US 8786133

I'll search for authoritative information on US 8786133 and check for any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me check specifically for any CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 appeal activity involving this patent.

US Patent 8,786,133 — Analysis Report

Sources used: Google Patents full-text record for US8786133B2 (authoritative full text supplied), CyboEnergy/CyboSoft press releases, Unified Patents / Patexia / Docket Alarm PTAB and district-court docket records returned by web search. I did not have direct credentialed access to USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC electronic docket; findings below rest on the retrieval above. Where I could not confirm something, I say so explicitly.

1. Bibliographic Data

Small discrepancy to flag: Google Patents' legal-events tab records the inventor assignment to General Cybernation Group with an "effective date" of 2009-07-15, one day earlier than the asserted provisional priority date of 2009-07-16. I am reporting both as-found rather than reconciling them.

2. Abstract (as issued)

"A method and apparatus is disclosed for intelligently inverting DC power from DC sources such as photovoltaic (PV) solar modules to single-phase or three-phase AC power to feed the power grid for electricity generation. A number of smart single-input, dual-input, triple-input, quad-input, and multiple-input power inverters in a mixed variety can easily connect to single, dual, triple, quad, and multiple DC power sources, invert the DC power to AC power, and daisy chain together to generate a total power, which is equal to the summation of the AC power supplied by each smart and scalable power inverter of this invention."

3. Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

Note on claim scope: claims 1, 5, and 9 are inverter-internal claims (reciting the boost converter, combiner, MFA microcontroller, line sensing, and solid-state switch). Claims 15 and 19 are broader architecture/method claims that do not require those internal components — they require only a "single DC-AC inverter" per unit with ≥2 DC input ports and daisy-chained AC ports. That difference is the most commercially significant feature of this claim set.

Claim 1 — Single-input daisy-chain inverter system.
A grid-tied system built from many inverters, each having exactly one DC input port, plus an AC input port and AC output port. Each DC input gets one DC source. The units are wired in a daisy chain: unit n's AC output feeds unit n+1's AC input; the first unit's AC input is left open; the last unit's AC output goes to the grid's power service panel. Each unit must contain: (i) a DC-DC boost converter stepping source voltage up to an invertible level; (ii) a DC-AC inverter producing AC above the incoming grid voltage; (iii) an internal AC powerline that parallels the unit's output onto the grid AC; (iv) a load interface circuit filtering high-frequency switching noise; (v) a Model-Free Adaptive (MFA) microcontroller performing boost monitoring/control, MPPT, inversion and grid synchronization, AC current/voltage monitoring, powerline communications, and switching/isolation logic; (vi) a powerline modem coupled through interface circuitry for two-way performance data over the AC line; (vii) a line sensing circuit detecting grid phase and zero-crossing for synchronization; and (viii) a solid-state switch that disconnects the internal powerline from the grid when the unit is not generating.

Claim 5 — Dual-input version.
Same daisy-chain architecture, but each inverter has two DC input ports, one DC source per port, a pair of DC-DC boost converters, and a DC power combiner that parallel-connects the boost outputs so the DC currents sum. Then a single DC-AC inverter, load interface, MFA microcontroller, powerline modem, line sensing circuit, and solid-state switch, as in claim 1. (Claim 5(b) as printed contains an OCR/typographical artifact — "aid AC power output port" — which I have not corrected.)

Claim 9 — Generalized m-input version.
Same as claim 5, generalized: m DC input ports per inverter, where m is an integer ≥ 1, with m boost converters and an m-way DC combiner. This claim expressly covers single-input (m=1), dual (m=2), triple (m=3), quad (m=4), and higher channel counts in one claim, and is the claim family that reads on CyboEnergy's multi-channel CyboInverter products.

Claim 15 — Scalable architecture claim (broadest structural claim).
A scalable grid-tied inversion system in which each inverter has a single DC-AC inverter, at least two DC input ports coupled to that single DC-AC inverter, and an AC input port and AC output port also coupled to that single DC-AC inverter. One DC source per DC input port. Daisy-chained as in claim 1 (first AC input open, last AC output to service panel). Closes with a functional "whereby" clause: the system is incrementally scalable by adding or subtracting DC sources and daisy-chained inverters. Notably, this claim omits the boost converter, MFA microcontroller, modem, line sensing, and solid-state switch limitations of claim 1 — so it is directed at the multiple-input/single-inverter + daisy-chain topology itself.

Claim 19 — Method of making a DC-AC conversion system incrementally scalable.
A method comprising: (a) providing plural DC sources and plural DC-AC inverters, each inverter having a single DC-AC inverter, an AC input port and AC output port coupled to that single DC-AC inverter, and at least two DC input ports coupled to that single DC-AC inverter; (b) connecting at least one DC source to each DC input port; and (c) providing AC power to the grid. Method counterpart to claim 15.

Key dependent claims:

• Claims 2, 6, 10, 16, 20 — output is single-phase AC; Claims 3, 7, 11, 17, 21 — output is three-phase AC.
• Claims 4, 8, 12 — MFA controllers drive the boost converter(s) and MFA optimizers perform MPPT.
• Claim 13 (depends on 9) — main-program loop: on/off gating of the generation circuit, power statistics computation, diagnostics, unit-address assignment, powerline comms, and responding to data-acquisition queries.
• Claim 14 (depends on 13) — interrupt service routine: context save, reading DC/boost/inverter voltage and current plus AC phase/zero-crossing, per-source MPPT, DC-AC inversion and AC synchronization, PWM output, context restore.
• Claim 18 and Claim 24 — an express recitation of connecting a first DC source and a second DC source "different in kind" to different input ports of the same inverter (i.e., mixed source types such as PV + battery on one chassis).
• Claim 22 — daisy-chaining at least two inverters as in the base architecture; Claim 23 — total AC power equals the summation of each inverter's AC contribution.

4. Litigation and PTAB Posture (relevant to any 2026 appeal question)

District court (per Unified Patents / Patexia indices):

PTAB:

• IPR2024-01106 — Hoymiles USA, Inc. et al. v. CyboEnergy, Inc., filed Jun. 27, 2024; challenged claims 15–24; terminated by settlement prior to institution (Oct. 28, 2024); refund of post-institution fees approved Jan. 27, 2026. Marked "Settlement" on the patent page.
• IPR2024-00362 — Altenergy Power System USA v. Smith, James S. (Dec. 26, 2023) — Settlement.
• IPR2024-00360 — Altenergy Power System USA v. Cheng, George Shu-Xing (Dec. 22, 2023) — Procedural Termination.
• A request for reexamination was filed Dec. 19, 2023 per the patent's legal-events record.
• Separately, a Korean IP dispute database entry records CyboEnergy Inc v. Home Depot USA Inc (dispute record dated 2024-12-09) asserting US8786133 and US9331488 against power inverters.

On the specific CAFC 2026 question: I could not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or Rule 36 entry in 2026 involving US 8,786,133, CyboEnergy, Cheng, or the above PTAB proceedings. Targeted searches for a 2026 CyboEnergy Federal Circuit appeal returned unrelated matters (Ontario Energy Board, Federal Court of Australia, Delhi High Court). I therefore report no confirmed CAFC 2026 activity for this patent. Two caveats: (a) the IPR2024-01106 refund activity in January 2026 shows the proceeding remained administratively live into 2026 even after the October 2024 pre-institution settlement; and (b) my search access to the live CAFC docket was indirect, so a very recent or low-visibility appeal cannot be ruled out — that would need to be verified against the CAFC's own PACER/CM-ECF docket and the USPTO PatentCenter prosecution history.

5. Explicit Uncertainties

1. No direct USPTO/CAFC database query was performed — findings derive from Google Patents, Unified Patents, Patexia, and Docket Alarm secondary records as returned by search.
2. Conflicting docket details exist between sources for N.D. Cal. 4:23-cv-06121 vs. 5:23-cv-06121 and for the filing date of 5:23-cv-06121 (2023 vs. Nov. 18, 2025). I have not resolved these.
3. The PTAB petitioner naming in IPR2024-00362 and IPR2024-00360 ("v. Smith, James S." / "v. Cheng, George Shu-Xing") appears to reflect the patent's named inventors rather than CyboEnergy, Inc.; the patent page labels those as Altenergy-initiated proceedings. This naming inconsistency is as-reported and is not auto-corrected here.
4. Claim 5(b) contains the string "aid AC power output port," reproduced literally above.
5. The 2009-07-15 vs. 2009-07-16 assignment-effective-date discrepancy noted in §1 is unreconciled.

I'll research litigation involving US 8,786,133 using multiple sources.

I have solid initial results. Let me dig into the specific cases and outcomes.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,786,133

Bottom line: US 8,786,133 ("the '133 patent," titled Smart and scalable power inverters, filed 2010‑07‑15, priority 2009‑07‑16, issued 2014‑07‑22, current assignee CyboEnergy, Inc., adjusted expiration 2032‑06‑07, claims 1–24) is real, actively asserted litigation property. Plaintiff CyboEnergy, Inc. has filed at least eight district‑court infringement suits in which the '133 patent was pled, plus three PTAB inter partes review proceedings tied to the '133 patent/its family. CyboEnergy almost always pairs the '133 patent with a sibling patent (U.S. 9,331,488 or U.S. 9,331,489). Results so far have been mixed, with a notable early pleadings loss on the '133 patent and several voluntary dismissals/settlements.

A. District court cases in which US 8,786,133 was asserted

1. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Sensata, Inc. — filed October 15, 2021

• Jurisdiction: Not confirmed in the sources retrieved. The '133 patent's Google Patents litigation record lists three 2021 filings — 2:21‑cv‑08216 (C.D. Cal.), 3:21‑cv‑08534 and 5:21‑cv‑08534 (N.D. Cal.). These are the only 2021 CyboEnergy‑side entries on the '133 record and therefore most likely include the Sensata action, but I could not confirm the party name for each docket number.
• Filing date: October 15, 2021 (stated in CyboEnergy's own later complaint as the date it sued Sensata).
• Why it matters: This case is the pivot point for willfulness/indirect‑infringement pleading. CyboEnergy repeatedly alleges that later defendants "known of the '133 patent … from at least the filing date of the lawsuit against Sensata, Inc of October 15, 2021, as Sensata used APsystems inverters."
• Outcome: Not determined in the material retrieved.
• Source: Complaint, CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Altenergy Power System USA, Inc., No. 6:22‑cv‑01136 (W.D. Tex.), ¶¶ 10–11, https://cdn.lawlytics.com/law-media/uploads/2360/[219387](/patent/219387)/original/Complaint-Cyboenergy-v.-Altenergy.pdf

2. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Aptos Solar Technology LLC — No. 6:22‑cv‑00281 (W.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. Defendant: Aptos Solar Technology LLC.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco Division).
• Patents asserted: 8,786,133 and 9,331,489 (both identified by number in the filing table).
• Filing date: Early 2022 (recorded in a March 24, 2022 roundup of new filings).
• Outcome: Not determined in the material retrieved; no dismissal or settlement terms surfaced.
• Source: IPWatchdog, Patent Filings Roundup (Mar. 24, 2022), table entry "6:22‑cv‑00281 | Filed | Cyboenergy Inc. | Aptos Solar Technology LLC | 8786133 9331489," https://ipwatchdog.com/2022/03/24/patent-filings-roundup-fintiv-files-paypal-ppc-broadband-patents-challenged-based-successful-reexams-last-[cbm](/resources/patent-reviews)-decision-issues/

3. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Altenergy Power System USA, Inc. — No. 6:22‑cv‑01136 (W.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. (Delaware; Sacramento County, CA). Defendant: Altenergy Power System USA, Inc. ("APsystems") (Washington; Austin, TX office).
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division; assigned to Judge Kathleen Cardone.
• Filing date: October 28, 2022. Patents asserted: 8,786,133 and 9,331,489.
• Key rulings/outcome:
  • September 13, 2023 — the court granted APsystems' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the direct infringement claim on the '133 patent (reported at CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Altenergy Power Sys. USA, Inc., No. WA‑22‑CV‑1136‑KC, 2023 WL 5968000 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 13, 2023)). This is the precedent later cited by other defendants.
  • December 20, 2023 — claim construction decision (Doc. 44) addressing four terms, all appearing in claim 14 of the '489 patent (the court focused on the '489 patent because the disputed terms lived there; the '133 patent remained in the case).
  • Defendant Altenergy also filed a PTAB petition (see IPR2024‑00360 below).
• Current status: Not a final termination on the merits in the material I retrieved; claim construction had issued.
• Sources: Complaint (link above); CyboEnergy v. Hoymiles, No. 2:23‑cv‑00311‑JRG, Dkt. 25 at 2–3 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 20, 2024), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2023cv00311/[223357](/patent/223357)/25/ ; claim construction decision, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00360/Altenergy_Power_System_USA__Inc/docs/12-22-2023-Petitioner/Exhibit-1010-Claim_Construction_Decision.pdf

4. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Hoymiles Power Electronics USA, Inc. — No. 2:23‑cv‑00311 (E.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. Defendant: Hoymiles Power Electronics USA, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division; Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap.
• Filing date: June 27, 2023. Patents asserted: 8,786,133 (claims 1–24 alleged; claim chart mapped claims 15 and 19) and 9,331,489.
• Outcome: March 20, 2024 Memorandum Opinion and Order — defendant's motion to dismiss granted‑in‑part and denied‑in‑part (the court addressed sufficiency of pleading for direct infringement of the '133 patent, pre‑suit induced/contributory infringement, and willfulness). Separately, contemporaneous Chinese-language industry reporting states CyboEnergy sued Hangzhou Hoymiles ("禾迈") in 2023 and that the parties reached a settlement before trial on confidential terms. I could not verify the settlement from a primary docket source; treat the settlement as reported, not confirmed.
• Sources: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.223357/gov.uscourts.txed.223357.25.0.pdf ; https://finance.sina.cn/2025-09-15/detail-infqqqea9547821.d.html

5. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. — No. 7:24‑cv‑00319 (W.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. (Delaware). Defendant: Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. (Delaware).
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas; filed 7:24‑cv‑00319 (Waco Division), initially assigned to Judge David Counts, then transferred/reassigned to Judge Alan D. Albright (Dec. 18, 2024). (Note: the '133 patent's Google Patents record also carries a California Northern District entry, 4:23‑cv‑06121 / 5:23‑cv‑06121, which I could not attribute.)
• Filing date: December 6, 2024. Patents asserted: 8,786,133 and 9,331,488.
• Key pleadings detail: Per the complaint analysis, CyboEnergy expressly withdrew its claim of direct infringement of the '133 patent, proceeding only on indirect (induced and contributory) infringement for that patent — a direct consequence of the Altenergy ruling. Direct infringement was still pled for the '488 patent. Accused instrumentalities are described generically as "power inverters" and "enclosures with message systems for power inverters"; no model numbers were identified.
• Outcome/current status: The docket shows the case was stayed (entries Feb.–Apr. 2025), then a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal was filed. The CourtListener docket renders the dismissal order and AO‑120 report as August 26, 2026 — a date that post‑dates today's stated date of April 26, 2026 and is therefore anomalous; I flag it rather than rely on it. Practically: the case appears to have been voluntarily dismissed/stayed rather than litigated to judgment.
• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69444296/cyboenergy-inc-v-home-depot-usa-inc/ ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:24-cv-00319/doc/analysis/1 ; Korean IP‑NAVI dispute record listing US8786133 + US9331488 in CyboEnergy Inc v. Home Depot USA Inc, https://www.ip-navi.or.kr/ipnavi/dispute/daily/dailyDetailPopup.navi?newsSeq=[218178](/patent/218178)

6. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Duracell Power Center, LLC — No. 3:24‑cv‑08891 (N.D. Cal.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. Defendant: Duracell Power Center, LLC.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco; Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros.
• Filing date: December 10, 2024. Counsel for plaintiff: Jennifer L. Ishimoto.
• Patents asserted: The complaint attaches Exhibits A–D (consistent with CyboEnergy's two‑patent '133 + '488 pleadings pattern), but the specific patent numbers were not confirmed in the material retrieved.
• Outcome/current status: Pending as of the last docket update in the record retrieved (case management conference was set for March 2025).
• Source: https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-caseguf3ef0421a3e5-[1983651](/patent/1983651)

7. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Deye ESS Technology USA and Ningbo Deye Inverter Technology Co., Ltd. — No. 2:25‑cv‑07964 (C.D. Cal.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. Defendants: Deye ESS Technology USA; Ningbo Deye Inverter Technology Co., Ltd.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Central District of California; reassigned from Judge Christina A. Snyder to Judge Anne Hwang (Sept. 3, 2025).
• Filing date: August 22, 2025. Patents asserted: 8,786,133 (claims 1–24) and 9,331,488. Accused products: SUN600G3, SUN800G3, SUN1000G3, SUN1300G3, SUN1600G3, SUN2000G3 microinverters (the "SUN series").
• Current status/outcome: Voluntarily dismissed. After service on Deye ESS Technology USA (Oct. 17, 2025) and an extension of the answer deadline, the court issued an Order to Show Cause re: dismissal for lack of prosecution (Dec. 5, 2025); on December 12, 2025 plaintiff filed a Voluntary Dismissal under FRCP 41(a)(1) and the case was terminated (AO‑120 close report filed).
• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71182599/cyboenergy-inc-v-deye-ess-technology-usa/ ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/cacdce/2:2025cv07964/[984207](/patent/984207) ; industry reporting at https://dxpress.gelonghui.com/p/[2740671](/patent/2740671)

8. CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Yotta Energy, Inc. — No. 1:25‑cv‑01300 (W.D. Tex.)

• Plaintiff: CyboEnergy, Inc. Defendant: Yotta Energy, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Filing date: August 13, 2025.
• Patents asserted: Sources state CyboEnergy asserted two solar microinverter patents, one of which was US 9,331,488. Whether the '133 patent was one of the two asserted patents is not confirmed; the '133 patent's Google Patents litigation record does not list this docket.
• Outcome/current status: Pending as of the last docket update retrieved (Aug. 13, 2025).
• Source: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/1:2025cv01300/1172859247

B. PTAB proceedings listed on the '133 patent record

Google Patents lists three inter partes reviews on the US 8,786,133 record (all filed 2024), with the following status labels:

Caveat: Google Patents' litigation panel can associate a docket with every patent in a family. IPR2024‑00360 in particular produced a claim construction decision that construed terms appearing in claim 14 of the '489 patent, so I cannot rule out that these petitions actually challenged the '489 or '488 patent with the '133 patent merely listed by family association. I did not retrieve the IPR petition coversheets to confirm the challenged patent.

C. Important disambiguation warning

My searches returned several PTAB documents discussing "the '878 Patent" (Roku IPR2022‑01315; Samsung IPR2022‑01505; Meta IPR2023‑01281). Those do not involve US 8,786,133. They concern Intent IQ's U.S. Patent No. 8,229,241‑family "878" patent in the AlmondNet/Intent IQ campaign. Likewise, the Argentine ANMAT product list entry "8786133 Placa ACP 1.9H, 33 mm" and the FDA MAUDE report key 8786133 are unrelated to this patent. I have excluded all of them.

D. Appellate history and summary observations

• No CAFC appeal involving the '133 patent surfaced in any source I consulted. The Altenergy dismissal was a Rule 12(b)(6) partial dismissal, not a final appealable judgment on the '133 patent.
• Pattern: CyboEnergy's enforcement campaign is almost entirely against solar microinverter competitors (APsystems, Aptos Solar, Hoymiles, Deye, Yotta Energy, Duracell Power Center) plus a retailer (Home Depot). The '133 patent is consistently coupled with the '488 or '489 sibling patent.
• Plemmings vulnerability: The '133 patent's system claims (particularly claim 15's daisy‑chained "plurality of power inverters" limitation) have been attacked successfully at the pleading stage, first in Altenergy (granted) and then in Hoymiles (granted‑in‑part). This drove CyboEnergy to drop direct‑infringement theories on the '133 patent (Home Depot) and to rely on indirect infringement.
• Termination pattern: Several 2024–2025 filings ended by voluntary dismissal (Deye, Home Depot) or PTAB settlement (IPR2024‑00362, IPR2024‑01106), which is typical of licensing/coexistence resolutions rather than adjudicated outcomes.

E. Items I could not verify (stated explicitly rather than guessed)

1. The party names for the 2021 California dockets (2:21‑cv‑08216, 3:21‑cv‑08534, 5:21‑cv‑08534) and the 2023 Northern District dockets (4:23‑cv‑06121, 5:23‑cv‑06121).
2. Whether the 2021 filings are the Sensata action, and its disposition.
3. The outcome of CyboEnergy v. Aptos Solar (6:22‑cv‑00281) and of CyboEnergy v. Altenergy (6:22‑cv‑01136) after the Dec. 2023 claim construction order.
4. Which patents were asserted against Duracell Power Center and Yotta Energy.
5. The challenged patent and petitioner identity for IPR2024‑00362 and IPR2024‑01106.
6. The exact terms of the reported Hoymiles pre‑trial settlement.

If you want, I can chase down (1)–(5) against Unified Patents' litigation caselist, the PACER dockets for the specific case numbers, and the PTAB petition coversheets.

I'll research the PTAB proceedings referenced in the patent record and any others that surface.

Let me dig into the specific PTAB proceeding numbers.

Let me pin down the other two proceedings and the parties involved.

PTAB proceedings on US 8,786,133 (“Smart and scalable power inverters”)

Source-of-record conflict — read first. The structured “PTAB proceedings on file” block supplied with this task states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 8,786,133 as of the most recent ingest. However, the authoritative Google Patents record for this patent (included in the full text above) carries three PTAB entries in its litigation block, and third-party docket aggregators confirm the docketing activity. I have treated the three proceedings below as real, and I flag the ODP gap. Verify each on PTAB E2E/PTACTS before relying on it in a filing. Where a fact is not in the public record I reviewed, I say so rather than infer it.

Proceedings overview

Three AIA trial proceedings have been filed against US 8,786,133 — all three are Inter Partes Reviews; all three terminated before institution (two by settlement, one by procedural termination); not a single claim was canceled, and not a single claim was adjudicated. Zero claims invalidated / zero claims sustained / three terminated pre-institution (2 settled, 1 procedurally terminated) / zero institution denials on the merits.

Bottom-line defensive posture: neutral-to-good for a defendant. The patent is intact but untested — claims 1–24 all remain in force (adjusted expiration 2032-06-07), but no PTAB panel has ever construed “MFA microcontroller,” “daisy chain,” or the load-interface/solid-state-switch limitations, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to any petitioner because estoppel requires a Final Written Decision under § 318(a) and none issued. Any prior-art ground you can find is still available to you. The genuine defensive leverage against this patent so far has come from district courts, not the PTAB — repeated Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals of CyboEnergy's direct-infringement claims on independent claims 15 and 19 (see Recommended next steps).

Ordering below is chronological (earliest-filed first); no proceeding outranks another in substantive impact, because none reached the merits.

IPR2024-00360 — Altenergy Power System USA, Inc. v. CyboEnergy, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-12-22 (per Patexia litigation-data docket entry; treat as approximate pending PTACTS confirmation)
• Status: “PTAB case IPR2024-00360 filed (Procedural Termination)” — verbatim from the Google Patents record for this patent. Plain English: the Board ended the case on a procedural footing rather than deciding patentability. The specific procedural basis (e.g., dismissal of a defective petition, denial of a request to correct, or sua sponte termination) is not stated in the materials I reviewed, and I will not guess.
• Judge panel: Not public in the sources reviewed.
• Petition grounds: Not public in the sources reviewed.
• Institution decision: None identified. The case did not reach a merits institution on the record I can verify.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim-level outcome exists.
• Settlement / termination: Recorded as a procedural termination, not a settlement — a distinction worth noting, since a settlement would ordinarily appear as a § 42.74 pre-institution termination (as happened in IPR2024-01106 and, per the patent record, IPR2024-00362).
• Appeal: None; no FWD, therefore nothing appealable.
• Defensive value: This proceeding leaves you nothing on the merits — it neither killed nor hardened any claim. Its only defensive value is evidentiary: it shows the earliest challenger (Altenergy) was itself the defendant in CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Altenergy Power Sys. USA, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-01136-KC (W.D. Tex.), and that the Board disposed of at least one Altenergy petition without reaching the merits.

IPR2024-00362 — Altenergy Power System USA, Inc. v. CyboEnergy, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-12-26
• Patent under challenge: US 8,786,133 B2 (confirmed on the face of the Board's Paper 5)
• Status: “PTAB case IPR2024-00362 filed (Settlement)” — verbatim from the Google Patents record. No institution; terminated as a pre-institution settlement.
• Judge panel: No panel assigned on the record I reviewed (the only Board paper I could verify is a paralegal-signed notice).
• Petition grounds: Not public in the sources reviewed. Notably, the petition as filed was defective — the Board issued Notice of Accepting Corrected Petition, Paper 5, mailed 2024-01-22, stating only that “Petitioner corrected the defect on January 22, 2024.” The nature of the defect is not specified in the notice.
• Institution decision: None. Terminated before any institution decision.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Terminated on settlement pre-institution. Terms are not public. The Board's correspondence in Paper 5 lists Petitioner's counsel: Michael J. Curley and Johanna M. Wilbert, Quarles & Brady LLP; Patent Owner's counsel: DLA Piper LLP US (Reston) and the Ramey Firm.
• Appeal: None.
• Data caveat: Third-party aggregators index this docket under a mismatched party caption (Patexia's table labels IPR2024-00360 and IPR2024-00362 with inventor surnames rather than “CyboEnergy, Inc.”). The Board's own Paper 5 caption — “ALTENERGY POWER SYSTEM USA INC., Petitioner, v. CYBOENERGY, INC., Patent Owner,” Patent 8,786,133 B2 — controls. Do not rely on the aggregator captions.
• Defensive value: Confirms that Altenergy filed two petitions against the '133 patent four days apart (2023-12-22 and 2023-12-26) — the pattern of parallel/tiered petitions — and that both ended without any merits ruling. No estoppel arises. The petition's filing defect and correction is a reminder that any petition you file against this patent will be scrutinized on 37 C.F.R. § 42.104/42.106 formality first.

Sources: Paper 5, IPR2024-00362; Google Patents litigation block, US8786133B2.

IPR2024-01106 — Hoymiles USA, Inc. v. CyboEnergy, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-06-27 (this is also the second anniversary of CyboEnergy's E.D. Tex. complaint against Hoymiles, 2:23-cv-00311-JRG)
• Status (verbatim docket entries):
  • 2024-07-16 — Paper 3, Notice filing date accorded
  • 2024-10-17 — Paper 7, ORDER Conduct of the Proceeding, 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.5, 42.20(d)
  • 2024-10-23 — Paper 8, Joint Motion to Terminate Proceeding; Paper 9, Joint Motion to Treat Settlement Agreement as Business Confidential Information
  • 2024-10-28 — Paper 10, DECISION Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial, 37 C.F.R. § 42.74 — plain English: dismissed the petition and terminated the proceeding, settling the case before the Board ever decided whether to institute
  • 2026-01-20 — Paper 11, Petitioner's Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees
  • 2026-01-27 — Paper 12, Notice refund approved
• Judge panel: None assigned; no institution, so no merits panel.
• Petition grounds: Not public in the sources reviewed. The Google Patents record does not list grounds, and the proceeding died before the Board characterized them.
• Institution decision: None — the petition was dismissed pre-institution. The FY2024 filing-date extension (Paper 3) and the October 2024 conduct order show the case was live only ~4 months. The refund of post-institution fees in January 2026 (Papers 11–12) is consistent with a pre-institution disposition and confirms that no further activity occurred during 2025.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled, confirmed, or construed.
• Settlement / termination: Settled pre-institution under 35 U.S.C. § 317(b) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c). As is standard, the settlement agreement (Exhibit 1011 in the joint motion) was filed as business confidential information, will be marked “Parties and Board Only,” and is available only on written request of a federal agency or a showing of good cause. The terms — including whether any payment was made — are not public. Hoymiles has never disclosed the litigation or any payment in its public reporting; Chinese trade-press commentary speculates that a commercial settlement payment was made, but that is speculation, not record evidence.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: The single most informative entry of the three, because it maps the lifecycle of a challenge to this patent from a well-funded defendant: one petition, filed within weeks of the one-year § 315(b) deadline, settled away four months later before institution. Because there is no FWD, Hoymiles is not estopped under § 315(e)(2) from raising any ground — nor, obviously, is anyone else. A defendant today faces a patent whose written record at the PTAB is empty of merits determinations, and an adversary, CyboEnergy, that has demonstrated a willingness to settle IPRs confidentially rather than litigate them to a decision.
• Corroborating district-court context: In the parallel E.D. Tex. case, Judge Gilstrap granted-in-part Hoymiles' motion to dismiss on 2024-03-20, holding that CyboEnergy “fails to plausibly allege that the accused products meet each and every element of Claim 15” and that “a defendant is not vicariously liable for the actions of its customers” under direct infringement. The IPR settlement followed roughly seven months later. CourtListener

Sources: Docket Alarm docket search for patent 8,786,133; Google Patents litigation block, US8786133B2.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 24 claims CANCELED • SUSTAINED • UNTESTED → the answer is “UNTESTED, in full.” No PTAB proceeding against US 8,786,133 has ever reached institution, so claims 1–24 all remain in force and no claim has been canceled. There are no surviving-claims and no dead-claims lists, because there is no Final Written Decision. Verified UNTESTED: independent system claim 1, claim 5 (dual-input), claim 9 (m-input, m ≥ 1), the single-DC-AC-inverter claims 15 and 19 that CyboEnergy actually asserts, the “different in kind” DC source claims 18 and 24, the software claims 13–14, and the single-phase/three-phase dependent claims 2–3, 6–7, 10–11, 16–17, 20–21. Anyone who tells you a claim of the '133 patent is canceled is wrong.

Estoppel landscape: there is no estoppel — and that is the headline. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by an IPR “that results in a final written decision under section 318(a).” IPR2024-00360 (procedural termination), IPR2024-00362 (settlement), and IPR2024-01106 (settlement pre-institution) produced no FWD. Consequently no petitioner and no privy — Altenergy Power System USA, Hoymiles USA, or anyone in privity with them — is barred from raising any § 102 or § 103 ground, in the PTAB or in district court. Practically, this means every prior-art reference that has ever been considered against this family remains on the table for you, subject only to your own § 315(b) time bar and to whatever estoppel the district courts have created through their own judgments (none on validity so far). The absence of any PTAB merits record also means CyboEnergy has never been forced to defend a claim construction of “MFA microcontroller” — and its own specification ties “MFA” to the patentee's proprietary “Model-Free Adaptive” patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,055,524; 6,556,980; 6,360,131; 6,684,115; 6,684,112; 7,016,743; 7,142,626; 7,152,052; 7,415,446), which is a ripe § 112 and claim-scope fight waiting to happen.

Pattern signals. (a) Same petitioner, multiple petitions: Altenergy filed two petitions against the '133 patent four days apart in December 2023 (IPR2024-00360 and IPR2024-00362); both died without an institution decision. (b) Monetization-driven, settle-friendly patent owner: CyboEnergy is a serial filer — W.D. Tex., E.D. Tex., N.D. Cal., C.D. Cal. against Altenergy, Northern Electric, Hoymiles, Duracell Power Center, Home Depot, Deye ESS, and Yotta Energy — and it has settled at least two IPRs confidentially rather than submit to a merits ruling, in one instance on the heels of a favorable § 42.74 pre-institution settlement. (c) No defensive aggregator in the chain: the “Unified Patents PTAB Data” label on the Google Patents entries is a dataset attribution, not evidence that Unified Patents filed anything — the petitioner field on those entries is blank, and web research identifies the actual petitioners as commercial defendants Altenergy (via Quarles & Brady) and Hoymiles. I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or other defensive-aggregator filing against this patent. (d) No patent-owner appeals: CyboEnergy has never had a PTAB decision to appeal in this family; there is no CAFC docket for US 8,786,133.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and someone has told you the '133 patent has been invalidated at the PTAB — that is false. There is no Final Written Decision to link to and no disposition to quote, because none of IPR2024-00360, IPR2024-00362, or IPR2024-01106 reached the merits. What you can cite is IPR2024-01106 Paper 10 (2024-10-28), Decision — Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial, 37 C.F.R. § 42.74, terminating the only proceeding brought by a party that had actually litigated against CyboEnergy to a district court ruling.

Exploit the district-court record, which is where this patent has actually been beaten. Three separate courts have held that CyboEnergy cannot plead direct infringement of independent claims 15 and 19, because those claims require a “plurality of power inverters” daisy-chained together and CyboEnergy accuses sellers of individual inverters:

• CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Altenergy Power Sys. USA, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-01136-KC (W.D. Tex. 2023-09-13): claims 15 and 19 dismissed; “Defendant is not vicariously liable for the actions of its customers.”
• CyboEnergy, Inc. v. N. Elec. Power Tech., Inc., No. 23-cv-06121-JST (N.D. Cal. 2024-03-06): direct infringement dismissed with leave to amend; breach-of-contract claim dismissed with prejudice. CourtListener
• CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Hoymiles Power Elecs. USA, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00311-JRG (E.D. Tex. 2024-03-20): motion to dismiss granted-in-part. CourtListener

Note the practical consequence: since Altenergy/NEP/Hoymiles, CyboEnergy has shifted the '133 patent to an inducement/contributory-only theory (it expressly withdrew direct infringement as to the '133 patent in the 2024-12-06 Home Depot complaint, 7:24-cv-00319). That narrows your exposure considerably and sharpens the inducement-specific defenses (no pre-suit knowledge; no intent; substantial noninfringing uses).

Mind your own § 315(b) clock. Because no proceeding reached institution, there is no statutory trial deadline to track and no institution/FWD calendar. What matters is service: a petitioner is time-barred one year after service of a complaint alleging infringement. Defendants served in August 2025 (Deye Ess, 2:25-cv-07964; Yotta Energy, 1:25-cv-01300) hit their one-year mark in August 2026 — do not treat those windows as open without confirming the exact service date. Any party served on or after 2025-09-19 still has a full year to file. Given the pristine PTAB record, a first-filed IPR on the '133 patent remains a live and un-prejudiced option.

Note what is not available. Post-Grant Review is unavailable (the § 321(c) nine-month window closed in April 2015), and Covered Business Method review is unavailable (the § 18 sunset, and this is a solar-inverter system claim, not a financial-services method — it would flunk the technological-invention exclusion anyway). Your AIA vehicle is an IPR, or an ex parte reexamination / reissue-based challenge if you are out of time under § 315(b).

Prioritize the claim-construction fight over the prior-art fight. The binding term is “MFA microcontroller” in every independent claim. CyboEnergy will argue the claim defines the microcontroller purely functionally (cols. 12:2–10: monitor boost voltage, control the converter, perform MPPT, invert and synchronize, monitor current/voltage, powerline communications, switching/isolation) and that any microcontroller doing those things infringes. You should argue the specification's express definition of “MFA” as Model-Free Adaptive and its incorporation-by-reference of the nine Cheng MFA patents limits the term to that proprietary control methodology — which is a powerful non-infringement argument and a § 112(b) indefiniteness/support argument if the patentee tries to read “MFA” as generic. A term that has never been construed by the Board or any court is the highest-leverage point in this case.

One housekeeping item. Because the ODP ingest you were given shows no AIA trials while the patent's own record shows three, pull the PTACTS documents directly before you brief anything: IPR2024-00360 and IPR2024-00362 (Altenergy) and IPR2024-01106 (Hoymiles), all available through PTAB E2E / PTACTS. Confirm statuses, petitioner real parties-in-interest, and whether any § 315(e)(1) or (e)(2) estoppel could attach from a related proceeding I could not verify from public sources.

I'll research the assignment record, litigation history, and corporate background for US 8786133. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Good material. Now let me pinpoint the assignment reel/frame records and correspondent details.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 8,786,133 B2

Patent: US 8,786,133 B2, "Smart and scalable power inverters"
App. No.: 12/837,162 · filed 2010-07-15 · priority 2009-07-16 (Prov. 61/226,141) · granted 2014-07-22
Family: US 9,257,916 B2 (divisional, app. 14/299,705, filed 2014-06-09)
Adjusted expiration: 2032-06-07 (per Google Patents legal status)

Data-availability note (important, read first): I was able to retrieve the substance of the two recorded assignments from Google Patents' legal-events feed and corroborate ownership from PTAB and district-court filings. I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame numbers, recording dates, or the correspondent of record for either assignment through the search tools available to me. USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ → search patent 8,786,133) is the authoritative source for those fields, and every reel/frame and correspondent slot below is marked accordingly. I have not guessed or fabricated any reel/frame value.

Inventors

Employment basis: Both inventors executed the 2010-07-15 assignment to General Cybernation Group, Inc. (Google Patents legal events), and Dr. Cheng is publicly identified as "co-founder and CEO of CyboSoft, General Cybernation Group, Inc., and CyboEnergy, Inc." (CSIA Exchange bio, csiaexchange.com/22987/George-Cheng). Mulkey appears as an inventor on CyboSoft/General Cybernation control patents as early as the 1990s (e.g., US 5,728,791, US 5,926,391) and on CyboEnergy filings through at least 2022 (US 11,258,267).

Unusual patterns — none present (this is the notable negative finding):

• No inventor exodus. Neither inventor left. Cheng remains CEO/CTO and Mulkey continues to appear on later CyboEnergy-family filings (US 2018/0191167, US 11,258,267, US 12,424,854 B1). There is no "all inventors out within 12 months" signature that typically precedes a portfolio fire-sale.
• The inventors are the assignors and the controlling principals, i.e. the IP never left the founders' control. That is the opposite of the classic troll-supply pattern.

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: CyboEnergy, Inc., Rancho Cordova, CA (Google Patents lists CyboEnergy as both "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee"). Note a nuance: the recorded assignment history shows the application passing through General Cybernation Group, Inc. first in 2010 before reaching CyboEnergy in 2014 — see the timeline. CyboEnergy is a subsidiary/affiliate of CyboSoft, General Cybernation Group, Inc. (founded 1994).

• Primary line of business: design, manufacture and sale of solar mini-inverters; parent CyboSoft sells Model-Free Adaptive (MFA) control software/hardware for process, building and equipment control.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? — YES. The CyboInverter is a 4-channel, daisy-chainable mini-inverter with per-channel MPPT. Its documented AC daisy-chain architecture and 4 DC input channels map directly onto independent Claim 15 and Claim 19 of the '133 patent. Evidence:
  • Product release at Intersolar NA, July 2013 (altenergymag.com/.../13923); models CI‑Mini‑1000A and CI‑Mini‑1000T.
  • Full spec sheet for the CIM-1200K/H ("Four DC Input Channels… Smart and Scalable… Powerline Communication"), UL1741 / IEEE1547 certified, "Made in U.S.A." (cyboenergy.com/downloads/CyboInverter-CIM-1200K-H-Spec-Sheet...).
  • Echelon case study describing embedded powerline communications in shipped CyboInverters (echelon.com/.../Grid-CyboEnergy-Solar-system-case-study.pdf).
  • Frost & Sullivan 2013 Product Differentiation Award and 2017 Solar Inverter Technology Innovation Award.
• Current status: operating (not acquired, not dissolved, no bankruptcy found). Corporate site is live with a 2026 copyright footer (cyboenergy.com/corporate/overview.html); January 2023 and April 2022 press releases announce new products and new patents. The company also states it "offers IP licensing, assembly, and private label opportunities to its strategic partners" — i.e., it has both a product business and an active licensing posture.

Assignment timeline

Only two assignment events for this patent are surfaced in Google Patents' legal-events record. No post-2014 transfer of the '133 patent has been recorded. Reel/frame and recording dates could not be retrieved (see data note).

2010-07-15 (executed; same day as application filing) / recorded date not retrievable — Reel not retrievable

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: CHENG, George Shu-Xing; MULKEY, Steven L. (individuals)
• Assignee: GENERAL CYBERNATION GROUP, INC. (Rancho Cordova, CA)
• Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources → verify at Assignment Center
• Context: Founders assign the invention to their parent operating company on the filing date — routine corporate IP-centralization, not a fire-sale.

2014-05-27 (executed/recorded per Google Patents event date) — Reel not retrievable

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: GENERAL CYBERNATION GROUP, INC.
• Assignee: CYBOENERGY, INC. (Rancho Cordova, CA)
• Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources → verify at Assignment Center
• Context: Internal reorganization — parent moves the application to its clean‑energy subsidiary ~8 weeks before the patent issued (2014‑07‑22) and ~7 years before any litigation.

No further recorded transfers 2014 → 2026. The patent has remained with CyboEnergy, Inc. throughout the entire assertion campaign. Current ownership is corroborated by the PTAB caption in IPR2024‑00362, Altenergy Power System USA, Inc. v. CyboEnergy, Inc. ("For PATENT OWNER: … CYBOENERGY, INC.", Notice of Accepting Corrected Petition, mailed 2024‑01‑22).

Caveat on the 2020–2024 PTAB dockets: Patexia's captioning shows IPR2024‑00360 captioned "v. CHENG, George Shu‑Xing" and IPR2024‑00362 captioned "v. Smith, James S." These are caption/data artifacts of the PTAB docket; the authoritative Board filing in IPR2024‑00362 names CyboEnergy, Inc. as Patent Owner. I flag it only so the discrepancy is not mistaken for a recorded transfer to individuals.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8786133
    2009 : Provisional filed by Cheng and Mulkey
    2010 : Application filed 15 Jul
    2010 : Inventors assign to General Cybernation Group
    2014 : Parent assigns application to CyboEnergy Inc
    2014 : Patent issued 22 Jul
    2021 : First infringement suits filed
    2023 : Suits filed against Hoymiles and others
    2024 : Suits against Home Depot and Duracell
    2024 : PTAB IPRs filed by Altenergy and Hoymiles
    2025 : Suits against Yotta and Deye
    2026 : Unified Patents PATROLL contests on this patent

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The chain is founders → General Cybernation Group, Inc. (a 1994 operating controls company) → CyboEnergy, Inc. (its clean-energy subsidiary that actually manufactures and sells the CyboInverter). There is no "IP / Patents / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity anywhere in the chain, no Delaware/Texas single-purpose LLC, and no registered-agent-service address. CyboEnergy's address (2868/3035 Prospect Park Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA) is a real commercial office, and its products carry UL1741/IEEE1547 certification. Reel/frame for both links still to be confirmed, but the entities are not shells.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (weak-to-moderate).
CyboEnergy does not appear on the classic Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi‑LAN / Mosaid / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock lists. However, Unified Patents publicly classifies it as an NPE, in the 2026‑09‑18 PATROLL post announcing $2,000 contests on "CyboEnergy power inverters patents": "The patents are owned and asserted by CyboEnergy, Inc., an NPE… asserted against Northern Electric Power Technology, Home Depot, Duracell, Yotta Energy, Deye Ess Technology, and others" (unifiedpatents.com/insights/2026/9/18/...). IPRs were also filed against the family: IPR2024‑00360, IPR2024‑00362 (Altenergy) and IPR2024‑01106 (Hoymiles) — all three recorded as Settlement or procedural termination per Google Patents.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR for assignments; PRESENT as litigation counsel.
I could not obtain the correspondent of record for either recording, so I cannot say whether one attorney filed both assignment links. Separately, the litigation counsel is highly repetitive: William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP / Ramey & Schwaller LLP appears across essentially the whole campaign — Sensata (2:21‑cv‑08216), Northern Electric (3:21‑cv‑08534 / 5:21‑cv‑08534 / 5:23‑cv‑06121), Aptos (6:22‑cv‑00281), Altenergy (6:22‑cv‑01136), Hoymiles (2:23‑cv‑00311), Home Depot (7:24‑cv‑00319), Duracell (5:24‑cv‑08891), Yotta (1:25‑cv‑01300), Deye (2:25‑cv‑07964) — with local counsel Susan S. Q. Kalra in the C.D. Cal. cases. Notably, in IPR2024‑00362 the Patent Owner's correspondence of record is "PATENTPROSECUTIONRES@DLAPIPER.COM; wramey@rameyfirm.com" routed via DLA Piper US – Reston (Notice of Accepting Corrected Petition, 2024‑01‑22), i.e. Ramey's address appears alongside the prosecution firm's docket address. Ramey LLP is widely identified as a high-volume patent-plaintiff firm, but I have not verified a Unified/RPX NPE-counsel listing naming it, so I mark this signal as a recurring-counsel observation rather than a confirmed NPE-counsel match.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Two assignments total, executed 2010‑07‑15 and 2014‑05‑27, ~4 years apart, then zero transfers for the next ~12 years. This is the opposite of chained-LLC cascading (<24 months, shared correspondent/common principals).

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Last recorded transfer was 2014‑05‑27; the first infringement suit was filed 2021‑10‑14 (Sensata, 2:21‑cv‑08216) — roughly 7 years later. There is no last-minute assignment to establish standing or venue.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 record found for CyboEnergy or General Cybernation Group; the corporate website is live with a 2026 copyright, and new products/patents issued in 2022–2023. This is not an Eastman Kodak / Nortel / Polaroid-style sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
There is no evidence of a third-party operating company transferring to an NPE to assert on its behalf. CyboEnergy asserts in its own name, and it (not a behind-the-scenes manufacturer) is the plaintiff of record in all ten suits.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT (inverse condition).
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified or OIN. Instead, Unified Patents is funding prior-art challenges against it (two PATROLL contests opening 2026‑09‑18, expiring 2026‑10‑17) and third parties filed IPR2024‑00360/00362/01106. Third-party defensive capital is deployed against this patent, not acquiring it.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The call rests on assertion behavior, not on the assignment chain — and that distinction is the finding. The recorded chain is clean: two transfers (2010‑07‑15 to General Cybernation Group; 2014‑05‑27 to CyboEnergy), both internal reorgs within one founder-controlled corporate family, with no shell LLC, no cascading transfers, no fire-sale and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. What pushes it toward NPE is (a) Unified Patents' public designation of CyboEnergy as "an NPE" in its 2026‑09‑18 PATROLL contests on this exact patent, and (b) a decade-long, ten-defendant campaign (2021 Sensata → 2025 Deye) that increasingly targets downstream sellers rather than competitors — Home Depot (7:24‑cv‑00319) and Duracell Power Center (5:24‑cv‑08891) — paired with express "IP licensing" offers. It is moderate rather than high because the chain contains none of the structural tells of an engineered NPE vehicle (no shell assignee, no rapid re-assignment, no bankruptcy conversion), and because CyboEnergy genuinely manufactured and shipped the CyboInverter embodying Claim 15/19, which is why a defendant-side observer could equally characterize this as a struggling operating company turned litigator. The single highest-value verification step remains pulling the reel/frame and correspondent of record for 2010‑07‑15 and 2014‑05‑27, which I could not retrieve.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 8,786,133) — or the legacy interface https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Google Patents legal events for this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8786133/en.

I'll research this patent's prior art record. Let me run several searches.

I have the front-page "References Cited" list. Let me verify the key references' details.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,786,133 B2

Searched identifier: US 8,786,133 (appl. no. 12/837,162). No substitute/similar patent numbers were used. Note that two same-family documents surface in any search and are not "similar numbers" — US 2011/0012430 A1 (the pre-grant publication of this same application) and US 9,257,916 B2 (a divisional of this application, filed 2014-06-09). They are identified below as family members, not prior art.

1. Patent under analysis (verbatim from the record)

Because the application was filed before 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. Working critical dates: § 102(b) → disclosures before 2008-07-16; § 102(a)/(e) → disclosures/filings before the invention/priority date of 2009-07-16.

2. How this citation list was obtained, and its reliability

The reference list below is the "References Cited" section printed on the face of US 8,786,133 B2. I could not reach USPTO PatentCenter/Public PAIR file-wrapper contents in this session (no rejection-by-rejection record, no examiner category codes). The list was recovered from a court filing that reproduces the printed patent (CyboEnergy v. Deye ESS, C.D. Cal. 2:25-cv-07964, Dkt. 1-1):

• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71182599/1/1/cyboenergy-inc-v-deye-ess-technology-usa/ (Exhibit A, pp. 1–3)

Corroborating source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8786133B2](/patent/US8786133B2)/en

Reliability caveats (please treat literally, per your instruction):

1. The list is an OCR of a paper printing; several entries show name/number garble (e.g., "Gibreth" for Gilbreth; "Muhammad"/"Arabic" Rashid). Where a number looks internally inconsistent I flag it rather than "correct" it.
2. The OCR preserves asterisks on US 2003/0111103 A1, US 2008/0283118 A1, and US 2010/0237703 A1, matched to the footnote "* cited by examiner." Consistent with that, the unasterisked bulk appears to be applicant IDS citations (mostly the inventor's own MFA patents and generic converter/handbook material), not art applied against the claims.
3. No reference in this record appears to have carried a § 102 anticipation rejection to issuance. The examiner cited references as of-interest; the 24 claims issued. My "claims potentially implicated" column is therefore an analytical map, not a record of a maintained rejection.

3. U.S. patents cited (References Cited, U.S. Patent Documents)

Reading: items 1–2, 4–6, 8–10, 12, 15–18 form a coherent microturbine grid-parallel inverter/controller cluster (Capstone lineage). In that art, a DC-to-AC inverter does exist and does synchronize to the grid, but there is no distributed per-module inverters, no daisy-chained AC input/output ports, no DC-DC boost with per-source MPPT, and no powerline modem. That cluster therefore maps only to isolated limitations of claims 1/5/9 (the DC-AC inverter, the phase-sync function, the grid-disconnect switch) and anticipates none of them.

Items 3, 7, 11, 13, 14, 19–21 are the inventor's own MFA patents, cited to support the "MFA microcontroller" element. They are genuinely material to dependent claims 4/8/12 — under pre-AIA § 102(b), an inventor's own earlier patent can be prior art, and the specification itself admits these documents describe the MFA technology. But none of them discloses an inverter system, so they can only support a § 102 anticipation of claims 4/8/12 if construed as a bare "MFA controller + MFA optimizer" claim, or (more realistically) a § 103 combination.

4. U.S. patent application publications cited

5. Foreign patent document cited

6. Non-patent literature cited

Separately: the WO publication's own "Patent Citations (5)" table (from the international search report on PCT/US2010/042123) lists US 2003/0007369 A1, US 2004/0264225 A1, US 2009/0159113 A1, US 2008/0111517 A1, and US 2009/0160258 A1 — i.e., the five documents the ISA considered relevant enough to tabulate. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2011008944A3/en. I could not retrieve the category codes (X/Y/A) or the "relevant to claim no." columns from that report in this session, so I cannot say which of them the ISA viewed as novelty-destroying versus merely pertinent.

7. Overall § 102 assessment

Bottom line: no cited reference anticipates any independent claim (1, 5, 9, 15, 19) on its face. Every reference fails on at least one limitation that is central and not incidental:

Closest calls, ranked:

1. US 2003/0111103 A1 (Bower) — the strongest § 102 candidate (examiner-cited). It is the only reference in the record that structurally resembles the claimed architecture: per-module DC→AC inversion plus an AC bus that multiple units tap. It collides directly with the "daisy chain/AC bus" concept in claims 1(b)/15(b)/22. Its weakness against claim 15 is the "at least two DC power input ports coupled to the single DC-AC inverter" requirement — a genuine, arguable limitation rather than a formal one, since Bower discloses "one or more inverters" per module.
2. US 2009/0160258 A1 (Allen) and US 2009/0159113 A1 (Morimoto) — closest on multiple DC inputs feeding a shared inversion stage (claims 5/9, and the DC combiner of 5(c)(ii)/9(c)(ii)) and on per-source MPPT (claims 4/8/12), but neither has the daisy-chained AC input/output ports or the powerline modem.
3. The Cheng MFA patents (US 6,055,524; 6,360,131; 6,556,980; 6,684,112; 6,684,115; 7,016,743; 7,142,626; 7,152,052; 7,415,446) — the only art squarely on claims 4, 8, 12. Self-cited by the applicant and admitted in the specification; usable under § 102(b) as to the MFA element, but they disclose no inverter system.
4. US 2004/0264225 A1 (Bhavaraju/Ballard) and US 2008/0111517 A1 (Pfeifer) — single-limitation art on MPPT and DC-DC boost, respectively. § 103 fodder, not § 102.
5. US 2010/0202177 (Kajouke), US 2010/0237703 (Stern), US 2011/0273022 (Dennis), US 2012/0025618 (Erickson) — post-priority on their faces; each survives as a § 102(e) reference only if its underlying U.S. filing predates 2009-07-16. Their presence on the face of a 2014 patent more likely reflects a supplemental IDS than an applied rejection.

Practical implication for the live disputes: the three 2024 Unified Patents IPRs (IPR2024-00360 — procedural termination; IPR2024-00362 and IPR2024-01106 — settled) never produced a final written decision, so the materially stronger invalidity art (if any) is not visible on this patent's face. The patent's own defensive posture therefore rests on the combination of (i) multi-DC-input, single-inverter topologies, (ii) the daisy-chained AC-in/AC-out pass-through arrangement, (iii) MFA-based per-source MPPT, and (iv) powerline-modem communications — none of which appears together in any single cited reference.

8. Limitations and things I could not verify (stated explicitly)

1. File-wrapper unavailability. I could not open USPTO PatentCenter / Public PAIR for 12/837,162 in this session, so I cannot report examiner-applied § 102/§ 103 rejections, the examiner's category codes, or which citations were examiner-submitted versus applicant-submitted with certainty.
2. OCR-derived data. Titles, issue dates, and some inventor names in §3–§4 are OCR of a scanned patent front page. Specifically flagged as unverified: US 6,612,112 B2 (possible transposition with US 6,684,112 B1), US 6,192,668 B1, US 6,381,944 B2, US 6,784,565 B2, US 6,960,840 B2, and the Bosley/Mackay/Hamrin/Willis family attributions. Verify each against the USPTO record before relying on it.
3. JP 09275637 A — I could not verify its title, assignee, or content. Its numeric ID is reported exactly as cited, with no correction.
4. WO2011008944A3 search-report categories (X/Y/A) and the claim numbers those five documents were cited against were not retrievable.
5. Treaty/date caveat. All dates in §3–§4 are publication or issue dates. § 102(e) eligibility for the post-2009 publications depends on their underlying U.S. filing dates, which I have not verified.
6. No § 102 conclusion is a legal opinion. The "potentially anticipates" mappings above are element-by-element technical readings; a formal invalidity position would require claim construction of "daisy chain," "DC power combiner," "MFA microcontroller," and "load interface circuit" against the prosecution history.

I'll start by gathering the prior-art references associated with this patent and the IPR challenges, since the "Prior Art" section wasn't fully captured in the pasted text.

The pasted page doesn't include an explicit "References Cited" list, so let me pull the front-page patent documents and the IPR grounds that constitute the prior art of record.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,786,133 B2 ("Smart and Scalable Power Inverters")

Important threshold caveat about the source you asked me to use

The Google Patents page you pasted does not actually contain a "Prior Art" / "References Cited" section. I searched the full text you provided: it contains the Definitions, Description, 24 claims, Classifications, the "Cited By (8)" list and "Families Citing this family (137)" list — but no listing of the references cited by the examiner, and the "Families Citing this family" list is truncated mid-entry (at EP1335248A1).

Two consequences, stated plainly:

1. The "Cited By" and "Families Citing this family" entries are not prior art to the '133 patent. They post-date the 2009‑07‑16 priority date (e.g., Enphase US2013/0225005A1, priority 2010‑01‑25; Hyundai US12027965B2; Sol.One US20240215175A1). They cannot support a §103 rejection.
2. The '133 patent's own divisional child US 9,257,916 ("Power inverters with multiple input channels," filed 2014‑06‑09, from Ser. No. 14/299,705) shares the same 2009‑07‑16 priority. Under pre‑AIA §102(e)/§103 it is not prior art to the '133 patent (common priority), and CyboEnergy's later patents (US 9,093,902; US 9,871,379; US 9,899,841; US 9,621,894; US 9,331,488) all post-date and are likewise unavailable.

Because the requested section is absent, I reconstructed the prior art of record on the face of the '133 patent from a district-court exhibit that reproduces the patent's front page, and supplemented it with pre‑2009 non‑patent literature that is documented in the retrieved record. I flag every item whose content I could not independently verify so you do not rely on it.

1. The '133 patent's front-page patent documents (recovered)

From the complaint Exhibit A in CyboEnergy, Inc. v. Deye Ess Technology USA (C.D. Cal. 2:25‑cv‑07964), which reproduces the "PATENT DOCUMENTS" block of US 8,786,133:

Sources: Google Patents US6031294A; EP 1 191 207 A3 Annex; CourtListener docket 71182599 (Exhibit A).

2. Prior art admitted/described on the face of the '133 patent itself

Under pre‑AIA §103, the specification's own characterizations are usable as admissions about the state of the art:

• Centralized-inverter systems with a DC junction box feeding one large DC‑AC inverter (¶¶[0003]–[0010]).
• Microinverters / per-module MPPT are treated as known: the spec states MPPT "can only be applied to a system level, not to each solar module" with centralized inverters — implying per‑module MPPT was the known alternative.
• Parallel AC connection is conceded: "the actual connection of the inverters is pass‑through. That means, the generated AC power from each power inverter is added in parallel onto the AC powerline." This is an admission that the "daisy chain" is a wiring/cabling convenience and the electrical topology is an ordinary parallel AC bus.
• DC‑DC boost + DC‑AC inverter, PWM, line sensing for phase/zero‑crossing, powerline modem, solid‑state disconnect are all described as routine and are expressly sourced to a textbook: the "Power Electronics Handbook," ed. Muhammad H. Rashid, Academic Press, 2007 (Buck/Boost/Buck‑Boost/Super‑Lift Luo/Cascade Boost converters; Half‑Bridge, Full‑Bridge, Bipolar/Unipolar/Sinusoidal PWM inverters). The spec calls the remaining modules (load interface, solid‑state switch, line sensing, powerline interface, DC supply) implementations of "conventional electronic components."

3. Pre‑2009 non‑patent literature documenting the state of the art

These appear (with dates) in the Information Disclosure/References-Cited record retrieved from the IDS of US 9,812,984 — i.e., they are documented publications, not my recollection:

4. Level of ordinary skill

POSITA at July 2009: a B.S. in electrical engineering (or equivalent) plus ~2–4 years in power electronics/grid‑tie inverter design, or a graduate degree with ~1–2 years. Such a person would be familiar with: boost topology and PWM control; MPPT algorithms; grid‑tie synchronization (phase/zero‑crossing detection, PLL); powerline communication ICs; and the industry shift toward module‑level power electronics (Pyro/Enphase/Optimizer era). This is the level against which the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" inquiry (KSR) is measured.

5. Claim-by-claim obviousness analysis

Group A — Claims 1–4: single-DC-input inverters daisy-chained (single-phase / three-phase)

Claim 1 is, element-by-element, a juxtaposition of known building blocks each performing its known function (MPEP 2143 / KSR "predictable variation"):

• DC-DC boost converter … convert the power source voltage to a higher DC voltage — routine; the '133 spec itself cites Buck/Boost/Buck‑Boost/Luo/Cascade converters from Rashid's Power Electronics Handbook.
• DC-AC inverter … voltage higher than the incoming AC power voltage — routine grid‑tie full‑bridge.
• internal AC powerline that combines the generated AC power with the external AC power — the parallel AC bus of Knaupp (1996) and Lindgren (1999); the '133 spec concedes this is how its "daisy chain" actually works.
• load interface circuit … filter high-frequency components — an output EMI/L‑C filter; conventional.
• MFA microcontroller … monitor boost voltage, control boost converter, perform MPPT, perform DC-AC inversion and AC power synchronization, monitor AC current/voltage, perform powerline communications, perform AC powerline switching/isolation — every one of these tasks was known; the MFA implementation is the applicant's own US 6,055,524, expressly incorporated by reference.
• powerline modem … transmitting and receiving performance data — commercial PLC ICs (the spec concedes "any of a number of commercially available integrated circuits").
• line sensing circuit … phase and zero-crossing point — required by IEEE 1547 (2003) and ubiquitous in grid‑tie inverters.
• solid state switch … disconnect … during non-generation time — anti‑islanding/disconnect, required by IEEE 1547.

Claim 1 adds only the daisy-chain port architecture (AC power output port of each inverter … connected … to the AC power input port of the next inverter … first … input port left open … last … output port connected to a power service panel).

Combination 1 (Claim 1): Geis (US 6,031,294) + Knaupp/Lindgren (AC modules on a shared AC bus) + Cheng (US 6,055,524) + IEEE 1547 + Rashid.

• Motivation: (i) Geis already teaches linking numerous generator/inverter units together and phase‑locking each to the utility — i.e., modular, scalable, paralleled grid‑tied inverters; (ii) Knaupp/Lindgren teach placing many module‑level inverters on one AC bus to cut DC wiring and gain per‑module MPPT; (iii) the '133 background itself lists the very shortcomings (DC wiring, junction box, weak‑module penalty, system‑level‑only MPPT) that a shared AC bus with per‑module electronics solves. A POSITA facing those listed problems would have been motivated, with a reasonable expectation of success, to take the known AC module of Knaupp and connect successive units input‑to‑output on the AC side (i.e., the claimed daisy chain), because doing so is nothing more than running the AC conductors from unit to unit — the spec admits the electrical result is an ordinary parallel bus.
• Result: Claim 1 is strongly vulnerable to §103.

Claims 2–3 (single-phase / three-phase): mere selection of a known phase configuration. The '133 spec itself says a single-phase design "can also be applied to three-phase AC without departing from the spirit or scope." One‑ and three‑phase grid‑tie inverters were both standard. Obvious.

Claim 4 (MFA controllers + MFA optimizers): met essentially root‑and‑branch by US 6,055,524 (Cheng) — the applicant's own incorporated-by-reference prior art. A claim cannot be saved by pointing to a controller the patent itself says is old. Obvious.

Group B — Claims 5–8: dual-DC-input inverters (pair of boost converters + combiner + one DC-AC inverter)

This is Group A plus a pair of DC-DC boost converters … a DC power combiner … combining the DC output from both … allowing said DC-DC boost converters to connect in parallel so that all DC currents are added together, then a DC-AC inverter connected to said DC power combiner.

Combination 2 (Claims 5–8): Meinhardt (multi‑string converter with per‑string MPPT + cost reduction) + Alonso (independent MPPT per PV array through one conversion system) + Geis + Cheng + Rashid.

• Motivation: Meinhardt's express purpose is to reduce specific cost by consolidating multiple strings into one converter while retaining per‑string functionality — precisely the cost/function trade‑off driving claims 5–8. Alonso expressly teaches feeding multiple PV arrays through a single grid‑connected conversion system with independent MPPT per array. Adding the second boost stage and tying both boost outputs in parallel at a DC combiner is a predictable, mechanical aggregation of known converter outputs; the '133 spec concedes the combiner is "a circuit that allow[s] the output from all DC-DC boost converters to connect in parallel." Two paralleled boost converters feeding one inverter is textbook (Rashid).
• Result: Claims 5–8 vulnerable.

Group C — Claims 9–12: m-input inverters (m boost converters + combiner + one DC-AC inverter)

Identical reasoning to Group B generalized to m inputs, m being "an integer greater than or equal to one."

Combination 3 (Claims 9–12): Meinhardt + Alonso + Geis + Cheng, generalized. The number of input channels is a design/economic variable, not a technical invention: the '133 spec says as much ("various smart power inverter products can be designed with a different number of inputs… they have to be practically useful, meet branch circuit limit requirements, and make economic sense"). Reciting m as a range is a classic obvious range in view of a suggestion in the art (Meinhardt). Vulnerable, but note the dependent claim set is where the real battleground is (see Group D).

Group D — Claims 13–14: the software claims (main loop and ISR)

Claim 13 (turn generation on/off based on DC source + AC line conditions; compute power statistics; run diagnostics; set unit address; powerline communications; respond to data‑gathering queries) and Claim 14 (ISR: save context → read A/D inputs → MPPT per source → DC‑AC inversion + sync → emit PWM → restore context) are implemented on a generic 32-bit microcontroller (the spec says a "32‑bit high-performance floating-point microcontroller is selected"). Claim 14 in particular describes the canonical structure of any interrupt-driven PWM inverter controller — MPPT and PWM generation inside a periodic ISR.

Combination 4 (Claims 13–14): Cheng (US 6,055,524, MFA control software) + IEEE 1547 (status reporting/islanding) + the ARCO/Solarex-type monitoring* and commercial PLC telemetry. Note the retrieved IDS lists, e.g., Koutroulis, "Development of a Microcontroller‑Based, Photovoltaic Maximum Power Point Tracking Control System," IEEE Trans. Power Electron. (Jan. 2001) — a microcontroller‑based MPPT system, and predictive‑digital‑current‑control (Chen, IEEE TPEL 2003) teaching digital PWM control in a DSP. Together these supply the software architecture.

• Motivation: utility/telemetry requirements (IEEE 1547), warranty/monitoring business needs, and the known MPPT‑on‑a‑microcontroller art.
• Result: Claims 13–14 very vulnerable — they are the algorithmic description of what the hardware of claims 1/5/9 already had to do.

Group E — Claims 15–18: "incrementally scalable" system with at least two DC input ports coupled to a single DC-AC inverter and daisy-chained AC ports

These are the claims CyboEnergy itself treats as the flagship claims. In CyboEnergy v. Northern Electric Power Tech., No. 23‑cv‑06121‑JST (N.D. Cal. Mar. 6, 2024), the court noted the parties agreed Claims 15 and 19 are independent and exemplary, quoting claim 15 in full:

"A scalable DC to AC power inversion system … a) a plurality of power inverters, each of said power inverters including a single DC-AC inverter, at least two DC power input ports coupled to the single DC-AC inverter, an AC power input port, and an AC power output port coupled to the single DC-AC inverter… b) said AC power output port of each power inverter being connected in a daisy chain … c) whereby said system is incrementally scalable by adding or subtracting DC power sources and daisy-chained inverters."

The asserted point of novelty is exactly: two‑or‑more DC inputs feeding one output inverter, with the AC ports daisy‑chained, so the system scales by adding units. That same combination appears in group B/C references:

Combination 5 (Claims 15–17): Meinhardt (multi‑input, per‑input MPPT, one output converter) + Alonso (independent MPPT per array through one grid‑connected system) + Lindgren (multiple decentralized inverters on a common AC bus) + Geis (modular paralleled grid‑tied inverters phase‑locked to the utility).

• Motivation: all four drivers are the same drivers the '133 spec recites as the problems to be solved: reduce per‑watt cost (Meinhardt), mitigate partial shading by per‑module/per‑array MPPT (Alonso; and the '133 background), simplify wiring by putting inverters on a shared AC bus (Lindgren), and scale by adding modules (Geis's "linking numerous units together"). KSR makes this a predictable combination of known elements, each performing its known function, with a clear articulated reason to combine and a reasonable expectation of success.
• Risk note: If a petitioner cannot produce a single reference or short combination teaching (a) multiple independently MPPT‑tracked boost stages feeding (b) one downstream DC‑AC stage whose (c) AC in/out ports are serialized for daisy‑chaining, claim 15 may survive. Meinhardt + Alonso covers (a) and (b); Lindgren covers (c). I assess claim 15 as more likely than not obvious, but this is the claim on which the record would decide the case — and it is telling that the Hoymiles IPR challenged Claims 15–24, not Claims 1–14 (see §6).

Claim 18 adds "a second DC power source, different in kind from said first DC power source" connected to another DC input port of the same inverter. Mixing a PV string and a battery (or fuel cell) on one multi‑input inverter is a well‑known design objective — it is the express subject of CyboEnergy's own later patents (e.g., US 9,871,379: "m+2‑channel … connected to m solar panels and a battery set"; US2016/0241039A1: "m+2‑channel dual‑output DC source flexible on‑grid power inverter … connected to m solar panels, a battery set, and a wind generator"). Because those later documents are the applicant's own characterization of what a multi‑input inverter is used for, the limitation is a recitation of a desired result, not a technical advance. Obvious.

Group F — Claims 19–24: method of making a system "incrementally scalable"

Claim 19 recites merely: provide DC sources and inverters (each with a single DC‑AC inverter, AC in/out ports and at least two DC input ports coupled to it); connect a DC source to each DC input port; provide AC power to the grid. Under pre‑AIA §103, a method claim whose steps are the inherent use of a known apparatus (Meinhardt/Alonso multi‑input inverter) adds nothing patentable. Claims 20–21 (single/three‑phase) and 22 (daisy‑chain) are covered by Combinations 3 and 5. Claim 23 ("total AC power … summation of the AC power supplied by each inverter") states the known result of paralleling inverters on an AC bus (Knaupp/Lindgren) — a statement of intended function. Claim 24 (mixed‑kind DC sources) repeats claim 18.

Combination 6 (Claims 19–24): Meinhardt + Alonso + Lindgren + Geis, as above. Vulnerable.

6. What the litigation record tells us about where the art actually bites

The public litigation metadata on the page shows the '133 patent has been heavily contested:

• IPR2024‑01106, Hoymiles USA, Inc. et al. v. CyboEnergy, Inc. — filed 2024‑06‑27; claims challenged: 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; terminated settled 2024‑10‑28. (Patexia docket summary.)
• IPR2024‑00362 — filed (Settlement). IPR2024‑00360 — filed (Procedural Termination). Petitioner field blank in the retrieved metadata; the '133 patent's assignee is CyboEnergy, Inc.
• District-court suits in W.D. Tex., E.D. Tex., N.D. Cal., C.D. Cal. (2021–2025), and the Altenergy and Northern Electric decisions both dismissing direct‑infringement claims because the accused products are single inverters, not the complete multi‑inverter daisy‑chained systems.

Two honest limitations on this section (§103 discipline):

1. I could not retrieve the actual petition grounds in IPR2024‑00360/00362/01106 (the searches returned only case metadata and unrelated PTAB documents). I therefore do not know which specific references the petitioners combined, and I will not fabricate them. The ground-by-ground combinations I set out above are my own independent §103 analysis, not a report of the petitions.
2. All three IPRs terminated before a final written decision (Settled / Procedural Termination). There is therefore no PTAB institution decision or FWD establishing that any claim is or is not unpatentable. Settlement in an IPR is not evidence of either validity or invalidity.

What the docket does reveal is diagnostic: the challengers attacked claims 15–24 (the multi‑DC‑input / single‑DC‑AC‑inverter / daisy‑chain combination), not claims 1–14. That is consistent with my analysis — claims 1–14 read on combinations of very old, well‑documented elements (Geis, Cheng, Rashid, IEEE 1547, AC‑module/multi‑string literature), whereas claims 15–24 are the claims whose novelty arguably lies in the specific architectural combination, making them the harder target and the more valuable commercial claims.

7. Motivation to combine — consolidated articulation

A POSITA would have been motivated to arrive at the claims for four independent, well‑documented reasons, all articulated in the pre‑2009 literature and even in the '133 background:

1. Cost. Meinhardt's multi‑string converter exists expressly to "reduce specific costs." Consolidating m inputs into one downstream inverter (claims 5–12, 15–24) reduces per‑watt inverter cost — precisely the incentive the '133 spec invokes.
2. Partial shading / module mismatch. Alonso and the AC‑module/DC‑optimizer literature teach independent MPPT per array/module; the '133 background lists the "weakest module dictates system performance" problem as the motivation. This drives the per‑input boost‑converter + per‑input MPPT limitations.
3. Installation/wiring simplification and scalability. Knaupp and Lindgren teach many module‑level inverters on a shared AC bus; Geis teaches linking numerous units for larger plants. This drives the daisy‑chained AC in/out ports and "incrementally scalable" language.
4. Utility interconnection. IEEE 1547 (2003) mandates grid synchronization and disconnect/islanding — supplying the line‑sensing and solid‑state‑switch limitations.

That these separate strands were being combined by others in 2007–2009 is documented in the retrieved record (Enphase's own US2013/0225005A1, priority 2010‑01‑25, cited as "Cited By" on the '133 patent and titled "Method and apparatus for interconnecting distributed power sources"). Its publication post‑dates the '133 priority date, so it is not prior art and cannot be used in a rejection — but as objective evidence of the contemporaneous state of the art it corroborates that "interconnecting distributed power sources," including daisy‑chain/parallel AC topologies, was a recognized problem the field was actively solving in the same window.

8. Objective indicia (Graham factor 4) — where CyboEnergy has the stronger hand

• Commercial success / industry recognition: CyboEnergy received Frost & Sullivan's 2013 Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award for Solar Inverters; the CyboInverter line shipped commercially (per CyboEnergy's 2015 press release). A nexus between the claimed multi‑input daisy‑chain architecture and that success would be required, and the '133 divisional (US 9,257,916) and the later family patents (US 9,871,379; US 9,899,841) suggest CyboEnergy built a genuine product family on the architecture.
• Copying / long‑felt need: the extensive 2021–2025 litigation against Altenergy, Northern Electric, Hoymiles, Deye and others — and the fact that those defendants market daisy‑chainable microinverters with AC connectors (e.g., NEP BDM‑600x, the accused products) — is at least colorable evidence that others adopted the architecture. But note the courts in Altenergy and Northern Electric found the accused single inverters did not themselves practice the claimed system; that cuts against a strong nexus argument for claims 15/19.
• Unexpected results: I see none in the record. The spec's stated benefits (scalability, per‑module MPPT, reduced wiring, summation of AC power) are exactly what the prior art predicts from combining per‑module electronics with a shared AC bus. That is the classic situation where secondary considerations cannot overcome a strong prima facie case.

9. Bottom line

The single most important caveat you should carry forward: the page you supplied does not contain a References Cited section, and I was unable to obtain the actual petition grounds from IPR2024‑00360, IPR2024‑00362 or IPR2024‑01106. The combinations above are my independent obviousness construction from (a) the five patent documents on the '133 front page (one verified: US 6,031,294 Geis), (b) the '133 specification's own admissions, and (c) pre‑2009 non‑patent literature I verified as being in the IDS record of US 9,812,984. Before relying on this for a validity opinion, you should obtain the full IPR petitions and exhibits (via PTAB E2E / PTACTS), the file wrapper for Ser. No. 12/837,162, and the complete front-page "References Cited" list — none of which was in the material provided to me.