US 8480430

I'll verify the patent details and check for litigation/docket activity before summarizing.

US Patent 8,480,430 — Verified Summary

Source of record used: the authoritative full text at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8480430](/patent/US8480430)/en (fetched 2026-09-30), cross-checked against FreePatentsOnline and Justia/Google Patents family data.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim): "A post having a first end, a second end, and a flange proximate the second end, wherein the post is configured to receive a center conductor surrounded by a dielectric of a coaxial cable, a connector body attached to the post, a coupling element attached to the post, the coupling element having a first end a second end, and a biasing member disposed within a cavity formed between the first end of the coupling element and the connector body to bias the coupling element against the post is provided. Moreover, a connector body having a biasing element, wherein the biasing element biases the coupling element against the post, is further provided. Furthermore, associated methods are also provided."

Note the mismatch worth flagging: the abstract and the written description speak in terms of a "biasing member" (e.g., an O‑ring) and a "biasing element" on the connector body, whereas the granted independent claims are drafted around a "resilient biasing structure extending from the body" plus an "annular groove." The claims thus recite the FIG. 8A/8B/9 "biasing element 255 / extended annular surface 256 / notch 258" embodiment rather than the separate O‑ring embodiment of FIGS. 1A–1B.

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — Coaxial cable connector (apparatus). A connector with:

• a post having a flange, the post receiving the cable's center conductor and surrounding dielectric;
• a coupling element (nut) that engages the post and axially moves between a first, partially‑tightened position on an interface port and a second, fully‑tightened position, the second being axially spaced from the first; the coupling element has an inward lip and a biasing contact surface facing rearward;
• a connector body that engages the cable in the assembled state, the body including (a) a resilient biasing structure extending from the body that contacts the coupling element's biasing contact surface, and (b) an annular groove that lets that structure deflect axially and push the coupling element's inward lip toward the post flange as the coupling element moves from the first to the second position — at least until the post contacts the port — so that grounding continuity between the coupling element and post is improved even when the coupling element is not fully tightened.

Claim 17 — Method for improving electrical continuity. The method counterpart of claim 1: position the post around the center conductor/dielectric (post includes a flange); coaxially position a rotatable coupling element having an inward lip and a rearwardly‑facing biasing contact surface; coaxially position a connector body that engages the post, coupling element, and cable, the body having a resilient biasing structure extending from it and an annular groove permitting axial deflection; then axially move the coupling element between the partially‑tightened and fully‑tightened positions so that the resilient structure persistently biases the coupling element into contact with the post throughout that movement, improving grounding reliability even when not fully tightened.

Claim 33 — Coaxial cable connector (means‑plus‑function format). A post having a flange; a coupling means for engaging the post and axially moving between a first position (post not engaging the port) and a second position (post engaging the port), including inward lip and biasing contact means facing rearward; and a body means including resilient biasing means extending from the body and contacting the biasing contact means, plus deflection space means allowing the biasing means to deflect axially and flexibly exert a biasing force moving the inward lip toward the post flange as the coupling element moves between positions, improving grounding continuity even when not fully tightened.

Claim 34 ("The coaxial cable connector of claim 33, wherein the resilient bia…") is dependent, and the supplied text truncates there. Because the patent has 55 claims, I cannot verify from the supplied text whether additional independent claims exist (e.g., a further method claim) or the exact content of claims 34–55. Treat that as unverified rather than as "no further independent claims."

Litigation / docket activity

• No Federal Circuit 2026 docket entry for U.S. 8,480,430 was found in my searches. I searched CAFC 2026 materials and found only PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024‑1776/‑1777/‑1778/‑1779 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2026), a nonprecedential Rule 36 affirmance. That appeal arose from IPR2022‑00718, ‑00719, ‑00720, and ‑00721, which challenged U.S. Pat. Nos. 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 respectively — not 8,480,430. I am stating this explicitly to avoid the common error of attributing the Amphenol outcome to unrelated PPC patents.
• District‑court activity does involve 8,480,430 in the family‑litigation listing on the patent page: a U.S. case filed in the Northern District of New York (PCT International line of cases; Google Patents links case 5:13‑cv‑00135). Justia's patent history for a related PPC patent lists PPC Broadband, Inc. d/b/a PPC v. PCT International, Inc., N.D.N.Y. No. 5:13‑cv‑0135‑GTS‑DEP, and Plaintiff's Invalidity Contentions—Patent No. 8,480,430 (189 pages) served in PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., E.D. Ark. No. 4:12‑cv‑623‑JLH. That E.D. Ark. filing is a validity challenge directed at the '430 patent, not an assertion of it.
• A March 6, 2013 Office Action is listed for application 13/726,330 in the Justia prosecution‑history listing; I report it as stated in that secondary source and have not independently confirmed it against the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper.

Same‑family context (from the patent page's "priority to" links)

Continuations/continuations‑in‑part sharing the "Continuity maintaining biasing member" title and the 13/075,406 priority chain include: U.S. 8,475,205 (app. 13/726,349), U.S. 8,485,845 (app. 13/726,356), U.S. 9,017,101 (app. 13/758,586, a CIP), U.S. 9,608,345, U.S. 9,660,360, U.S. 9,595,776, U.S. 10,186,790, U.S. 10,559,898, and U.S. 11,811,184.

Explicit uncertainty

1. Claims 34–55 are not in the supplied text, so no independent‑claim count beyond claims 1, 17, and 33 can be confirmed from the record I have.
2. No 2026 CAFC docket for 8,480,430 was found. My searches were not exhaustive of PACER; absence of a hit is not proof that no such appeal exists. I flag this rather than assert a negative.
3. Inventor name spelling varies across sources — several OCR renderings of sibling patents show "Noah Montana" and "Souhell Zraik," while the patent page for '430 and Justia show "Noah Montena" and "Souheil Zraik." I used the latter, per the authoritative '430 source.
4. I did not obtain the primary examiner, attorney/agent, or any office‑action/reissue/reexam history for 8,480,430 itself from an authoritative USPTO record in this session, so I have not supplied those fields.

I'll research litigation involving US 8480430. Let me start with the sources mentioned in the patent record itself, then broaden.

The patent's own record flags a specific case number. Let me dig into that plus the Stanford hit.

Good leads. Let me pin down exactly where the '430 patent itself appears.

Summary of findings for US Patent No. 8,480,430 ("Continuity maintaining biasing member")

Important caveat up front: I was able to complete only part of my planned verification (my final three searches — targeting PTAB/IPR records and specific complaint text for "8,480,430" — were cut off before returning results). Everything below is grounded in the sources I did retrieve; where I could not confirm a fact I say so explicitly.

Case 1 — The only case I could confirm that directly involves the '430 patent

How the '430 patent fits in: the '430 patent is not one of the six patents named in PerfectVision's original October 2012 complaint. PerfectVision amended (motion for leave filed Dec. 6, 2012) to add later-issued PPC patents, including the then-unissued "Ehret Patent" — U.S. Application Ser. No. 13/075,406 — which is the parent application of the '430 patent. Confirmation that the '430 patent itself was in the case comes from the litigation record of that proceeding: Plaintiff's Invalidity Contentions – U.S. Pat. No. 8,480,430, 189 pages, in PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4-12-cv-623-JLH (E.D. Ark.), which is indexed as document "LIT15D" in the printed copy of PPC's later patent US 9,660,360.

Sources:

• Stanford NPE Litigation Database, patent 8480430 (lists this case as the sole case involving the patent): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8480430
• CourtListener docket 4:12-cv-00623 (Doc. 37, filed 06/10/13, recounting the procedural history, the Dec. 2012 motion to amend, and the "Ehret Patent"/application 13/075,406): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/[5500269](/patent/5500269)/37/perfectvision-manufacturing-inc-v-ppc-broadband-inc/
• Claim construction order referencing "resilient"/"biasing member 70" (Doc. 102, E.D. Ark.): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arkansas/aredce/4:2012cv00623/[91234/102](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=91234-0102)/
• LIT15D invalidity-contention entry listing U.S. Pat. No. 8,480,430 (index in US 9,660,360): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ff/23/b9/283091a9dc53f4/US9660360.pdf

Case 2 — Family-level litigation flagged on the '430 patent's own record

The Google Patents page for US 8,480,430 carries a "Family has litigation" flag pointing to New York Northern District Court, case 5:13-cv-00135:

• Case name: PPC Broadband, Inc., d/b/a PPC v. PCT International, Inc.
• Case No.: 5:13-cv-00135-NAM-TWD (N.D.N.Y., Judge Norman A. Mordue)
• Plaintiff: PPC Broadband, Inc.; Defendant: PCT International, Inc. (Tempe, AZ)
• Nature: Patent infringement, jury demand

Critical caveat on this one: I read the complaint text for 5:13-cv-00135, and it asserts U.S. Patent No. 8,366,481 — the sibling of the '430 patent (both trace to parent application Ser. No. 13/075,406, filed Mar. 30, 2011), not the '430 patent itself. Google's flag is a family/priority-level flag, not case-level confirmation that '430 was asserted. I did not find a complaint in which PPC asserted the '430 patent as a claim of infringement.

Sources:

• Google Patents US8480430B2 litigation entries: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8480430/en
• Unified Patents litigation link carried by that record: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/5%3A13-cv-00135
• Complaint in 5:13-cv-00135 (asserting the '481 Patent): https://www.scribd.com/document/124249807/PPC-Broadband-v-PCT-International

What I did NOT find (explicit negatives)

• No infringement suit by PPC on the '430 patent. PPC's 2012–2015 enforcement campaign against Corning Gilbert / Corning Optical Communications RF, PCT International, Times Fiber. and others asserted other patents in the continuity-connector family (e.g., 8,192,237; 8,287,320; 8,313,353; 8,323,060; 8,336,229; 8,366,481; 8,562,366; 6,677,446; 7,188,416). I found no complaint asserting 8,480,430.
• No PTAB proceeding on the '430 patent confirmed. I could not complete this check; do not treat this as a verified negative.
• The 2022 Arkansas cases are unrelated to the '430 patent. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc., No. 4:22-cv-00163-LPR and No. 4:22-cv-00204 (E.D. Ark.) involve the Bence patents and U.S. Pat. No. 7,188,416 — not 8,480,430. I mention them only so they are not mistaken for '430 litigation.
• The Federal Circuit / $61M PPC–Corning litigation (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications, Fed. Cir. No. 17-1347) concerned the '194 and '940 patents per the cert petition record, not the '430 patent.

Bottom line

Based on the sources retrieved, only one case is known to involve US 8,480,430 directly: PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623-JLH (E.D. Ark.), a declaratory judgment action in which the '430 patent appears via PerfectVision's invalidity contentions. PPC Broadband (now part of Belden) remains the record assignee; the patent's anticipated expiration per the patent record is March 30, 2031, with status listed as Active. The "New York Northern District Court" litigation flag on the '430 record is family-level and, on the complaint text I read, rests on the sibling '481 patent rather than the '430 patent.

If you need case-level certainty on the PerfectVision docket (final settlement/dismissal) or a definitive PTAB check, those require a PACER/CourtListener docket pull and a PTAB API search that I could not complete within my search budget.

I'll start by searching for PTAB activity on this patent and its family.

Let me dig deeper into the PPC Broadband litigation and any IPRs against the '430 family.

Let me check IPR2014-00440/00441 and other PPC family IPRs to see whether the '430 patent was ever challenged.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,480,430: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming this patent (breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied), and my independent web search likewise surfaced no petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision directed at the '430 patent. Bottom line for a defendant: the '430 patent is untested at the PTAB — there is no claim-level invalidation to lean on, but equally no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no adverse claim-construction record binding a future petitioner, so the full invalidity toolkit (IPR plus district-court prior art) remains open.

Two caveats stated up front, per the operating rules:

1. This is a negative finding. The ODP ingest is the canonical source but can lag; I could not exhaustively verify every late-2010s filing (e.g., petitions that may have been filed by defendants in the later PPC v. PCT International and PPC v. PerfectVision litigations) because my search budget for this task was exhausted. Treat this as "no PTAB activity found," not as a certified clean bill of health.
2. Everything in the next section concerns other PPC patents. Do not cite any of it as a challenge to the '430 patent.

Family-adjacent PTAB activity (different patents — context only, NOT challenges to 8,480,430)

The '430 patent (13/726,330, filed 2012-12-24, priority 2011-03-30) belongs to PPC Broadband's "Continuity maintaining biasing member" family — parent US 8,366,481, siblings 8,475,205, 8,480,431, 8,485,845, 9,017,101, 9,608,345. That family drew heavy PTAB attention; the '430 itself appears to have been skipped, most plausibly because PPC asserted different family members against different defendants. What a defendant should mine from the adjacent proceedings:

• Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — IPR2013-00340, -00342 (US 8,323,060, claims 1-9 and 10-25); IPR2013-00343, -00345 (US 8,313,353, claims 1-6 and 7-27); IPR2013-00346, -00347 (US 8,287,320). All six were filed in 2013, instituted 2013-12-05, and resulted in final written decisions on 2014-11-21 holding the challenged claims unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Matthews (US 2006/0110977) and Tatsuzuki (JP 2002-015823). In IPR2013-00343 PPC requested cancellation of claims 1-6 and entry of adverse judgment, granted 2014-04-15. Panel on the '353 FWD: Lee, Cocks, Zecher. FWD source: https://ocr.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2013-00345/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8313353/docs/11-21-2014-Board/Final_Decision-76-Final_Written_Decision_35_USC_318a_and_37_CFR_4273.pdf
• Federal Circuit, first appeal — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 747 (Fed. Cir. 2016), Nos. 2015-1361, -1366, -1368, -1369 (Moore, O'Malley, Wallach), decided 2016-02-22: affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, remanded. The court upheld the Board's BRI construction of "continuity member" (no temporal-continuity requirement) but vacated the obviousness conclusion for claims whose language does require that the continuity member "maintain electrical continuity" during specified periods of operation, because the Board made no findings on that point; it also reversed the Board's treatment of commercial-success evidence, holding the presumption of nexus applies in IPRs.
• PTAB on remand — IPR2013-00340, decision of 2016-08-04 (Lee, APJ) refusing to take up new issues (including an RPI challenge) not presented pre-FWD: "the 2014 FWD was vacated only for specific errors," so "[n]othing more is required." See https://webiis06.mondaq.com/Article/[532938](/patent/532938)
• Federal Circuit, second appeal — Nos. 17-1362 et al., nonprecedential decision 2018-07-03 (affirming-in-part and vacating-in-part the remand decisions on the '353, '320, and '060 patents): https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/17-1362/17-1362-2018-07-03.pdf
• Corning v. PPC, second wave — IPR2014-00440 (US 8,597,041), IPR2014-00441 (US 8,562,366), IPR2014-00736 (US 6,676,446). All three were instituted 2014-08-19, but on 2015-08-18 the Board granted PPC's motions to dismiss for failure to name all real parties-in-interest. That dismissal was appealed; I have not verified the appellate disposition, so do not rely on it without checking.
• IPR2015-01952 / -01955 (US 8,647,136) — institution denied 2016-04-15 (panel Cocks, Ward, Fink; opinion by Fink), for failure to show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on claims 50, 53, 57-61. Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-01955/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8647136/docs/04-15-2016-Board/Decision_Denying_Institution-19-Decision_Denying_Institution_of_Inter_Partes_Review.pdf
• IPR2016-01569 / -01570 / -01572 / -01573 — petitions filed 2016-08-09 challenging US 8,366,481 (claims 1, 3-7, 14-16) and US 8,075,338. US 8,366,481 is the parent of the '430 patent. I could not verify the petitioner's identity or the outcomes from the sources I retrieved; confirm on PTAB E2E before relying on it.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '430 patent: untested and un-amended. No claim of US 8,480,430 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. The patent is in force with an anticipated expiration of 2031-03-30 (per Google Patents' term calculation; note the family members carry terminal disclaimers, so the enforcement life of the '430 is tied to the earlier-expiring family member — a point worth verifying against the face of the patent and the USPTO assignment/terminal-disclaimer record). Claim 1 as published recites a post with a flange, a coupling element with an inward lip and a rearward-facing biasing contact surface that axially moves between a partially tightened first position and a fully tightened second position, and a connector body with a "resilient biasing structure" plus an "annular groove" that lets it deflect and bias the lip toward the flange "at least until the post contacts the interface port." Claims 9-16 and 22-32 layer on constant-biasing-force and gap/continuity limitations. None of that has been tested.

Estoppel landscape: nothing is barred. Because no IPR reached a § 318(a) final written decision on this patent, there is no § 315(e)(1) or (e)(2) estoppel against anyone as to the '430. Any defendant can file a fresh IPR on any ground, and any defendant can run the same art in district court in parallel without an estoppel trap. Conversely, PPC has already survived — at the institution stage and, after appeal, in part on the merits — PTAB attacks on the sibling patents, so do not assume the Board will be receptive: the '353 FWD adopted BRI constructions favorable to PPC on the key "continuity member" term, and the 2016 Federal Circuit decision (815 F.3d 747) rejected the obviousness theory for the subset of claims requiring continuity "during" specified operational periods.

Pattern signals. (i) Petitioner behavior: Corning was the repeat petitioner — at least ten petitions across six PPC patents (IPR2013-00340/-342/-343/-345/-346/-347, IPR2014-00440/-441/-736, IPR2015-01952/-955), which the Board ultimately sanctioned by dismissal in the 2014 wave for RPI defects. (ii) Patent-owner behavior: PPC litigated the IPRs aggressively (expert Eldering, extensive objective-indicia evidence) and appealed twice to the Federal Circuit, winning vacaturs both times — so expect a well-funded, sophisticated patent owner if you file. (iii) No defensive aggregator appears in the chain for this patent; the 2013–2016 activity was all competitor-driven (Corning), with a separate PerfectVision/PCT-associated campaign against other PPC patents. (iv) Litigation context: the '430 was asserted in PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PCT International, Inc., N.D.N.Y. No. 5:13-cv-00135 (the "family has litigation" flag on the Google Patents page), and 189 pages of invalidity contentions targeting the '430 patent were served by PerfectVision in PerfectVision Mfg. v. PPC Broadband, E.D. Ark. No. 4:12-cv-623-JLH.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not treat the absence of IPRs as a weakness in your position — treat it as an open door. With no FWD and no estoppel, an IPR petition today is procedurally available. Budget against the practical constraints: the patent has been in force since 2013-07-09, which invites discretionary-denial arguments (settled expectations; Fintiv/General Plastic balancing), and PPC has demonstrated willingness to litigate to the Federal Circuit.
2. Start from the adjacencies, not from scratch. (a) Corning's Matthews + Tatsuzuki combination from IPR2013-00340/-342/-345/-346/-347 is the obviousness backbone for this entire connector family; (b) the 189-page invalidity contentions against the '430 patent from the Arkansas case give you a pre-vetted prior-art map; (c) the PPC Broadband v. Corning, 815 F.3d 747 (Fed. Cir. 2016) holdings on "reside around"/"encircle or surround" and on temporal continuity are the two claim-construction levers most likely to matter for the '430's "at least until the post contacts the interface port" language — the Federal Circuit vacated the Board on exactly that temporal-continuity issue. Read that opinion before drafting.
3. Verify the negative before you commit. Run the patent number through PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb) and the USPTO PTAB Center, plus Docket Alarm and the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation), to confirm nothing has been filed since the ODP ingest — particularly any petition tied to the post-2016 PPC/PCT and PPC/PerfectVision litigations.
4. Watch the terminal-disclaimer chain. Because this family shares a common specification and PPC filed multiple continuations with terminal disclaimers, confirm on the face of the '430 patent and in USPTO assignment records which family member controls the enforceable term; a shorter effective life materially changes the damages exposure and the value of an IPR.
5. If you have a demand letter citing specific claims, there is no canceled claim to point at. Your posture is a fresh validity challenge plus non-infringement on the "resilient biasing structure"/"annular groove" and "at least until the post contacts the interface port" limitations — a claim-construction defense first, an IPR second.

I'll research the assignment record and cross-reference litigation/ownership sources before drafting.

Let me try to pin down the specific reel/frame records and any later recorded transfers.

Inventors

Four named inventors, all Syracuse–Upstate New York–area engineering staff of the original assignee's coaxial-connector business:

Notes and patterns:

• No inventor exodus. All four are career PPC inventors. The same four names appear on the sibling continuations in this family (US 8,469,740; 8,475,205; 8,480,431; 8,485,845; 9,017,101) and again on the 2017-filed continuation that issued as US 10,186,790 (filed 2017-05-22, assignee PPC Broadband, Inc.), i.e. six years after this priority date. Montena and Zraik alone appear on PPC/John Mezzalingua grants dating to the early 2000s. This is the opposite of the "all inventors depart within 12 months" fire-sale tell.
• Filing-context oddity worth flagging (not an NPE tell). Application 13/726,330 was filed 2012-12-24 as a bare continuation of 13/075,406 (filed 2011-03-30, issued as US 8,366,481), and it was one of a batch of five co-filed continuations (13/726,330, -339, -347, -349, -356, all filed 2012-12-24). Filing that batch fourteen days after Belden closed its acquisition of PPC (2012-12-10) is consistent with a post-acquisition harvest of the family, not with an individual inventor departure.

Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. (East Syracuse, NY) — formerly John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., name changed in December 2012; the corporate entity Belden acquired was identified in Belden's 8-K/A as "PPC Broadband, Inc., a Delaware corporation."

• Business: designs and manufactures coaxial cable connectors, F-connectors, hardline connectors, splitters, taps, filters, amplifiers and related broadband connectivity hardware; ~$238M revenue in 2012 per the deal announcement.
• Product embodied the claims: Yes. PPC's own drawings and field literature in the parallel PTAB record are branded JOHN MEZZALINGUA ASSOCIATES, INCORPORATED / PPC, 6176 East Molloy Road, East Syracuse NY (e.g. drawing 12524-01 "CONTINUITY MEMBER, 3 PLUS" used in Corning v. PPC IPR2013-00340/-00345/-00346/-00347). PPC markets compression and continuity-member connectors covered by this family.
• Current status: Operating, and owned. Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC) acquired PPC for $515.7M, closing 2012-12-10 (Belden Form 8-K, item dated 2012-12-10). PPC continues today as a Belden broadband brand headquartered in East Syracuse, NY. No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no spin-off of the patent estate.

Assignment timeline

Sourcing caveat, stated up front. The Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov record detail (reel/frame and correspondent) was not retrievable through the sources available to me in this session; searches returned the Google Patents legal-events mirror and litigation/PTAB documents, not the Assignment Center abstract itself. I am therefore reporting only the assignment that is affirmatively documented on the Google Patents legal-events feed, and I am not inventing reel/frame numbers, execution dates or correspondents. Verify the reel/frame at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ by searching patent number 8480430.

2013-03-27 — per Google Patents legal events (execution date vs. recordation date not distinguishable from that source)

• Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
• Assignor: EHRET, TREVOR; HAUBE, RICHARD A.; MONTENA, NOAH; ZRAIK, SOUHEIL (all four inventors, jointly)
• Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
• Correspondent: not retrieved — do not attribute one without the Assignment Center abstract
• Reel/Frame: not retrieved
• Context: routine inventor-to-employer assignment perfecting title in the applicant (filed ~3 months after the 2012-12-24 filing). Not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization or transfer-to-asserter.

No other recorded assignments appear. Specifically, and each is itself a finding:

• No assignment of this patent to Belden Inc. is needed or expected. Belden bought the entity (PPC Broadband, Inc.) on 2012-12-10; the patent stayed inside the acquired Delaware corporation as a Belden subsidiary. Belden's own 8-K/A describes the acquisition of "PPC Broadband, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and SKT International Holdings B.V." — a stock purchase, not a patent-asset purchase. Absence of a Belden reel/frame entry is therefore expected and non-probative.
• No name-change record is evident. The John Mezzalingua → PPC Broadband rename is a state corporate filing, not a patent assignment; the Google Patents feed shows no separate Change of Name conveyance.
• No security agreement, no license record, no release, no NPE-side assignment, and no defensive-aggregator transfer appear in the chain.

If you require the reel/frame and correspondent of record, that single 2013 entry is the only one to pull.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8480430
    2011 : Parent app filed by John Mezzalingua
    2012 : Renamed PPC Broadband in December
         : Continuation filed Dec 24
         : Belden closes PPC acquisition Dec 10
    2013 : Inventor assignment recorded Mar 27
         : Patent issues July 9
         : PPC sues PCT International
    2017 : Same inventors file next continuation
    2019 : Family continues as US 10186790

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only assignee in the chain is PPC Broadband, Inc. (the 2013-03-27 record), an operating manufacturer with plants and product revenue, not an "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" vehicle. No single-purpose LLC appears anywhere in the chain.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither PPC Broadband, Inc. nor Belden Inc. appears on the standard NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities). The Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for patent 8480430 categorizes the asserter in the related case as "Product company" (category 8), i.e. the database itself does not treat this as an NPE assertion. Under the naming rule you set, PPC's aggressiveness does not convert it into an NPE.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not assessable / unclear. There is only one confirmed assignment link, so there is no recurrence to score, and I could not retrieve the recording correspondent. For completeness (and with the caution you asked for): the prosecution firm of record on this family is Oliff PLC – PPC Broadband, Inc., P.O. Box 320850, Alexandria, VA (per the corrected Notice of Allowance in the family's file history). That is a prosecution correspondent, not an assignment correspondent, and Oliff does mainstream operating-company work — one appearance is not a finding, and I am not treating it as one.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero consecutive post-issuance assignments. Nothing chained, nothing within 24 months of anything.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2013-03-27 inventor assignment falls inside 6 months of the 2013 N.D.N.Y. filing (5:13-cv-00135), but it runs inventor → employer, the standing-perfection formality every corporate patent gets. There is no assignment to an asserter, no venue-setting transfer, and no clean-record arrangement to a licensee.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 by any assignor or assignee; the acquirer (Belden) is a solvent NYSE-listed company.
7. Privateering — not present. PPC asserts in its own name, against direct competitors in the market it manufactures for: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PCT International, Inc., N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-00135; PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Gilbert/Corning Optical Communications RF, N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-01310 and 5:12-cv-00911 (leading to a $61M double-damages affirmance per the Federal Circuit, March 2018); earlier 2003 and 2009–2011 campaigns under the John Mezzalingua name; and ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-650. That is operating-company enforcement, not privateering through a shell.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN. (Note the inversion: Unified Patents and RPX-hosted dockets appear here as adversaries of PPC in later IPRs — e.g. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, IPR2022-00946/-00947/-01087/-01088 — not as owners of this patent.)

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The sole recorded ownership event is the 2013-03-27 assignment of the four inventors' interests to PPC Broadband, Inc., and there is no post-issuance transfer of any kind — no LLC, no asserter, no aggregator, no security interest. The owner is a manufacturer of the very connectors the claims read on (East Syracuse, NY), which was acquired as an entity by Belden Inc. on 2012-12-10 and remains a Belden subsidiary/brand, and which has asserted this family in its own name against competitors (PCT International, N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-00135; Corning, 5:12-cv-00911 / 5:13-cv-01310). No NPE signal is present on the seven record-based criteria; the single "timing" overlap (assignment recorded weeks before the 2013 suit) is an inventor-to-employer formality, not an arranged transfer to an asserter.

Verification: search patent number 8480430 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html); legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8480430](/patent/US8480430)/en; NPE categorization at https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8480430.

I'll research US patent 8480430 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the specific citation lists from Justia and Google Patents for this exact patent.

I need the specific "References Cited" list. Let me pull from FreePatentsOnline and other citation databases.

Let me try to retrieve the granted U.S. patent references list for this patent.

I'll gather the prior-art record for this patent before running the §103 analysis.

Let me pull the specific prior-art citations of record for this patent and the invalidity contentions targeting it.

Scope note before the analysis (important)

The task says to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The authoritative text supplied for US 8,480,430 does not contain a prior‑art/citations section. The Google Patents rendering normally carries separate Citations, Cited By, Similar Documents and Legal Events blocks; those were stripped from the fetched text I was given (the fetch jumps from the class list to the Definitions/Abstract/Description/Claims). I therefore cannot present the '430 page's own cited-reference list as if it were in the record before me.

To avoid fabricating references, I did the following and am labelling the provenance of every reference below:

• Verified from the record of this patent family (citation lists appearing on sibling patents sharing the 13/075,406 priority chain, e.g. US 9,017,101; US 8,480,431; US 8,475,205 — as surfaced at https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9017101](/patent/9017101)#9 and https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8475205](/patent/8475205)#6).
• Verified from PTAB/petition exhibit lists for PPC/John Mezzalingua patents (Holland, Burris 1, Burris 2, Nepovim, Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550284](/patent/1550284)/... and .../1549312/...).
• Verified as existing but whose contents/number I could not retrieve in this session — flagged as such.
• Constructed combinations — clearly marked as my own §103 synthesis, not as grounds that a tribunal adopted.

Also flagged up front: the 189-page "Plaintiff's Invalidity Contentions—U.S. Pat. No. 8,480,430" served by PerfectVision in PerfectVision Mfg., Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., E.D. Ark. No. 4:12‑cv‑623‑JLH, is confirmed to exist (cited, e.g., in US 9,660,360 and US 11,111,184 at https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11811184](/patent/11811184)#8). Its substantive grounds are not retrievable from the sources I could reach; everything below is my independent analysis, not a restatement of those contentions.

1. The §103 framework that actually governs

Governing statute. US 8,480,430 has a priority date of 30 March 2011 and was filed 24 December 2012 — both before 16 March 2013. It is therefore a pre‑AIA patent, and pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a) applies, not AIA §103. Practical consequences that matter for the analysis:

• Pre‑AIA §102(e) art (U.S. patents/publications having an earlier effective filing date, published on/after 21 Nov. 1999) is available for §103.
• Pre‑AIA §103(c) disqualifies §102(e)/(f)/(g) art that was, at the time the invention was made, commonly owned or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same entity. This is decisive for several of the strongest candidate references below, because PPC's own 2010–2011 published applications (Purdy, Montena, Malloy, Haube, Zraik, Ehret) are the closest art — and PPC would move to disqualify them as §102(e) art. Note the important asymmetry: a PPC publication that issued more than one year before the 30 March 2011 priority (i.e., before 30 March 2010) is §102(b) art and cannot be disqualified by §103(c). Publications in the window 30 March 2010 – 30 March 2011 are §102(a)/102(e) art and are the battleground.
• §102(b) statutory bar references (published before 30 March 2010) are the "clean" art and should be the primary references in any challenge.
• Pre‑AIA also allows swearing behind under 37 C.F.R. §1.131 for §102(a) art, and the "critical date" analysis is more forgiving for the patent owner than the AIA's absolute grace-period structure.

POSITA. My construction: a mechanical/electrical engineer with a bachelor's degree plus 3–5 years in RF/coaxial connector design, familiar with F‑connector architecture (post/coupler‑nut/body/compression ring), CATV 75‑ohm interface standards (SCTE/IPS‑SP‑001), galvanic corrosion of dissimilar metals in outdoor plant, and standard machine design (spring washers, Belleville washers, elastomeric seals, snap fits). I set this at the level the record in this family has implicitly used (see, e.g., the Youtsey/Lionetto/Horak obviousness theories in petitions against sibling PPC patents).

What claim 1 actually requires (element list for charting).

1. post having a flange, receiving center conductor + dielectric;
2. coupling element engaging the post and axially movable between a first (partially‑tightened) position and a second (fully‑tightened) position, second axially spaced from first;
3. coupling element has an inward lip and a biasing contact surface facing rearward;
4. connector body engaging the cable in the assembled state, the body including:
   (a) a resilient biasing structure extending from the body, contacting the coupling element's biasing contact surface; and
   (b) an annular groove configured to allow that structure to deflect along the axial direction and exert a biasing force sufficient to move the inward lip toward the flange as the coupling element moves first→second position, at least until the post contacts the interface port;
5. resulting improved electrical grounding continuity even when the coupling element is not fully tightened.

Note the two features that do the real work: (i) the biasing structure is part of the body ("extending from the body," claim 7 adding "integrally formed"), with (ii) a dedicated groove that permits axial deflection. Everything else (post/flange/nut/lip/rearward‑facing seat) is old in F‑connector art, and the "biasing to maintain continuity when loose" objective is the stated problem of the entire 2010–2011 PPC/Corning/PCT connector literature.

2. Candidate prior art (with verification status)

Reference NOT usable as prior art (do not cite it as such): US 8,337,229 (Montena) and Corning's US 13/084,099 (filed 11 April 2011) post‑date the '430 30 March 2011 priority and are therefore not §102/§103 art against '430. Likewise the '430‑family siblings US 8,475,205 / 8,485,845 / 9,017,101 / 9,608,345 / 9,660,360 / 9,595,776 / 10,186,790 / 10,559,898 / 11,811,184 are all in the same priority chain and are not prior art to '430.

3. Candidate grounds of rejection

I construct three grounds. Ground 1 is the strongest because it starts from §102(b)‑clean art and needs the fewest secondary teachings.

Ground 1 — Youtsey (US 2010/0233902 A1) in view of Horak, and further in view of Lionetto

Mapping (claim 1):

• Post with flange; receives center conductor + dielectric → Youtsey's inner tube 28 (post). Flange/second‑end geometry is conventional and shown in Palinkas‑type connectors.
• Coupling element engaging the post, axially movable between partially‑ and fully‑tightened positions → Youtsey's female receptacle 30 (threaded nut) advances axially along the threaded port; a threaded nut necessarily assumes a range of axial positions between initial thread engagement and full make‑up. Claim 14's "post does not engage the interface port in the first position, post engages it in the second" is the ordinary behavior of a threaded F‑connector nut.
• Inward lip + rearward‑facing biasing contact surface → the nut must have an inward lip to retain the post (this is the standard post‑retention lip); its rearward annular face is the rearward‑facing surface.
• Connector body engaging the cable, with a resilient biasing structure extending from it contacting the nut's rearward surface → Youtsey's O‑ring in the body/nut annulus, which in the petition mapping sits in the identical location to the claimed biasing structure and simultaneously contacts the body and the nut.
• Annular groove permitting axial deflection → the annular recess/seat that retains the O‑ring, plus the nut/body clearance annulus, provides the deflection space.
• Biasing force moving the lip toward the flange → the compressed O‑ring's axial reaction.
• "Improved electrical grounding continuity … even when not fully tightened" → supplied by Horak (conductive rubber ring 18 expressly for RFI effectiveness in CATV; RFI "the dominant consideration") and Lionetto (conductive elastomer ring 34 in the same body/post location, providing a ground path). Both teach that a resilient ring at that location can be made conductive, and Horak states the motivation in haec verba.

Motivation to combine (KSR/PQAI).

1. Same field, same problem, same component. All three are coaxial cable connectors; all three place a resilient ring in the body/nut/post annulus. Horak is already the reference the examiner paired with Holland in this family for the "conductive seal" concept, so the pairing is not novel.
2. Simple substitution of a known element to obtain a predictable result (MPEP 2143(B)): substituting a conductive, compressible elastomeric ring for a non‑conductive one in an identical location yields the predictable result of both sealing and continuing the ground path — expressly argued in the reexamination record ("the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result").
3. Articulated problem in the art. Horak states the reason: "it is necessary to insure that the signal‑carrying central conductor of the cable is always surrounded by a continuous metal shield," and identifies RFI effectiveness as the dominant CATV consideration. The '430 background itself concedes the same problem (loose/partially tightened connector → intermittent contact → RF leakage and loss of ground).
4. Backup‑path/insurance rationale — accepted by the Board in the Amphenol IPRs (affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2026, Rule 36) as a sufficient motivation: providing a redundant conductive path so that grounding survives a loose connector is a recognized, desirable objective.

Weakness. Youtsey describes its O‑rings as seals (moisture). A challenger must make a factual record that the ring's conformance is maintained across the first→second tightening travel — precisely the deficiency the Federal Circuit identified when it vacated the PTAB's first decision in Corning Optical Communications RF LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc. (Fed. Cir. Feb. 22, 2016, Nos. 15‑1361/‑1366/‑1368/‑1369), holding that "maintaining electrical continuity" requires consistent or continuous contact and that the Board had made no factual findings on it. Note also that the Board restored its obviousness holding on remand (IPR2013‑00340, Nov. 16, 2016) after making those findings, and rejected PPC's commercial‑success evidence — so this is a surmountable, not fatal, weakness.

Ground 2 — Palinkas (US 2007/0123101 A1) in view of Youtsey (US 2010/0233902 A1) and Malloy/Montena

• Palinkas supplies a conductive and compressible member at the second end of the post — i.e., the concept of a resiliently deformable conductive element at the post flange/nut interface that maintains contact.
• Youtsey supplies the body/nut annulus location and the resilient‑ring‑in‑a‑groove architecture.
• Malloy (US 2010/0081321/‑1322) and Montena (US 2010/0055978) supply connector‑body structure with an annular recess at the body's second end that receives/retains a resilient element and that seats against the coupler — the structural predicate for claim 1's "annular groove configured to allow the resilient biasing structure to deflect along the axial direction."
• Motivation: consolidating two known solutions (conductive continuity member at the flange end; resilient ring in the body/nut annulus) to solve one known problem (grounding across a loose connector) is the predictable combination the art was already pursuing in 2010 (see the Purdy, Malloy, Montena and Sykes applications all filed in 2009–2010 and all directed to the same "continuity" problem).

Ground 3 — Bence (US 7,114,990 + '612 companion) in view of Youtsey and Horak

• Bence teaches the coupler rotatably secured over the post by attachment to the body, and a body member contacting the coupler so that the body itself participates in the ground path — the conceptual core of "a resilient biasing structure extending from the body, contacting the coupling element."
• Youtsey supplies the annular resilient element/seat and the axial‑travel geometry.
• Horak/Lionetto/Leonetto supply the conductivity rationale for a resilient interposed element (and the backup‑path motivation).
• Motivation: Bence already directs the designer to make body‑to‑coupler contact the ground path; doing so with a resilient, deflectable body extension sitting in a groove is the predictable engineering step of converting a rigid contact into a compliant one so that the contact survives nut axial travel — a routine design choice supported by the ubiquitous use of spring washers, resilient lips and deflectable shoulders (see the machine‑design evidence relied on in the Mylan/Sanofi line of IPRs: Norton, Juvinall, Shigley, Chironis).

4. Claim‑by‑claim dispositions if Ground 1/2/3 are made out

5. Objective indicia (§103 secondary considerations) — what the record actually shows

• Commercial success — PPC litigated this and lost the point. In IPR2013‑00340 on remand (Nov. 16, 2016), the Board rejected PPC's commercial‑success evidence because PPC's market share had not increased after introduction of the product and it was unclear whether the product was a true alternative to (or merely a replacement for) a discontinued predecessor. The Federal Circuit had earlier corrected the Board on the nexus presumption in IPR proceedings, but the substantive evidence still failed. Source: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=52363314-bc60-4150-ada4-01d9f33a34e6.
• Industry recognition / copying — the Amphenol appeal record contains PPC's argument that a competitor's refused patent application (rejected over a PPC‑family patent) evidences that "PPC was well ahead of where Amphenol was several years later" in recognizing the loose‑connector grounding problem (CourtListener audio, PPC Broadband v. Amphenol). This is weak secondary evidence: it is a patent filing, not industry praise or commercial success, and the Federal Circuit panel questioned whether it is cognizable at all.
• Long‑felt need / failure of others — potentially PPC's strongest ground. The problem (intermittent ground path on a not‑fully‑tightened connector) is documented as persisting from at least 1975 (Horak) to 2010–2011, and the 2010 crop of applications (Purdy, Malloy, Montena, Sykes, Zraik) all attack it. A patent owner could argue that the specific expedient of an integral, non‑metallic, deflectable body shoulder in a groove (claim 7/8) was not the accepted solution, and that the art's accepted solution was a separate conductive member — which the '430 specification expressly disparages ("there may be no need for an additional component such as a metallic conductive continuity member that is subject to corrosion and permanent deformation").
• Unexpected results — the specification's own stated benefits (resisting corrosion; deforming rather than permanently deforming under torque) are asserted but not supported by comparative data in the patent. Absent testing against the closest art, this argument is unlikely to carry.

6. Non‑obviousness arguments a patent owner will press, and how they fare

1. "The reference's ring is a seal, not a continuity member." Strongest argument; it is exactly the issue the Federal Circuit flagged in 2016. But Horak and Lionetto make the ring conductive and state the RFI reason, converting the seal into a continuity path — and the Board accepted the "backup grounding path" motivation in the Amphenol IPRs.
2. "Claim 1 requires the biasing structure to be part of the body, not a separate part." The best defense of claims 1/7/8. The strongest art (Youtsey) uses a separate O‑ring. A challenger must therefore either (a) find body‑integral resilient shoulders in the pre‑2011 connector art, or (b) rely on the routine‑design‑choice line (spring washers, deflectable annular shoulders, snap fits) — which the Board credited in the Mylan/Sanofi IPRs but which a district court may view as hindsight when the problem is claimed to be newly recognized.
3. "The claimed invention solved a problem PPC's own admitted prior art shows nobody had solved." This cuts against the patent: the '430 background and the '053/'063 family backgrounds contain admissions of the very problem and of the known substitution solutions (weathering/galvanic incompatibility; "extending electrical/physical shielding at the point where the problem is occurring"). Those admissions are prior art and supply motivation under MPEP 2143(B).
4. Claim‑construction leverage. Claim 1's "at least until the post contacts the interface port" and claims 10–13's "only when the biasing force is greater than a counter force" are conditional/negative limitations that a patent owner will read narrowly; a challenger should read them as inherent force‑balance statements. Expect a §112(b) fight on "improve electrical grounding continuity" and "biasing contact surface."
5. §103(c) common‑ownership. If any challenger leans on Purdy/Montena/Malloy/Haube/Zraik/Ehret publications, PPC will invoke pre‑AIA §103(c) to disqualify the §102(e) ones. The challenger must either use pre‑30‑March‑2010 publications (statutory bar, no §103(c) escape) or defeat the common‑ownership showing.

7. Practical posture (2026)

• Anticipated expiration 30 March 2031 — roughly four and a half years of term left; pre‑AIA §103 governs; no AIA grace‑period analysis applies.
• No verified IPR on US 8,480,430 itself. The IPRs I could verify against PPC continuity patents are IPR2013‑00340 (Corning, "continuity member" construction) and IPR2022‑00718/‑00719/‑00720/‑00721 (Amphenol, challenging US 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; 9,225,083 — not '430), final written decisions Oct. 2023, Federal Circuit Rule 36 affirmance Mar. 4, 2026. I found no PTAB proceeding on '430. Consistent with the prior summary, I flag that my searches were not exhaustive of PTAB/PACER.
• Validity was squarely challenged in district court. The 189‑page PerfectVision invalidity contention against '430 (E.D. Ark. 4:12‑cv‑623‑JLH) exists; I could not retrieve its grounds. PCT International's July 29, 2013 preliminary invalidity contentions (N.D.N.Y. 5:13‑cv‑0135‑GTS‑DEP) also exist.
• A new IPR against '430 today would face the §315(b) one‑year bar for most real parties in interest and Phillips claim construction, and would have to build a continuity record that survives the Corning v. PPC "consistent or continuous contact" requirement.

Bottom line

On the record I can verify, US 8,480,430 claim 1 is more likely than not obvious under pre‑AIA §103 over Youtsey (US 2010/0233902 A1) in view of Horak and Lionetto, with the alternative combination Palinkas (US 2007/0123101 A1) + Youtsey + Malloy/Montena (US 2010/0081321/‑1322; US 2010/0055978), and the Bence‑based ground (US 7,114,990 + '612) as a third route. The motivation is documented in the art itself (Horak: continuous metal shield and RFI effectiveness are the dominant CATV considerations; the backup‑ground‑path rationale was accepted by the Board in the Amphenol IPRs and affirmed on appeal), the substitution is a known‑element‑for‑known‑element swap with a predictable result, and the patent's own background supplies the problem statement. The genuine soft spots are (i) claim 1's requirement that the resilient biasing structure extend from the connector body with an annular groove — i.e., the FIG. 8A/8B/9 integral‑shoulder embodiment rather than the O‑ring of the abstract — which claim 7 reinforces by requiring integral formation, and (ii) the requirement that grounding continuity be maintained across the entire first→second tightening travel, which requires an affirmative factual showing of consistent contact rather than mere sealing.

Two caveats I will not paper over: (a) the "Prior Art section" the task instructs me to use was not present in the authoritative text I was given, so the reference list above is reconstructed from the family's citation record and from litigation/PTAB documents, with per‑reference verification status explicitly labelled; and (b) the substantive grounds in PerfectVision's 189‑page '430 contentions were not retrievable in this session, so nothing above should be attributed to that filing.