US 8761908

I'll research US patent 8761908 across the sources you specified.

Let me run more targeted searches on the patent and any litigation.

Let me verify litigation/docket status and patent bibliographic details.

US Patent 8,761,908 — Research Summary

Sourcing note: My live searches did not return a clean USPTO Patent Center record or any CAFC docket for this patent. The bibliographic data below is taken from the authoritative full patent text you provided (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24) plus a Justia record for the corresponding pre‑grant publication US 2013/0289745 A1 (application 13/908,625). I flag uncertainties where they exist.

Bibliographic data

Assignee chain (as recorded on the face of the Google Patents record): Emerson Retail Services, Inc. → (change of name, 2014‑09‑15) Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Inc. → (change of name, 2021‑09‑21) Emerson Digital Cold Chain, Inc. → (entity conversion, 2023‑06‑22) Copeland Cold Chain LP. Security interests were recorded 2023‑07‑17 in favor of Royal Bank of Canada, U.S. Bank Trust Company, N.A., and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

Caveats: The inventor name "Magseh Sarma" is reproduced literally as it appears in the source; it may be a rendering of a different spelling, but I have not auto‑corrected it. The 2013‑06‑03 date is the continuation filing date; the effective filing date for prior‑art purposes is the May 28, 2010 parent filing (and May 29, 2009 for the provisional).

Abstract (as printed)

A method and system is provided that includes a controller that operates at least one piece of equipment according to setpoint values and a setpoint monitor in communication with the controller. The setpoint monitor receives setpoint modifications, each corresponding to a modification of one of the setpoint values. The setpoint monitor calculates an expected change in energy consumption of the piece of equipment for each setpoint modification and ranks the setpoint modifications based on the expected change in energy consumption. A first terminal in communication with the setpoint monitor displays the setpoint modifications in an order based on the ranking and receives input for each setpoint modification indicating approval or rejection.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The asserted claim set consists of two independent claims (claims 1 and 8) plus dependent claims 2–7 and 9–14. Uncertainty flag: this claim text comes from the pre‑grant publication US 2013/0289745 A1 (same application 13/908,625); the granted patent's claims were truncated in the authoritative text provided to me, so the granted claims could differ in wording. Treat the below as the claim structure of the application that issued as the '908 patent.

Claim 1 – System (apparatus):

• A controller runs at least one piece of equipment according to multiple setpoint values.
• A setpoint monitor receives multiple setpoint modifications (each a change to one setpoint).
• The monitor calculates an expected change in energy consumption for each modification.
• The monitor ranks the modifications based on that expected energy change.
• A first terminal shows the modifications in ranked order and accepts approve/reject input for each one.

Claim 8 – Method:

• Same substance as claim 1, expressed as steps performed by the setpoint monitor and first terminal: receive setpoint modifications → calculate expected energy‑consumption change for each → rank them → display in ranked order → receive approve/reject input for each.

Notable dependents (context for the independent claims):

• Claims 2–3 / 9–10: a second terminal that indicates a rejection and receives agree/disagree input — this implements the "challenged/contested" contractor‑dispute workflow.
• Claims 4–5 / 11–12: compare the expected energy change to a predetermined threshold and generate an alert.
• Claims 6–7 / 13–14: categorize modifications against the threshold, including an "urgent" category.

CAFC 2026 dockets / litigation

I found no authoritative record of any CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 docket, appeal, IPR, or district‑court case involving U.S. Patent 8,761,908. Specific points:

• Searches for the patent number in litigation and docket contexts returned only unrelated matters (e.g., Barco v. Yealink, Wireless Ink '342 patent IPRs, and a Purdue/Accord ANDA case citing a different '908 patent, U.S. 11,304,908).
• A 2026 Court of International Trade matter, Copeland LP v. United States, 1:26‑cv‑03112, names Copeland Cold Chain LP but concerns customs/tariff issues, not this patent, and is not a CAFC appeal.
• Note the identifier‑confusion risk: several different patents share the trailing digits "908" (e.g., 11,304,908; 9,116,908), so search results referencing "the '908 patent" generally do not refer to 8,761,908.

I cannot rule out an unreported or recently filed action given the limits of my search tools; the absence of results is not proof of absence, but I have no evidence of litigation to report.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 8761908. Let me search relevant sources.

The first searches returned results for unrelated patents (notably the '190 patent in Juno v. Kite, which is U.S. 7,446,190 — a different patent). Let me search more specifically.

Let me search patent-specific litigation databases directly.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 8,761,908

Summary: No patent infringement litigation identified

Based on my searches of patent-litigation resources (Unified Patents, CourtListener/RECAP, PACER-derived aggregators such as Docket Alarm and UniCourt, Justia/CAFC, and general web sources), I could not identify any lawsuit — district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit — in which U.S. Patent No. 8,761,908 was asserted as a patent-in-suit, challenged, or otherwise placed at issue.

Importantly, I found no case records matching this specific patent number. Per the operating rules, I am reporting this literally rather than substituting a similar number.

Critical caution — do not conflate this with the Juno v. Kite "′190 patent"

My searches repeatedly surfaced a well-known patent case featuring a "′190 patent," but that is a different patent and must not be confused with U.S. 8,761,908:

• The case is Juno Therapeutics, Inc. v. Kite Pharma, Inc. (a CAR-T / Yescarta® dispute). The "′190 patent" there is U.S. Patent No. 7,446,190 ("Nucleic Acids Encoding Chimeric T Cell Receptors") — see the C.D. Cal. case 2:17-cv-07639 and the Supreme Court cert. materials referencing it.
• That patent number (7,446,190) is not U.S. 8,761,908. Treating it as the same would be an auto-correction error, which I am instructed to avoid.

About U.S. 8,761,908 (context, per the patent text you supplied)

• Title: "System and method for monitoring and evaluating equipment operating parameter modifications"
• Application: 13/908,625; filed 2013-06-03; granted 2014-06-24
• Priority date: 2009-05-29 (continuation of Ser. No. 12/789,562, filed 2010-05-28, claiming benefit of provisional 61/182,436)
• Inventors: E. Todd Clark; Magseh Sarma; James R. Mitchell
• Original assignee: Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Inc.; current assignee listed as Copeland Cold Chain LP; secured interests recorded in favor of Royal Bank of Canada, U.S. Bank Trust Company, and Wells Fargo
• Anticipated expiration: 2030-05-28; status: Active

The assignee chain (Emerson → Emerson Digital Cold Chain → Copeland Cold Chain LP) involves routine ownership/assignment and security-interest recordations, not adversarial litigation. I found no litigation filings associated with the patent.

Limitations / caveats

• My search coverage is not exhaustive; private litigation databases (e.g., full Docket Alarm, Lex Machina, Bloomberg Law) and up-to-the-minute PACER dockets were not directly accessible in this session, and the searches I was able to run may have missed sealed, very recent, or unreported matters.
• I could not confirm a negative with absolute certainty; I can only report that no litigation was found in the sources searched.
• To verify definitively, the authoritative free check would be USPTO Patent Center / Patent Assignment records, PACER, Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), and Google Patents' "Litigation" tab for this patent, searching specifically for patent number 8,761,908 (not 7,446,190).

Conclusion: As of the sources available, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,761,908. If you have a lead on a specific case (party names or district), I can attempt to verify it against that case number directly.

I'll verify the ODP default against public PTAB and Federal Circuit sources before drafting.

Let me run a few more targeted searches before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,761,908: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical list from the USPTO Open Data Portal — reports no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent web searches of PTAB petition/E2E material, Docket Alarm, and Federal Circuit sources surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent (I found only unrelated "908" patents — e.g., Power Integrations' U.S. 7,208,908, PACT XPP's U.S. 9,250,908, and various '908 provisional/patent references — none of which is US 8,761,908). One search result did reproduce Google Patents' front-matter list of references cited for the '908 patent, and another reproduced the family/reference association used by Google Patents; neither indicates a validity proceeding against this patent.

Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom-line defensive posture: This is a negative finding, and it cuts against the defendant. Unlike the "patent survived two IPRs and is hardened" or "claims canceled" scenarios, there is no PTAB record to lean on at all — no claim has been canceled, no claim has been tested, and no institution decision or FWD exists to quote. A defendant asserting invalidity grounds here cannot point to any Board finding, and no § 315(e) estoppel has been created by anyone. Practically, that means the entire invalidity case would have to be built from scratch in the district court (or a first-ever AIA petition), with no help from the Office.

One important caveat for the reader: the absence of proceedings is a factual observation as of the ODP ingest date, not proof of non-existence. Petitions filed but not yet indexed (or older, differently-captioned filings the ODP hasn't ingested) would not appear. I flag below that the record should be re-run against PTAB E2E/Center for PTAB Proceedings before relying on this in a brief.

Per-proceeding sections

None. No proceeding numbers are listed in the structured data, and I will not invent any.

To be explicit, the following categories are all empty for US 8,761,908:

• Inter Partes Review (IPR): none
• Post-Grant Review (PGR): none
• Covered Business Method (CBM) review: none

No judgment panel, petition grounds, institution decision, Final Written Decision, settlement/termination, or Federal Circuit appeal can be reported, because none exists on the record for this patent.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested claims. Because no AIA trial has ever been instituted against US 8,761,908, every claim that the patent contains is UNTESTED at the PTAB. There are no canceled independent claims and no canceled dependents. (For the avoidance of doubt: I am not asserting a claim count or claim-by-claim list here, because the file text as furnished to me describes the invention by reference to "a plurality of setpoint values" and the embodiments — refrigeration, HVAC, lighting, ACH — without reproducing the full claim set. Any statement of "claims 1–5 survive" or "claim 1 is dead" would be fabrication. The honest answer is: the claims have never been adjudicated at the Board.) In the district court, of course, the ordinary presumption of validity and clear-and-convincing standard apply in full.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel in play — that provision bars a petitioner (and its privies) who obtained a final written decision from re-litigating grounds it raised or reasonably could have raised. With no FWD, no petitioner is estopped, and neither is any defendant. That is a double-edged fact: it means every prior-art ground remains available to a defendant (no estoppel lockout), but it also means the Office has never blessed or rejected any ground, so there is no free "second bite" in either direction. Notably, the common defensive shortcut — "we'll just ride the petitioner's IPR and raise the same art" — is unavailable, because there is no petitioner and no IPR.

Pattern signals.

• Same-petitioner serial filings: none — there are no petitioners.
• Patent-owner PTAB appeals: none can exist without a Board decision; no Federal Circuit appeal of an FWD is on record.
• Defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.): nothing in the search record ties this patent to a defensive-aggregator challenge. I found no evidence of a Unified Patents petition against US 8,761,908 and will not speculate.
• Prosecution/ownership context that may explain the quiet: the patent is a continuation of Application 12/789,562 (filed 2010-05-28), claiming benefit of Provisional 61/182,436 (filed 2009-05-29); it issued 2014-06-24; it has passed through name changes to Copeland Cold Chain LP and is encumbered by security interests to Royal Bank of Canada, U.S. Bank Trust, and Wells Fargo (recorded 2023-07-17 and 2024-07-09, per Google Patents' reassignment entries). The anticipated expiration is 2030-05-28, which materially shortens the runway for any would-be petitioner and is a plausible reason no challenger has bothered to file.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not brief this as "the patent has been narrowed." It has not been narrowed by any AIA proceeding. If a demand letter or complaint asserts this patent, the accurate framing is: no PTAB challenge exists; validity has never been tested at the Office; the patent stands with its original claims and the statutory presumption of validity.
2. Verify before you rely. Re-run the confirmation against USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's proceeding search using patent number 8761908, and cross-check CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) and the Federal Circuit docket for any appeal from a Board decision. If ODP and E2E both return nothing, the negative finding is defensible; a single-source negative is not.
3. Check the litigation track separately from the PTAB track. The absence of PTAB activity does not mean the patent is unasserted. Search Docket Alarm / CourtListener / RECAP for district-court complaints naming U.S. 8,761,908, and check whether any defendant served with such a complaint has been time-barred from filing an IPR (35 U.S.C. § 315(b) — one year from service). If a defendant is still within the window, filing the first IPR on this patent is a genuinely open strategic option, and the patent's 2030-05-28 expiry means the schedule is tight enough that an early petition maximizes trial-stage leverage.
4. If you are currently being asserted against: because no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists, all § 102/§ 103 grounds over patents and printed publications remain available both in district court and in a first-filed IPR. Conversely, because the patent has never been tested, expect the patent owner to emphasize the presumption of validity and the absence of any adverse Board findings; be prepared to rebut that framing with the point that the Office has simply never had this art before it — a distinction you will need to establish on the merits, not from the PTAB record.

Confidence and sourcing note

• Confidence in "zero proceedings": moderate-to-high for the ODP-covered period and for indexed public filings; not absolute, because a petition that is not yet ingested by ODP and not surfaced by my searches would be invisible to this analysis.
• I found no Primary Reference (FWD), institution decision, judge panel, settlement, or Federal Circuit docket number to cite for US 8,761,908, and I have deliberately left those fields empty rather than populate them speculatively.
• The "908" hits returned by search belong to different patents (7,208,908; 9,250,908; the '908 provisional in IPR2022-01528/01563/01564), and I have not attributed any of them to US 8,761,908.

I'll gather what I can from the record. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Let me dig for the actual reel/frame records and litigation history.

US 8761908 — Assignment & Ownership Chain Analysis

Data-integrity note up front. I was unable to retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center records (reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record fields) for this patent within this session — the Assignment Center is behind an interactive search UI that my retrieval tools could not query, and no third-party mirror surfaced the reel/frame data. I will not fabricate reel/frame or correspondent values. What follows is reconstructed from the authoritative patent text (Google Patents legal-events block, which is populated from the USPTO assignment database) plus corroborating public sources, with the reel/frame and correspondent fields explicitly marked as gaps. The assignment events, dates, conveyance types, assignors and assignees below are taken verbatim from the fetched record; only the reel/frame and correspondent columns are missing.

Inventors

• The priority provisional, U.S. Provisional 61/182,436, filed 2009-05-29, and the parent non-provisional, Ser. No. 12/789,562, filed 2010-05-28, both list Applicant: EMERSON RETAIL SERVICES, INC. The three inventors were therefore the retail-site-controls engineering team of Emerson Retail Services, Inc. (the entity lineage that descends from Computer Process Controls, Inc., d/b/a Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions).
• Spelling variance flagged (not auto-corrected): the Google Patents "Inventor" field reads "Magseh Sarma" while the disclosure/Justia listing reads "Magesh Sarma." Treat as a transcription variant in the source feed, not two people.
• Unusual-pattern check — departure of inventors within 12 months of filing: not determinable. I found no public evidence of any inventor leaving the assignee in 2010–2011. The patent family was expanded, not abandoned: a continuation (Ser. No. 14/310,196) was filed 2014-06-20, four days before this patent issued (it later granted as US 9,395,711, which is the continuation shown in the record). That is the opposite of a fire-sale precursor.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Inc. (original assignee per Google Patents; the 2013-06-03 filing was made under this name).
• Lineage of that name: Computer Process Controls, Inc. → Emerson Retail Services, Inc. → (change of name) Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Inc. → (change of name) Emerson Digital Cold Chain, Inc. → (entity conversion) Copeland Cold Chain LP. The change-of-name from Emerson Retail Services, Inc. was recorded at the USPTO on 2014-09-15 — i.e., after the 2014-06-24 issue date, which is why the two names appear in overlapping windows in the record.
• Primary line of business: retail facility control and monitoring — site controllers (the specification names the Einstein and E2 controllers, including the E2 RX refrigeration, E2 BX HVAC, and E2 CX convenience-store controllers, "available from Computer Process Controls, Inc., 1640 Airport Road, Suite #104, Kennesaw, Ga."), refrigeration/HVAC/lighting/anti-condensate-heat control, and the web-hosted setpoint-monitoring service that is the subject of this patent.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, on the face of the record. The patent's FIGS. 3–36 are screenshots of the assignee's own production web application; the claimed setpoint-monitor-and-server with an approve/reject terminal is the assignee's commercial site-monitoring platform. The current owner continues to ship cold-chain monitoring products (see NPE analysis below).
• Current status: Active and operating. Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. The owning entity was renamed twice and is now Copeland Cold Chain LP, part of Copeland — the business Blackstone acquired a majority stake in from Emerson (letter of Feb 9 2024 confirms "the acquisition by Blackstone of a majority stake in Copeland, formerly Climate Technologies, from Emerson"). Copeland reported ~$5.0B FY2022 net sales and continues filing new patent applications and FCC equipment certifications under the Copeland Cold Chain LP name. The Google Patents status is Active, with anticipated expiration 2030-05-28 (20 years from the 2010-05-28 parent filing).

Assignment timeline

Gap: reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record were not retrievable in this session (see data-integrity note). Every other field is from the recorded legal-events feed. I make no claim about which attorney or firm filed these recordings.

1. 2014-09-15 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Change of Name (see document for details)
• Assignor: EMERSON RETAIL SERVICES, INC.
• Assignee: EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES RETAIL SOLUTIONS, INC.
• Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot be assessed for recurrence
• Context: Internal corporate renaming only; no change in beneficial ownership.

2. 2021-09-21 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Change of Name (see document for details)
• Assignor: Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Inc.
• Assignee: EMERSON DIGITAL COLD CHAIN, INC.
• Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot be assessed for recurrence
• Context: Internal corporate renaming in preparation for the Emerson climate-business carve-out; no change in beneficial ownership.

3. 2023-06-22 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Entity Conversion
• Assignor: EMERSON DIGITAL COLD CHAIN, INC.
• Assignee: COPELAND COLD CHAIN LP
• Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot be assessed for recurrence
• Context: Corporate entity conversion (Delaware corporation → Delaware-chartered limited partnership) as the Climate Technologies business was stood up as Copeland under Blackstone majority ownership. Not a third-party asset sale.

4. 2023-07-17 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Interest (see document for details)
• Assignor: COPELAND COLD CHAIN LP
• Assignee: ROYAL BANK OF CANADA, AS COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Securitization/credit facility — collateral grant in the acquisition financing; lien, not an ownership transfer.

5. 2023-07-17 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Interest (see document for details)
• Assignor: COPELAND COLD CHAIN LP
• Assignee: U.S. BANK TRUST COMPANY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS NOTES COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Notes collateral agency — financing encumbrance.

6. 2023-07-17 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Interest (see document for details)
• Assignor: COPELAND COLD CHAIN LP
• Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Financing encumbrance recorded same day as #4 and #5 — a single debt package, not three separate deals.

7. 2024-07-09 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Security Interest (see document for details)
• Assignor: COPELAND COLD CHAIN LP
• Assignee: U.S. BANK TRUST COMPANY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS NOTES COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Additional/re-recorded notes collateral filing, ~12 months after the initial 2023-07-17 package.

Possible unfetched earlier link: the inventor→Emerson Retail Services, Inc. employment/assignment instrument (expected circa 2009–2010, pre-issue) does not appear in the legal-events feed and I could not retrieve it. It is a routine, non-adverse link if it exists; do not read its absence as a gap in the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8761908
    2009 : Provisional filed by Emerson Retail Services
    2010 : Priority non provisional filed
    2013 : Continuation filed as app 13 908 625
    2014 : Patent issued
         : Change of name recorded at USPTO
    2021 : Change of name to Emerson Digital Cold Chain
    2023 : Entity conversion to Copeland Cold Chain LP
         : Three security interests recorded
    2024 : Further notes collateral security interest

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
   The 2014, 2021 and 2023-06-22 events are Change of Name and Entity Conversion conveyances, not sales. Copeland Cold Chain LP is a Delaware-chartered foreign limited partnership with general partner Copesub GP 1, LLC, principal office 1065 Big Shanty Rd NW, Suite 100, Kennesaw, GA 30144 — the same Kennesaw, GA campus as the original Computer Process Controls / Emerson Retail Solutions operation — and, per the FCC filing, it designates itself as US agent for service of process with a named in-house contact (Amy Childress, @copeland.com). Its registered agent (Corporation Service Company) is a routine Delaware-LP accommodation and is not by itself evidence of a shell. It ships products and files its own FCC equipment certifications and trademark applications.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
   No assignee in the chain matches any name on the supplied list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). The chain terminates at an operating HVAC-R manufacturer.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — CANNOT BE ASSESSED (data gap).
   The correspondent-of-record fields were not retrievable. Because the decisive test is recurrence, and a single appearance is not a finding, I decline to score this either way. Action item for a follow-up pass: pull reels behind items 1–7 in Assignment Center and check whether one firm/attorney filed all seven — for a single-parent corporate lineage that would be expected and benign, but it is worth confirming.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
   Three intra-family events spread across 2014 → 2021 → 2023-06, i.e., nine years. No chained LLCs, no shared registered-agent addresses across unrelated assignees, no sub-24-month cascade. The only clustering is the three same-day security interests on 2023-07-17, which are one financing package.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
   I found no infringement suit naming US 8761908 by any assignee in the chain. The nearest activity — Copeland LP v. United States, Ct. Int'l Trade 1:26-cv-03112 — is an IEEPA-tariff refund action in which Copeland Cold Chain LP is a plaintiff-against-the-government, not an IP assertion. Copeland's patent litigation activity (e.g., the historic Copeland v. Bradley's Electric compressor actions) is ordinary operating-company competitor litigation on compressor patents, not on this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
   No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Emerson Retail Services, Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Emerson Digital Cold Chain, or Copeland Cold Chain LP. The ownership change was a PE carve-out (Blackstone majority stake in Climate Technologies), i.e., a solvent sponsor transaction, the opposite of a distressed sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
   The 2023-06-22 Entity Conversion kept the patent inside the same corporate enterprise that practices it; there is no transfer to an unrelated licensing vehicle asserting on the operating company's behalf. No SEC 10-K/8-K disclosure of an NPE transfer exists because none occurred — Copeland's own filings state the IP remains owned within the Copeland group (Emerson's 10-K "Patents, Trademarks and Licenses" language is generic IP-ownership boilerplate, and the Copeland affiliate letter confirms a name change, not a divestiture).

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
   The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at an operating manufacturer, which is the inverse of neutralization.

Encumbrance note (worth recording, not an NPE signal): the patent is subject to at least four recorded security interests (three on 2023-07-17 in favor of Royal Bank of Canada, U.S. Bank Trust Company as notes collateral agent, and Wells Fargo; one further U.S. Bank notes-collateral filing on 2024-07-09). Any freedom-to-operate or acquisition diligence on this asset must clear those liens, but they are collateral grants and do not affect the ownership chain or the assertion posture.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with one explicit caveat. The chain is a clean, single-enterprise corporate lineage: Emerson Retail Services, Inc. → Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions, Inc. (change of name, recorded 2014-09-15) → Emerson Digital Cold Chain, Inc. (change of name, 2021-09-21) → Copeland Cold Chain LP (entity conversion, 2023-06-22), encumbered only by financing security interests (2023-07-17 ×3; 2024-07-09). There is zero NPE signal: no shell LLC, no known asserter, no cascade, no bankruptcy, no privateering, no defensive aggregator, and no suit on this patent. The current owner is a genuine $5B-revenue HVAC-R manufacturer whose products (site controllers and cold-chain monitoring) practise the claims. Caveat: the "asserting against actual competitors" prong is unverified for this patent specifically — I found no litigation naming US 8761908 — so the more precise characterization is operating company retention rather than an active assertion campaign on this asset. If the rubric is applied strictly to the assertion prong alone, the honest fallback is no NPE signal / operating-company holding, which is not one of the listed verdicts.

Confidence driver: the strength here is the conveyance types — "Change of Name" and "Entity Conversion" are the two conveyance codes that are structurally incapable of being NPE transfers, and they account for 3 of the 7 recorded events, with the remaining 4 being lender collateral filings naming bank collateral agents, not patent-holding entities.

Verification links (reel/frame and correspondent must be read here — I could not extract them):

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 8761908)
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 8761908)
• Google Patents legal events (source used above) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8761908/en
• Copeland affiliate/entity-name-change letter (Emerson → Copeland mapping) — https://www.copeland.cn/en-us/affiliates

I'll research US patent 8761908 and its cited prior art references.

I have the patent text and the full prosecution reference list. Now let me verify details of the most relevant cited references.

Let me verify several additional cited references relevant to the energy-consumption/ranking aspects.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,761,908 B2

1. The patent under review

Independent claims at issue

• Claim 1 (system): controller operating equipment per setpoint values + setpoint monitor receiving setpoint modifications + calculating an expected change in energy consumption for each modification + ranking the modifications based on expected change + first terminal displaying them in ranked order and receiving approve/reject input.
• Claim 8 (method): the method counterpart of claim 1.
• Dependent claims 2–7 / 9–14: second terminal reporting rejection (2, 3, 9, 10); threshold comparison → alert (4, 5, 11, 12); categorization / "urgent" classification (6, 7, 13, 14).

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8761908/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/8761908

2. The "citations" on US 8,761,908 — scope of the list

The prosecution file lists on the order of 200 U.S. and foreign patent documents plus NPL. Two important framing points before the substantive mapping:

1. Because 8,761,908 is a continuation, its cited-art list is inherited/overlapping with its parent family (12/789,562 → US 8,473,106; 14/310,196 → US 9,395,711) and with the long-established Computer Process Controls / Emerson refrigeration-monitoring portfolio. Much of the list (1940s–1990s compressor/diagnostic art) is contextual art, not art directed at the claimed ranking-to-energy-consumption feature.

2. The patent expressly incorporates by reference three items, which are therefore the first-place candidates to check for § 102:

   • U.S. Pat. No. 6,889,173 ("System For Monitoring Optimal Equipment Operating Parameters")
   • U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0020426 (same title/family)
   • U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0242200 ("Enterprise Control and Monitoring System and Method")

3. Tier 1 — Most relevant references

3.1 U.S. Pat. No. 6,889,173 B2 — Singh

• Full citation: Singh, Abtar. System for monitoring optimal equipment operating parameters. U.S. Patent 6,889,173 B2. Appl. 10/286,419, filed 2002‑10‑31; granted 2005‑05‑03. Assignee: Computer Process Controls, Inc. https://uspto.report/patent/grant/6889173
• Brief description: Controllers (e.g., CPC "Einstein" refrigeration controller) monitor equipment setpoints for refrigeration, HVAC, lighting, ACH and defrost systems. A remote monitor periodically communicates with the controllers over a network, stores setpoint information and records base/benchmark setpoints, and compares present setpoint information against the stored benchmark to identify changed setpoints. Setpoints are the "optimized values… determined during a system performance analysis" (Building System Performance Analysis, prov. 60/287,458).
• Claims it potentially bears on: Supplies the preamble/first elements of claims 1 and 8 — controller operating equipment per setpoint values; setpoint monitor receiving setpoint modifications; benchmark-vs-current comparison. On its face it does not disclose quantified calculation of an expected change in energy consumption, ranking modifications on that basis, ranked display, or the two-user approve/reject workflow. → Strong § 102(a)/§ 103 art against the preamble elements; not a full anticipator of claim 1 or 8.

3.2 U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0020426 A1 — Singh

• Full citation: Singh, Abtar. System for monitoring optimal equipment operating parameters. U.S. Pub. 2006/0020426 A1, published 2006‑01‑26 (family continuation of 6,889,173; later US 8,700,444 B2, app. 12/955,355). https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060020426
• Brief description: Same disclosure as 6,889,173 in published form; explicitly describes setpoints (suction pressure, condenser set point, EPR valve pressure, HVAC cooling/heating/dehumidification, defrost, lighting) and the monitored setpoint-change workflow with benchmark values.
• Claims it potentially bears on: Same elements as 3.1 (claims 1, 8 preamble; also the benchmark concept underlying claims 4/6 categorizations). Published before the 2009 priority date, so it is available as § 102(a)/(b) art.

3.3 U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0242200 A1 — Horowitz, Strawser, Clark, Azurmendi

• Full citation: Horowitz, Stephen A.; Strawser, Bridget; Clark, E. Todd; Azurmendi, Alain. Enterprise control and monitoring system and method. U.S. Pub. 2006/0242200 A1, published 2006‑10‑26; filed 2006‑03‑30; priority 2005‑02‑21 (PCT/US06/05917; prov. 60/654,719). Assignee: Computer Process Controls, Inc. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060242200 ; PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ea/03/4f/37bdd14f7a8217/US20060242200A1.pdf
• Brief description: A server networked with building system controllers (refrigeration, ACH, lighting, HVAC, fire alarm, CO alarm) plus a database and clients. Discloses grouping controllers into control-system/site groups, performing activities (backup, restore, send data to controller, retrieve logs) across selected groups, a navigational tree, per-user access privileges, and an activity history. Grant counterparts: US 7,885,961 B2 and US 7,885,959 B2 (both 2011‑02‑08).
• Claims it potentially bears on: Claims 1, 8 (networked controller + server/terminal architecture, user-privileged terminal interaction) and, more pointedly, the remote "send data"/revert concept that the sibling patent US 9,395,711 claims. Note the overlapping inventor E. Todd Clark — relevant to § 102(e)/§ 103 inventorship analysis and potentially a § 102(e)(2) reference as to a different inventive entity. It does not disclose energy-consumption ranking or approve/reject adjudication.

4. Tier 2 — Setpoint/refrigeration monitoring family (strong secondary art)

These share the CPC/Emerson disclosure lineage and are directed at equipment monitoring, benchmarks and diagnostics; useful as § 103 secondary references against the "setpoint modification vs. benchmark" concepts:

(Source for the cited list: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/8761908 ; also https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8473106](/patent/8473106))

5. Tier 3 — Enterprise/energy-management and NPL art (as listed)

The cited list also includes classic energy/building-management art such as US 6,178,362 (Woolard, "energy management"), US 6,088,659 (Kelley, utility/meter monitoring), US 6,594,620 (Kikuchi), US 6,785,592 (Smith et al.), US 6,813,611 (Seem), US 6,996,441 (Tobias), US 7,337,191 (Haeberle), and published applications 2002/0082924 (Koether), 2005/0126190 (Lifson), 2009/0093916 (Parsonnet). These are generally directed to energy monitoring, building control and/or demand management and are relevant as § 103 secondary art for the "expected change in energy consumption" and reporting/scorecard features, but none of them, standing alone, discloses the complete combination of claim 1 or 8.

Non-patent literature (NPL) cited includes the Computer Process Controls UltraSite User's Guides (1996–1999), the "Building System Performance Analysis" materials, and examiner search/office-action documents for PCT/US2010/036601 — useful as system prior-art/printed-publication evidence (see https://patents.justia.com/patent/8473106).

6. Claim-by-claim § 102 assessment (bottom line)

For a reference to anticipate under 35 U.S.C. § 102, it must disclose every element of the claim in a single reference. On the record available:

Overall conclusion: The prior-art citations on US 8,761,908 do not contain a single reference that anticipates independent claim 1 or claim 8. The three expressly incorporated references — US 6,889,173, US 2006/0020426, and US 2006/0242200 — are the most relevant because they teach the controller/setpoint-monitor/benchmark/building-system architecture that forms the preamble of those claims; they become materially important as § 103 primary references (optionally combined with energy-monitoring art such as US 6,178,362, or the Singh refrigeration-monitoring family) rather than as standalone § 102 anticipators for the ranking/energy-calculation limitations.

Caveats

• I could not open the raw USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" pane directly; the reference list and dates used here are drawn from Google Patents and uspto.report reproductions at the URLs above. Where a "publication vs. filing" date is involved, I have labeled it explicitly.
• Reference characterizations for Tier 3 documents (Woolard, Kelley, Kikuchi, Smith, Seem, Tobias, Haeberle) are based on their titles/family positioning and general subject matter; I have not independently read each specification, and a definitive § 102 element-by-element mapping for those would require the full texts. I flag this rather than overstate.
• The prior-art date 2009‑05‑29 is Google's stated assumption; treat as non-authoritative pending verification.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling the patent's actual claim set and its cited prior art (both the references it cites and the references the examiner cited against it).

Let me get the independent apparatus claims and the full cited-references list (including any non-patent literature).

Let me check for any PTAB/validity challenges and the examiner's applied references, plus the two incorporated-by-reference family members.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,761,908 B2

"System and method for monitoring and evaluating equipment operating parameter modifications"
35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA)

1. Framing: what law applies, and what the "prior art section" of this page gives us

Effective filing date / governing statute. The '908 patent (App. No. 13/908,625, filed 2013‑06‑03) is a straight continuation of App. No. 12/789,562 (filed 2010‑05‑28, now U.S. 8,473,106), which claims benefit of Provisional No. 61/182,436 (filed 2009‑05‑29). Google Patents lists the priority date as 2009‑05‑29 and an anticipated expiration of 2030‑05‑28 (US8761908B2). Because the '908 is a continuation adding no new matter, and the parent predates 16 March 2013, pre‑AIA §§ 102/103 govern; the references below therefore qualify as prior art on their pre‑2013 publication/issue dates. The face of the patent lists the publication date for each cited U.S. document (uspto.report).

What "the Prior Art section of this page" contains. Two distinct bodies of prior art are on this page:

1. Applicant‑admitted / incorporated art in the Background. The specification expressly incorporates: "System For Monitoring Optimal Equipment Operating Parameters," U.S. Pat. No. 6,889,173 (Singh, issued 2005‑05‑03); U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0020426 (published 2006‑01‑26); and U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0242200, "Enterprise Control and Monitoring System and Method," assigned to Computer Process Controls, Inc. (published 2006‑10‑26). The package also admits as background that "the amount of power consumed by a particular piece of equipment may be affected by the setpoint value" and that "a modification of a setpoint value may result in increased or decreased energy consumption."
2. The "Referenced Cited" list on the face of the patent — a large body of refrigeration/HVAC control and energy‑management art, including U.S. 6,785,592 (Smith); 6,904,385 (Budike); 6,965,295 (Carr); 6,996,441 (Tobias); 7,039,532 (Hunter); 6,813,811 and 6,223,544 (Seem); 6,334,093 (More); 6,453,687 / 6,403,258 / US 2001/0025349 and US 2002/0000092 (Sharood); 7,027,870 and 6,892,546 (Singh); 6,775,594? (not listed) — plus the Later‑art Sanders‑family Singh patents (7,594,407; 7,596,959; 7,644,591; 7,753,853; 8,065,886) (uspto.report).

Verification caveat. I was able to open the '908 itself and its published application (Justia, Justia '745, FreePatentsOnline) but not the full text of the individual cited references in this session. Characterizations of those references below rest on their titles/classes as printed on the face of the '908 and on general knowledge of the field, and should be confirmed against the documents themselves before any paper is filed. Likewise, I could not retrieve the examiner's applied references from the file wrapper of 13/908,625, and I found no IPR/PGR of the '908 itself.

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

A POSITA here is a controls/energy engineer (or equivalent) with at least a bachelor's degree in mechanical/electrical/computer engineering and ~2–4 years' experience with commercial refrigeration, HVAC, lighting, or ACH control systems for multi‑site retail, including: (a) building controllers such as the E2/Einstein line named in the specification; (b) polling/telemetry of setpoints over a network to a central server; and (c) standard energy‑estimation relationships for compressors, condensers and anti‑sweat heaters (manufacturer performance curves; bin/degree‑day methods; the very "1 PSI on a suction group ≈ 1.5 % energy" and "10‑ton rack ≈ 15 kW" heuristics the specification recites at ¶¶ describing FIG. 38a).

3. Claim 1 decomposed (the independent apparatus claim)

Claim 8 is the method counterpart (same elements, "with"‑clause format). Claims 9–14 are dependent and were visible in the published application: 9 — second terminal outputs a rejection indicator; 10 — second terminal receives agree/disagree input; 11 — compare expected change to a predetermined threshold and generate an alert; 12 — receive the alert at a second terminal; 13 — categorize based on the comparison; 14 — categorize as "urgent" above the threshold (Justia '745). Claims 2–7 are dependent claims whose text I could not retrieve — they are almost certainly narrower variants of the ranking/threshold/notification features and should be read into the analysis below where they overlap with 9–14.

4. Grounds of rejection under § 103

Ground 1 — Singh '173 in view of an energy‑estimation reference (e.g., Smith '592, Carr '295, or Budike '385)

Singh '173 / US 2006/0020426 (applicant‑admitted, incorporated by reference) discloses a system for monitoring optimal equipment operating parameters in exactly this environment: remote retail sites with refrigeration/HVAC equipment controllers operating on setpoints, a central monitor that collects the operating parameters, compares current values against desired/reference (benchmark) values, and produces exceptions for a remote supervisor to act on. That maps to 1a, 1b and the substance of 1e (an "action" taken on each exception at a remote terminal).

Smith '592 (energy management and building automation) — and equally Carr '295 ("monitoring and controlling energy usage") or Budike '385 (wireless power control/monitoring) — supplies 1c: computing the energy (kWh/kW) and/or dollar consequence of an equipment operating condition. Tobias '996,441 (HVAC optimization) supplies the refrigeration/HVAC‑specific performance‑based estimate.

For 1d — the ranking step: the primary references establish a plurality of exceptions across many sites; the energy references establish per‑point energy quantification. Ordering a work list by the magnitude of the thing you just quantified is not a new machine or a new result; it is the routine arrangement of a list by a known criterion.

Motivation to combine (KSR/Graham):

• Same field, same problem. All three address remote supervision of retail refrigeration/HVAC energy use; the Background of the '908 itself frames the problem as contractors leaving setpoints in energy‑wasteful states.
• Design incentive / market forces (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417, 421): energy cost and limited reviewer bandwidth. The '908's own UI demonstrates the bandwidth problem — screens full of Pending/Challenged/Contested/Pending‑Fix exceptions, contractor scorecards, "Verification Date" columns, "Notify Contractors" queues. A POSITA facing 100 exceptions a day with 8 hours to review them would predictably sort by estimated impact.
• Known technique to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR): cost/impact‑based triage of exception and alarm lists was already the standard approach in energy management and building‑automation consoles (Hunter '532, Budike '385).
• Reasonable expectation of success: the energy estimates are crude and admitted‑known; nothing in the claim requires accuracy of the estimate, only that it be calculated and used as an ordering key.

Ground 2 — US 2006/0242200 (Enterprise Control and Monitoring) in view of an energy‑quantification reference

The '908's Background expressly incorporates US 2006/0242200 (Computer Process Controls) for an "enterprise control and monitoring system and method." That reference supplies the web‑based, multi‑site enterprise portal in which a central user reviews conditions/exception lists and responds to them — i.e., the "first terminal … displays … and receives input" of 1e, and (with its multi‑user role structure) the second terminal / second actor of claims 9–10. Adding the energy‑calculation engine of Ground 1 (Smith '592 / Carr '295) yields claim 1.

Motivation: KSR's "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions"; plus the explicit design incentive to give the central energy manager a ranked queue rather than an undifferentiated exception dump. This ground is essentially the same rationale as Ground 1 with a better‑fitting primary reference for the web‑terminal limitation, and it is the more robust ground where the patent owner argues that Singh '173 discloses only alarm generation and not a review/approve workflow.

Ground 3 — Applicant‑admitted prior art (AAPA) in the '908 specification, alone or with the cited energy art

The specification itself teaches the calculating step: the "10‑ton rack ≈ 15 kW" figure and the "1 PSI ≈ 1.5 %" rule, plus the FIG. 38a/38b/38c algorithms (active benchmark suction setpoint → effective average benchmark suction pressure → effective average change → rack base load → KW change; the analogous condenser and anti‑sweat‑heater flow charts). This is an express admission that the POSITA at 2009 already knew how to compute an expected kW change from a setpoint change for suction groups, condensers and anti‑sweat heaters. Combined with any multi‑site setpoint‑exception monitor (Singh '173 / '426 / '200 and the '908's own admitted E2 polling architecture), the only remaining step is the ordering of the display — a mere UI ordering.

Where a claim limitation is disclosed in the applicant's own specification as known prior art, it cannot supply the inventive weight need to avoid § 103.

Ground 4 — Against claims 9–14 (second terminal; threshold; alert; "urgent")

• Claims 9–10 (rejection indicator; agree/disagree at second terminal): Singh '173 / us 2006/0020426 + US 2006/0242200 disclose the two‑role workflow — a remote central authority and an on‑site technician/contractor — and the art of dispatching a work order/exception notice to a site technician (see also the Singh remote‑diagnostic family, 7,027,870 / 6,892,546; and Childers 7,330,886 for site‑analysis/exception dispatch). The specific nomenclature "Agree / Disagree" is a labelling choice, not a technical difference.
• Claims 11–14 (threshold comparison, alert, categorization as "urgent"): threshold‑based alarming is the raison d'être of Singh '173's monitoring system; energy‑threshold alerting is taught in Carr '295 and Hunter '532 (alert when demand/consumption exceeds a limit); and priority/severity classification of alarms was notorious in building‑automation and process‑control consoles. Motivation: alert‑fatigue management — the same reason the '908 gives for its "high priority / urgent" category. Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."

5. Where the patent owner will push back — and the rebuttals

6. Objective indicia (Graham factors 2–4)

Nothing in the specification evidences: unexpected results, long‑felt but unsolved need, failure of others, copying, or commercial success attributable to the ranking feature. The description is essentially an operational workflow and a set of UI screenshots (FIGS. 3–36, 41, 47–48). The very short prosecution — filed 2013‑06‑03, published 2013‑10‑31, granted 2014‑06‑24 (~12.7 months) — is consistent with a narrow, workflow‑style claim set that was not hard‑fought, and the '908 was issued while its parent ('473,106, directed to reverting a setpoint to its benchmark) and its child (U.S. 9,395,711) covered adjacent subject matter, suggesting prosecution‑driven claim differentiation rather than technical advance. I found no objective‑indicia evidence in the record I could retrieve.

7. Gaps and things I could not verify

1. Text of claims 2–7 — not retrieved; the analysis above covers them only insofar as they overlap with 9–14.
2. Full text of the cited energy‑management references (Smith '592, Carr '295, Budike '385, Hunter '532, Tobias '441, Sharood) — titles/numbers are taken from the face of the '908 (uspto.report); their internal teachings, exact columns/paragraphs, and their status as § 102(b) art must be confirmed from the documents.
3. Examiner's applied references and any terminal disclaimer in 13/908,625 — not retrieved.
4. No IPR/PGR on the '908 was located; the PTAB and district‑court activity surfaced in searching involves other Emerson/SIPCO and Copeland portfolios, not the '908. Treat the absence of a challenge as absence of evidence, not evidence of validity.
5. Inventor name discrepancy: the Google Patents header lists "Magseh Sarma"; Justia and FreePatentsOnline list "Magesh Sarma." Per the operating rule I am not correcting either — flagging the discrepancy only.

Examiner note (E. Todd Clark / Magseh Sarma / James R. Mitchell): this is a good candidate for re‑examination/§ 103 challenge on the strength of the applicant‑admitted art alone, because the "point of novelty" (1c–1d) is disclosed in the patent's own specification as known engineering practice, leaving only an ordering step and an approve/reject button — classic KSR territory.

Bottom line. Claim 1 would have been obvious over U.S. 6,889,173 (Singh) / US 2006/0020426 in view of an energy‑quantification reference such as U.S. 6,785,592 (Smith), U.S. 6,965,295 (Carr), or U.S. 6,904,385 (Budike), with US 2006/0242200 supplying the multi‑terminal, multi‑role web review workflow; dependent claims 9–14 fall with threshold‑based alerting and alarm‑prioritization art (Hunter '532, Carr '295, and the Singh remote‑diagnostic family). The motivation — triage of a large volume of energy‑impacting setpoint exceptions from remote retail sites, against limited expert review bandwidth and real energy cost — is supplied by the '908's own Background and by the ordinary design incentives recognized in KSR.