US 8360937

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me run a couple of targeted confirmation searches on litigation/docket activity and current ownership.

A 2026 docket involving the current assignee appears. Let me pull details on the asserted patents.

US Patent 8,360,937 — Summary

Important scope note: I could not query USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC's own docket system directly in this session. What follows is grounded in (a) the full authoritative patent text supplied (Google Patents mirror of USPTO data) and (b) web sources that mirror USPTO/PACER records. Where I could not verify something, I say so.

Bibliographic data (as recorded, interpreted literally)

Term-date anomaly (flagged, not resolved): Google Patents lists "anticipated expiration 2027-09-10" (20 years from the 2007-09-10 parent filing), whereas a third-party mirror (patents-review.com) lists an "adjusted expiration" of 2031-07-18 (20 years from the 2011-07-18 filing). Because the '937 patent is a straight continuation claiming benefit of the 2007-09-10 filing, the 2027-09-10 date is the more internally consistent of the two, but I cannot authoritatively reconcile them from the sources reviewed.

Abstract (verbatim)

"An elevated adventure course, having an ascending entrance-exit tracking member with bases secured downwardly therefrom. The bases oriented leftwardly and rightwardly in alternating fashion to define a non-linear pathway."

Technical context

The patent describes an elevated challenge/adventure course (ref. numeral 10) deployable in parks or zoos, in which participants traverse elevated elements (60) while tethered to overhead tracking members (50, 80, 210). The tracking member is expressly stated to be "the type as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,416,054 ('the 054 patent'), issued on 26 Aug. 2008," and the specification also refers to "the 960 publication" (i.e., publication no. 960) for the safety-cable retaining disclosure. Front-page citations of record are US 7,175,534 B2 (Liggett, "Challenge course," 2007-02-13) and US 7,481,741 B1 (Backyard Leisure Holdings, "Ladder and related methods," 2009-01-27).

Title observation: Despite the word "fall arrest system" in the granted title, no claim recites a "fall arrest system" as such. The fall-arrest function is attributed in the specification to the tracking member, which "may movably retain or movably hold a safety cable therein, to secure the participant via cables, belts, or a safety harness."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 (apparatus — the entrance/exit ladder portion)
A course with an ascending entrance-exit tracking member overhead. Hanging downward from that tracking member, at a substantially constant distance, are a set of bases (steps/platforms), connected by a securing member (the rope 240). Consecutive bases are offset left and right in alternation, so the resulting walking path is non-linear/serpentine, and a person walking up or down is forced to step left, then right, then left (the granted claim adds this "whereby" clause). Plainly: a safety-track-suspended zig-zag staircase.

Claim 7 (apparatus — the whole course combination)
An assembled course: an entrance-exit platform (ramp/stairway) attached to a support member; a tracking member on the support's top; an element (traverse element) on the support; a path made of multiple such elements; a second tracking member parallel to the first; an entrance-exit area with its own support structure; an entrance-exit tracking member spanning from that structure to the support member; arms on the entrance-exit tracking member; ropes hanging down; and a base on each rope — such that the ropes form a non-linear pathway that leads to a second entrance-exit area (22). Plainly: the full loop — airborne elements plus the serpentine, suspended access/egress run at both ends.

Claim 8 (method — traversing the course)
A three-step method: (1) traverse relative to an ascending entrance-exit tracking member attached at one end to an entrance-exit support structure and at the other to a support member; (2) traverse upon bases suspended downward from that tracking member by a securing member at a substantially constant distance, with the bases alternating left and right to define a non-linear path; (3) traverse along that non-linear path. Plainly: the method of moving through the course while the geometry forces lateral weaving.

Dependent claims (brief)

• 2 — tracking member 50 substantially parallel to and side-by-side with tracking member 80, allowing different users on each simultaneously; the entrance-exit tracking member 210 plus tracking member 50 permit traversing course elements via a tracking system.
• 3 — the ascending entrance-exit tracking member is secured between an entrance-exit support structure (280) and a support member (40) to define a first bay (400); a further tracking member spans support member to support member to define an adjacent second bay (500).
• 4 — adds entrance-exit platform (30)/support member (40), tracking member (50) on top portion (45), element (60), and a path (100) of elements leading to a second entrance-exit area (22).
• 5 — adds the second, substantially parallel tracking member (80).
• 6 — adds the entrance-exit area (20)/support structure (280), entrance-exit tracking member (210), arms (230), rope (240), base (250), with the ropes defining non-linear pathway (300).

Note: the granted claim set (as shown in the Google Patents full text) is not identical to the pre-grant publication US 2012/0021874 A1 mirrored on FreePatentsOnline/Justia — the granted claim 1 carries an added "whereby" clause and granted claims 2 and 3 were amended. The granted text should be treated as authoritative.

Litigation and CAFC 2026 dockets

• No Federal Circuit appeal involving US 8,360,937 was found. My searches for a 2026 CAFC appeal on this patent returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit patent decisions (e.g., AGI SureTrack LLC v. Farmers Edge Inc., Arendi S.A.R.L. v. Oath/Google, Netlist v. Micron, Hafeman v. Google/Microsoft). I cannot prove a negative from these searches; I simply found no evidence of CAFC activity.
• One 2026 district-court docket involves the current patent owner: JiMi IP, LLC et al v. WA7 Volli, W.D. Wash. Case No. 2:26-cv-03272, nature of suit 830 (35 U.S.C. §271 patent infringement), filed in 2026, with co-plaintiff reference to "Ropes Courses" and counsel Jeremy Sanders (FisherBroyles LLP). Uncertainty: the docket source I retrieved does not list the patents-in-suit, so I cannot confirm that US 8,360,937 is among the asserted patents. This should be verified against the actual complaint on PACER.

Citation URLs used

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8360937/en (full text, claims, legal events, family, citations) — authoritative text supplied
• https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8360937.html and https://patents.justia.com/patent/8360937
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/20120021874 (pre-grant publication claims)
• https://www.patents-review.com/a/20120021874-elevated-adventure-fall-arrest-system.html (examiner, agent, adjusted-expiration figure)
• https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/66752903/JiMi_IP,_LLC_et_al_v_WA7_Volli (2026 W.D. Wash. docket)

Bottom line

US 8,360,937 is a 2013-issued continuation of James Liggett's 2007 challenge-course application, now owned by Jimi IP, LLC (transferred from Ropes Courses, Inc. in 2020), covering an elevated adventure course whose signature feature is an alternating left/right ("serpentine") set of suspended bases that forces a non-linear ascent/descent — intended to prevent domino-style falls on the access ramp. It issued with 8 claims (independent claims 1, 7, and 8), is expired for failure to pay maintenance fees as of early 2025, and I found no 2026 Federal Circuit activity; a 2026 W.D. Wash. infringement suit by the owner exists, but confirmation that this patent is asserted in it requires the complaint itself.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 8,360,937.

Initial searches returned nothing relevant. Let me try more targeted sources.

That Funcity case involves different patents ('737, '578, '513). Let me run more targeted searches.

Litigation Search: US Patent 8,360,937

Bottom line: I found no litigation asserting US 8,360,937. Before you rely on that, note the important caveats below — the negative result is based on limited searching and should be independently verified against PACER/Docket Navigator.

1. What I searched (transparency on method)

• General web queries for 8360937 / 8,360,937 + litigation, infringement, complaint, lawsuit, defendant
• Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — no hit returned for this number
• Portfolio-level queries on the current owner (Jimi IP, LLC) and prior owner (Ropes Courses, Inc.)

I hit a search-step limit and ran out of tool calls before exhausting every route (Docket Navigator, PACER's own query interface, CourtListener/RECAP were not directly checked). A negative search result is not the same as a confirmed absence of litigation. Treat this as "not found," not "does not exist."

2. Why the number matters — don't confuse it with family members

This is the single most important point for your purpose. US 8,360,937 sits in a family whose other members are actively litigated, and it is easy to conflate them:

Under the strict-interpretation rule you set, these are different patent numbers and must not be auto-collapsed into the '937 patent. The '937 patent is a continuation of US 11/852,738 (which issued as US 7,981,004), both titled around an elevated/challenge adventure course.

3. The one closely related case I did find (but it does not assert '937)

JiMi IP, LLC and Ropes Courses, Inc. v. Funcity Adventure Park, LLC

• Court / jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (N.D. Ill.)
• Case number: 1:24-cv-05275
• Presiding judge: Hon. Sunil R. Harjani
• Filed: 2024 (docket prefix 24-cv)
• Plaintiffs: JiMi IP, LLC and Ropes Courses, Inc. (RCI) — both connected to the '937 patent's ownership chain
• Defendant: Funcity Adventure Park, LLC (Algonquin, Illinois — ropes course + zipline attraction)
• Defendant's counsel: Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP (George P. Apostolides; Joseph Ming Kuo)
• Plaintiffs' counsel: FisherBroyles LLP (Patricia Y. Ho; William F. Dolan)
• Patents asserted: US 10,478,737; US 8,066,578; US 11,376,513 — not US 8,360,937
• Outcome / status: Dismissed. Per PACER docket, the parties stipulated under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) to dismiss all claims and counterclaims without prejudice, each side bearing its own fees and costs, with a conditional conversion to dismissal with prejudice if no enforcement proceeding is filed within 90 days. No merits ruling on infringement or validity; no injunction or damages on record.

Caution: the case number, filing date, and dismissal details above come from a secondary litigation-intelligence source (PatSnap) plus a docket-analysis page, not from PACER directly in this session. Verify the docket before citing it in a filing.

4. Ownership and status context for the '937 patent itself

Relevant to whether it could be asserted:

• Inventor: James Liggett (James Allen Liggett)
• Original assignee: Individual
• Assignments on record:
  • 2017-10-03 → Ropes Courses, Inc. (effective 2017-10-02)
  • 2020-05-13 → Jimi IP, LLC (effective 2020-04-10)
• Priority date: 2007-09-10 (claimed)
• Filed: 2011-07-18 | Granted: 2013-01-29
• Legal status: Expired – Fee Related. Maintenance-fee lapse recorded 2025-03-03 (effective 2025-01-29); "patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees."

⚠️ Practical significance: because the '937 patent is now expired for non-payment of maintenance fees, it is effectively unavailable as an infringement cause of action for conduct after expiration, and past-damages recovery would be bounded by the six-year lookback (35 U.S.C. § 286) and the expiration date. This materially lowers the likelihood that any future suit would name '937 specifically, but it does not rule out a historical case.

5. What I cannot confirm

• Whether any closed or pre-2011-filing-era case asserted the '937 patent (post-grant suits could only exist from 2013 onward).
• Whether Jimi IP filed other complaints asserting '937 that did not surface in my searches (Jimi IP appears to be an active assertion entity, so this is a real possibility).
• Whether any IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding at the PTAB challenged '937 (you asked about litigation; PTAB review is a separate channel I did not fully exhaust).

Recommended next steps for a definitive answer

1. Docket Navigator or Lex Machina — query by patent number, which retrieves cases even when the number isn't in the public complaint caption.
2. PACER — search party name "Jimi IP, LLC" and "Ropes Courses, Inc." across all districts.
3. PTAB / USPTO Patent Center — check for AIA trial proceedings against 8,360,937.
4. Unified Patents portal case list — re-run with the exact number string.

If you'd like, I can help draft the Docket Navigator search string or a PACER party-name query plan.

I'll start by verifying the structured data's negative result against public sources.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 8,360,937: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding against this patent — no active proceedings, no claim cancellations, no claim sustainments, no settlements, and no institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened" and not "claims 1-5 have been canceled" — it is "the claims are completely untested at the PTAB, and the more important fact is that the patent itself lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2025-01-29" (Google Patents legal events: LAPS — "PATENT EXPIRED FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES," recorded 2025-03-03; FP "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee," effective date 2025-01-29). Any current demand letter asserting this patent is asserting an expired patent; only pre-2025-01-29 past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback remain theoretically live, and any IPR-based defense would be moot as to prospective conduct.

I ran independent web searches to test the ODP negative. I found no PTAB proceeding, no Director Review request, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving US 8,360,937. I did not find any evidentiary basis for an AIA trial that ODP has simply failed to index. I did not separately verify the absence of an ex parte reexamination (90/ series) or a pre-AIA interference; treat that as unverified rather than confirmed absence. Per the operating rules, I am not inventing proceeding numbers to fill the gap — there are none to report.

Proceeding-by-proceeding detail

None exist. There is no proceeding to place "most-impactful first," because the structured data contains no proceedings and my searches surfaced none. Concretely, for US 8,360,937:

• Type: n/a — no Inter Partes Review, no Post-Grant Review, no Covered Business Method review.
• Filed: n/a.
• Status: n/a (the patent's own status is "Expired - Fee Related").
• Judge panel: n/a — no APJ panel has ever been assigned.
• Petition grounds: n/a — no § 102 / § 103 / § 112 challenge has been adjudicated at the Board.
• Institution decision: n/a.
• Final Written Decision: n/a — no claim of US 8,360,937 has been canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated by the PTAB. Claims 1–8 are all as-issued and UNTESTED.
• Settlement / termination: n/a.
• Appeal: n/a — no CAFC docket exists because there is no FWD to appeal.
• Defensive value: Low, but for a non-PTAB reason. There is no PTAB record to cite, so you cannot hand a court an FWD canceling claims. Your leverage comes from the expiry and from the File Wrapper/assignment record, not from the Board.

Adjacent fact worth flagging (not a proceeding)

The only enforcement activity I could locate in this family is JiMi IP, LLC and Ropes Courses, Inc. v. Funcity Adventure Park, LLC, No. 1:24-cv-05275 (N.D. Ill., Judge Sunil R. Harjani), which was dismissed without prejudice by stipulation, converting to with-prejudice dismissal if no enforcement proceeding was initiated within 90 days. That case asserted US 10,478,737 B2, US 8,066,578 B2, and US 11,376,513 B2 — not US 8,360,937. Source: https://www.patsnap.com/fr/resources/blog/litigation/jimi-ip-v-funcity-adventure-park-zip-track-aerial-park-patent-dispute-patsnap/ (summarizing PACER docket for 1:24-cv-05275). Note the modern assertion strategy targets the zip-track/later patents, which is consistent with '937 being a lapsed 2007-priority continuation.

Also note the ownership chain on '937, which matters for identifying the correct adverse party:

• Original assignee: Individual (James Allen Liggett).
• 2017-10-03: assigned to Ropes Courses, Inc. (effective 2017-10-02), REEL/FRAME 043771/0546.
• 2020-05-13: assigned to Jimi IP, LLC (effective 2020-04-10), REEL/FRAME 052654/0330.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All eight claims of US 8,360,937 — independent claim 1 (apparatus: ascending entrance-exit tracking member, bases spaced at substantially consistent distance, alternating left/right orientation defining a non-linear path, securing member), independent claim 7 (full course with entrance-exit platform, support member, tracking members 50 and 80 in parallel, arms, ropes, base, leading to a second entrance-exit area 22), and independent method claim 8, plus dependents 2–6 — are UNTESTED. None is canceled; none is sustained; none is narrowed by any Board certificate. Do not let any demand letter imply otherwise. If an adversary tells you claims of '937 were invalidated in an IPR, that is false as of today.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is inapplicable to this patent because no IPR was ever instituted, and no petitioner exists to be estopped. The practical consequence is the reverse of the usual one: there is no PTAB-generated narrowing of the prior-art field — you are free to run any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court without worrying about whether it was raised or reasonably could have been raised before the Board. There is also no IPR estoppel to leverage against the patent owner, and no statutory § 315(b) one-year bar has run against anyone because no complaint-and-IPR pair exists on this record. Caveat: I have not confirmed whether any unindexed district court complaint plus IPR petition pair exists; my searches found no such petition.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed even a first IPR against '937, let alone multiple — so there is no serial-petitioner pattern, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents proceeding appeared in any search), and no aggressive PTAB-appeal posture by the patent owner, because there was never anything to appeal. That absence is the signal here: a patent that lapsed for failure to pay its 12th-year maintenance fee and whose priority family is 2007-directed did not attract challengers because challengers presumably concluded the residual exposure was small relative to the cost of a petition. The commercially asserted patents in this portfolio are the newer zip-track/rail patents (US 10,478,737; US 10,213,699; US 11,376,513; US 10,683,018), several of which appear in the "Cited By" list for '937.

The sibling patent trap. '937 is a continuation of Ser. No. 11/852,738, filed 2007-09-10, now US 7,981,004 B2, which remains Active – Reinstated with an anticipated expiration of 2028-09-26. Both share the 2007-09-10 priority date. If you are being asserted against, confirm the patent number in the demand letter character-by-character: a demand citing "8,360,937" is asserted on an expired patent, but a demand citing "7,981,004" is asserted on a live one with a materially longer runway and a shared specification. The two have distinct claim sets and distinct claim charts should be demanded.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a defense around a PTAB record — there isn't one. There is no FWD to link and no disposition to quote. If you need an authoritative re-check on the date you act, search PTAB E2E / the PTAB Decisions database filtered to "8,360,937" and the ODP API directly; I am reporting a null result as of 2026-09-17.
2. Lead with expiry. The legal events on the patent's Google Patents page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8360937/en) show the 8th-year fee paid 2020-07-20, the maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2024-09-16, and lapse effective 2025-01-29. Confirm against the File Wrapper in PatentCenter, then check the § 286 six-year damages window: conduct before 2025-01-29 may still be reachable, and if the patent owner argues reinstatement of a lapsed patent, note that the last reinstatement event on this record concerned the parent '004 patent, not '937. Verify whether any petition to accept an unintentionally delayed payment was ever filed for '937, and when.
3. Check whether the demand letter is actually about a different patent. Verify the asserted patent number, the asserted claims, and whether the patent owner is JiMi IP, LLC (current assignee since 2020-05-13) or its predecessor Ropes Courses, Inc. Ask for the assignment chain. If the assertion is on '004, the analysis changes entirely — that patent is live to 2028-09-26 and has never been tested at the PTAB either, so a § 102/§ 103 challenge there would be a first-instance fight on a 2007-priority challenge-course specification.
4. Preserve invalidity theories without estoppel constraints. Because no IPR was filed, you face no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no § 325(e)(2) estoppel. The only cited references in the '937 record are US 7,175,534 B2 (Liggett, 2007-02-13, "Challenge course") and US 7,481,741 B1 (Backyard Leisure Holdings, 2009-01-27, "Ladder and related methods"). Note the inventor's own prior patent '534 as a § 102(b)/§ 103 candidate and the 2006-06-27 priority of '741 as a potential § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) reference depending on the applicable AIA date — this is a pre-AIA-patent family (2007-09-10 priority) but the '937 continuation was filed 2011-07-18 under the AIA first-inventor-to-file regime for its own claims; brief that transition carefully.
5. No trial-stage milestones to calendar. There is no institution decision deadline, no oral hearing, and no statutory one-year FWD deadline to track for any proceeding on this patent, because no trial has been instituted. Calendar instead: the PatentCenter File Wrapper status and any reinstatement petition for '937, and any new litigation or IPR naming the live sibling US 7,981,004.

Confidence and gaps. High confidence in the null result for AIA trials (PTAB proceedings on file structured block is canonical and my independent searches corroborated it). High confidence in the maintenance-fee lapse and the assignment history, both drawn from the authoritative patent text and legal events provided. Unverified: (a) whether any ex parte reexamination or pre-AIA interference ever touched '937 or its parent; (b) the complete set of district court cases, if any, that ever named '937 as an asserted patent, since I only surfaced the Funcity matter and it asserted different patents; (c) whether a maintenance-fee reinstatement petition for '937 is pending in PatentCenter. I did not fabricate proceeding numbers, judge panels, grounds, or dispositions to fill the empty structured block.

I'll gather external evidence to supplement the legal-events data in the patent record before writing up the chain.

Key finding emerging: Ropes Courses, Inc. operates commercially and litigates alongside JiMi IP. Let me probe the correspondent of record and the litigation history for this specific patent.

Ownership Analysis — US 8,360,937 B2

Patent: "Elevated adventure course with fall arrest system" · App. 13/184,911 · Filed 2011-07-18 · Granted 2013-01-29 · Priority 2007-09-10 (continuation of US 11/852,738, now US 7,981,004) · Current assignee: JiMi IP, LLC · Status: Expired – Fee Related

Tooling caveat up front: the Google Patents legal-events feed (which is what I could reach) carries assignor, assignee, reel/frame, and effective date — but not the correspondent-of-record field. Two searches aimed at the correspondent and at RPX/Unified directory listings returned no usable data before I exhausted my search budget. Section 3 below is therefore flagged unverified, not inferred. A direct pull at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (free, no login) is required to close it.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• This is a single-inventor patent in a portfolio where the sibling applications carry co-inventors. The parent, US 7,981,004, was assigned to Ropes Courses, Inc. by Liggett, James; Garland, Troy Lee; and Powers, Timothy under Reel 043826/0405, effective 2010-09-15 — i.e., the same October 2017 recording wave as the '937 assignment. Liggett, Garland and Powers also appear together as inventors on the "Zip track and system" family (e.g., US 10,478,737; US 11,376,513), so this appears to be a small, stable founding team rather than a rotating cast.
• The notable anomaly is timing, not departures. The '937 issued 2013-01-29 with no assignee on its face (Google Patents lists the original assignee as "Individual"), and Liggett's assignment to Ropes Courses, Inc. was not recorded until 2017-10-03 with an effective date of 2017-10-02 — roughly six years after filing and over four years after issuance. The parent's assignment (eff. 2010-09-15) was recorded in the same October 2017 window. That clustering points to a portfolio-wide title cleanup / due-diligence sweep in late 2017 (recordation catch-up ahead of the 2017-10-02 corporate assignment to Ropes Courses, and it lands two days after the 4th-year maintenance fee window closed on 2017-01-30). I found no evidence of inventors leaving — indeed the opposite: Garland and Powers keep filing in this family through 2019–2022, and Liggett is still a named inventor as recently as the 2022 design filing USD1,074,905.

Original assignee

None — the patent issued to James Allen Liggett as an individual. (Google Patents: "Original Assignee: Individual"; no corporate assignee appears in the granted-patent record.)

The de facto commercial owner from 2017 onward is Ropes Courses, Inc., a Michigan manufacturer with a live product line that reads directly on the claim set: Sky Trail® (the modular multi-level challenge course), Sky Rail® (the overhead integrated zip track), and Sky Tykes® (a junior course). Per the complaint analysis in N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-05275, Ropes Courses marks its products under 35 U.S.C. § 287(a) and "has not licensed the asserted patents to any party other than co-plaintiff RCI."

• Primary business: design, manufacture and installation of elevated ropes courses / aerial adventure park attractions.
• Current status: Operating. Ropes Courses, Inc. ("RCI Adventure Products") is an active co-plaintiff in litigation as recently as 2024 and 2026 (see timeline), which presupposes a going concern. I found no bankruptcy, receivership, wind-down or dissolution record.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded assignments. Both are shown in the Google Patents legal events; neither record surfaced a correspondent field.

2017-10-02 (executed) / recorded 2017-10-03 — Reel 043771/0546

• Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
• Assignor: Liggett, James Allen
• Assignee: Ropes Courses, Inc., Michigan
• Correspondent: Not available in the source feed. Must be pulled from USPTO Assignment Center. No recurrence can be assessed.
• Context: Late title cleanup — the inventor's personal rights were papered to the operating company four-plus years after issuance, in the same October 2017 recording wave as the parent's assignment (Reel 043826/0405, eff. 2010-09-15), i.e. a due-diligence sweep rather than a contemporaneous arm's-length purchase.

2020-04-10 (executed) / recorded 2020-05-13 — Reel 052654/0330

• Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; ASSIGNOR: ROPES COURSES, INC.")
• Assignor: Ropes Courses, Inc., Michigan
• Assignee: JiMi IP, LLC, Michigan (free-format text of record)
• Correspondent: Not available in the source feed. Must be pulled from USPTO Assignment Center. No recurrence can be assessed.
• Context: Internal IP-holding reorganization — the operating manufacturer moved the portfolio into an affiliated "IP" LLC, while continuing to sell the marked product and to appear as a co-plaintiff in enforcement. Not a sale to an unrelated third-party asserter.

Non-assignment legal events relevant to ownership posture

Discrepancy to flag: the USPTO assignment text of record states the assignee address as "JIMI IP, LLC, MICHIGAN," while litigation summaries describe JiMi IP, LLC as a Delaware entity. These are reconcilable (a Delaware LLC registered to do business in Michigan) but the record as retrieved does not let me confirm it, and I found no principal place of business or registered-agent street address in the sources available to me.

Corroborating portfolio-context assignments (not this patent): the same October 2017 → spring 2020 pattern repeats across the family — e.g. Reel 043826/0405 (parent '004, eff. 2010-09-15) and the Jimi IP transfers behind US 10,478,737, US 11,376,513, US 10,213,699 and US 10,105,564, all of which now list JiMi IP, LLC as owner.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8360937
    2007 : Priority application filed by Liggett
    2011 : Continuation filed as 13 184 911
    2013 : Patent US 8360937 issues
    2017 : 4th year fee paid
         : Assigned to Ropes Courses Inc
    2020 : 8th year fee paid
         : Assigned to JiMi IP LLC
    2024 : JiMi IP and Ropes Courses sue Funcity
    2025 : Patent lapses for unpaid fee
    2026 : JiMi IP sues WA7 Volli

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (qualified).
Reel 052654/0330, executed 2020-04-10, recorded 2020-05-13: US 8,360,937 moved from Ropes Courses, Inc. to JiMi IP, LLC. The "IP" suffix is present and the assignee address of record is bare ("MICHIGAN") with no street address in the free-format text. The qualification matters: the transferor did not exit — it sells the marked product (Sky Trail / Sky Rail / Sky Tykes), marks under § 287(a), and appears as co-plaintiff alongside JiMi IP in 1:24-cv-05275. This is closer to a conventional affiliated IP-holding LLC than to an anonymous single-purpose shell, but the structural element (operating co → IP-only LLC) is genuinely present.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (against the enumerated lists); UNCLEAR (against RPX/Unified).
Neither JiMi IP, LLC nor Ropes Courses, Inc. matches Acacia, Marathon Patent Group, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio IP Ventures, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity I could check. JiMi IP is an active patent plaintiff (1:24-cv-05275, N.D. Ill., 2024-06-24; 2:26-cv-03272, W.D. Wash., 2026-02-11) — but two suits is not a "high-frequency plaintiff" finding. I could not retrieve the Unified Patents or RPX Insurance asserter directories within this session, so this signal is only partially cleared.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / INSUFFICIENT DATA.
The Google Patents legal-events feed exposes free-format assignment text but no correspondent-of-record. I therefore have no correspondent name, firm, or address for either Reel 043771/0546 or Reel 052654/0330, and I will not guess one. This is the single highest-value open item: since only two links exist, recurrence would require the same filer on both — a two-record pull settles it. (Litigation counsel of record for the assertion activity is FisherBroyles LLP — William F. Dolan and Patricia Y. Ho in the N.D. Ill. case; Jeremy Sanders on the W.D. Wash. case. That is trial counsel, not recording correspondent, and a single law firm doing patent litigation is not itself a signal.)

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Two recorded transfers, 2017-10-02 and 2020-04-10 — roughly 30 months apart, with no intervening links and no chained LLCs. That is well outside the "<24 months through chained shells" pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (as to this patent).
The only transfer out of the operating company executed 2020-04-10. The first suit I located involving the co-owners was filed 2024-06-24 — about 50 months later, far outside the 6-month window. Critically, US 8,360,937 is not among the asserted patents: the 2024 Funcity complaint asserts US 10,478,737, US 8,066,578 and US 11,376,513. I found no complaint asserting '937 at all.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 record, no 363 sale, no SEC filing evidence for any entity in this chain. The 2025 termination was a maintenance-fee lapse by the owner, not a distressed sale — the opposite end of the distress spectrum.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR, leaning not present.
The classical form is an operating company parking patents with an unrelated NPE that then sues the operating company's rivals. Here the operating company stays in the case as a named co-plaintiff (1:24-cv-05275), which is inconsistent with the operating company wanting distance. The accused party is a park operator (Funcity, Algonquin, IL) alleged to use Third-party aerial attractions — targeting end users rather than a rival manufacturer is a pattern that can accompany NPE conduct, but with the co-plaintiff structure and § 287 marking the affiliated-owner explanation fits the record better. No SEC or Patent Progress / EFF coverage was located.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at JiMi IP, LLC, an affiliate of the operating company that actively funds and files new applications (continuations and design filings through 2022–2023). It is not RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized defensively.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Why: Reel 052654/0330 (executed 2020-04-10, recorded 2020-05-13) moved US 8,360,937 from Ropes Courses, Inc. to JiMi IP, LLC, but the transferor did not go away — Ropes Courses, Inc. markets the Sky Trail / Sky Rail / Sky Tykes products that embody the claims, marks them under 35 U.S.C. § 287(a), and appears as named co-plaintiff with JiMi IP in N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-05275 (filed 2024-06-24). That is an affiliated IP-holding structure run by an operating manufacturer, not an anonymous shell asserting against strangers, and neither entity matches any enumerated NPE directory. Two honest caveats drive the confidence level down, not up: (i) '937 is not among the patents asserted in either suit I located, so the enforcement story is a portfolio story, not a '937 story; and (ii) the patent lapsed on 2025-01-29 for non-payment of the 12-year maintenance fee (recorded 2025-03-03 under 37 CFR 1.362), so it can no longer be asserted at all absent revival. The one signal I cannot clear — repeat correspondent — depends on a two-record pull from USPTO Assignment Center that I was unable to complete; given only two links exist, that pull will resolve it cleanly rather than incrementally.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search (indexed mirror): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8360937/en

I'll search for the specific patent and its cited prior art to ground this analysis.

Let me get details on the second cited reference, US7481741B1.

Let me get more detail on the second examiner-cited reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,360,937 B2

1. Target patent confirmed (exact match, no look-alikes)

The USPTO/Google Patents record returned is exactly US 8,360,937 B2 and no other number was substituted:

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8360937/en

2. The citations actually on the face of US 8,360,937

The patent lists two examiner-cited references ("Patent Citations (2)"), both marked "Cited by examiner":

Separately, the specification itself incorporates two further references by name (not on the front page, but relied on for the "tracking member" element):

Note a drafting inconsistency to be aware of: the body of US 8,360,937 repeatedly calls the tracking member "the type as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,416,054" but then says "as described in the 960 publication." The parent (US 2009/0065300 A1) cited only the 960 publication. So both the '054 patent and the '960 publication describe the same cable-hook tracking system.

3. Reference-by-reference §102 mapping

Reference 1 — US 7,175,534 B2, "Challenge course" (Liggett)

Full citation / dates: US 7,175,534 B2; James Allen Liggett; App. No. 11/017,877; filed Dec. 21, 2004; priority Dec. 21, 2004; granted Feb. 13, 2007.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7175534B2](/patent/US7175534B2)/en

Brief description: A portable/deployable challenge course having a frame (20) with a substantially horizontal track beam (30), a vertical column (60), and a track (120) with a channel (150) in which a moveable member (360) slides. A safety cable (350) descends from the moveable member to a body harness (600). The track has interchanges (126) letting the movable member change direction between lengthwise lanes (122) and widthwise lanes (124). Elements (300) are fixed at their two ends between adjacent support columns; platforms (170)/standing platforms (240) sit at bay (230) ends. A key teaching is that the participant can be secured to the track at ground level before ascending to activity height, and the course can be hauled/deployed on a flat-bed trailer.

Claim relevance — no full anticipation found. This reference is the source of the "tracking member (50)/(80)/(210) + harness/fall-arrest" element, and of the entrance/bay vocabulary, but it does not disclose the hanging, laterally-offset bases that define the claimed non-linear path. Claim-by-claim:

Net: US 7,175,534 is best characterized as §103 combination art / background, not an anticipating reference. It is the closest single reference for claims 1–5 and 7 in structure, but the distinguishing point of the patent — the alternating hanging bases — is absent.

Important legal caveat (do not auto-file under §102 without checking): US 7,175,534 names the same inventor, James Allen Liggett, as US 8,360,937. Under pre-AIA §102(a)/(e), a reference must be "by others" to anticipate; a same-inventive-entity reference generally is not §102(a)/(e) art, and it published only ~7 months before the 9/10/2007 priority date, so it is not §102(b) art either. Its citation value here is chiefly evidentiary/§103/background, not anticipatory.

Reference 2 — US 7,481,741 B1, "Ladder and related methods" (Backyard Leisure Holdings, Inc.)

Full citation / dates: US 7,481,741 B1; assignee Backyard Leisure Holdings, Inc.; filed Jun. 27, 2006; priority Jun. 27, 2006; granted Jan. 27, 2009.
Sources seen: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10350502B2](/patent/US10350502B2)/en (citing entry) ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US8360937/en

Brief description: I could not retrieve the full abstract/disclosure of US 7,481,741 B1 from the searches available (the only hits returned were citing-reference entries). Based strictly on its title, assignee (a consumer-playground company) and citation context, it is a third-party ladder structure and related methods — i.e., a climbing/ascending apparatus. Per the operating rule, I will not invent disclosure content for it; the description above is limited to what the records confirm.

Claim relevance: Its probable examiner purpose was to show a climbing/ascending step structure (relevant to the "ascending entrance" concept in claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8). On the face of it, a ladder reference does not disclose:

• bases (250) suspended downwardly from an ascending entrance-exit tracking member at a substantially consistent distance, nor
• bases alternately offset leftwardly/rightwardly to define a non-linear path (300), nor
• the fall-arrest tracking member (50/80/210) with ropes and harness.

Accordingly, no claim of US 8,360,937 is anticipated by US 7,481,741 B1 alone; it is at most a secondary §103 reference for the ascending/climbing aspect. It is a proper third-party reference (not same-inventor), available as of its Jun. 27, 2006 filing date under pre-AIA §102(e), i.e., before the 9/10/2007 priority date.

Incorporated-by-reference material (specification, not front-page citations)

• US 7,416,054 B2 — "Cable hook tracking system" (Liggett), filed Oct. 25, 2004, issued Aug. 26, 2008 — discloses a movable member with a glide that transitions between a safety cable and inner/outer tracks so the participant's harness hook is never released; expressly aims to increase flow speed and safety. This is the substantive disclosure of the claimed "tracking member (50)/(80)/(210)." Again, same inventor (Liggett), so the same §102 "by others" caveat applies.
• US 2006/0090960 A1 — "Cable hook tracking system," pub. May 4, 2006 — the pre-grant publication of the same subject matter.

These two are the true antecedent for claim 1's "ascending entrance-exit tracking member," but neither discloses the alternating hanging bases, so neither anticipates the claims.

Not prior art (for completeness)

• US 7,981,004 B2 (Ser. No. 11/852,738) is the parent of US 8,360,937 (continuation) — same family, not prior art.
• The "Cited By" list (e.g., US 10,105,564; US 10,213,699; US 10,166,034; US 10,207,137; US 10,683,018; US 10,814,149) and the "Similar Documents" list (US 8,066,578; US 8,016,686; US 2005/0141205; etc.) all post-date the Sep. 10, 2007 priority date and are later art, usable only for context, not §102.

4. Bottom line

Stated plainly: neither examiner-cited reference anticipates a single claim of US 8,360,937 under §102 on its face. The novelty of the patent's independent claims (1, 7, and method 8) resides in the bases (250) hung by ropes (240) from the ascending entrance-exit tracking member and alternately offset left/right to force a non-linear/serpentine path (300), which no cited reference discloses. The two citations function as §103/background art (US 7,175,534 for the tracking/fall-arrest and bay architecture; US 7,481,741 for the ascending step/ladder concept), and any obviousness attack would have to combine them (typically with the '054/'960 cable-hook tracking material) to reach the claims.

Caveats I am flagging rather than papering over: (a) I could not retrieve the full disclosure of US 7,481,741 B1, so its description and mapping are provisional; (b) the §102 status of US 7,175,534 and US 7,416,054 is complicated by common inventorship with US 8,360,937 and should be verified against the pre-AIA "by others" requirement before being asserted as anticipatory art.

I'll ground this §103 analysis in the actual prior-art references of record and the related art cited on the patent page. Let me pull their disclosures.

Let me pull the two front-page references in more detail, plus the admitted tracking system and same-inventor family art.

Now let me check the two front-page references and the parent patent disclosure, plus search for art on alternating suspended steps.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,360,937 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Framing note: The '937 patent's § 103 analysis is governed by pre-AIA § 103 (the application was filed 2011-07-18 and claims benefit of a 2007-09-10 filing; both predate the 2013-03-16 AIA change). The controlling authority is Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). I worked from the prior-art date recorded on the patent page: 2007-09-10, which is the same date the page lists as the "Prior art date" and the "Priority date."

1. Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA)

A person having ordinary skill in the art to which the '937 claims are directed would be a mechanical/civil engineer (or equivalent) with roughly 2–4 years of experience designing elevated play, amusement, or industrial fall-arrest/overhead-lifeline structures — or, given how the art is actually practiced, an experienced ropes-course/amusement-ride builder without a formal degree. Both the '937 specification and references like US 7,175,534 are written in this practical register (steel tube, angle iron, UHMW sliders), so the "ordinary creativity" of a working course-builder is the correct baseline under KSR.

2. The prior art of record on this page (and its date qualification)

Not prior art: US 7,981,004 (the parent) and its 2009-03-12 publication, and US 8,016,686 / US 2009/0069104 (same-day sibling "Retractable challenge course") — all post-date the 2007-09-10 effective date.

3. Claim-by-claim analysis

Independent claim 1

Elements: (a) an ascending entrance-exit tracking member (210); (b) a plurality of bases (250) disposed downwardly from it at a substantially consistent distance; (c) bases oriented leftwardly and rightwardly in alternating fashion to define a non-linear path (300); (d) a member (240) securing the base to the tracking member; (e) a "whereby" clause.

• '534 + '054 discloses substantially everything except the suspension of discrete bases/ropes: '534 gives the overhead tracking member, the ground-level ascent securement, the bays, and — critically — the teaching that the lanes may be serpentine; '054 gives the tracking system (expressly incorporated by the '937 spec) that retains the safety cable continuously over support structures having a "base (250)."
• The remaining difference (steps hanging from ropes at a fixed drop) is supplied by the suspended-step/rope-ladder art. Here I must be candid: I did not retrieve a specific pre-2007 patent in this session that expressly shows alternating left/right suspended treads. The '481,741 ladder reference and the page's "Similar Documents" listing (e.g., US 7,014,594 B2, "Ladder climbing safety system," 2006-03-21) are candidate secondary references, but I could not verify their text.
• Ease of the remaining step: once one accepts a suspended step at all, hanging successive steps offset left/right is a predictable geometric variation that requires no new mechanism — the rope attachment, the footfall, and the support load are unchanged. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 ("if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill … would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious").

Claim 7 (independent — full course combination)

Adds: entrance-exit platform (30)/support member (40); tracking member (50) and second, substantially parallel tracking member (80); element (60); path (100) of elements; entrance-exit area (20) with support structure (280); entrance-exit tracking member (210) spanning structure (280) to support (40); arms (230); ropes (240); bases (250) leading to a second entrance-exit area (22).

• '534 anticipates nearly every structural element: a frame with multiple parallel tracks ("at least 2 parallel tracks"), platforms, elements, an access means/stairway at an end, and a route the participant traverses while secured from the ground. The '534 disclosure also describes large platforms (240) "at the start and end of each bay" — i.e., a start and end area, matching the "second entrance-exit area (22)" of claim 7.
• The only genuine addition is again the rope-suspended, alternating bases over the access run. Substituting a suspended-step ascent run for the '534 stairway ascent run is the substitution of one known access structure for another — a KSR "simple substitution" rationale, especially where the reference teaches the purpose (throughput/safety) that motivates it.

Claim 8 (independent — method)

Three traversing steps, keyed entirely to the claim-1 geometry ("bases … at a substantially consistent distance … oriented leftwardly and rightwardly … traversing along said non-linear path"). Because each step is the use of the structure already rendered obvious by claim 1, the method claim adds nothing patentable absent an unexpected result. Method-of-use claims reciting only the inherent operation of an obvious apparatus are routinely held obvious (cf. In re King, 801 F.2d 1324 (Fed. Cir. 1986) — a method claim is obvious if the apparatus that performs it is obvious).

Dependent claims 2–6

• Claim 2 — parallel, side-by-side tracking members 50/80. Directly disclosed by '534 ("at least 2 parallel tracks"; three lengthwise parallel tracks shown).
• Claim 3 — first bay (400) / adjacent second bay (500). Directly disclosed by '534, which expressly uses "bay (230)" structure with platforms between bays.
• Claims 4–5 — entrance-exit platform/support member/element/path and a second parallel tracking member. Cumulative of the '534 disclosure; claim 4's "leads to a second entrance-exit area" mirrors the '534's start-and-end large platforms.
• Claim 6 — entrance-exit area (20)/support structure (280)/tracking member (210)/arms (230)/rope (240)/base (250). This is a restatement of claim 1's core plus the '054 support-structure and "base (250)" disclosure.

These dependent claims are, on this record, the weakest in the patent: they add structure the '534 already describes.

4. Why a PHOSITA would have combined these references

1. Express incorporation / same field. The '937 specification itself names the '054 patent (the "960 publication") as the tracking system to use — a combination the applicant has already conceded in the specification.
2. Common problem, common solution. Both the '534 and '054 backgrounds state the same twin objectives: increasing the flow/capacity of participants and increasing safety ('054 background; '534 "need to increase the flow and capacity"). The '937 spec's stated purpose for the serpentine path — "prevent one person … to fall into another … create a domino effect" — is squarely within that same known problem, so the motivation is supplied by the references themselves.
3. Explicit teaching toward a serpentine geometry. The '534 patent states the track lanes "can be curved, or serpentine shaped." That is a direct suggestion to make the traversal path non-linear, which is the heart of claim 1.
4. Design incentive / predictable variation. Making an access path zig-zag rather than straight to slow traffic and reduce crowding is an aesthetic/functional choice with a predictable result — obvious under KSR ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").

5. Claim-drafting weaknesses that help a § 103 rejection

• The "whereby" clause in claim 1 ("whereby a user walking up or down the bases is forced to walk leftwardly and rightwardly") states the result of the recited geometry. A "whereby" clause that merely expresses the intended result of the structural limitations is given no patentable weight (In re Skemer, 439 F.2d 210 (CCPA 1971); Minton v. Nat'l Ass'n of Securities Dealers, 336 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2003)). The same holds for the "domino effect" rationale in the specification — an intended use does not impart patentability (In re Pearson, 494 F.2d 1399 (CCPA 1974)).
• "Substantially consistent distance" and "leftwardly and rightwardly in alternating fashion" are relative/functional terms that the specification does not tie to any specific structure beyond the alternating guide apertures (260)/guide (270). Functional claim language that reads on any left-right-alternating arrangement is broad and correspondingly easy to meet.
• Title vs. claims mismatch: the granted title says "fall arrest system," but no claim recites a fall-arrest structure. A rejection is not helped or hurt by the title, but it confirms that the only asserted point of novelty is the geometry of the suspended bases, not any new safety hardware.

6. Bottom-line obviousness assessment

• Claims 1, 6, 7, and 8: On this record, reasonably likely to be held obvious over US 7,175,534 in view of US 7,416,054 ('960 publication), and further in view of a suspended-step/ladder reference supplying rope-suspended treads. The '534 reference alone supplies the track, parallel tracks, bays, elements, ground-level securement, and the express "serpentine" teaching; the '054 reference supplies the tracking system the applicant expressly incorporated.
• Claims 2–5: Strongly obvious over the '534 disclosure standing alone (parallel tracks, bays, start/end platforms, access means).
• Anticipation (§ 102): I found no single reference that anticipates the claims, because none of the references of record (as disclosed in the material I could retrieve) shows the rope-suspended, left/right-alternating bases. The case is a § 103 case, not a § 102 case.

Where the record is thin / what is needed for a strong rejection: The pivotal limitation — discrete bases hanging at a constant drop and alternating left/right — is not shown in the two front-page references I retrieved. A robust validity challenge would need a secondary reference (a Jacob's-ladder / hanging-step / alternating-tread patent, or a suspended-step play structure) with a date before 2007-09-10. I could not verify US 7,481,741 B1 (Backyard Leisure) or the page's similar-document listing (US 7,014,594 B2, "Ladder climbing safety system"; WO 2000/062883 A1, "Multi-level play slide structure") in this session, and I am not asserting their contents.

7. Explicit caveats (per operating rules)

• I could not confirm the disclosure of US 7,481,741 B1; I used only its title/assignee/filing date exactly as recorded on the page. Any statement above about what it teaches would be speculation, and I have avoided it.
• I did not retrieve a specific patent showing alternating suspended treads. Where I rely on that concept, I have identified it as general art knowledge requiring verification, not as a citation.
• The reference dates above assume the '937 claims are entitled to the 2007-09-10 parent filing. If any claim is not supported by the parent's disclosure (a continuation cannot add new matter), that claim's effective date shifts to 2011-07-18, and the Liggett publications of 2006-06-22, 2006-05-04, and 2007-08-16 all become § 102(b) art — which if anything strengthens the obviousness case.
• This is a technical, not legal, analysis. It does not account for any § 102(f)/§ 102(g) issues, and an obviousness conclusion is ultimately a legal question reserved for the factfinder.

Cross-references to earlier sections: the claim-scope summaries, the three-independent-claim structure (1, 7, 8), and the expired-fee status in the previously generated Patent summary are consistent with everything above; the only refinement I would flag is that the earlier note calling US 2007/0191123 a possible prior art is date-sensitive — as shown in § 2 it is not prior art unless the priority claim fails.