US 8933807

I'll verify the patent details against live sources, including the USPTO/CAFC dockets mentioned, and try to retrieve the actual claim text (the provided description is truncated before the claims).

Let me retrieve the remaining independent claims and check the 2026 litigation dockets.

Let me retrieve the full claim set and verify the 2026 district court and any CAFC docket.

Preliminary note on search hygiene

Per your instruction to interpret identifiers literally and exclude near-misses: my searches surfaced several unrelated strings that are not US 8,933,807 — an IEEE DOI (10.1109/FOAN.2019.8933807), a D.C. Zoning Commission exhibit number (8933807.3), and a statistical table value (0.8933807). Those are excluded. Everything below concerns only US Patent No. 8,933,807 B2.

1. Bibliographic data

Sources: Google Patents US8933807, Justia Patents 8933807, FreePatentsOnline 8933807.

Note the mismatch worth flagging: the specification is the 2002-era Neology disclosure ("verifying and tracking identification information," RF license plates, passports, border crossing, software downloads, airport security), but this 2013-filed continuation claims a biometric-authenticated mobile-device payment subject matter. The patent is a continuation; later continuations of it include US 10,762,187 (from 14/659,502) and US 10,867,297 (from 14/585,057), and a family member titled the same is US 10,719,824 B2.

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"The present invention provides a method and system for verifying and tracking transactional information. In an embodiment of the invention, a system for delivering security solutions is provided that includes at least one of the following: a radio frequency (RF) identification device, an identification mechanism (e.g., a card, sticker), and an RF reader."

3. Independent claims — plain-language overview

The claim set runs to at least claim 23. Based on retrieved claim text, the independent claims are 1, 9, 16, and 23.

Claim 1 — "A mobile device" (the core biometric-payment claim):
A mobile device (e.g., a cell phone) containing in combination (a) RF cellular circuitry; (b) short-range RF circuitry (dependent claim 7 says this can be an RFID device); (c) memory holding both biometric authentication information and transaction information, where the biometric data has previously been associated with the transaction data; (d) a biometric reading device (claim 2: fingerprint); (e) an authentication module that verifies the just-read biometric matches the stored biometric authentication information in its association with the transaction information; and (f) a transaction module that transmits the transaction information over the short-range RF link for a transaction only when that biometric authentication succeeds. In short: a phone that biometrically authenticates the user before wirelessly emitting payment data. Dependent claim 8 adds that the biometric information itself is not transmitted — only the transaction information.

Claim 9 — "A mobile device" (secured variant):
Contains the same recited elements as claim 1 (cellular RF circuitry, short-range RF circuitry, memory with the pre-associated biometric/transaction data, biometric reader, authentication module, transaction module acting on successful authentication) plus a "security block configured to secure the transaction information before it is provided by the transaction module." Dependent claim 13 narrows the security block to a cryptographic block.

Claim 16 — "A cellular telephone":
A cellular-telephone counterpart claim (with a biometric reading device, memory storing pre-associated biometric authentication information and transaction information, an authentication module, and a transaction module that provides the transaction information upon successful authentication). Note that in the retrieved text of claim 16's final element the phrase "via the short range RF circuitry" appears absent from the transaction-module limitation — this suggests claim 16 is drafted differently from claims 1/9, but I was not able to retrieve the complete verbatim text of claim 16's preamble and body, so treat that observation as tentative. Dependent claim 17 (fingerprint), 18–19 (security block / cryptographic block), 20 (credit card), 21 (rewards card), 22 (RFID).

Claim 23 — independent claim (text not retrieved):
The claim listing is truncated after "23." in the sources I could reach. Given the 1 → 9 and 16 → 18 pairing pattern, the most likely reading is a cellular-telephone variant additionally requiring a security block, but I have no authoritative text for claim 23 and will not state its content.

Uncertainty flag: the full claim set was not available in the authoritative text supplied in this session (it cuts off mid-specification), and the claim text above is drawn from Justia's reproduction, which itself truncates claims 9, 16, and 23 with ellipses. Anyone relying on claim scope should pull the granted claims from USPTO PatentCenter / the printed patent.

4. Litigation and docket status

District court (2026) — confirmed:

• Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. v. [Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.), Case No. 7:26-cv-00075 (W.D. Tex., Midland Division, before Judge Alan Albright), filed 2026-03-04, cause 28:1338 patent infringement. Accused instrumentalities described in the complaint analysis: iPhones (XR onward), Apple Watch (Series 5+), iPads; accused functionality is Apple Pay (secure element storing a Device Account Number, biometric authentication via Touch ID/Face ID, NFC transmission of a transaction cryptogram to a POS terminal). Sources: Ex Parte case page, Docket Alarm. Note: the complaint-analysis excerpt I retrieved enumerates specific claim charts for US 8,151,345 (independent claim 23) and US 8,548,924 (independent claim 60) rather than for 8,933,807 specifically; 8,933,807 nonetheless appears on the patent's litigation record for this case.
• Texas Eastern District Court, Case No. 2:26-cv-00157 — listed on the Google Patents litigation record for US 8,933,807. A contemporaneous news report (Seoul Wire, 2026-03-01) describes Mobility IP Holdings filing suit on 2026-02-27 in the E.D. Tex. (Marshall) against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electronics America, asserting seven patents including US 8,933,807 (also 8,151,345, 8,548,924, 8,766,772, 10,235,513, 10,706,412, 10,762,187) and targeting Samsung Pay / Samsung Wallet on Galaxy phones, watches and tablets.

Uncertainty flag: the fetched Google Patents text lists the E.D. Tex. case number without naming the parties, and my attempt to independently confirm that 2:26-cv-00157 is the Samsung action was cut off by a tool-step limit. The Samsung/Feb-27-2026 filing and the 2:26-cv-00157 docket are consistent in district, timing and patent family, but I have not directly verified the party-to-docket-number mapping.

CAFC 2026 docket — none found:
I found no Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 involving US 8,933,807. The only appellate-adjacent Neology materials I encountered on this family were (i) a 2019 Supreme Court petition appendix (No. 19-445) concerning Neology's US 8,127,986-family relatives titled "System and Method for Providing Secure Identification Solutions" — specifically the '044 and '436 patents (col. 23 claim text about RFID reader/transponder security-key exchanges), which are different patents; and (ii) IPR2015-00823 on US 7,119,664, also a different patent. With the Apple case filed 2026-03-04 and the Samsung case 2026-02-27, it would be procedurally very early for any appeal of those to exist.

5. Bottom line

US 8,933,807 is an expired Neology continuation (priority 2002-07-09, filed 2013-09-16, issued 2015-01-13) whose ~23 claims are directed to a biometrically authenticated mobile device/cell phone that releases stored transaction data (credit-card or rewards-card derived) over short-range RF (RFID/NFC) only after a successful biometric match, with dependent claims adding fingerprint sensing, a cryptographic security block, and non-transmission of the biometric data. It is currently owned by Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. and is being asserted in 2026 against Apple (7:26-cv-00075, W.D. Tex.) and, per one news source, Samsung (E.D. Tex., 2:26-cv-00157). No 2026 CAFC docket for this patent was found.

I'll search multiple litigation sources for this specific patent number.

Let me query the litigation-specific sources and the specific case numbers.

Now let me check the patent-specific litigation record, PTAB challenges, and any earlier suits by Neology.

Tool-step limit reached — here is what I confirmed

I hit the tool-call limit before I could run the PTAB/IPR and historical-Neology queries. Everything below is grounded in the searches that completed, plus the authoritative patent record. Anything not verified is flagged.

1. Confirmed litigation involving US 8,933,807

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

Sources: Docket Alarm party search — Apple, Ex Parte case page 7:26-cv-00075, Justia docket browse, W.D. Tex. IP cases, Patexia case list.

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

Sources: Ex Parte case page 2:26-cv-00157, full docket, E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00157.

Direct confirmation that the '807 patent is asserted in the Samsung case: the Seoul Wire report of 2026-03-01 enumerates the seven patents-in-suit as US 8,151,345, 8,548,924, 8,776,772 (as printed: 8,766,772), 8,933,807, 10,235,513, 10,706,412, 10,762,187 — expressly including 8,933,807 — all formerly Neology, Inc. patents now held by Mobility IP. (Seoul Wire, 2026-03-01)

Both case numbers are also listed on the Google Patents litigation record for US 8,933,807 (Google Patents US8933807B2, "Family has litigation"), which additionally carries a Darts-ip "First worldwide family litigation filed" link (family 30115697).

2. Contradictions / uncertainties I must flag

1. Assertion of '807 in the Apple case is not directly confirmed. The only Apple complaint analysis I could retrieve charts US 8,151,345 (independent claim 23) and US 8,548,924 (independent claim 60) — it does not show a claim chart for 8,933,807 (complaint analysis). The '807 patent nonetheless appears on that patent's litigation record for 7:26-cv-00075. Treat "asserted in Apple" as likely but not verbatim-verified; a claim-by-claim check of the Apple complaint is required.

2. Date inconsistency in your prompt vs. the record. You state the current date is April 26, 2026, but the Samsung docket I retrieved contains entries dated June 10–24, 2026 (answer filed 6/23/2026; order 6/24/2026), and the authoritative patent page I was given was fetched 2026-09-19. The later dates govern the status column above; the "open, answer filed, scheduling order entered" status is inconsistent with an April 26, 2026 snapshot. I cannot reconcile the stated date with the docket — flagged rather than silently corrected.

3. The '807 patent is expired. Google Patents lists anticipated expiration 2023-07-09 and legal status Expired – Lifetime. That does not bar the 2026 suits (damages look-back is available for pre-expiration infringement) but it does constrain prospective injunctive relief.

4. A near-miss case number, excluded. Search returned a different 2:26-cv-00157 — Guangzhou Liyuan Technology Co., Ltd. v. Arthur Chao-Chung Wu, W.D. Wash. (Judge John H. Chun, filed Jan. 15, 2026, DJ of non-infringement of US 12,281,764), plus an Arizona and a Kentucky case sharing the number. Only the E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00157 (Mobility IP v. Samsung) concerns this patent. Likewise 7:26-cv-00075 also exists as Zavala v. Homesite Insurance Co. (S.D. Tex., insurance) — unrelated.

3. What I could NOT verify (be explicit)

• No Federal Circuit appeal involving US 8,933,807 was found. Both district cases were filed in Feb./Mar. 2026 and remain open, so an appeal would be procedurally premature. (The appellate-adjacent Neology materials found earlier — the SCOTUS No. 19-445 appendix on the '044/'436 patents, and IPR2015-00823 on US 7,119,664 — are different patents.)
• No IPR/PGR/CBM post-grant proceeding on 8,933,807 was located. My PTAB-specific query did not complete before the step limit. Unverified — not a negative finding.
• No pre-2026 litigation on 8,933,807 was found in the sources retrieved. Note the patent issued 2015-01-13, so any assertion necessarily post-dates that. Whether Neology's earlier enforcement campaigns (e.g., its traffic-management/electronic-toll litigation) ever included the '807 patent is unverified — those campaigns predate issuance or involved sibling patents such as US 8,127,986.
• I did not reach the Unified Patents litigation case list (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) directly; the Google Patents record, Docket Alarm, Justia, Patexia, and the E.D. Tex. docket mirror all corroborate the two cases.

4. Bottom line

Exactly two litigations are known for US 8,933,807, both filed in 2026 by Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. after the patent had already expired:

1. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 7:26-cv-00075 (W.D. Tex., Midland, Judge Albright), filed 2026-03-04 — status open; '807 linked to the case on the patent's litigation record, though the complaint analysis I retrieved charts sibling patents 8,151,345 and 8,548,924 rather than '807.
2. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 2:26-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex., Marshall, Judge Gilstrap), filed 2026-02-27 — status open, answer filed 2026-06-23; '807 expressly named among the seven asserted patents (Samsung Pay / Samsung Wallet).

No CAFC appeal, and no confirmed IPR, was identified for this patent number.

I'll verify the proceeding against live sources before drafting.

Let me dig specifically for the petition and any parallel filings.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding exists on US 8,933,807 as of 2026-09-19: a single Inter Partes Review, IPR2026-00499 ([Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.) et al.), filed 2026-09-19 — status "Pending" (breakdown: 1 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied). Bottom line for a defendant: the patent is entirely UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim of 8,933,807 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or even reviewed on the merits by the Board. This is the patent's first-ever AIA trial petition — so you cannot say "claims 1–5 are dead," but neither is the patent "hardened." You are at day zero of a roughly 15–18 month process, and the single most important fact is that Apple fired one shot on the same day as this ingest.

⚠️ Research limitation, stated up front. The petition was filed today (2026-09-19). It has not yet appeared in any indexed source I could reach. I could not retrieve the petition PDF, the challenged-claim list, the grounds, the asserted references, the real parties in interest behind "et al.," any Sotera stipulation, or any POPR. Every "unknown" below is a genuine unknown, not a placeholder — do not treat silence as a negative finding.

IPR2026-00499 — Apple Inc. et al. v. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2026-09-19
• Status: Pending (verbatim from the USPTO Open Data Portal list). Gloss: petition filed and docketed; no Notice of Receipt date confirmed, no Patent Owner Preliminary Response, no institution decision. This is the pre-institution stage.
• Judge panel: Not yet assigned / not public. Panels are not designated until institution (or until an order requires one). No APJ names are available and I will not guess.
• Petition grounds: Unknown / not retrievable. By statute an IPR petition may only assert § 102 anticipation or § 103 obviousness on the basis of prior-art patents or printed publications (35 U.S.C. § 311(b)). It cannot raise § 101, § 112 (written description/enablement/definiteness), public use, on-sale, or system prior art. That structural limit is certain even though the specific claims and references are not.
• Institution decision: None. Statutory deadline: under 35 U.S.C. § 314(b) the Director must decide within 3 months of the date the Board receives the petition — on this filing date that lands on or about 2026-12-19. Expect the institution decision in the 2026-12-15 → 2027-01-05 window.
• Final Written Decision: None. If instituted, the FWD is due within 12 months of institution (§ 316(a)(11)) — on or about 2027-12-19 — extendable up to 6 months for good cause (§ 316(a)(11)), i.e., as late as ~2028-06-19.
• Settlement / termination: None. No joint motion to terminate, no § 317 settlement, nothing filed. Note that at the pre-institution stage settlement is cheap and common (see, e.g., the Nintendo/Malikie terminations, IPR2026-00003 through -00007) — so the probability of a pre-institution walk-away here is non-trivial but unquantifiable.
• Appeal: None, and none possible yet. No FWD exists to appeal. I found no Federal Circuit docket in 2026 touching 8,933,807. (I did surface one 2026 Fed. Cir. decision — Mealey's, 2026-03-13, a partly-split panel affirming a PTAB rejection of an Apple-initiated IPR — but that is a different patent; I am not attributing it here.)
• Defensive value: Low but rising, and asymmetric. Today this proceeding gives a defendant nothing to cite. Its near-term value is (a) its existence signals Apple believes there is a real § 102/§ 103 attack, and (b) if instituted, it becomes a stay lever in the co-pending cases and a settlement lever through the institution decision. But if you are a non-petitioner, the petition buys you nothing on estoppel and you should not build a defense strategy around Apple's petition succeeding. If Apple's petition is denied, note that this does not estop Mobility IP Holdings or immunize the patent — it just means the Office declined the challenge.

Strategic summary

Which claims are CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. This is straightforward and absolute: zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained, all ~23 claims UNTESTED. No FWD has ever issued on 8,933,807 by any panel. The claim set identified in the earlier summary — independent claims 1 (biometric-authenticated mobile device transmitting transaction data over short-range RF), 9 (same plus a security block), 16 (cellular telephone variant), and 23 (undetermined text) — remains fully intact and fully enforceable on the face of the record. Any demand letter citing claims 1, 9, 16 or 23 is citing live, never-adjudicated claims. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Important family caveat that must not be conflated. Neology's patents have been through AIA trials — Kapsch TrafficCom filed IPR2015-00808, -0814, -0815, -0818, -0819, -0823 and -0824, which reached US 6,229,443, 6,690,264, 8,237,568, 8,325,044, 8,587,436 and 7,119,664 (see the Smartrac CEO declaration filed in IPR2015-00824, Docket Alarm link). None of those is 8,933,807. That older litigation history is real but it is not this patent's history, and the Board's institution denials in Neology, Inc. v. Star Systems Int'l, IPR2019-00367 (PTAB June 6, 2019) concern yet other claims/patents. The pro-patent-owner track record in that family is a texture point, not a holding on this patent.

Estoppel landscape. No estoppel has attached to anyone yet. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel only attaches at FWD and only against the petitioner and its real parties in interest/privies. Concretely, for a defendant being asserted today:

• Against Apple: nothing is barred yet. If an FWD issues, Apple will be barred from raising in the district court any ground it raised or reasonably could have raised — and, per the Sotera line (Sotera Wireless v. Masimo, IPR2020-01019, Paper 12), petitioners increasingly stipulate broadly at the outset. I could not confirm whether Apple filed a Sotera stipulation here; it is a standard part of Apple's playbook (compare its stipulation in IngenioSpec v. Apple, IPR2026-00253, Paper 8) and in my view a stipulation is more likely than not. If it did, that stipulation is itself a defensive asset for Apple's co-defendants in the district court, because it narrows what Apple will argue there.
• Against any other defendant (Samsung, in 2:26-cv-00157): fully estopped by nothing. All § 102 and § 103 grounds on patents and printed publications, all system-art and public-use/on-sale grounds (which IPR structurally cannot reach), and all § 112 and § 101 grounds remain 100% available. This is the key asymmetry: an IPR petition never absorbs a co-defendant's non-IPR defenses, and the § 315(b) window for the Samsung action appears to remain open (Samsung was served 2026-03-03/2026-03-04 per the E.D. Tex. docket, so its one-year bar date is on or about 2027-03-04).
• Defensive-aggregator check: I found no Unified Patents or RPX petition in the canonical proceedings list. The only petitioner is Apple and its "et al." privies. No third-party defensive filer is in the chain for this patent.

Pattern signals. Two things stand out. First, the timing and forum choice: Mobility IP Holdings sued Samsung in E.D. Tex. on 2026-02-27 and Apple in W.D. Tex. on 2026-03-04; Apple's petition arrived 2026-09-19, roughly six months into the § 315(b) year. That is not a "file immediately to freeze the case" posture — it is consistent with Apple doing claim-construction/validity diligence first, which in turn often correlates with a serious, well-developed petition rather than a placeholder. Second, Apple is running a dual-track post-issuance attack in other cases — in WAPP Tech v. Apple, No. 4:25-cv-00230-ALM, Apple filed notices on 2026-05-08 that the USPTO had granted ex parte reexaminations of all five asserted patents (US 9,298,864; 10,691,579; 9,971,678; 10,353,811; 8,924,192) on 2026-04-14 through 2026-04-22 (source PDF). Ex parte reexam is one of the few post-issuance tools that can reach a § 112 or non-patent-art defect that IPR cannot touch — so watch for a parallel reexam request on 8,933,807 as a hedge. (Caveat: that notice is from a different case and a different patent set; it evidences Apple's method, not an on-the-record act against 8,933,807.)

One over-arching substantive point that the earlier analysis surfaced and that the PTAB strategy must absorb: 8,933,807 is listed as Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2023-07-09). That has three consequences. (i) It is still IPR-eligible — expiration is not a bar to institution, and the Board construes expired claims under the Phillips framework rather than the BRI framework. (ii) A Patent Owner motion to amend is of little practical value when there is no remaining term, so Mobility IP Holdings' realistic path to survival is persuading the panel the art doesn't teach the limitations, not narrowing claims. (iii) Damages exposure is confined to past infringement within the § 286 six-year lookback (~2020 to 2026), which materially changes the settlement math and should make a defendant more, not less, willing to litigate.

Recommended next steps

If you represent Apple (petitioner): your entire near-term calendar is the § 314(b) three-month clock — institute/no-institute by ~2026-12-19. File any Sotera-style stipulation now, not later; the June 2026 informative decision in Tesla, Inc. v. Bulletproof Property Management, LLC, IPR2026-00204 et al. (PTAB June 15, 2026) confirms that under Director Squires a broad stipulation plus the absence of a scheduled trial date is what converts a discretionary-denial risk into an institution. W.D. Tex. (Judge Albright) is a forum where a trial date is likely set during the institution window; a bare Fintiv argument will not survive. Also be aware that the Revvo/claim-construction line (Revvo Techs. v. Cerebrum Sensor Techs., IPR2025-00632, Paper 20 (PTAB Nov. 3, 2025) (precedential), and its sua sponte Director Review vacatur at Paper 36 (PTAB Jan. 26, 2026)) means any construction you advance in the petition that diverges from the construction you advance in Judge Albright's court is now an institution-killer. Lock one construction and use it in both forums.

If you represent Samsung (or another accused party): your § 315(b) clock runs from service on 2026-03-03/2026-03-04, so your window closes on or about 2027-03-04 — you are not in a hurry, and there is a real strategic case for waiting to see Apple's institution decision, then either joining IPR2026-00499 under § 315(c) or filing your own petition with a different primary reference (avoid a redundancy challenge). Do not assume Apple's petition protects you: no estoppel runs your way, Mobility IP Holdings owes you nothing if Apple wins, and if Apple's petition is denied you have burned six months of your own window. Preserve your system-art, § 112 and § 101 theories separately — those are yours alone.

Milestones to diary for all parties:

Where to watch, in order of usefulness: the PTAB E2E docket for IPR2026-00499 at ptacts.uspto.gov (docket sheet, POPR, institution decision, panel designation, any Sotera stipulation filing — all of which will appear as separate papers); the USPTO daily Notice of Decisions on Institution (the new consolidated Director notice format, which lists instituted and denied proceedings by number — see the format used in this notice); the weekly PTAB Public Hearing Schedule at uspto.gov if an oral hearing is set; and CourtListener for any eventual Federal Circuit appeal. Do not rely on press coverage for institution outcomes on this patent — none of the 2026 reporting I found (e.g., the Seoul Wire/Samsung coverage at seoulwire.com) even mentions IPR2026-00499.

If you need a definitive statement today: there is exactly one AIA trial on this patent, it was filed 2026-09-19, it is pending, and it has produced no merits outcome of any kind. If a counterparty tells you the 8,933,807 claims have "already been invalidated at the PTAB," that is false on the current record — and if they tell you the patent is "hardened," that is equally unsupported.

Confidence and sourcing

I'll research the assignment record before writing. Let me pull the USPTO assignment data and related sources.

Let me pull the specific recorded-assignment details (reel/frame, correspondent).

Let me try Justia's assignment tab and other direct sources for reel/frame data.

Sourcing note (read first): The record below is built from the Google Patents legal-events record for US 8,933,807 (which mirrors the USPTO assignment data) and cross-checks against litigation dockets. I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame numbers, execution (as opposed to recording) dates, or correspondent-of-record fields — the Assignment Center is a form-driven database that the tools available in this session could not query directly, and search-engine indexing did not surface the underlying reel/frame pages for this patent number. Those fields are therefore marked not retrieved, which is not the same as absent. Where I state a date I state what it is a date of.

Inventors

Unusual patterns to note:

• Late assignment, not late departure. The application was filed 2013-09-16 with title apparently still in the inventors' hands; the first recorded transfer (inventors → BNC IP Switzerland GmbH) is dated 2014-05-13, roughly eight months post-filing and ~8 months before grant. That is a title-cleanup signature (a continuation being filed by the inventors and then papered back into the corporate family), not a fire-sale precursor.
• Two-step, same-day chain. The inventors → BNC IP Switzerland GmbH leg and the BNC IP Switzerland GmbH → Neology, Inc. leg were both recorded on 2014-05-13. A same-day upstream/downstream pair usually means the intermediate was a conduit (a group IP-holding vehicle) rather than an end-owner.
• No evidence that either inventor departed Neology/BNC within 12 months of the 2013 filing. Note, however, that 2013 is a continuation filing; relative to the 2002-07-09 priority invention the inventors' relationship to the original assignee is a 2002-era question, and I have no data on it.

Original assignee

Neology, Inc. (Poway, CA) — named as assignee on the face of the issued patent.

• Business: Neology is an operating RFID/secure-identification company — RFID inlays, tags and readers, electronic vehicle registration, tolling/ETC transponders, and automated license-plate recognition (ALPR). Its product lines map squarely onto the specification's commercial embodiments (RF passport inlays, RF license plates, border-crossing and airport-security systems).
• Product-embodying-the-claims question: The issued claims of US 8,933,807 are directed to a biometrically authenticated mobile device that releases stored transaction data over short-range RF (see the claim overview in the previously generated section). I found no evidence Neology ever shipped a product embodying those particular claims; Neology's commercial hardware is tag/reader/ALPR-side, not a biometric NFC payment phone. This is the classic continuation-portfolio mismatch already flagged in the summary section.
• Corporate status: As of the 2015 Kapsch IPRs, Smartrac owned 100% of the shares of Neology, Inc. — stated under oath in Patent Owner Exhibit 2005 in IPR2015-00823/-00824 ("Smartrac owns one hundred percent (100%) of the shares of Neology, Inc., the Patent Owner in this proceeding"). I could not verify Neology's current corporate parent or its ultimate status as of 2026 from the sources retrieved; a commonly cited possible parent (a public safety-equipment company) should be confirmed against that company's 10-K before being relied on — I am not asserting it.
• Enforcement history: Neology has itself been a plaintiff enforcing its own patents — Neology, Inc. v. Kapsch TrafficCom IVHS, Inc., et al., No. 1:13-cv-02052 (D. Del.) — which triggered the Kapsch IPR cluster. So the original assignee is an operating-company asserter, not an NPE.
• Current status of this patent: divested. By the recorded 2026-02-11 event, Neology, Inc. is the assignor, and Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. is the assignee. That is a portfolio-separation event for this patent regardless of whether Neology the company continues to operate.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded events are documented in the Google Patents legal-events record (which reflects USPTO assignment data). Reel/frame numbers and correspondents were not retrievable in this session and are shown as not retrieved. Dates shown are the recordation dates as listed; executed dates were not exposed in the retrieved record.

• 2014-05-13 (recorded; executed date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved/not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (ASN: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Manfred Rietzler; Francisco Martinez de Velasco Cortina (the individual inventors)
  • Assignee: BNC IP Switzerland GmbH
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot assess recurrence. (If this field is pulled, the first thing to test is whether the same correspondent also appears on the 2014 BNC→Neology leg and on the 2026 Neology→Mobility leg; a single recurring filer across all three is the strongest available tell.)
  • Context: title consolidation — individual inventors' rights moved to a Swiss IP-holding vehicle roughly eight months after the 2013-09-16 continuation filing.

• 2014-05-13 (recorded; executed date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved/not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: BNC IP Switzerland GmbH
  • Assignee: Neology, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal group reorg / conduit step — the intermediate Swiss entity passed title to the operating parent on the same day it received it.

• 2026-02-11 (recorded; executed date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved/not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: Neology, Inc.
  • Assignee: Mobility IP Holdings, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — highest-value field still outstanding. (A repeat correspondent shared with the 2014 recordings would indicate a long-planned, single-filer monetization chain; a new litigation-side correspondent would indicate a brokered sale.)
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter / portfolio divestiture — recorded 16 days before the E.D. Tex. Samsung complaint (filed 2026-02-27) and 21 days before the W.D. Tex. Apple complaint (filed 2026-03-04).

No other post-issuance events were surfaced: no change-of-name record, no security agreement / collateral assignment, and no assignment to a defensive aggregator (RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, OIN). The 2026-02-11 event is the last link in the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8933807
    2002 : Earliest priority date
    2013 : Continuation filed by inventors
    2014 : Inventors assign to BNC IP Switzerland
         : BNC IP assigns to Neology Inc
    2015 : Patent issued to Neology
    2026 : Neology assigns to Mobility IP
         : Suits filed vs Samsung and Apple

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. Reel not retrieved, recorded 2026-02-11: the patent moved from Neology, Inc., an operating RFID/ALPR company, to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc., an entity with a "Holdings" IP-vehicle name whose only visible activity is patent assertion (named plaintiff in three 2026 suits: W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00075 and E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00157 for this family, plus unrelated 3:26-cv-01456 in N.D.N.Y. under the separately named "Mobility IP Holding, LLC"). Caveat: I did not retrieve the assignee's address, registered agent, or state of organization, so the "registered-agent service address / single-member Delaware LLC" sub-tells are unverified. The finding rests on operating-company → assertion-only-entity plus immediate litigation, not on the name alone.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT on the named lists; UNCLEAR against the directories. Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. does not match any entity on the supplied list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Do not conflate it with Mobility Workx, LLC (a different, known wireless NPE) or with Mobility IP Holding, LLC (the N.D.N.Y. plaintiff against a mobility-scooter company) — different names, different apparent entities. Whether Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. appears in the Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff directories could not be checked in this session and remains open.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNRETRIEVABLE (cannot mark absent). No correspondent-of-record data was captured for any of the three links. This is the single most valuable outstanding datapoint; it is the field that ordinarily converts a "looks like a shell" impression into evidence. Flagging as a data gap, not as a negative finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Three recorded events over ~12 years (2014 ×2, 2026 ×1). There is no rapid chain of successive LLCs within 24 months, and no evidence the 2014 and 2026 assignees share a correspondent address (unverifiable here).

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strong). Assignment to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc. recorded 2026-02-11; Samsung complaint 2026-02-27 and Apple complaint 2026-03-04 — 16 and 21 days later, far inside the 6-month window. This is the textbook pattern of papering title immediately before filing, frequently to establish clean standing and to control the plaintiff of record for venue purposes (note the parallel W.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. filings).

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 filing by Neology, and no sale-in-bankruptcy record, was surfaced. The 2026 transfer has the shape of a portfolio divestiture or spin-out, not a distressed estate sale. (Not affirmatively disproven; simply no evidence.)

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR. The transferor is an operating company and the transferee immediately sued two large operating companies. That is consistent with either (a) classic privateering (operating company retains an economic interest while a non-practicing vehicle asserts), or (b) an outright portfolio sale/monetization with no retained interest. No SEC filing, revenue-share, or license-back evidence was retrieved. The fact that Neology itself historically enforced its own patents (D. Del. 1:13-cv-02052 vs. Kapsch) cuts slightly against a pure privateering narrative and slightly toward a deliberate asset-monetization-separation model.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at an active plaintiff, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized.

Explicit contradiction to flag: one docket aggregator's case page for both 2026 suits labels the "Patent Owner" as "Operating Company" (Ex Parte 7:26-cv-00075, Ex Parte 2:26-cv-00157). That label conflicts with the NPE reading. It is a docket-aggregator classification, not evidence that the current assignee ships a product embodying the claims; I give it little weight, but it is the one piece of the record that cuts the other way and should be noted rather than buried.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals are present and both are anchored to dated recordings rather than to entity naming: (i) shell-entity transfer — the recorded 2026-02-11 assignment moved the patent from operating company Neology, Inc. to Mobility IP Holdings, Inc., an entity whose only documented activity is patent assertion; and (ii) pre-litigation transfer — that recording landed 16 days before the Samsung complaint (2026-02-27) and 21 days before the Apple complaint (2026-03-04). No defensive aggregator appears anywhere in the chain (signal 8 not present), which rules out the "neutralized" alternative. The one caveat on confidence is evidentiary, not directional: reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record were not retrieved, so signal 3 (repeat correspondent) is untested — pulling those fields from the Assignment Center is the step most likely to either strengthen this verdict or, if the 2026 transferor/transferee turn out to share economics with Neology, reclassify it as privateering.

Verify the underlying records at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy interface: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search by patent number 8933807, then read the correspondent and reel/frame fields on each of the three recordings dated 2014-05-13, 2014-05-13, and 2026-02-11.

I'll research the prior art cited against US 8,933,807 — both the references cited by the applicant/examiner and any third-party prior art. Let me pull the citation records.

Let me try to retrieve the citation lists directly from patent databases.

I have partial citation lists. Let me retrieve the complete front-page reference lists (U.S. patent documents, foreign documents, and non-patent citations).

I hit the tool-step limit while compiling the full front-page citation list, so the answer below is built from what I actually retrieved. I flag the gaps explicitly rather than fill them in.

Prior art for US 8,933,807 B2 — "System and method for providing secure transactional solutions"

0. Method, and a mandatory caveat before the list

• Sources actually used: Google Patents (patents.google.com/patent/US8933807/en), Justia "Referenced Cited" (patents.justia.com/patent/8933807), FreePatentsOnline (FreePatentsOnline.com/8933807.html), and the Unified Patents family page for US 10,719,824 (portal.unifiedpatents.com).
• I did not retrieve the USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR file wrapper, and the authoritative full text supplied in this session truncates mid-specification (no claims, no (56) block). Therefore I cannot reliably separate references the examiner applied from references the applicant listed in an IDS. Everything below is the "References Cited / (56)" record as reproduced by the databases.
• Both retrieved citation lists are truncated. Justia cuts off at US 6,793,134; FreePatentsOnline cuts off near US 6,698,653. I did not obtain the "Foreign Patent Documents," the "Other References / Non-Patent Citations," or the tail of the U.S. list. Treat the enumeration as representative, not exhaustive.

1. The controlling legal context (this reshapes the whole analysis)

US 8,933,807 was filed 2013-09-16 as a continuation claiming priority to 2002-07-09. Its claims 1/9/16/23 are directed to a mobile device / cellular telephone that biometrically authenticates a user and then releases stored transaction data over short-range RF (RFID/NFC) — a subject matter that is not the 2002 Neology disclosure (which described RF license plates, passports, border-crossing and airport security).

That creates a priority-date gate that governs everything:

• If the claims get the 2002-07-09 date, then only art before that date is §102 prior art, and the 2010–2013 references on the face of the patent (Bearnau; Bertran) are not prior art at all.
• If the claims lose the 2002 date (no §112 written-description support in the 2002 parent), the effective date is 2013-09-16, and the post-2002 references become live §102(a)/(e) art.

The fact that 2010–2013 references (US 8,548,927 issued 2013-10-01; US 8,401,539; US 8,126,449; US 2010/0095130; US 2010/0094754) appear on the face of a patent claiming 2002 priority is itself a red flag that the priority question was in play. I am flagging this rather than resolving it — resolving it requires the file wrapper, which I could not open.

Key dates to keep in mind:

• Critical date for §102(b)/§102(a): 2002-07-09 (if claims are entitled to priority).
• A U.S. patent that issued after 2002-07-09 but was filed before it is §102(e) art, not §102(b). Many numbered references below issued 2003–2006 and fall in exactly this category — I do not have their filing dates, so I cannot place them precisely. This is a real limitation of the list below.

2. Most §102-relevant cited references, mapped to the independent claims

The claims at issue (per the earlier summary): Claim 1 — mobile device with (a) cellular RF circuitry, (b) short-range RF circuitry, (c) memory storing pre-associated biometric authentication information + transaction information, (d) biometric reader, (e) authentication module, (f) transaction module that transmits over the short-range RF link only on a successful biometric match. Claim 9 = claim 1 + security block. Claim 16 = cellular-telephone counterpart. Claim 23 = text not retrieved (do not rely on it). Dependents add fingerprint (2/17), RFID (7/22), biometric-info-not-transmitted (8), cryptographic block (13/19), credit card (20), rewards card (21).

My honest confidence level: I read the titles and dates of these references, not their full texts, except where the supplied patent text quotes them. So the claim mapping above is a relevance ranking by subject matter, not a verified element-by-element §102 anticipation chart. The only defensible statement is: US 8,548,927 (Beenau) and US 2010/0094754 + 2010/0095130 (Bertran) are the references whose face subject matter lines up most directly with the biometric + secured-transaction limitations of claims 1/9/16.

3. The full (retrieved) cited-reference list, grouped

3a. U.S. Patent Documents — secure transaction / biometric / crypto (most relevant)

US 8,548,927 (2013-10-01, Beenau) · US 8,401,539 (2013-03-19, Beenau, Servicing attributes on a mobile device) · US 8,126,449 (2012-02-28, Beenau, Servicing attributes on a mobile device) · US 2010/0095130 · US 2010/0094754 · US 7,487,538 (2009-02-03, Mok, Security system) · US 7,310,734 (2007-12-18, Boate) · US 7,225,337 (2007-05-29, Baessler) · US 6,850,147 (2005-02-01, Prokoski, Personal biometric key) · US 6,793,134 (2004-09-21, Clark, Self-service terminal) · US 6,175,922 (2001-01-16, Wang) · US 6,167,333 (2000-12-26, Gehlot) · US 6,157,333 (2000-12-05, Louagie) · US 5,974,500 (1999-10-26, Maletsky).

3b. U.S. Patent Documents — RFID / short-range RF / transponder hardware

US 7,031,946 (2006-04-18, Tamai, noncontact IC tag) · US 6,975,834 (2005-12-13, Forster, Multi-band wireless communication device) · US 6,894,615 (2005-05-17, Look) · US 6,758,405 (2004-07-06, Look) · US 6,753,759 (2004-06-22, Stegmaier, Method for operating a transponder) · US 6,617,961 (2003-09-09, Janssen) · US 6,570,487 (2003-05-27, Steeves) · US 6,427,504 (2002-08-06, Janssen) · US 6,388,579 (2002-05-14, Adcox) · US 6,334,059 (2001-12-25, Stilp) · US 6,275,157 (2001-08-14, Mays) · US 6,268,796 (2001-07-31, Gnadinger) · US 6,211,790 (2001-04-03, Radomsky) · US 6,203,952 (2001-03-20, O'Brien) · US 6,140,941 (2000-10-31, Dwyer) · US 6,111,506 (2000-08-29, Yap) · US 5,874,896 (1999-02-23, Small) · US 5,864,580 (1999-01-26, Lowe) · US 5,787,174 (1998-07-28, Tuttle) · US 5,742,618 (1998-04-21, Lowe).

3c. U.S. Patent Documents — vehicle / airport / identification applications (the 2002 disclosure's true subject matter)

US 6,698,653 (2004-03-02, Diamond, Identification method, especially for airport security) · US 6,360,208 (2002-03-19, Ohanian) · US 6,340,116 (2002-01-22, Cecil) · US 6,057268? no — US 6,052,068 (2000-04-18, Price) · US 6,025,784 (2000-02-15, Mish) · US 6,025,780 (2000-02-15, Bowers) · US 5,657,008 (1997-08-12, Bantli) · US 5,552,789 (1996-09-03, Schuermann).

3d. U.S. Patent Documents — network / data-management (peripheral)

US 8,041,815 (2011-10-18, Bahl) · US 2005/0149764 (2005-07-07, Bahl) · US 7,980,378 (2011-07-19, Jones, currency processing) · US 7,844,505 (2010-11-30, Arneson, tag reader network) · US 7,533,809 (2009-05-19, Robinson) · US 6,950,013 (2005-09-27, Scaman).

3e. Clearly non-technical / anomalous citation

US 7,080,819 (2006-07-25, Tojo) — "Fuel injection valve having internal oil groove." This is plainly irrelevant to the claims; it is the kind of reference that appears on a face list for procedural/priority reasons, not as §102 art. → No anticipation relevance.

3f. The applicant's own family (listed as references and frequently as "cited by")

• US 8,004,410 (2011-08-23, Martinez de Velasco Cortina, System and method for providing secure identification solutions) — same inventors, earlier Neology patent.
• US 7,671,746 (2010-03-02, Martinez de Velasco Cortina) — same family.
• These are §102(a)/(b) own-work references of the same family. Because they share the 2002 priority chain, they cannot anticipate claims that also validly claim that chain — but they are fatal to any claim not supported by the 2002 disclosure (§112 / §102(b) self-collision risk).

4. Documents incorporated by reference (also prior art of record)

The specification expressly incorporates: U.S. App. Ser. No. 10/118,092, filed 2002-04-09, and PCT Application PCT/IB02/01439, filed 2002-04-30 (both cited on the face of the patent and in the text). These pre-date the 2002-07-09 priority date and are therefore §102(b)-class material as to the RF-device disclosure, but they address the hardware (chip/antenna/crypto block), not the mobile-payment claim set.

5. Forward citations (context, not prior art)

The face record shows this patent is cited by its own later continuations — US 10,719,824; US 10,826,697; US 10,762,187; US 10,726,414; US 10,706,412, and publications US 2015/0120570 and US 2015/0193766. These are the same Neology family (all claiming 2002-07-09), consistent with the family's continuation practice. They are not §102 prior art to this patent (wrong direction in time), but they matter because a later, broader continuation's validity turns on the same 2002 support question.

6. Bottom line, stated honestly

1. The single most on-point cited reference is US 8,548,927 B2 (Beenau et al., 2013-10-01, "Biometric registration for facilitating an RF transaction"), followed by US 2010/0094754 and US 2010/0095130 (Bertran et al.). These are the references whose face subject matter lines up with claims 1/9/16 (biometric authentication + short-range-RF transaction + security block).
2. Whether those references are prior art at all depends entirely on the priority date. Because they post-date 2002-07-09, they can only be §102(a)/(e) art if the mobile-device claims lose the 2002 priority date. That turns on whether the 2002 Neology disclosure supports claims 1/9/16/23 — which I could not verify without the claims and the file wrapper. I flag this as the decisive open question, not a resolved answer.
3. Older art (pre-2002-07-09) most relevant to the elements: US 2004/0128249 (Tokenless Biometric Electronic Scrip, 1994 priority), US 2001/0044900 (transaction-request authentication from terminals, 2000), US 6,850,147 (Prokoski personal biometric key), and the RF-hardware family in §3b. These could support §102 anticipation of individual limitations, but no single retrieved reference of record appears to disclose the entire claim-1 combination (cellular RF + short-range RF + pre-associated biometric/transaction data in memory + on-device biometric reader + transmit-only-on-match) — again, a statement about what I retrieved, not a legal conclusion.
4. What I could not obtain and therefore did not assert: full foreign patent documents, non-patent literature, examiner-cited-vs-applicant-cited segregation, filing dates for the 2003–2006 issued references (which control whether they are §102(b) or §102(e)), the tail of the U.S. reference list, and the full text of claims 16 and 23. Anyone needing a citable §102 chart must pull the PatentCenter file wrapper and the printed (56) block — the databases I reached all truncate.

If you can grant more tool steps, the highest-value next pulls are (a) the PatentCenter "References Cited" / file wrapper for 14/028,469, and (b) the full front-page PDF, which would let me complete categories 3b–3d and add the foreign/NPL references the databases dropped.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art record for US 8,933,807 rather than working from memory. Let me pull the cited references and the relevant pre-2002 art in this field.

I have a strong set of candidate references. Let me nail down the critical dates and content for the most on-point ones, since § 103 turns on whether they pre-date the 2002-07-09 priority date.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,933,807 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold caveats (read before the analysis)

Three limitations on this opinion must be stated up front, because they materially affect confidence:

(a) The "Prior Art section" is not present in the authoritative record I was given. The Google Patents text supplied in this session contains a "Prior art keywords" field (information, transaction, biometric, security, transaction information), a "Prior art date 2002-07-09" field, and the CPC classification list — but the examiner's "References Cited" table and the "Cited By" table are absent from the fetched text. I therefore cannot reproduce the exact art cited on the face of the patent, and I am not going to invent that list. What follows is a § 103 analysis built from (i) the keyword/classification record actually on the page (the page's own statement of the art area: RFID/NFC mobile payments, biometric authentication for entity authentication, access control) and (ii) live prior-art retrieval. Anyone relying on this should pull the printed patent's front page from USPTO PatentCenter to get the actual cited-art list.

(b) Claim scope is paraphrased, not verbatim. Per the earlier section, the full claim set was unavailable and the retrieved claim text (via Justia) truncates claims 9, 16 and 23 with ellipses. In particular, the earlier section flagged that claim 16's transaction-module limitation may not recite "via the short range RF circuitry," and claim 23's text was never retrieved. My element mapping is therefore keyed to claim 1 (best-characterized) and flagged as provisional for 16 and 23. This is a real analytical limitation: if claim 16 lacks the short-range-RF transmission limitation, it is broader and more obvious than claim 1, not less.

(c) Date discrepancy already flagged, restated for this task. This task's header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026"; the system context and the authoritative fetch are dated 2026-09-19; and the earlier section identified Samsung docket entries dated 2026-06-10 through 2026-06-24, which post-date April 26, 2026. For a § 103 analysis the "current date" is largely irrelevant (all prior art here predates 2002), but it matters for where an obviousness challenge can be raised (IPR/PGR vs. district court) — so I flag it rather than silently reconcile it.

1. Governing law and the critical date

Which § 103 applies. The '807 was filed 2013-09-16, after the AIA's first-inventor-to-file date (2013-03-16), but it is a continuation claiming benefit back to 2002-07-09. Under the AIA transitional provisions, pre-AIA §§ 102/103 govern an application that contains no claim with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. So:

• If the biometric-payment claims are fully supported by the 2002-07-09 priority document → pre-AIA § 103(a) applies, and the critical date is 2002-07-09.
• If they are not so supported (a written-description/priority failure — plausible, because the claims are drafted as generic "authentication module"/"transaction module" functional apparatus claims over a 2002 specification) → the effective filing date collapses to 2013-09-16, the AIA applies, and the art window opens by eleven years.

This fork is the single most important lever in the analysis. I address both branches, but the analysis below assumes the patentee's own priority claim (2002-07-09) — the hardest case for an obviousness challenger.

Framework. Graham v. John Deere (scope/content, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations), KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (predictable combinations of known elements are obvious; a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" suffices; motivation may come from design incentives and market forces), and In re KSR-style reasoning on "obvious to try." Because all the asserted elements are in the same field (mobile/wireless payments) and each was independently known, the KSR "predictable combination" rationale carries most of the weight.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA). A person with a bachelor's degree in EE or CS and ~2–4 years' experience in RFID/smart-card systems and wireless device security, or equivalent. Notably, the patentee's own specification sets this level: it describes, as known, "highly secure chips with a hardware programmable cryptographic block with credit and debit exchange keys," 13.56 MHz contactless chips, dual-frequency modulators, and one-to-one biometric verification at a POS — i.e., the patentee admitted these elements into the prior art.

Legal status note. The patent is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2023-07-09). Expiration does not immunize it from a § 103 holding; it constrains only forward-looking relief and channels validity challenges. Separately, secondary considerations carry almost no weight here: the commercially successful accused products (Apple Pay / Samsung Pay) are the accused infringers' products, not the patentee's. Any commercial-success evidence lacks the required nexus to the '807 claims.

2. Claim 1 decomposed into elements

Every element A–G was independently known and commercially deployed before 2002-07-09. The only question is the combination.

3. The primary references

(Excluded as near-misses / non-art, consistent with the earlier section's hygiene note: JP 2003-006549 (app. 2001-193157, filed 2001-06-26, published 2003-01-10) — post-critical-date publication, not § 102(a)/(b) art absent a pre-2002 US counterpart; EP 1 768 057 A1 — portable telephone + noncontact IC card + fingerprint verification, but I could not verify its priority date and it is a 2007 publication, so I do not rely on it; and the WO excerpt appearing in PTAB petition materials describing a wireless device with contactless smart card + biometric authentication, whose document number I could not confirm — not relied upon.)

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground I — WO 02/49322 alone (anticipation / single-reference obviousness)

WO 02/49322 discloses, in one unit: a cellular mobile telephone (element A); a fingerprint scanner connected to the CPU (D); a short-range RFID chip with antenna for undertaking transactions at a reader (B); and identity-check means that "authorise such transactions" — i.e., the short-range transaction occurs only when the biometric check succeeds (E, F). Its stated objects are "verification that the user of the mobile telephone is the legitimate owner," enabling of the unit only after a correct check, and the ability to "perform all conventional credit and debit card" transactions. That is the substance of claim 1.

Weakness: WO 02/49322 is less explicit about the memory storing biometric information previously associated with stored transaction information as a distinct data structure (element C). It describes an RFID chip with memory and an owner photograph stored in the telephone, and it describes the phone functioning as an RFID smart card — which entails stored card credentials — but a challenger would want a cleaner disclosure of the pre-association. Critical dependency: the publication date. If WO 02/49322 published after 2002-07-09, it drops out as § 102(a)/(b) art and survives only as § 102(e) art if its US national-phase counterpart was filed before the critical date. I was not able to retrieve the printed publication date line (I inferred "June 2002" from the PCT filing date of December 2001 and the 18-month rule); this must be verified before relying on Ground I. If priority is instead measured from 2013 (branch (b) in §1), the date problem vanishes entirely and this reference becomes § 102(b) art.

Ground II — JP 2001-344544 in view of WO 02/49322 (the strongest combination)

This pairing is the cleanest § 103 case because the references are complementary in exactly the way the claim requires:

• JP 2001-344544 supplies C, D, E, F almost verbatim: fingerprint capture, storage of the legitimate user's fingerprint data, a matching unit, and a control unit that authorizes transmission of settlement information to the settlement-processing device only upon a positive match. Its claim 1 is a claim-1-shaped teaching in the transaction domain.
• WO 02/49322 supplies A and B — the cellular handset plus the short-range RFID/cellular-adjacent transaction link — and additionally corroborates D/E/F (fingerprint scanner coupled to the phone CPU; identity check authorizing the short-range transaction).

What the combination lacks relative to claim 1 is only the precise data-structure recitation that the biometric info is "previously associated with" the transaction information — and US 2002/0128980 (Ludtke) supplies precisely that (a stored UIT previously associated with the transaction file, compared, and the file automatically transmitted on a match). Alternatively, US 2002/0072349 (Geiselman) supplies the card-transaction fingerprint-match predicate, and Lane US 2002/0141621 supplies the pre-stored biometric + encrypted packet released on match.

Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would have done this):

1. Same field, same problem. All references address the same two failures: (i) a stolen/forged payment credential, and (ii) a stolen handset. Each reference frames biometrics as the fix for the "something you have" weakness identified in the art itself (see the 11,397,800 background passage retrieved: proximity/smart cards are "susceptible to use by an impostor… Biometric technology… can largely eliminate this risk").
2. Same articulated rationale in the art. WO 02/49322 expressly states the reason for using a fingerprint scanner: it is "compact, well proven and accepted by the general public," and specifically pairs the identity check to short-range transactions — the very linkage claimed.
3. Predictable result, no new mechanics. Combining a known local 1:1 biometric match (JP '544) with a known RFID/cellular handset (WO '322) yields nothing more than the expected sum of the parts: a security gate on a known wireless payment path. KSR squarely covers this.
4. Market/industry pressure. WAP, Bluetooth and contactless-payment deployment (Camp 1999; DE 197 47 438; EP 1 061 484) created strong commercial incentive by 2001–2002 to move payment credentials into the handset; the only remaining design question was how to authenticate the holder, which the art had already answered with fingerprint matching.
5. No teaching away. Nothing in any reference disparages local biometric gating; WO 02/49322 and JP '544 both endorse it for the same purpose.

Ground III — Kim / Geiselman / Lane in view of WO 02/49322 (cumulative but supportive)

• US 2002/0087869 (Kim) — mobile-device fingerprint authentication of a credit card — plus WO 02/49322's short-range RFID handset yields A–F. Caveat: the publication date sits within days of the critical date; verify before using as primary art, though it remains available as § 102(e) art if its US filing date precedes 2002-07-09 (a granted US patent, US 7,606,560, issued from it).
• US 2002/0072349 (Geiselman) + WO 02/49322: known fingerprint-gated card transaction + known RFID handset = claimed combination.
• Lane (US 2002/0141621 / US 5,623,552 family) supplies independent corroboration that "store a fingerprint template in the device, release an encrypted credential only on a match" was a well-worn pattern in portable secure substrates — useful against any argument that the '807's gating arrangement was novel as a concept.

Ground IV — The dependent claims (2, 7, 8, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22)

These are, individually, weaker than the independent claims:

• Dep. 2 (fingerprint): expressly disclosed by JP '544, WO '322, Geiselman, Kim.
• Dep. 7 (short-range RF = RFID): expressly disclosed by WO '322 (RFID chip 16 + antenna 17) and is the standard contactless-payment implementation.
• Dep. 8 (biometric itself not transmitted): the natural and preferred security design — keeping the template local avoids transmitting biometric data. WO '322 keeps verification in the phone (the reader requests only the owner's photograph); the "verification data storage section… without outputting the stored verification data to the external device" rationale appears in the retrieved electronic-settlement art. A PHOSITA would not transmit a fingerprint template when a local 1:1 match suffices; this is a design choice with a predictable benefit (privacy + reduced interception risk).
• Deps. 13/19 (security block / cryptographic block): admitted prior art by the patentee's own specification, which describes "highly secure chips with a hardware programmable cryptographic block with credit and debit exchange keys" and RFID crypto blocks with "4 exchange encrypted keys with up to 256 bits" as conventional components; Lane's encrypted information-packet output and the contactless-smart-card art supply the same teaching.
• Deps. 20/21 (credit card / rewards card): the '807's own specification lists "credit card information, airline, or hotel mileage card information" as the illustrative transaction content — an admission that these were ordinary categories of stored payment data.
• Dep. 22 (RFID): same as dep. 7.

Ground V — The KSR fallback, and the priority-collapse scenario

If the patentee cannot tie the biometric-payment claims to the 2002-07-09 document, the effective date becomes 2013-09-16, the AIA § 103 applies, and the art window swallows the entire intervening decade — including the smartphone mobile-wallet art of 2008–2012 (the PTAB petition materials retrieved in this session chart, for example, a "Jain" reference filed 2008-09-05 disclosing a mobile device with a transaction card executed over short-range NFC/Bluetooth with PIN/biometric authentication, and 2012-era mobile-payment provisioning references). Under that branch, the claims are not merely obvious; large parts of the independent claims are likely anticipated, and § 103 becomes the fallback rather than the primary theory.

5. Rebuttal considerations and what would defeat the prima facie case

A challenger should anticipate and address:

1. "The references are not combinable because JP '544 is contact-based (IC card socket) while the claim requires short-range RF." Answer: WO 02/49322 supplies the contactless short-range RF element and expressly contemplates the phone operating as an RFID smart card; the substitution of a contactless interface for a contact one is precisely the predictable substitution KSR sanctions. Also note the phone itself is the claimed "mobile device," not the IC card.
2. "No motivation to combine a Japanese settlement terminal with a UK mobile-telephone/RFID disclosure." Answer: KSR rejects the rigid "same-problem/sould-be-combined" test; the references are in the same field and address the same problem; the WO reference itself states the motivation (fraud prevention, low-cost, generally accepted fingerprint hardware).
3. "The 'previously associated' biometric/transaction data structure is the point of novelty." Answer: Ludtke (US 2002/0128980) discloses exactly that association-plus-conditional-transmission structure, filed 2001-12-11.
4. Priority/§ 112: The strongest defensive position for the patentee is a valid 2002 priority date. A challenger's best offensive move is to test whether the 2002-07-09 document actually supports the generic "authentication module"/"transaction module" claims — if it does not, the AIA applies and the case becomes far easier. Note also that the functional, result-oriented phrasing ("module … configured to") invites a § 112(f) construction question that is outside this task but relevant to claim-scope clarity.
5. Secondary considerations: essentially unavailable. No evidence of a nexus to the patentee; the accused functionality (Apple Pay/Samsung Pay) is the accused parties' own innovation, not the patentee's commercial embodiment. See §1.

6. Bottom line

• Primary theory: claim 1 (and its dependents) is obvious under § 103 over JP 2001-344544 in view of WO 02/49322, optionally further in view of US 2002/0128980 (Ludtke). JP '544 supplies the biometric-gated release of stored settlement information from a mobile terminal (elements C–F); WO 02/49322 supplies the cellular handset with short-range RFID transaction capability and its own fingerprint-scanner-plus-short-range-transaction teaching (elements A, B, and corroboration of D–F); Ludtke supplies the "biometric previously associated with the transaction file, auto-transmitted on a match" data structure. Motivation is same-field/same-problem, expressly articulated in WO 02/49322, with predictable results — a textbook KSR combination.
• Secondary theory: WO 02/49322 alone (strong on substance; date verification required), plus Geiselman/Kim/Lane as corroborating combinations.
• Dependent claims are separately obvious, and several elements are admitted prior art by the patentee's own specification (hardware cryptographic block with exchange keys; credit/rewards-card transaction data; contactless 13.56 MHz chips).
• The single biggest case-determinative unknown is the effective filing date. If the biometric-payment claims reach back to 2002-07-09, this is a solid § 103 case relying on very close-in-time art (WO 02/49322, US 2002/0072349, US 2002/0087869). If they do not, the AIA governs, the art window opens to 2013, and the claims are likely anticipated outright.

What I could not verify (explicit): (i) the actual "References Cited"/"Cited By" entries on the face of the patent — absent from the supplied record; (ii) the exact printed publication date of WO 02/49322 (inferred ~June 2002 from the December 2001 PCT filing date); (iii) the priority date of EP 1 768 057 A1 (not relied upon); (iv) US 2002/0087869 (Kim)'s exact publication/filing dates (listed as 2002-07-04 by one source, within days of the critical date); and (v) the full verbatim text of claims 9, 16, and 23, which the earlier section flagged as truncated (claim 23 entirely unretrieved). I hit the tool-step limit before completing the date-verification searches, so those four items remain open rather than resolved.