US 8326467

I'll verify the patent details against live sources, particularly the litigation/docket information.

Let me check for any Federal Circuit (CAFC) activity involving this patent.

Let me pull the full issued claim set to characterize the independent claims accurately.

US 8,326,467 — Verification Summary

Important preliminary: I searched for the exact number 8326467. All results below relate to US 8,326,467 B2 only; no results for similar-seeming numbers (e.g., 8,326,466 / 8,326,468) were substituted. Note that 8326467 (7 digits) is the granted-patent number; the pre-grant publication is US 2012/0095612 A1, which is a different document with materially different claims (see caveat at the end).

Bibliographic data (consistent across Google Patents, Justia, Trustoria)

Assignment chain (as recorded, taken literally): General Electric Co. → GE Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26) → Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26, "change of name") → Edison Innovations, LLC (2025-02-20) → Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC (2026-04-09, quitclaim assignment). The recorded dates overlap out of order in the Google Patents reassignment log; I report them as recorded rather than harmonizing them.

Family: AU 2012216501 B2, EP 2568561 B1, JP 6068063 B2, KR 101998411 B1, CN 102983566 B, CN 106877341 B.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A controller for a power system including a plurality of power system components includes a memory for storing computer-executable instructions and a processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions. The computer-executable instructions program the processor to determine an operating condition of at least one first power system component and at least one second power system component of the plurality of power system components. The processor is also programmed to determine whether a predetermined condition is met based on at least one operating condition, and transmit a command to at least one other controller to at least one of electrically couple the first power system component to the second power system component and electrically decouple the first power system component from the second power system component based on whether the predetermined condition is met."

Plain-language overview

The patent is a central "charge controller" for a hybrid renewable/utility power system serving electric-vehicle (EV) loads. A central charge controller (132) sits above subordinate controllers — a renewable storage charge controller (120), an inverter controller (122), a utility controller (124), a load center controller (126), a charging device controller (128), a vehicle controller (130). It collects operating-condition data (power/current/voltage demanded vs. available, state-of-charge, tariff/peak-demand events, weather forecasts), decides whether a "predetermined condition" is met, and issues commands to other controllers to couple or decouple power-system components, switch a battery between "power storage mode" and "power supply mode" (i.e., vehicle-to-grid / battery-to-load discharge), and shed or restore loads by priority.

Independent claims — plain language

The granted patent has at least three independent claims — claim 1 (controller/apparatus), claim 9 (non-transitory computer-readable storage medium), and claim 16 (method) — each carrying essentially the same core logic, plus a family of dependent claims (2–8, 10–15, and dependents of 16). The claimed logic in the granted claims is:

1. Determine an operating condition of at least one first power system component and at least one second power system component, where the second component includes a power storage device switchable between a power storage mode and a power supply mode (e.g., an EV battery).
2. Identify a predetermined time for completing a charging operation of that power storage device (dependent claim 4 specifies this is a user-supplied "requested completion time" — cf. the B60L 2250/14 "vehicle departure time" classification).
3. Determine whether switching the storage device from storage mode to supply mode would prevent the charging operation from completing within that predetermined time — i.e., a guard against V2G discharge that would strand the vehicle uncharged.
4. Determine whether a predetermined condition is met based on the operating condition(s).
5. Transmit a command to at least one other controller to electrically couple or decouple the first and second components based on whether that condition is met.

Representative dependent claims:

• Cl. 2 — command another controller to set a maximum current to supply to the storage device.
• Cl. 3 — command switching the storage device from storage mode to supply mode.
• Cl. 5 — the first component is a utility power source, and the controller disconnects it when the condition is met.
• Cls. 6–7 — categorize loads into high-priority and low-priority, and shed low-priority loads while maintaining power to high-priority loads.
• Cl. 8 — make the coupling/decoupling decision based on a forecasted condition.

Plain-language summary of the inventive core: a supervisory controller that decides when to disconnect the utility grid, discharge stationary or EV batteries back into the local system, and shed non-critical loads — but only if doing so will not jeopardize a user-requested EV charging deadline.

Litigation / docket status (as of the search cutoff)

⚠️ I found no Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket, appeal, or oral-argument entry naming US 8,326,467. The '467 patent appears in district-court and PTAB activity only. If you need CAFC specifically, I cannot confirm any such docket exists and would flag this as a gap rather than assert the negative with certainty.

E.D. Tex. district court (all assigned to Judge Robert W. Schroeder III):

• The Google Patents page itself links 2:26-cv-00231 and 2:25-cv-01133 as this family's litigation, and flags "First worldwide family litigation filed."
• PTAB: I found IPR2026-00250 (challenging US 10,549,648) and IPR2026-00333 (challenging US 11,374,508, Toyota v. Bunker Hill, filed 2026-04-07, Tech Center 2800 / Art Unit 2846). Neither targets the '467. Unified Patents has publicly signalled it "will likely challenge" a Bunker Hill patent's validity, but that statement is generic and not tied to the '467.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8326467/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8326467](/patent/8326467) · https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[308840](/patent/308840) · https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv01133/[241855](/patent/241855) · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A26-cv-00231 · https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2026/7/6/dominion-harbor-entity-bunker-hill-patent-validity-challenge-coming-soon · https://www.pacermonitor.com / cdn.pacermonitor.com case 61108837 (Bunker Hill v. Ford) · https://ai-lab.exparte.com/party/bunker-hill-technologies-llc

Explicit uncertainty flags

1. Claims version mismatch — read carefully. The claims quoted for the issued patent at Justia (claim 1 containing "identify a predetermined time for completing a charging operation… determine whether a switching… will prevent the charging operation from completing within the predetermined time") differ markedly from the claims of the pre-grant publication US 2012/0095612 A1, whose claim 1 lacks those limitations and whose claim 4 instead recites "determine whether sufficient time exists…". These are two different claim sets for the same family. Any infringement or validity analysis must use the granted claims of US 8,326,467 B2, not the A1 publication.
2. Total claim count unverified. I could not obtain the complete, authoritative issued claim set (the Google Patents text available to me reproduces the specification and abstract but not the full claims listing; Justia showed claims 1–16 with several collapsed). I can say there are at least three independent claims (1, 9, 16) but I cannot confirm the exact total number of claims or the full text of dependent claims 11–15 and any claim beyond 16. One third-party site (patentleaderboard.com) attaches an unsourced "approximate value" of $16,335,000 to this patent — I do not consider that authoritative and would disregard it.
3. Assignee discrepancy. Google Patents lists "Bunker Hill Technologies LLC" as current assignee, but the same page's structured "reassignment" log shows the Dolby/Edison entries with inconsistent dates. Confirm current title with the USPTO Assignment database before relying on ownership.
4. Litigation summaries from AI-generated complaint-analysis pages. Some details above (e.g., accused Nissan/Toyota products, claim charts) come from third-party AI summarization sites; treat them as leads, not verified pleadings.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8326467 using multiple targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper into these cases and check for additional assertions of this patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,326,467

Bottom line: Yes — litigation is known. U.S. Patent No. 8,326,467 ("Controller and method of controlling a power system," filed Sept. 6, 2011; issued Dec. 4, 2012; original assignee General Electric Co.) is currently being asserted in two open patent-infringement suits in the Eastern District of Texas by Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC against automotive OEMs. Both are recent (2025–2026) and remain pending. I found no earlier (e.g., GE/Edison-era) assertions of this patent, and no Federal Circuit appeals.

Case 1 — Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC v. Toyota Motor Corporation et al.

Sources: Stanford NPE Litigation Database, https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[308840](/patent/308840) ; Justia Dockets, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv01133/[241855](/patent/241855)

Case 2 — Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC v. Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

Sources: Unified Patents litigation portal, https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A26-cv-00231 ; Docket Alarm, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/2--26-cv-00231/BUNKER_HILL_TECHNOLOGIES_LLC_v._Nissan_Motor_Co._Ltd/1/

Ownership context relevant to the litigation

The patent's chain of title (as recorded on the face of the Google Patents record) explains why a 2011 GE patent is now being asserted:

• Original assignee: General Electric Co. (assignment recorded Sept. 6, 2011 to inventors Rivers, Cutler, and Hoogmartens).
• Later reassignments recorded: to GE Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26); to Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26); to Edison Innovations, LLC (2025-02-20); and finally to Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC via quitclaim assignment dated 2026-04-09.
• Google Patents flags the asset as "Family has litigation," identifying exactly the two Texas cases above.

Caveats and limitations (please read)

1. I could not confirm through full-text review that the Nissan complaint (2:26-cv-00231) expressly asserts the '467 patent. The two cases are formally "related" and share the same plaintiff and technology portfolio, and the Unified Patents docket lists it as a Bunker Hill automotive assertion. But the authoritative database entry explicitly linking 8,326,467 to a defendant names Toyota only. Treat Nissan as "same family/portfolio, asserted-patent list to be confirmed."
2. No CAFC or other appellate activity was found — both cases are at the district-court stage, so there is no outcome on the merits yet. The only "outcome" to date is procedural (answers, counterclaims, scheduling).
3. I did not locate any pre-2025 litigation on the '467 patent (e.g., by GE, GE IP Licensing, Dolby, or Edison Innovations). Its assertion history appears to begin only after the Bunker Hill acquisition.
4. Tool limits prevented finishing every planned search (e.g., a direct query of the Unified Patents case list, PACER/CAFC dockets, and a broader Bunker Hill docket sweep). The above reflects the sources I was able to retrieve; a final answer should verify the Nissan asserted-patent list and check for any additional Bunker Hill suits against other OEMs filed in the same campaign.

Primary grounding sources:

• Google Patents record for US8326467B2 (litigation links + assignment history): https://patents.google.com/patent/US8326467/en
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/308840
• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A26-cv-00231
• Justia Dockets (Toyota case): https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv01133/241855

I'll start by verifying the structured data's default ("no PTAB activity") against web sources.

Initial results show no PTAB proceedings, but the patent is in active litigation. Let me dig deeper before concluding.

Key finding: Toyota is filing IPRs against Bunker Hill — but so far against other patents in the same litigation. Let me confirm whether the '467 patent itself has been targeted.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 8,326,467. The structured USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block returns no IPRs, PGRs, or CBMs for this patent, and my independent web searches surface none either — no petitioner has ever challenged the '467 patent at the Board. That is the entire story as to this patent: the defensible posture for a defendant is that the '467 patent is untested at the PTAB, neither hardened nor wounded, and the absence of IPR activity is a signal that the patent has so far not been worth the filing fee to any accused infringer — not that it is strong. The single caveat that matters is set out below: the current owner, Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC, is under coordinated IPR attack by Toyota on sibling patents from the same GE-derived portfolio, and the '467 patent is asserted in the same complaint. The IPR risk on '467 is live and time-boxed, not hypothetical.

Canonical list (per the structured block): empty. Nothing below should be read as a proceeding on 8,326,467.

No proceedings on US 8,326,467

There is no proceeding number to report, no institution decision, no FWD, no settlement, and no appeal. I will not invent one. What I can document is the surrounding context that makes the "no PTAB activity" finding meaningful rather than merely empty.

Assertion context (where an IPR on '467 would come from)

• Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC v. Toyota Motor Corporation et al., E.D. Tex., Civil Action No. 2:25-cv-01133, filed 2025-11-18. Asserted patents: US 8,030,884; 8,086,364; 8,326,467; 9,914,365; 10,291,158; 10,374,529; 10,442,296; 10,549,648; 11,374,508. Source: Stanford NPE Litigation Database, case 308840.
• A second Texas E.D. action is listed on the Google Patents family page as case 2:26-cv-00231 (portal link). I could not independently confirm the filing date or the patents asserted in that second case, so treat the docket number as unverified detail rather than established fact.
• Ownership chain of record (from the Google Patents family/assignment data): General Electric Co. → GE Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26) → Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC (2025-03-26) → Edison Innovations, LLC (2025-02-20 entry as listed) → Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC via quitclaim assignment dated 2026-04-09. The quitclaim to Bunker Hill post-dates the 2025 filing of the Toyota suit, which is worth noting for privity/real-party-in-interest analysis.

Adjacent Toyota IPRs — NOT proceedings on the '467 patent

These are included because they define the petitioner, counsel, expert, and playbook that will be used if and when the '467 patent is challenged. Neither proceeding involves US 8,326,467. I am reporting them because they are verifiable and because the task asks for pattern signals; the proceeding numbers are real and are drawn from the sources linked below.

IPR2026-00250 — Toyota Motor Corporation v. Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Patent challenged: US 10,549,648 (the '648 patent) — not 8,326,467
• Filed: 2026-02-03
• Status: Sources conflict. IP Verse reports "Terminated-Settled" with an institution-decision date of 2026-07-14 and a termination date of 2026-08-12. A Docket Alarm sandbox mirror lists the case as "Pending." I could not resolve the discrepancy against PTAB E2E, so treat the terminated-settled status as reported but unconfirmed.
• Judge panel: Pending judge assignment per the mirror; no panel confirmed.
• Petition grounds: Toyota sought cancellation of claims 1–20 under five grounds — two anticipation grounds under 35 U.S.C. § 102 and three obviousness grounds under § 103 — over Conlon (US 2009/0176610 A1), Reynolds (US 2014/0100726 A1), and Ortmann (US 2013/0012347 A1), supported by a declaration from Dr. Mahdi Shahbakhti.
• Institution decision: Reported institution decision date 2026-07-14; I have not seen the decision text or the panel's reasoning, so I will not characterize it.
• Final Written Decision: None issued / none confirmed.
• Settlement / termination: Reported terminated 2026-08-12 as settled. Terms are not public — settlement agreements in IPRs are typically confidential and filed only as a request to terminate.
• Appeal: None reported.
• Defensive value: Low for the '467 patent directly; significant as a signal. Toyota filed a Sotera stipulation (2026-02-12) and Patent Owner filed a discretionary-denial brief (2026-04-08), which tells you Toyota is litigating the IPR and the district case on a coordinated, stipulation-disciplined theory — the § 314(a)/Fintiv posture on any later '467 petition will be contested on the same terms.
• Sources: IP Verse case detail · Docket Alarm mirror

IPR2026-00333 — Toyota Motor Corporation v. Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Patent challenged: US 11,374,508 (the '508 patent) — not 8,326,467
• Filed: 2026-04-07
• Status: Pending (patent owner filed a discretionary-denial brief 2026-06-10)
• Judge panel: Not yet assigned/public.
• Petition grounds: Cancellation of all 17 claims (1–17). Ground 1 — § 102 anticipation of claims 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15 over Tsuzuki (JP 2010-036880). Ground 2 — § 103 obviousness of the same claims over Tsuzuki in view of Reynolds (US 2014/0100726). Ground 3 — § 103 over Tsuzuki in view of Imai (JP 2010-221979). Additional grounds over Ashtiani (US 2006/0098390), Satoru (JP 2001-218380), and Zing (US 8,618,752). Expert: Prof. Mahdi Shahbakhti.
• Institution decision: None reported as of the sources reviewed.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: None reported.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: This is the template. Same petitioner, same expert, same Japanese-language prior-art strategy (JP publications as primary references), same discretionary-denial fight. If your products implicate the '467 patent, expect this playbook.

Strategic summary

Claim status of the '467 patent. Every claim of US 8,326,467 is UNTESTED. No claim has been canceled, no claim has been confirmed, and no certificate has issued. The patent issued 2012-12-04 from Application 13/225,975 (filed 2011-09-06), claims priority to 2011-09-06, and carries an anticipated expiration of 2031-09-06 — roughly five more years of enforceable life. The claims are drawn to a controller that determines an operating condition of first and second power system components, determines whether a predetermined condition is met, and transmits a command to another controller to electrically couple or decouple those components. Because nothing has been invalidated, there is no "claims 1–5 are dead, the demand letter is baseless" argument available here. The patent is asserted in the same complaint as the '648 and '508 patents, both asserted by the same owner and both now under Toyota IPR attack.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel on the '467 patent against anyone, because no IPR was ever instituted on it. That cuts both ways and is the crux for a defendant:

• Prior-art grounds are wide open. Any accused infringer can file an IPR on the '467 patent on any § 102/§ 103 ground without estoppel concern, since there is no prior petition on this patent and therefore no "grounds raised or reasonably could have raised" bar attaching to it. The full universe of art is available, subject only to § 325(d) (art previously considered by the Examiner) and the § 315(b) time bar.
• The § 315(b) clock is the real constraint. An IPR petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of the patent. Bunker Hill filed its Toyota complaint on 2025-11-18. Absent a service date materially later than the filing date, or a joinder posture under § 315(c), Toyota's (or any co-defendant's) window to petition on the '467 patent closes in approximately November 2026 — which is essentially now. If Toyota has not filed a petition on the '467 patent by then, the patent is effectively IPR-proof against Toyota and its privies for the rest of its term, and Toyota's validity challenge is confined to the district court and to § 282 at trial.
• Note the interaction with the second action, 2:26-cv-00231: a later complaint on the same patent generally does not reset the § 315(b) clock, so a new case number is not a new petition window. This is unverified as to that docket, but it is the controlling rule and worth confirming against the actual service dates.

Pattern signals. (1) Same petitioner, multiple IPRs: Toyota has so far challenged only two of the nine asserted patents ('648 and '508), and those are the two most recently issued — a rational move to knock out the patents with the longest remaining term first. The '467 patent, expiring 2031, is a lower-priority target but a target nonetheless. (2) Patent owner strategy: Bunker Hill is contesting institution on discretionary-denial grounds (a discretionary-denial brief in each of IPR2026-00250 and IPR2026-00333), which is the standard Fintiv/§ 314(a) defense when a parallel E.D. Tex. case is racing ahead of the FWD. (3) No defensive aggregator. Toyota is a direct, economically motivated defendant — not Unified Patents or a similar entity. The Unified Patents links on the Google Patents page are Google's litigation-data provenance links, not evidence that Unified is funding a challenge on this patent. (4) The shell-game chain (GE → GE IP Licensing → Dolby IP Licensing → Edison Innovations → Bunker Hill quitclaim) is the familiar monetization pattern and is relevant to privity and real-party-in-interest discovery if you ever need to establish who actually controls the '467 patent.

Recommended next steps

1. State the headline accurately to your client: there is no PTAB activity on US 8,326,467. Do not tell a defendant "the patent has been invalidated" — it has not. Do not tell them "the patent has survived IPRs and is hardened" — it has not been tested. The honest framing is: untested claims, no estoppel against you, and the § 315(b) clock is the only thing you need to mobilize around.
2. Pull the E.D. Tex. service dates immediately. If your client or a co-defendant was served in the 2:25-cv-01133 action on or around 2025-11-18, the § 315(b) bar for the '467 patent lands near 2026-11-18. Verify the actual service date on the docket; that date, not the filing date, controls. If a petition is going to be filed, it needs to be drafted now.
3. If the window has closed without a petition, convert that into leverage. Toyota (and any privy) will be barred from IPR on '467 and must prove invalidity by clear and convincing evidence in district court, with no PTAB fallback. That is a meaningfully better posture for defending an infringement claim — but only if the record actually supports non-infringement or invalidity on the merits.
4. Mine the sibling IPRs for your invalidity case. Toyota's petitions in IPR2026-00250 and IPR2026-00333 are public and contain expert declarations, prior-art mappings, and claim-construction positions developed by the same expert (Dr. Shahbakhti) against the same owner. The Tsuzuki/Imai/Reynolds/Conlon/Ortmann body of art is a starting point for the '467 patent's field, though the '467 disclosure (controller-level coupling/decoupling commands, V2G storage-mode switching) is a different subject matter, so expect to need different primary art. Petition documents are available through PTAB E2E / the PTAB public petition viewer.
5. Verify the disputed status of IPR2026-00250. Sources disagree (Terminated-Settled vs. Pending). Confirm against PTAB E2E before relying on it. This matters for pattern analysis but not for the '467 patent's own status.
6. Do not assert any FWD, panel composition, or Federal Circuit appeal for the '467 patent. None exists. I found no CourtListener docket for the Bunker Hill v. Toyota action and cannot link one; the case is docketed in E.D. Tex. and would be retrievable via PACER/CourtListener once identified.

Confidence and limitations. High confidence on the central finding — no AIA trial proceedings on US 8,326,467, per both the structured ODP block and independent searching. High confidence on the litigation and ownership facts as reported by the Stanford NPE database and the Google Patents family page. Lower confidence on the exact current status of IPR2026-00250 (sources conflict) and on the second Texas action (2:26-cv-00231; docket number and filing date not independently verified). The secondary aggregator sites used here (IP Verse, Docket Alarm sandbox mirror, Arctic Invent, Ex Parte) are not USPTO systems; treat their procedural details as leads to confirm in PTAB E2E, not as primary evidence.

I'll research the assignment chain and litigation before writing up. Let me run several targeted searches.

Strong signals already. Let me dig for reel/frame numbers, correspondent attorneys, and the Dolby/GE Licensing transaction.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8326467 B2

"Controller and method of controlling a power system" · App. 13/225,975 · Filed/Priority 2011-09-06 · Granted 2012-12-04 · Anticipated expiry 2031-09-06

Evidence caveat, read first. I could not retrieve USPTO Assignment Center reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record names for this patent in this session — the Assignment Center and Assignment Search endpoints were not reachable, and no secondary source I retrieved reproduced the reel/frame identifiers. Everything below is therefore built from (a) the Google Patents legal-events feed for US8326467B2, (b) the litigation/docket record, and (c) press coverage. Fields I could not verify are marked "not retrieved" rather than guessed. Verify against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov (search patent 8,326,467) before relying on this for anything adversarial.

Also note: the "Priority to AU/EP/JP/KR/CN" entries in the Google legal-events feed are foreign counterpart filings under §119/§365, not assignments. Do not read them as ownership transfers.

Inventors

All three are named as assignors on the 2011-09-06 assignment to GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, which establishes GE as their employer of record at filing.

Unusual-pattern check: No evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing. I found no assignment to a third party by any individual inventor, and no inventor is named again anywhere downstream in the chain — which is normal for a large-company filing. Not a finding. (Departure data is not determinable from patent records alone; I did not find corroborating evidence either way.)

Original assignee

General Electric Company (Schenectady, NY) — named on the face of the issued patent and record owner from 2011 until the 2024–2025 portfolio dispositions.

• Line of business: diversified industrial — power generation, grid/energy management, and (in the relevant window) electric-vehicle charging equipment and electrical distribution hardware (load centers, breakers). This is squarely an operating company, not a holding vehicle.
• Did GE ship a product embodying the claims? GE was commercially active in the relevant space in the 2010–2013 window (EV charging stations; residential/commercial load centers; grid control). I have not verified whether any specific GE product practiced the claims of the '467 patent, and I am not going to assert that it did.
• Current status: GE has been broken up rather than wound down — separated into GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, and GE HealthCare (2023–2024). The original assignee entity's patent licensing arm was divested: per the Edison Innovations press release, Dolby Laboratories acquired "GE Licensing" in 2024 and held the assets for sale (Globe and Mail / ACCESS Newswire, 2025-02-19). No bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Sequencing anomaly — flagged, unresolved. The Google Patents feed dates the Edison Innovations acquisition 2025-02-20 but dates the GE → GE Intellectual Property Licensing assignment and the GE-IPL → Dolby name change 2025-03-26 — i.e., Edison is shown acquiring from "Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC" before that entity is shown coming into existence via name change. These are almost certainly a mix of execution dates and recordation dates, with the 2025-03-26 entries being later clean-up recordations of 2024-vintage transactions. I could not resolve this without reel/frame data. The causal chain (GE → GE IP Licensing → Dolby → Edison → Bunker Hill) is presented below; the literal feed order is noted where it conflicts.

2011-09-06 (dated) / recordation date not separately shown — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: CUTLER, SETH ADAM; HOOGMARTENS, MICHIEL; RIVERS, CECIL, JR.
• Assignee: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: ordinary inventor-to-employer assignment at filing.

2025-03-26 (as recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignor's interest
• Assignor: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
• Assignee: GE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LICENSING, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal reorg / carve-out of the GE patent licensing business into a dedicated licensing entity.

2025-03-26 (as recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: GE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LICENSING, LLC
• Assignee: DOLBY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LICENSING, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: name change only — the GE licensing entity was renamed under Dolby ownership following Dolby's 2024 acquisition of GE Licensing. No change in beneficial ownership at this link.

2025-02-20 (as recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignor's interest
• Assignor: DOLBY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LICENSING, LLC
• Assignee: EDISON INNOVATIONS, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: portfolio fire-sale / bulk divestiture — Edison Innovations, a Dominion Harbor Group subsidiary, acquired ~2,500 GE-origin assets that Dolby had expressly "held for sale." Press release gives the deal contact as Robert Kelly, Dominion Harbor (bob@dominionharbor.com), not an attorney of record.

2026-04-09 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Quitclaim Assignment
• Assignor: EDISON INNOVATIONS LLC
• Assignee: BUNKER HILL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: transfer-to-asserter — movement to the Dominion Harbor entity that is actively suing automotive OEMs on this and sister patents. Quitclaim form (no warranties) is typical of intra-group NPE transfers.

Total recorded post-issuance transfers: 4 (plus the original 2011 inventor assignment).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8326467
    2011 : Filed by General Electric
         : Inventors assign rights to GE
    2012 : Patent US 8326467 granted
    2024 : Dolby acquires GE Licensing
    2025 : GE IP Licensing renamed Dolby IP
         : Edison Innovations buys GE portfolio
         : Bunker Hill asserts against Toyota
    2026 : Quitclaim to Bunker Hill Technologies
         : Bunker Hill asserts against Nissan

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The patent leaves an operating company (General Electric) through a chain of non-operating holding/licensing vehicles: GE Intellectual Property Licensing LLC → Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing LLC → Edison Innovations, LLC → Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC. Edison is described in its own press release as "a subsidiary of global patent licensor Dominion Harbor Group" and states the purpose as "expanding its patent licensing capabilities" (2025-02-19). Unified Patents describes Bunker Hill as "an NPE and entity of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC" (Unified Patents, Dominion Harbor tag). "Licensing" / "Innovations" / "Technologies" suffixes, no product offerings, and the use of a quitclaim conveyance (2026-04-09) all point the same way.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Bunker Hill / Dominion Harbor is not on the specific enumerated list you supplied (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg), so this is a directory-based finding, not a name-match to that list:

• Stanford NPE Litigation Database lists BUNKER HILL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC v. Toyota — "NPE Status: Non Practicing Entity," 2:25-cv-01133, filed 2025-11-18, asserting '467 among 9 patents (npe.law.stanford.edu/case/308840).
• Unified Patents states Bunker Hill "has been asserted against Ford, Toyota, and Nissan" and has filed ex parte reexaminations against it (e.g., EPR 90/016,093 on '365, granted 2026-06-01).
• Bunker Hill's docket shows at least six active cases; the '467 is asserted in 2:25-cv-01133 (Toyota) and 2:26-cv-00231 (Nissan, filed 2026-03-20).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data gap).
I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for any link in this chain. This is the single most important missing datum and it is exactly the tell you asked for: the GE-IPL → Dolby → Edison → Bunker Hill recordings are likely to share a small number of recording firms (Dominion Harbor's IP counsel + Dolby/GE transactional counsel), and a recurrence across the 2025 and 2026 postings would convert this from "unclear" to "present." Recommend re-running against Assignment Center; do not treat the absence here as a negative finding.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Four recorded transfers in roughly 13 months (2025-02/03 through 2026-04), moving through chained LLCs. Two links (Edison and Bunker Hill) are commonly controlled by Dominion Harbor — the quitclaim form is itself the fingerprint of an intra-family transfer rather than an arm's-length sale.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT in the classic form; note the inverse.
The transfer to the asserting entity is dated 2026-04-09, which is after the first Bunker Hill suits (Ford 2025-11-10; Toyota 2025-11-18). So the chain was not assembled inside the 6 months preceding first suit — instead the record appears to have been conformed to an assertion campaign already underway, which is a control/affiliation signal rather than a venue-engineering one. The earlier Edison acquisition (2025-02-20) precedes the first Bunker Hill suit by ~9 months.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
GE did not file Chapter 7/11; the dispositions were planned corporate separations and a negotiated portfolio sale. Dolby's sale to Edison was a "held for sale" divestiture of non-core assets, not a distressed auction.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT on the evidence available.
This is a three-hop sale-and-exit (GE → Dolby → Dominion Harbor), not an operating company bankrolling an NPE to attack its own competitors. I found no SEC filing, press coverage, or litigation record showing Dolby directing, funding, or benefiting from Bunker Hill's suits against Ford/Toyota/Nissan. Absence of evidence; flagging as not present rather than speculative.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC, an assertion vehicle, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. In fact Unified Patents is on the opposite side, challenging Bunker Hill's sister patents. The patent is very much live as a weapon, not neutralized.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The '467 patent was carved out of General Electric, renamed into Dolby Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC, bulk-sold to Dominion Harbor's Edison Innovations, LLC (~2,500 assets, 2025-02), and quitclaimed to Bunker Hill Technologies, LLC (2026-04-09) — an entity that Unified Patents identifies as "an NPE and entity of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC" and that the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies as a non-practicing entity. It is being asserted against Ford, Toyota, and Nissan ('467 named in 2:25-cv-01133 and 2:26-cv-00231). That is 2+ strong signals (shell-entity transfer, known asserter, cascading transfers) plus an independent NPE classification from two third-party databases.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search 8,326,467 for reel/frame + correspondent): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8326467B2](/patent/US8326467B2)/en
• Stanford NPE database (Bunker Hill v. Toyota, '467 named): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[308840](/patent/308840)
• Unified Patents — Dominion Harbor / Bunker Hill: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/tag/Dominion+Harbor
• Edison Innovations / Dolby portfolio acquisition press release (2025-02-19): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/markets-news/ACCESS%20Newswire/31013992/

Open items to close before filing anything: (1) reel/frame for all five post-2011 entries; (2) correspondent of record on each — expect recurrence; (3) confirm whether the quitclaim's execution date differs from its 2026-04-09 recordation, which would materially change signal #5; (4) check for a recorded license/security interest against Edison or Bunker Hill that would show financing of the assertion campaign.

I'll research US patent 8326467 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get more detail on the specific cited references from the patent's front page.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8326467 B2

1. The target patent (verified against the provided full text)

Because the application was filed 2011-09-06, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 govern. The critical date for § 102(b) statutory bars is therefore ~2010-09-06; § 102(a)/(e) turn on the invention date and on the filing date of any earlier U.S. patent/application that describes the subject matter.

2. An important limitation on what I can report

The "References Cited" / "Prior Art" list is not present in the authoritative text supplied for this analysis. The Google Patents text provided contains the Abstract, Description, and Claims, but the front-page (56) references block was not included. I therefore cannot read the examiner-cited art directly from the record; the list below is reconstructed from the secondary patent databases that reproduce the front page (Justia's page for US 8326467 shows a "Referenced Cited" list). That reconstruction appears truncated — the last entry I could retrieve is 2011/0115295, and no foreign patent documents or non-patent literature could be confirmed. Treat the list as provisional.

I also could not independently verify the title, content, or publication data for several of the six later references. Where I lack high confidence I say so explicitly rather than inferring a description.

3. Referenced-cited references (from the front-page listing)

U.S. Patent Documents

1. US 6,724,172 B2 — Koo — April 20, 2004

• Confirmed via search: Title = "Method for determining a maximum charge current and a maximum discharge current of a battery." Directed to a rechargeable battery of a hybrid electric vehicle; determines steady-state charge/discharge resistance and no-load voltage as a function of state of charge and computes maximum temporary charge/discharge currents.
• Potential claim relevance: Claim 2 (and its medium/method counterparts) — "set a maximum amount of current to supply to the power storage device." Koo is the closest match in the cited set to a maximum-charge-current limitation. It is, however, a battery-control/per-battery algorithm, not a supervisory power-system controller, so it does not appear to reach the § 102 elements of claim 1 (plural power-system components + command to another controller to couple/decouple). Best characterized as § 103 background art, not anticipating art, unless combined.

2. US 7,554,292 B2 — Veselic — June 30, 2009

• Confidence note: The title I associate with this number is a battery state-of-charge/state-of-health determination method. I could not confirm the title or content in the searches run, so I flag this as low-confidence.
• Potential claim relevance: If it is SOC-based battery control, it is at most tangentially relevant to the "operating condition … of a power storage device" aspects of claim 1 / claims 2–3. Not an anticipating reference for any claim as far as I can confirm.

3. US 7,671,567 B2 — Eberhard et al. — March 2, 2010

• Confidence note: I was unable to retrieve a verified abstract; my search step budget was exhausted before confirmation. Likely a battery-pack/vehicle charging reference.
• Potential claim relevance: Possible background for claim 3 (power-storage-mode → power-supply-mode switching) and claim 4 (EV charging completion time), but unverified — I will not assert anticipation.

4. US 7,967,711 B2 — Conlon et al. — June 28, 2011

• Potential claim relevance: Post-dates the § 102(b) critical date (2010-09-06), so it cannot be a § 102(b) bar. It could only be § 102(a) (if the invention date is later) or § 102(e) (earlier-filed U.S. application). Coupled with its sibling publication US 2008/0125928 (below), this appears to be part of the same family and is likely cited for grid-connected/distributed-generation switching context, relevant at most to claim 5 (utility-source decoupling) or claim 1's coupling/decoupling concept.

5. US 2008/0125928 A1 — Conlon et al. — May 29, 2008

• Publication date is more than one year before the 2011-09-06 filing → eligible as a § 102(b) printed publication. Same family as Conlon '711. Potential relevance to claim 5 and claim 1's decoupling step.

6. US 2010/0039062 A1 — Gu et al. — February 18, 2010

• Published before 2010-09-06 → eligible § 102(b). Likely cited for power-system/microgrid control background. Potential relevance to claim 1 (system-component operating condition) but I could not verify content; do not treat as anticipating.

7. US 2011/0015799 A1 — Pollack et al. — January 20, 2011

• Post-dates 2010-09-06 → eligible only under § 102(a)/(e). Note a related Pollack publication (US 2012/0074174) later surfaced as prior art in an unrelated PCT search, suggesting Pollack-family art deals with charging/power-transfer control. Potential relevance to claims 2–4 (charge-current/battery-charging control).

8. US 2011/0047052 A1 — Cornish — February 24, 2011

• Post-dates 2010-09-06 → § 102(a)/(e) only. Content unverified. Potential relevance to claim 1/claim 8 (forecast-based control) if it concerns demand/load forecasting; not confirmed.

9. US 2011/0093127 A1 — Kaplan — April 21, 2011

• Post-dates 2010-09-06 → § 102(a)/(e) only. Content unverified. Kaplan-family art often concerns energy management/metering; potential relevance to claim 1 and claim 6 (load prioritization) if it addresses load classification; not confirmed.

10. US 2011/0115295 A1 — Moon et al. — May 19, 2011

• Post-dates 2010-09-06 → § 102(a)/(e) only. This is the last entry retrievable before the listing truncated; there may be further U.S. entries, foreign documents, or NPL not captured.

4. Net assessment against the claims

• No cited reference, on the information I could verify, appears to anticipate claim 1 as a whole. Claim 1 requires (a) an operating condition of at least two power-system components, (b) a predetermined-condition determination, and (c) transmission of a command to another controller to electrically couple/decouple those components. The verified references (Koo especially) are component-level battery algorithms, not supervisory controllers issuing cross-controller coupling/decoupling commands.
• The references cluster into two themes: (i) battery charge/discharge-current and SOC control (Koo '172, Veselic '292, Eberhard '567, Pollack '799) — relevant to claims 2, 3, 4; and (ii) grid/distributed-source interconnection (Conlon '711/'5928, Gu '9062) — relevant to claims 1, 5. The evidentiary value is primarily § 103 combination material, not § 102 anticipation.
• Claims 6 and 7 (load categorization into high/low priority, with decoupling of low-priority loads) and claim 8 (forecast-based coupling/decoupling) had no clearly corresponding citation in the retrieved list. If the objective is a validity challenge, the examiner-cited art appears thin against these dependent claims, and additional art would need to be located.

5. Caveats (required by the strict rules)

1. Do not auto-corrected identifiers: all numbers above are transcribed literally from the sources; US 8326467 B2 and its data correspond exactly to the authoritative text supplied.
2. The reconstructed citation list is incomplete and partly unverified. Descriptions marked "unverified" should not be relied upon. I was unable to complete full text retrieval for US 7,554,292; US 7,671,567; US 7,967,711; and US 2010/0039062 before exhausting the search budget.
3. Anticipation vs. obviousness: None of the references I could verify discloses every element of an independent claim (1, 9, or 16) arranged as in the claim. Labeling them "anticipating" would overstate the record; they are best treated as § 103 art.
4. Procedural note: The Google Patents record for US 8326467 shows active litigation in the Texas Eastern District Court (case nos. 2:26-cv-00231 and 2:25-cv-01133) and current ownership by Bunker Hill Technologies LLC (via Edison Innovations LLC; originally General Electric). If this analysis is for litigation support, the actual USPTO "References Cited" and any IDS submissions should be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter / the file wrapper rather than from secondary databases, since those are the authoritative source and would also reveal foreign references and NPL omitted here.

If you can supply the file-wrapper "References Cited" block (or authorize another retrieval pass), I can complete the per-reference descriptions and the exact § 102 element mapping you requested.

I'll start by gathering the prior-art record for US 8,326,467 and any related validity challenges.

Let me find the specific prior-art record (citations, and any PTAB/IPR challenges) for this patent.

Let me pull the actual "References Cited" list from alternate patent databases.

I found the cited-references list. Let me confirm the full claim set and complete the reference list.