US 8806197

I'll search for current information on this patent, including any litigation or CAFC docket activity.

Let me search for the specific litigation and any appellate activity.

Let me check for any Federal Circuit appellate activity and the recent §101 ruling.

US Patent 8,806,197 B2 — Analyst Summary

Scope note on sources: I retrieved the full patent text from Google Patents (US8806197B2) and cross-checked with FreePatentsOnline, EPO/UK IPO register data, CourtListener/PACER docket data, and the Unified Patents portal. One caveat on dates: your instruction states the current date as April 26, 2026, but the docket material I surfaced includes entries dated through August 2026 — so treat the litigation items below as reflecting a slightly later snapshot than the date you gave, and verify anything time-sensitive against PACER. I found no Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket activity for this patent; see the uncertainty section at the end.

1. Bibliographic Data

Assignment chain (as recorded): Certicom Corp. → BlackBerry Limited (Oct. 2, 2019) → OT Patent Escrow, LLC (Apr. 27, 2023) → Malikie Innovations Limited (June 2023, nunc pro tunc; with corrective assignments filed Sept. 5, 2023).

Family / continuations: Parent US 11/333,296 (granted as US 8,204,232); sibling continuations US 8,788,827 (Ser. No. 13/620,206) and US 10,284,370 (Ser. No. 14/318,313). Foreign family includes EP1842128B1 (now shown as owner Malikie Innovations Limited; lapsed/expired Jan. 17, 2026), JP5068176B2, CA2935823C, and WO2006076800A1.

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"Accelerated computation of combinations of group operations in a finite field is provided by arranging for at least one of the operands to have a relatively small bit length. In a elliptic curve group, verification that a value representative of a point R corresponds the sum of two other points uG and vG is obtained by deriving integers w, z of reduced bit length and so that v=w/z. The verification equality R=uG+vQ may then be computed as −zR+(uz mod n) G+wQ=O with z and w of reduced bit length. This is beneficial in digital signature verification where increased verification can be attained."

3. What the Patent Is About (plain language)

The specification addresses the fact that ECDSA signature verification is slower than signature generation because verification requires two scalar multiplications (uG and vQ). The core insight: rather than computing uG + vQ directly, derive two small integers w and z (each roughly half the bit length of n) such that v = w/z mod n, then algebraically reframe the verification equality as:

−zR + (zu mod n)G + wQ = O

Because z and w are short, the computation uses fewer doubling operations (the paper claims ~25–40% time savings, or roughly 33–42% more signatures verified per unit time, depending on precomputed tables/how advanced the scalar-multiplication technique is). The spec also describes deriving w and z via the extended Euclidean algorithm (stopping at ~√n) or via continued fractions, using precomputed multiples of G and Q, shortening all three multiples with lattice reduction (LLL / short-vector in 3 dimensions), applying the technique to DSA, PVS, implicit certificates, and public-key recovery from an ECDSA signature.

4. Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

Notably, the issued claims are narrower and different in emphasis from the headline verification-acceleration disclosure. All three independent claims are directed to the signing/generating side and to the indicator that lets a verifier disambiguate the recovered ephemeral public key.

Claim 1 — Method of generating a digital signature

A method, performed by a cryptographic module having one or more processors, comprising two steps:

1. Generate a digital signature having a first signature component and a second signature component, where the first component is based on a first coordinate of an elliptic curve point that represents the ephemeral public key; and
2. Generate an indicator, for use with the signature, that identifies which one of multiple possible values recoverable from the first signature component is the correct ephemeral public key.

In ECDSA terms: r is derived from x of R = kG, and the indicator (e.g., the low bit of y) tells the verifier which of the candidate y-values yields the correct point R.

Claim 12 — Cryptographic module (apparatus)

A cryptographic module (one or more processors) configured to perform the same two operations as claim 1 — generate the two-component signature (first component based on a first coordinate of an elliptic-curve ephemeral public key point) and generate the disambiguating indicator.

Claim 22 — Non-transitory computer-readable medium (CRM)

A non-transitory CRM storing instructions that, when executed, perform the same two operations as claims 1 and 12 — again framed as generating the signature and the indicator for identifying which recoverable value is the ephemeral public key.

Dependent-claim themes (shared across the three families): the indicator is a predetermined bit of the second coordinate (e.g., y mod 2) (claims 2–3, 13–14, 23–24); the indicator is based on the second coordinate (4, 13, 23); the indicator allows determination of the first coordinate of the point from the first signature component (5, 15, 25); the indicator comprises the first coordinate itself (6, 16, 26); the indicator comprises the whole elliptic curve point (7, 17, 27); transmitting the second component and indicator, and optionally the first component, to a verifying device (8–9, 18–19, 28–29); the second component derived from the first component, a private key, and an ephemeral private key (10, 20, 30); and the ECDSA form s = k⁻¹(h(m) + dr) mod n (11, 21, 31).

5. Litigation — Active and Recent

Asserting entity: Malikie Innovations Ltd. (with Key Patent Innovations Ltd. as co-plaintiff; Malikie is a subsidiary of KPI, itself a subsidiary of New PP Licensing LLC, per Rule 7.1 disclosures).

W.D. Tex. — Malikie Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Foundry Digital LLC et al., No. 7:25-cv-00567-DC-DTG

(Modesto/Midland-Odessa Division; Judge David Counts, referred to Magistrate Judge Derek T. Gilliland; filed December 12, 2025.)

• Asserted patents include the '197 Patent (8,806,197), alongside 8,788,827 ('827), 8,666,062 ('062), 8,532,286 ('286), and 8,712,039 ('039).
• Defendants: Foundry Digital LLC; Fortitude Mining, LLC; Riot Platforms, Inc.; and Cipher Digital Inc. f/k/a Cipher Mining Inc.
• Accused conduct: Bitcoin mining operations and transaction/signature processing. The complaint characterizes the patents as Certicom/BlackBerry elliptic-curve cryptography that the Bitcoin protocol incorporates; it accuses the defendants of operating large Bitcoin mining operations and participating in the Foundry USA Pool.
• '197-specific infringement theory (as summarized in third-party complaint analysis): Bitcoin's ECDSA implementation includes a "recovery ID" in the signature data that lets a verifier determine the correct ephemeral public key R; Malikie's theory is that generating a Bitcoin signature containing this recovery ID practices the claimed "indicator to identify which value… is the ephemeral public key."
• Docket activity surfaced:
  • June 18, 2026 — Report and Recommendation (Dkt. 86) on Cipher Digital's motion to dismiss for §101 ineligibility (Dkt. 42) under the Alice framework. The search snippets do not disclose the magistrate judge's recommended outcome; I do not have that.
  • Aug. 12, 2026 — Sealed order denying Riot Platforms' motion for intra-district transfer (Dkt. 66).
  • Aug. 14, 2026 — Sealed Report & Recommendation on Foundry Digital's motion to dismiss for improper venue (Dkt. 44).
  • Aug. 17, 2026 — Sealed R&R on Fortitude Mining's motions (Dkts. 43, 64) and a sealed/in-camera hearing transcript.
  • Aug. 18, 2026 — Plaintiffs' reply/sur-reply claim construction brief (Dkt. 141).
  • Scheduling order (Dkt. 63, filed Apr. 9, 2026) set a Markman hearing for Sept. 1, 2026 (placeholder), fact discovery opening Sept. 2, 2026, final contentions Oct. 27, 2026, and a case-dispositive/pretrial track into 2027.

Related, non-identical Malikie campaigns (for context)

• W.D. Tex. No. 7:25-cv-00222 — Malikie v. MARA Holdings (f/k/a Marathon Digital): asserted '827, 10,284,370, '062, 7,372,960, 7,372,961, and '286 — notably NOT the '197 patent. Dismissed June 15, 2026 (Order Dismissing Case, Doc. 99).
• E.D. Tex. No. 2:25-cv-00519 — Malikie v. Core Scientific and 2:25-cv-00946 — Malikie v. SAP America (dismissed Dec. 15, 2025). These also turned on the ECC/Montgomery-reduction/SHA-2 patents, not the '197.
• IPR2026-00120 — Vivint Smart Home / NRG v. Malikie, on US 11,119,756 (unrelated patent; cited only to identify RPI/related-matter patterns).

6. Uncertainty and Caveats

1. No CAFC 2026 docket located. My searches for a Federal Circuit appeal tied to 8,806,197 returned no results. To the best of my information, as of the surfaced docket snapshot there is no active CAFC appeal involving this patent — the W.D. Tex. case remains at the district-court stage (claim construction/dispositive motions). This is an absence of evidence, not proof of absence; an appeal could be filed after a final judgment or a §101 dismissal.
2. §101 outcome unknown. The June 18, 2026 Report & Recommendation on Cipher Digital's eligibility motion is described in the docket feed, but the search snippets do not reveal whether the court recommended dismissal or denial. I will not guess.
3. The complaint analysis attributions are third-party (Ex Parte AI Lab), not the pleadings themselves; the "recovery ID = claimed indicator" infringement theory is paraphrased from that source and from an AI-generated complaint analysis, not from a primary quote I verified.
4. Assignee field is a non-legal assertion. Google Patents explicitly disclaims any legal analysis of assignment; I have reported the recorded chain but have not independently verified title.
5. Claim 11 / claim 21 / claim 31 formula. The claims state s = k⁻¹(h(m) + dr) mod n. Note the specification's prose contains an apparent typographical error ("s=(e+dr)/s mod n"), which I flag for accuracy but have not auto-corrected in characterizing the claims.
6. Expiration. Google Patents lists a status of "Expired – Lifetime" with an adjusted expiration of May 4, 2026. If the current date is in fact later than that (e.g., Sept. 28, 2026, per one of my system timestamps), the patent would have lapsed by now — which would materially affect any prospective infringement remedy. Confirm the term/expiration calculation against USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it.

Primary sources:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8806197/en (full text, claims, family, assignments)
• https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8806197.html (inventors, dates, assignee)
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028096/1/malikie-innovations-ltd-v-foundry-digital-llc/ (complaint, '197 asserted)
• https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61786607/Malikie_Innovations_Ltd_et_al_v_Foundry_Digital_LLC_et_al (docket)
• https://www.search-for-intellectual-property.service.gov.uk/EP1842128 (EP family, Malikie Innovations Limited ownership)

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8806197. Let me search multiple sources.

The initial results returned a false match (WO8806197 — a sewing needle patent). Let me search more specifically for the cryptographic patent and the litigation data.

I found a key case. Let me dig deeper to identify all litigation asserting US 8,806,197.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,806,197

Important preliminary note on search results

A generic keyword search for "8806197" returns a false positive that I excluded: WO8806197A1, a 1988 PCT application titled "Sewing needle with easy-threading filament loop" (related to US 4,667,860 / US 5,129,558). That is an unrelated document and is not U.S. Patent No. 8,806,197. All identification below is for the cryptographic patent "Accelerated verification of digital signatures and public keys" (Certicom → BlackBerry → OT Patent Escrow → Malikie Innovations).

I also note a scope/completeness caveat: I was able to confirm one district-court case with litigation data; I could not, within the searches performed, independently enumerate every case ever asserting the '197 patent, and the patent does not appear to have generated a Federal Circuit appeal on its own. Where I am not certain, I say so below.

Confirmed litigation

Malikie Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Foundry Digital LLC et al.

How the '197 patent is at issue. The complaint accuses the defendants' Bitcoin mining and transaction-processing operations of using ECC/ECDSA techniques. As to the '197 patent, the theory is that Bitcoin's ECDSA implementation includes a "recovery ID" in the signature data, and the complaint characterizes generation of that recovery ID as generating the claimed "indicator to identify which value ... is the ephemeral public key" (asserting at least claim 1). This maps directly onto the '197 patent's claimed subject matter (claim 1: generating a digital signature and an indicator identifying which recoverable value is the ephemeral public key; claim 2/3: the indicator being a predetermined bit / y mod 2; claim 6: the indicator comprising the x-coordinate).

Key docket activity (2026):

• Feb. 27, 2026 – Foundry Digital and Fortitude Mining filed motions to dismiss for improper venue.
• Mar. 5, 2026 – Plaintiffs filed Notice of Venue Discovery.
• Apr. 9–14, 2026 – Scheduling Order entered; defendants (Foundry, Fortitude, Riot) filed motions to transfer venue; Plaintiffs filed a second Notice of Venue Discovery (venue discovery window Apr. 10 – June 19, 2026; response deadline extended to July 3, 2026).
• June 18, 2026 – Report and Recommendation on Cipher Digital's 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Alice) motion to dismiss.
• Aug. 2026 – Sealed order denying Riot's motion for intra-district transfer; Report & Recommendation on Foundry's improper-venue motion; claim construction briefing (opening/responsive/reply/sur-reply).
• Sept. 1, 2026 – Markman hearing (scheduled placeholder); fact discovery opened Sept. 2, 2026; final infringement/invalidity contentions due Oct. 27, 2026.

Related/adjacent matters (context, not confirmed assertions of the '197 patent)

Malikie/Key Patent Innovations has filed a broad campaign against Bitcoin miners and other targets, but I could not verify within these searches that the '197 patent specifically was asserted in the following (they are listed only to show the family context and to avoid over-claiming):

• Malikie Innovations Ltd. v. MARA Holdings, Inc. (f/k/a Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc.), No. 7:25-cv-00222 (W.D. Tex., filed ~May 2025).
• Malikie Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Core Scientific, Inc. / CoreWeave, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-519 (E.D. Tex.).
• Malikie Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Vivint Smart Home, Inc. et al., No. 2:25-cv-00555 (E.D. Tex.).
• Malikie Innovations Ltd. et al. v. SAP America Inc. et al., No. 2:25-cv-00946 (E.D. Tex., closed Dec. 2025).

I cannot confirm that U.S. 8,806,197 was asserted in any of these without further verification.

Consolidated answer

One district-court litigation is confirmed as involving U.S. Patent No. 8,806,197:

• Plaintiffs: Malikie Innovations Ltd. and Key Patent Innovations Ltd.
• Defendants: Foundry Digital LLC; Fortitude Mining, LLC; Riot Platforms, Inc.; Cipher Digital Inc. f/k/a Cipher Mining Inc.
• Jurisdiction: W.D. Tex. (Midland–Odessa Division), No. 7:25-cv-00567-DC-DTG
• Filing date: on or about Dec. 12, 2025
• Status: Pending. No merits outcome; the case is in venue-motion, § 101, and claim-construction phases, with a Markman hearing set for Sept. 1, 2026.

The '197 patent's own Google Patents record corroborates this as its "Family has litigation" entry, pointing to the Texas Western District Court case no. 7:25-cv-00567.

Sources:

• Google Patents, US 8,806,197 B2 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8806197/en (lists "Family has litigation — US case filed in Texas Western District Court, case 7:25-cv-00567")
• CourtListener docket, Malikie Innovations Ltd. v. Foundry Digital LLC (W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00567) — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028096/
• PACER Monitor case summary — https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61786607/Malikie_Innovations_Ltd_et_al_v_Foundry_Digital_LLC_et_al
• Ex Parte complaint analysis, 7:25-cv-00567 — https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:25-cv-00567/ (identifies '197 patent and the "indicator"/recovery-ID infringement theory)

Caveats: I found no Federal Circuit appeal, PTAB post-grant proceeding, or ITC action specifically directed to U.S. 8,806,197. If the requester needs a definitive litigation history, the authoritative next steps would be a direct PACER docket pull for the case above and a full-text search of Docket Navigator / Lex Machina keyed to patent number 8,806,197, which I could not exhaustively run here. I am explicitly uncertain whether additional unverified cases asserted this specific patent.

I'll verify the canonical empty PTAB list against live sources before finalizing.

Let me check the Nintendo stay motion and Unified Patents/Blockchain Zone activity, which could implicate this patent.

Let me confirm no proceeding exists against the '197 or its sibling family members.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against U.S. 8,806,197 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 with institution denied (the USPTO Open Data Portal list is empty, and my independent searches found no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent, so the structured list stands). The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore neither of the two archetypes: the patent has not been narrowed or hardened by a PTAB trial — all 31 claims are untested — which means there is no FWD to cite and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel burdening anyone, but also no claims-canceled silver bullet; whoever wants a PTAB win against the '197 has to be the first petitioner.

(Diligence note: I could not run an exhaustive PTAB full-text/party-name sweep before hitting my research limit. The negative finding rests on (i) the ODP structured list, (ii) the Google Patents "Family has litigation" record, which flags the district-court case but no PTAB entry — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8806197](/patent/US8806197)/en — and (iii) targeted searches that surfaced only challenges to sibling and cousin Malikie/Certicom patents. Treat it as high-confidence but verify with a PTAB E2E / PTACTS party-name query for "Malikie," "Certicom," and "BlackBerry" before relying on it in a filing.)

Proceeding-level detail

(none — no AIA trial has been instituted or even petitioned on U.S. 8,806,197)

Nearby Office proceedings that do NOT involve the '197 patent

These are the only PTAB/Office matters my searches actually verified in this patent family's neighborhood. They are listed so you do not confuse them with a '197 proceeding — the '197 is in none of them.

The one-year § 315(b) clock for the Foundry defendants (W.D. Tex. No. 7:25-cv-00567, filed 2025-12-12, where the '197 is actually asserted) runs from service of the complaint — so the petition window on the '197 itself is still open to those defendants if they move within 12 months of service. See the docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028096/

Strategic summary

Claim status: 31 of 31 claims untested; none canceled. The '197 issued with 31 claims in three statutory classes — claims 1–11 (method), 12–21 (cryptographic module), 22–31 (non-transitory computer-readable medium). No PTAB panel has ever construed a term, evaluated a ground, or invalidated a single claim. Every claim — including claim 1 (the "indicator to identify which value … is said ephemeral public key"), claims 2–3 (indicator = a predetermined bit / y mod 2), claim 6 (indicator = x-coordinate), and claims 10–11/20–21/30–31 (the s = k⁻¹(h(m)+dr) mod n dependent claims) — is live in the sense of never having been PTAB-adjudicated. The only narrowing pressure visible anywhere is in court, not at the Office: Cipher Digital's 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Alice) motion and the Report and Recommendation dated 2026-06-18 in the W.D. Tex. case, which is a judicial validity attack, not a PTAB ruling.

Estoppel landscape: nothing is estoppel-barred on this patent. Because no petitioner has obtained an FWD (or even an institution decision) on the '197, § 315(e)(2) / § 325(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered for anyone — not for Foundry/Fortitude/Riot/Cipher Digital, and not for Nintendo (whose settled IPR2026-00004 was terminated before any institution, so it generated no estoppel at all, and in any event concerned a different patent). Practically: every prior-art ground, § 102 and § 103, remains on the table in the W.D. Tex. case, and any defendant may raise the same art in an IPR without any risk of losing it in court. Conversely, if a defendant does petition and institutes, it should expect to lose those grounds in court thereafter — so the petition should be drafted as the complete validity case, not a scouting mission.

Pattern signals. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern on this patent — zero petitions. The macro pattern is real, though: Malikie is a high-frequency target of Office challenges across its portfolio (Nintendo's October 2025 IPR cluster plus an ex parte reexam; Unified Patents, the defensive aggregator, filed and won institution of reexam 90/019,997 on U.S. 9,313,065 through its "SEP Wi-Fi Zone," and Unified/COPA have publicly flagged a blockchain-focused challenging program aimed at exactly the Certicom-origin ECC patents Malikie is now asserting against Bitcoin miners). Notably, Unified Patents is not in the chain of any proceeding against the '197 — its portal page for the sibling U.S. 8,788,827 exists (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-8788827-B2) but reflects no challenge. Whether Unified's Blockchain Zone eventually takes on the '197 is the single most plausible source of a future petition, and it is already suing-adjacent to the '197 via the Foundry case's own Google Patents litigation link (Unified Patents Litigation Data).

Two timing facts that dominate everything else. First, the Google Patents legal-status field for the '197 records an adjusted expiration of 2026-05-04 and status "Expired – Lifetime" (an assumption in the record, not a legal conclusion — and this is a family subject to terminal disclaimers, so the '370 sibling should be expected to share roughly the same term). If that date holds, as of today (2026-09-28) the patent's term has run: the litigation exposure is past damages only (six-year lookback), an injunction is off the table, and the marginal value of an IPR drops sharply — though the Board does entertain IPRs against expired patents, and a cancellation FWD still removes the past-damages theory for every defendant at once. Second, the Director's discretionary-denial doctrine has hardened in 2026: the precedential Magnolia Medical Technologies, Inc. v. Kurin, Inc., IPR2026-00097 decision (PTAB 2026-05-14) directs denial where a petition is filed late in a parallel litigation and duplicates validity issues already being litigated — precisely the posture the W.D. Tex. '197 case would present to a petition filed now, after claim construction has begun.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant in W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00567: there is no FWD to hand the court. Do not represent otherwise. Your validity position on the '197 is a court position, supplemented at most by a first-of-its-kind petition you would have to fund.
• Preserve the petition option now and check the clock. Confirm the Rule 4 service date of the '197 complaint (filed 2025-12-12) — 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) bars a petition more than one year after service. Filing a full § 102/§ 103 petition on claims 1–11 (and, if budget allows, 12–31, since the CRM/module claims are the same disclosure in different statutory clothing) before that date keeps the option alive; waiting forfeits it.
• Weigh the Magnolia discretionary-denial risk explicitly before spending on a petition. Given the late stage of the parallel case, the expired/adjusted-expiration posture, and the Director's 2026 direction toward denying duplicative, late-filed challenges, a petition filed now faces a real § 314(a) denial risk. If the goal is portfolio-level elimination rather than individual leverage, the Unified Patents / COPA-style cost-shared route is more efficient — that is the mechanism that already produced reexam 90/019,997 against a Malikie patent.
• Consider ex parte reexamination as the low-cost parallel track (no § 315(b) time bar, no petitioner participation after filing) — the path Unified used against the '065 patent — while litigating validity in W.D. Tex. Do not expect a stay from a request alone; the W.D. Wash. court in the Nintendo case granted a stay only after a reexam grant plus IPR petitions covering all 94 asserted claims (see the stay opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[10733570](/patent/10733570)/malikie-innovations-ltd-et-al-v-nintendo-co-ltd-et-al/).
• Watch the siblings, because they are the real pressure points. The asserted "Accelerated Verification" family is broader than the '197: U.S. 8,788,827 and U.S. 10,284,370 are asserted in the parallel miner actions (see the E.D. Tex. complaint: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[237820](/patent/237820)/gov.uscourts.txed.237820.1.0.pdf), share the same specification, and are the patents against which any Unified/COPA blockchain-zone petition is most likely to be filed first. A cancellation there would not formally cancel the '197, but it would gut the family's licensing narrative.
• No appeal to track. There is no Federal Circuit appeal touching the '197, because there is no PTAB decision to appeal. Any CAFC activity in this family is confined to related Malikie/Certicom matters, not this patent.

Bottom line for the file: no PTAB activity exists on U.S. 8,806,197 — the patent is untested, un-narrowed, and un-estopped. That cuts both ways: nothing is dead against you, but nothing is dead for you either, and with the term apparently run (adjusted expiration 2026-05-04) and a 2026 Board policy of denying late, duplicative petitions, the highest-value defensive spend is likely in the district court and in a cost-shared ex parte reexam, not in a solo IPR petition.

I'll research the assignment record for US 8,806,197, focusing on reel/frame numbers and — critically — the recording correspondent for each link.

Now let me search for the specific reel/frame numbers and recording correspondents for the '197 patent's assignments.

I was unable to run a direct per-patent query on the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov is a JavaScript application that does not expose records to text retrieval), so reel/frame data below is drawn from (a) Google Patents' legal-events record for US 8,806,197, which recites reel/frame text verbatim, (b) a recorded chain-of-title sheet filed at the PTAB (ptacts.uspto.gov petition 1558566), (c) UK IPO/EPO register entries for the same family, and (d) BlackBerry's FY2023 Form 10-K. Where a reel/frame is not confirmed for this patent, I say so rather than infer one.

Inventors

All six were Certicom Corp. personnel (Mississauga, Ontario) — the assignee of record — and all six appear as assignors on the recorded "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" to Certicom Corp. (Google Patents legal event dated 2013-06-18, assignors listed as GALLANT, LAMBERT, VANSTONE, ANTIPA, BROWN, STRUIK). Vanstone is the widely credited Certicom co-founder and Struik its long-time principal cryptographer; the others are Certicom's ECC research staff. I did not verify any individual's tenure end-date, so I make no claim about departures.

Unusual pattern — flagged: the inventor→Certicom assignment surfaces on the record with a 2013 date, ~7 years after the Jan. 18, 2006 filing of the parent application, and one year after this continuation (Ser. No. 13/478,288) was filed. That is a re-recording/confirmatory assignment tied to the continuation, not the original 2005–06 employment assignment. I could not retrieve the execution date or reel/frame for the '197's inventor link. Notably, no inventor appears as an assignor on any post-2013 transfer — consistent with a clean, complete assignment to Certicom with no retained inventor rights.

Original assignee

Certicom Corp. (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) — named as assignee on the face of US 8,806,197 (confirmed via FreePatentsOnline). Certicom was a pure-play elliptic-curve-cryptography operating company founded in 1985: it developed and sold ECC toolkits and security software (SSL/VPN/embedded security products) and ran a patent-licensing program over its ECC portfolio. So yes — it shipped products embodying the field, though not necessarily the specific claimed signature-indicator feature.

Status: not independent. Research In Motion (RIM) acquired Certicom in 2009; RIM renamed itself BlackBerry. Certicom continued as a BlackBerry-affiliated entity. The portfolio was subsequently monetized: BlackBerry's FY2023 10-K (filed Mar. 31, 2023) records an agreement to "sell substantially all of BlackBerry's non-core patent assets to Malikie Innovations Limited, a subsidiary of Key Patent Innovations Limited, for a combination of cash at closing and potential future royalties in the aggregate amount of up to $900 million." Certicom Corp. itself is therefore best characterized as acquired / absorbed into the BlackBerry group, with its patents later divested.

Assignment timeline

I found four substantive recorded links plus corrective recordings on the '197. All dates below are as recorded unless marked "(executed)".

1. 2005–2006 (executed) / recorded 2013-06-18 — Reel/frame not confirmed for this patent

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor assignment)
• Assignor: Marinus Struik; Daniel R. Brown; Scott A. Vanstone; Robert P. Gallant; Adrian Antipa; Robert J. Lambert
• Assignee: Certicom Corp., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Original employment/inventor assignment, re-recorded against the 2012 continuation rather than the 2006 parent.

2. executed 2019-10-02 / recorded 2019-10-02 — Reel/frame not confirmed for this patent

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignor's interest
• Assignor: Certicom Corp.
• Assignee: BlackBerry Limited, 2200 University Avenue East, Waterloo, ON N2K 0A7, Canada
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Internal reorg / intra-group consolidation — moves the US record of title from the acquired Certicom entity to BlackBerry Limited. Note this postdates RIM/BlackBerry's 2009 acquisition of Certicom by roughly a decade, so it is a later consolidation step, not the acquisition itself.

3. executed 2023-03-20 / recorded 2023-04-27 — Reel 063471 / Frame 0474

• Conveyance: Assignment (Patent Sale Agreement, "Project Bullet")
• Assignor: BlackBerry Limited (and, for its Delaware subsidiary, BlackBerry Corporation as Transferring Affiliate)
• Assignee: OT Patent Escrow, LLC, 200 West Madison, 37th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606
• Correspondent: Botos Churchill IP Law LLP, 430 Mountain Avenue, Suite 401, New Providence, NJ 07974 (Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016, signed the associated confirmatory/corrective filing on 2023-12-27). Recurring firm — see signal 3.
• Context: Transfer-to-monetizer (escrow leg). First step of the $170M-closing / up-to-$900M BlackBerry non-core patent sale. The escrow LLC is an interim conduit, not an operating buyer. Reel confirmed for the '197 because Google Patents' own 2023-09-05 corrective entry names "REEL 063471 FRAME 0474."

4. executed 2023-03-20 / recorded 2023-06-16 — Reel 064015 / Frame 0001

• Conveyance: Nunc pro tunc assignment (retroactive to the March 20, 2023 deed)
• Assignor: OT Patent Escrow, LLC
• Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited, The Glasshouses GH2, 92 Georges Street Lower, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin A96 VR66, Ireland
• Correspondent: Botos Churchill IP Law LLP (as above)
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter, second leg — closes the escrow conduit into the Irish SPV that is the current owner and plaintiff. Reel confirmed for the '197 because Google Patents names "REEL: 064015 FRAME: 0001" in its corrective entry.

5. executed 2023-03-20 / recorded 2023-06-19 — Reel 064066 / 0001 (likely; not confirmed for the '197)

• Conveyance: Nunc pro tunc assignment
• Assignor: BlackBerry Limited (direct, via the PSA's Exhibit F-1 form)
• Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited
• Correspondent: Botos Churchill IP Law LLP (as above)
• Context: Belt-and-braces parallel path. The PSA provided both a direct BlackBerry→Malikie patent assignment (Exhibit F-1) and the escrow route; this is the direct leg. I flag that a PTAB chain-of-title sheet lists reel 064066/0001 for a Malikie record, but I could not confirm that sheet pertains to the '197 rather than a sibling.

6. executed 2023-09-05 (recorded same day) — correctives on Reel 063471/0474 and Reel 064015/0001; further recordings on Reel 064806/0669 and Reel 064807/0001 (dates/patent coverage unconfirmed)

• Conveyance: Correction (corrective assignment)
• Assignor / Assignee: BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC, and OT Patent Escrow, LLC → Malikie Innovations Limited
• Correspondent: Botos Churchill IP Law LLP / Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016
• Context: Administrative cleanup of the sale's schedule — Google Patents records that the cover sheets at 063471/0474 and 064015/0001 had erroneously swept in application 12,817,157 and were corrected to remove it. The heavy corrective activity within ~6 months of closing is characteristic of bulk portfolio conveyances.

Bottom line: the Assignment Center does have records for this patent — the ownership chain is Certicom Corp. → BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC → Malikie Innovations Limited, with confirmatory/corrective re-recordings in Sept. and Dec. 2023.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8806197
    2005 : Inventors assign to Certicom Corp
         : Provisional filed Jan 18
    2006 : Parent application filed
    2012 : Continuation filed
    2013 : Inventor assignment recorded
    2014 : Patent issued Aug 12
    2019 : Certicom Corp assigns to BlackBerry
    2023 : BlackBerry sells portfolio to escrow LLC
         : Escrow LLC assigns to Malikie
    2025 : Malikie asserts patent in W D Tex
    2026 : Patent term expires May 4

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (strong).
Reel 063471/0474 (recorded 2023-04-27) moves the patent from BlackBerry Limited — an operating company with commercial product lines — to OT Patent Escrow, LLC, whose recorded address (200 West Madison, 37th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606) is a commercial office/agent-style address with no operating presence; the entity is named as an escrow conduit. Reel 064015/0001 (recorded 2023-06-16) then moves it to Malikie Innovations Limited, an Irish SPV that owns all of whose equity is held by Key Patent Innovations Limited (per PSA § 10.18(e)(iv)). The PSA itself recites that the Purchaser is to operate "a patent monetization business with respect to the Assigned Patents" (§ 10.1(a)(ii)) and conveys "all claims, causes of action and enforcement rights … to sue for past, present or future infringement." No products in commerce; single-purpose acquisition vehicle; no evidence of any Malikie operating business. This is the full pattern.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT in substance, but NOT on the enumerated legacy lists.
Malikie Innovations Ltd. / Key Patent Innovations Ltd. do not match any of the enumerated legacy asserters (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). However, Google Patents' own "Family has litigation" field points to the Unified Patents litigation database for the W.D. Tex. action, and Malikie appears on the RPX Insight assignment/plaintiff records. It is a purpose-built, high-volume patent-monetization plaintiff created out of the BlackBerry transaction — functionally equivalent even though off-list.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (strong).
Botos Churchill IP Law LLP, 430 Mountain Avenue, Suite 401, New Providence, NJ 07974, and specifically Richard J. Botos (Reg. No. 32,016), appear as the recording correspondent/signatory across the 2023 chain: Botos signed the confirmatory chain-of-title submission dated 2023-12-27 covering the BlackBerry → OT Patent Escrow → Malikie records (PTAB petition 1558566 document), and RPX Insight's assignment record lists "BOTOS CHURCHILL IP LAW LLP" as the correspondent on the corresponding BlackBerry-transaction Reel 063560/0424 recording. The firm is also the prosecution firm for the incoming owner — patentbots.com lists Malikie Innovations Limited as a current client (22 issued patents in the past year) — and is simultaneously one of BlackBerry Limited's largest prosecution firms (≈586 BlackBerry patents over 10 years). One lawyer/firm sitting on both sides of the sale is the tell: the LLC names change, the firm running the recordings does not. Note this is a recurrence finding, not a naming-based one — Botos Churchill also does substantial operating-company work (Waymo, Abiomed, ResMed, Google), so its appearance would not, by itself, be probative.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Four-plus recorded events within roughly eight months, through chained entities with a shared correspondent: 2023-04-27 (BlackBerry → OT Patent Escrow, 063471/0474), 2023-06-16 (OT Patent Escrow → Malikie, 064015/0001), 2023-06-19 (direct BlackBerry → Malikie, ~064066/0001), then corrective re-recordings on 2023-09-05 and again around 2023-12 (reels 064806/0669, 064807/0001). Same closing, same Delaware-law PSA, same counsel — a single structured conveyance executed in multiple parallel legs, not independent arm's-length purchases.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (in the required 6-month window).
The chain was executed/recorded Mar.–Jun. 2023. The first suit naming the '197 (W.D. Tex. No. 7:25-cv-00567, Malikie v. Foundry Digital et al.) was filed on or about Dec. 12, 2025 — approximately 32 months after closing, well outside the 6-month window. There is no evidence the conveyances were timed to a specific imminent filing (though they were plainly timed to enable assertion, per the PSA's transferred causes of action).

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
BlackBerry was not in bankruptcy. The FY2023 10-K describes a negotiated divestiture of non-core assets for $170,000,000 cash at closing plus $30,000,000 deferred consideration and a retained royalty grant (8% of the first $500M of net profits, rising to 50% of amounts above $1B, capped initially at $700M and escalating 4%/yr). BlackBerry also retained a freedom-to-operate license and its "Retained Business Patents." This is a monetization transaction with retained upside, not a distressed sale.

7. Privateering — PRESENT (with one qualification).
BlackBerry sold "substantially all of BlackBerry's non-core patent assets" to an entity it did not control, that (i) has no operating business, (ii) pays BlackBerry a percentage of net profits from enforcement and licensing, and (iii) is now suing operating companies. The economic participation of the originator in the assertion proceeds is the classic privateering signature. Qualification: the accused defendants in the '197 action are Bitcoin miners/transaction processors — not BlackBerry's competitors in QNX/Spark/Cylance markets — so the "against the operating company's competitors" element that typically defines privateering is weaker here; this reads more as pure portfolio monetization than targeted competitive warfare. BlackBerry also reportedly provided the PSA's business documents (claim charts, FRAND analyses, licensing pipelines) to the buyer, per the PSA's "Business Documents" definition — i.e., the licensing playbook transferred with the patents.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Malikie Innovations Limited, an active plaintiff that has filed multiple suits (Foundry Digital/Fortitude/Riot/Cipher Digital; earlier campaigns against MARA Holdings, Core Scientific, Vivint, SAP). There is no RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN endpoint. The patent has not been neutralized.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The record shows a licensing-only Irish SPV, whose equity is wholly owned by Key Patent Innovations Ltd. (PSA § 10.18(e)(iv)) and whose stated business is "patent monetization," acquiring the patent from an operating company through an intermediate escrow LLC — BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC (Reel 063471/0474, rec. 2023-04-27) → Malikie Innovations Limited (Reel 064015/0001, rec. 2023-06-16) — with a parallel direct assignment recorded 2023-06-19. Three strong signals stack: shell/licensing-only transfer (063471/0474, 064015/0001), a recurring recording correspondent (Botos Churchill IP Law LLP / Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016, on the 2023 recordings and on the 2023-12-27 confirmatory filing, and now Malikie's own prosecution counsel), and cascading transfers executed within one PSA. Privateering economics are present in substance (retained net-profits royalty, transferred litigation claims and licensing work product) though the current defendants are not BlackBerry competitors.

Two material caveats for anyone acting on this:

• The patent has lapsed. Google Patents shows status "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2026-05-04. As of today (2026-09-28) the term has run. That does not void the pending W.D. Tex. case (pre-expiration damages and up to six years of look-back remain recoverable), but it eliminates prospective injunctive/royalty leverage and materially reframes any valuation.
• Datestamp inconsistency in the prior sections — the earlier summary's scope note described the operative date as April 26, 2026, whereas my system date is 2026-09-28. The assignment record is date-insensitive, but the expiration analysis above turns on it; verify term/expiration against USPTO PatentCenter before relying on either date.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 8806197) — and cross-check reel 063471/0474 and 064015/0001 directly; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Secondary corroboration: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8806197/en (legal events), the BlackBerry Limited FY2023 Form 10-K Patent Sale Agreement exhibit (https://otp.investis.com/clients/us/blackberry_inc/SEC/sec-show.aspx?Type=page&FilingId=16535452-[561887](/patent/561887)-[805233](/patent/805233)&CIK=0001070235), and UK IPO/EPO register entries for EP1842128 recording Malikie Innovations Limited as proprietor "by virtue of deed of assignment dated 20.03.2023" in place of OT Patent Escrow LLC (200 West Madison, 37th Floor, Chicago) and BlackBerry Limited (2200 University Avenue East, Waterloo).

I'll search for the specific citation record of US 8,806,197, since the earlier sections captured the "Cited By" and family-citation lists but not the patent's own front-page References Cited section.

I have the first portion of the front-page US patent references. Let me retrieve the remainder of the cited-references list and the non-patent literature.

Let me pull the complete front-page reference list from Justia and the Google Patents "References Cited" section.

Scope and source caveats (read first)

Identification confirmed. U.S. Patent No. 8,806,197 is Accelerated verification of digital signatures and public keys — Certicom Corp., application 13/478,288, filed 2012-05-23, issued 2014-08-12, priority 2005-01-18 (provisional 60/644,034; parent 11/333,296 → US 8,204,232). I excluded the false positive WO8806197A1 ("Sewing needle with easy-threading filament loop"), which is unrelated, per the earlier section.

What I could and could not retrieve. The full text you supplied contains Google Patents' "Cited By" (forward citations) and "Families Citing this family," but not the patent's own front-page "References Cited" section. I recovered the backward-citation list from FreePatentsOnline's record for 8806197 (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8806197.html). That list was truncated in retrieval at approximately US 6,43x,xxx, and I did not recover the "Foreign Patent Documents" or "Other References" (NPL) blocks from the '197 front page itself. I therefore present (i) the patent citations I actually verified, and (ii) a clearly-labelled set of candidate references to check. I did not fabricate any citation I could not see.

Date discrepancy (carried forward). This task states the current date as April 26, 2026; my system timestamp reads 2026-09-28, and prior sections flagged the same inconsistency. Nothing below turns on it.

One structural warning about the list. Several cited references post-date the '197's own filing date (e.g., US 8,467,535 issued 2013-06-18; US 8,307,211 issued 2012-11-06, both after the 2012-05-23 filing). That is consistent with supplemental IDS submissions during 2013–14 prosecution — it is not a data error. It does mean, however, that presence on the front page does not imply a reference was available as prior art as of the priority date.

Part 1 — Patent citations of record on US 8,806,197

Grouped by relevance to the issued claims, which (per the earlier summary) are all directed to the signing side: generating a signature whose first component is based on a first coordinate (x) of the ephemeral public-key point R, plus an indicator identifying which of the plurality of values recoverable from that component is R (claims 1, 12, 22 and dependents).

Group A — Applicant's own family members (NOT § 102 prior art)

Flag: the '197 cites its own parent and CIP as "references." Neither can anticipate. Any § 102 argument built on these two is a non-starter.

Group B — ECC scalar-multiplication / acceleration (relevant to the disclosure, weak against the claims)

Group C — Signature / key-generation / verification schemes (the most relevant set)

Group D — Side-channel / DPA countermeasures (cited for background; no § 102 relevance to the claims)

US 7,599,491 B2 (Method for strengthening the implementation of ECDSA against power analysis, Lambert, 2009-10-06); US 6,724,894 B2 (Cryptographic device having reduced vulnerability to side-channel attack…, Singer, 2004-04-20); US 2003/0048903 A1 (Encryption secured against DPA, Ito et al., 2003-03-13); US 2003/0044003 A1 (Space-efficient, side-channel attack resistant table lookups, Chari et al., 2003-03-06); US 6,873,706 B2 (Processing apparatus, program, or system of secret information, Miyazaki et al., 2005-03-29); US 2003/0021410 A1 (IC card equipped with elliptic curve encryption processing facility, Miyazaki et al., 2003-01-30); US 2003/0061498 A1 (Portable data carrier provided with access protection by dividing up codes, Drexler et al., 2003-03-27); US 2002/0166058 A1 (Semiconductor integrated circuit on IC card protected against tampering, Fueki, 2002-11-07).

§ 102 potential: none for claims 1–31. These address implementation security, not signature-component structure or recovery indicators.

Group E — Other cited art (unrelated to the claims)

US 7,421,074 B2 (Security system using RSA algorithm…, Jin et al., 2008-09-02); US 6,496,929 B1 (Generating RSA moduli including a predetermined portion, Lenstra, 2002-12-17); US 6,816,594 B2 (Elliptic curve generating method and device…, Okeya, 2004-11-09); US 6,829,356 B2 (Server-assisted regeneration of a strong secret from a weak secret, Ford, 2004-12-07); US 2003/0059042 A1 (Elliptic scalar multiplication system, Okeya et al., 2003-03-27); US 2003/0059043 A1 (Elliptic curve signature verification method and apparatus…, Okeya et al., 2003-03-27).

§ 102 potential: US 2003/0059043 A1 is the closest of these topically (EC signature verification) — but the '197 claims are signing-side, and an Okeya verification method would need to disclose the generation of the indicator component. Unlikely to anticipate; verify. US 6,816,594 (Okeya, curve generation) and the RSA references are not anticipatory of any claim.

Truncated portion

The FPO list continues past US 6,43x,xxx (the entry immediately following US 6,446,207). I could not retrieve the older tail (typically US 5,xxx,xxx–6,4xx,xxx) nor the Foreign Patent Documents or Other References blocks. This is a genuine gap, not a "none found."

Part 2 — Non-patent literature (verified for the parent/sibling, not confirmed on the '197 face)

Because the '197 shares the '232/'827 specification, the NPL cited against the parent is a strong proxy — but I flag it as proxy, not confirmed '197 front-page content:

1. *A. Antipa, D. R. L. Brown, R. P. Gallant, R. Lambert, R. Struik, S. A. Vanstone, "Accelerated Verification of ECDSA Signatures," Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC 2005), LNCS 3897, pp. 307–318, Springer* (conference Aug 2005; volume 2006). Cited, e.g., in the US 8,204,232 record (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8204232](/patent/8204232)) and in JP 2009-005213 A.
   § 102 assessment: NOT prior art. Authored by all six '197 inventors; published after the 2005-01-18 priority date and less than one year before the 2006-01-18 parent filing. It fails § 102(a) (post-invention? — it is the inventors' own work) and § 102(b) (under one year) as to claims supported by the provisional.
2. D. Hankerson, A. Menezes, S. Vanstone, Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Springer, ISBN 0-387-95273-X (2004) — cited in the specification (Algorithm 3.74, Algorithm 3.48, p. 98 et seq., p. 102 Montgomery x-only method). Published before 2005-01-18 → available as § 102(a)/(b) art. But: it discloses generic ECC/windowing/extended-Euclidean technique, not the claimed signing-side indicator. Best use is § 103 support, not anticipation.
3. J. Henri Cohen, A Course in Computational Algebraic Number Theory, Springer, ISBN 0-387-55640-0 — cited in the specification (Sections 2.6, LLL algorithm, short-vector / Vallée 3-D lattice). Published well before 2005. § 102: none for the indicator claims; § 103 support at most.
4. FIPS 180-2 (Secure Hash Standard), IEEE P1363a, ANSI X9.92 (PVS), referenced in the specification. Standards documents predating 2005 — § 102(a)/(b) available, but they define ECDSA/DSA/PVS generally, not the claimed indicator.
5. D. Johnson, A. Menezes, S. Vanstone, "The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)," Int'l J. Information Security, 1(1):36–63 (2001) — surfaced in adjacent-art reference lists; I could not confirm it is cited on the '197. See Part 3.
6. K. Koyama — appears in the US 8,204,232 citation record; identity/date not confirmed.

Part 3 — Candidate prior art I would check next (NOT confirmed as cited on the '197)

These are the references most likely to be actually anticipatory of claim 1, and they are not in the list I recovered — which is itself the finding worth carrying forward:

• The "y-bit"/point-recovery concept in the ECDSA standards. ANSI X9.62 and SEC 1 (Certicom Research, SEC 1: Elliptic Curve Cryptography) describe point compression (x + one bit recovers y) and, in later editions, public-key recovery from a signature. To the extent a pre-2005 document discloses including a parity/select bit with the signature so the verifier can reconstruct R, it is the single most dangerous § 102 reference against claim 1. I have not verified a specific edition, section number, or whether it is of record on the '197 — verify before relying on it.
• US 8,666,062 / CA 2,669,472 C ("Compressed ECDSA signatures," Certicom/BlackBerry) — note: priority 2006-11-13, i.e., after the '197 priority date, so it is not prior art to the '197. It is, however, the closest sibling concept and is itself one of the patents asserted in the Foundry case (per the earlier litigation section). List it as context, not art.

Bottom line on § 102

1. On the retrieved record, no reference appears to anticipate claims 1, 12, or 22, and none reaches the dependent claims (predetermined y-bit / y mod 2; indicator = x-coordinate; indicator = the whole point; the s = k⁻¹(h(m)+dr) mod n limitations). That is consistent with the claims having issued over this art in 2014.
2. The reference list is dominated by non-analogous art — side-channel countermeasures (Group D) and RSA/curve-generation/secret-regeneration (Group E) — which was cited for generalized ECC background, not for the claimed subject matter. Any § 102 attack mounted on those references will fail.
3. Two of the "references" are the applicant's own family members (US 8,467,535 and US 8,204,232) and are categorically unavailable as § 102 art.
4. The genuinely load-bearing § 102 candidates are US 6,446,207 (Vanstone, Verification protocol), US 7,593,527 (Beeson), and possibly US 2005/0135606 (Brown, § 102(e)-only) — each requires full-text, claim-level review, which I could not complete within this pass.
5. My retrieval was incomplete. The tail of the US patent references (below ~US 6,43x,xxx), the Foreign Patent Documents, and the Other References blocks were not recovered. Treat the "no anticipation" conclusion as applying only to the references listed above, not to the full front page.

To close the gap, the authoritative next steps are: pull the '197 front page and its complete "References Cited" block from USPTO PatentCenter (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) or the grant PDF (patentimages), and run the same extraction on US 8,204,232 and US 8,788,827, whose examiner (Parthasarathy) and shared specification make their citation records the best available proxy for the '197's.

I'll research the prior art landscape for the '197 patent's claims before building the §103 analysis.

Let me dig into the specific standards and references that predate the 2005 priority date.

I was unable to complete every planned search (I hit a step limit after four batches), so the citations below rest on the material actually retrieved in this session plus the standards documents identified in it. Where I could not verify a specific passage, I say so. I have also flagged one date inconsistency carried over from the prior sections.

§103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,806,197

Caveat on scope of the record. The materials supplied for this page contain no discrete, enumerated "Prior Art" section. The closest inputs I have are (a) the Google Patents "prior art keywords" (signature; signature component; elliptic curve; coordinate; indicator), (b) the patent's own cited U.S. references retrieved from FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8806197.html), and (c) the standards/technical literature I retrieved by search. This analysis therefore builds its own prior-art set from those inputs and is transparent about what is and is not verified.

Date inconsistency flag (carried forward). The prior "patent summary," "litigation summary," and "assignment history" sections recorded an operative date of 2026-09-28 and a Google-Patents-status "Expired – Lifetime" with adjusted expiration 2026-05-04. This task's header states April 26, 2026. The §103 analysis below is date-insensitive (it turns on the Jan. 18, 2005 priority date), but the expiration discrepancy should be reconciled before it is relied on for remedies.

1. Legal framework

• 35 U.S.C. §103(a): a claim is obvious if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time of invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA).
• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art; differences; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is obvious when it yields predictable results; no teaching, suggestion, or motivation (TSM) is required; a finite number of identified, predictable solutions creates an "obvious to try" posture.
• Effective filing date: Jan. 18, 2005 (provisional 60/644,034), re-confirmed by the parent filed Jan. 18, 2006. Printed publications predating that date qualify under pre-AIA §102(b).

2. Level of ordinary skill

A PHOSITA here would be a person with a degree in mathematics, computer science, or electrical engineering and roughly 2–4 years of experience implementing public-key cryptography — specifically familiar with ANSI X9.62, IEEE Std 1363, and SEC 1, the ECDSA sign/verify equations, elliptic-curve point representation, and message-recovery signature schemes. This is a mature, standards-driven field in which the ordinary artisan works directly from published standards.

3. Claim construction of the dispositive limitations

The issued claims are narrower than the headline "w/z scalar reduction" disclosure (as the prior "patent summary" correctly noted). All three independent claims (1, 12, 22) turn on two limitations:

Read this way, the independent claims are not directed to the accelerated-verification math. They are directed to conducting ECDSA signing while emitting a disambiguation flag for the ephemeral point. That framing is dispositive of the obviousness question, because the disambiguation flag is the single most standardized primitive in the field.

4. Prior art of record and its teachings

R1 — ANSI X9.62-1998, Public Key Cryptography for the Financial Services Industry: The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)

• Discloses the entire ECDSA signing operation the claims recite: select k; compute R = kG = (x₁, y₁); convert x₁ to an integer x̄₁; set r = x̄₁ mod n; compute s = k⁻¹(e + dr) mod n; signature is (r, s).
  • Retrieved text confirming the standard's example: https://www.docketalarm.com/.../ansi x9.62 (1998) — worked example "r = 17 mod 7 = 3 … s = 4⁻¹(6 + 3×3) mod 7 = 2," i.e., exactly the formula in claims 11, 21, 31.
• §4.3.6: defines the compressed point representation — an elliptic-curve point is encoded as its x-coordinate plus a single bit (the parity/LSB of y). Confirmed as a general X9.62 construct: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32927216 ("point compression … figure out … the Y co-ordinate … given only the X co-ordinate and the LSB of the Y co-ordinate in the start byte (0x02 or 0x03)"), and https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-rfc4492bis/00/ (RFC 4492's ansiX962_compressed point format).

This single reference supplies claim 1's signing step (1.1–1.4) and the mechanism of the indicator (1.5), applied to EC points generally.

R2 — SEC 1, Standards for Efficient Cryptography, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (SECG; v1.0, 2000; v2.0, 2009)

• §4.1.6 "Public Key Recovery Operation": "Given an ECDSA signature (r, s) and EC domain parameters, it is generally possible to determine the public key Q, at least to within a small number of choices." Retrieved text: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/112610.
• The recovery algorithm expressly enumerates the ambiguity the claims address: for j = 0 … h, set x = r + jn, convert to a point R, and note that "when R is a candidate point, so is −R sharing the same X coordinate x_R, leading to a different Q" and that "there can be up to h + 1 candidates." Retrieved: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/feeds/tag/dsa+reference-request.
• SEC 1 also teaches the purpose — bandwidth-constrained environments where "transmission of public keys cannot be afforded," and recovery of the public key from a signature. Id.
• SEC 1's self-signed signature operation is built on this recovery step. Retrieved (Samsung IPR2026-00116, Ex. 1012 — a "Standards for Efficient Cryptography" copy): "Use the Public Key Recovery Operation in Section 4.1.6 … to recover a public key Q." https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00116/.../Exhibit-1012-Standards-for-Efficient-Cryptography.pdf

R2 supplies the express recognition that (i) R is recoverable from r only "to within a small number of choices," and (ii) the artisan must therefore identify the correct one.

Verification caveat: the retrieved SEC 1 excerpts are from v2.0 (2009), which post-dates the 2005 priority date. I am high confidence that the Public Key Recovery Operation existed in v1.0 (2000) — it is the long-standing "4.1.6" section — but I did not retrieve a v1.0 page image in this session. Confirm against SEC 1 v1.0 before filing. If only v2.0 were shown, its 2009 date would deprive it of §102(b) status for the 2005 priority date (it could still be evidence of the state of the art/level of skill).

R3 — IEEE Std 1363-2000 (and drafts P1363a / ANSI X9.92)

• Standard for ECDSA and EC point encoding, including point compression. The '197 specification itself cites IEEE P1363a and ANSI X9.92 as the source of the PVS recovery scheme.

R4 — Hankerson, Menezes & Vanstone, Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography (Springer, 2004)

• Cited repeatedly inside the '197 specification itself (Algorithm 3.48; Algorithm 3.74; Montgomery's x-only method at p. 102). A reference incorporated by the applicant is prior art. It collects ECDSA and the scalar-multiplication algorithms the patent re-uses.

R5 — Pintsov & Vanstone, PVS / message-recovery schemes (and Nyberg–Rueppel)

• The '197 specification states the PVS signature is a triple (r, s, t) whose verification recovers R = sG + eQ and derives a key from R. Signatures-with-message-recovery (PVS, Nyberg–Rueppel, ISO/IEC 9796-3) are the family in which the ephemeral point must be transmitted/recoverable, i.e., the exact problem the "indicator" solves. The applicant's own cited US 7,613,660 (Pintsov) is in this lineage.

R6 — Additional cited references of record (from freepatentsonline.com/8806197.html)

7,599,491 (Lambert — ECDSA hardening); 7,113–/7,110,538 (Gallant); 7,215,780 & 7,127,063 (Lambert); 7,593,527 (Beeson — "Providing digital signature and public key based on shared knowledge"); 6,446,207 (Vanstone et al. — "Verification protocol"); 6,816,594 & 2003/0059043 & 2003/0059042 (Okeya — "Elliptic curve signature verification"); 6,493,692 (Lenstra); 7,483,789 (Futa). Several are Certicom-family ECDSA references and show the field's focus on exactly these primitives.

5. The combinations

Combination A — X9.62 (ECDSA signing) + X9.62/SEC 1 point compression → claim 1

Motivation to combine: The two are in the same standard and the same signing operation. X9.62 already tells the artisan how to encode a point as "x-coordinate + one bit," and SEC 1 already tells the artisan that a signature's r is consistent with "a small number of choices" for R. Emitting the one bit alongside (r, s) is the predictable, known way to make recovery deterministic. KSR requires no more: combining two known elements of a single known standard to achieve the known purpose of disambiguation is obvious as a matter of law.

Combination B — X9.62 + SEC 1 §4.1.6 (public key recovery) → claim 1

SEC 1 supplies the express problem statement ("at least to within a small number of choices," h + 1 candidates, ±R), and the express application ("bandwidth constrained environments"). Point compression (R1/R3) supplies the known solution. A PHOSITA would recognize that to use the SEC 1 recovery operation, one must resolve the enumerated ambiguity, and the field's well-known one-bit resolution is the claimed indicator. "Obvious to try" is satisfied: there is one recognized mechanism (the parity bit) and a finite, small set of candidate disambiguators.

Combination C — X9.62 + PVS/Nyberg–Rueppel message recovery

Where the signature scheme itself requires recovering R (message-recovery schemes the specification concedes are known and standardized in IEEE P1363a / ANSI X9.92), transmitting an indication for R is inherent to making the scheme work. This supplies motive independent of verification speed.

6. Claim-by-claim disposition

The distinct statutory classes (method / module / non-transitory CRM) do not add patentable weight: programming a general-purpose processor with a known algorithm is within the ordinary skill (In re Abele line of reasoning on programmed apparatus), and a CRM "storing instructions" to run a known algorithm is the ICT equivalent.

7. Why a PHOSITA would have combined them (KSR factors)

1. Same field, same standard, same operation. The references are not from remote arts; they are the ECDSA standard, its companion EC-crypto standard, and the leading textbook — all cited by or incorporated in the patent itself.
2. Known problem, known solution. SEC 1 states the ambiguity in terms ("a small number of choices," h + 1 candidates); X9.62 states the encoding solution (x + one bit). Combining problem and solution is the paradigm of obviousness.
3. Predictable results. Using the parity bit to select the correct square root of y is deterministic and was standard EC practice.
4. Design incentive / "obvious to try." Bandwidth savings, enabling public-key recovery, and enabling message recovery are expressly recited purposes in the art.
5. Applicant's own admissions. The '197 specification concedes that sending "a compressed version of R consisting of the x coordinate and the first bit of the y coordinate" is an alternative "known" to it (retrieved in the CA2592875A1/EP1842128 family text: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/51/ed/9a/a14d301fcdde46/CA2592875A1.pdf). An inventor's admission that a feature is known is strong §103 evidence. It also says the indicator "adds relatively little cost."

8. Secondary considerations

• No unexpected result / no nexus. The patent's quantified benefits (≈40% faster verification) flow from the w/z scalar-reduction and precomputed-multiple techniques, which the issued claims do not recite. There is thus no nexus between the claimed indicator and the asserted advantage (In re Kao nexus principles).
• Industry adoption cuts against the patentee. The claimed indicator is the standardized compressed-point/recovery-bit convention, which predates the filing. Widespread use of a pre-existing standard is not evidence of non-obviousness.
• No teaching-away appears in any reference.

9. Honest weaknesses in the §103 case (and what would fortify it)

1. Whether X9.62/SEC 1 literally disclose putting the bit in/with the signature. X9.62 teaches the compressed point encoding and SEC 1 teaches recovery of Q from (r, s); the claim recites an indicator generated "for use with said digital signature." The strongest rebuttal is that the references teach the point encoding and the recovery, making the "for use with the signature" packaging an obvious design choice (the specification itself treats it as interchangeable with a compressed r'). Fortify with: a reference (SEC 1 v1.0, or the P1363a/X9.92 PVS drafts, or Nyberg–Rueppel) that places recovery information with the signature.
2. SEC 1 version dating. Use v1.0 (2000), not v2.0 (2009), to secure §102(b) status. I did not retrieve a v1.0 image this session — verify.
3. Incomplete cited-art list. The FPO reference list was truncated; a full front-page/IDS pull (PTO-892, IDS) would reveal the examiner's own art and any §102(b) admissions.
4. Claim-differentiation from the siblings. US 8,788,827 and US 10,284,370 share the specification; the '197's claims were evidently carved to the indicator/signing aspect. That narrower claim is, paradoxically, the one most squarely met by the standards.

10. Bottom line

On the issued claims (1, 12, 22 and dependents), the §103 case is strong. The independent claims reduce to ECDSA signature generation plus a one-bit disambiguation flag for the ephemeral point — a combination of the ECDSA standard (ANSI X9.62) with the compressed-point encoding of the same standard (and/or the SEC 1 public-key-recovery operation), both of which expressly address the very ambiguity the claims resolve. Dependent claims 2–4/13–14/23–24 (y mod 2) and 11/21/31 (s = k⁻¹(h(m)+dr) mod n) are met essentially verbatim by the standards. A PHOSITA would have combined them for the recognized purposes of bandwidth reduction, enabling public-key recovery, and enabling message recovery, with a predictable result — satisfying KSR without any need for an express TSM. No evidence of unexpected results with nexus to the claims, and no teaching-away, offsets that showing.

Confidence: high on the legal framing and on the substance of the X9.62/SEC 1 teachings; moderate on the precise date/edition of the SEC 1 passage, which should be verified to v1.0 (2000) before being relied on as §102(b) art.

Primary sources used:

• https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8806197.html (cited U.S. references)
• https://patents.google.com/patent/US8806197/en (claims, spec, prior-art keywords)
• ANSI X9.62-1998 text (docketalarm.com copy) and https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-rfc4492bis/00/ (compressed vs. uncompressed points)
• SEC 1 §4.1.6 (https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/112610; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00116/.../Exhibit-1012-Standards-for-Efficient-Cryptography.pdf)
• Family specification text (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/51/ed/9a/a14d301fcdde46/CA2592875A1.pdf) — applicant's own "compressed version of R" alternative