeChamp et al.; 4,614,390 Baker; 4,630,487 Wargula; 4,650,228 McMills; 4,655,159 McMills; 4,668,043 Saba et al.; 4,674,818 McMills et al.; 4,682,832 Punako et al.; 4,688,878 Cohen et al.; 4,703,988 Raux et al. (11/1987); 4,717,355 Mattis; 4,738,009 Down et al.; 4,747,786 Hayashi et al.; 4,749,821 Linton et al.; 4,755,152 Elliot et al.; 4,759,729 Kemppainen et al.; 4,761,146 Sohoel; 4,772,222 Laudig et al.; 4,806,116 Ackerman; 4,808,128 Werth (2/1989); 4,813,886 (truncated).

I am reporting these as a proxy set and flag that I did not verify each against the '976 PDF. Do not treat 2b as an authoritative per-item list for '976.

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3. Most relevant prior art — and the §102 exposure

Tier 1 — Highest-relevance candidates in the coaxial-connector/grounding field

These are the references in the same corpus that actually touch the limitations at issue in claims 1, 16, and 19.

Tier 2 — The rest of the asserted citation list

The verified 1928–1968 entries (2a) and the proxy 1985–1989 entries (2b) are overwhelmingly general coaxial/F-connector, sealing, and shielding art. Individually they disclose isolated elements (a post, a threaded nut, a body, a seal, a shield) rather than the combination of claims 1, 16, or 19. They belong in a §103 obviousness analysis; I see no single reference among them that on its face recites all of: (i) tubular post, (ii) coupler secured over the post with a central bore engaging the port, (iii) a body member extending about the post that contacts the coupler, and (iv) a resilient, electrically conductive grounding seal located between post and coupler. Caveat: I did not read the full text of these references; this is a screening judgment, not a verified non-anticipation finding.

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4. Important negative finding: what is not §102 prior art

• US 7,828,595 B2, US 7,833,053 B2, US 7,950,958 B2 and US 2006/0110977 A1 (the abandoned parent's publication) are same-family members sharing the 2004‑11‑24 priority date. They are not prior art to '976 under §102, and '976 is not prior art to them. Note, however, that US 2006/0110977 ("Matthews") was used as the primary §103 reference by PTAB petitioners against PPC's later continuity-member patents (e.g., in the IPR record for US 8,323,060 and US 8,287,320). That is the reverse relationship — Matthews as art against others — and it is a useful signal of the '976 family's technical breadth.
• US 7,172,612 B2 (Corning Gilbert, "Electrical connector with grounding member," priority 2005‑01‑25) appears in the '976 "Cited By" (later-citing) list, not in its references. It post-dates the priority date and is not §102 art.
• The 71 "Cited By" entries and the 74 "Families Citing this family" entries are all later documents. None is prior art to '976.

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5. The strongest lead I could not resolve

The single most probative artifact for this question is the Supplementary European Search Report for EP05813878, dated Feb. 6, 2009, 11 pages, which is listed as NPL on the '976 front page and which the record shows drove a Rule 115(1) EPC summons to oral proceedings (dated Jun. 7, 2010) before EP 1815559 B1 ultimately granted on 2011‑09‑21 (with DK 1815559 T3 and ES 2371431 T3 national registrations maintained). That search report will contain the EPO's X/Y-category citations — i.e., the art that the examiner-equivalent actually considered most relevant — but I was unable to retrieve its contents, so I will not characterize which references it flags.

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6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Completeness. I recovered only a fragment of the '976 front-page reference list. Any statement that the list "contains" or "does not contain" a given reference is limited to what I retrieved. Do not treat Section 2b as a per-item verified list for '976.
2. Descriptions. Titles and one-line descriptions in Tier 1 come from citation tables in closely related patents and from the references' own titles — I did not read the specifications. The characterization of Burris '951's O-ring as environmental rather than conductive is my inference and is the pivotal question for claim 1; it must be verified against the document.
3. §102 vs. §103. I have flagged this per reference, but I cannot issue a firm anticipation opinion without full-text review. The claim-1 "body member contacts the coupler" limitation is the discriminator that most of this art will fail.
4. US 7,094,999 filing date is unverified and controls whether it is §102(e) art at all.
5. Dates. The task header gives "April 26, 2026"; the system context gives 2026‑09‑30. This does not affect the analysis — all prior-art dates here are historical — but I flag the inconsistency per the operating rule rather than silently resolving it.

Bottom line: on the evidence I can actually verify, US 7,845,976's cited art is a deep coaxial-connector corpus stretching back to 1928, and the references with genuine §102 bite on claims 1/16/19 are the ones directed at (a) a conductive ring at a connector interface (Bruce 6,406,330 / 6,332,815; Rusinyak 3,332,052), (b) EMI/RFI sealing at the port (Hsu 5,683,263; Palinkas 6,716,062 and 2004/0077215), and (c) an O-ring at the nut/body interface (Burris 5,975,951). No single verified reference appears to meet all four limitations of claim 1, which is consistent with the patent having issued over this list — but §103 combinations of (a)+(c), or (b)+(c), are the real vulnerability, and that is precisely the template PTAB petitioners later used against the family's other members.

I'll start by checking what prior-art references are actually associated with this patent, since the page text provided contains a "Cited By" (forward-citation) list but no "Patent Citations" (prior-art) section.

Good — that surfaced the key interoperability prior art (Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak, Tarrant, McConnell, WO'117). Let me pin down reference numbers and check the '976's own cited-art record.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,845,976 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Current date per task header: April 26, 2026. Cross-referenced against the two previously generated sections (bibliographic summary; litigation summary) — no contradiction found, with two additions flagged in §7.

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0. Two threshold problems with the instruction (must be stated before any analysis)

(a) The Google Patents page for US 7,845,976 has no "Prior Art" (backward-citation) section. The page as fetched contains only:

• "Prior art keywords" — coaxial cable; connector; conductive; post; cable connector
• "Prior art date — 2004-11-24"
• "Cited By (71)" and "Families Citing this family (74)" — both of which are forward citations, not prior art.

I checked the publication table in the WO 2012/054373 search report, which reproduces the '976's family bibliographic data: it lists no "documents considered to be relevant" for the '976 itself. So there is no examiner-cited prior-art list on this page to work from. Where the instruction says "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page," I have substituted (i) the art named inside the '976 family's own specifications and (ii) the art actually litigated against this family, and I label each source.

(b) Everything in the two citation lists post-dates the critical date. The earliest priority date appearing anywhere in "Cited By" or "Families Citing this family" is 2004-11-24 (the '976's own family members, e.g. US 7,950,958 B2, US 8,157,589 B2). Every other entry is 2005 or later (earliest third-party: US 8,172,612, priority 2005-01-25, Corning Gilbert; JP 4652950, 2005-10-31; US 2008/0102696, 2006-10-26; etc.). None of them is §102/§103 prior art against claims entitled to a 2004-11-24 effective filing date. In particular, Corning Gilbert's US 8,172,612 ("Electrical connector with grounding member," 2005-01-25 priority) — the reference one would most want — is not available art here, because '976 is a continuation of Ser. No. 10/997,218 filed 2004-11-24.

Effective-date gate. Claim 1 is entitled to 2004-11-24 only for subject matter carried over from the parent. If any claim limitation is found to lack §112 support in 10/997,218, its effective date shifts to 2009-03-30, and the art universe explodes to include US 8,172,612, US 8,027,315, US 8,075,338, US 8,157,589, US 8,167,646 and the whole 2005-2010 continuity wave — many of which are the same invention patented by the same assignee and would raise double-patenting/§102 issues rather than pure §103. Every ground below assumes the 2004-11-24 date holds.

Also excluded as non-art: US 2006/0110977 A1 (the abandoned parent's own publication) and all same-family siblings (US 7,828,595; 7,833,053; 7,950,958; 8,157,589) — common inventive entity / same family.

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1. Governing standard and the POSA

Graham v. John Deere (scope/content of art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations) applied through KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a claim is obvious if the differences from the art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a POSA, and the "motivation" need not be found in the references — it may come from "the inferences and creative steps" the POSA would employ, "the effects of demands known to the design community or present in the marketplace," and the "interchangeability of known elements with predictable results" (KSR, 550 U.S. at 416, 417, 421).

POSA definition (proposed): a mechanical/electrical engineer or senior connector designer with 3–5 years' experience designing F-type and CATV coaxial cable connectors, familiar with the SCTE/industry 75-ohm connector standard and with the recognized problem of RF ingress through loose or corroded nut/post joints.

Note on the controlling claim construction. In the E.D. Ark. case, the court construed "resilient" (Doc. #102, Aug. 29, 2014) as "comprised of materials such that [it] ordinarily will return to its original shape after being depressed or deformed." That is the construction of a conventional elastomeric O-ring, and it is important here: it means the claims do not require a metal spring, and any rubber/elastomer ring satisfies "resilient."

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2. The usable prior-art set (all dated before 2004-11-24 unless noted)

Not used: all post-2004-11-24 documents; the family's own parent/sibling publications; and the '976's own specification's "Background" admissions (usable only as evidence of the known problem, not as §102 art).

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3. Element mapping — claim 1

That is a textbook KSR case: one reference supplies the complete structure with a known interchangeable element (an elastomeric O-ring), and a second supplies the known property (conductivity → continuous ground + RFI suppression) that the first reference's element already exists to provide.

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4. Proposed §103 grounds

4.1 Claim 1 — Ground A: WO 99/65117 A1 in view of US 4,929,188 (Lionetto)

• WO'117 discloses every structural element of claim 1 (table above). The only gap is that its O-ring 35 is an insulating rubber seal, not "electrically-conductive."
• Lionetto teaches that the ring at a coax outer-conductor junction should be an "electrically conductive elastomer gasket ring" whose express function is "continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression" — i.e., exactly the function claim 1 assigns to the seal.
• Result: replacing WO'117's rubber O-ring with Lionetto's conductive elastomer O-ring, in the same groove, between the same two parts, yields claim 1. The result is predictable because it is the property the substituted material is known for.

4.2 Claim 1 — Ground B: WO 99/65117 A1 in view of US 5,877,452 (McConnell)

• McConnell supplies not only conductivity but the reason: an O-ring "captively positioned between a backside of a ground conductor plate and an inner edge of an inwardly flanged shoulder portion of a connector nut," deformed on connection so as to "urge improved electrical contact between ground plate platforms… while preventing introduction of unwanted contaminants."
• This is the '976's own asserted dual function (physical seal + grounding), in the same location (nut shoulder / post junction), achieved by the same mechanism (compression of a deformable ring upon mating).

4.3 Claim 1 — Ground C (alternative): F-connector base (Hayward '050 or Szegda '106) + McConnell '452 + Horak

For a rejection that does not depend on the WO'117 publication: Hayward/Szegda give (a)–(c) as conceded prior art; McConnell gives the deformable conductive ring at the nut flange; Horak confirms that in CATV coax connectors specifically, a conductive rubber ring between the body and post provides "weather sealing" and "continuous ground connection" simultaneously. Substitution of a conductive rubber ring for the conventional rubber weather seal in an F-connector is a use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417).

4.4 Claim 16 — same grounds; the "threaded coupler" is additional

Claim 16 differs from claim 1 only in (i) expressly reciting a threaded coupler and (ii) the functional language "physical seal… unbroken electrical circuit… grounding is extended through the conductive member to the equipment port." Threaded F-connector nuts are ubiquitous (Hayward, Szegda, Samchisen, WO'117's nut 38, Youtsey, Palinkas). The functional language is the inherent result of a compressed conductive elastomer ring in the post/nut gap (Lionetto's "continuous circumferential electrical contact"; Horak's "continuous ground connection"). Grounds A/B/C apply to claim 16 essentially verbatim.

4.5 Claim 19 — most vulnerable claim; McConnell alone is near-dispositive

Claim 19's added matter is: an annular seal between the coupler nut and the post → barrier to moisture/contaminants, plus a conductive seal when physically pressed against the coupled equipment port → EMI shielding.

McConnell's abstract states, almost clause-for-clause: a deformable O-ring between the ground plate and the nut's flanged shoulder; upon connection of the connector to its mating connector, pressure deforms the O-ring, "thereby urging improved electrical contact between ground plate platforms… while preventing introduction of unwanted contaminants." Compare claim 19(d): "conductive member… facilitate an annular seal between the coupler nut and the post thereby providing a physical barrier to ingress of unwanted environmental contaminates and facilitating an electrical connection… so as to effectuate a conductive seal when the conductive member is physically pressed against the coupled equipment port, thereby shielding against ingress of unwanted electromagnetic interference."

Proposed ground: McConnell '452 (primary) in view of WO'117 (to move the deformable ring into the nut/post joint of an F-connector) and optionally Lionetto '188 (to confirm the conductive-elastomer/RFI-shielding mechanism for a coax connector). If a factfinder accepted the "annular seal between nut and post" reading of McConnell's ring, claim 19 approaches anticipation; at minimum it is obvious.

4.6 Dependent claims

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5. Motivation to combine (articulated, KSR-compliant)

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem. All references are coaxial/CATV cable connectors addressing RF/moisture ingress at the nut–post–body interface. WO'117 states the problem expressly: outdoor F-connectors suffer moisture ingress "including the joint between the coupling nut and the tubular post," causing "corrosion, increased contact resistance, reduced signal strength, and excessive RF leakage."
2. The '976's own Background admits the problem was known: "electromagnetic noise can be problematic when it is introduced via the connective juncture between an interface port and a connector"; "Weathering also creates interference problems when metallic components corrode… resulting in intermittent contact and poor electromagnetic shielding." An admitted, long-recognized problem with an available known solution is a classic KSR motivation.
3. Known solution to a known problem. Lionetto and Horak both use a conductive elastomer ring for precisely the stated purpose — continuous ground/RFI suppression at a coax outer-conductor junction — so the POSA would have a reasonable expectation of success (Lionetto's claim 3; Horak's "continuous ground connection" while "weather sealing").
4. Material substitution with predictable result. Rubber and metal-filled/conductive rubber O-rings are the same form factor; substituting one to obtain its known property is a "predictable variation" (KSR at 417).
5. Market/design pressure. The '387 publication (Holland Electronics) documents that increasing shielding of every distribution component had become "a goal of CATV system designs seeking improved data transmission performance," and that two prior approaches (Youtsey's locking washer; Palinkas's spring) had already been developed specifically to preserve the ground plane when the nut loosens. That is contemporaneous evidence of an industry-wide design driver toward exactly the post/nut continuity solution claimed.
6. The trade-off is expressly addressed, not ignored. WO'117 identifies the free-spin/torque drag problem that PPC has invoked against conductive O-rings — and solves it structurally (limited axial nut play so the ring does not drag until final tightening). A POSA combining WO'117 with a conductive O-ring would therefore meet the "added compression/drag" objection head-on rather than have to invent around it.

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6. Where the obviousness case is vulnerable — PPC's actual, litigated counter-arguments

This is not a hypothetical; PPC has litigated these very issues against a materially identical evidentiary package in the Amphenol IPRs on its later continuity patents. A rigorous §103 opinion must confront them:

1. Non-predictable interchangeability. PPC argued (with a Crivello declaration) that "component elements, such as the conductive sealing members of Lionetto or Horak, are not predictably interchangeable with non-conductive sealing members, such as the O-ring of Youtsey," and that a POSA would have had "no reasonable expectation that such a combination would [be] successful." If credited, Grounds A–C fail for lack of a reasonable expectation of success.
2. Compression requirement and free rotation. PPC's position: metal-filled conductive O-rings require significant compression to form a path; that compression increases friction/torque on the coupler, risks under-tightening, and therefore creates the loose-connector problem the art was trying to solve. Petitioner's own pivot — from "compressible metal-filled o-rings" to "conductively coated or sheathed o-rings" — was attacked as unsupported by any documentary evidence, with PPC asserting no evidence that conductively coated o-rings were even available in 2004. That date-specific evidentiary gap is the single biggest threat to a §103 rejection of a 2004-priority claim.
3. Inferior sealing / added failure point. PPC argued conductive elastomers seal worse and that the ring introduces an additional failure point in the ground path. Under Winner Int'l v. Wang / Arctic Cat v. Polaris, the answer is that lost and gained benefits must be weighed against each other — the Board must decide whether the net motivation exists; it is not defeated merely because a benefit is lost.
4. Secondary considerations. Critically, in PPC Broadband v. Corning Optical Commc'n RF, Nos. 15-1361/-1366/-1368/-1369 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 22, 2016), the Federal Circuit held that the Board's findings of long-felt but unresolved need, failed attempts, and copying were supported by substantial evidence, and reversed the Board on commercial success because PPC's connectors indisputably embodied the claims (creating a presumption that commercial success is due to the invention). Those considerations, if imported to the '976 (same assignee, same product line, same experts), are a serious obstacle. Note the timing: the '976's 2004-11-24 priority predates the 2005-2010 continuity wave, so the long-felt-need narrative is arguably stronger for the '976 than for the later patents — but the "failed attempts" evidence (Youtsey's washer, Palinkas's spring) cuts both ways: it shows a recognized need, but also shows the art's solutions were mechanical springs and washers, not conductive elastomers.
5. The Fed. Cir. also vacated on claim-construction grounds for limitations requiring the continuity member to "maintain" continuity during specified periods and for the Board's improper BRI of "encircle or surround." The '976's claims do not contain temporal-maintenance language (no "maintain… when loose"), so that vacatur rationale does not help PPC on claim 1; but claim 19's "effectuate a conductive seal when the conductive member is physically pressed against the coupled equipment port" is a temporal/pressed-against limitation that a court could construe narrowly, narrowing the art's applicability.

Net assessment: Claims 1 and 16 are, in my view, strongly obvious over WO'117 + Lionetto/McConnell/Horak, because WO'117 supplies the exact claimed physical arrangement (the hard part) and the second reference supplies only a known material property. Claim 19 is the most vulnerable, because McConnell '452 discloses the seal-plus-improved-ground-contact-on-mating combination in functionally identical terms. The whole case, however, turns on a factual question — whether 2004-era conductive-elastomer O-rings formed an electrical path without unacceptable compression and whether conductively-coated alternatives existed in 2004. That question is answerable only with documentary evidence, not with general knowledge (K/S HIMPP v. Hear-Wear Techs., 751 F.3d 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2014); Xerox v. Bytemark).

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7. Additional flags (not corrections)

(1) Addition to the earlier sections — the family was reexamined. Ex parte reexamination Control No. 95/001,689, filed 2011-07-18 (attorney docket "PPC.4089US4RE-NY"), was instituted on US 7,833,053 ("Mathews") — a sibling of the '976 from the same 2004-11-24 family. The Action Closing Prosecution addresses claims 1-12 and new claims 13-19 (Examiner Ralis, Art Unit 3992). This confirms the family as a whole was subjected to substantial-new-question-of-patentability challenges, though I have not confirmed the references or outcome of the '053 reexam, and this reexam does not involve the '976.

(2) Addition to the earlier sections — assignee flag resolved in favor of the chain. Contemporaneous news records ("US Fed News," Nov. 17-18, 2010; "Patents Awarded to Inventors in New York," Nov. 22, 2010) state that the sibling '053 issued assigned to John Mezzalingua Associates Inc. (E. Syracuse/Latham, N.Y.), inventor "Roger Mathews, Syracuse, N.Y." This corroborates the assignment chain (John Mezzalingua → MR Advisers → PPC Broadband) and confirms that the Google Patents front-page rendering of "PPC Broadband Inc" as original assignee is anachronistic. It also corroborates the "Mathews" spelling used in the patent.

(3) Additional claim-drafting anomaly — claim 8's "said face." Claim 8 recites "the grounding conductive seal is located proximate the second end of the post and contacting said face." Claim 1 contains no antecedent "face." This is a second indefiniteness/antecedent-basis defect (in addition to the previously flagged claims 17/18 misdependency on "claim 15"). If the '976 claims are ever construed, claim 8's scope will be ambiguous.

(4) The claims read on the FIG. 7 embodiment, not FIG. 8. Claim 1(d), claim 16(d) and claim 19(d) all place the conductive member "between the tubular post and the coupler/coupler nut." That reads on the mating edge conductive member 70 (FIG. 7) — not on the connector body conductive member 80 (FIG. 8), which sits between the body and the nut. Yet the '976's Abstract, its "first," "fourth" and "sixth" general aspects, and its method claims all describe the seal as coupling the connector body and the threaded nut. The claims and the stated invention are directed at different interfaces. This matters to the §103 analysis: the art that reads on the claimed post/nut interface is WO'117 and McConnell; art reading on the unclaimed body/nut interface (e.g. US 8,157,589 / Tarrant / Bell-type conductive ring between body and coupler) is less directly on point but still supports motivation.

(5) Reference-number uncertainty. I could not confirm the patent numbers for "Horak," "Tarrant," and "Bell." Their disclosures are accurately characterized here from Amphenol's PTAB petition papers (PETACTS petition IDs 1549311/1549312/1549313/1549314 and 1557693, challenges to PPC's later continuity patents), and those papers describe them as pre-2004 references, but a §103 ground must cite the actual document numbers. Confirm Horak/Tarrant/Bell numbers before relying on Grounds using them. The reference numbers I did confirm are: US 4,929,188 (Lionetto); US 5,877,452 (McConnell); US 6,712,631 (Youtsey) and US 6,716,062 (Palinkas) — the latter two named in the text of US 2012/0129387; US 4,400,050 (Hayward); US 4,990,106 (Szegda); US 4,834,675 (Samchisen); WO 99/65117 (WO1999065117A1).

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8. Confidence and limits

• High confidence: (i) the page contains no prior-art citation section and all listed citations post-date 2004-11-24; (ii) WO'117 discloses the post/nut O-ring arrangement of claim 1 with the sole exception of conductivity; (iii) Lionetto and Horak both teach conductive elastomer rings in coax connectors for continuous ground/RFI suppression; (iv) McConnell teaches a deformable O-ring at the nut flange that is deformed on connection to improve ground contact while excluding contaminants; (v) claim 19 is the claim most exposed to a McConnell-based rejection.
• Moderate confidence: that a factfinder would find a sufficient motivation and reasonable expectation of success on the 2004-11-24 critical date, given PPC's litigated evidentiary attacks on exactly that point (conductive O-rings' compression requirement; availability of conductively-coated O-rings in 2004).
• Low confidence / unverified: the Horak, Tarrant and Bell patent numbers; the references and outcome of reexam 95/001,689; whether any '976 claim lacks §112 support in the parent (which would move the critical date and change the entire analysis).

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7845976/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/WO1999065117A1/en ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[5877452](/patent/5877452)-A ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/00/46/48/e79003e44bd8ea/US4929188.pdf ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120129387 (Youtsey '631 / Palinkas '062 characterizations) ; PTAB petition papers at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549311, /1549312, /1549313, /1549314, /1557693 ; https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-york/nyndce/5:2011cv00761/85894/67/0.pdf and .../446/0.pdf ; https://natlawreview.com/article/ppc-broadband-inc-v-corning-optical-commc-n-rf-llc-presumptions-can-apply-inter ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2014-00736/ (PPC '446 Patent Owner Response).