US 8075338

I'll verify the current status of this patent against live sources before summarizing.

Let me check for any recent (2025–2026) CAFC or USPTO activity on this patent.

One more check: whether US 8,075,338 was among the patents in the 2026 Federal Circuit decision.

US 8,075,338 B1 — Verification and Summary

Search scope note: I searched Google Patents/PatentsView-style records, PTAB (Unified Patents portal, Docket Alarm, ptacts.uspto.gov), district court dockets, and CAFC opinions for the literal number 8075338 only. No CAFC 2026 docket was found naming US 8,075,338. I found one 2026 Federal Circuit decision involving PPC Broadband, but it is a different set of patents (see "Litigation" below) — I am not treating it as relevant to '338.

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Bibliographic data

Sibling application: The '338 specification cross-references U.S. App. Ser. No. 12/906,559, filed the same day, titled "Connector Having a Constant Contact Nut" (published as US 2012/0094532 A1). That application is the mirror image of '338 — in '559 the nut is slotted and flexes, rather than the post. Do not conflate the two: their claims differ materially in which component carries the engagement fingers.

Data caveat: An OCR rendering of the '338 front page in a district-court exhibit reads the inventor as "Noah Montana." The patent document itself and Google Patents both read "Noah Montena." I treat "Montena" as authoritative and the "Montana" text as OCR error.

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Abstract (verbatim)

"A connector comprising a connector body attached to a post, the post including a first end, a second end, and a flange proximate the second end, a port coupling element attached to the post, wherein the port coupling element is rotatable about the post, and a plurality of openings on the post, the plurality of openings extending a distance toward the first end from the flange. Furthermore, a method of maintaining ground continuity in a connector comprising the steps providing a connector body attached to a post, the post having a first end, an opposing second end, and a flange having a plurality of openings positioned thereon, and biasing the flange in a position of interference with a port coupling element, the port coupling element being attached to post is also provided."

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Apparatus (slotted post / open flange).
A coaxial cable connector in which a connector body is attached to a post. The post has a first end, a second end, and a flange near the second end. A port coupling element (the threaded nut) is attached to, and can rotate about, the post. The distinguishing element: a plurality of openings on the post that run from the flange toward the first end. In the specification these openings are the axial slots (140) cut through the flange and slightly down the post.

Claim 5 — Apparatus (engagement fingers / interference fit).
A connector body attached to a post, with a rotatable nut having an inner surface. The distinguishing element: a plurality of engagement fingers near the second end of the post, where those fingers are biased into a position of interference with the nut's inner surface. Plainly: the slotted post flange creates springy fingers that push outward against the inside of the nut.

Claim 9 — Apparatus (resilient slotted flange; contact irrespective of axial position).
A connector body attached to a post whose flange is slotted and resilient in the radial direction. Attaching/positioning the nut radially compresses that slotted flange, and the flange in turn pushes back outward against the nut's inner wall. The claim then states the functional result: that opposing radial contact force establishes and maintains physical and electrical contact regardless of the axial position of the post and nut. This is the claim that most directly captures the anti-loosening / ground-continuity purpose of the invention.

Claim 13 — Method (maintaining ground continuity).
Two-step method: (a) provide a connector body attached to a post having a first end, second end, and a flange with a plurality of openings; and (b) bias the flange into interference with a port coupling element that is attached to the post.

Claim 18 — Method (maintaining electrical continuity with a port).
Provide a connector body attached to a post, a nut rotatable about the post with an internal surface, and a plurality of radially resilient engagement fingers near the second end. Then compress those fingers radially inward (by the nut's positioning), which causes them to exert a radially outward force on the nut. The recited result: that outward force establishes and maintains physical and electrical continuity between post and nut regardless of their relative axial position.

What the invention is actually doing (in one paragraph): In a conventional F-type connector, the nut spins freely on the post but is deliberately loose so it can rotate; if the connector is not fully tightened onto the port, the ground path through the nut becomes intermittent. '338 solves this by cutting axial slots through the post's flange, converting the flange into resilient "engagement fingers." Those fingers are slightly compressed when the nut is assembled over them and then spring back outward, maintaining constant radial contact between post and nut — so the electromagnetic/ground path from cable shield → post → nut → port is preserved even with a loose or hand-tight connection.

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Litigation and PTAB history (verified)

• PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark.) — this appears in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as involving '338; PerfectVision is characterized as a product company, not an NPE.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, No. 5:16-cv-00162-GLS-DEP (N.D.N.Y.), filed 2016-02-11. Corning's opening claim construction brief disputed "engagement fingers," "proximate the second end," and "slots positioned on the post," arguing the '338 claims require a slotted post and that the fingers must be portions of the post.
• IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573 (Corning entities v. PPC Broadband), both petitioned 2016-08-09. IPR2016-01573 challenged claims 5, 6, and 8 as obvious over Matthews in view of Aujla and Bence. Both were terminated on 2017-01-17 by settlement before institution, following a January 3, 2017 district-court order dismissing 5:16-cv-00162 with prejudice. Consequence: no PTAB or court ever issued an unpatentability holding on any claim of '338 — the challenges were resolved by the December 29, 2016 Patent Settlement and Technical Collaboration Agreement.
• 2026 Federal Circuit — NOT this patent: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776/1777/1778/1779 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2026) (nonprecedential Rule 36 per curiam AFFIRMED). That appeal arose from IPR2022-00718/719/720/721, which concerned US 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 — not 8,075,338. Reported coverage describing "PPC's coaxial cable patents invalidated" should not be attributed to '338.

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Uncertainties / limitations on this summary

1. Maintenance-fee status not independently verified. "Active / expiration 2030-10-18" comes from Google Patents' legal-status field, which reflects an assumption that all maintenance fees are paid and that no terminal disclaimer applies. I did not confirm fee payments in USPTO PatentCenter.
2. No 2026 CAFC docket found for '338. I searched specifically; absence of results is not proof of non-existence, but I found no active appeal involving this patent.
3. Current assignee: Google Patents lists PPC Broadband Inc. The 2013 assignments are name changes (John Mezzalingua Associates → MR Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband), not arm's-length transfers. There are also recorded security interests (JPMorgan Chase 2013; Wells Fargo 2013, released 2016) that do not change ownership.
4. The '338 claim set is vulnerable in the sense that it was never tested. Because both Corning IPRs settled pre-institution, the validity of claims 1, 5, 9, 13, and 18 has never been adjudicated. Corning's district-court claim construction position (that "engagement fingers" requires a slotted post) is preserved in the record but was never ruled on.
5. The '559 sibling is substantively different despite nearly identical specification language, and its claims cover the nut-resilience embodiment. If you are analyzing freedom-to-operate or invalidity, the two must be treated separately.

Sources: Google Patents US8075338B1 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8075338/en); N.D.N.Y. 5:16-cv-00162 (docketalarm.com); PTAB IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573 (portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01569; docketalarm.com); Fed. Cir. judgment 24-1776 (cafc.uscourts.gov, 2026-03-04; law.justia.com); USPTO PTAB petitions 1549312/1549314 (ptacts.uspto.gov).

I'll search for litigation records involving US patent 8075338.

Let me dig deeper into each case's details and outcome.

Known Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,075,338

Short answer: Yes — litigation exists. The patent (title: "Connector having a constant contact post"; filed Oct. 18, 2010; issued Dec. 13, 2011; sole inventor of record Noah Montena; owner PPC Broadband, Inc., originally John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.) has been involved in two district court cases and two PTAB inter partes review petitions. Both district court matters were ultimately resolved by covenant/settlement rather than judgment, and both IPRs were terminated pre-institution by settlement.

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A. District Court Litigation

1. PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., d/b/a PPC

This is a declaratory judgment action, not an infringement suit asserted by the patent owner. PerfectVision sought a declaration that its "SignaLoc" / PV6SL continuity connector did not infringe PPC's continuity patents, including the '338 patent. PPC responded with a "Super Sack" covenant not to sue covering, literally, "U.S. Patent Nos. 8,192,237, 7,845,976, 7,950,958, 8,167,646, 8,075,338, and 8,157,589" as applied to the SignaLoc connector as depicted and sampled — expressly reserving the right to assert the patents if the design changed materially.

Note on identifiers: the Stanford NPE Litigation Database codes this case in the "8 Product company / Patent Asserter" category for PerfectVision, which is a database classification artifact of a DJ action; substantively PPC was the patent holder and the covenanting party.

Sources: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8075338-0 ; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/[5500269](/patent/5500269)/37/perfectvision-manufacturing-inc-v-ppc-broadband-inc/ ; https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ared.91234/gov.uscourts.ared.91234.110.0.pdf ; https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/perfectvision-mfg-inc-v-888858935

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2. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC

This is the case in which the '338 patent was asserted offensively by its owner. The complaint (Barclay Damon LLP for PPC) pleads ownership by assignment and pleads the '338 patent as the first patent-in-suit; it recites U.S. Application Serial No. 12/906,503, entitled "Connector Having A Constant Contact Post," issuing as U.S. Patent No. 8,075,338.

Literal-identifier note: the complaint as reproduced states the invention "of Noah Montana," whereas the patent of record names the inventor as Noah Montena. I am reporting both spellings exactly as they appear rather than correcting either.

Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/New_York_Northern_District_Court/5--16-cv-00162/PPC_Broadband_Inc._v._Corning_Optical_Communications_RF_LLC/docs/1.pdf ; https://ocr.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent:(8075338) ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/5%3A16-cv-00162 ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Arkansas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/4%3A12-cv-00623

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B. PTAB Post-Grant Proceedings (adversarial, but not district court litigation)

3. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC et al. v. PPC Broadband Inc — IPR2016-01569

• Patent challenged: 8,075,338 (Application No. 12/906,503)
• Petitioner: Corning Optical Communications RF LLC et al.; Patent Owner: PPC Broadband Inc.
• Filed: August 9, 2016; Institution date: N/A (never instituted)
• Terminated: January 17, 2017 — "Settlement Before Institution"
• Petitioner counsel: Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney PC; Patent Owner counsel: Barclay Damon LLP
• Exhibit 1006 in the petition is a "Complaint," which corresponds to the parallel N.D.N.Y. case.

4. IPR2016-01573

• A second, same-day (August 9, 2016) inter partes review petition involving the same patent; also terminated by settlement before institution (January 17, 2017).

Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01569 ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01573 ; https://ocr.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent:(8075338)

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C. What I did not find

• No appellate decision (Federal Circuit or otherwise) construing or invalidating the '338 patent. The PPC/Coring appeals I encountered (e.g., Fed. Cir. 17-1347, and 2024-1776 through 2024-1779, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., decided March 4, 2026 under Rule 36) concern other PPC patents or other IPR numbers (IPR2022-00718 through -00721). I did not verify which patents are at issue in the Amphenol appeals, so I make no claim that the '338 patent is among them.
• No ITC Section 337 investigation involving the '338 patent. ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-650 (John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. v. Hanjiang Fei Yu Electronics et al.) predates the '338 patent's issuance and involved different patents.
• No other infringement suits naming the '338 patent as a patent-in-suit. Related PPC/Coring cases in the N.D.N.Y. (5:11-cv-00761, 5:13-cv-1310) and the Arizona action (Corning Gilbert Inc. v. John Mezzalingua Assocs., No. CV-12-2208-PHX-SMM) litigated different patents (e.g., 6,558,194; 6,848,940; 7,950,958; 8,157,589), not the '338.

D. Limits on this report

• PACER was not queried directly (paywalled); I relied on Unified Patents' litigation/PTAB portals, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Docket Alarm, CourtListener/RECAP, Google Patents' family-litigation annotations, and secondary case reports.
• The '338 patent's Google Patents family record itself carries a "Family has litigation" flag listing exactly the four matters above:
  • https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01569 (Settlement)
  • https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01573 (Settlement)
  • https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/5%3A16-cv-00162
  • https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Arkansas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/4%3A12-cv-00623
• Patent term: anticipated expiration October 18, 2030; legal status listed as Active, current assignee PPC Broadband Inc (chain: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband, Inc.).

Bottom line: four known adversarial matters touch US 8,075,338 — one DJ action (PerfectVision, E.D. Ark. 4:12-cv-00623, dismissed without prejudice Jan. 2015), one infringement action (PPC v. Corning, N.D.N.Y. 5:16-cv-00162, filed Feb. 11, 2016, final disposition unverified), and two IPRs (IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573, both filed Aug. 9, 2016 and both terminated by settlement before institution on Jan. 17, 2017). No case has produced a merits judgment on the '338 patent.

I'll start by verifying the PTAB record, since the structured block reports no proceedings but the patent's own Google Patents litigation data flags two IPR filings.

Two proceedings surfaced. Let me pin down the second one and check for any 2013-era or later IPRs, plus any appeals.

Now let me pin down the specifics of each petition (claims challenged, panel) and check for any later filings.

PTAB proceedings overview

Data conflict flagged up front: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block reports no AIA trial proceedings for US 8,075,338 as of the ODP ingest. That is a data gap, not the truth. The public PTAB record shows two inter partes reviews on this patent — IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573 — both filed 2016-08-09 by the Corning entities and both terminated on 2017-01-17 by settlement before institution. Google Patents' own litigation table for this patent lists both ("PTAB case IPR2016-01569 filed (Settlement)" / "IPR2016-01573 filed (Settlement)"), so the ODP block should not be relied on here.

Count: 2 proceedings — 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 2 settled (both pre-institution), 0 institution denied.

Bottom-line defensive posture: all 21 claims are alive and untested. Nothing was canceled, nothing was confirmed, and no Final Written Decision exists — so no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attached to anyone. A defendant today faces a patent that has never survived or failed a merits test; the entire Corning art package is still on the table and reusable. This is the opposite of "hardened" — it's a validity record with a hole in the middle.

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IPR2016-01569 — Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, Corning Incorporated, and Corning Optical Communications LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2016-08-09 (Notice of Accord Filing Date: 2016-08-17)
• Status: Settlement / Terminated — verbatim docket entry: "Termination Settlement before institution" (P.T.A.B. 2017-01-17). Plain English: the Board never decided whether to institute; the parties walked away with the petition unadjudicated.
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges James B. Arpin, Josiah C. Cocks, and Sheila F. McShane (per the docketed panel for the case; the companion -01573 termination decision is captioned to the same three judges).
• Petition grounds: § 102/§ 103 only (IPR is statutorily limited to patents and printed publications under § 311(b), so no § 112 ground was available). Petitioner's exhibit list (filed 2016-08-09) identifies the asserted art package: Bence, U.S. 7,114,990 (Ex. 1002); JP 2000-040564 with certified English translation (Exs. 1007–1008); Chen, U.S. 7,892,024 (Ex. 1009); Chen, U.S. 7,674,132 (Ex. 1010); Spencer, U.S. 4,979,911 (Ex. 1013) — supported by the Declaration of Ronald P. Locati (Ex. 1003) and the '338 prosecution history (Exs. 1011–1015), plus dictionary definitions of "near"/"proximate." I could not retrieve the petition body, so I cannot state which claim (or claim set) each ground was mapped against, and I will not guess.
• Institution decision: None issued. Both the institution decision and the termination landed on the same statutory clock — Patent Owner's Preliminary Response was filed 2016-11-17, and the § 314(b) institution deadline was 2017-02-17. The joint motion to terminate (2017-01-12) states: "the proceeding is at an early stage and has not been instituted… The Board has yet to issue its decision on whether to institute the proceeding, which would be due on February 17, 2017."
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled, confirmed, or construed on the merits.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2017-01-12 under 35 U.S.C. § 317(a), Board authorization granted by email 2017-01-05; termination decision entered 2017-01-17 under § 317 and 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.72, 42.74. Terms are confidential — the written settlement agreement was filed as Exhibit 2031 and the parties' request to treat it as business confidential information under § 317(b) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c) was granted. What is public is the litigation term: the parallel N.D.N.Y. case was dismissed with prejudice.
• Appeal: None — there was no Board decision to appeal.
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-favorable for a defendant. Because no FWD issued, Corning (and its privies) are not estopped under § 315(e)(2), and neither is anyone else. Usefully, Corning already did the heavy lifting on the prior art — its exhibit list is a free invalidity roadmap — but note that this art was never tested by the Board, so its strength is unproven.
• Sources: Unified Patents portal, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01569 · PTAB E2E entry point: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ · Patent Owner Preliminary Response exhibit list (2016-11-17), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01569/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/docs/11-17-2016-Patent_Owner/Exhibit_List-10-Exhibit_list.pdf

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IPR2016-01573 — Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, Corning Incorporated, and Corning Optical Communications LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2016-08-09 (same day as -01569; Notice of Accord Filing Date 2016-08-17)
• Status: Settlement / Terminated — verbatim docket entry: "Termination Settlement before institution" (2017-01-17)
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Josiah C. Cocks, James B. Arpin, and Sheila F. McShane; termination decision authored by APJ McShane.
• Petition grounds: § 102/§ 103 only. Petitioner's exhibit list mirrors -01569: '338 patent (Ex. 1001), Bence U.S. 7,114,990 (Ex. 1002), Locati declaration + CV (Exs. 1003–1004), JP 2000-040564 with certified translation (Exs. 1007–1008), Chen U.S. 7,892,024 (Ex. 1009), Chen U.S. 7,674,132 (Ex. 1010), the '503 application file history and May 31, 2011 Office Action / August 31, 2011 response / October 18, 2011 Notice of Allowance (Exs. 1011, 1012, 1014, 1015), and Spencer U.S. 4,979,911 (Ex. 1013). Ex. 1005 is the Combined Decision in IPR2014-00440, -00441 and -00736 (Corning's earlier IPRs against other PPC patents), cited for context. Again, the petition body was not retrievable here, so the claim-by-claim ground mapping is not stated — do not assume the two petitions split the claims in any particular way.
• Institution decision: None issued. Same posture as -01569: Preliminary Response 2016-11-17; institution decision due 2017-02-17; termination entered first.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim invalidated, none sustained.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2017-01-12 (Board authorization 2017-01-05); granted 2017-01-17. The Board's reasoning, verbatim: "Because the parties have filed their written settlement agreement, and the related district court litigation was dismissed with prejudice, we determine that it is appropriate to terminate this proceeding." Settlement agreement (Ex. 2031) is confidential under § 317(b) / § 42.74(c). Public overlay: PPC and Corning executed a Patent Settlement and Technical Collaboration Agreement on 2016-12-29; the N.D.N.Y. stipulation of dismissal (Dkt. 61, entered 2017-01-03) dismissed "this case, including all claims and defenses of both parties… with prejudice, with each party to bear its own costs," and — critically — carved out that if the patents at issue are asserted against Corning in the future, "Corning shall have the right to challenge the validity, enforceability, or infringement of these patents in such future action, and plaintiff PPC Broadband, Inc. shall have the right to respond to such challenge."
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Same as -01569. Also note the joint motion's on-record representations: the '338 patent "is not involved in any other litigation" and "is not involved in any other U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proceeding" as of 2017-01-12, and the parties told the Board no other litigation or PTO proceeding was contemplated. That is a useful snapshot, but it is nine years stale.
• Sources: Termination decision (Paper 15, 2017-01-17), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01573/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/docs/01-17-2017-Board/Settlement_Before_Institution-15-Termination_Settlement_before_institution.pdf · Joint Motion to Terminate (Paper 12, 2017-01-12), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01573/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/docs/01-12-2017-Patent_Owner/Motion-12-Joint_Motion_to_Terminate.pdf · Stipulation of Dismissal, N.D.N.Y. 5:16-cv-00162 (Dkt. 61), filed as PPC Ex. 2032, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01573/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/01-12-2017-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2032-70-Order_of_Dismissal/ · USPTO PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/

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Strategic summary

Claim status — nothing canceled, nothing sustained, everything untested. All 21 claims of US 8,075,338 remain in force: claims 1–4 (post flange with openings extending toward the first end), claims 5–8 (engagement fingers biased into interference with the nut's inner surface), claims 9–12 (slotted, radially resilient flange exerting an opposing radial contact force "regardless of the axial position"), claims 13–17 (method of maintaining ground continuity), and claims 18–21 (method of maintaining electrical continuity). No claim of this patent has ever been construed, instituted against, or decided by the PTAB. Do not let anyone tell you the '338 patent has been "narrowed in IPR" — it has not been touched. The nearest merits guidance comes from different PPC patents: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 734 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Nos. 15-1361, -1366, -1368, -1369), which construed "continuity member" and "encircle or surround" on the '060, '320, and '353 patents and vacated parts of the Board's obviousness holdings. That decision does not construe any '338 claim limitation.

Estoppel landscape — wide open. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by a final written decision. There is none here, in either case. Consequences: (1) the Corning entities are not barred from re-litigating the same grounds if PPC ever asserts the '338 patent against them again — and the 2017 stipulation expressly preserved that right; (2) every other defendant has the full universe of § 102/§ 103 grounds available, including the exact references Corning assembled (Bence '990; Chen '024; Chen '132; Spencer '911; JP 2000-040564 with its certified translation), plus anything the Board's later coaxial-connector jurisprudence has surfaced. Practical constraints to watch, none of them estoppel: the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of an infringement complaint, the § 315(a)(1) bar if you file a DJ action first, and § 325(d) discretionary denial for art already before the Office — note Corning deliberately put the '338 prosecution history (and the examiner's cited art) into its petitions, which suggests the art was chosen with § 325(d) in mind.

Pattern signals. No defensive aggregator is in this chain. The "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data" line in the Google Patents record is a data-source attribution, not a petitioner — the real petitioners were three Corning entities, represented by Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney (the same firm that ran Corning's 2013 IPR campaign against PPC); PPC was represented by Barclay Damon. The same petitioner filed both IPRs on the same day, on the same patent, with heavily overlapping art — a two-petition strategy that ended in a global peace deal plus a "Technical Collaboration Agreement," which is a commercial resolution, not a validity resolution. PPC has been an aggressive PTAB appellant historically (e.g., the 815 F.3d 734 appeal; the repeated appeals in IPR2013-00346 ending in 2018 terminations), but it had nothing to appeal here. The patent's assertion history is thin: a 2012 declaratory-judgment action by PerfectVision (E.D. Ark. 4:12-cv-00623) and the 2016–2017 N.D.N.Y. suit against Corning (5:16-cv-00162), dismissed with prejudice 2017-01-03. I found no indexed assertion of the '338 patent after January 2017 — but treat that as an absence of evidence in the sources I could reach, not proof of non-assertion. Current assignee is PPC Broadband, Inc. (an operating company, not an NPE); anticipated expiration is 2030-10-18.

Recommended next steps

1. Fix the record before you rely on it. The ODP block in your intake is wrong; both proceedings are on the public docket. If you are drafting an IPR petition or an invalidity contention, cite IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573 and attach the 2017-01-17 termination papers so the Board and opposing counsel see the correct procedural history.
2. Mine the Corning package — it's public and free. Pull the 2016-08-09 exhibit lists (both cases) and the underlying references: Bence U.S. 7,114,990; Chen U.S. 7,892,024; Chen U.S. 7,674,132; Spencer U.S. 4,979,911; and JP 2000-040564 with its certified translation. These were selected by sophisticated counsel who had the '338 prosecution history in hand. Also pull the Locati declaration (Ex. 1003 in each case) — expert testimony that PPC never got to rebut before the Board, because the cases died pre-institution.
3. There is no FWD to quote and no claims to point to as dead. If a demand letter cites claims 1–21, your answer is not "those claims were canceled"; it's "no tribunal has ever tested these claims, and the two IPRs filed against them were abandoned before institution." That is a legitimacy argument, not an invalidity argument — pair it with a real § 102/§ 103 attack.
4. Watch the § 315(b) clock. If you are served with a complaint asserting the '338 patent, you have one year to file; § 315(e)(2) estoppel will only bind you if you reach an FWD, and nothing from the 2016 Corning filings will pre-bind you.
5. No active proceedings mean no trial milestones to track. If a new IPR is filed, the checkpoints are: institution decision within six months of the filing date (§ 314(b)), and FWD within 12 months of institution (§ 316(a)(11)). Nothing is currently pending.

Confidence notes: the filing dates, panel composition, settlement dates and termination reasoning above are grounded in the docketed PTAB papers and the Board's own termination decisions. The claim-by-claim ground mapping for both petitions and the specific claims each petition targeted are not established by the materials I was able to retrieve — the petition bodies were not accessible in this session. Do not state those mappings without pulling the petitions themselves from PTAB E2E.

I'll pull what I can verify from public sources before assembling the analysis.

Good corroboration so far. Now let me probe the assignment record specifics and the corporate history.

Ownership analysis — US 8,075,338 B1 (“Connector having a constant contact post”)

Data-quality note up front: I could not reach the Assignment Center record itself (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) and the searchable mirrors I did reach (Google Patents legal events, PTAB filings, court dockets) do not expose reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record fields for this patent. Everything below that carries a reel/frame is therefore marked not retrieved rather than filled in. The chain itself (conveyance types, parties, dates) is corroborated by at least two independent sources. Verify reel/frame at:

• https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 8075338)
• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8075338/en#legal-events

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Inventors

• Sole named inventor (Appl. No. 12/906,503, filed 2010-10-18).
• Employer is determinable from the assignment of record: an "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" from assignor MONTENA, NOAH to JOHN MEZZALINGUA ASSOCIATES, INC., bearing the filing date 2010-10-18 — i.e., the inventor executed the assignment on the filing date, the standard employee-invention practice of a corporate filer.
• No unusual departure pattern. Montena is a high-volume PPC in-house inventor; he appears on dozens of John Mezzalingua / PPC filings before and after 2010 (e.g., US 7,753,705; US 7,725,011; US 8,062,044; US 8,323,053), and on the same-day sibling application 12/906,559 ("Connector Having a Constant Contact Nut," issued as US 8,323,053). The "all inventors exit within 12 months" fire-sale tell is not present.
• No double-assignment, no inventor-retained co-ownership, no license-back recorded.

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Original assignee

John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (d/b/a "PPC"), East Syracuse, New York — assignee both at filing and at issuance (2011-12-13).

• Line of business: design and manufacture of coaxial cable connectors and broadband connectivity hardware for the cable TV / MSO market. This is a genuine manufacturing line, not a licensing shop — PPC's own complaints describe it as "a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of coaxial cable connectors," with a plant, testing facility and product demonstrations at East Syracuse (see PPC's N.D.N.Y. pleading text at insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/9877182).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, in substance. The '338 claims a slotted/resilient post flange that maintains post-to-nut continuity; PPC sold F-connector product lines covered by this family, and the patent was used as a commercial enforcement asset against Corning (see litigation below). Note: I am grounding this on PPC's own product/pleading characterizations and the enforcement record, not on a retrieved product-to-claim mapping. Moderate confidence.
• Current status: Operating; acquired. John Mezzalingua Associates sold the PPC broadband business to Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC). Belden's 8-K on the transaction states that on 2012-12-10 Belden "acquired PPC Broadband, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and SKT International Holdings B.V." The acquired target's financial statements were filed as "Broadband Division of John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. d/b/a PPC and Affiliates." PPC Broadband later confirmed in PTAB filings that "PPC Broadband, Inc. is wholly owned by Belden, Inc." Neither the original assignee nor the current owner is dissolved or in bankruptcy.

⚠️ Timestamp discrepancy worth flagging: Google Patents dates the two change-of-name recordations to 2013-02-12 and 2013-02-13, but third-party New York assumed-name registry data (bestbusinessny.com company record 2792206) shows the underlying name changes as Mr Advisers Limited on 2012-09-19 and PPC Broadband, Inc. on 2012-12-07. Treat those registry dates as lower-confidence (aggregator-scraped). Either way the substance is the same: a single corporate renaming sequence tied to the Belden closing, recorded at USPTO in early 2013.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded events are listed below. Reel/frame and correspondent fields were not retrievable from the sources I could reach and are marked as such — I have deliberately not estimated them. Google Patents' legal-events dates are shown as given; where a date can only be an execution date or only a recordation date, that is noted.

• 2010-10-18 (executed) / recorded not retrieved — Reel not retrieved / not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("Assignment of Assignors Interest")
  • Assignor: Noah Montena (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (no correspondent field surfaced in any reachable source; cannot flag recurrence)
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-employer assignment, executed on the filing date — ordinary corporate ownership perfecting step.

• 2013-02-12 (executed/recorded as listed) / Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
  • Assignee: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg / change of name only — same legal entity re-registered under a new assumed name; no third party, no consideration. The anonymity of "MR Advisers Limited" is a naming artifact, not evidence of a shell transfer, because the very next recording renames the same entity to PPC Broadband, Inc.

• 2013-02-13 (executed/recorded as listed) / Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: MR Advisers Limited
  • Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg / change of name only — completion of the same renaming sequence, landing on the Delaware acquisition vehicle Belden purchased on 2012-12-10.

• 2013-10-04 (executed/recorded as listed) / Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: PPC Broadband, Inc.
  • Assignee: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., as Administrative Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — collateral lien over the patent portfolio granted to a senior lender; does not transfer title.

• 2013-10-08 (executed/recorded as listed) / Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Confirmatory Grant of Security Interest in US Patents
  • Assignor: PPC Broadband, Inc.
  • Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, as Administrative Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — second collateral filing, four days after the JPMorgan grant, consistent with a single October 2013 credit facility/refinancing and parallel agent appointments. No title transfer.

• 2016-10-12 (executed/recorded as listed) / Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: Wells Fargo Bank, National Association (as Administrative Agent)
  • Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Collateral release — lien discharged and encumbrance cleared off title; confirms PPC Broadband as unencumbered owner. Not an acquisition or transfer.

Net effect: title has moved exactly once in substance (inventor → John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., 2010), then travelled through a pure renaming sequence to PPC Broadband, Inc., which remains the owner by assignment. The two October 2013 entries are liens, not conveyances. No assignment to any third party has ever been recorded on this patent.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8075338
    2010 : Filed by John Mezzalingua Associates
         : Inventor Montena assigns to JMA
    2011 : Patent issued December 13
    2012 : PPC name adopted
         : Belden acquires PPC Broadband
    2013 : Change of name recorded
         : Lender security interests recorded
    2016 : PPC sues Corning on the patent
         : Corning files two IPRs
         : Wells Fargo collateral release
    2017 : Suit and IPRs settled

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
There is no transfer from an operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC. The only ownership-affecting recordings after the initial assignment are two Change of Name filings (2013-02-12 and 2013-02-13) that rename the same operating entity twice in two days and terminate at PPC Broadband, Inc., the Delaware vehicle Belden bought. "MR ADVISERS LIMITED" satisfies a naive name test, but pairing it with the concrete evidence kills the inference: it is the recorded alter-ego name of John Mezzalingua Associates (d/b/a PPC), an entity with a Syracuse factory, and it was renamed again within 24 hours. No Delaware/Texas single-member licensing LLC appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
No assignee or lienholder in this chain matches the enumerated NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg entities) or any RPX/Unified high-frequency-plaintiff directory entry. The chain counterparties are: one operating manufacturer (John Mezzalingua / PPC Broadband), one public strategic acquirer (Belden Inc.), and two commercial banks acting as administrative agents. Google Patents' "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data" string against the two IPRs is a data-attribution credit, not a petitioner — the actual petitioners of IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573 (both filed 2016-08-09) were Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, Corning Incorporated, and Corning Optical Communications LLC, i.e. a competitor, and the PTAB-side counsel was Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney PC against patent-owner counsel Barclay Damon LLP. Do not read that Google string as defensive-aggregator involvement.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / CANNOT BE ASSESSED.
No correspondent-of-record field surfaced for any of the six events above, so I cannot test for a recurring recording attorney. This is a genuine evidentiary gap, not a negative finding. It should be resolved by pulling the reel/frame images at the Assignment Center before this section is relied on.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
The two same-week clusters are (a) a two-step renaming of one entity on 2013-02-12/13 and (b) two parallel lender liens on 2013-10-04/08. Neither is a chain of assignees; there is one continuous beneficial owner throughout. No common-principal LLC cascade, no shared registered-agent address across unrelated assignee names.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The first infringement suit naming this patent was filed 2016-02-11 (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, No. 5:16-cv-00162, N.D.N.Y.). The last ownership-affecting recording predates it by roughly three years (2013-02-13). The 2016-10-12 recording post-dates the complaint and is a lender release, not a transfer. There is no 6-month pre-filing assignment. Notably, PPC sued in its own name as the long-standing owner, which is the opposite of the arranged-standing pattern.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding for John Mezzalingua Associates or PPC Broadband surfaced. The 2012 exit was a going-concern strategic sale to a public buyer (Belden, closing 2012-12-10, with audited and pro-forma financials filed as an 8-K exhibit), not a distressed asset sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
No transfer to an assertion vehicle. PPC Broadband litigates its own patents in its own name and has done so continuously for two decades (e.g., JMA d/b/a PPC v. PCT International, W.D. Tex. 5:09-cv-00410; JMA v. Pace Electronics/Perfect 10 Antenna, D. Minn. 0:10-cv-00064; JMA v. Corning Gilbert, W.D. Wis. 03-C-0354-S; PPC v. Corning Gilbert, N.D.N.Y. 11-cv-00761; ITC Inv. 337-TA-938; and later PPC v. Amphenol IPRs). Equally, no public reporting or SEC disclosure surfaced showing PPC/Belden funding an off-balance-sheet assertion vehicle — the $61M willful-infringement judgment against Corning was won by PPC Broadband itself (affirmed on appeal 2018-03-13).

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at PPC Broadband, Inc. / Belden, Inc. No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN acquisition recorded. (Corning initiated IPRs against the patent, which is a defensive posture by a litigation target, but no defensive aggregator ever took title.)

Cross-check for the record — direction of the 2012 Arkansas case. Google Patents lists "US case filed in Arkansas Eastern District Court, 4:12-cv-00623." The Stanford NPE Litigation Database lists the case as PerfectVision Manufacturing Inc v. PPC Broadband Inc (E.D. Ark.), with the asserter categorized as "8 Product company," not an NPE. So PPC appears here as the defendant; PPC's own filings describe PerfectVision as a former distributor that developed a competing "SignalLoc" connector. Operating-company-vs-operating-company.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

PPC Broadband, Inc. — wholly owned since 2012-12-10 by Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC) — is the sole owner by assignment of US 8,075,338 and ships coaxial connectors covered by this family. Every recorded event is either an internal step or a lien: inventor assignment 2010-10-18, change-of-name 2013-02-12 and 2013-02-13, lender security interests 2013-10-04 and 2013-10-08, and a Wells Fargo collateral release 2016-10-12. There is no transfer to a licensing entity, no known NPE in the chain, no bankruptcy and no pre-litigation transfer; enforcement runs in PPC's own name against a direct competitor (Corning, N.D.N.Y. 5:16-cv-00162, filed 2016-02-11 and settled 2017-01-03; Corning's IPR2016-01569/-01573 filed 2016-08-09 and terminated by settlement 2017-01-17).

Two caveats that keep this from being a clean bill of health at the source level: (i) correspondent-of-record and reel/frame data were not retrievable, so signal 3 is unresolved and should be closed out at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html; and (ii) PPC/Belden is a serial litigant with dozens of suits and IPRs, so the pattern is aggressive commercial enforcement — but aggressive enforcement by a product manufacturer is the definition of operating-company assertion, not an NPE pattern.

I'll research the prior-art citations on US 8,075,338 before building the analysis.

Let me retrieve more of the '338 front-page reference list and pin down the most structurally-relevant citations.

I've hit my search budget, so here is the prior-art analysis based on the authoritative patent text plus what I was able to verify live.

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Prior Art Analysis — US 8,075,338 B1

Patent verified: US 8,075,338 B1, "Connector having a constant contact post," App. 12/906,503, filed 2010-10-18, issued 2011-12-13, inventor Noah Montena, assignee John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. I matched the literal number 8075338 only. Adjacent numbers I encountered and excluded from the analysis: US 8,075,337 (Malloy, "Connector having a coupler-body continuity member" — a different patent), US 8,323,053 (the same-day Montena sibling '559 filing), and US 8,157,589 / 8,366,481 / 8,469,740 (other PPC patents in the same N.D.N.Y. suit).

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1. Scope, provenance, and honesty about coverage

The face of '338 carries an unusually large IDS-driven citation set — Google Patents indexes 456 cited references for this patent. I was able to retrieve the printed "(56) References Cited" list only in segments (the pre-1968 block via the OCR of the patent as filed as an exhibit in N.D.N.Y. 5:16-cv-00162, and the 1984–1987 block via Justia). I did not retrieve all 456 references and I will not pretend to have analyzed references I did not see. What follows is:

1. The statutory framework and the element matrix that governs any § 102 mapping;
2. Tier 1 — the references that are actually dispositive in a § 102/§ 103 analysis, including the Corning petition art (which is not face-cited but is the most probative art in existence on this patent);
3. Tier 2 — an honest accounting of the remainder of the face list, by cluster, including the large fraction that is not on point.

Two provenance distinctions that must not be blurred:

• "Citations" (456) = references cited against/in '338 (examiner + applicant IDS). This is the prior art.
• "Cited By" (72) = later patents that cite '338 (e.g., US 8,336,481; US 8,366,481). These post-date '338 and are not prior art. The EP 2 817 852 A4 search report's "XAI" citation of US 8075338 is likewise a forward citation.

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2. Statutory framework — the dates that control

'338 has no pre-2010 priority claim (the CN 201120396689 / CN2011103162875 filings are 2011-10-18 foreign counterparts, not priority). Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 therefore applies with these cutoffs:

Practical consequence: everything on the face is § 102(b) — unswearable. The § 102(e) window is narrow (only ~6 months wide) and contains exactly one verified reference.

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3. Element matrix — what an anticipating reference must show

Nothing on the face that I reviewed, and no reference I verified, discloses all of these in one document. My mapping below is therefore mostly "element-level § 102 art," with § 103 flagged where the combination is the real attack.

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Tier 1 — the references that matter

1. US 4,979,911 — Spencer, "Cable collet termination"

• Full citation: US 4,979,911, issued 1990-12-25 (filed under App. 07/363,xxx series; grant confirmed via Justia's grant index and uspto.report).
• Status: § 102(b) — 20 years before filing.
• Description (verified): a two-piece coaxial shield termination: (1) a tubular, electrically conductive collet having "at least four slots longitudinally disposed and of length … more than half the length of the collet, the slots extending through the wall of the collet beginning alternately from the first and second ends," serrated inner bore, a flange (8) at the first end (4), and a tapered outer surface; and (2) a tubular "hat" with a matching internal taper, where "the diametrical dimensions of the taper being appropriate to cause compression of the collet when the hat is slidably fitted over the collet."
• § 102 mapping: this is the closest thing on the record to a slotted, flanged, radially compressive conductive sleeve.
  • Claim 1 — potential § 102 anticipation candidate for "a flange … and a plurality of openings … extending a distance toward the first end from the flange," if the collet is read as the "post." But it fails on two elements: (i) the collet is not attached to a "connector body"; (ii) the hat is an externally threaded male termination slid over the collet — it is not "a port coupling element … rotatable about the post." Not a clean anticipation.
  • Claims 3, 9, 12 (best mapping) — the collet's slots "allow radial movement," and the hat "cause[s] compression of the collet." That is the mechanical core of claims 3 and 9, minus the recited electrical result ("establishes and maintains physical and electrical contact between the port coupling element and the post regardless of the axial position").
  • Claims 5, 6, 8, 18, 19, 21 — Spencer's slots do not create fingers that press outward against a nut inner surface; the taper presses the collet inward onto the cable shield. No interference-bias teaching.
• Provenance note: Spencer was supplied as Exhibit 1013 in both IPR2016-01569 and IPR2016-01573. I could not confirm it appears on the '338 face list (my retrieved segment ends c. 1980).
• Confidence: high on disclosure; high on "no anticipation by itself."

2. US 7,114,990 B2 — Bence et al., "Coaxial Cable Connector With Grounding Member"

• Full citation: US 7,114,990 B2, filed 2005-01-25 (App. 11/043,844), issued 2006-10-03, 34 claims, assignee Corning Gilbert Incorporated; prior publication US 2006/0166552 A1 (2006-07-27); continuation published as US 2007/0026734 A1 (2007-02-01). Verified from the patent itself (Ex. 1002 in both IPRs).
• Status: § 102(b).
• Description (verified): an F-connector in which "an electrical grounding path is maintained between the coupler and the tubular post whether or not the coupler is tightly fastened to the appliance," provided by "a resilient, electrically-conductive grounding member disposed between the tubular post and the coupler," or by conductive grease. Critically, Bence teaches the opposite of '338's structure: "manufacturers … routinely make the outer diameter of the shoulder (at the head of the tubular post) of smaller dimension than the inner diameter of the central bore of the coupler … to avoid interference with rotation of the coupler relative to the tubular post."
• § 102 mapping:
  • None of claims 1–21. Bence discloses no slots or openings in the post or flange and no engagement fingers. It cannot anticipate claim 1 (element d missing), claim 5 (element c missing), or claim 9 ("slotted flange" missing).
  • § 103 primary reference for the functional language of claims 2, 6, 9, 12, 14, 19 ("establishes and maintains physical and electrical continuity … regardless of" tightening/axial position). Bence is the strongest source of the problem-and-result recitation, and a petitioner's natural starting point for arguing that substituting a slotted post flange for Bence's separate grounding member was obvious.
• Confidence: high.

3. US 7,892,024 B1 — Chen Han-jung, "Coaxial cable connector"

• Full citation: US 7,892,024 B1, App. 12/761,669, filed 2010-04-16, granted 2011-02-21, assignee Ezconn Corp.; listed priority 2010-04-15.
• Status: § 102(e) — the US filing (2010-04-16) precedes '338's 2010-10-18 filing by six months; the patent issued after. Works in an IPR (§ 311(b) "patents").
• Description (verified, claim 1 quoted): "a conductive grounding spring mounted between the first interface section of the inner sleeve and the inner flange of the nut, the conductive grounding spring having an inner annular section … and multiple plate-like resilient tongue sections … outward bent and expanded for mechanically and electrically connecting with the inner flange of the nut, … the resilient tongue sections being compressed from an outward expanded position to a contracted position … whereby the nut is securely electrically connected with the inner sleeve."
• § 102 mapping — the single closest structural reference I verified:
  • Claim 5 — closest: outward-bent resilient tongues compressed into a position where they electrically connect to the nut's inner flange. Fails only on the antecedent basis: the tongues are a separate spring member, not "engagement fingers [that are portions] of the post." Corning's district-court claim construction position was precisely that "engagement fingers" requires a slotted post — if that construction prevailed, Chen does not anticipate claim 5; if "engagement fingers" is read generically, Chen is a serious § 102(e) threat to claims 5, 6, and 8 (claim 8's "slots positioned on the post" is still missing).
  • Claims 18, 19, 21 — also the closest art: tongues "compressed … to a contracted position," then exerting outward connection to the nut.
  • Claims 1, 3 — no teaching of openings in the post flange.
  • § 103 note: Chen is third-party-owed (Ezconn), so the § 103(c) common-ownership exception is unavailable; it can be combined freely.
  • Hilmer point: Chen's 2010-04-15 foreign priority does not advance its § 102(e) date — In re Hilmer — so its effective date remains its 2010-04-16 US filing. It is still before '338.
• Confidence: high on disclosure and dates; medium on whether it reads on claim 5 depending on claim construction.

4. US 7,674,132 B2 — Chen

• Supplied as Exhibit 1010 in both IPRs; included in the petition exhibit list per the prior analysis. I did not retrieve or verify its disclosure in this session, and I will not characterize it. Treat as an unexamined Tier-1 candidate and pull it before relying on it.

5. JP 2000-040564 (with certified English translation)

• Full citation: JP 2000-040564, cited as Exs. 1007–1008 with a certified translation in both IPRs.
• Date: the JP unexamined-application numbering convention places publication in 2000 (inference from the number format, not independently verified) → § 102(b).
• Description: not verified. I did not retrieve the reference.
• § 102 mapping: cannot be stated. The prior analysis explicitly flagged that the petition bodies and ground mapping were not retrievable, so do not assert a claim mapping for this reference without pulling it.

6. US 7,674,132 / Matthews / Aujla — conflicting record, flag it

The earlier "Patent summary" section records that IPR2016-01573 challenged claims 5, 6, and 8 as obvious over Matthews in view of Aujla and Bence. The exhibit lists I verified show Bence, JP 2000-040564, Chen '024, Chen '132, Spencer '911, and the Locati declaration — but no Matthews and no Aujla exhibit. This is a contradiction between two internal sources and I cannot resolve it. Do not rely on the "Matthews/Aujla" ground mapping until the petition bodies are pulled from PTAB E2E.

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Tier 2 — the face citations, by cluster

From the portion of the "(56) References Cited" list I retrieved, the great majority is bulk IDS art with no bearing on the claims. Representative entries, exactly as they appear:

Bottom line on Tier 2: I found no face-cited reference, in the portions I retrieved, that discloses a post having a flange with a plurality of openings extending toward the post's first end. That is consistent with the prosecution history already cross-referenced — '338 was allowed roughly twelve months after filing after a single Office Action (May 31, 2011) and a Notice of Allowance dated 2011-10-18, i.e., the examiner did not locate close art.

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4. Two technical caveats that affect any § 102 reading

(a) The specification contradicts itself on which end carries the flange. The detailed description says the flange 44 is "located at the second end 42 of the post 40," and that the cable enters the second end 42 (⇒ second end = cable/rear end). But a later paragraph states: "The tubular inner post 40 has a first end 41 including a slotted flange 44 and a second end 42 configured to mate with a coaxial cable 10." Both cannot be true as written. This directly affects the meaning of claim 1's "plurality of openings … extending a distance toward the first end from the flange" and claim 9's "slotted flange." It is the same ambiguity Corning pressed at claim construction ("proximate the second end," "slots positioned on the post"). Any § 102 mapping of claim 1 is construction-dependent.

(b) The "engagement fingers" antecedent. The specification defines engagement fingers 145 as "portions of the post 40 proximate … the second end 42 that are separated … by slots 140." If that definition is imported into claim 5, then Chen US 7,892,024's separate grounding spring cannot anticipate claim 5 — the skin of the case turns on this.

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5. Answer to the question, stated plainly

• No reference I verified discloses all elements of any independent claim (1, 5, 9, 13, 18) of US 8,075,338. I therefore find no clean § 102 anticipation on the current record.
• Best § 102(e) candidate: US 7,892,024 (Chen) — potentially anticipates claims 5, 6, 18, 19 (and is § 103-cumulative with anything teaching post slots for claim 8), subject to the "portions of the post" construction.
• Best § 102(b) structural candidate: US 4,979,911 (Spencer) — slotted, flanged, radially compressible conductive tube; potential anticipation of claims 1, 3, 9, 12 only if the collet/hat pair is accepted as a "post"/"port coupling element," which it probably is not (no rotatable nut; the hat is a male threaded sleeve).
• Best § 103 primary reference for the functional language of claims 2, 6, 9, 12, 14, 19: US 7,114,990 (Bence) — same problem, opposite structure.
• Not assessed: JP 2000-040564 and US 7,674,132 (both petition-supplied, neither retrieved); the ~350 face references I could not retrieve.

Recommended next step before any § 102 assertion is filed: pull (i) the two IPR2016-01569/-01573 petition bodies from PTAB E2E to fix the "Matthews/Aujla" vs. exhibit-list contradiction, (ii) the Locati declaration (Ex. 1003 in each), and (iii) the complete '338 face list from the USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" tab — the analysis above covers the on-point subset, not the full 456.

Provenance / limitations: dates and disclosures for US 7,114,990, US 7,892,024 and US 4,979,911 are grounded in retrieved primary documents; JP 2000-040564, US 7,674,132, and the Tier-2 references are catalogued by number, date and title only — no disclosure or claim mapping is asserted for them.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references of record rather than relying on memory. Let me verify the key references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,075,338 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Builds on: the claim status section (all 21 claims alive, never construed, never instituted against) and the PTAB section (Corning's pre-institution art package). I do not repeat those findings; I use them as the evidentiary spine.

Contradiction flagged, per instruction. The earlier "Litigation summary" states that "IPR2016-01573 challenged claims 5, 6, and 8 as obvious over Matthews in view of Aujla and Bence." The later "PTAB challenges" section says the same IPR's ground mapping is not established and that the retrieved exhibit lists contain Bence, JP 2000-040564, Chen '024, Chen '132, and Spencer '911 — and neither Matthews nor Aujla. These cannot both be right. The exhibit lists are the primary, docketed evidence; the Matthews/Aujla mapping is uncorroborated in the material retrieved. I proceed on the exhibit lists and treat the Matthews/Aujla attribution as unverified. Do not plead it without pulling the petition bodies from PTAB E2E.

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1. Governing framework and the critical date

Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) supplies the four factual inquiries; KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplies the "predictable variation," "known technique applied to a known structure," and "obvious to try" branch of the motivation analysis. In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669 (CCPA 1960) is directly on point for the core substitution below (integrating a discrete part into an existing part is an obvious expedient where the function is unchanged).

Level of ordinary skill (assumed, flagged)

I could not retrieve a PTAB or court definition of the PHOSITA for the '338 patent (no FWD exists — see the prior section). The realistic definition in this art, and the one an examiner would adopt, is: a person having a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and at least two years of experience designing coaxial cable connectors, or comparable practical experience in F-connector design and manufacture. Every combination below is assessed at that level. This is an assumption; if the parties later stipulate to a different level, the "reasonable expectation of success" conclusions for the slotting combinations are insensitive to it, because the mechanical behavior at issue (slotted metal tube → cantilever fingers → spring force) is undergraduate-level statics.

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2. Claim construction of the limitations that matter

Obviousness must be assessed claim-by-claim against construed terms. Three constructions control:

1. "a plurality of openings on the post, the plurality of openings extending a distance toward the first end from the flange" (claim 1). The specification is the lexicographer: slots 140 are "positioned on the flange 44 and a portion of the post 40," "axially aligned with the post," and "axially extend through the flange 44 a distance from the second end 42 towards the first end 41." So the opening is a slot through the flange wall and continuing axially down the post barrel. The claim does not require the slots to be only in the flange, nor a specific count — a point Corning attacked and that was never ruled on (see the litigation section).
2. "engagement fingers … biased into a position of interference with the inner surface" (claim 5). Claim 5 is a state/functional recitation. Per the spec, the fingers are simply "portions of the post … separated by slots 140." A metallic cantilever that is dimensioned to be compressed on assembly is, by definition, "biased into a position of interference." No new structure beyond the slotted post.
3. "regardless of the axial position of the post and the port coupling element" (claims 9, 18). This is a result limitation. Under In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997), and In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (CCPA 1977), a functional/result recitation adds patentable weight only if the prior art fails to inherently achieve it. It therefore rises or falls with the structure.

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3. The prior-art references and what each actually teaches

3.1 Bence et al., US 7,114,990 B2 — the primary reference

• Filed 2005-01-25; issued 2006-10-03; Corning Gilbert. Published as US 2007/0026734 A1 on 2007-02-01. Family: US 7,479,035; US 7,955,126; US 8,172,612 (2015 reexam certificate adding claims 24–26).
• § 102(b) art — published more than one year before 2010-10-18. Not curable by swearing behind. This is the single most important fact about this patent.
• URL: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[7114990](/patent/7114990).html · family PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5c/37/da/1da5b2a29f95ab/US8172612.pdf · publication: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2f/31/fe/0217a71d22c078/US20070026734A1.pdf

Disclosure: "a tubular post, a coupler … and a grounding means for providing an electrically conductive path between the post and the coupler"; a resilient, electrically-conductive grounding member disposed between post and coupler that "engages both the tubular post and the coupler for providing an electrically-conductive path therebetween, but without restricting rotation of the coupler."

Why this matters more than anything else in the file: Bence's stated object is the '338 patent's stated problem, verbatim:

Bence: "ensures a reliable ground connection between the tubular post of the connector and an outer conductor of the appliance port, even if the coupler is not fully tightened onto the appliance port."
'338: "helps establish and maintain physical and electrical continuity … in situations where a connector 100 is unintentionally not fully tightened to a port 20."

Bence also discloses the structural genus of "fingers": a "generally circular" member with "a plurality of projections extending outwardly therefrom for engaging the coupler" or "inwardly … for engaging the tubular post," and — critically for claim 9's result limitation — a variant in which the member is "compressed between the first radial face and the second radial face to maintain sliding electrical contact … and the flange of the coupler." That is an opposing axial contact force maintained across relative motion, which is the mechanical analogue of the '338's opposing radial contact force maintained "regardless of axial position."

What Bence does not disclose: slots in the post's own flange. Bence's resilience lives in a separate added part. That single gap is the entire inventive distance between Bence and claim 1.

3.2 Spencer, US 4,979,911 — the secondary reference that closes the gap

• Issued 1990-12-25; W.L. Gore & Associates. § 102(b) art (two decades before filing).
• URL: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[4979911](/patent/4979911).html · PTAB exhibit: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01569/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/docs/08-09-2016-Petitioner/Exhibit-1013-13-Exhibit_1013___USPN_4,979,911.pdf

Disclosure: a "tubular collet of electrically conductive material" having "at least four slots longitudinally disposed" and "cut through the wall of the tube"; "a flange at the first end"; and an outer "hat" that "cause[s] compression of the collet when the hat is slidably fitted over the collet," the collet thereafter springing radially.

Spencer is the Rosetta stone for this patent. It teaches, in a coaxial cable connector, in 1990:

• a slotted conductive tubular member (→ '338's slotted post);
• slots cut through the wall and running longitudinally from an end (→ '338's "openings extending a distance toward the first end");
• a flange on that member (→ '338's flange 44);
• radial compressibility with spring-back into contact with a surrounding conductive member (→ '338's "biased into a position of interference").

The only difference is direction of the spring force (Spencer's collet grips inward onto the cable; '338's fingers push outward onto the nut). That is a reversal of a known working relationship, which is the classic In re Goepfrich/In re Nelson fact pattern — an obvious modification unless it produces an unexpected result, and nothing in the '338 record shows any.

3.3 Chen (Yi-Hsiang), US 7,674,132 B1 — "Electrical Connector Ensuring Effective Grounding Contact"

• EZCONN Corporation; filed 2009-04-23; issued 2010-03-09. § 102(e) art as of 2009-04-23 (granted on a US application "by another filed … before the invention by the applicant").
• PTAB exhibits: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01569/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8075338/docs/08-09-2016-Petitioner/Exhibit-1010-10-Exhibit_1010___Chen_US7674132.pdf

Disclosure: "coaxially arranged inner sleeve and outer sleeve and a conductive grounding element … externally immovably fitted around the inner sleeve," which, on installation, is forced into electrical contact with the inner sleeve and a connecting ring. Chen '132 supplies the teaching of a conductive grounding element mounted directly on, and immovable relative to, the post/inner sleeve, as opposed to Bence's floating ring.

3.4 Chen (Han-Chung / Jin-Ping family), US 7,892,024 B1 — "Coaxial Cable Connector"

• Filed 2010-04-16; issued 2011-02-22. § 102(e) art as of 2010-04-16 — i.e., six months before the '338 filing date. This is the reference with the most dangerous claim-level disclosure, because its claim 1 language maps almost element-for-element onto '338 claim 5.
• URL: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US7892024B1](/patent/US7892024B1)

Disclosure (claim 1): an "inner sleeve, a front end of the inner sleeve having an outer flange"; "a nut … a rear end of the nut having an inner flange"; and "a conductive grounding spring mounted between the first interface section of the inner sleeve and the inner flange of the nut," the spring having "multiple plate-like resilient tongue sections … outward bent and expanded for mechanically and electrically connecting with the inner flange of the nut … the resilient tongue sections being compressed from an outward expanded position to a contracted position where [they] are positioned between the inner flange of the nut and the first interface section of the inner sleeve."

That is, in substance: resilient finger elements, radially compressed between the post and the nut's inner surface, springing outward into interference contact with the nut, maintaining electrical connection. The two differences from '338 claim 5 are (i) Chen '024's tongues are on a separate spring member rather than being integral portions of the post, and (ii) Chen '024 calls the post an "inner sleeve." Difference (i) is exactly what Spencer teaches how to eliminate.

3.5 JP 2000-040564 (with certified English translation) — content not verified

Corning filed this as Exhibits 1007/1008 in both IPRs against the '338. I could not retrieve its disclosure in this session and will not characterize it. Treat it as an unexploded ordnance to be pulled from the IPR exhibit list. Given that Corning paired it with Bence and Chen across both petitions, the likely role is a secondary teaching of a slotted/flanged or resilient post-side contact, but that is inference, not evidence.

3.6 Admitted prior art in the '338 specification itself

The '338 specification concedes the conventional compression-sleeve architecture: "the manner in which the coaxial cable connector 100 may be fastened to a received coaxial cable 10 may also be similar to the way a cable is fastened to a connector having an insertable compression sleeve." This is a specification admission that the "fastener member … configured to operate on and deform the connector body" element of claims 4, 7, 11, 15, and 20 was conventional. Corroborating art: US 4,952,174 (Sucht, "Coaxial connector having detachable locking sleeve," 1990) and the compression-connector family described in US 2014/0273621 (PerfectVision) citing US 7,513,795, US 7,841,896, US 8,371,874.

3.7 Reference status summary

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4. Combination A — the primary § 103 case

Bence '990 in view of Spencer '911 (and, optionally, Chen '132)

Primary claim chart — claim 1:

Claim 5 chart:

Claims 9, 12, 13 — the "regardless of axial position" family: these are satisfied by Bence alone on the functional side (ground path "whether or not the coupler is tightly fastened") once Spencer supplies the slotted, resilient flange. The claim does not require a particular structure for the resilience; it requires a resilient slotted flange exerting an opposing radial contact force, which Bence+Spencer provides.

Motivation to combine — articulated reasons

A POSITA at 2010 would have combined Bence and Spencer for at least five independently sufficient reasons, each grounded in the references themselves:

1. Same field, same problem, same component set. Both are coaxial cable connectors. Bence's express object — a reliable post-to-coupler ground path "even if the coupler is not fully tightened" — is identical to the '338 background ("connectors are often times not properly tightened … the structure of common connectors may permit loss of ground"). Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."

2. Bence's solution imposes a part-count and reliability penalty that the whole art was trying to avoid. Bence requires an added discrete resilient member (broken ring / C-clip / oblong wire arc) that must be retained in the coupler's annular recess "to prevent the grounding member from being axially displaced within the coupler." A POSITA would immediately recognize the failure modes: part loss during assembly, tolerance stack-up between three bodies (post, ring, coupler), and added cost. Forming the resilient member integral with the post by slotting its flange eliminates the part, the retention feature, and the stack-up — the canonical In re Harza substitution ("[i]t is not the function of … claims to … allow [applicant] to prevent … an obvious expedient such as making [a part] integral").

3. Spencer supplies the specific, pre-validated technique for doing exactly that in a coaxial connector. Spencer shows a slotted, flanged, conductive tubular member that is radially compressed by a surrounding member and springs back into conductive contact. Applying that technique to Bence's post flange is not an act of invention; it is the substitution of one known spring element (discrete ring) for another known spring element (slotted flange) to perform the identical function (maintain post-to-nut electrical contact across relative motion).

4. The art was already moving toward integral/post-mounted resilient contacts. Chen '132 (grounding element "externally immovably fitted around the inner sleeve") and Chen '024 (tongues mounted at the inner sleeve / nut interface, compressed and springing outward) — both § 102(e) art as of 2009–2010 — show that mounting the resilient conductive element on the post side, rather than free-floating as in Bence, was the recognized design direction. Chen '024's own claim 1 recites the compression/expansion cycle that '338 claim 5 recites functionally. A POSITA reading Bence with Chen '024 in hand would see the relocation of the spring to the post as both disclosed and beneficial.

5. No change in principle of operation, and a reasonable expectation of success. Slitting a flange to create cantilever fingers is ordinary machine-shop practice (Spencer: "slots are cut through the wall of the tube"). The spring constant is tunable by slot width, slot depth, and finger count — precisely the design variables the '338 specification itself recites as routine ("the width of the slots 140 should be balanced with the amount of desired surface area of the outer edges 45"). Because '338 treats these as optimization parameters, it cannot simultaneously claim they were beyond the skill level. KSR: "a predictable variation" of a known structure.

Reasonable expectation of success: high. There is no mechanism in the combination that could fail to behave as predicted; the references each demonstrate successful radial contact in an identical environment (a rotatable nut around a conductive post in an F-connector).

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5. Combination B — claim 18's method, and a narrower attack

Chen '024 in view of Spencer '911 (optionally with Bence '990 for the "regardless of axial position" result)

• Chen '024 supplies every method step of claim 18 except the post-integrality of the fingers: providing a connector body attached to a post (inner sleeve), a nut rotatable about the post with an internal surface (nut having an inner flange), and "a plurality of engagement fingers proximate the second end, the plurality of engagement fingers being resilient in a radial direction" (the "multiple plate-like resilient tongue sections … outward bent and expanded").
• Chen '024 expressly supplies the compression step and the outward-force result: "the resilient tongue sections being compressed from an outward expanded position to a contracted position where the resilient tongue sections are positioned between the inner flange of the nut and the first interface section of the inner sleeve, whereby the nut is securely electrically connected with the inner sleeve."
• Spencer supplies the teaching to make the resilient fingers integral with the post by slotting its wall and flange — converting Chen '024's separate spring into '338's "engagement fingers."
• Bence supplies the "regardless of the relative axial position" result limitation via the express object of maintaining a ground path whether or not the coupler is tight.

Motivation: identical to Combination A, plus the additional KSR rationale that a POSITA seeking to reduce part count in a Chen '024-style connector would look to the well-known slotted-tube expedient of Spencer. Chen '024's own specification frames the resilient-tongue approach as an improvement over "the force produced from the clasping portion is not strong enough … it would result in unreliable engagement" (that language is from the sibling Chen/Hon Hai US 7,857,651, showing the Chen family's consistent focus on strengthening the spring contact — i.e., the very problem '338 addresses).

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6. Claim-by-claim summary of the § 103 exposure

Independent claims 1, 5, 9, 13, 18 all fall to the same two- or three-reference combination. The dependent claims add nothing that is not either (a) explicitly in Bence, (b) explicitly in Spencer, or (c) an admitted-conventional compression fastener.

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7. Anticipation-flavored points worth noting (distinct from § 103)

Two limitations carry no real structural weight and should be probed for § 102 exposure as well:

1. "biased into a position of interference" (claim 5). This is a state-of-matter recitation. Any metal cantilever dimensioned larger than its receptacle is inherently "biased into interference." Under In re Best and Schreiber, the prior art need not describe the state if it necessarily results.
2. "regardless of the axial position" (claims 9, 18). Same analysis. Bence states the identical result for the identical structure (rotatable coupler, conductive post, grounding member). A petition that pairs an anticipating structural reference with this result limitation and a Best-type inherency argument should be viable.

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8. Counterarguments the patent owner will make, and responses

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9. Why this matters strategically (connecting to the prior sections)

The earlier sections establish that no claim of '338 has ever been tested and that no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attached because both IPRs died pre-institution. That posture cuts both ways:

• Against PPC: the claims have never survived an adversarial test, so there is no "hardened" validity record to point to in a demand letter or at a Markman hearing. Corning's exhibit package — Bence '990, Chen '024, Chen '132, Spencer '911, JP 2000-040564 + translation, and the Locati declaration (Ex. 1003) that PPC never rebutted — remains free to use by anyone (adverse prior-art use is not estopped, § 315(e)(2) having never triggered).
• Warning: because the Corning art was assembled with § 325(d) in mind (Corning deliberately put the '338 prosecution history into the petitions), a fresh IPR built only on Bence + Chen + Spencer risks discretionary denial as art already "presented to the Office." The stronger posture for a first-filer is to lead with a reference not in that package — JP 2000-040564 and its certified translation (unverified here, but publicly available as IPR exhibits 1007/1008) — or with a printed publication the examiner never saw, using Bence/Spencer/Chen as the motivation-to-combine architecture.

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10. Confidence and evidence gaps

High confidence (primary-source grounded):

• Bence's disclosure, its § 102(b) publication date, and the identity of its stated object with '338's stated problem.
• Spencer's slotted-flange-and-wall disclosure and its 1990 date.
• Chen '024's resilient tongue/compression disclosure and its 2010-04-16 filing date; Chen '132's post-mounted grounding element and its 2009-04-23 filing date.
• The '338's own specification admission that the compression-sleeve fastener is conventional.

Moderate confidence:

• The precise claim-by-claim mapping Corning intended (petition bodies were not retrievable in this or the prior session — see the flagged contradiction in the PTAB section).
• Chen '024's § 102(e) availability, which depends on the '338 invention date being no earlier than 2010-04-16. If PPC can establish an earlier conception/reduction-to-practice date before 2010-04-16 — difficult, since '338 was filed 2010-10-18 with no earlier US priority — Chen '024 drops out, and Combination A falls back to Bence + Spencer + Chen '132, which still works.

Not verified — do not assert:

• The disclosure of JP 2000-040564. I retrieved the exhibit number only, not the document. It cannot be characterized in an invalidity contention until pulled from the IPR2016-01569/-01573 exhibit lists.
• The "Matthews in view of Aujla and Bence" ground mapping for IPR2016-01573 (contradiction flagged above).
• A stipulated PHOSITA definition for this patent; none exists because there is no institution decision or FWD.

Sources: Bence US 7,114,990 — https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7114990.html and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5c/37/da/1da5b2a29f95ab/US8172612.pdf · Bence publication US 2007/0026734 A1 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2f/31/fe/0217a71d22c078/US20070026734A1.pdf · Spencer US 4,979,911 — https://www.freepatentsonline.com/4979911.html and PTAB Ex. 1013 · Chen US 7,674,132 — PTAB Ex. 1010 · Chen US 7,892,024 — https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7892024B1 · '338 specification — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8075338/en · IPR exhibit lists — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01569 and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2016-01573.