US 9123035

I'll research this patent and cross-check against the authoritative full text I already have. Let me run some searches.

Let me search for CAFC 2026 docket activity and litigation/enforcement history.

Now let me get the actual claim set and check for any appeal/reexam activity specific to this patent.

US 9,123,035 B2 — Summary

Important scope note up front: I was able to confirm bibliographic data and docket activity, but I could not retrieve the verbatim, official claim text within the search budget available. The claim overview below is derived from the patent's own abstract and its "Definitions"/embodiment passages (as mirrored on Google Patents and FreePatentsOnline) — treat it as a faithful description of the claimed subject matter rather than a literal quotation of claims 1, N. I flag each uncertainty point explicitly.

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Bibliographic data (high confidence)

Assignee caveat: FreePatentsOnline still lists the assignee as "PENILLA ANGEL A.; PENILLA ALBERT S." (original assignee), while Google Patents and Unified Patents list Emerging Automotive LLC as current assignee. Both are consistent with the recorded 2017 assignment. (Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9123035B2/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[9123035](/patent/9123035).html)

Abstract (as indexed)

"Systems and method are provided for providing auxiliary charge to a main battery of an electric vehicle. One system includes an auxiliary battery for holding a plurality of charge units, the auxiliary battery being connectable to the main battery of the electric vehicle, the plurality of charge units being rechargeable and being replaceable from within the auxiliary battery, such that replacing particular ones of the plurality of charge units with charge units with more charge increases a total charge of the auxiliary battery. Kiosks for storing a plurality of charge units. A display in the kiosk for an interface for enabling transactions to provide or receive charge units to customers, and a central processing center that communicates with a plurality of said kiosk over a network and a plurality of vehicles, The plurality of vehicles are provided with access to availability information of charge units at each of said kiosks."
(Source: https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_9123035_... ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9123035.html)

Core terminology (from the specification)

• "Volt bar" = a discrete, hand-insertable battery/"charge unit."
• "Auxiliary battery carrier" / compartment = a carrier holding multiple volt bars, liftable into/out of the vehicle (trunk, side compartment, etc.), electrically coupled to the main battery.
• "Volt box" = the kiosk/dispensing station that accepts depleted volt bars, recharges them, and dispenses charged ones.
• "Central hub" / "hub processing center" = network-side processing center (payment servers, reservation servers, load-balancing & heat-mapping engines, mobile-app interface servers, service-route optimization, databases).

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims (inferred from the patent text — see caveat)

Based on the specification's stated embodiments, the patent appears to claim approximately the following independent subject matter:

1. Auxiliary-battery system (apparatus). A system providing auxiliary charge to an EV's main battery: an auxiliary battery that holds several rechargeable, replaceable charge units ("volt bars") and connects to the main battery. Swapping out individual charge units for more-charged ones increases the auxiliary battery's total available charge. The auxiliary battery carrier can optionally be lifted by hand, and can itself contain a rechargeable cell, or store charge only in the inserted volt bars.

2. Kiosk for storing/recharging charge units (apparatus). A kiosk with (i) slots for storing and recharging the charge units; (ii) a control system that communicates over a network and includes logic for identifying the inventory of charge units in the kiosk and logic for processing payments and fee adjustments for charge units provided to or received from the slots; and (iii) a display providing an interface enabling customers to transact for charge units. Related disclosure covers RFID/tracking identifiers, per-unit memory (charge count, cell health, charge level, kiosk history), damage/confiscation logic, and modular/kiosk-to-kiosk expansion.

3. Networked system with central processing center (apparatus/system). A central processing center communicating over a network with (i) multiple kiosks, configured to make centralized rate changes to prices for charge units at each kiosk, where the price change is kiosk-specific and based on metrics including availability at each kiosk and discounts; and (ii) multiple vehicles, which are given access to availability information about charge units at each kiosk, customized based on geo-location.

4. Method for providing charge options to EV drivers. Receiving charge-availability data from charge locations; receiving a request from the vehicle's processing logic indicating a desire to obtain charge; determining the EV's current location; identifying charge locations in proximity; determining any sponsored rewards offered by those charge locations; and communicating a path to one of the charge locations, where the path identifies a sponsored reward offered at that charge location for taking/using that path.

5. Computer-processed method for route charge options. Receiving charge-availability data plus data on sponsored rewards and the rules for offering them; receiving a request identifying a desire to charge en route between a current location and a destination; generating multiple paths the EV can traverse, each identifying possible charge locations and any sponsored rewards available there; and forwarding the paths as options through a user interface, with the rewards displayed to let the user weigh tradeoffs between path length and reward obtained.

Uncertainty flag: I cannot confirm how many independent claims the patent actually contains, nor their exact wording, respective statutory categories (system vs. method vs. CRM), or dependency structure. The five items above are the independent-looking subject matter described in the patent, not verified claim language. Items 4–5 are stated in the specification's summary-of-invention section and may or may not correspond 1:1 to issued claims.

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USPTO / litigation / CAFC docket status for 9,123,035 specifically

• PTAB = none found. I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming U.S. 9,123,035 as the challenged patent. The 2025–2026 PTAB activity against this patent family targets other Emerging Automotive patents:

  • Toyota Motor Corp. v. Emerging Automotive LLC, IPR2026-00059 (filed Oct. 21, 2025; instituted Mar. 23, 2026 with scheduling order Apr. 3, 2026) — challenges US 11,104,245.
  • Kia America, Inc. v. Emerging Automotive LLC, PGR2026-00008 (filed Oct. 21, 2025; institution denied Apr. 6, 2026).
  • Kia Corp. v. Emerging Automotive LLC, IPR2024-01167 — Final Written Decision Jan. 26, 2026 on US 11,738,659 (claims 1–5 and 7–21 unpatentable; claim 6 survived).
    (Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00059/... ; https://sandbox.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/PGR2026-00008/... ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-01167/...)

• District court = 9,123,035 not asserted. In Emerging Automotive LLC v. Toyota (E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00434-JRG) and the lead case Emerging Automotive LLC v. Kia (2:23-cv-00437-JRG), the asserted patents are US 10,407,026; 11,738,659; 9,365,188; and 9,171,268. Summary judgment of non-infringement was granted on the '026 patent (June 12, 2025), and the cases were moved toward a stay pending the PTAB proceedings on the '659, '188, and '268 patents. (Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1558638](/patent/1558638)/...)

• Role of '035 in the family. US 9,123,035 is the parent of the continuation chain — e.g., 14/063,638 (issued as US 9,189,900) is a CIP of 13/452,882 (the '035 application), and 13/842,158 (US 9,229,905) also traces priority to it, all ultimately claiming benefit of provisional 61/478,436. Notably, the originally-filed specification of application 13/452,882 was submitted as Exhibit 1006 in Toyota v. Emerging Automotive, IPR2024-00786 — i.e., it was used as evidence for priority/written-description purposes, not as the challenged patent. (Sources: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556150](/patent/1556150)/... ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00786/doc/17)

• CAFC 2026 dockets: none found naming 9,123,035. My searches surfaced no Federal Circuit appeal (2025 or 2026) in which US 9,123,035 is the patent at issue. There is a CAFC docketing statement reference in the family (In re Kia Corp., No. 24-138), but that concerns a petition/mandamus issue in the E.D. Tex. litigation, not the '035 patent. I cannot positively exclude a non-precedential or very recent appeal, so treat "no CAFC 2026 docket" as a negative search result rather than a certified absence.

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Bottom line

US 9,123,035 is an active Emerging Automotive (originally Penilla) patent, filed 2012-04-22 on a 2011-04-22 priority date and issued 2015-09-01, covering swappable "volt bar" auxiliary EV batteries + recharge/dispense kiosks ("volt boxes") + a networked central hub for pricing, availability, reservations, and sponsored-reward routing. It is a foundational family member rather than a current litigation vehicle: it is not among the patents asserted in the 2023 E.D. Tex. Toyota/Kia suits, is not (per my searches) the subject of any PTAB trial, and I found no CAFC 2026 appeal naming it. Its text, however, is actively used as priority evidence in the IPR2024-00786 proceeding against US 9,171,268.

If you need the exact claim set (claim numbers, categories, and verbatim language) or a certified litigation/assignment history, say so and I'll pull the USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB and CAFC docket records directly.

I'll search specifically for litigation naming US 9,123,035. Let me run targeted queries.

Let me dig into whether the '035 patent itself was ever asserted, and check the Unified Patents litigation portal.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation portal and look for any earlier suits naming the '035 patent.

I've hit my search-step limit, so here is the answer based on the evidence retrieved.

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Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,123,035

Bottom line

Based on the searches performed, no litigation is known in which U.S. Patent No. 9,123,035 ("the '035 patent") is the asserted or challenged patent. Every district-court and PTAB matter I could surface that involves the '035 patent's owner (Emerging Automotive LLC / the Penilla inventors) names other patents from the same family. In the '035 patent's own family, the application that issued as the '035 patent — application 13/452,882 — appears in the record as evidence (priority/exhibit material) rather than as a cause of action.

I want to be precise about the limits of this: I could not run an exhaustive PACER/RPX/Unified Patents docket sweep (tool budget exhausted), so treat this as a negative search result rather than a certified absence. However, it is a strong negative, because the PTAB petitions in this family are required to disclose, under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8(b)(2), every district-court and Board proceeding involving the patent or its family — and none of those disclosures list a case asserting the '035 patent.

The '035 patent — identification (interpreted literally)

Litigation in which the '035 PATENT is asserted/challenged

None found. Specifically:

• No district-court case asserting 9,123,035 was located.
• No PTAB proceeding (IPR, PGR, CBM, or ex parte reexamination) in which 9,123,035 is the challenged patent was located.

Litigation involving the same patent family / patent owner (NOT the '035 patent)

These are the cases that dominate search results for "Emerging Automotive." I list them so there is no confusion — the '035 patent is not among the asserted patents in any of them.

PTAB proceedings in the family (none on the '035 patent):

Where the '035 patent DOES appear in the record (as evidence, not a cause of action)

This is the key distinction and I want to state it cleanly:

1. IPR2024-01167 exhibit list — Petitioner listed Ex. 1013: U.S. Patent Application No. 13/452,882 (the application that issued as the '035 patent). That is a prior-art/priority exhibit, not a challenged patent. (Source: Petitioners' Updated Exhibit List, IPR2024-01167, filed 2025-01-08.)
2. IPR2024-00814 exhibit material — the as-filed specifications of related applications (the '035 application among the family chain) were likewise submitted as exhibits for written-description/priority analysis.
3. PTAB IPR2026-00059 Exhibit 1010 — U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/478,436, the '035 patent's priority provisional, submitted as an exhibit in a challenge to a different patent ('245). (Source: docket listing for IPR2026-00059.)
4. A USPTO examiner's search-history table (produced in a PTAB filing) contains the boolean string "9123035".pn. — this is an examiner prior-art search string in the '035 patent's own family, not litigation.
5. Google Patents "family/citing documents" listings show 9,123,035 as a family member cited by later Emerging Automotive patents (e.g., US 10,661,764, US 10,071,643) — again citation/priority, not litigation.

Why the '035 patent likely has no standalone suit

Nothing in the retrieved record states a reason, so the following is inference, flagged as such: the '035 patent (issued 2015) is an early family member whose subject matter (swappable "volt bar" auxiliary EV batteries, "volt box" kiosks, and a central hub) overlaps with later, more litigation-friendly continuations such as US 9,177,306, US 9,179,272, and US 10,839,451. Emerging Automotive's enforcement campaigns (2023 and 2025, both in E.D. Tex. before Judge Gilstrap) selected the newer e-key/cloud patents instead. Because the '035 patent expires 2033-09-24 (adjusted), it remains available for assertion, but I found no case.

Caveats and contradictions to flag

1. Date inconsistency in the instructions. The system/task framing gives two different "current dates": 2026-09-30 and April 26, 2026. I did not auto-correct these. Note that retrieved court records include a stay order signed 7/23/2026 (2:25-cv-00782, Dkt. 59). If today truly is April 26, 2026, that order post-dates today and should be treated with caution; if today is September 30, 2026, it is in the past. I am reporting the documents as retrieved rather than reconciling the dates.
2. "9,123,035" vs. near numbers. Per the strict rule, I did not fold in results for visually similar family numbers (e.g., 9,129,272; 9,177,305; 9,177,306; 9,180,783; 9,189,900; 9,229,905; 9,229,623; 9,230,440). Those belong to different patents and different (or no) asserted claims.
3. Completeness. I was unable to query PACER directly or the Unified Patents caselist portal (search budget exhausted). "No litigation known" is therefore a strongly supported but not certified negative. A definitive answer requires a PACER docket search and the Unified Patents / RPX litigation portals filtered to patent number 9,123,035.

Sources relied upon

• https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9123035B2](/patent/US9123035B2)/en (bibliography, family, continuity)
• PTAB IPR2024-01167 exhibit list (Ex. 1013 = application 13/452,882): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-01167/
• PTAB IPR2024-00814 exhibit list (as-filed family specifications): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00814/
• PTAB IPR2026-00059 docket (Ex. 1010 = provisional 61/478,436): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00059/Toyota_Motor_Corporation_v._Emerging_Automotive_LLC/
• Stay order, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00782 (Dkt. 59, signed 7/23/2026): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2025cv00782/[239692](/patent/239692)/59/
• Second Amended Complaint, E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00434 (asserted patents list): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00814/ (Ex. 1029)
• Docket, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00799: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv00799/[239796](/patent/239796)
• Unified Patents reexamination report ('659 patent, not '035): https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/4/17/emerging-automotive-e-keys-patent-challenge-instituted

If you want a certified answer, the next step is a PACER "patent number" search on 9123035 and a Unified Patents litigation-portal query filtered to that exact number — say the word and I'll walk through those records.

I'll start from the canonical structured list in the prompt (which reports no AIA trials for this patent) and then verify against public sources, since the prompt directs me to flag anything web search surfaces.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be thorough before concluding.

Two more checks: ex parte reexamination activity and whether Unified Patents (a defensive aggregator) has ever challenged this patent.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 9,123,035 B2

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings naming US 9,123,035 as the challenged patent: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest) returns no AIA trials for this patent, and my independent web searches of PTAB dockets, PTAB E2E mirror sites, and the district-court stay briefing in the co-pending E.D. Tex. litigation found no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding in which US 9,123,035 is the patent under review — no institution decision, no FWD, no settlement/termination, and no Federal Circuit appeal of any '035 PTAB outcome. The claims of the '035 are therefore entirely UNTESTED at the Board: none canceled, none sustained, none construed.

The defensive read is not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened." It is closer to the opposite: the '035 has never been asserted in the litigations I could locate, and consequently has never drawn a petition. Its absence from the PTAB docket is a function of non-assertion, not of proven resilience. A defendant who receives a demand letter on the '035 would be facing a fresh, un-adjudicated patent — which cuts both ways: no adverse PTAB record to exploit, but also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel protecting the patent owner, and a full menu of unexhausted invalidity theories.

Caveat on sourcing: the canonical ODP block is the authority here, and it says "none." I treat the absence as a verified negative search result from the ODP plus my own searches, not as a certified guarantee — recently docketed petitions can lag ingest. Anyone relying on this should re-verify at PTAB E2E immediately before filing.

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Proceedings against US 9,123,035

None. There is no proceeding to report claim-level outcomes for. I will not manufacture a proceeding number, panel, or disposition for a trial that does not exist.

Why the '035 nonetheless appears throughout the family's PTAB record

US 9,123,035 is the parent application (13/452,882) of the entire Emerging Automotive charge/e-key/vehicle-sharing family. It surfaces in other parties' PTAB papers in two non-challenging capacities:

1. As a priority exhibit. In Toyota Motor Corp. v. Emerging Automotive LLC, IPR2024-00786 (challenging US 9,171,268), Toyota submitted:

   • Exhibit 1006 = "Originally-Filed Specification of U.S. Application No. 13/452,882" — i.e., the originally-filed specification of the '035 application.
   • Exhibit 1005 = U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/478,436 — the '035's priority provisional.
   • Exhibit 1004 = Originally-Filed Specification of U.S. Application No. 13/842,158.
     These were used to test the § 112 written-description / priority chain of the challenged '268 patent. (Docket Alarm IPR2024-00786; GreyB IPVerse)

2. As a related-application entry. In Toyota's petition against the '716 patent, the family table lists 13/452,882 → 9,123,035 alongside 13/452,881 → 10,217,160 and provisional 61/478,436. (petition PDF)

Also noted in prosecution/IDS records of sibling patents: examiner search histories contain "9123035".pn queries — i.e., the '035 was searched as prior art/family during prosecution of later continuations, not challenged.

Practical takeaway: the '035's specification and its '436 provisional are already in a public PTAB record. If Emerging Automotive ever asserts the '035, a petitioner's priority/written-description attack toolkit is partially pre-assembled — although the art in those exhibits was marshaled against other patents' claims.

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Adjacent family proceedings (context only — NOT proceedings against the '035)

Everything below concerns different patents (all in the same Penilla/Emerging Automotive family). It is included because it defines the parties, panels, and estoppel environment you would be operating in, and because some of the shared specification and claim terms come from the '035 disclosure. None of it invalidates, narrows, or estopped anyone as to US 9,123,035.

Sources for the table: the joint motion to stay and the district court's stay ruling (CourtListener; E.D. Tex. joint stay motion); Unified Patents reexam announcement and Unified Portal 90/019,456; Ex Parte AI Lab case page for IPR2024-00981.

Flags / uncertainties I could not fully resolve — do not treat as settled:

• Panel composition conflicts across mirrors. Docket mirrors list overlapping but non-identical panels for IPR2024-00981 (e.g., Braden / Parvis / Dirba per one source; Braden / Ippolito / Galligan / Deshpande / Parvis / Dirba per another). Go to PTAB E2E for the authoritative panel.
• Post-FWD paper in IPR2024-00981. A later family filing cites "IPR2024-00981, Paper 37 (PTAB Jan. 8, 2026)" — a date after the 2025-12-09/12-18 FWD, suggesting a rehearing or Director Review paper. I could not verify what Paper 37 is; do not assume it is an FWD.
• IPR2024-00785 denial reasoning (Fintiv vs. merits) is unverified in my sources.
• The '188 FWD date appears as both 2025-12-09 and 2025-12-18 depending on the mirror; the statutory FWD deadline was 2025-12-18.

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Strategic summary

Claim status of the '035. All claims of US 9,123,035 are UNTESTED — there is no PTAB record at all. Compare that to the family generally, where Kia/Toyota have now knocked out substantial claim sets of the '188 (claims 1–20, unpatentable) and the '659 (claims 1–5 and 7–21 unpatentable, claim 6 surviving), and where Unified's ex parte reexam of the '659 resulted in all claims rejected. None of those outcomes touch the '035's claims. A defendant sued on the '035 cannot point the court to a PTAB disposition against it.

Estoppel landscape. This is the single most important point for a defendant, and it cuts for you. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to claims that were challenged in an instituted IPR that reached FWD, and only against the petitioner, RPI, and privies. Because no IPR on the '035 has ever been instituted:

• No petitioner is estopped as to the '035. Kia and Toyota's estoppel from the '188, '268, '659, and '244 IPRs is patent-specific and does not extend to the '035's claims. Even a defendant who was an RPI in those IPRs retains its full invalidity slate against the '035.
• Conversely, the '035's owner has no PTAB win to point to and no § 315(e)(2) shield — meaning a defensive IPR against the '035 is live and unconstrained by prior Board findings.

Available routes if the '035 is asserted today. Because the patent issued 2015-09-01, the 9-month PGR window is long closed. Because the CBM transitional program sunset (no new CBM petitions after 2020-09-16), CBM is unavailable despite the '035's G06Q20/18 kiosk-payment classification and pre-2013 filing date. That leaves IPR under § 311 — patents and printed publications only, § 102/§ 103 grounds — filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '035 (§ 315(b)). Section 101 challenges live in district court, not at the Board.

Pattern signals. Kia and Toyota have been serial, coordinated family petitioners (seven-plus petitions across the portfolio, plus Unified acting as a defensive aggregator via ex parte reexam on the '659). Emerging Automotive has been defensive and aggressive about keeping the cases alive — it opposed the 2024 stay motion, litigated the Certificate of Correction fight in the '244 IPR, and the '188/'659 FWDs are now on appeal. Notably, the '035 has never been selected for the fight: the asserted patents in EA1 (2023) were the '026, '659, '188, and '268, and the 2025 suits assert the '245, '715, and '716. That is a deliberate portfolio-selection pattern — Emerging Automotive has been asserting later continuations with narrower, more modern claim sets, not the '035's original disclosure. The '035 looks like a retained reserve asset, not a litigation vehicle.

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Recommended next steps

1. Verify the negative yourself before relying on it. Query PTAB E2E / the ODP API for 9123035 and for application 13/452,882 and its continuations. A recently filed petition may not yet be in the ingest I searched. If a demand letter cites the '035, treat that as the trigger date for the § 315(b) clock and diary it immediately.

2. If you are a defendant and the '035 is asserted, build the IPR from scratch — there is no Board record to work from. The absence of a prior institution means no § 325(d) "same art already considered" risk is created by this patent's PTAB history (though the '035's own prosecution history is fair game for § 325(d)), and no General Plastic serial-petition exposure.

3. Reuse the family's priority-attack machinery deliberately. Toyota has already litigated the '035 application's written-description/priority chain using Exhibits 1004–1006 (the '035 spec, its '436 provisional, and the '158 spec) in IPR2024-00786. If the '035's own claims depend on subject matter added in the 2012 non-provisional over the 2011 provisional, that § 112 / priority date attack is pre-documented in the public record. Pull the IPR2024-00786 record and the '035 file history before drafting.

4. Prior-art slate. The family's cited art — e.g., Xiao (US 2012/0164989), Patenaude (US 2006/0136106), Singh (US 2007/0255464), Hayashi (JP 2012-076627) — was developed against the '268. It is not automatically on point for the '035's volt-bar/kiosk/hub claims, but battery-swap-station and network-reservation art from the 2008–2011 window is the obvious hunting ground. Nothing prevents a fresh search; no estoppel runs against you.

5. Watch the pending appeals and the 90/019,456 reexam. The '188 and '659 FWDs are on appeal to the Federal Circuit, and the '659 reexam rejected all claims. Any CAFC rulings on the shared specification's claim-construction or § 112 issues could be leveraged against the '035 in district court, even though they are not binding on the Board.

6. Do not over-read the empty docket. "No PTAB activity" here does not mean "hardened." It means "not yet asserted." The same is not true across the family, where claims have been canceled. If a licensor or plaintiff tells you the '035 is "PTAB-tested," that statement is false.

Bottom line for a defendant: US 9,123,035 is an active (adjusted expiration 2033-09-24), never-challenged, never-asserted-in-the-cases-I-found family parent. There are zero AIA trials, zero certified claim cancellations, and zero PTAB estoppel attached to it. Your IPR options are wide open; your § 101 and priority/written-description defenses are entirely un-adjudicated; and the only meaningful constraint is the § 315(b) one-year clock that starts when you are served with a complaint on this patent.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9,123,035 and the parties involved.

Inventors

Unusual pattern — and it is the opposite of an inventor-exodus: at issuance there was no corporate assignee at all. The patent's face lists the assignee as an entity-less "Individual" (Google Patents) / "PENILLA ANGEL A.; PENILLA ALBERT S." (FreePatentsOnline). The two inventors are therefore the original owners, and the "transfer" that later occurred was to a company they themselves formed. The tell here is inventor-as-attorney self-monetization, not a fire-sale: the same individual (Albert S. Penilla) is (i) a named inventor, (ii) the registered practitioner who prosecuted the application, and (iii) the correspondent of record for the family. Note also that both named inventors are the only inventors across the ~100+ patent family (per the previously generated family survey), so there is no non-inventor workforce to depart.

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Original assignee

• On the issued patent (2015-09-01): none — the patent issued to the inventors personally (Google Patents lists "Individual"; FPO lists "PENILLA ANGEL A.; PENILLA ALBERT S."). There is no operating company in the original chain.
• Primary line of business: none. The inventors had no product company at filing. Albert S. Penilla's business was patent prosecution (Penilla IP, APC / Martine Penilla Group, LLP); neither firm ships an EV range-extending "volt bar" kiosk product.
• Product embodying the claims: no evidence of any. The "volt bar / volt box / auxiliary battery carrier" system described in the claims is not known to have been commercialized by the inventors or by any successor.
• Current status of the original owner: superseded. The individual inventors remain the human principals of the current owner, Emerging Automotive, LLC (formed in California in May 2017), which is operating as an assertion vehicle, not as a product company. There is no record of dissolution or bankruptcy of the original (individual) ownership; it simply conveyed to the LLC.

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Assignment timeline

Scope note / honesty flag up front: I confirmed the existence and content of the recorded assignment to Emerging Automotive, LLC, and its recording date, but I could not independently retrieve the reel/frame for the '035 record within this research budget. I will not invent one. Where I give a reel/frame, I say exactly which patent it belongs to.

1. 2017-06-XX (executed) / recorded 2017-06-20 — Reel/frame: NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED for the '035 record

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
• Assignor: PENILLA, ALBERT S. (Sunnyvale/Santa Cruz, CA); PENILLA, ANGEL A. (Sacramento, CA)
• Assignee: EMERGING AUTOMOTIVE, LLC, Los Altos, CA
• Correspondent: not captured on the '035 record. The family's correspondent of record in this era is MARTINE PENILLA GROUP, LLP, 710 Lakeway Drive, Suite 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94085 (the firm named on the 13/452,882-era filings), and in later filings PENILLA IP, APC – PATENT LAW, 1200 Pacific Avenue, Suite 250, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. Both are the inventor's own firm(s). Flag: if either address appears as correspondent on the '035 assignment, that is a repeat-correspondent finding, since the same practitioner is also the assignor-inventor. (Sources: P-TACTS document downloads for related applications showing "MARTINE PENILLA GROUP, LLP … SUNNYVALE, CA 94085" and "PENILLA IP, APC … SANTA CRUZ, CA 95060"; https://www.patentbots.com/patentverse/practitioner/39487-Penilla-Albert-S)
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter / internal formation of an assertion vehicle — the two individual inventor-owners conveyed the patent to a California LLC they formed the previous month (May 2017). It is not a sale to a stranger and not an internal corporate reorg (there was no prior corporation).

Anchor point, clearly labeled as a DIFFERENT patent: In Kia Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. v. Emerging Automotive LLC, IPR2024-01167, the petition states that the '659 patent "is believed to be assigned to Emerging Automotive, LLC… The assignment is recorded in the USPTO at reel/frame 042921/0292." That is the US 11,738,659 record, not the '035 record. Because 042921/0292 is a 2017-era reel and the same assignee/assignor pair executed the family assignments in the same window, reel 042921 is a probable neighboring reel for the '035 entry — but this is an inference and must not be cited as the '035 reel/frame. (Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1556348](/patent/1556348)/download-documents — IPR2024-01167 papers)

No other recorded post-issuance assignments were found for the '035 patent: no security agreement, no release, no license, no merger, no change of name, no correction, and no bankruptcy sale. Per the previously generated sections, the '035 patent is also not asserted in the 2023 and 2025 E.D. Tex. cases (the asserted family members are US 10,407,026; 11,738,659; 9,365,188; 9,171,268; 11,104,245; 12,337,715; 12,337,716), and no PTAB trial names it (it appears only as Exhibit 1006/1013 — the originally-filed 13/452,882 specification — for priority/written-description purposes). A single-link chain with an unasserted end patent is itself the finding: the chain exists to place the whole family, including this member, under one licensing entity.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9123035
    2011 : Provisional 61478436 filed
    2012 : Application 13452882 filed
    2015 : Patent 9123035 issues to inventors
    2017 : Emerging Automotive LLC formed in California
         : Inventors assign patent to Emerging Automotive
    2019 : Family continuations prosecuted by Penilla IP APC
    2023 : Family asserted against Toyota and Kia
    2024 : PTAB and reexam challenges filed on family members
    2025 : Second wave suits against Toyota and Kia

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (in substance, with one caveat). The patent moved from two individual owners to Emerging Automotive, LLC on a record dated 2017-06-20. Tells supporting the call: the LLC was formed in California in May 2017, ~5 weeks before the recording, by the named inventors themselves; RPX reports it has no product and "has secured the backing of an unnamed funder"; it names a single-purpose licensing posture (it does nothing but assert the family). Caveat: the transferor was not a pre-existing operating company — it was the inventors personally — so this is an assertion-vehicle formation rather than a classic operating-to-shell spin-out. Naming alone is not the finding; the finding is entity formed by the assignors, no products, third-party funding, assertion-only conduct.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT. Emerging Automotive, LLC is the current assignee of record and is an active plaintiff: Emerging Automotive LLC v. Toyota Motor Corp., No. 2:23-cv-00434-JRG; v. Kia Corp., No. 2:23-cv-00437-JRG (both E.D. Tex., Sept. 2023); and the 2025 second wave, Nos. 2:25-cv-00782 / 2:25-cv-00799 (Aug. 2025). Its patents have been challenged by Unified Patents (ex parte reexam 90/019,456 against US 11,738,659) and by Toyota/Kia at the PTAB. It is not on the legacy enumerations (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities), but it is tracked as an active NPE by RPX and is a Unified Patents target — which is the operative test. (Sources: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/87690-emerging-automotive-asserts-other-members-of-same-large-patent-family-in-second-pair-of-complaints ; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/4/17/emerging-automotive-e-keys-patent-challenge-instituted)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT. The signal here is unusually strong: the assignor-inventor, Albert S. Penilla (Reg. No. 39,487), is also the practitioner of record, and his firms are the correspondents across the family — MARTINE PENILLA GROUP, LLP, 710 Lakeway Drive, Suite 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94085 on the 13/452,882-era filings, and PENILLA IP, APC, 1200 Pacific Avenue, Suite 250, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 on later filings in the same family (see the ODP/Issue Classification sheets in P-TACTS document downloads, e.g. for application 16/405,036). One lawyer, one address family, one assignee entity, both ends of the transaction. Precision caveat: I did not see the correspondent line on the '035 assignment instrument itself — flag as presumed present, verify on the face of the recorded document.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. The chain is a single link (inventors → Emerging Automotive, 2017-06-20). There is no sequence of chained LLCs, no shared correspondent address hop, and no sub-24-month cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT for this patent. The only assignment is dated 2017-06-20, roughly six years before the first assertion campaign (Sept. 2023), and the '035 is not a patent-in-suit in any of the Toyota/Kia cases. The assignment was not arranged to enable a suit on this patent. (It did antecedently consolidate the family so that other members could be asserted.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 filing by any assignor or assignee appears in the record; no bankruptcy-court sale, no Kodak/Nortel-style auction.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR. Classic privateering requires an operating company transferring to an NPE to assert against its competitors. Here the "operating company" never existed — the inventors became the NPE. What does fit the privateering pattern is RPX's report that Emerging Automotive has "secured the backing of an unnamed funder," i.e., a third-party-financed assertion campaign (Bunsow De Mory LLP as counsel). Marked unclear because the funding is reported, not documented by a recorded instrument I can cite to a reel/frame.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at an asserter, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Inverse signal noted for completeness only: Unified Patents is on the attacking side (EPR 90/019,456 vs. US 11,738,659).

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Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two or more strong signals are documented: (i) the 2017-06-20 recorded assignment conveying the patent from the individual inventors to Emerging Automotive, LLC, an entity they formed weeks earlier, with no products and an unnamed litigation funder (RPX); and (ii) the assignee is a known asserter — plaintiff against Toyota and Kia in E.D. Tex. (2:23-cv-00434 / 2:23-cv-00437, then 2:25-cv-00782 / 2:25-cv-00799), targeted by Unified Patents' EPR and by multiple Toyota/Kia IPRs — supported by (iii) the repeat-correspondent pattern in which the assignor-inventor is himself the registered practitioner and firm of record (Martine Penilla Group, LLP / Penilla IP, APC). The qualifier that keeps this from being a textbook case is that the '035 patent itself is not asserted — it sits in the chain as family ballast and as priority evidence (IPR2024-00786 Ex. 1006) — and the entity is inventor-controlled rather than a purchased shell. Note also that the '035-specific reel/frame was not retrieved; the family-adjacent '659 record at 042921/0292 should be used for orientation only, not cited as the '035 reel.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 9123035) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 9,123,035 specifically. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me pull the actual "References Cited" section for US 9,123,035 itself.

Let me try to retrieve the patent's front-page "References Cited" list from Justia and Google Patents.

Prior-art analysis — US 9,123,035 B2

Retrieval status up front (read this first). I was able to pull some citation data for US 9,123,035, but not the complete, official front-page "(56) References Cited" list. The authoritative full text supplied in the task file is a description-only rendering — it contains classifications, definitions, and the detailed description, but omits the (56) section and the entire claim set. I therefore report (a) exactly which citation data I could retrieve, (b) its provenance, and (c) my § 102 assessment, with each uncertainty flagged rather than smoothed over. Per the operating rules I did not auto-correct any identifier and did not fold in near-numbers (9,129,272 / 9,177,305 / 9,177,306 / 9,180,783 / 9,189,900 / 9,229,905 / 9,230,440 / 9,193,277) — those are different patents.

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1. The patent under examination

Which § 102 regime governs. Because the application was filed 2012-04-22 — i.e., before the 2013-03-16 first-inventor-to-file cutoff — the '035 patent is examined under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102, meaning:

• § 102(b) statutory bar for anything patented or published before 2010-04-22 (one year before the 2011-04-22 priority date) — the strongest, cleanest category;
• § 102(a) for art published/known before 2012-04-22 but within the one-year grace window (theoretically swearing-behind-able, so weaker);
• § 102(e) for US patents and US application publications that were filed before 2012-04-22 (the publication date is irrelevant to 102(e) status);
• § 102(f)/(g) for derivation / prior invention.

This matters because several references surfaced with 2014 publication dates; their § 102(e) status depends entirely on their US filing dates, not their dates of publication.

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2. References retrieved — with provenance and caveats

2(a) Set A — citations listed on the Unified Patents portal page for US 2012/0271723 A1 (the '035 application's own pre-grant publication)

Source retrieved: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20120271723-A1

These are the only references I retrieved that map cleanly onto the '035 subject matter (EV batteries, exchange/trade-in, charging stations, network control). Caveat: I could not verify that this portal list corresponds one-to-one with the printed patent's (56) list — it may aggregate the family. Treat as high-relevance candidates, not as a certified record.

2(b) Set B — "US Patent References" shown on the FreePatentsOnline page for 9,123,035

Source retrieved: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9123035.html

The FPO page for 9123035 displays a "US Patent References" block beginning with: US 2014/0300739 (Mimar), US 2014/0278089 (Gusikhin), US 2014/0277936 (El Dokor), US 2014/0253018 (Kong), US 8,836,281 (Ambrosio), US 8,825,222 (Namburu), US 2014/0236463 (Zhang), US 2014/0236414 (Droz), US 2014/0232331 (Stamenic), US 2014/0218189 (Fleming), US 8,819,414 (Bellur), US 8,818,725 (Ricci), US 8,818,622 (Bergholz), US 8,816,845 (Hoover), US 8,799,037 (Stefik), US 2014/0214321 (Kawamata), US 2014/0214261 (Ramamoorthy), US 2014/0207333 (Vandivier), US 2014/0203077 (Gadh), US 2014/0200742 (Mauti), US 2014/0179353 (Simon), US 2014/0172727 (Abhyanker), US 2014/0172265 (Funabashi), US 2014/0172192 (Kato), US 2014/0164559 / 2014/0163774 / 2014/0163771 (Demeniuk) … (list truncated in retrieval).

Provenance warning — please read. I retrieved only the head of this list. Its profile is anomalous for this patent: nearly every entry is a 2014 publication about vehicle human-machine interface, gesture control, driver-state analytics, or seating, i.e., subject matter foreign to a volt-bar/kiosk patent, and post-dating both the '035 priority and filing. Two plausible explanations, which I cannot resolve without the printed front page: (i) a large late-filed IDS was submitted during the '035's three-year pendency (2012–2015), or (ii) the FPO page is displaying the reference list of a different family member with the same inventors. I am reporting it literally because the URL is the '035 page, but I flag the mismatch rather than treating it as verified.

Filtering to the entries that are plausibly relevant, and applying the § 102(e) rule (filing date, not publication date, controls):

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3. Citations I retrieved that are not prior art (avoid these traps)

1. WO 2011028168 A1's own "Citations (3)". A search snippet returned "Citations (3): US 4274043 A; US 2003/0000759 A1; US 2006/0152189 A1" appearing on the Google Patents page for WO 2011028168 A1 ("Battery pack with safety device, control device and control method"), on which US 9123035 B2 appears as a citing document. Those three citations belong to WO 2011028168 A1, not to US 9,123,035. I explicitly decline to attribute them to the '035 patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2011028168A1).
2. Same-family Penilla documents — US 2013/0282472 A1 ("Methods and Systems for Processing Charge Availability and Route Paths for Obtaining Charge for Electric Vehicles," filed the same day as the '035 application), US 2015/0134467 A1 ("Kiosks for storing, charging and exchanging batteries…"), US 2015/0127479 A1, and US 9,193,277 B1. These share the same inventive entity and priority chain (provisional 61/478,436) and are therefore not § 102 prior art to the '035 patent. They are frequently misidentified as "prior art" in search results.
3. Forward citations ("Referenced By") — e.g., US 11,239,674 citing "9123035 | September 1, 2015 | Penilla" (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11239674](/patent/11239674)) and the ~211 documents on the Unified Patents portal "Referenced By" list. Forward citations are not prior art to the '035 patent.
4. International Search Report "patent family member" listings (e.g., the PCT/JP 2020-510945 ISR listing US 9,123,035 B2 among family members of US 2016/0080500 A1). Family membership ≠ prior art.

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4. Bottom line on the most relevant art

• Most relevant retrieved reference: WO 2009/039454 A1 (Agassi / Better Place, "Electric Vehicle Network"). It is the closest thing in the retrieved set to the '035's core combination of a charge-dispensing station + network-side management, and it is squarely § 102(b) art (pre-2010). It is strongest against claim group B (kiosk with recharge slots, control system, network communication) and claim group C (central processing center setting prices/availability across kiosks with geo-customized delivery to vehicles).
• Second tier (each partial): US 5,548,200 (charging-station interface), US 6,940,254 (battery trade-in accounting), US 2005/0035741 A1 (auxiliary battery attached to main battery, network-controlled), US 2003/0209375 A1 (EV battery supply/charging apparatus).
• § 102(e)-conditional tier (Set B): US 8,836,281 and US 8,799,037 — relevant on their face but only if their US filing dates precede 2012-04-22.

Important analytical caution

A cited reference is not an anticipating reference. References appearing on a patent's front page are overwhelmingly cited as background or to satisfy the applicant's duty of disclosure (IDS); most were overcome during prosecution. On the record I retrieved, no single reference appears to anticipate the '035 patent's distinctive combination — specifically, an auxiliary carrier of plural, hand-insertable, individually replaceable "volt bar" charge units connected to the main battery, combined with a dispensing/recharging kiosk and a central hub that performs kiosk-specific price changes and pushes geo-customized availability to vehicles. I could not identify a clean § 102(b) single-reference anticipation of that combination. The realistic challenge profile is § 103 (e.g., WO 2009/039454 + US 2005/0035741, or US 6,940,254 + WO 2009/039454), not § 102.

Two hard limits on this answer

1. No verbatim claim text. I could not retrieve claims 1–N of US 9,123,035 (the supplied full text omits them, and my retrieval budget expired before pulling them). Accordingly the "claim group A–E" references above are the inferred independent-claim groupings from the prior section, not claim numbers. I cannot state, e.g., "anticipates claim 1," with confidence, and I will not invent that mapping.
2. Incomplete citation list. I retrieved (a) eight references from the Unified Patents portal page for US 2012/0271723 A1 and (b) the head of the FPO "US Patent References" list — but not the complete official (56) list, foreign patent documents, or non-patent literature cited. Count of references of record: unverified.

Recommended verification steps (the ground truth you asked for)

• USPTO Patent Public Search (https://ppubs.uspto.gov) → query 9123035 → open the granted document → page 1, section (56). That is the authoritative list; nothing above substitutes for it.
• USPTO PatentCenter → application 13/452,882 → "References Cited" / IFW → all PTO-1449 IDS submissions (which will confirm or refute the Set-B provenance question).
• For each Set-B reference, pull its US filing date (INPADOC/Global Dossier) to test § 102(e) against 2012-04-22.

If you can supply the printed front page of US 9,123,035 (or authorize a further search pass), I will convert the table above into an itemized, claim-numbered § 102 / § 103 chart.

I'll ground this in actual prior-art references rather than speculating. Note that the patent text supplied here shows the "Prior Art Keywords" (volt / kiosks / charge / batteries / user) but does not reproduce the front-page "References Cited" list, so I need to retrieve that.

Let me retrieve the specific candidate references and their dates.

Now let me get the networked-charging/reservation and sponsored-routing art, which is what the later independent claims map onto.

I've hit the search-step limit, so here is the analysis based on the material retrieved. I'll be explicit about where the record is thin.

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Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,123,035 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

A. Threshold caveat on the "Prior Art" section

The task instructs me to use "the results from the Prior Art section of this page." I have to flag precisely what that section contains, because it materially limits how this analysis can be framed.

The authoritative page text supplied contains only three prior-art fields:

• Prior art keywords: volt, kiosks, charge, batteries, user
• Prior art date: 2011-04-22
• Field of search: 320/109, 320/107, 320/104, 180/65.1, 180/65.21, 307/10.1, 701/22

It does not reproduce the front-page "(56) References Cited" list, the "Cited By" list, or any examiner-cited art. I attempted to retrieve that list and could not confirm it within my search budget (the FreePatentsOnline page returned a long list that appears to be referenced-by material — mostly 2014 publications such as Mimar, Gusikhin, El Dokor — which would be post-dating art, not § 102 prior art).

Consequence: Everything below is an independent § 103 case constructed from the claimed subject matter, not a recitation of what the examiner actually cited. Do not treat any reference listed here as "cited on the face of the '035 patent" unless I say so. This is also consistent with the earlier sections, which flagged that verbatim claim text was not retrievable — so the analysis is organized around the five independent-looking claim groupings from the earlier summary, with that inference flagged again below.

Date/identifier discrepancies to carry forward (not auto-corrected):

• Google Patents and the supplied page give priority 2011-04-22; the Unified Patents portal entry for US-9123035-B2 states priority 2011-04-21. Both are carried as found.
• The prior sections flagged a conflict between a "current date" of 2026-09-30 (page fetch) and 2026-04-26 (current task). Irrelevant to pre-2011 art, relevant to any 2025–2026 PTAB/court status statement.

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B. Level of ordinary skill and claim construction

POSITA: A team-level artisan — a mechanical/electrical engineer with 2–4 years in battery systems and vehicle electrical architecture, working with a software/network engineer familiar with vending-machine controllers, kiosk payment systems and networked fleet/asset management. This mirrors the invention's actual mixed nature (electro-mechanical carrier + a vending kiosk + a server-side pricing/inventory engine).

Key terms (construed per the specification's own Definitions section, since claim text is unavailable):

The hub/server-elements are drafted in functional, result-oriented language ("logic for identifying inventory," "logic for processing payments and fee adjustments," "configured to provide for centralized rate changes"). That breadth helps an obviousness case: broad functional language is more readily met by the prior art.

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C. The prior-art universe (all pre-dating 2011-04-22, i.e., available prior art)

Two structural observations matter for the § 103 case:

1. Every claim group in the '035 patent maps onto a mature, separate pre-2011 art field. Swap-and-recharge of EV batteries (Guimarin, Hammerslag, Aarseth, Better Place); battery vending/kiosk exchange with payment, testing and confiscation (Malaspina); network-controlled, server-authoritative EV charging with web-published availability and user profiles (Coulomb); and dynamic/incentive-based EV energy transaction pricing (IBM).
2. The '035 patent's alleged novelty is at the seams — i.e., in architecting these fields together into (a) a modular "volt bar" carrier feeding the traction pack, (b) an expandable kiosk network, and (c) a hub that both prices per kiosk and steers drivers with sponsored rewards. That is precisely the kind of "arrangement of old elements" combination that KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), subjects to the predictable-results / design-incentive analysis rather than a rigid TSM test.

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D. Ground 1 — the auxiliary-battery system claim

Inferred claim scope: auxiliary battery holding a plurality of rechargeable, replaceable charge units; connectable to the main battery; replacing charge units with more-charged units increases total charge of the auxiliary battery.

Primary combination: Guimarin '606 + Malaspina '784, in view of Johnson Controls '283 (and optionally Hammerslag '819).

Motivation / reasons to combine:

• Same field, same problem. Both references open with the identical predicate the '035 patent recites as its own motivation: EV range is limited and refueling infrastructure is sparse relative to fossil-fuel distribution. '606's background discusses electric vehicles' "limited range before the batteries wear down" against the "well established distribution system" for gasoline/diesel; the '035 Definitions section says the same thing almost verbatim.
• '606 itself supplies the "modular, human-handleable" teaching. Its platform is "of a simple modular shape that may be used with the large variety of sizes and shapes of electric vehicles," and the express goal is minimizing "the inconvenience to the vehicle operator." Combining that modularity with '283's back-up-battery-in-the-vehicle concept yields the claimed carrier with no new mechanism.
• '784's whole purpose is the swap business model, and it expressly reasons about partial-charge economics and condition ("providing it is in usable condition, receives a fully charged battery pack for a small fee"). Substituting a more-charged unit for a lesser-charged one to increase available charge is the stated purpose of the reference.
• Predictable result. Summing the state-of-charge of paralleled/swappable modules is arithmetic; nothing in the combination changes the principle of operation of the main battery.

Weak element for the petitioner: the hand-transportable carrier framing and the "carrier charged while connected to the vehicle, after the main battery is full" variant (Figs. 7–9). But these are conventional charge-priority schemes — prioritizing a primary load and then a secondary load from one charger is elementary power-management, and the '283 back-up system is expressly an "opportunity charging" architecture, which supplies that motivation directly.

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E. Ground 2 — the kiosk claim

Inferred claim scope: (i) slots for storing and recharging charge units; (ii) control systems communicating over a network, with logic for identifying inventory of charge units and logic for processing payments and fee adjustments for units provided to or received from the slots; (iii) a display providing an interface enabling transactions.

This is close to a single-reference case. Ground 2A (primary): Malaspina '784.

Ground 2B (secondary reinforcement): '784 + Guimarin '606 + Aarseth '963 (+ Better Place/Charge Peak 'US 2010/0141206).

• '606 supplies the EV-scale application and the service-network framing: a distributed "service station facility" that stores, re-charges, services and stages platforms, and which monitors "the electrical condition and charge history of the batteries" — which is exactly the '035's kiosk-side function of reporting "number of charges, the health of the battery cells, the current charging levels" to the hub.
• Aarseth '963 confirms the substitution of vehicle batteries into the same exchange-and-charge service-center paradigm.
• Better Place/Charge Peak family publications establish that by 2009–2011 a network of battery-exchange stations with subscriber billing was known, which supplies the "communicates over a network" element for the kiosk itself.

Motivation / reasons to combine:

• '784 states the design goal that motivates the '035 kiosk almost word-for-word: the ideal solution "is to combine these two ideas and provide a battery pack exchange," and a "manned type of business" is unattractive, so "an approach similar to that used to vend canned beverages would be a more likely means." That is an express teaching to automate the exchange as a self-service dispenser — the '035's own "volt box."
• '784 also supplies the load-balancing seed: it contemplates "a plurality of stacks, forming a row and column matrix," and a single reservoir where "the control unit 18 maintains a directory in memory of what type of battery is located in each battery compartment." An artisan implementing the multi-slot kiosk of the '035 needs no more than the '784 controller generalized to more slots.
• Design incentive (KSR). Automating the exchange removes labor cost; that is the stated business rationale in '784 itself. Combining the vending machine with the EV battery-exchange station is "the mere substitution of one known element for another" to obtain a predictable result — a self-service EV battery exchange kiosk.

Weak element for the petitioner: nothing here looks genuinely novel. Even the "damage detection → confiscate → alert the hub" loop is anticipated in substance by '784's battery test unit + recycle bin, plus '606's charge-history monitoring.

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F. Ground 3 — the networked system / central processing center claim

Inferred claim scope: a central processing center communicating over a network with (i) a plurality of kiosks, configured to provide centralized rate changes to the price of charge units at each kiosk, the price change being kiosk-specific and based on a plurality of metrics including availability at each kiosk and discounts; and (ii) a plurality of vehicles granted access to availability information at each kiosk, customized based on geo-location.

Primary combination: Coulomb (US 7,956,570 / US 2009/0174365) + IBM (US 2009/0313103; US 2009/0313098; US 2009/0313034; US 2009/0313033; US 7,991,665) + Guimarin '606 / Malaspina '784.

Motivation / reasons to combine:

1. Explicit business motivation in the references. US 7,991,665 concerns managing incentives for EV charging transactions, i.e., deliberately varying the economic terms to shape driver behavior. Coulomb's server-side user profile and Demand-Response discussion shows the same logic on the utility side. A central server that sets station-specific prices to shape demand is the conjunction of the two.
2. The '035 patent's own stated purpose supplies the KSR "design incentive" and arguably an admission of the problem to be solved. The specification states that discounts at particular kiosks exist "to sell more volt bars at certain kiosk systems with excess inventory, or to encourage virtual routing of volt bars throughout geographic regions," and that a detected East→West migration of volt bars is answered by discounting in the West "which would then cause migration of volt bars toward the east." Framing the objective purely as inventory load-balancing identifies a known economic technique (dynamic, location-specific yield/promotion pricing, long used in rental-car, airline and vending/fleet logistics) applied to a known distributed kiosk network with known per-station inventory visibility.
3. Predictable results. Given (a) a networked server controlling a plurality of stations, (b) per-station inventory data, and (c) a pre-existing teaching of incentive-based EV charging transactions, setting a per-station price is a mechanical application of the hub's stored data. No new principle of operation arises; the output (a price) is a function of stored inputs (availability, discount rules).
4. KSR "market demand." Building the server side of a geographically distributed vending/service network as a hub-and-spoke architecture was the ordinary way to operate such a network in 2011 — the Coulomb network, the IBM energy-transaction service, and the Better Place exchange-station network are three independent contemporaneous demonstrations that this was the conventional architecture, which supports "the improvement is [a] predictable [use] of prior art elements according to their established functions."

Weak element for the petitioner: the combination of both a pricing channel and an availability-to-vehicles channel in one hub is where the patentee would argue the claim is more than the sum of its parts. The counter is that the '035 specification itself describes both as outputs of the same "load balancing and heat mapping engine 308" and "mobile application interface server 312," i.e., two services of one server — and combining services on one server is routine.

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G. Grounds 4 & 5 — the sponsored-reward method claims (weakest ground — flagged)

Inferred claim scope:

• Ground 4: receiving charge-availability data from charge locations; receiving a request from the vehicle's processing logic identifying a desire to obtain charge; determining the vehicle's current location; determining charge locations in proximity; determining any sponsored rewards offered by those charge locations; and communicating to the vehicle a path to one of the charge locations, the path identifying a sponsored reward offered at that charge location for the path.
• Ground 5: the en-route variant — receiving sponsored-reward data and the rules for offering the rewards; receiving a request to charge between a current location and a destination; generating a plurality of paths each identifying possible charge locations and any sponsored rewards available there; forwarding the paths as options via a UI, with the rewards identified to enable tradeoffs between length of path and reward obtained.

Honest assessment of the evidence: This is the one ground where my retrieved record is materially incomplete, and I will not paper over it.

• The non-sponsored elements are well covered: route generation between a current location and a destination with intermediate stops is elementary navigation art; obtaining vehicle geo-location is conventional (and indeed Coulomb's system is location-indexed and the '035 field of search includes 701/22); receiving availability data from service locations over a network is Coulomb; receiving a request "from processing logic of an electric vehicle" is Coulomb's charge-transfer request/authorization signaling.
• The "sponsored reward" and its presentation as a route-choice tradeoff element is where I could not retrieve a verified pre-2011 reference within my search budget. I searched for sponsored-route / advertiser-funded navigation art and the search hit the step limit before returning results. I therefore will not assert a specific patent number for it.

How a petitioner would actually build this ground (candidates, not verified):

1. Advertising-supported/paid-placement navigation and POI search, which by 2011 was a well-established commercial practice (sponsored map results and advertiser-funded points of interest). The claimed "sponsored reward offered at that charge location for the path" is, functionally, a subsidized stop whose subsidy is disclosed in exchange for the routing. The motivation is directly economic: the '035 specification itself states that discounts are used "to encourage virtual routing of volt bars throughout geographic regions" — i.e., the patentee's own stated rationale for discounting is behavior-shaping routing. Combining that stated rationale with a route-option UI is, on the specification's own terms, an application of a known incentive mechanism, not a new one.
2. The IBM transaction-plan art (US 2009/0313103; 2009/0313098; 2009/0313034; 2009/0313033; US 7,991,665), which is not limited to energy price but speaks to plans, dynamic plan generation, preferences, and incentives for EV charging. A "sponsored reward with rules for offering it" is an incentive with eligibility rules; the reference teaches the incentive-with-rules concept in the same field.
3. Route-planning subject to refueling/range constraints, i.e., generating multiple candidate paths each with intermediate refueling/charging stops and presenting them as user-selectable options. I did not verify a specific pre-2011 reference for this, and I flag it as a candidate category only.

Why this ground is where the § 103 case is most likely to fail: the combination of (i) multiple route options, (ii) each annotated with an available subsidy, and (iii) explicit UI presentation enabling the driver to trade path length against reward, is a user-experience/data-presentation claim, not a mechanical or control claim. Where the art does not disclose presenting the tradeoff, the patentee will argue the claim captures a specific interactive decision-support design, not a predictable recombination. A petitioner should either (a) locate the paid-placement-navigation and range-constrained-routing references and chart them element-by-element, or (b) rely on the specification's own statements about steering routing via discounts as evidence of the design incentive. Absent (a), I would not represent this ground as strong.

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H. Priority strategy a petitioner must run first (materially affects the art available)

This is the highest-leverage point in the whole analysis, and it is supported by the family's actual PTAB history.

• Priority is claimed to 2011-04-22 (provisional 61/478,436), with actual filing 2012-04-22.
• That means there is a one-year window (2011-04-22 → 2012-04-22) of publications that are not § 102(b) art against claims entitled to the provisional, but are § 102(a)/(e)-type art against claims not supported by the provisional's written description. Note that WO 2011/058253 (Better Place family, published May 2011) falls in exactly this window.
• The family's own record shows this is a live issue: the as-filed specification of application 13/452,882 was submitted as Exhibit 1006 in Toyota v. Emerging Automotive, IPR2024-00786, i.e., used for priority/written-description analysis — and the earlier summary notes it was likewise used as Ex. 1013 in IPR2024-01167.
• Practical implication: before charting art, a petitioner should test whether the provisional 61/478,436 discloses the "central processing center with kiosk-specific pricing metrics" and, especially, the "sponsored rewards"/route-option subject matter. Claims reciting later-added material — particularly Grounds 3–5 — may lose the 2011 priority date, which (a) makes 2011–2012 publications available and (b) may create § 102(a)(1)/§ 102(a)(2) art out of the applicant's own intervening publications. This mirrors exactly how the family has been attacked before.

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I. Consolidated KSR rationales

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J. Where the obviousness case is weakest, and what the patentee will say

1. No verified art for "sponsored rewards" presented as a path-length-vs-reward tradeoff. My retrieved record does not contain a confirmed pre-2011 reference. This is the single most likely non-obviousness battleground (Grounds 4–5).
2. The "hub prices each kiosk differently based on availability and discounts" formulation. The patentee will argue that no single reference rendered centralized, per-kiosk, metric-driven re-pricing of a battery-dispensing kiosk network. The counter is a three-reference combination (Coulomb hub + IBM incentive/dynamic-plan + '784/'606 inventory), which is legally sufficient under KSR but is a combination the patentee will attack for hindsight.
3. The specification frames much of the disputed matter as business method ("discounts can be programmed based on the desire to sell more volt bars at certain kiosk systems with excess inventory"). The patentee will simultaneously rely on that breadth for infringement and resist obviousness by arguing the specific architecture is not shown. Expect a § 101 overlay as well as § 103.
4. Do not import outcomes from sibling patents. I note for completeness that a Final Written Decision of 2026-01-26 in Kia v. Emerging Automotive, IPR2024-01167, reportedly found claims 1–5 and 7–21 of US 11,738,659 unpatentable (claim 6 surviving). That is a different patent with different claims, and its outcome is not probative of the '035 claims. I flag it only because I referenced the family in the earlier sections — it must not be used as "evidence" here.
5. No secondary-considerations record shows a nexus. I found no evidence of unexpected results, industry praise, or copying tied to the '035 claims in the retrieved material. Absent such a nexus, arguments about the family's commercial or litigation importance carry little § 103 weight.

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K. Caveats and contradictions to carry forward

1. The "Prior Art" section supplied does not contain a cited-references list — only keywords and the priority date. My attempt to retrieve the '035 front-page (56) list did not succeed. Every reference above is therefore my § 103 construction, not the examiner's. This is consistent with the earlier "Patent summary" section's caveat about unretrieved material.
2. Claim text remains unverified. The five claim groups analyzed are the independent-looking subject matter inferred from the Definitions/embodiment passages, as flagged in the earlier summary. If the issued claims contain limitations I have not seen, Grounds 4–5 in particular may shift.
3. Priority-date discrepancy: Google Patents/the supplied page = 2011-04-22; Unified Patents portal entry for US-9123035-B2 = 2011-04-21. Not auto-corrected. Immaterial to the pre-2011 art above; material only at the margin (e.g., a reference published 2011-04-21/22).
4. Current-date discrepancy: the page fetch is dated 2026-09-30, the task states 2026-04-26; the earlier sections also reported a stay order signed 2026-07-23. Not reconciled here, per the operating rules; it does not affect a pre-2011 obviousness analysis.
5. Number discipline: near numbers (9,129,272; 9,177,305; 9,177,306; 9,180,783; 9,189,900; 9,229,905; 9,229,623; 9,230,440) were not folded in — they are different patents with different claims.
6. References I list as "candidate" or with an unverified title: US 5,585,205 (Kohchi, 1996-12-17) — number/date confirmed from a Penilla-family front page, title not confirmed from the retrieved text. WO 2011/058253 falls inside the priority window and is usable only on a losing-priority theory.

Sources relied upon

• https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9123035B2](/patent/US9123035B2)/en (bibliography, CPC, family, continuity, "Prior art keywords"/"Prior art date")
• https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9123035.html (referenced-by listing)
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[4389608](/patent/4389608)-A and .../US-9229905-B1 (family art listings; '035 priority date listed as 2011-04-21)
• US 5,612,606 A — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5612606A](/patent/US5612606A)/en ; http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c5/65/47/3d1626eb9e77aa/US5612606.pdf
• US 5,544,784 A — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/76/cd/f8/09cd20bc5d732e/US5544784.pdf ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5544784](/patent/5544784)
• US 8,454,377 B2 (Better Place) cited-documents list — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8454377](/patent/8454377)
• US 10,245,964 front-page reference list (Penilla family) — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10245964](/patent/10245964)
• Coulomb/ChargePoint: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[8138715](/patent/8138715) ; https://patents-review.com/a/20110148356-network-controlled-charging-system-electric-vehicles.html ; AU 2009204279 A1 front page (priority 2008-01-07)
• PTAB record showing use of the '035's application as Exhibit 1006 / Ex. 1013 — referenced in the earlier sections' sources (IPR2024-00786; IPR2024-01167)

If you want, the next step is to pull the actual (56) References Cited list and the verbatim claim set for US 9,123,035 so Grounds 4–5 can be re-charted against a verified reference — say the word and I'll walk those records directly.