US 9225083

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent, including its litigation posture.

US Patent 9,225,083 B2 — "Connector having a grounding member"

Caveat on sourcing: I was able to confirm this patent across the Google Patents full text (which you supplied and which I treat as authoritative), the granted-PDF cover page, FreePatentsOnline, the Unified Patents patent page, PTAB papers, and the Federal Circuit's March 4, 2026 Rule 36 judgment. Where third-party databases disagree with the authoritative text on dates I flag it rather than pick silently.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as granted)

"A coaxial cable connector includes, in one embodiment, a conductive body member, a post member, a conductive nut member and a conductive metal ring grounding member. The conductive metal ring grounding member is configured to maintain electrical grounding."

Continuity / family

This patent is a continuation of 14/329,435 (filed Jul. 11, 2014), itself a continuation of 13/448,937 (Apr. 17, 2012), itself a continuation of 13/118,617 (now US 8,157,589, issued Apr. 17, 2012), which is a continuation-in-part of 12/418,103 (now US 8,071,174) and of 12/941,709 (now US 7,950,958), which descends from 12/397,087 (now US 7,828,595) and ultimately 10/997,218 (filed Nov. 24, 2004). Later family members include US 10,446,983 B2 and US 10,965,063 B2 (also titled "Connector having a grounding member"). Google Patents lists 23 family members.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Only claims 1, 18, and 31 were identified in the record as independent claims; the IPR challenged claims 1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50, and 52–62.

Claim 1 — connector with a metal grounding ring that gives a second ground path
A coaxial-cable connector comprising: (a) a conductive body member with forward and rearward ends, the rearward end receiving the cable and the forward end having a forward-facing body portion plus an outer body contact portion; (b) a post member that is not integral with the body member, with a flanged forward end and a rearward end that slips under the cable's conductive grounding shield to make electrical contact with it; (c) a conductive nut member that rotates relative to the post and body, having a forward end for coupling to an interface port and an internal lip; and (d) a conductive metal ring grounding member with a "nut contact portion" electrically coupled to the nut and a "body contact portion" that at least partially encircles the body member, electrically and physically couples to the body's outer contact portion without touching the forward-facing body portion, forming a nut–body electrical circuit that extends EM shielding and inhibits RF ingress in the assembled state. The claim then recites two ground paths: the post flange contacting the nut's internal lip forms a first ground path, and the metal ring forms a second ground path — with the ring configured to maintain the second path unbroken even when the first path is broken (i.e., when the flange and lip separate).

Claim 18 — same architecture, emphasis on radial contact geometry
A connector with a conductive body member whose forward end has a forward-facing body portion and a "conductive member outer body contact portion" extending at least partially in a radial direction away from the forward facing body portion when assembled; a non-integral post member; a rotatable conductive nut member with an internal lip; and a conductive metal ring grounding member whose nut contact portion couples to the nut and whose body contact portion encircles a portion of the body member forward of the outer body contact portion, coupling to it without contacting the forward facing body portion, to form the nut–body circuit, extend shielding, and inhibit RF ingress — again with the first (post-to-nut) ground path and the second (ring) ground path.

Claim 31 — I could not confirm its full text. PTAB papers treat it as an independent claim decided "for the same reasons as claim 1," and its element breakdown (31[pre], 31[a]–[d], 31[i]–[k]) indicates a differently worded independent claim of the same general family. I do not have authoritative claim language for it and am not going to reconstruct it.

Representative dependent claims seen in the record: claim 13, claim 14 (nut contact portion "at least partially located on an outward portion" of the ring), claim 17 (ring "rearwardly spaced from the internal lip" so no portion sits inside the body member when assembled).

Observation worth flagging: the specification describes conductively coated elastomeric O-rings (O-ring 70 at the post mating edge and O-ring 80 at the connector body recess), including silver-based conductive ink coatings on silicone rubber. The granted claims and abstract instead recite a "conductive metal ring grounding member." So the claim terminology does not track the O-ring/conductive-coating embodiments emphasized in the written description — a point that mattered in the IPR's obviousness analysis.

Litigation and PTAB posture (this is the most current part of the record)

• IPR2022-00721, Amphenol Corp. et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — petition filed March 18, 2022; instituted October 26, 2022; Final Written Decision October 24, 2023 holding all challenged claims (1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50, 52–62) unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a), over a Youtsey-led combination with Lionetto and Horak (and a Tarrant-led combination). Patent Owner's request for rehearing of the FWD was denied. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00721 and https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00721
• Federal Circuit appeal: the four related IPRs (IPR2022-00718/719/720/721) were consolidated as Appeal Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, and 2024-1779; Google Patents associates 2024-1779 with this patent. On March 4, 2026, a panel (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham) issued a nonprecedential, per curiam AFFIRMED judgment under Fed. Cir. R. 36. https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf and https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
• District court: Delaware District Court case 1:21-cv-00654 is listed for this patent. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A21-cv-00654
• Practical effect: the patent's statutory term already ran out (anticipated expiration Nov. 24, 2024, "Expired – Lifetime"), and the challenged claims were held unpatentable, with that holding affirmed on appeal. I did not find a 2026 district court entry for the '083 patent beyond the listed docket; I cannot confirm the current status of the district court case with high confidence.

Explicit uncertainties / conflicts

1. Filing and issue date: the granted PDF cover and Google Patents say filed Oct. 29, 2014, issued Dec. 29, 2015. Unified Patents' portal page shows application date 2014-10-28 and grant date 2015-12-28, and priority 2004-11-23 (vs. Google Patents' 2004-11-24). I treat the Google Patents granted text as authoritative and note the one-day discrepancies rather than reconciling them.
2. Inventor name spelling: the "Noah P. Montena" spelling comes from the patent text you supplied; OCR of the granted PDF and later family members render it "Noah P. Montana," and one PDF renders "Kreneeski"/"Kreneeski et al." I am not auto-correcting either form.
3. Full claim set: I could not retrieve the complete verbatim text of claims 2–17, 19–30, 32–62 (including claim 31) from the sources available to me. The claim-1 and claim-18 language above is assembled from Google Patents, RPX Insight, and Petitioner/Patent Owner PTAB tables, and portions of claim 1 (e.g., the exact wording of the "forward facing body portion" element, 1[a][ii]) are truncated in my sources and shown with ellipses. Treat those specific gaps as de minimis paraphrases rather than verbatim claim text.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9225083. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me dig into the specific cases identified.

Let me verify the patents asserted in the Delaware case and check the Federal Circuit appeal.

I'll start by reconciling the structured "no proceedings" block against the litigation data embedded in the patent record itself, which flags IPR2022-00721.

Found it: the ODP block is stale — the patent's own record flags IPR2022-00721. Let me verify claim-level outcome and the appeal.

Now let me pin down the claim-level scope, why claims 7/20/34/44/51 are excluded, and whether any other proceedings exist.

⚠️ Data-integrity flag before anything else

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in this prompt says the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 9,225,083. That is wrong, and you should not rely on it. A fully litigated, fully appealed IPR exists on this patent, and Google Patents' own record for US9225083B2 flags it in the "Family has litigation" field:

"PTAB case IPR2022-00721 filed (Final Written Decision)" — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00721

The ODP ingest is stale or incomplete for this patent. Treat the block below as the accurate list. (One related trap: the string "Unified Patents" appears in the Google Patents record only as a Creative Commons data-license attribution for the litigation feed. Unified Patents is not a party to any proceeding on this patent. Do not repeat the "defensive aggregator" storyline — the petitioner is a commercial competitor.)

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding exists on US 9,225,083 — IPR2022-00721 — and it invalidated every claim that was challenged: 57 of the patent's 62 claims (claims 1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50, and 52–62) were held unpatentable on 2023-10-24, rehearing was denied on 2024-02-28, and the Federal Circuit affirmed under Rule 36 on 2026-03-04. Bottom line defensive posture: this is not a "hardened" patent — it is a dead one. Any demand letter citing claims 1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50 or 52–62 is asserting claims that no longer exist, and the underlying patent expired 2024-11-24. The only paper survivors are five never-challenged dependent claims, which are structurally tethered to canceled parents.

IPR2022-00721 — Amphenol Corp. et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. et al.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2022-03-18 (Petition, Paper 2, 120 pages; U.S. Pat. No. 9,225,083, App. No. 14/527,282, Tech Center 2800, Art Unit 2833)
• Status: "Final Written Decision - Appealed" (termination date recorded as 2023-10-24). Plain English: trial completed, all challenged claims canceled, appeal exhausted, affirmance final.
• Judge panel: Bart A. Gerstenblith (author of the Final Written Decision), Frances L. Ippolito, George R. Hoskins
• Petition grounds: Obviousness under § 103 over U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,422 (Youtsey) as primary reference, combined with U.S. Pat. No. 4,929,188 (Lionetto) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,102 (Horak) — pleaded as Ground 1. Caveat: the record I could access attributes the dispositive merits ground to Ground 1; I could not independently confirm whether additional grounds were pleaded and non-instituted. The § 90.2(a)(3)(ii) appeal notice identifies only the Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak combination as the issue on appeal.
• Claim scope challenged: claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 (verbatim from the FWD caption and the appeal notice).
• Institution decision: Instituted — 2022-10-26, Paper 11, 75 pages ("DECISION Granting Institution of Inter Partes Review 35 U.S.C. § 314"). Procedural context: PPC filed a Patent Owner Preliminary Response (Paper 6, 87 pp., 2022-07-28); Amphenol filed a Petitioner's Reply to the POPR (Paper 8, 16 pp., 2022-08-31) and PPC a Sur-Reply (Paper 10, 12 pp., 2022-09-07) — an unusual sequence that signals the panel was actively weighing discretionary/procedural issues, but the Board granted institution on all challenged claims and the FWD reached all of them.
• Final Written Decision: 2023-10-24, Paper 35, 104 pages — "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." Verbatim from the decision: "This Decision is a final written decision under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.73 as to the patentability of claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 of the '083 patent. We determine Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that those claims are unpatentable."
  • Canceled: claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 — including all independent claims that were challenged (independent claim 1 among them).
  • Held patentable: none. The Board sustained zero challenged claims.
  • Reasoning in brief: Youtsey discloses a coaxial connector with a non-conductive coupler-body O-ring; the only disputed element was making that ring conductive. The Board found sufficient motivation to combine from Lionetto (conductive elastomer for RFI suppression) and Horak (conductive rubber ring giving a redundant grounding path for a loose connector), credited Dr. James Dickens' testimony, and rejected PPC's teaching-away argument (the "extra compression/resistance" theory) as unsupported. PPC's secondary-considerations case — including an argument that PPC's own earlier patent application filings evidenced recognition of the problem — was found unpersuasive; note the Federal Circuit bench questioned whether third-party/own patent filings were cognizable objective indicia at all (see oral argument audio, CourtListener link below).
• Not addressed by the FWD: claims 7, 20, 34, 44, 51 were not challenged and therefore not canceled — but the Board never passed on their patentability. Open item: the public record I retrieved does not explain why these five claims were carved out; I will not speculate. Verify against the Petition (Paper 2) and confirm whether any disclaimer or prior certificate explains the gap before relying on them as surviving claims.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The case ran to a merits FWD; termination was by final decision, not adverse judgment or settlement. No confidentiality issue arises because there was no agreement.
• Rehearing: PO Request for Rehearing filed 2023-11-22 (Paper 36, 20 pp.); denied 2024-02-28 (37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d)).
• Appeal: Yes — appealed by PPC Broadband (the patent owner).
  • PTAB Notice of Appeal: 2024-04-29.
  • Federal Circuit Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, and 2024-1779 — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., appeals from IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, and -00721 respectively; consolidated. Docket 24-1779 is the '-0721 appeal (consistent with the Google Patents litigation feed link).
  • Issues on appeal (per the § 90.2(a)(3)(ii) notice): the Board's obviousness determination that Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak renders claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 unpatentable. PPC also pressed motivation-to-combine and secondary-considerations arguments at oral argument.
  • Disposition: AFFIRMED. Nonprecedential, per curiam (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham), Fed. Cir. R. 36, entered 2026-03-04. Appellant counsel: Robert King High III / Cory C. Bell / J. Michael Jakes (Finnegan). Appellee counsel: Gabriel K. Bell / Richard A. Lowry / Richard G. Frenkel (Latham & Watkins).
  • Judgment: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf
  • Justia mirror: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
  • Oral argument (audio): https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/[102881](/patent/102881)/ppc-broadband-inc-v-amphenol-corp/
  • PTAB record / petition file: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549314](/patent/1549314)
• Defensive value: Maximum. All challenged claims were canceled and the cancellation is now final and judicially affirmed as of 2026-03-04. An infringement theory built on claim 1 or any other challenged claim is not merely weak — it is a knowingly baseless assertion of a non-existent claim, with Rule 11 exposure. There is no narrower surviving claim family to fall back on within this IPR.

Strategic summary

What's canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. Of 62 claims in US 9,225,083, 57 are canceled: 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62 (FWD 2023-10-24, affirmed 2026-03-04). Zero challenged claims survived. Five claims — 7, 20, 34, 44, 51 — were never placed before the Board and so were not canceled by this IPR; they are procedurally "untested," not "sustained." Practically, each appears to sit at the tail of a canceled claim group, so as dependent claims they are tethered to canceled parents; a dependent claim whose parent has been canceled is not a workable stand-alone infringement vehicle. Separately, the patent's term expired 2024-11-24 (20 years from the 2004-11-24 priority date), and Google Patents records the legal status as "Expired - Lifetime." There is effectively nothing to assert here.

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), Amphenol and its real parties in interest/privies are estopped, in the parallel district court litigation and the ITC, from raising any invalidity ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2022-00721 — i.e., the entire Youtsey/Lionetto/Horak ground set and any obviousness combination a skilled searcher would have surfaced against these claims. Note the practical effect: for Amphenol the estoppel is largely academic because the claims are gone. For a new defendant the estoppel does not run (non-mutual, non-party), but it also doesn't need to — the FWD is now final and affirmed, so the invalidation is a matter of public record usable as a defensive exhibit in any district court or ITC action. Because the patent expired, an IPR-based defense is also moot: you cannot meaningfully invalidate an expired claim to gain a licensing/royalty advantage, and the PTAB/§ 315 framework offers little traction. Your defenses now run through enforceability, standing/ownership, and the fact of the cancelation itself.

Pattern signals. This was a coordinated, competitor-driven campaign, not a defensive-aggregator filing: the same petitioner (Amphenol) filed a parallel IPR against PPC on the same day (2022-03-18) on four related family patents — IPR2022-00718 (US 10,965,063), IPR2022-00719 (US 10,446,983), IPR2022-00720 (US 10,038,284), and IPR2022-00721 (US 9,225,083) — using the same primary reference (Youtsey) across all four, the same expert (Dr. James Dickens), and the same three-judge panel. The Board knocked out all challenged claims across all four patents in the same October 2023 wave, and the Federal Circuit consolidated and affirmed all four together under Rule 36. PPC litigated hard — full POR, sur-reply, a motion-to-strike dispute, a LEAP oral-argument request by the petitioner, a rehearing request, and a consolidated appeal argued by Finnegan — and lost everything. Related PPC family patents (e.g., US 11,984,687 and US 12,009,619) cite this IPR in their file histories, so the invalidation wave reaches beyond the four patents named on appeal. There is no Unified Patents or RPX involvement, and no second, independent IPR on the '083 patent.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant being asserted against: do not negotiate. Pull the FWD (Paper 35, 2023-10-24) and the Federal Circuit Rule 36 judgment and put both in front of opposing counsel. The dispositive language is: "We determine Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that those claims are unpatentable" as to claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, and 52-62. Confirm the cancelation certificates have issued and note the 2024-11-24 expiration. Any demand citing those claims is sanction-bait. Links:
   • PTAB file: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549314
   • CAFC affirmance: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf
   • Judicial mirror: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
2. Chase the five unchallenged claims (7, 20, 34, 44, 51) before you dismiss them. Obtain the Petition (Paper 2) and the claim listing to confirm their dependencies and why they were carved out. If they depend on canceled claims — the numbering pattern strongly suggests they do — then no enforceable claim set remains. If any is independent and was never tested, that is the one residual risk worth a validity search; note that any such claim would still face the same Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak motivation-to-combine reasoning that the Board and the Federal Circuit endorsed.
3. Calendar is empty — nothing pending. There is no live proceeding, so there is no institution deadline, no oral hearing, and no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD clock running. The FWD issued 2023-10-24; rehearing was denied 2024-02-28; the appeal was affirmed 2026-03-04; the conventional 90-day certiorari window (roughly to 2026-06-02) has passed with no public filing I can identify, though I could not confirm a complete Supreme Court docket check — verify in a paid docket if you need certainty.
4. Don't let the stale ODP block fool you into thinking this is an untested patent. The absence-of-IPR heuristic ("well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs") is factually false here — the ODP API simply hasn't indexed the proceeding. Anyone running a clearance or licensing analysis off that field alone will badly misprice this asset.

I'll research the assignment record and ownership chain for US 9225083 using multiple sources.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and litigation details.

Let me get the specific assignment reel/frame records and verify the litigation parties.

I've gathered what the available sources expose. Note up front: I hit the tool-call budget before I could pull the underlying USPTO Assignment Center record itself, so the reel/frame number and assignment correspondent are not confirmed below — I flag that explicitly rather than guess.

Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual pattern. All three are career in-house engineers of the same operating company (PPC Broadband / formerly John Mezzalingua Associates) and none departed within 12 months of filing. There is no "inventor exodus precedes fire-sale" signal here. Inventors are the classic "company engineer" profile, not assignable-to-NPE independents.

Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. — named as both original and current assignee on the face of the patent (Google Patents).

• Line of business: design and manufacture of coaxial cable connectors, hardline connectors, traps/filters, and broadband connectivity hardware (drop, hardline, wireless). Headquartered in Syracuse, NY, with plants in Denmark, St. Kitts, and China. Founded 1942/1947 as Production Products Company / Pennsylvania Pressed Metals; connectors since 1951.
• Product embodiment: Yes — PPC ships physical connector products for CATV/broadband. The patent is a coaxial-connector grounding/sealing improvement, squarely within PPC's commercial line. This is an operating company, not a licensing vehicle.
• Ownership status: PPC Broadband, Inc. is wholly owned by Belden, Inc. This is stated in PPC's own PTAB mandatory notices (e.g., IPR2022-01523: "PPC Broadband, Inc. is wholly owned by Belden, Inc."). Belden acquired PPC's parent (John Mezzalingua Associates) in 2018. PPC remains an operating brand ("PPC, a Belden brand").

(Cross-reference flag: the previously generated litigation summary identified a Delaware suit and a Federal Circuit appeal. My independent check confirms the PTAB/IPR and Federal Circuit activity, but I could not independently re-confirm the Delaware docket number/party within the tool budget — treat that figure as carried over, not re-verified here.)

Assignment timeline

Important limitation: The only post-issuance ownership event I can confirm is a single inventor → company assignment recorded 2014-10-30, surfaced via Google Patents' legal-events timeline. The reel/frame, execution date, and assignment correspondent are not exposed by the sources I could reach, and I will not fabricate them. To complete the reel/frame and correspondent fields, retrieve the record directly at the USPTO Assignment Center by patent number.

• 2014-10-29 (execution, per filing date; not separately confirmed) / recorded 2014-10-30 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN — not confirmed
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Roger Mathews; Noah P. Montena; Mary Krenceski
  • Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from available sources. (The patent's prosecution attorney of record is Barclay Damon, LLP, Syracuse NY — a firm with deep Syracuse-area ties to PPC. This is the attorney-of-record firm on the face of the patent, not necessarily the assignment correspondent; do not conflate the two.)
  • Context: Routine founder/inventor-to-operating-company assignment executed contemporaneously with filing of the continuation. Internal to the operating company; no third party.

No other recorded assignments were surfaced (no transfer to a licensing LLC, no security interest, no merger, no change of name). If the Assignment Center shows additional records (e.g., an earlier assignment from the 2004 priority application Ser. No. 10/997,218, which was originally a John Mezzalingua Associates filing), those were not visible in the sources I consulted.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9225083
    2004 : Priority application filed
    2011 : Parent patent US 8157589 issued
    2014 : Continuation application filed
         : Inventors assign rights to PPC Broadband
    2015 : US 9225083 granted
    2018 : Belden acquires PPC parent JMA
    2022 : Amphenol files IPR2022-00721
    2023 : All challenged claims held unpatentable
    2024 : PPC appeals to Federal Circuit
         : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only assignment moves rights from the inventors to PPC Broadband, Inc., the original operating manufacturer. No "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" transferee appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither PPC Broadband, Inc. nor its parent Belden, Inc. appears on the standard NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). PPC is a manufacturer.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNKNOWN / not assessable. No correspondents could be extracted. This signal cannot be scored without the Assignment Center reel/frame data.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. No chained LLC-to-LLC transfers; no assignments at all after the single 2014 inventor assignment.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. There is no assignment shortly before suit. The patent has been held continuously by PPC since 2014, so there was no "clean-standing" transfer arranged to enable assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 sale. PPC's parent was acquired in an ordinary corporate M&A transaction (Belden, 2018), not a bankruptcy.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. PPC asserts in its own name against direct competitors (see below). There is no operating-company-to-NPE back-channel.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. PPC holds and litigates the patent itself.

Litigation corroboration (operating-company assertion, not NPE):

• IPR2022-00721 — Amphenol Corp. et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., filed 2022-03-18, institution 2022-10-26, Final Written Decision 2023-10-24 holding all challenged claims unpatentable; Patent Owner's Request for Rehearing denied 2024-02-28; Notice of Appeal 2024-04-29 → Federal Circuit 24-1779. The challenger, Amphenol, is a direct competitor in the coaxial-connector market — the hallmark of a competitor-vs-competitor dispute, not an NPE shakedown.
• PPC is also the plaintiff in PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc., No. 4:22-cv-00204 (E.D. Ark., filed 2022-03-02), and has a long history as both plaintiff and defendant (John Mezzalingua Associates v. Perfect 10 Antenna, etc.).
• The patent's own file history references PPC's litigation against Times Fiber Communications (N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-0460) — again, competitor-on-competitor.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain shows exactly one recorded assignment — a 2014-10-30 inventor-to-company transfer to PPC Broadband, Inc. — with no downstream shell-entity, NPE, or aggregator link, and no pre-litigation transfer. PPC Broadband is a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Belden, Inc. that manufactures the coaxial connectors embodying the claims and asserts this patent in its own name against industry competitors (Amphenol via IPR2022-00721 and PerfectVision), the defining fact pattern of an operating-company assertion rather than an NPE campaign. Caveat: the asserted claims were held unpatentable by the PTAB on 2023-10-24 and are on appeal at the Federal Circuit (24-1779); the 20-year term also expired 2024-11-24 regardless of appeal outcome.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 9225083; cross-check https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Retrieve the reel/frame and correspondent fields there to close the one gap in this report.

Data gaps to close with a direct Assignment Center pull (do not treat as filled): the reel/frame number, the recorded execution date, and the assignment correspondent of record. I could not retrieve these within the available tool budget, and none of the secondary sources (Google Patents, Unified Patents portal, FreePatentsOnline, PTAB dockets) expose them.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 9225083. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me get the full citation lists from FreePatentsOnline and Google Patents.

Let me get the specific prior art citations and the IPR2022-00721 record, which will identify the prior art of record.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,225,083 B2 ("Connector having a grounding member")

1. Patent identified (literal, no auto-correction)

The identifier 9225083 resolves to US 9,225,083 B2, and to no other patent:

Sources: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9225083B2](/patent/US9225083B2)/en), FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9225083.html), Unified Patents portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-9225083-B2). The Unified Patents record lists priority 2004‑11‑23 / filing 2014‑10‑28 / grant 2015‑12‑28 — a ±1‑day artifact (timezone/format), not a different patent. Flagged, not corrected.

Claim scope (needed for the § 102 mapping). Claim 1 is a coaxial-cable connector comprising: (a) a conductive body member with forward/rearward ends; (b) a post member engaging the body; (c) a conductive nut member rotatable relative to the post and body; and (d) a conductive metal ring grounding member with a nut-contact portion electrically coupled to the nut and electrically/physically coupled to the body so as to form a nut‑body electrical circuit, extending electromagnetic shielding and inhibiting RF ingress. Dependent claims add a first ground path via the post flange contacting the nut's internal lip and a second ground path via the metal ring. The IPR record confirms the claim set runs at least to claim 62 (claims 1‑6, 8‑19, 21‑33, 35‑43, 45‑50, 52‑62 challenged). Source: PTAB/IPR element table (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549313](/patent/1549313)/) and IPR2022‑00721 listing (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[12009619](/patent/12009619)).

2. Data-provenance caveat (read first)

I could not retrieve a clean, standalone "References Cited" table for US 9,225,083 itself. What I confirmed is:

• FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9225083.html) exposes the foreign references + NPL for US 9,225,083 (items 9–13 below).
• A US patent citation table of 8 entries is displayed on the Google Patents page for family member US 9,570,859 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9570859), which is a continuation of US 9,225,083. Continuation family members in this chain typically carry forward the same examiner citations, so I treat that list as a proxy, not as a verbatim US‑9225083 list. This is a material limitation on completeness and is flagged.

Any reference below that I could not verify to a full bibliographic standard is marked [UNVERIFIED].

3. Reference-by-reference analysis

A. US patents of record (from the family citation list)

1. US 4,646,038 A — Motorola, Inc. — Ceramic resonator filter with electromagnetic shielding — filed 1986‑04‑07; issued 1987‑02‑24.
A ceramic resonator filter with an EMI shield housing. Field is unrelated to coaxial-cable connectors. Lacks a connector body, post, nut, and metal ring grounding member. Anticipation (§ 102): none for claims 1–62. At most an obviousness background reference on shielding.

2. US 5,710,400 A — Eaton Corporation — Rotary multiple capacitive switch — filed 1996‑02‑23; issued 1998‑01‑20.
A rotary capacitive switch. Anticipation: none. No connector/ground-path structure.

3. US 6,262,374 B1 — Yazaki Corporation — Shielded cable connecting structure — filed 1998‑10‑13; issued 2001‑07‑17.
Shielded-cable connecting structure establishing shield continuity. Potentially § 102 against claims reciting a shielded-cable ground path, but it does not disclose a rotatable conductive nut with a conductive metal ring forming a nut‑body circuit. Anticipation of claim 1: no; possible § 103 relevance.

4. US 6,217,383 B1 — Holland Electronics, LLC — Coaxial cable connector — filed 2000‑06‑21; issued 2001‑04‑17.
A coaxial cable connector — the field-closest US reference in this group. It is antecedent art for generic connector claims, but there is no showing it discloses (i) a conductive metal ring grounding member with a nut-contact portion, or (ii) first/second ground paths. Anticipation of claim 1: no on the record available; it is a plausible § 103 combination base, not a § 102 reference.

5. US 6,862,181 B1 — Unisys Corporation — Apparatus and method for shielding a circuit board — filed 2003‑03‑17; issued 2005‑03‑01.
Circuit-board shielding. Anticipation: none.

6. US 7,950,958 B2 — John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. — Connector having conductive member and method of use thereof — priority 2004‑11‑24; issued 2011‑05‑31.
Same family / common priority (US 10/997,218). Listed as a citation, but it is not § 102 prior art against US 9,225,083 — a reference cannot be prior art to a patent claiming its own priority.

7. US 8,157,589 B2 — John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. — Connector having a conductively coated member and method of use thereof — priority 2004‑11‑24; issued 2012‑04‑17.
Same family. Not § 102 prior art.

8. US 9,312,611 B2 — PPC Broadband, Inc. — Connector having a conductively coated member and method of use thereof — priority 2004‑11‑24; issued 2016‑04‑12.
Same family. Not § 102 prior art (and post-dates the grant anyway).

B. Foreign patent documents of record (FreePatentsOnline)

9. JP 2002‑015823 A — COAXIAL PLUG — published 2002‑01‑18.
A coaxial plug. In the same art; potentially relevant to generic connector claims, but no disclosure found of the conductive metal ring / nut‑body circuit. Anticipation of claim 1: no; § 103 candidate.

10. TWI289958B — Electrical connector with grounding member — published 2007‑11‑11.
Critical date problem: published after the 2004‑11‑24 priority. As published art it is not § 102(a)/(b) prior art. It could only matter under § 102(e)-type analysis if a corresponding earlier U.S. filing date is established — not confirmed, so treated as non-prior-art. [UNVERIFIED priority chain]

11. JP 3074864 U — published 2001‑01‑26 (Japanese utility model). Pre-dates priority. Content [UNVERIFIED]; not assessable for anticipation on the available record.

12. JP 37486400 — January 2001 (number as parsed by the source; likely a mangled JP publication identifier). Pre-dates priority, but the identifier is unreliable and content is [UNVERIFIED]. Do not rely on this for any § 102 conclusion.

C. Non-patent literature of record

13. LIT10 — Defendant's Disclosure of Preliminary Invalidity Contentions, served 2013‑10‑31, PPC Broadband, Inc. d/b/a PPC v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., U.S. District Court, N.D.N.Y., Civil Action No. 5:13‑cv‑0460‑TJM‑DEP, 48 pages.
This is a litigation document (invalidity contentions), not technical prior art. Its value is that the references named inside it are the art the defendant considered most material — but I could not open the 48‑page exhibit to enumerate them here. [UNVERIFIED contents]

D. Prior art asserted in the PTAB proceeding (IPR2022‑00721 and related petitions)

The Amphenol PTAB petition papers (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549313/) identify the following exhibits, which represent the art actually litigated against the '083/'063 connector claims:

14. Ex. 1007 — "Youtsey." Described in the petition as teaching "a coupler-body O-ring that seals out moisture." Quoted passage: O-rings 82/84 seal the connector interior from moisture and retain parts until crimping (Petition citing Youtsey at 5:45‑56). This is the closest sealing-art reference, but applicant's claims require electrical coupling / a metal ring grounding member, and the petition itself notes Youtsey is "silent on material composition." Anticipation of claim 1: doubtful; it is the primary § 103 base. [Full patent number UNVERIFIED — cited by inventor-name claim only.]

15. Ex. 1008 — "Lionetto." Described as teaching "the use of a conductive elastomer to shield against radio frequency interference (RFI or EMI)," with a conductive-elastomer gasket ring providing "continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression." This is the most doctrinally on-point reference for the conductive-seal/shield concept underlying the specification. However, the claims require a conductive metal ring and a nut‑body circuit; a conductive elastomer gasket is not a metal ring. Anticipation of claim 1: no; strong § 103 relevance. [Full patent number UNVERIFIED.]

16. Ex. 1009 — "Horak." Identified in the same petition; content [UNVERIFIED]. Cannot be assessed for anticipation on this record.

Litigation/PTAB references to note: IPR2022‑00721 (Final Written Decision, Paper 35, 104 pp., dated 2023‑10‑24) and the related IPR2022‑00718 on US 10,965,063; Delaware D. Ct. case 1:21‑cv‑00654; Fed. Cir. appeal 24‑1779. These are procedural, not prior art.

4. Bottom line

• No reference of record appears to anticipate (35 U.S.C. § 102) independent claim 1 as I can reconstruct it, because claim 1 requires a conductive metal ring grounding member forming a nut‑body electrical circuit (and, in dependents, a first ground path through the post flange/​nut lip plus a second ground path through the ring). None of US 4,646,038; US 5,710,400; US 6,262,374; US 6,217,383; US 6,862,181; JP 2002‑015823; JP 3074864 U discloses that combination on the evidence retrieved.
• The self-family references (US 7,950,958; US 8,157,589; US 9,312,611) are citations but legally unavailable as § 102 art.
• TWI289958B (2007) post-dates the 2004 priority and is presumptively not prior art.
• The most legally significant prior art is that raised in the PTAB petitions — Youtsey (Ex. 1007, o-ring sealing), Lionetto (Ex. 1008, conductive-elastomer RFI shield), and Horak (Ex. 1009) — used in § 103 combinations rather than § 102 anticipation, consistent with the fact that the IPR record shows the parties disputing claim elements on obviousness/combination grounds (e.g., the element "conductive grounding member comprising a compliant ring… configured to produce an electrical path between the body member and the conductive coupling member" is marked "Disclosed by combination").

5. Explicit gaps (stated rather than filled)

1. I could not retrieve US 9,225,083's own "References Cited" table directly; the 8‑US‑patent list is a proxy from continuation US 9,570,859.
2. Full patent numbers for Ex. 1007 (Youtsey), Ex. 1008 (Lionetto), and Ex. 1009 (Horak) are not confirmed — I have inventor-name citations only. I am not guessing numbers.
3. The contents of LIT10 (the Times Fiber invalidity-contentions exhibit), JP 3074864 U, JP 37486400, and Ex. 1009 (Horak) were not retrievable, so no anticipation statement is made for them.
4. Because claim 1 is the only claim whose element-by-element breakdown I could confirm, § 102 mappings are given primarily for claim 1; dependent-claim mappings would require the full claim text, which I do not have.

If you can supply the granted-claims PDF or the FreePatentsOnline "References Cited" block, I can convert these qualitative § 102/§ 103 assessments into a claim-chart per reference.

I'll research the IPR proceeding and prior art references relevant to this patent's claims.

Let me get the full claim set and the IPR grounds/prior art relied upon.

Let me pin down the full identity of the prior-art references relied on in the IPR and the patent's own cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,225,083 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Record basis and caveats (read first)

Three housekeeping points before the analysis, per the "no auto-correction / flag contradictions" rule:

1. The "Prior Art section of this page" was not included in what I received. My prompt contained only a Litigation summary heading (with no substantive prior-art listing), plus the full Google Patents text of US 9,225,083. I therefore reconstructed the prior art of record from (a) the patent's own front-page prior-art metadata ("Prior art keywords: conductive, connector, metal, grounding, coaxial cable; Prior art date 2004‑11‑24"), and (b) the actual prior-art references litigated in IPR2022‑00721 (Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.), which is the authoritative, adjudicated prior-art record for this patent. If the missing Prior Art section lists different references, flag it and I will re-run the combination analysis against those.
2. I could not independently confirm the underlying U.S. patent numbers for the references Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak, Tarrant and Bell from the sources retrieved (one docket entry suggests a "Youtsey 631" numbering convention, but this is not proof of a patent number). I therefore refer to them by the names and exhibit numbers used in the IPR record and do not guess numbers.
3. Date discrepancy: your task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the system date given to me is 2026‑09‑14. This matters only for the "present status" discussion below; I use the later date and note the Federal Circuit's March 4, 2026 decision as final.

1. The claimed subject matter (what must be obvious)

Claim 1, as mapped by the parties in the IPR, requires:

Dependent claims of note (from the infringement chart and IPR record): claim 12 (body contact portion contacts an external body contact surface facing at least partially forward); claim 13 (body contact portion at least partially on a rearward portion of the ring); claim 14 (nut contact portion at least partially on an outward portion of the ring); claim 17 (ring rearwardly spaced from the internal lip such that no portion of the ring is inside the body member in the assembled connector).

This is the claim set the Board held unpatentable. Practical characterization of the alleged invention: take a conventional F‑type connector that already has a post→nut→port ground path, and add a discrete conductive ring bridging the nut and the body to create a redundant/alternative ground path across the rotating coupler/body interface, which also weather-seals the interface and blocks RF ingress. That is precisely the "connector body conductive member / O‑ring 80" described in the '083 specification and claimed as a "conductive metal ring grounding member." Critically, the specification itself recites that member 80 may be "conductive polymers, plastics, elastomeric mixtures, composite materials having conductive properties, soft metals, conductive rubber…" — i.e., the patentee expressly treats "metal ring" and "conductive elastomeric ring" as interchangeable species of the same genus.

2. The prior art of record

Ground 1 references (Petitioner's Exhibit numbers):

• Youtsey (Ex. 1007) — a coaxial cable end connector. Discloses: an outer barrel/body, an inner tube/post (28) received between the cable's outer conductor (24) and inner insulation, a rotatable nut/female receptacle (30) with internal threads engaging a mating male connector (16), a flange/internal-lip style retention geometry, and first and second O‑rings 82, 84, with O‑ring 84 situated between the connector body portion and the coupling element. Youtsey states the O‑rings "seal the interior… from moisture and other corrosive agents" and "also function to retain the parts… together." Its single shielding ground path is outer conductor 24 → post 28 → nut 30 → port 16. Youtsey is silent as to the material/composition of the O‑rings — i.e., it does not say they are conductive.
• Lionetto (Ex. 1008) — a microminiature coaxial connector assembly. Discloses shield-to-shield electrical contact made "essentially through the leaf spring 22 and a conductive elastomer 34," and claims 3 recites "an electrically conductive elastomer gasket ring… providing continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression." Lionetto thus teaches that a conductive elastomeric ring can be the electro-mechanical bridge across a separable shield interface, simultaneously serving a sealing/gasketing function.
• Horak (Ex. 1009) — a cable connector for CATV systems (1975 vintage, ~29 years pre-priority). Discloses a conductive rubber ring 18 that is compressed to provide both weather sealing and RFI elimination at the same time, and that furnishes a redundant/alternative grounding path in a connector whose primary ground path can be compromised. Horak is the cleanest teaching of the problem (connectors come loose → intermittent ground → RFI/signal loss) and of the solution (a conductive compressible ring as a secondary ground path).

Ground 2 references:

• Tarrant — a coaxial connector structurally analogous to Youtsey, having a non-conductive O‑ring (12) between the coupler (nut) and the body, serving a sealing/retention function only.
• Bell — teaches a conductive O‑ring (34) directly contacting an outlet body (22), i.e., the same coupler/body bridging concept as Lionetto/Horak, in a grounded connector housing.

Patent Owner's contrary evidence (Exs. 2033–2035 et al.: Peng "545," Choudary "970," Bunyan "402," Burris "951," Samchisen "675," O‑Ring Design Guide, ASTM D1414) was directed at material-selection and seal-design nuances (compression set, hardness, conductivity of elastomers) — relevant to secondary considerations/expectation-of-success, not to what the references teach.

3. Ground 1 — Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak renders claims 1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50, 52–62 obvious

3.1 What each reference supplies

Only gap in Youtsey alone: Youtsey does not disclose that its O‑ring 84 is conductive or that it forms a ground path. That is the sole missing limitation. Lionetto and Horak each supply it directly, in the same structural context (a compressible ring clamped at a separable shield interface).

3.2 Motivation to combine (KSR / Graham)

A POSA in 2004 would have been motivated, with a reasonable expectation of success, to substitute a conductive ring for Youtsey's ring 84 for at least these technically grounded reasons:

1. Statutory "design need" / KSR factor (c): The '083 background itself concedes the problem: "electromagnetic noise can be problematic when it is introduced via the connective juncture between an interface port and a connector… disruptive where an electromagnetic buffer is not provided," and "[w]eathering also creates interference problems when metallic components corrode, deteriorate or become galvanically incompatible thereby resulting in intermittent contact and poor electromagnetic shielding." The patent's own admitted problem statement is the motivation. It is not hindsight to begin from the patentee's own recited field problem.
2. Horak directly solves the loose-connector problem by adding a redundant ground path — precisely the claimed "second electrical ground path" (claim 1[f]). Where the primary post→nut path degrades (loosening, corrosion, galvanic incompatibility), the body↔nut path maintains shielding. Horak also teaches the functional dual-use (seal + RFI) that the '083 touts.
3. Lionetto teaches the same physical solution at the same kind of joint — a conductive elastomer spanning two shield members in a coaxial connector to give "continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression."
4. Function-preserving, predictable substitution: replacing an elastomeric O‑ring with a conductive elastomeric/metal ring in a known O‑ring groove is a mere substitution of one known material for another to achieve a predictable result — a classic KSR "combination of familiar elements according to known methods." No structural redesign of Youtsey's connector is required; the ring occupies the same seat.
5. Art-recognized interchangeability: the '083 specification itself lists "soft metals, conductive rubber, conductive polymers, elastomeric mixtures" as usable for its member 80 — confirming that a POSA would treat "conductive O‑ring" and "conductive metal ring" as the same design choice, not a new invention.
6. Simplicity/cost/part-count: obtaining sealing and shielding from one existing part rather than adding a separate spring-finger or grounding clip is an obvious efficiency gain.

3.3 Reasonable expectation of success

The art is a mature, predictable mechanical/electrical art (RF coaxial connectors). Horak (1975) demonstrates a working conductive-rubber-ring connector decades before the effective date; Lionetto demonstrates conductance through a compressed elastomer with circumferential contact. A POSA would expect that making Youtsey's ring 84 conductive would (i) preserve its moisture seal and retention function and (ii) add the desired ground/RFI path, with routine optimization of compression (ASTM D1414 / O‑Ring Design Guide — the very sources Patent Owner cited, which go to optimization, not to feasibility).

Conclusion, Ground 1: Claims 1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50 and 52–62 would have been obvious over Youtsey in view of Lionetto and Horak. This is not merely my prediction — it is the Board's holding (Final Written Decision, Paper 35, Oct. 24, 2023, all challenged claims unpatentable under § 318(a); rehearing denied Feb. 28, 2024; affirmed by the Federal Circuit under Rule 36 on March 4, 2026 in the consolidated appeals 2024‑1776/1777/1778/1779).

4. Ground 2 — Tarrant + Bell (independent, redundant route to the same result)

Ground 2 is structurally the same theory with a different primary reference:

• Tarrant supplies the full connector environment — body, post, rotatable conductive coupler/nut, and a non‑conductive O‑ring 12 seated between the coupler and the body in the same location claimed for the "body contact portion."
• Bell supplies the conductive O‑ring 34 in direct contact with the outlet/body member, teaching that placing a conductive ring at the coupler/body interface establishes a ground path there.

Motivation: identical to §3.2 — the well-known loose-connector/RFI problem (Horak), the art-recognized dual sealing+shielding benefit of a conductive ring (Bell, Lionetto, Horak), and the predictable, cost-reducing substitution of a conductive ring for a non-conductive one in an existing groove. Expectation of success: identical; Bell is a working example of the exact substitution.

Conclusion, Ground 2: the same claim set is obvious over Tarrant in view of Bell. Ground 2's availability matters because it shows the result does not depend on any single reference: at least two independent primary references (Youtsey-type and Tarrant-type connectors) each disclose the claimed coupler/body interface with a sealing ring, and at least three references (Lionetto, Horak, Bell) each independently teach making that ring conductive to create a shield/ground path. That redundancy is strong § 103 evidence — the claimed subject matter is the convergence point of multiple independent lines of art, not a nonobvious departure.

5. Narrower combinations that also succeed

• Youtsey + Horak alone. Horak teaches a conductive compressible ring functioning as an alternative ground path while simultaneously sealing and eliminating RFI. That single reference supplies both the missing claim limitations (conductivity + second ground path + shield/RF containment). Lionetto is corroborative, not essential.
• Youtsey + Lionetto alone. Lionetto claim 3 (conductive elastomeric gasket ring giving continuous circumferential contact and RFI suppression) supplies the missing limitations. Horak is corroborative.
• Any of the above + the '083 specification's own material list for the "metal ring" genus (soft metals, conductive rubber, conductive polymers), which forecloses any argument that "conductive metal ring" is a separate, nonobvious species from the conductive elastomeric rings of the art.

6. The dependent claims add nothing patentable

The dependent claims in the challenged set are all placement/geometry refinements that a POSA would arrive at by routine design choice once the core concept is adopted:

• Claim 12 (contact surface facing at least partially forward), claim 13 (body contact portion on a rearward portion of the ring), claim 14 (nut contact portion on an outward portion of the ring): these merely describe where a compressed ring touches its mating surfaces — an inevitable consequence of seating a toroidal ring in a groove at a coupler/body interface (Youtsey O‑ring 84's location; Horak ring 18; Bell ring 34).
• Claim 17 (ring rearwardly spaced from the nut's internal lip so no portion is inside the body member): a seat-placement choice dictated by the existing O‑ring groove geometry and by the requirement that the ring not obstruct cable insertion. No unexpected result is recited.
• Claims 10–11, 15–16, 18–19 (as quoted in the infringement chart) similarly recite the ring's contact portions and the dual-path (first path via post flange→nut lip; second path via the ring) functionality — which is exactly Horak's redundant-ground-path teaching and Lionetto's shield-bridging teaching.

Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." Nothing in the dependent claims recites an unexpected result, a criticality of dimension, or a functional difference over the art.

7. Anticipation vs. obviousness — a note

The record shows the parties treated Youtsey and Tarrant as disclosing every structural element except conductivity of the sealing ring, and treated Lionetto/Horak/Bell as supplying that element but in a different primary connector. That is the textbook posture for § 103, not § 102: no single reference discloses all elements arranged as claimed, but the differences are (i) one element (conductive ring) and (ii) the predictable substitution of that element into a known structure. There is no teaching away: none of the references disparages conductive rings, and Patent Owner's "teaching away" theory was that Youtsey's O‑rings already retain the parts (addressing loosening mechanically) — but mechanical retention is not electrical grounding, and Horak expressly frames the problem as insufficient electrical grounding, which retention does not cure. The Board rejected the teaching-away argument, and the Federal Circuit affirmed.

8. Patent Owner's counterarguments and why they failed

From the Patent Owner Response (Paper 17) and the parties' demonstratives, PO argued: (a) Becton, Dickinson factors (a)/(b)/(d) — the same art was before the Examiner and was reconsidered; (b) hindsight — Petitioner used the patent as a "roadmap"; (c) motivation was merely that a POSA "could" modify, not "would"; (d) the references' conductive members contact different surfaces (Lionetto's elastomer 34 contacts shield conductor 10; Horak's ring 18 contacts outer conductive jacket 62; Bell's ring 34 contacts outlet body 22), so none teaches the claimed coupler-body path; (e) the "loose connector problem" was already solved by Youtsey's O‑rings.

These failed because: the Becton, Dickinson factors are discretionary, not dispositive; the motivation was grounded in the references themselves (Horak's redundant ground path) and in the '083's own admitted problem statement, not in the challenged claims; "could vs. would" collapses where the art teaches the benefit of the very modification (Lionetto claim 3; Horak) and the substitution is a material swap in an existing seat; and the surface-contact argument is a distinction without a difference — the claim does not require contact with any particular named part, only with "the conductive member outer body contact portion of the conductive body member," and the Board found the proposed modifications yielded that arrangement. The Board likewise credited Petitioner's showing that the examiner's prior reexamination treatment (Ex. 1004) had adopted the same Lionetto/Horak rationale.

9. Practical effect and residual uncertainty

• Adjudicated status: Every challenged claim of US 9,225,083 (1–6, 8–19, 21–33, 35–43, 45–50, 52–62) is unpatentable for obviousness. Claims 7, 20, 34, 44 and 51 were not part of the challenged set, and the record retrieved does not show whether they were cancelled, disclaimed, or simply unasserted — this is an open item I cannot resolve from the sources retrieved. If any unchallenged claim survives, its scope should be analyzed separately against the same art.
• Terminal effect: The patent's anticipated expiration is 2024‑11‑24 (Google Patents) / 2024‑11‑23 (Unified Patents) and its status is Expired – Lifetime, so the Federal Circuit affirmance (March 4, 2026) has primarily estoppel/validity significance rather than injunctive significance in the Delaware action. Note the two-source one-day priority/expiration discrepancy (2004‑11‑24 vs. 2004‑11‑23) flagged in §0.
• Unconfirmed identifiers: exact U.S. patent numbers for Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak, Tarrant and Bell; and the exhibit numbers for Tarrant and Bell. These do not affect the substantive combinations, which rest on the reference disclosures as characterized in the IPR record and reproduced above.

Bottom line

US 9,225,083 would have been obvious under § 103 over (1) Youtsey in view of Lionetto and Horak, and independently over (2) Tarrant in view of Bell. In both combinations, the primary reference supplies the complete conventional F‑connector architecture (conductive body, post, rotatable conductive nut, sealing ring seated at the coupler/body interface, post→nut→port ground path), and the secondary references supply the single missing element — making that seated ring conductive so that it both seals and completes a second, redundant body↔nut grounding path that suppresses RFI. The motivation is supplied by Horak's express redundant-ground-path teaching, Lionetto's conductive-elastomer shield bridging, and the '083 patent's own admitted problem of connector loosening, corrosion and galvanic incompatibility causing intermittent contact and poor shielding; the expectation of success is supplied by decades of prior working examples and the patentee's own admission that the ring may be a soft metal, conductive rubber, or conductive polymer. The PTAB (Final Written Decision, Oct. 24, 2023) and the Federal Circuit (Rule 36 affirmance, March 4, 2026, appeals 2024‑1776 through 2024‑1779) reached the same conclusion.