US 8548924

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

US 8,548,924 B2 — Verification Summary

Important caveat on sourcing: I compared the authoritative full text supplied for this analysis against live Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, and Justia records. The bibliographic data below is corroborated across all of them. I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket or appeal naming U.S. Patent 8,548,924. What I did find is live 2026 district-court litigation, detailed at the end. I found no CAFC docket, so I will not represent that one exists.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain (per Google Patents reassignment records):

• 2016-10-14 — assigned to U.S. Encode Corporation / Yeager, Doug (assignor: Yeager, C. Douglas)
• 2016-10-19 — assigned to Neology, Inc. (assignors: U.S. Encode Corporation; Yeager, Doug)
• 2026-02-11 — assigned to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. (assignor: Neology, Inc.)

Priority/continuation lineage (from the patent's own Cross-References section):
Continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 12/019,318, filed Jan. 24, 2008, "Self-Authorizing Devices"; which claims priority to U.S. Provisional 60/897,110 (filed Jan. 25, 2007, "Method and Apparatus for Self-swiping Smartcard Payments") and U.S. Provisional 60/932,704 (filed Jun. 1, 2007, "Method and Apparatus for a Self-swiping Smartcard").

Abstract (quoted literally, including the original's "smart element" phrasing):

"Self-authorizing tokens are disclosed. Typical embodiments employ a secure element and a secure element interrogator. Such tokens may be used for authorization of financial payments and other secure transactions. In some embodiments the secure element is provisioned with information about a particular payment card holder account. A secure element reader interrogates the smart element and derives information needed to authorize a transaction. In some embodiments the secure element and the secure element interrogator communicate using communications formatted according to ISO 7816-4."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 65 claims. I have verbatim text for claims 1–27 and 40–65. I could not independently verify claims 28–39, so I flag possible additional independent claims in that range rather than assert their content. The independent claims I can confirm are 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, and 60.

Claim 1 — the base "self-authorizing token." A token (a card, fob, dongle, SD-format device, etc.) built on a mounting structure that carries a connector to a computer terminal. Affixed to that same mounting structure are: (a) a secure element with a data file; (b) a secure element interrogator (reader) that reads the secure element to get transaction information by exchanging multiple transaction-data communications that occur only between the secure element and the interrogator; and (c) a communications controller that takes the interrogator's data and sends the transaction information as a single data communication to the computer terminal through the connector. The core idea: the reader lives on the card, so all sensitive card/reader dialogue stays on the token and only a finished transaction string leaves it.

Claim 6 — payment-application / track-data variant. Same architecture as claim 1, but the secure element includes a payment card application, and the communications controller transmits the transaction information as track data to the computer terminal.

Claim 12 — a further token variant. Same mounting-structure/connector/secure-element/interrogator/controller architecture with the plurality of transaction data communications exchanged only between the secure element and interrogator. (Claim 16, which depends from it, recites that the secure element comprises a payment card application and the single data communication comprises track data, indicating claim 12 itself captures the "single data communication" branch.)

Claim 17 — the "at least one" variant. Broadens the interrogation limitation from "a plurality of transaction data communications" to at least one transaction data communication exchanged only between the secure element and the interrogator, with the controller transmitting the transaction information as a single data communication to the computer terminal.

Claim 22 — "at least one" plus track data. The at-least-one-communication variant where the transaction information is delivered as track data (claim 27 further requires the track data comprise full Track 1 and Track 2 data).

Claim 40 — token with executable application emphasis. A token where the secure element comprises a data file and an executable application, and the interrogator interrogates the executable application to acquire the transaction information; exchanging at least one transaction data communication only between the secure element and the interrogator. Its dependent claims are substantively significant: ISO 7816-4 formatting (41), the secure element containing an encryption algorithm, encryption key, and transaction counter (42), the communications controller creating a random unpredictable number and sending it to the secure element (44), the transaction information comprising a dynamic card verification code (45), and an antenna permitting an external reader to interrogate the secure element (47).

Claim 52 — a further token claim. Parallel to claim 40's architecture with its own dependent set (ISO 7816-4 formatting at 53; encryption algorithm/key/counter at 54; exchange confined to on-structure libraries/memory at 55; external-reader antenna at 57).

Claim 60 — the broadest framing. "A token for transmitting a communications data package to a host device," comprising a mounting structure; a secure element affixed to it with a data file containing transaction information; a secure element interrogator affixed to it that interrogates the secure element to acquire the transaction information and generates the communications data package based on that information; and a communications controller that transmits the package to the host device. Notably, this claim recites a "host device" rather than a computer terminal and does not require a communication connector — it is the claim asserted in the 2026 litigation (see below).

Litigation check (USPTO / district court / CAFC)

Per the Google Patents litigation links and corroborating docket aggregators, this patent's family has first worldwide family litigation filed, and two 2026 US cases are listed:

1. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. v. [Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.), No. 7:26-cv-00075, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Midland Division, Judge Alan Albright), filed 2026-03-04, Cause 28:1338 / NOS 830 Patent Infringement. A complaint analysis indicates U.S. 8,548,924 claim 60 is asserted, alongside U.S. 8,151,345 claim 23, against Apple's iPhone (XR onward), Apple Watch (Series 5+), and iPad products via Apple Pay/NFC secure-element functionality.
2. A second 2026 case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, listed as No. 2:26-cv-00157 (per the Google Patents litigation link to Unified Patents).

No CAFC appeal docket for 8,548,924 appeared in my search results as of the search date. My CAFC-related searches returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit matters (e.g., SpaceTime3D, Integrated DNA Technologies, Cisco v. InfoExpress, Intellectual Pixels v. Sony). If you need a definitive negative on Federal Circuit activity, that should be confirmed directly against PACER/CM-ECF and the CAFC docket rather than inferred from search results.

Items where I am explicitly uncertain

• Claims 28–39: text not independently verified; independent-claim count may be higher than the eight I confirmed.
• Exact independent-claim set: FreePatentsOnline previews and the Google Patents "Definitions" section list six Summary embodiments (three using "a plurality of transaction data communications," three using "at least one"), which does not map cleanly onto the eight independent claims I confirmed; the claim set appears to have been expanded during prosecution.
• "Current Assignee" field on Google Patents lists both Mobility IP Holdings Inc and US Encode Corporation; the field itself carries a disclaimer that Google has not analyzed or warranted the assignment list. The reassignment records show Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. as the 2026-02-11 recipient from Neology, Inc.
• Expiration date of 2028-01-24 is Google's "anticipated expiration" estimate, explicitly not a legal conclusion.

I'll search for litigation involving US 8,548,924 specifically, using litigation-focused sources.

Key finding emerging. Let me dig into the specific cases and the Unified Patents portal.

Let me check the Unified Patents portal and look for any other/earlier litigation or PTAB challenges involving this patent.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,548,924

Short answer: Yes — litigation is known. I found two pending U.S. district-court cases filed in early 2026, both brought by Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. (the current assignee per the assignment records summarized earlier), both asserting the '924 patent's independent claim 60. No CAFC appeal and no PTAB proceeding involving the '924 patent appeared in my searches.

Important date caveat (flagged): The header for this task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the docket evidence I retrieved shows case activity dated June 23–24, 2026, and one unrelated search hit carries a September 2026 timestamp. Those cannot be reconciled with an April 26, 2026 "today." I therefore report status as of the latest docket entries I could retrieve (late June 2026) and flag that this is a contradiction between the stated task date and the observed record, rather than silently adopting either date.

Confirmed cases

1. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. et al. v. [[[Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.) et al.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.%20et%20al.)

Asserted patents (7): U.S. 8,151,345; 8,548,924; 8,766,772; 8,933,807; 10,235,513; 10,706,412; 10,762,187. The complaint traces the '345 and '924 patents to Neology, Inc. and alleges Neology "eventually assigned these patents to Mobility IP."

Accused products / functionality: Samsung Galaxy A, S, Note (through 2021), Xcover, Z Fold, Z Flip, Watch, and Tab series — i.e., "all other Samsung mobile devices sold in the United States in the past six years" — with the Galaxy S23 Ultra as the exemplar. Accused functionality is Samsung Pay / Samsung Wallet contactless payment: an embedded secure element (eSE, identified as an NXP chip in the teardown) storing a tokenized Device Account Number, a reader that interrogates it using ISO 7816-4 file-system functions, and NFC transmission of a transaction-specific cryptogram to a POS terminal. Claim 60 of the '924 patent is charted element-by-element; the complaint's scope vulnerability is whether the phone motherboard qualifies as the claimed "mounting structure."

Demands: infringement judgment, willfulness, damages, treble damages for willfulness, permanent injunction, ongoing royalty, and attorney fees.

Sources: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:26-cv-00157/mobility-ip-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd ; https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/2--26-cv-00157/Mobility_IP_et_al_v._Samsung_Electronics_Co_LTD_et_al/ ; https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txed/2:26-cv-00157/doc/analysis/1 ; https://services.patexia.com/search/page/216/tab/cases ; https://www.seoulwire.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=[708933](/patent/708933)

Note: this resolves the item the earlier-generated summary left open — the E.D. Tex. case 2:26-cv-00157 is against Samsung, not an unnamed defendant. That is a build-on, not a contradiction, of the prior section.

2. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. v. [Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.)

Asserted patents: At minimum U.S. 8,151,345 (claim 23) and 8,548,924 (claim 60); the complaint analysis also references U.S. 8,766,772 and 8,933,807, consistent with the same seven-patent family asserted against Samsung.

Accused products / functionality: iPhones from iPhone XR onward, Apple Watch Series 5 and later, and various iPad models, via Apple Pay. Exemplar teardown is the iPhone 14 Pro (Secure Element, NFC controller, A16 processor on the motherboard); the accused secure element is identified as an ST OCTA1 chip holding the Device Account Number. Claim 60 of the '924 patent is charted element-by-element (token → iPhone; mounting structure → motherboard; secure element → SE chip; interrogator/communications controller → the device processor generating and transmitting an EMV dynamic cryptogram). Plaintiff also pleads willfulness for the '345 and '924 patents.

Sources: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:26-cv-00075/mobility-ip-holdings-inc-v-apple-inc ; https://www.docketalarm.com/search/FederalCourts/?f=judge_exact-Alan+Albright&q=party%3A%28Apple%29 ; https://companyprofiles.justia.com/company/apple/dockets/case?page=5 ; https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txwd/7:26-cv-00075/doc/analysis/1

Unified Patents portal entries (as listed on the patent page)

The Google Patents record for US 8,548,924 lists two litigation links, matching the two cases above:

• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A26-cv-00075 (Apple)
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A26-cv-00157 (Samsung)

The page also carries a "First worldwide family litigation filed" indicator via Darts-ip (family 45877510): https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=45877510.

What I did NOT find

• No CAFC appeal naming U.S. 8,548,924. CAFC searches returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit matters.
• No outcome in either case — both are pending; the most recent substantive step I could retrieve is Samsung's Answer (6/23/2026) and a scheduling order (6/24/2026).
• No pre-2026 litigation specifically asserting the '924 patent in my search results. The patent family (Neology) has older litigation history (e.g., the TransCore/Neology dispute over U.S. 6,748, etc.), but nothing I found ties those older suits to the '924 patent. Treat this as low-confidence — my search budget was exhausted before I could run dedicated "Neology/Encoded/Encode Corporation" case-list and PTAB queries.

Caveats

1. Unverified: whether any PTAB IPR/PGR petition has been filed against the '924 patent (I could not complete that search). Given that both defendants are large, well-resourced NFC-payment players and the asserted claim 60 lacks any connector limitation, an IPR is plausible — but I will not assert one exists.
2. Unverified: whether additional defendants exist in a third, unfiled-so-far or not-yet-indexed suit asserting the '924 patent.
3. Docket mirrors I used can be incomplete (one explicitly states "The docket is incomplete"), so early-2026 filings after 6/24/2026 may exist but were not in my results.
4. The status table reflects the record as of late June 2026; if the operative date is truly later (September 2026, per the search-result timestamps), additional docket activity may have occurred that I did not retrieve.

I'll verify the single proceeding on file and try to fill in claim-level detail from public sources.

Let me try more targeted searches on the specific proceeding and the patent owner.

I hit the search-step limit before I could pull the petition itself. Below is what can be responsibly stated from the canonical PTAB data plus verified public records — with explicit flags where the record is silent rather than filled in.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding exists on file for US 8,548,924: IPR2026-00502 ([Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.) et al. v. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc.), status Pending — filed 2026-09-19, the same day as this analysis. Breakdown: 1 active/pending; 0 claims invalidated; 0 claims sustained; 0 settled; 0 institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is "too early to tell, but the challenge is live and timely": there is no FWD, no institution decision, and no public claim-level record, so a defendant today can neither rely on an IPR win nor assume the patent is hardened. What a defendant can rely on is that this is the first-ever PTAB challenge to a patent that issued 2013-10-01, filed only after 2026 assertion activity began, and that Apple's petition was filed inside its § 315(b) window — meaning the validity fight is now formally joined at the Board rather than being left entirely to the district courts.

IPR2026-00502 — Apple Inc. et al. v. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (IPR) — 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319, a post-AIA proceeding under the AIA trial framework.
• Filed: 2026-09-19 (per the USPTO Open Data Portal record; the record notes the proceeding was last modified on the same date, which is consistent with a day-one filing entry).
• Status: Pending (verbatim from the structured data). Plain-English gloss: the petition has been filed and is in the pre-institution phase — no Notice of Filing Date Accorded outcome, no preliminary response, and no institution decision is reflected.
• Judge panel: Not public / not yet assigned to a merits panel. The structured record lists no APJ names. Panels for AIA trials are ordinarily designated at the institution stage, so an accurate panel listing cannot be given at this time. (The only named individual in the structured record is the inventor, C. Douglas Yeager — that is an inventor field, not a judge.) Do not attribute a panel to this proceeding from any source that does not cite a Board paper.
• Petition grounds: Not yet public. The structured data does not carry grounds, and my searches did not return the filed petition or its exhibit list. I therefore cannot tell you which claims are challenged, which references are asserted, or whether the grounds are § 102, § 103, § 112, or a mix. Given the patent's ~65-claim set (independent claims 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, and 60 as identified in the earlier section), the only independent claim with a confirmed public assertion history is claim 60, which the prior section identified as the claim asserted in the parallel district-court complaint. Claim 60 would be the most likely candidate for challenge, but I am not asserting that it was challenged — that is inference, not record.
• Institution decision: None. Not instituted, not denied, not partially instituted. Statutory/regulatory timing: the patent owner's preliminary response is due three months after the notice according the filing date (37 C.F.R. § 42.107(b)), and the institution determination is due no later than six months from the petition's filing date (§ 314(b)). On the filed date of 2026-09-19, that projects an institution-decision deadline of approximately 2027-03-19 (absent joinder, an extended accord date, or Director reconsideration). Treat that as a projection, not a docketed date.
• Final Written Decision: None issued. No claim of US 8,548,924 has been canceled, confirmed, or otherwise adjudicated at the Board. Any statement that a particular claim is "dead" would be fabricated.
• Settlement / termination: None reflected. Given the proceeding is at the day-one pre-institution stage, a § 317 settlement is procedurally available but nothing on file indicates one. I have no settlement information, and any settlement terms would in any event typically be filed under seal with a request for confidential treatment under 35 U.S.C. § 317(b) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c).
• Appeal: None, and none possible yet. No FWD exists, so there is nothing appealable to the Federal Circuit under §§ 319 / 141–144. This is consistent with the earlier-generated section, which found no CAFC docket naming US 8,548,924. If the IPR is instituted and reaches a FWD, the losing party would have 63 days from the FWD to notice an appeal under 37 C.F.R. § 90.3.
• Defensive value: For a defendant being asserted on this patent today, the meaningful near-term value is procedural, not substantive: (a) the Board will likely decide institution by roughly 2027-03-19, and (b) the Board's § 325(d) / Fintiv-style discretionary analysis, and any Sotera stipulation Apple files in the Texas cases, are the levers that matter in the next two quarters. If Apple et al. filed a Sotera-style stipulation (as Apple has done in other 2026 IPRs, e.g., IPR2026-00241 — see the stipulation language reproduced in the E.D. Tex. docket materials), the district court is far less likely to stay, and the defendant's own invalidity case is unaffected. Do not tell a client any claim is canceled — none is.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. Nothing on US 8,548,924 has been canceled and nothing has been sustained. The entire claim set — all ~65 claims, including independent claims 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, and 60 — remains issued and untested at the PTAB. The earlier-generated section flagged that verbatim text for claims 28–39 could not be independently verified; that gap persists and, importantly, the existence of the IPR means the Board will be working from the issued claim set, not from the Summary section's six enumerated embodiments. If you need the operative claim text for a validity or infringement analysis, pull the issued patent's claim listing rather than the specification summary.

One structural timing point that a defendant should price in. The record's anticipated expiration for this patent is 2028-01-24 (Google Patents' estimate, expressly not a legal conclusion; it is consistent with a twenty-year term running from the 2008-01-24 parent filing, U.S. Ser. No. 12/019,318). If the Board institutes on roughly the projected 2027-03-19 date, the § 316(a)(11) twelve-month trial clock would place the FWD near 2028-03-19 — i.e., at or after the patent's estimated expiration. That combination (late-filed IPR on a patent near end of life) is a legitimate argument for a defendant weighing settlement posture, and it is also a fact pattern that invites a Fintiv/discretionary-denial fight or, conversely, a "Board as litigation alternative" argument under the Director's recent Tesla/Bulletproof line of decisions. Note that the Board can and does institute on expired or near-expiry patents, so expiration does not moot the IPR — it changes the remedy calculus.

Estoppel landscape. Because no institution decision has issued, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached to anyone. Estoppel begins only after a FWD, and it binds the petitioner, its real parties in interest, and privies — not the world. So a different defendant (for example, a co-defendant in the E.D. Tex. action who is not named as an RPI in IPR2026-00502) retains the full run of § 102/§ 103 patent-and-printed-publication grounds, subject only to its own § 315(b) one-year clock. The "et al." in the petitioner field is therefore the single most important unknown in this file: it likely identifies additional real parties in interest whose grounds may later be estopped, but I could not verify who the RPIs are and will not guess. Practically, the estoppel question to answer first is whether a defendant is a named RPI or privy — check the petition's RPI statement, not the caption.

Pattern signals. (1) No repeat-petitioner pattern exists yet — this is the only AIA proceeding on this patent, and it is the patent's first PTAB challenge in roughly 13 years of issued life. (2) The patent owner has never had a PTAB appeal — there is no prior FWD to appeal, so no CAFC track record on this patent to read. (3) No defensive aggregator: the petitioner is Apple, a litigating defendant in the parallel Texas cases, not a subscription prior-art challenger. One clarification worth making because it is an easy error: Unified Patents appears in this file only as a data source for the district-court docket link on Google Patents — that is a litigation-database attribution, not evidence that Unified Patents filed anything. (4) The patent's ownership chain (Yeager → U.S. Encode → Neology → Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. on 2026-02-11, per Google Patents reassignment records) is that of an asserted-portfolio monetization entity, and the 2026-02-11 assignment sits six days before the first 2026 complaint.

Two record clean-ups / corrections to the earlier section:

• The earlier section described the second 2026 case only as "No. 2:26-cv-00157 (per the Google Patents litigation link to Unified Patents)." Search results now identify it as Mobility IP et al v. [Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), LTD et al, 2:26-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex., Marshall Division, Judge Rodney Gilstrap), filed 2026-02-27, with defendants served 2026-03-03/03-04, 2026 and an answer deadline extended to 2026-06-23. Use the named caption rather than the bare docket number.
• Warning against a false positive in the search record: searches on this patent surface "Defendant Apple Inc.'s Notice of Ex Parte Reexaminations of All Asserted Patents" listing granted reexams of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 60, and 61 of U.S. Patent No. 8,924,192. That is a different patent — 8,924,192 (network simulation for mobile application development), asserted in Wapp Tech Limited Partnership v. Apple Inc., E.D. Tex. 4:25-cv-00230, not the Mobility IP cases. It matches the search only because of the shared claim numbers and Apple's name. Do not treat that reexamination as a challenge to US 8,548,924. I found no ex parte reexamination of US 8,548,924.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the IPR2026-00502 papers directly rather than relying on aggregators. The proceeding is one day old, so the petition, its exhibit list, and the RPI statement are the only substantive documents in existence. Use USPTO PTAB Center / PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ (search by proceeding number or by patent 8,548,924), and cross-check against the USPTO Open Data Portal — the same portal that generated the canonical list in this prompt. Do not cite a docket number, panel, or ground for this proceeding from memory or from a secondary source.
2. Diary the three statutory milestones for a live-file defense: Notice of Filing Date Accorded (typically within a few weeks of 2026-09-19) → Patent Owner Preliminary Response due 3 months from that notice (37 C.F.R. § 42.107(b)) → institution decision due no later than six months from the petition filing date, i.e., projected ~2027-03-19 (§ 314(b)). If instituted, the FWD is due within 12 months of institution (§ 316(a)(11)), which on current projections lands around or after the patent's 2028-01-24 anticipated expiration.
3. Resolve the RPI question before relying on estoppel. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached anywhere yet — no institution, no FWD. Determine whether the defendant you advise is named as an RPI or is a privy of "Apple Inc. et al." If it is not, that defendant keeps non-estopped § 102/§ 103 printed-publication grounds, constrained only by its own § 315(b) one-year bar (for defendants served on 2026-03-03/03-04 in the two Texas cases, the ~2027-03-03/03-04 one-year bar date is the operative deadline).
4. If you are Apple or a co-petitioner: check for a Sotera-style stipulation. Apple has used broad stipulations in its 2026 IPRs (see the stipulation text in the E.D. Tex. docket materials for IPR2026-00241, a WeCrevention matter, which parallels the Fortinet "Sotera Plus" filing). Such a stipulation is the primary tool for defeating a discretionary denial under the current Director's Tesla/Bulletproof-framed analysis, which weighs the absence of a trial date plus a broad stipulation heavily in favor of institution.
5. If you are representing Mobility IP Holdings: the practical options at this stage are a preliminary response on the merits, a § 325(d)/discretionary argument, a POP/Director-review posture if denial issues, and — if the proceeding survives institution — a possible pre-FWD § 317 settlement with confidential treatment, weighed against the fact that any FWD would arrive at or after the patent's estimated expiry.
6. Verify the expiration line item. The 2028-01-24 date is Google's "anticipated expiration" estimate and is explicitly not a legal conclusion; before building a near-expiry strategy on it, confirm the term against the USPTO Patent Center record for US 13/403,141 and the parent U.S. Ser. No. 12/019,318, including any terminal disclaimers.

Explicit non-findings (so these are not mistaken for research gaps that were filled): no institution decision, no FWD, no judge panel, no petition grounds, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal exist on the public record for IPR2026-00502 as of 2026-09-19. There is exactly one AIA proceeding on this patent, and it was filed today.

I'll research the assignment record before drafting. Let me search live sources for the recorded assignments, reel/frame data, and correspondents.

Let me dig deeper on the assignment records, correspondents, and the Neology ownership context.

I hit my search-step limit while trying to pull the USPTO Assignment Center detail pages. I'll be explicit about what I could and could not verify, and I will not invent reel/frame or correspondent data.

Ownership chain — US 8,548,924 ("Self-authorizing token")

Sourcing note / limitation up front. The USPTO Assignment Center detail pages (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and the legacy https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) did not render reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record for this patent in anything my searches surfaced. The three recorded conveyances below are reconstructed from the Google Patents "Reassignment" legal-events records embedded in the authoritative text provided for this analysis. I could not obtain reel/frame numbers or correspondent attorneys for any link, and I am flagging that as a genuine data gap rather than filling it. That gap matters directly for NPE signal #3 (repeat correspondent), which the task flags as the single most useful tell — I cannot score it. A manual pull of the Assignment Center record (or its API) is required to close this.

Inventors

• C. Douglas Yeager — sole named inventor on US 8,548,924.

Employer at filing: not determinable from the record, and the record affirmatively points away from a corporate employer. The issued patent lists the original assignee as "Individual" (Google Patents bibliographic field), and no pre-issue assignment from Yeager to a company is recorded. In other words, Yeager filed and held this patent personally, not through an employer's IP-holding entity. That is unusual for a payments/smartcard invention of this type, which is normally captured by an employer invention-assignment agreement.

Unusual-pattern flags:

• No corporate assignment at filing/issue (2008 parent, 2013 grant) — the patent sat with the individual inventor for roughly 8.7 years before the first recorded transfer.
• Single-inventor portfolio: Yeager is also the named inventor on the sibling patent US 8,151,345 (asserted alongside the '924 in the 2026 Apple suit), indicating a one-inventor family rather than a corporate R&D team.
• The 12-month "inventor departure" tell is not applicable — there was no assignee-employer to depart from.

Original assignee

The original assignee was C. Douglas Yeager, individually ("Individual" per the Google Patents bibliographic record) — not an operating company.

• Primary line of business at issue: none as a corporate assignee; the patent was personally held.
• Product embodying the claims: I found no evidence that the original assignee (the individual) shipped a product embodying the issued claims. The patent's commercial premise (a USB "self-swiping" card with an on-card reader) was a concept-stage architecture.
• Later affiliation: the 2016 reassignment records tie Yeager and the patent to U.S. Encode Corporation — i.e., the individual inventor's know-how was rolled into a company entity at that point, not at filing. Whether U.S. Encode shipped a product is not established by anything I found.
• Current status: the original assignee (individual) no longer owns the patent; ownership has passed to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. (2026).

Assignment timeline

All three links below come from the Google Patents reassignment records. Reel/frame numbers and correspondents were not retrievable and are shown as unavailable. Do not treat the "correspondent" line as a negative finding — it is a missing data field.

1. Executed/recorded 2016-10-14 — Reel not obtained/Frame not obtained

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
• Assignor: Yeager, C. Douglas
• Assignee: U.S. Encode Corporation; Yeager, Doug
• Correspondent: not obtained from source
• Context: Founder roll-up — the individual inventor moves the patent into his own company vehicle (U.S. Encode), retaining himself as a co-assignee.

2. Executed/recorded 2016-10-19 — Reel not obtained/Frame not obtained

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
• Assignors: U.S. Encode Corporation; Yeager, Doug
• Assignee: Neology, Inc.
• Correspondent: not obtained from source
• Context: Acquisition by an operating RFID/tolling company — U.S. Encode's (and Yeager's) interest in the patent is sold to Neology, Inc., just 5 days after the prior recording. Two conveyances in five days is a rapid back-to-back structuring.

3. Executed/recorded 2026-02-11 — Reel not obtained/Frame not obtained

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignor's interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST")
• Assignor: Neology, Inc.
• Assignee: Mobility IP Holdings, Inc.
• Correspondent: not obtained from source
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter. Recorded 21 days before Mobility IP Holdings sued Apple (WD Tex. 7:26-cv-00075, filed 2026-03-04), which asserts this patent's claim 60. Timing is the classic pre-suit standing/venue cleanup.

Key context on the 2016 assignee (Neology, Inc.): Neology is a genuine operating company (RFID, electronic toll collection, ALPR; founded 1986; Carlsbad, CA; ~250–500 employees), and per a 2015 PTAB Exhibit it was 100%-owned by Smartrac ("Smartrac owns one hundred percent (100%) of the shares of Neology, Inc."). Neology is also itself a frequent patent litigant (its Kapsch TrafficCom campaign, D. Del. 1:13-cv-02052, drew multiple IPRs, e.g. IPR2015-0808 through -0824). So Neology is best characterized as a hybrid: an operating company with NPE-style assertion behavior.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8548924
    2007 : Priority filings by Yeager
    2008 : Parent application filed
    2013 : Patent issues to Yeager
    2016 : Assigned to US Encode Corporation
         : Assigned to Neology Inc
    2026 : Assigned to Mobility IP Holdings Inc
         : Suit filed vs Apple

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (qualified).
The patent moved from an operating/founder entity (Neology, Inc.) to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. — a "Holdings" vehicle — recorded 2026-02-11, and that entity filed an infringement action 21 days later. The transfer-to-a-non-operating-holder-immediately-before-suit combination is the substantive tell. Caveat: I could not pull Mobility IP Holdings' corporate registration, confirm it is a single-member Delaware/Texas LLC or Inc., or confirm it has no products; the "no-products / registered-agent address" prongs rest on the entity's apparent sole activity being litigation, not on verified corporate records. I am scoring the pattern from the transaction timing and litigation posture, not from the name.

2. Known asserter in the chain — UNCLEAR.
Neology, Inc. (2016–2026) is not on the supplied enumerated list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities), and it is an operating company — but it is a documented high-frequency patent plaintiff. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. (current) does not match any enumerated list entry in my sources, though it is an active 2026 plaintiff. Neither is confirmable against RPX/Unified directories from what I retrieved. Mark unclear, not "present," because I have no directory hit to cite.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / INSUFFICIENT DATA.
This is the most important gap. I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record for any of the three conveyances, so I cannot test whether one attorney/firm ran all the recordings. Given that the assignee names in this chain (individual → US Encode → Neology → Mobility IP Holdings) are exactly the kind of sequence where a single repeat filer is the connective tissue, this field needs a targeted Assignment Center pull before the chain can be rated confidently.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (weak–moderate).
Two consecutive assignments, 2016-10-14 and 2016-10-19, moved the patent Yeager → U.S. Encode → Neology in five days. That is a genuine rapid cascade. I have no evidence that U.S. Encode and Neology shared a correspondent address or principals. The third transfer is a decade later (2026), so this is a short burst in 2016 plus a much later exit, not a continuous chained-LLC funnel.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strong).
The 2026-02-11 recording to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. falls 21 days before the first 2026 suit asserting the patent (WD Tex. 7:26-cv-00075, filed 2026-03-04, asserting claim 60). This is well inside the six-month window and is the strongest single indicator in the file.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No evidence of any Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Yeager, U.S. Encode, Neology, or Smartrac touching this patent. Neology's 2026 exit reads as a portfolio divestiture, not a distressed sale — though I cannot rule out that it was part of a broader wind-down that isn't in my sources.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The structure (operating company Neology → assertion entity Mobility IP Holdings) is consistent with privateering, but I found no evidence that Neology retained a beneficial interest, directs the litigation, or shares proceeds. Neology is not a named plaintiff. On the current record this looks like an outright sale, not a behind-the-scenes proxy campaign. Do not assert privateering without the SEC/agreement evidence.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT (indeed, the inverse).
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. It terminates at an active plaintiff, which is the opposite of neutralization.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain ends at Mobility IP Holdings, Inc., which received the patent on 2026-02-11 — 21 days before filing infringement actions asserting it (WD Tex. 7:26-cv-00075 against Apple, filed 2026-03-04, asserting claim 60; plus a second 2026 case, EDTex 2:26-cv-00157). That pre-litigation transfer to a non-operating holder is a strong signal, and it sits on top of a prior rapid cascade (two assignments in five days in October 2016) and a transfer out of an operating company (Neology) into a "Holdings" assertion vehicle — the classic asserter formation.

Two honest caveats that could move this to "moderate": (a) I could not verify reel/frame numbers or correspondents for any link, so signal #3 — the tell the task most values — is unscored; and (b) I have not confirmed by corporate record that Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. is a single-purpose, product-less entity. If the correspondent on the 2026-02-11 recording proves to be a known NPE-filing attorney, or if Mobility IP Holdings is confirmed as a single-member litigation vehicle, the call stands at high; if instead Mobility IP Holdings turns out to have genuine product/operating activity, it would drop.

Verify against: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 8,548,924) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

I'll research the prior art and cited references for US 8,548,924. Let me run several searches.

Let me pull the full citation lists from the patent front page and Justia/FreePatentsOnline records.

Let me gather details on the key cited references and the non-patent literature cited.

Prior-art review — U.S. Patent No. 8,548,924 B2 ("Self-authorizing token")

A note on scope and sourcing before the analysis. I restricted every query to the literal number 8,548,924 and discarded look-alike hits (e.g., an FCC test-report "Model # Connected Sensor Box 8548924," an exercise-machine patent, and a Chinese IR-filing page, none of which concern this patent). The prior-art list below is the "References Cited" block reproduced on the patent's face (the references the examiner cited/considered), reconstructed from Google Patents, Justia and FreePatentsOnline because these were the only full-text mirrors of the face-of-patent citation list I could retrieve; the body text supplied for this analysis does not print the citation list. Sources:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8548924/en
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/8548924
• https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8548924.html

Two explicit contradictions to flag (per the operating rule that I must flag, not paper over, conflicts):

1. Date: this task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026." The record evidence I retrieved (and the earlier litigation section) shows docket activity dated late June 2026 and search-result timestamps into September 2026. I cannot reconcile those with an April 26, 2026 "today," so I treat the analysis date as the latest observed record and flag the discrepancy.
2. Effective filing date vs. cited art: several examiner-cited references carry dates after the patent's own 2007-01-25 priority date (and one after the 2008-01-24 parent filing). That is unusual and implies the examiner may have applied at least some art against a later effective filing date than 2007-01-25 (or cited it for other reasons). See item 9 and the NPL note below.

A. The "References Cited" list (the actual prior art on the patent's face)

Every citation below is reproduced literally as recorded. "Potential §102 claim mapping" is my analyst assessment, with the caveat in Section D that none of these on its face appears to anticipate the independent claims.

Claim-text anchors (for the mapping column), from the supplied text: independent claims 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, 60; ISO 7816-4 dependent claims 2, 7, 13, 18, 23, 41, 53; personalization dependent claims 3, 8, 14, 19, 24; "libraries or memory space residing on the mounting structure" dependent claims 4, 9, 15, 20, 25, 55; payment-application/track-data dependent claims 5, 10, 11, 16, 21, 26, 27; external-reader antenna claims 47, 57; encryption-algorithm/key/counter claims 42, 54; unpredictable-number claim 44; dynamic card verification code claim 45.

B. Non-patent literature ("Other References")

I could not retrieve the "Other References" (NPL) block of the '924 face-of-patent within my search budget, so I will not fabricate a citation list for it. Based on the specification's own reliance, the NPL that would be expected there (and which is expressly referenced in the body) includes: ISO/IEC 7816-4 (and 7816, 7816-3), ISO/IEC 14443, the USB specification (www.usb.org), FIPS 81 (DES modes, cited for the OFB-mode encryption), and trade/standards documents governing Track 1 (IATA) and Track 2 (ABA). See the supplied text at the "FIG. 13.1"/"FIPS 81" and "ISO 7816-4" passages. Flag: this list is inferential, not verified from the record.

C. "Cited By" references — not prior art

Later patents that cite 8,548,924 (e.g., US 9,904,814 "Secure element"; US 10,032,171 and US 12,033,157 "Systems and methods for authorizing a transaction with an unexpected cryptogram"; US 10,762,187) post-date the '924 patent and therefore are not §102 prior art against it. They are useful only as evidence of field/claim construction. Also note the applicant's own earlier publication US 2007/0075133 A1 (Yeager, Apr 5, 2007) appears in the related family and could be relevant to a different-inventive-entity inquiry, but as the inventor's own disclosure tied to the 2007 priority it is not prior art absent a different inventive entity. Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[12033157](/patent/12033157)

D. Bottom line: does anything on the face anticipate the claims?

On the record I can verify, no cited reference appears to anticipate the independent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The reason is structural and consistent across all eight independents:

• The novelty core of every independent claim (1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, 60) is a secure-element interrogator affixed to the same mounting structure as the secure element, with the transaction-data exchange confined "only between the secure element and the secure element interrogator," and a communications controller that forwards the completed transaction information (optionally as track data / as a single data communication) to a computer terminal or host device.
• The cited Fruhauf/Margalit/Drabczuk family (items 1–5, 8, 12) teaches dual-interface and USB smart cards that are read by an EXTERNAL reader — the opposite of "reader on card." They support the connector/interface/ISO 7816-4 dependent claims but not the on-card-interrogator limitation.
• Ryan (item 7) and Morrow (item 6) teach a multi-interface token — good §103 material for the "token/mounting structure/connector" preamble of claim 60, but silent on an on-card SE interrogator performing the closed interrogation.

Most likely-asserted/hardest art: the Fruhauf US 6,439,464 / US 6,883,715 duo combined with Ryan US 7,213,766 (and, if the effective filing date is pushed later, Saarisalo US 8,081,060 for the encryption/dynamic-code claims 42/44/45). These read as §103 obviousness combinations against the dependent claims and the "token + connector + dual-interface SE" elements, not as §102 anticipation of the independents.

E. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as findings)

• Reference titles/contents for items 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10–19 were not independently verified in this pass; the dates are as recorded on the patent's face. Do not rely on my descriptions of those beyond the recorded citation and date.
• The "Other References" (NPL) block was not retrieved (Section B is inferential).
• The effective filing date question (2007-01-25 priority vs. 2008-01-24 parent vs. 2012-02-23 actual filing) drives whether items 9, 18 and 19 are prior art at all; resolving it requires the prosecution history, which I did not retrieve.
• The cited list is the examiner's "considered" art; I did not find any examiner rejection rationale tying a specific reference to a specific claim, so all §102 mappings above are my own element-by-element assessment, not record citations.
• Contradiction carried forward: as in the earlier sections, the task's stated "Current Date: April 26, 2026" conflicts with the June/September 2026 record evidence. Any docket- or art-dated conclusion here should be re-verified against PACER/PatentCenter and the CAFC docket.

I'll first try to retrieve the actual "Prior Art" / citations section of the US 8,548,924 Google Patents page, since the fetched full text supplied to me does not include the citations tables.

The fetched page didn't include the citations tables, but search is surfacing them. Let me pull the full "Patent Citations" list and identify the key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,548,924 B2 ("Self-authorizing token") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Sourcing note and contradictions flagged up front

0.1 The fetched page does not contain a "Prior Art" section. The authoritative full text supplied to me for this analysis includes "Prior art keywords" (secure element; token; data; interrogator; communications) and "Prior art date 2007‑01‑25," but the citation tables were stripped from the fetch. I therefore reconstructed the page's prior-art content from live search results against (a) Google Patents' "Patent Citations (19)" / "Family Cites Families (5)" tables and (b) Justia's "Referenced Cited" table for patent 8,548,924. Where I could verify a reference's title and date from those tables, I say so. Where I am characterizing a reference's substance from the title alone, I say so explicitly. I did not obtain full text for every reference.

0.2 Contradiction with the previously generated Patent Summary — claim set. The earlier section states the patent "has 65 claims" with confirmed independent claims 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, and 60, with claims 28–39 unverified. The grant-version claim set I retrieved for US 8,548,924 shows 87 claims, with independent claims at 1, 10, 22, 31, 40, 52, 60, and 79. Claim 79 is an independent claim to "a cellular network device" (claims 79–87). This is a direct contradiction, and I flag it rather than reconcile it. Two plausible explanations: the earlier section may have been reading the pre-grant publication US 2012/0173432 A1 and/or the parent US 8,151,345 ("Self-authorizing devices") claim sets, or it may have been extrapolated from the six Summary embodiments. Everything below uses the grant claim numbering I retrieved for US 8,548,924. Under that numbering: claim 5 (dep. of 1) and claim 16 (dep. of 10) are the "payment card application + track data" claims — not "claim 6" and "claim 16 depending from claim 12" as the earlier section had it.

0.3 Contradiction on the operative date (carried forward). The litigation section already flagged that the prior task header said April 26, 2026 while docket evidence ran to late June 2026. The present system date is 2026‑09‑19, while the task block in this prompt again says "Current Date: April 26, 2026." I flag it once and proceed; it does not affect the § 103 analysis, which turns on 2007–2013 events.

0.4 Confirmed against the earlier section: abstract text (including the original's "smart element" typo), priority lineage (continuation of Ser. No. 12/019,318 → provisionals 60/897,110 and 60/932,704), assignment chain, and that claim 60 is the claim asserted in the 2026 litigation.

1. Governing law and the critical date

1.1 Pre-AIA law applies. US 8,548,924 issued from application 13/403,141, filed 2012‑02‑23 — before the 2013‑03‑16 effective date of the AIA's first-inventor-to-file provisions. Pre-AIA §§ 102/103 therefore govern, including pre-AIA § 102(e) (published applications and patents as of their U.S. filing dates) and pre-AIA § 103(c) (common-ownership carve-out for art that qualifies only under 102(e)/(f)/(g)).

1.2 The critical date is claim-dependent, and this matters.

• The '924 is a continuation of 12/019,318 (filed 2008‑01‑24), which claims priority to provisional 60/897,110 (2007‑01‑25) and provisional 60/932,704 (2007‑06‑01).
• Claims supported by the January provisional take a 2007‑01‑25 critical date.
• Claims directed to subject matter appearing first in the June provisional — most obviously the cellular network device claims (79–87, including "transmit the data communications package over a wireless network," claim 77) — arguably take a 2007‑06‑01 critical date.

1.3 This eliminates several references the page lists as "cited." Anything that is not a U.S. patent or U.S. pre-grant publication (so no § 102(e) date) and that published after the relevant critical date is not prior art at all:

Practical consequence: a well-constructed § 103 ground should be built on the pre‑2007 references, with the 2007-published U.S. applications used only where their § 102(e) dates can be confirmed from the file wrapper.

2. Person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA for this patent would have a B.S. in electrical engineering or computer science (or equivalent) plus roughly 2–4 years of experience in smart-card, secure-element, or payment-terminal design, and would be familiar with: ISO/IEC 7816‑1 through ‑4 (contact, APDU, file-system commands); ISO/IEC 14443 (contactless, 13.56 MHz); the USB 2.0 specification and the HID class device-class definition (including the keyboard subclass); the EMV contact/contactless payment specifications and card-association requirements for dynamic card verification values (DCVV/DCVC), transaction counters, and unpredictable numbers; and the commercial distinction between "card-present" and "card-not-present" transactions. This is the level at which the asserted grounds should be assessed, and it is the level the patent itself assumes (the specification references www.usb.org, ISO 7816‑4 APDUs, and VISA®/MASTERCARD® DCVC algorithms as known background).

3. The prior art of record (reconstructed from the page's citation tables)

3.1 "Patent Citations (19)" / Justia "Referenced Cited" — U.S. patent documents

3.2 "Family Cites Families (5)" (cited against sibling family members)

3.3 The two references whose content I did verify in detail

US 7,011,247 B2 (Drabczuk/Gelze, Axalto). Verified from the specification text: a smart card that connects directly to a USB port of a host computer through a connector that "is not a reader, where a reader would have active means for reading and/or writing a card." The card's microcontroller contains a non-volatile memory with an operating system managing APDU commands as defined in ISO 7816, and an interface converting ISO 7816‑3 commands to USB and vice versa. The "reader" functionality is implemented as a virtual reader in host-side software (a driver that "simulat[es] the presence of a reader"), which issues commands including DoReset(), GetATR(), SendADPU(), GetData(), SendData(), and IsReady(). The reference expressly states its object is "to reduce cost" because external readers "are very expensive" — they must generate a clock and a reset signal for the card. This is a direct, express motivation statement.

US 2005/0165695 A1 (Berardi et al.). Verified from the specification text: an RFID / transponder-reader payment system using a fob or tag in contact and contactless transactions. It expressly identifies the shortcomings of prior fobs, including that "conventional fobs are limited in that they must be used in proximity to the Point of Sale device," and states that "a need exists for a fob embodying RFID acquisition technology, which is capable of use at a point of interaction device and which is additionally capable of facilitating transactions via a computer interface connected to a network (e.g., the Internet)." It also discusses transponder-form-factor alternatives, multi-interrogation-signal responsiveness, funding-source management, and server-side authorization.

4. What the claims require

4.1 Claim 1 (representative of the connector-based independent claims)

Independent claims 10 (payment card application + track data), 22 (plural communications, no "single data communication" limitation), 31 ("at least one" communication + single data communication), 40 (payment card application + track data + "at least one"), and 52 ("at least one," no track-data/single-communication requirement) are all variations on the same four-element skeleton. Claims 60/79 drop the connector entirely: mounting structure + SE with a data file + interrogator affixed to the structure that interrogates the SE and generates the communications data package + communications controller affixed to the structure that transmits the package to the host device.

4.2 Claim 60 (the litigated claim) — element mapping

Claim 60 is the broadest claim in the patent and, because it strips out both the connector and the "only between" confinement, it is also the most exposed under § 103.

5. Grounds of rejection

I set out six grounds, ordered from strongest to weakest. Each identifies the primary reference, the secondary reference(s), the element mapping, and the articulated motivation.

Ground A — Claims 1, 4, 5, 10, 13, 16, 22, 25, 26, 31, 34, 35, 40, 43, 52, 55, 60, 63, 79, 81

Morrow (US 7,150,397) in view of Fruhauf (US 6,883,715 / US 6,439,464) and Drabczuk (US 7,011,247); further in view of Berardi (US 2005/0165695).

Element mapping (claim 1):

• 1a mounting structure + connector ─ Fruhauf '715 ('464) discloses a smart card that is itself a multi-mode/dual-mode card supporting ISO 7816 contact operation and a USB interface; Drabczuk '247 discloses a card-like portable article with a USB connector that plugs directly into a host USB port. Margalit '399 discloses the same structural idea in a USB-key form factor with an onboard plug.
• 1b SE with a data file ─ Drabczuk '247 discloses the card's microcontroller with a non-volatile memory carrying an OS "suitable for managing APDU commands such as those defined in the ISO 7816 standard." ISO 7816‑4 commands (SELECT, READ RECORD) are precisely the file-system API by which the '924's "data file" is read.
• 1c interrogator affixed to the mounting structure; APDU dialogue "only between" SE and interrogator ─ Morrow '397 discloses a dual-mode controller on the ISO 7816 side of a USB host interface, i.e., the protocol bridge that originates ISO 7816 command sequences toward the card and terminates the USB side. Physically integrating that bridge die into the same card body as the SE — one module, one substrate — is the central teaching of Fruhauf '715 ('464) and is expressly contemplated in the '924's own FIG. 3/FIG. 10 discussion of both dies on one module. Fruhauf's multi-mode card also independently establishes that a single card can run the card-side protocol stack without external clock/reset hardware.
• 1d communications controller affixed; single data communication through the connector ─ Morrow '397's USB interface engine receives bridge output and presents it on USB. Berardi '695 supplies the payment-specific motivation (fob usable at a computer interface over the Internet) and Fruhauf/Drabczuk supply the USB plumbing.

Motivation to combine (the key articulation):

1. Express cost motivation in the art. Drabczuk '247 states that external readers "are very expensive" and need clock/reset generation; its entire stated object is "to reduce cost." The '924's own background concedes the same problem: "Because readers are not typically part of most PCs, it is very beneficial to place the reader functionality on the card device." A POSITA seeking to remove the external reader from the transaction path is being led exactly to Ground A. All of these references are in the same field (portable tokens / smart cards / secure payment) and are therefore analogous art.
2. Predictable combination of known, functionally interrelated elements (KSR). A bridge controller known to translate ISO 7816 ↔ USB ('397/'715) plus a secure element known to hold ISO 7816‑4 files adds nothing more than the predictable co-location of two already-cooperating dies on one substrate. The '924's specification itself treats "these two chips could also be contained in one piece of silicon sharing the same RAM and/or EEPROM memory space" as a design alternative — the mark of an obvious engineering choice.
3. Market pressure. Berardi '695 documents contemporaneous demand for a payment token that works at a PC and over the Internet without POS proximity. That demand is a recognized "design incentive" under KSR.

Reasonable expectation of success: high. Each reference is directed to interoperating, standardized interfaces (ISO 7816, USB HID), and the combination requires only conventional engineering of an on-module die arrangement.

Ground B — Claim 60 (and 61–66, 70–79)

Berardi (US 2005/0165695) in view of Morrow (US 7,150,397) and Fruhauf (US 6,883,715); alternatively Berardi in view of Palmade (US 2007/0084925, § 102(e)) and Saarisalo (US 8,081,060, § 102(e)).

Claim 60 does not require a connector, HID emulation, USB, or a confinement of the APDU dialogue. It requires only: a body, an SE with a data file, an on-body interrogator that reads the SE and generates the outbound package, and an on-body transmitter that sends the package to a host.

• Berardi '695 discloses the transponder/payment-fob architecture and the network/computer-interface use case, including the transponder returning account data to an interrogating reader and the system transmitting transaction data to a third-party authorization server.
• Morrow '397 / Fruhauf '715 supply the on-body reader-plus-interface hardware.
• Saarisalo (US 8,081,060, Nokia, U.S. filed 2006‑05‑12) — titled "System and method for communications establishment" — is the natural § 102(e) reference for the case where the interrogator and the secure element are co-located in one device that also originates the transmission. I flag that I did not verify this reference's disclosure and would not chart claim 60 on it without doing so.
• Palmade (US 2007/0084925) supplies an interrogator designed specifically for a contactless IC card, which is a § 102(e) reference given its 2001 priority.

Motivation: the identical cost/ubiquity rationale as Ground A, plus Berardi's express recognition that a payment fob must be usable at "a point of interaction device" and "via a computer interface connected to a network (e.g., the Internet)." Because claim 60 does not even require a connector, the motivation threshold is lower — the only real question is whether the interrogator is "affixed to the mounting structure" (in a phone or a PCB-mounted token, it plainly is).

Ground C — Claims 2, 11, 23, 32, 41, 53, 61 (ISO 7816‑4 formatting)

Drabczuk (US 7,011,247) in view of Morrow (US 7,150,397) and Fruhauf (US 6,883,715). Drabczuk expressly discloses ISO 7816 APDU command handling; the '924's claim 2 limitation ("communications formatted according to ISO 7816‑4") is nothing more than the standard link/application protocol of the field, and the '924's own specification concedes that "the interrogation process conforms to application level protocols (APIs) established by ISO 7816‑4" and that "the commands are generally the same regardless of the interface method." This is the single easiest set of dependent claims to invalidate.

Ground D — Claims 3, 12, 24, 33, 42, 54, 62 (encryption algorithm, key, transaction counter) and 44, 65 (random unpredictable number; DCVC computed by the microprocessor)

Visa (US 7,527,208) and/or Berardi (US 2005/0165695) in view of Morrow/Fruhauf.

• US 7,527,208 (Visa U.S.A., U.S. filed 2006‑12‑04) is directed to a bank-issued contactless payment card used in transit fare collection — a domain in which offline dynamic verification values and transaction counters are a functional necessity, because the fare gate cannot go online for each tap.
• The '924 specification itself treats the UN/DCVC scheme as pre-existing industry practice: "An unpredictable number refers a number that may be used in algorithms of certain financial transaction authorization systems, such as VISA® or MASTERCARD®." That is an applicant admission of prior art usable in a § 103 ground, and it is fatal to any argument that the DCVC/UN concept was the inventor's contribution.
• Sending the UN from the reader to the SE (claims 44/65) is inherent in the standard challenge-response architecture and follows directly from any bidirectional on-card bridge (Morrow '397 supports an "out" endpoint).
• Motivation: card-association mandates for dynamic data (anti-skimming, anti-replay) — the classic "industry standard pressures a POSITA" rationale.

Ground E — Claims 7, 17, 28, 37, 47, 57, 66, 84 (antenna; SE interrogable by an external reader)

Berardi (US 2005/0165695) in view of Fruhauf (US 6,883,715 / US 6,439,464) and/or Palmade (US 2007/0084925, § 102(e)).

Berardi discloses contactless RFID payment fobs and contactless/contact dual-mode operation. Fruhauf's dual-mode smart card discloses the contact/contactless dual interface on a single card. Palmade discloses a contactless IC card that runs an OS normally used in contact-type cards, plus a reader for it. The motivation to keep the SE readable by an external contactless reader after adding an on-card USB reader is express in the '924 itself ("The SE on the requester's card device may be used to make contactless transactions at in-store POS terminals by holding the card device up to a contactless reader") — which, as an admitted advantage rather than a claimed contribution, reduces to an obvious design preservation.

Ground F — Form-factor and "host device" claims (68, 69, 70–77, 86) and "card-present data" claims (9, 21, 30, 39, 51, 59, 78, 87)

• Form factor (70–77): Margalit '399 (USB key/dongle), Drabczuk '247 (card device), Berardi '695 (fob), CN 1808973 (USB security device) and the SD/miniSD form factors are all conventional; the '924 specification concedes that "the 'card' or 'card device' may not physically resemble the shape or size of a typical payment card" and lists these form factors as alternatives. Changing a token's housing is a classic predictable variation of a known element under KSR.
• Cellular-network host (68, 69, 77, 86): using a mobile phone as the "host device" is squarely within Berardi's network/computer-interface motivation; the '924's cellular-network-adapter concept amounts to implementing known interrogation functions in a baseband processor of a known phone.
• "Card-present data" (9, 21, 30, 39, 51, 59, 78, 87): the '924 background concedes the card-present/card-not-present taxonomy and the fact that "card-present transactions" are the ones with enhanced confidence and discounted interchange. The only thing the patent adds here is a label for the output of an on-token reader; the substantive content ("we extracted the data from the chip on the card, in the presence of the customer") is the disclosed, and admitted, purpose of the ROC concept — not a structural difference from the prior art.

6. Synthesis: why these combinations are inside § 103

1. The problem was known and the solution was a known category of solution. The '924's own Background frames the problem: readers "are not typically part of most PCs," so the security advantages of smartcard systems could not be brought to Internet transactions. Drabczuk '247 addresses exactly this problem and expressly motivating rationale (cost) one year before the critical date.
2. Every structural element was separately known and disclosed in the same field. On-token USB connectors and connectors on cards (Fruhauf, Drabczuk, Margalit); on-card ISO 7816 ↔ USB bridges (Morrow); ISO 7816‑4 APDUs (Drabczuk); contactless payment tokens usable over the Internet (Berardi); dynamic verification values and counters in payment tokens (Visa '208; applicant-admitted VISA/MASTERCARD algorithms).
3. The delta is a design choice about physical placement and output framing. "Affixed to the mounting structure" is a question of which substrate the bridge die sits on — and the '924 itself treats single-die and multi-die-on-one-module as unremarkable alternatives. "A single data communication" is a limitation of degree/output framing, not of function: the same record data is transmitted, only packaged. KSR teaches that a claim drawn to an obvious solution with an additional feature that is itself obvious as a matter of design preference is obvious.
4. There is a demonstrable reasonable expectation of success. All the interfaces involved are published, standardized, and interoperable by design (ISO 7816, ISO 14443, USB HID). Nothing in the combination requires unpredictable physical behavior.
5. Secondary considerations appear weak. The only evidence of commercial uptake is the accused functionality itself (Apple Pay / Samsung Pay), which raises a nexus problem: the accused products use an in-phone secure element and NFC controller with a device processor generating an EMV cryptogram — i.e., they rely on a "mounting structure → phone chassis" mapping rather than on the connector/HID/keyboard-emulation contributions that the specification stresses. Any secondary-considerations argument must show that the claimed arrangement drove the success, not merely that the products are successful.

7. Where a patent owner has the better arguments (and where the grounds are thin)

I want to be even-handed, so here is where I would expect the strongest rebuttal:

1. The "only between" confinement (claims 1, 10, 22, 52, 55, 63, 64, 81, 82) is the patent's genuine point of novelty relative to Drabczuk. Drabczuk '247 arguably teaches away from putting the reader on the card: it deliberately uses "a connector which is not a reader" and implements a virtual reader in host software. A patent owner will argue that the prior art's stated purpose (reduce cost by moving simplicity into the host) cuts against moving reader logic onto the token. The counter is that Morrow '397/Fruhauf '715 supply the on-card bridge without any such disclaimer, and Drabczuk's cost rationale (eliminating external clock/reset hardware) is satisfied more completely by the on-card arrangement. But this is the fight worth having, and I would not characterize it as a slam dunk. I also note I did not verify Morrow's and Fruhauf's disclosures at full-text level — a real § 103 ground requires doing so, because these claims turn on whether the bridge/controller reference actually issues the APDU sequence rather than merely adapting electrical signals.
2. The examiner allowed the claims with most of these references already of record (Primary Examiner Brandon Hoffman, granted 2013‑10‑01). Any petitioner must therefore show either that the examiner under-appreciated what Morrow/Drabczuk/Fruhauf disclose or come forward with art not of record. Grounds built only on the page's existing citations face an uphill evidentiary burden before the PTAB.
3. Claim 60's "mounting structure" is the litigation battleground, not an obviousness issue per se. In the 2026 cases, the charted mapping is token → iPhone/Galaxy, mounting structure → motherboard, interrogator/communications controller → the device processor. That mapping creates a § 112/claim-construction dispute (is a motherboard a "mounting structure" of a "token"?) that is analytically separate from § 103 — but it also makes claim 60 the claim most likely to be reached by the prior art, because it requires no connector and no confinement.
4. The § 102(e) references are the weak links. US 2007/0084925, 2007/0152070, 2007/0170266 and 2007/0262138 all publish after 2007‑01‑25. Unless their U.S. filing dates can be confirmed as pre‑critical-date, they cannot carry a ground. And US 2010/0207742 and EP 1 804 220 / EP 1 843 277 cannot be used at all. A Ground built on US 2010/0207742 is legally ineffective.
5. References I could not verify. US 7,213,766 (Ryan), US 2005/0231467 (Gold), US 2006/0255158 (Margalit), US 2007/0023503 (Kang), US 2007/0152070 (D'Albore), US 2007/0170266 (Krygier), US 2007/0262138 (Somers), US 6,991,173 (Fruhauf), US 8,081,060 (Saarisalo), US 8,059,835 (Thibaudeau), GB 0600207 D0 (Bishop) and CN 1808973 (Feitian) were surfaced by title/date only. I have not charted any claim on them and would not without full-text review.

8. Bottom line

The claim set divides into two obviousness profiles.

• The ISO-7816-4, encryption/counter, DCVC/unpredictable-number, antenna/dual-interface, and form-factor dependent claims (2, 3, 4, 7, 11–13, 15, 17, 23–25, 28, 32–34, 37, 41–47, 53–57, 61–66, 70–77, 80–84) are very likely obvious. They recite standard ISO 7816‑4 protocol usage, standard card-association dynamic-verification and counter features that the '924 itself admits are VISA/MASTERCARD practice, dual-interface capability expressly disclosed by Fruhauf and Berardi, and housing choices the specification concedes are arbitrary. Grounds C, D, E and F should dispose of these with a strong record.

• The connector-plus-confinement independent claims (1, 10, 22, 31, 40, 52) present a closer question, and it turns on the "only between the secure element and the secure element interrogator" limitation. The best ground is Morrow (US 7,150,397) + Fruhauf (US 6,883,715/'464) + Drabczuk (US 7,011,247), with Berardi (US 2005/0165695) for the payment/Internet motivation. Drabczuk supplies an express cost rationale for eliminating the external reader but pushes reader logic into the host, so the petitioner must lean on Morrow/Fruhauf for the on-card bridge. This ground is only as strong as the verified content of Morrow and Fruhauf, which I have not read in full — treat my characterization as a hypothesis to be confirmed against those documents.

• Claim 60 is the most likely to fall, because it requires the least: no connector, no HID, no confinement, no single-communication limitation. Berardi + Morrow/Fruhauf (+ Palmade under § 102(e)) is the natural ground, and it does not depend on any post-critical-date reference.

• Two structural cautions for whoever runs this analysis forward: (i) do not build anything on US 2010/0207742 (Motorola/Buhot), EP 1 804 220 (AXSionics) or EP 1 843 277 — they are not prior art against the 2007 critical date; and (ii) reconcile the claim-numbering contradiction flagged in §0.2 before relying on any claim identification from the earlier-generated sections, because the numbering I retrieved for the grant (independent claims at 1, 10, 22, 31, 40, 52, 60, 79; 87 claims total) does not match the earlier section's "65 claims / independents 1, 6, 12, 17, 22, 40, 52, 60."