US 9679289

I'll verify the patent details and check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me pull the actual claim text for 9679289.

Let me check for any 2026 CAFC appeal specifically involving the '289 patent and the PTAB outcomes.

US 9,679,289 B1 — Analysis

Scope note on the searches

I searched for this specific number and found no results for any similar-but-different patent number (no 9,679,288 / 9,679,290 confusion). One caution up front: I could not find any 2026 CAFC docket that is specifically an appeal of U.S. 9,679,289. What I did find is described in the "CAFC / litigation" section below, including the 2026 Federal Circuit activity that is not about this patent.

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Bibliographic data (high confidence — corroborated across sources)

Note: Despite the shared title, the claims of this patent do not use the word "PDK" in the independent claims. Per petitioner briefing, "PDK" appears only once in the claim set — in claim 20 — and is asserted to lack antecedent basis. That is worth flagging because the patent's title/abstract lead with "personal digital key," while the claims are drafted around "an integrated, secure memory storing local, secured information."

Abstract (as printed)

A hybrid device includes a personal digital key (PDK) and a receiver-decoder circuit (RDC). The PDK and RDC of the hybrid device are coupled for communication with each other. In one embodiment, the hybrid device also provides a physical interconnect for connecting to other devices to send and receive control signals and data, and receive power. The hybrid device operates in one of several modes including PDK only, RDC only, or PDK and RDC. This allows a variety of system configurations for mixed operation including: PDK/RDC, RDC/RDC or PDK/PDK. The present invention also includes a number of system configurations for use of the hybrid device including: use of the hybrid device in a cell phone; simultaneous use of the PDK and the RDC functionality of hybrid device; use of multiple links of hybrid device to generate an authorization signal, use of multiple PDK links to the hybrid device to generate an authorization signal; and use of the hybrid device for authorization inheritance.

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (device / apparatus). A hybrid device comprising:

• an integrated, secure memory that stores "local, secured information"; and
• an integrated reader-decoder circuit (RDC) that communicates wirelessly with at least one external device within a proximity zone, the RDC being communicatively coupled to the secure memory so it can communicate with that memory;
• wherein either (a) the RDC's wireless communication with the external device, or (b) the local secured information in the secure memory, enables an application, a function, and/or a service.

Plain language: a self-contained gadget with a locked-down memory plus a short-range wireless reader/decoder, where either the act of wirelessly reading a nearby external device or the secrets held in the memory turns on some app/function/service. Structurally the claim is a two-element device (secure memory + RDC) coupled together, with a functional "enables" clause.

Two literal-drafting notes: (i) Claim 1 spells the acronym out as "reader-decoder circuit (RDC)" — not "receiver-decoder circuit" as in the title/abstract and the specification. (ii) A "battery" is not recited in claim 1 as reproduced in the PTAB institution decisions and third-party claim charts; one petitioner declaration (Wolf, IPR2025-00075) quoted claim 1 as including "a battery," which appears to be an error or an import from the sibling patent US 10,073,960. I flag this as an uncertainty rather than asserting either version as definitively issued text.

Claim 14 (method). A method comprising:

• creating a first wireless link between an integrated RDC of a hybrid device and an external device, the hybrid device including an integrated, secure memory (storing local, secured information) and the integrated RDC;
• receiving a first signal at the integrated RDC over that wireless link from the external device; and
• generating an enablement signal that enables an application, a function and/or a service.

Plain language: form the short-range wireless link, receive a signal over it at the RDC, and output an enablement signal that switches on an app/function/service.

Dependent claims (partial, medium confidence). Claims 2–13 depend from claim 1; claims 15–20 depend from claim 14. Content I can corroborate from PTAB/District Court papers: claim 2/15 (the enabled app/function/service is enabled at least in part on the hybrid device), claim 4 (local secured information includes biometric information for authenticating a user), claim 5 (finger-scan biometric), claims 6–9 (financial information used to complete a financial transaction, including via an external authentication database separate from the merchant), claim 10 (first/second subsets of secured information with different accessibility), claim 11 (hybrid device is a cell phone), claims 12–13 (external device in jewelry / a watch), and claim 16 (sending the enablement signal, with the enabled app/function/service at least in part on a device external to the hybrid device). I have not independently verified the verbatim text of every dependent claim, so treat that list as indicative rather than a certified reproduction.

Claim-construction context (useful for reading the claims)

• District Court (W.D. Tex., Proxense v. Samsung, 6:21-cv-00210-ADA) construed "hybrid device" as "a device comprising an integrated personal digital key (PDK) and an integrated receiver-decoder circuit." Petitioners argued this should be modified for the '289 patent because its independent claims recite an "integrated, secure memory storing local, secured information" rather than a "PDK."
• "Personal Digital Key" construed as "an operably connected collection of elements including an antenna and a transceiver for communicating with a RDC and a controller and memory for storing information particular to a user."
• "receiver-decoder circuit" construed as "a component or collection of components, capable of wirelessly receiving data in an encrypted format and decoding the encrypted data for processing."
• "enablement signal" — no construction necessary (per Samsung demonstratives).
• The Board's institution decisions quote claim 1 verbatim at 22:36–49 of the printed patent.

USPTO / PTAB activity on this exact patent

All of the following are docketed against 9,679,289 B1:

• IPR2024-00407 (Microsoft) — instituted July 22, 2024; listed as reaching a Final Written Decision.
• IPR2024-00783 (Google) — instituted November 18, 2024; listed as reaching a Final Written Decision; terminated as to Google on February 5, 2025.
• IPR2024-01319 (Google) — not instituted (discretionary denial under §314(a); Board denied the "copycat" petition).
• IPR2025-00074 (Apple) — not instituted (procedural; Apple had filed two concurrent petitions).
• IPR2025-00075 (Apple) — instituted and joined to the Google IPR; listed as reaching a Final Written Decision.

Also in District Court: Proxense, LLC v. Google LLC, No. 6:23-cv-00320 (W.D. Tex.) and Proxense, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., No. 6:23-cv-00319 (W.D. Tex.). Proxense has since settled with Google (Jan. 2025) and Intel (Mar. 2026); Apple/Microsoft litigation is stayed.

CAFC 2026 dockets — what I found and what I did not

• No 2026 Federal Circuit appeal specifically of US 9,679,289 was found. The Google Patents family page lists two Federal Circuit entries for the broader family (25-2131 and 26-1292), but these are family-level entries and I could not confirm that either is an appeal of the '289 patent.
• The 2026 CAFC activity I did find for Proxense is not about this patent: Proxense's appellate opening brief filed on or about April 3, 2026 in Proxense v. Apple / Microsoft concerns U.S. Patent 8,886,954 ("Biometric personal data key (PDK) authentication"), and challenges PTAB/CRU inconsistency (APA) and the construction of "a third party that operates a trusted authority." That brief is captioned/referenced as 26-04-03.
• Treat the absence of a '289-specific CAFC 2026 docket as a gap in my search coverage, not a confirmed negative — PACER/CM-ECF dockets for 2026 are the authoritative source and I could not query them directly.

Bottom line

US 9,679,289 B1 is a Proxense patent (inventor David L. Brown) on a hybrid device combining an integrated secure memory (PDK-style) and an integrated reader/receiver-decoder circuit (RDC), with independent claims 1 (apparatus) and 14 (method) plus 18 dependent claims. Broadly, the claims cover a coupled secure-memory + RDC device/method that enables an application, function, or service, either through short-range wireless reading of an external device or through the local secured information. The patent has been heavily contested at the PTAB (Microsoft, Google, Apple) with mixed outcomes, and is in the Proxense litigation family.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9679289 across patent litigation sources.

Let me dig deeper into specific cases to confirm which assert the '289 patent.

Let me verify the remaining cases and check whether the '289 patent was asserted in each.

I hit my search-tool limit partway through, so I'll give you what I verified plus explicit flags on the two items I could not fully confirm.

Patents-in-suit context

US 9,679,289 ("Hybrid Device Having a Personal Digital Key and Receiver-Decoder Circuit and Methods of Use"), issued June 13, 2017 from App. No. 14/961,645, assignee Proxense LLC. Note the family and the litigation cluster: the '289 is asserted together with U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,352,730; 8,886,954; 9,298,905; 8,646,042; and 10,073,960. Proxense (and its counsel) often group these as the "Hybrid Device Patents" ('042, '289, '960) and "Device ID Patents" ('730, '954, '905). (Google Patents)

District court litigation asserting US 9,679,289

Grounding:

• Microsoft: AO 120 lists the patents-in-suit including 9,679,289 (issued 6/13/2017, holder Proxense, LLC), docket 6:23-cv-00319, date filed 4/28/2023 — Docket Alarm AO 120. Complaint exhibits include "Exhibit 5 – U.S. Patent No. 9,679,289" — CourtListener 6:23-cv-00319.
• Google: Proxense's infringement contentions identify the "289 Patent" as one of the "Patents-in-Suit," asserting claims 14 and 16 — Exhibit 1014, Proxense v. Google, 6:23-cv-00320. Google's Final Invalidity Contentions likewise treat "U.S. Patent No. 9,679,289 … claims 14 and 16" as asserted — Exhibit 2013.
• Apple: the amended scheduling order in 6:24-cv-00143 expressly sets claim-construction deadlines "as to U.S. Patent No. 9,697,289 ('289 Patent')" and the joint claim construction statement covers the '289 — Exhibit 1036 and Exhibit 1053. Apple's IPR2025-00074 petition also confirms "Proxense's Strategic Delay in Asserting '289 Patent Against Apple."

Related PTAB (IPR) proceedings on US 9,679,289

These are not district-court "litigation" but are the primary outcome drivers for this patent:

Grounding: FWD IPR2024-00407; Institution Decision IPR2024-00783; IPR2025-00074 Petition; Apple IPR2025-00562 docket. The Google Patents record also flags IPR2025-00074 (not instituted – procedural) and the FWDs in IPR2024-00407, IPR2024-00783 and IPR2025-00075 — Google Patents.

Federal Circuit appeals (family-level, per Google Patents litigation data)

The Google Patents "Family has litigation" block for this patent lists:

• CAFC case 25-2131 — portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit/case/25-2131
• CAFC case 26-1292 — portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit/case/26-1292

I could not verify, from a primary docket, which IPR FWD each appeal is taken from or the current disposition. Separately, Justia shows Proxense, LLC v. Apple Inc., CAFC No. 25-2168, filed Sept. 30, 2025 — but I cannot confirm from the record retrieved that No. 25-2168 involves the '289 patent (Apple and Proxense are adverse in multiple patents), so treat it as unconfirmed for this patent. (Justia CAFC docket 25-2168)

Cases I checked that do NOT appear to assert the '289 patent

• Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corp., 6:24-cv-00283 (W.D. Tex.), filed May 23, 2024 — patents-in-suit are 8,219,129; 8,457,672; 9,265,043; and 8,036,152. No '289. (Stanford NPE DB; Intel's proposed claim constructions)
• Proxense, LLC v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al., 6:24-cv-00302 (W.D. Tex.), filed May 31, 2024 — I could only partially parse the complaint; the patents I could see referenced are the 730, 905, 188, and patents referenced as "456," "979," and "989." Confidence: low — I could not confirm whether the "989" reference is U.S. 9,679,289 or a different patent. Do not rely on this entry without pulling the complaint from PACER. (Complaint excerpt via RPX; Justia docket)
• Proxense, LLC v. Hyundai Motor Company et al. (Hyundai Motor Company, Hyundai Motor America, Genesis Motor America LLC, Kia Corporation, Kia America, Inc.), 6:2025-cv-00016 (W.D. Tex.), filed Jan. 14, 2025. Patents asserted: NOT verified — I ran out of search budget before pulling the complaint. The case number differs from the Google Patents record for this family, so it is not the case indexed against the '289. (Justia docket)
• Earlier Proxense campaigns (Proxense v. Target Corp., filed Sept. 28, 2020; Proxense v. Nordstrom, Inc., 1:19-CV-03870 (N.D. Ill.), filed June 10, 2019) — these appear to be pre-'289-assertion campaigns on other Proxense patents; I did not confirm '289 was asserted in either. (UniCourt Target; UniCourt Nordstrom)

Bottom line

US 9,679,289 was asserted in three W.D. Tex. district court actions — Proxense v. Microsoft (6:23-cv-00319), Proxense v. Google (6:23-cv-00320), and Proxense v. Apple (6:24-cv-00143) — all filed in 2023–2024 and all still pending as of the records retrieved. The patent has been heavily attacked at the PTAB: Microsoft's IPR2024-00407 ended in a final written decision holding all challenged claims (1–20) unpatentable (July 17, 2025), and the Google/Apple IPRs (IPR2024-00783 and joined IPR2025-00075) also reached final written decisions, while Apple's copycat IPR2025-00074 and Google's IPR2024-01319 were not instituted. Two CAFC appeals (25-2131 and 26-1292) are indexed against this patent family, but I could not confirm their subject matter or status from a primary source.

Caveats: I was unable to complete verification of (a) the LG Electronics case's "989" reference, (b) the Hyundai/Kia case's asserted patents, and (c) the two CAFC appeal numbers' subject matter and outcomes. All three should be re-checked on PACER/CM-ECF and the PTAB/CAFC dockets before being relied upon.

I'll research the actual PTAB proceedings. The Google Patents record itself lists several IPR numbers, so I need to verify each one rather than accept the "no PTAB activity" default.

Significant PTAB activity exists. Let me get the specific outcomes for each proceeding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 9,679,289 B1 ("Hybrid Device Having a Personal Digital Key and Receiver-Decoder Circuit")

⚠️ Threshold discrepancy — read first. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt states the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is wrong, or at least stale. The litigation record published on the patent's own Google Patents page lists five IPR numbers tied to this patent family, three of which show a Final Written Decision. I treat the Google Patents structured litigation block (which is populated from USPTO/Unified Patents feeds) as the better evidence here, and I flag every datum I could not independently confirm rather than filling the gap. Do not rely on the "no PTAB activity" default — it would materially misadvise a defendant.

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Proceedings overview

Five AIA trial proceedings are on the record for US 9,679,289: two "Not Instituted – Procedural" (IPR2024-01319, IPR2025-00074), three reaching Final Written Decision (IPR2024-00407, IPR2024-00783, IPR2025-00075), and zero active trials at the patent itself as of the last data update — but two Federal Circuit appeals are live (25-2131, 26-1292). The bottom line: this patent is not hardened — it is under an active invalidity shadow. Microsoft's IPR2024-00407 produced a Final Written Decision on 2025-07-17 holding all challenged claims (1–20) unpatentable, and Proxense has appealed. Until the Federal Circuit rules (or the appeal is resolved), claims 1–20 are adjudicated unpatentable by the Board but not yet canceled by certificate. A defendant being asserted against today should assume claims 1–20 are on life support, plan the case around the pending appeal, and not treat the claims as good law without checking the 25-2130/25-2131 disposition.

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IPR2024-00407 — Microsoft Corporation v. Proxense, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-01-16
• Status: "Final Written Decision" (Google Patents record); PTAB docket shows "Final Written Decision – Appealed", terminated 2025-07-17
• Judge panel: Thu A. Dang, David C. McKone, Norman H. Beamer (institution panel, per the Decision Granting Institution). The public docket's judge list additionally names Kevin Turner; I could not confirm whether Turner sat on the FWD panel or only appears in docket metadata.
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1–20 of the '289 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Art cited in the petition record includes U.S. Patent No. 9,042,819 (Dua), U.S. Patent No. 9,049,188 and related Giobbi-family references, U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0255139 A1, U.S. Pub. No. 2007/0245157 A1, EP 1 536 306 A1, and Provisional App. No. 60/798,843, supported by the Declaration of Dr. Patrick Traynor. I could not retrieve the verbatim ground-by-ground statement from the FWD text within this session — treat the specific § 103 combination mapping as needing direct verification against Paper 25.
• Institution decision: Granted 2024-07-22 (Paper 8) on all challenged claims, under § 314(a) — reasonable likelihood of prevailing. The Board also entertained Proxense's § 112 ¶ 6 (means-plus-function) arguments, which Proxense pressed as its principal defense (arguing "integrated, secure memory" / "integrated RDC" recite function without sufficient structure).
• Final Written Decision: 2025-07-17 — captioned "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." The Board found all challenged claims of the '289 patent unpatentable. Because the challenge covered claims 1–20 and the judgment is "all challenged claims unpatentable," the operative disposition is claims 1–20 (both independent claims 1 and 14 and all dependents) held unpatentable. Proxense's § 112(f) indefiniteness argument did not carry the day. I could not pull the Board's exact wording on the alternative/redundant grounds; the disposition sentence is quoted above from the judgment caption.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement — the proceeding ran to a merits FWD. (No motion-to-terminate/settlement appears in the docket sequence before the July 2025 judgment.)
• Appeal: Yes. Patent Owner filed a Notice of Appeal on 2025-09-18 (Paper 26). Federal Circuit Case No. 25-2131, Proxense, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation, filed 2025-09-22. By order dated 2025-10-07, the Federal Circuit consolidated 2025-2130 (lead) with 2025-2131 (member); all filings go in the lead appeal. A certified list of the record was received 2025-11-04. No disposition as of this analysis.
  • Docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/cafc/25-2131
  • FWD / trial record: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00407/Microsoft_Corporation_v._Proxense_LLC/
  • Institution decision (Paper 8): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00407/Microsoft_Corporation_v._Proxense_LLC/docs/07-22-2024-Board/Institution_Decision__Grant-8-Institution_Decision__Grant.pdf
• Defensive value: This is the reason to like your position. Every claim Microsoft challenged — i.e., all 20 claims of the '289 patent — was held unpatentable. If you are being asserted on claims 1–20, your primary path is to ride the FWD, and if it is affirmed your § 315(e)(2) estoppel exposure is limited to whatever Microsoft raised. But do not oversell it: the decision is on appeal, so the claims are not canceled yet. Coordinate with the lead appeal docket (25-2130/25-2131) before finalizing any invalidity contentions.

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IPR2024-00783 — Google LLC v. Proxense, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024 (exact filing date not confirmed from available sources — the number sits in the summer-2024 Google wave alongside IPR2024-00784; verify against PTAB E2E)
• Status: "Final Written Decision" (Google Patents record)
• Judge panel: Thu A. Dang, David C. McKone, Norman H. Beamer (institution panel)
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1–20 under § 103. Institution table identifies combinations including Dua + Giobbi '157, Dua + Giobbi '157 + Kotola, and a further listed combination for claims 1–7, 10, 11, 14–19 (the third row was truncated in the source). Google also relied on the Traynor declaration lineage carried over to IPR2024-01319.
• Institution decision: Granted 2024-11-18, all challenged claims (Paper 12). Panel noted the '289 patent is also challenged in Microsoft's IPR2024-00407 and is the subject of the parallel W.D. Tex. actions Proxense v. Google, No. 6:23-cv-00320 and Proxense v. Microsoft, No. 6:23-cv-00319.
  • Institution decision: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00783/Google_LLC_v._Proxense_LLC/docs/11-18-2024-Board/Institution_Decision__Grant-12-Granting_Institution_of_Inter_Partes_Review_35_USC_%C2%A7_314.pdf
• Final Written Decision: Issued per the structured record; date and claim-level outcome NOT confirmed in this session. Given that (a) the same panel instituted on all 20 claims and (b) the parallel Microsoft FWD invalidated all 20 claims, the likely disposition is the same — but I will not state that as fact. Pull the FWD directly before relying on it.
• Settlement / termination: Note that Proxense and Google settled their dispute (reported January 24, 2025). If the settlement post-dates institution, this IPR may have been terminated or the parties may have resolved it; the "Final Written Decision" status in the record is inconsistent with a pre-FWD settlement, so verify whether the FWD issued before or after the settlement and whether it was vacated.
• Appeal: Not confirmed.
• Defensive value: A second all-claims institution by a different petitioner (Google) on the same patent is strongly confirmatory of the Microsoft FWD. If Google's FWD also invalidated claims 1–20, you have two independent Board holdings to point to. Verify the outcome — but this is a favorable proceeding on its face.

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IPR2025-00075 — Petitioner not identified in available sources — v. Proxense, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025 (early 2025 by docket numbering)
• Status: "Final Written Decision" (Google Patents record)
• Judge panel: Not confirmed
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed (claims challenged and art unknown)
• Institution decision: Not confirmed
• Final Written Decision: A FWD issued per the structured record; outcome unknown. For a 2025-filed case, an FWD by the current date implies institution in mid-2025 and expiry of the statutory one-year trial clock in mid-2026 — consistent, but unverified.
• Settlement / termination: Unknown
• Appeal: Unknown
• Defensive value: Potentially a third full-claims invalidation, but treat as unverified. The petitioner identity matters for estoppel mapping (see below) — determine whether it is Apple, Intel, or another family member, and whether it is a privy of Microsoft or Google.

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IPR2024-01319 — Google LLC v. Proxense, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-08-22 (per dated petition exhibits, e.g., Supplemental Declaration of Dr. Patrick Traynor)
• Status: "Not Instituted – Procedural" (Google Patents record) → institution denied, in plain English: the Board declined to open trial, and the record indicates a procedural (rather than purely merits) basis for the denial.
• Judge panel: Not confirmed
• Petition grounds: Challenged the '289 patent; Google relied on Dr. Traynor (whose supplemental declaration confirmed the art and analysis from Microsoft v. Proxense, IPR2024-00407). Specific claims/art mapping not confirmed.
• Institution decision: Denied — procedural basis per the record. Reasoning not retrieved; verify against the Board's decision.
• Final Written Decision: N/A (no trial)
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A
• Defensive value: Denial is a procedural loss for Google, not a merits win for the patent. It does not validate the claims and creates no estoppel. Minimal independent defensive value, but useful context: Google filed multiple IPRs (00783, 00784, 01319) and only some instituted.

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IPR2025-00074 — Petitioner not identified in available sources — v. Proxense, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025
• Status: "Not Instituted – Procedural" (Google Patents record)
• Judge panel / grounds / institution reasoning: Not confirmed.
• Final Written Decision: N/A
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A
• Defensive value: A denied/institution-declined petition on the '289 patent. No estoppel, no claim-level ruling, no independent defensive value beyond showing the patent has attracted repeated, well-funded challengers (and that the Board is not rubber-stamping them — relevant to any argument that "everyone who files gets institution").

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Strategic summary

Claim status. The '289 patent has 20 claims: independent claim 1 (hybrid device: integrated secure memory + integrated RDC) and independent claim 14 (method: creating a first wireless link → receiving a first signal → generating an enablement signal), plus dependents. There are no untested claims — the Microsoft and Google petitions each challenged claims 1–20. In IPR2024-00407 the Board found all challenged claims (1–20) unpatentable on 2025-07-17. So on the current record: canceled-in-substance = claims 1–20; sustained = none; untested = none — subject to the pending appeal, which is why I say "unpatentable" rather than "canceled." No claim of this patent has been upheld by the Board in any proceeding identified.

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), Microsoft (and its privies) is barred from raising in the district court any ground it raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2024-00407 — and because Microsoft challenged all 20 claims, the practical effect is that Microsoft's estoppel is broad, but it is Microsoft's estoppel. It does not estop you unless you are a privy or real party in interest. What survives for a new defendant: any prior-art ground not in Microsoft's and Google's petitions, plus § 112 written-description/enablement theories (statutory bars under § 101/§ 112 are generally not available in IPR anyway, so nothing is lost there), plus any art that a petitioner could not reasonably have raised. Because the Microsoft/Google petitions invoked Dua, Giobbi-family references, Kotola, and various publications, the crowded middle of the prior art is likely picked over — the safest additional grounds for a new defendant are § 112 indefiniteness/written-description theories in district court (which Proxense itself tried to weaponize in the IPRs) and any newly located art. Map your grounds against the 00407 and 00783 petitions before serving contentions.

Pattern signals. (1) Same patent, multiple petitioners: Microsoft (00407) and Google (00783, 01319) both attacked the '289 patent; the shared Traynor declaration across the Microsoft and Google filings signals coordinated prior-art work, even though the petitioners are different. (2) The patent owner litigates hard on appeal: Proxense has two live Federal Circuit appeals (25-2131, consolidated into 25-2130; and 26-1292) and has publicly argued that the PTAB abused its discretion by staying a favorable parallel ex parte reexamination — it is aggressively defending validity, so expect the appeal to be contested, not abandoned. (3) No classic defensive aggregator is the named petitioner in any proceeding I can confirm; the "Unified Patents" attribution on the patent page appears to be a data-source license, not a petitioner, so do not assume a defensive-aggregator safety net exists. (4) Settlement posture: Proxense has settled with Samsung and Google (Google settlement reported ~2025-01-24) and Intel (reported ~2026-03-24); Microsoft and Apple litigation remains stayed. If your adversary is Microsoft or Apple, settlement dynamics — not just the IPR outcomes — may drive resolution.

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Recommended next steps

1. Get the actual FWD texts before you do anything else. The IPR2024-00407 FWD (2025-07-17, "all challenged claims unpatentable") is your anchor. Retrieve it via PTAB E2E / the Board's Fox3-5 decisions portal and quote the disposition verbatim: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." Confirm the claim-by-claim mapping (claims 1–20).
2. Fill the three gaps I could not close: (a) the IPR2024-00783 FWD date and claim-level outcome; (b) the IPR2025-00075 petitioner identity and FWD outcome; (c) the IPR2024-01319 and IPR2025-00074 institution-denial reasoning. These are the only soft spots in the analysis above.
3. Track the Federal Circuit appeal (25-2130 lead / 25-2131 member). Docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/cafc/25-2131. The consolidated appeal will determine whether claims 1–20 are canceled or reinstated — this is the single most important event for this patent. Also identify what 26-1292 covers; it is listed on the patent record but I could not confirm its subject matter from available sources.
4. Do not assume the appeal is a formality. Proxense is arguing APA/claim-construction error across the family (including a "trusted authority" construction fight and a PTAB-vs-CRU conflict over a parallel ex parte reexamination). If the Federal Circuit reverses on claim construction, claims could be restored. Build your defense to survive a reinstated claim set, not just the current invalidated one.
5. Note the claim-specific exposure in the co-pending litigation. In Proxense v. Google, No. 6:23-cv-00320 (W.D. Tex.), Proxense has asserted at least claims 14 and 16 of the '289 patent. Those are squarely within the claims Microsoft got invalidated. If you face the same claims, the FWD is your lead exhibit — but verify its citation status before your first filing.
6. On the ODP gap: re-run the PTAB API query; if it still returns no AIA proceedings for 9679289, escalate, because the public record plainly shows at least three FWDs. The discrepancy itself may be a data-integrity issue worth flagging to whoever maintains your docket tooling.

Confidence notes. High confidence: IPR2024-00407 was filed 2024-01-16, instituted 2024-07-22, FWD'd 2025-07-17 with all challenged claims (1–20) unpatentable, and is on appeal at 25-2131 (consolidated with 25-2130). High confidence: IPR2024-00783 was instituted 2024-11-18 on claims 1–20 over § 103 combinations including Dua + Giobbi '157 (+ Kotola). Lower confidence / unverified: the filing date and FWD outcome for IPR2024-00783; the identity/outcome of IPR2025-00075; the denial reasoning for IPR2024-01319 and IPR2025-00074; and the subject of CAFC 26-1292. I have not fabricated any of these — where the record did not disclose a fact, I have said so.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9679289 across USPTO Assignment Center, Google Patents legal events, and NPE/litigation databases.

Let me dig into the assignment records, litigation history, and Proxense corporate background.

Let me pin down the specific assignment reel/frame and correspondent records, plus the Proxense corporate history.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 9,679,289 B1

Important sourcing caveat up front: I was able to retrieve the patent's bibliographic record, its file history, the Google Patents legal-events feed, and Proxense's litigation footprint. I was not able to pull a live Assignment Center record for this specific patent within my research budget, so I can confirm that a post-issuance assignment exists and what it says, but I cannot report the exact reel/frame number and must flag it as not retrieved rather than guess. Where I cite a reel/frame below, it is for a sibling patent in the same family and is labeled as such. Treat any missing reel/frame as unresolved, not as "no record."

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Inventors

• The file history for application 14/961,645 (filed 2015-12-07) lists a single inventor: David L. Brown, Jupiter, FL ("APPLICANTS: Proxense, LLC, Bend, OR; INVENTORS: David L. Brown, Jupiter, FL").
• Although the 2007 priority provisional (60/992,953, "Reverse Prox") named Brown, John J. Giobbi, and Fred S. Hirt, this particular continuation claims only Brown's contribution.
• Unusual-pattern check: No departure pattern. Brown is a Proxense co-founder (Giobbi is the founder/CEO per the W.D. Tex. complaint, which describes the company as inventor-controlled). There is no evidence of founders exiting within 12 months of filing to precede a fire-sale — the opposite is true: the inventors retained the asset.

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Original assignee

Proxense, LLC — Bend, OR (assignee address appearing in the family: 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701).

• Entity history: Incorporated in 2001 as Margent Development LLC; renamed Proxense. Reported as a Delaware company. Founded by John J. Giobbi (CEO) with David L. Brown as co-founder.
• Principal business: Proximity-based biometric authentication — Personal Digital Keys (PDK), receiver-decoder circuits (RDC), and the "ProxPay" mobile-payment platform. The complaint states Proxense "developed, inter alia, mobile payment technologies" ~2004–2012 and employed 30+ engineers.
• Product/shipping status: Proxense did develop and promote products (PDK hardware, ProxPay wallet, biometric wireless payment) circa 2004–2012; media coverage from 2008–2009 describes a "pint-sized virtual wallet." Whether a commercial product embodying these specific claims ever shipped at scale is not established by the sources I retrieved.
• Current status: Operating, but now effectively an inventor-controlled patent assertion/portfolio entity. RPX describes it as "inventor-controlled Proxense" pursuing a multi-defendant licensing campaign. Not in bankruptcy, not dissolved, not acquired.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments for US 9,679,289:

• ~2016-02-15 (recorded) / execution date not retrieved — Reel/Frame: not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (see document for details)
  • Assignor: BROWN, DAVID L.
  • Assignee: PROXENSE, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. (The patent's prosecution correspondent of record is Greg Sueoka, Patent Law Works / Proxense, 201 South Main Street, Suite 250, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 — this is the agent on the file history, not confirmed as the assignment-record correspondent.)
  • Context: Founder-to-entity assignment (the sole inventor perfecting title in the company that filed the application). Not a sale, fire-sale, or transfer to a third-party asserter.

Source: Google Patents legal events for US 9,679,289 records a 2016-02-15 reassignment to PROXENSE, LLC, "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)," assignor BROWN, DAVID L. The application itself was filed 2015-12-07 by Proxense LLC as applicant, and the patent granted 2017-06-13.

No other recorded assignments were found. In particular, there is no operating-company → licensing-LLC conveyance, no security agreement, no merger, and no transfer to any third party. The chain is a single link: inventor → original filer.

Family context (NOT this patent — flagged to avoid conflation): The same family's US 9,298,905 (Giobbi inventor) shows an identical-structure assignment — Giobbi, John J. → Proxense, LLC, Reel/Frame 034843/0145, recorded 2015-01-29, assignee address 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, OR 97701. This is useful to confirm Proxense's recorded address and its routine practice of having each inventor assign into the LLC, but the reel/frame must not be attributed to US 9,679,289.

Note on the continuation chain (priority, not assignment): 12/329,329 (2008, → US 8,171,528) → 13/445,825 (2012, → US 8,646,042) → 14/171,705 (2014, → US 9,049,188) → 14/677,893 (2015, → US 9,235,700) → 14/961,645 (2015, → US 9,679,289). These are domestic continuations, not ownership transfers.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9679289
    2007 : Priority provisional filed
    2008 : First continuation filed
    2015 : Application filed by Proxense
    2016 : Brown assigns to Proxense LLC
    2017 : Patent issued
    2021 : Suit filed against Samsung
    2023 : Suits filed against Google and Microsoft
    2024 : Suits filed against Apple and Intel

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. No operating-company-to-licensing-LLC conveyance exists. The patent sits with the same entity that filed it (Proxense, LLC), founded 2001 as Margent Development LLC. There is no anonymous single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent address of record as assignee, and no name-suffix shell. (Caveat: Proxense's post-2012 conduct is licensing/assertion, but that is not the same as a shell-entity transfer.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (significantly). Proxense, LLC is a high-frequency patent plaintiff surfaced by both RPX (insight.rpxcorp.com campaign reporting: "Proxense Sues Intel," "Biometric Authentication Campaign Turns to Apple") and Unified Patents (portal.unifiedpatents.com tracks the Proxense family, e.g. IPR2024-00407, IPR2025-00074, IPR2025-00075). Defendants: Samsung (6:21-cv-210, filed 2021-03-05), Google (6:23-cv-320) and Microsoft (6:23-cv-319) (filed May 2023), Apple (6:24-cv-143) and Intel (6:24-cv-283) (2024). It is not on the classic Acacia/Marathon/IV lists, but it is squarely within the "entity surfaced by Unified Patents or RPX as a high-frequency plaintiff" criterion.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT A FINDING (unclear). There is only one recorded assignment, so intra-chain recurrence cannot be established. The persistent prosecution/record figure is Greg Sueoka, Patent Law Works (Salt Lake City), who appears as the US agent on the US 9,679,289 file history; recurrence of a prosecution agent is not the assignment-correspondent signal the prompt targets, and I did not retrieve the assignment-record correspondent. Do not over-read this.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Single assignment; no chained LLCs; no shared-principal transfers.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only assignment (recorded 2016-02-15) predates the first infringement suit (Samsung, 2021-03-05) by roughly five years, far outside the 6-month window. The chain was not arranged to set venue or standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 record; Proxense is solvent and litigating.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No operating company transferred to an NPE to assert on its behalf. Proxense asserts its own inventor-held portfolio.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Proxense, LLC, an asserter — the inverse of neutralization by RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN.

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: The assignment record itself is benign — a single 2016-02-15 assignment from sole inventor David L. Brown to Proxense, LLC (the same entity that filed application 14/961,645 on 2015-12-07), with no shell transfer, no cascading LLCs, and no pre-litigation conveyance. The NPE characterization rests on a single strong signal: the current assignee, Proxense, LLC, is a high-frequency patent plaintiff surfaced by both RPX and Unified Patents, having asserted this family against Samsung (6:21-cv-210), Google (6:23-cv-320), Microsoft (6:23-cv-319), Apple (6:24-cv-143), and Intel (6:24-cv-283) — while no product embodying these claims is shown to be in commerce. One strong signal with no supporting structural signals lands this at moderate, not high, confidence. Note the countervailing fact that Proxense is inventor-controlled and originally operating (founded 2001; developed PDK/ProxPay 2004–2012), which distinguishes it from a purchased-portfolio troll.

Verify (and retrieve the missing reel/frame) at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 9679289 (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). The one item to capture that I could not: the reel/frame and the assignment correspondent of record on the 2016-02-15 Brown→Proxense conveyance.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 9,679,289. Let me start with several searches in parallel.

Let me pull the front-page "References Cited" list for the '289 patent itself and confirm the IPR prior-art references.

Prior Art for US 9,679,289 B1 — Reference-by-Reference Analysis

Scope and method (read this first)

I attempted a direct USPTO/Google Patents/Espacenet lookup of the front-page "References Cited" block of US 9,679,289 B1. Two honest limitations apply, and per your operating rules I'm flagging them rather than papering over them:

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim front-page citation list of the '289 patent itself. The full text you supplied me earlier (fetched from Google Patents) omits the front-page "References Cited" table. My web tooling also hit its step limit before I could pull the '289 front page from Espacenet or Patent Public Search.
2. The authoritative prior-art record for this patent is the PTAB/IPR record, not the examiner's front-page citations. That is a feature, not a bug, for this particular patent: three separate petitioners (Microsoft, Google, Apple) exhaustively litigated the '289 claims with expert declarations, and the Board's institution decisions lay out the asserted references with precision. I've made that the backbone of this analysis and used the family front-page citation lists (from the parent US 8,171,528, the sibling US 8,646,042, and the child US 11,080,378) as a surrogate for the '289 front page, since all four share the same specification and were prosecuted against substantially the same art.

Critical framing note before the tables: every ground the Board instituted against the '289 patent was a §103 obviousness ground. No §102 anticipation ground was asserted or instituted. So strictly speaking, there is no reference that a tribunal has positioned as a §102 anticipator of the '289 claims. Where below I map a reference to specific claims, I am giving you (a) the claims the reference was actually asserted against, and (b) my assessment of which references come closest to a single-reference (anticipation-style) showing on the independent claims. I mark my confidence explicitly.

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Tier 1 — Prior art actually asserted against the '289 claims (PTAB record)

Per the Board's institution decisions in IPR2024-00407 (Microsoft) and IPR2024-00783 (Google) — and the copycat/joined petitions IPR2025-00075 (Apple) and the procedurally denied IPR2025-00074 (Apple) and IPR2024-01319 (Google) — the asserted grounds were:

(Source: Google's IPR2024-00783 Institution Decision, Grounds table; Microsoft's IPR2024-00407 Institution Decision, same grounds.)

1. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0258289 A1 ("Dua") — primary reference

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0258289 A1 ("Dua"); the Microsoft exhibit list lists the corresponding issued U.S. Patent No. 9,042,819 ("Dua") as MS‑1007.
• Dates: published November 16, 2006; filed May 12, 2005.
• Description: Modular-authentication device/system disclosure. In the Board's framing it is the reference that supplies the core "device that integrates an authentication element and a wireless reader" architecture. Petitioner's theory is that Dua teaches a device integrating a secure/authentication element with a wireless reader that enables a function or service.
• Claim mapping: asserted against claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 (i.e., both independent claims 1 and 14 plus most dependents) — but only in combination with Giobbi '157 (and optionally Kotola). Dua alone was not asserted.
• §102 potential: None asserted. Dua's publication date (Nov. 16, 2006) is more than one year before the Dec. 6, 2007 provisional, so it is pre‑AIA §102(b) art and legally capable of anticipating. Whether it discloses every element of claim 1 is the open question — and notably the petitioner chose to pair it with Giobbi '157, which indicates at least one element (likely the "integrated, secure memory storing local, secured information") was seen as missing from Dua alone.
• Ambiguity flag: I could not verify whether "U.S. Patent No. 9,042,819" and "U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0258289 A1" are the same Dua disclosure in two formats or two different Dua documents. Treat the equivalence as unconfirmed.

2. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0245157 A1 ("Giobbi '157") — secondary reference

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0245157 A1 ("Giobbi '157"); Microsoft exhibit list MS‑1005.
• Dates: published October 18, 2007; filed May 5, 2007.
• Description: A Proxense-family PDK publication (Giobbi is a co-inventor of the '289 priority provisional, "Reverse Prox"). In the Board's framework, Giobbi '157 is the reference supplying the integrated, secure memory / service-block functionality that Dua allegedly lacks — which is exactly the limitation I flagged as missing from Dua alone.
• Claim mapping: asserted against claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 (with Dua) and against claims 4, 8–10, 12, 13, 17, 20 (with Buer). Note the second group reaches the dependent claims directed to biometric authentication (claim 4), differential data accessibility (claim 10), and off-device enablement/location-of-external-device (claims 12–13) — i.e., Giobbi '157 was the petitioner's source for the biometric and secure-memory dependents.
• §102 potential: Because it was filed May 5, 2007 and published Oct. 18, 2007, Giobbi '157 is pre‑AIA §102(e) art (U.S. application/application-publication, effectively filed before the Dec. 6, 2007 provisional of the '289 patent) and is usable as §102(e) prior art — but it was not asserted as an anticipator.
• Note on self-citation risk: Giobbi '157 postdates the '289 provisional by only weeks but is by the same inventive entity/assignee family. Its status as prior art against the '289 patent is therefore a live issue, not a settled one — a point worth verifying against the '289 patent's common-ownership/§103(c) posture. I could not confirm the inventorship overlap.

3. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0176032 A1 ("Kotola") — tertiary reference

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0176032 A1 ("Kotola"); Google exhibit list Ex. 1017.
• Dates: published September 9, 2004; filed March 19, 2004.
• Description: Short-range/RF credential-and-communication publication. Used as a secondary reference in the Dua + Giobbi '157 + Kotola combination.
• Claim mapping: asserted against claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 (the same set as Dua/Giobbi '157).
• §102 potential: Solidly pre‑AIA §102(b) art (published >1 year before Dec. 6, 2007). Not asserted as an anticipator; used to shore up a secondary limitation.
• Uncertainty: I have the number, dates, and role from the Board's own footnote, but I did not independently verify Kotola's title or technical content, so I am not characterizing what element it supplies beyond "secondary reference in the Dua combination."

4. European Patent Application EP 1,536,306 A1 ("Buer") — the closest thing to a single-reference showing

• Full citation: European Patent Application No. EP 1,536,306 A1 ("Buer"); Google exhibit list Ex. 1005; Microsoft exhibit list MS‑1008 (listed there under the shorthand "Broadcom").
• Dates: published June 1, 2005; filed September 30, 2004.
• Description: Wireless secure-element/authentication architecture. Buer is the reference the petitioner used alone (no combination) against the broadest set of claims.
• Claim mapping: asserted alone against claims 1–7, 10, 11, 14–19 — that is both independent claims (1 and 14) plus the dependents covering the "enabled at the hybrid device" concept, biometrics (claim 4 / finger-scan claim 5), financial-transaction data (claims 6–9 region), differential data accessibility (claim 10), and the cell-phone embodiment (claim 11). Buer + Giobbi '157 then covered claims 4, 8–10, 12, 13, 17, 20.
• §102 potential: This is the strongest §102-candidate in the record. It is pre‑AIA §102(b) art (published June 1, 2005, >1 year before the Dec. 6, 2007 provisional), and the petitioner's decision to assert Buer without any combination means it was argued to teach every element of claim 1 and claim 14. If you are looking for a reference that potentially anticipates under §102, Buer is the one to run down element-by-element — with the caveat that the Board still evaluated it under §103, so the petitioner never had to concede it was a clean §102 §102(b) anticipator.
• Flag: the Microsoft exhibit list's shorthand "Broadcom" for MS‑1008 and the Google record's "Buer" for EP 1,536,306 A1 refer to the same exhibit number/EP number, but the differing shorthand means I cannot fully rule out a labeling inconsistency in the source documents.

5. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0255139 A1 ("Giobbi '139")

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0255139 A1 ("Giobbi '139"); Microsoft exhibit list MS‑1006.
• Dates: published December 16, 2004.
• Description/role: Cited in the record (Microsoft exhibit list; also a preliminary-invalidity-contention reference), and it is the same Giobbi PDK family. It appears in the exhibit lists but I did not find it in the instituted Grounds table for the '289 IPRs, so it was likely a supporting/invalidity-contention reference rather than an instituted ground.
• §102 potential: pre‑AIA §102(b) by date. I could not confirm it was asserted as an anticipator — treat as context/potential art, not a litigated anticipator.

Outcome note (Tier 1): Bloomberg Law reported (Aug. 5, 2025) that the Board held the challenged '289 claims unpatentable as obvious over the prior art in the Microsoft/Apple IPR. That is a §103 outcome, again confirming no §102 anticipation finding was made.

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Tier 2 — References cited on the face of the patent family (surrogate for the '289 front page)

Since I could not pull the '289 front page directly, the corroborated citation lists from the same-spec family are below. These are the examiner-facing "References Cited" citations.

From the parent U.S. Pat. No. 8,171,528 B1 (App. 12/329,329, filed Dec. 5, 2008) — U.S. Patent Documents: 4,759,060 (Hayashi, 7/1988); 5,187,352 (Blair, 2/1993); 5,296,641 (Stelzl, 3/1994); 5,392,433 (Hammersley, 2/1995); 5,422,632 (Bucholtz, 6/1995); 5,450,409 (Ostrover, 9/1995); 5,619,251 (Kuroiwa, 4/1997); 5,629,980 (Stefik, 5/1997); 5,644,354 (Thompson, 7/1997); 5,666,412 (Handelman, 9/1997); 5,773,964 (VanHagen, 6/1998); 5,784,464 (Akiyama, 7/1998); 5,825,876 (Peterson, 10/1998); 5,857,020 (Peterson, 1/1999); 5,892,825 (Mages, 4/1999); 5,894,551 (Huggins, 4/1999); 5,898,880 (Ryu, 4/1999). Foreign: WO 00/62505 A1 (10/2000). Other publication: Dagan, Power over Ethernet (PoE) Midspan — The Smart Path to Providing Power for IP Telephony (Aug. 2005). (This WO 00/62505 and the Dagan PoE paper also appear on the child US 11,080,378 front page, corroborating the family-level citation set.)

From the sibling U.S. Pat. No. 8,646,042 B1 (App. 13/445,825) U.S. Patent References: 7,305,560 Giobbi, Digital content security system (2007-12-04); 2007/0174809 Brown et al., Dynamic Real-Time Tiered Client Access (2007-07-26); 7,249,177 Miller, Biometric authentication of a client network connection (2007-07-24); 2007/0159994 Brown et al., Wireless Network Synchronization Of Cells And Client Devices On A Network (2007-07-12); 7,159,765 Frerking, Method and apparatus for employee access to a gaming system (2007-01-09); 2006/0208066 Finn et al., RFID token with multiple interface controller (2006-09-21); 2006/0136742 Giobbi, Personal digital key and receiver/decoder circuit system and method (2006-06-22); 2006/0111955 Winter et al. (2006-05-25); 7,012,503 Nielsen (2006-03-14); 6,975,202 Rodriguez et al. (2005-12-13); 6,973,576 Giobbi (2005-12-06); 6,957,086 Bahl et al. (2005-10-18); 6,950,941 Lee et al. (2005-09-27); 2005/0116020 Smolucha et al. (2005-06-02); 2005/0090200 Karaoguz et al. (2005-04-28); 6,879,567 Callaway et al. (2005-04-12); 6,873,975 Hatakeyama et al. (2005-03-29); 6,850,147 (Personal biometric key, 2005).

From the child U.S. Pat. No. 11,080,378 B1 (App. 16/048,044) — the front page begins its U.S. list with 3,665,313 (Trent, 5/1972); 3,739,329 (Lester, 6/1973); 3,761,883 (Alvarez, 9/1973); 3,906,166 (Cooper, 9/1975); 4,101,873 (Anderson, 7/1978); 4,430,705 (Cannavino, 2/1984); 4,476,469 (Lander, 10/1984); 4,598,272 (Cox, 7/1986); 4,661,821 (Smith, 4/1987); 4,759,060 (Hayashi, 7/1988); 4,814,742 (Morita, 3/1989); 4,871,997 (Adriaenssens, 10/1989); 4,993,068 (Piosenka, 2/1991); 5,043,702 (Kuo, 8/1991); 5,187,352 (Blair, 2/1993); 5,224,164 (Elsner, 6/1993); 5,296,641 (Stelzel, 3/1994); 5,307,349 (Shloss, 4/1994); 5,317,572 (Satoh, 5/1994); 5,325,285 (Araki, 6/1994); 5,392,287 (Tiedemann, 2/1995); 5,392,433 (Hammersley, 2/1995); 5,410,588 (Ito, 4/1995); 5,416,780 (Patel, 5/1995); 5,422,632 (Bucholtz, 6/1995); 5,428,684 (Akiyama, 6/1995); 5,450,489 (Ostrover, 9/1995); 5,473,690 (Grimonprez, 12/1995); 5,481,265 (Russell, 1/1996); 5,506,863 (Meidan, 4/1996); 5,517,502 (Bestler, 5/1996); 5,541,583 (Mandelbaum, 7/1996); 5,544,321 (Theimer, 8/1996); 5,552,776 (Wade, 9/1996); 5,563,947 (Kikinis, 10/1996); 5,589,838 (McEwan, 12/1996). Foreign: JP H10-49604 (2/1998); WO 00/62505 (10/2000).

Specification-incorporated references (all Proxense family). The '289 specification expressly incorporates: U.S. App. 11/292,330, Personal Digital Key And Receiver/Decoder Circuit System And Method (filed Nov. 30, 2005) — now U.S. Pat. No. 9,613,483 B2 (Giobbi); U.S. App. 11/620,581, Wireless Network Synchronization Of Cells And Client Devices On A Network (filed Jan. 5, 2007); and U.S. App. 11/620,577, Dynamic Real-Time Tiered Client Access (filed Jan. 5, 2007). These are not prior art to the '289 patent (same-family, incorporated by reference) — but they are the substantive architectural ancestors of the claimed "RDC," and an examiner or petitioner building a §112 or double-patenting argument would look here.

Nature of Tier 2 citations. These are overwhelmingly background art (RFID, PoE, gaming badging, network sync). None of them appears in any instituted §102 or §103 ground against the '289 patent. Their evidentiary role is to establish the general state of the art, not to anticipate.

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Direct answer on "which claims each reference potentially anticipates under §102"

Holding strictly to what the record supports:

• No reference was asserted as a §102 anticipator of the '289 claims. All instituted grounds were §103.
• The single-reference candidates (references argued without any combination) are:
  • EP 1,536,306 A1 (Buer) against claims 1–7, 10, 11, 14–19 — the broadest single-reference showing, reaching both independent claims. Best §102-candidate.
• The combination-only references (not capable of anticipation on the petitioner's own theory, because they were asserted only in combination) are:
  • US 2006/0258289 A1 (Dua) → claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 (with Giobbi '157 ± Kotola)
  • US 2007/0245157 A1 (Giobbi '157) → claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 and 4, 8–10, 12, 13, 17, 20
  • US 2004/0176032 A1 (Kotola) → claims 1–6, 8–11, 14–19 (tertiary)
  • US 2004/0255139 A1 (Giobbi '139) → cited in lists; not in the instituted Grounds table (unconfirmed)

If your objective is an anticipation chart, the productive path is: take Buer (EP 1,536,306 A1) and map it element-by-element against claim 1 and claim 14 (the two independent claims), then test the dependents; treat Dua (US 2006/0258289 A1) as the alternative if Buer is missing the "integrated, secure memory storing local, secured information" element.

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Explicit gaps in this analysis

1. The '289 patent's own front-page "References Cited" list is not in evidence here — I could not fetch it. My Tier 2 list is a family surrogate and should not be represented as the '289 front page verbatim.
2. I did not confirm the titles/technical content of Dua (US 2006/0258289 A1 / US 9,042,819), Kotola (US 2004/0176032 A1), Giobbi '157 (US 2007/0245157 A1), or Buer (EP 1,536,306 A1) from the documents themselves; my descriptions come from the Board's footnotes and the petitioner exhibit lists.
3. Whether any Tier 1 reference qualifies as prior art given common ownership / the same inventive entity (Giobbi publications) is unresolved and is a threshold issue that can eliminate the strongest combination reference.
4. Conflicting shorthand ("Buer" vs "Broadcom" for MS‑1008 / EP 1,536,306 A1; and publication-vs-patent for Dua) is flagged, not reconciled.
5. Per the earlier section's own caveat, the claim 1 "battery" discrepancy (Wolf declaration, IPR2025-00075) remains unresolved and directly affects any §102 element-mapping — an anticipation chart should be built from the issued claim text, not the declaration's paraphrase.

I'll pull the prior-art references actually cited on this patent's page and the PTAB petition grounds, since those are the concrete combinations I should be analyzing.

Let me pin down the specific references in each ground and the FWD outcomes.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,679,289 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Critical date: December 6, 2007 (earliest priority; provisional 60/992,953). This is the presumptive pre-AIA § 102/§ 103 framework, so references must be § 102(a)/(b)/(e) art as of that date.

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0. Data-source caveat (read first)

The authoritative text I was given is the Google Patents front page (bibliographic data, abstract, description, classifications, and the litigation/PTAB sidebar). The page's own "References Cited" / "Cited By" tables were not included in that extraction, so I cannot reproduce the examiner-cited art verbatim from this page. What I can ground on — and what I have used below — is the operative prior-art record that this page itself links to: the instituted grounds in IPR2024‑00407 (Microsoft), IPR2024‑00783 (Google), and IPR2025‑00075 (Apple), plus the parallel W.D. Tex. contentions. Those are the combinations a § 103 analysis should test. I flag every identification I could not fully confirm.

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1. The prior-art set actually in play

⚠️ Contradiction flag carried forward from the prior section: the Board's institution decisions reproduce claim 1 without "a battery," while Microsoft's reply brief quotes claim 1 with "a battery." I cannot resolve this from the page; the limitation is treated as contested below.

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2. Level of ordinary skill

The record (Traynor/Wolf/Jakobsson declarations) treats the POSITA as someone with a bachelor's in EE/CS or equivalent plus ~2–4 years in wireless authentication, RFID/NFC, and access-control systems. Under that level, PDK/RDC pairing, proximity zones, tamper-proof credential memory, and reader+tag coexistence were all routine engineering by 2007.

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3. Claim 1 — element mapping

Claim 1 is a two-element device (secure memory + RDC, coupled) closed by a functional "enables" clause.

Note the drafting quirk already flagged: claim 1 recites "reader-decoder circuit (RDC)" whereas the title/abstract say "receiver-decoder circuit." A POSITA would read these as the same component; the district court's construction ("capable of wirelessly receiving data in an encrypted format and decoding the encrypted data for processing") is satisfied by Giobbi‑157's RDC 304 expressly.

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4. Claim 14 — element mapping

Dua supplies the "hybrid" architecture (reader + tag in one module on a phone), which is what claim 14 needs for the RDC to be integrated in the device rather than a standalone reader.

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5. The combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination 1 — Giobbi‑157 + Giobbi‑139 (Microsoft Ground 1A; Apple Ground 1A)

• Rationale (KSR prong 1 — known elements/known functions): Giobbi‑157 expressly teaches integrating a PDK into a mobile device; Giobbi‑139 expressly teaches integrating an RDC into a mobile device. Putting both into one device is the predictable combination of two known building blocks at the location each reference already suggests.
• Rationale (KSR prong 2 — known technique, similar devices): Both references are in the same field (proximity-based secure authentication) and describe the same structures (PDKs and RDCs) for the same purposes ("efficient, secure, and highly reliable authentication for access control" vs. "protecting data stored on such devices").
• Common provenance (same inventor/applicant lineage) further evidences that a POSITA would have looked to both together. (§ 103(c) caveat: common ownership/inventorship can disqualify § 102(e) art in a pre-AIA case; the Board nonetheless instituted and reached the merits, so treat this as a point to verify against the FWD rather than as settled.)

Combination 2 — Giobbi‑157 + Giobbi‑139 + Dua (Microsoft Ground 1B; Apple Ground 1B; Google Grounds 1‑2)

• Dua is the enablement/reasonable-expectation-of-success reference: it shows a commercial cell phone with both a reader unit and a tag unit in a single module, i.e., an actual working hybrid. That defeats any argument that the Giobbi combination was "obvious to try but not enabled."
• Dua also supplies the financial-transaction thread (point-of-sale) that underpins dependent claims 6‑9.
• This is the combination Bloomberg reported the Microsoft FWD (July 17, 2025) as resting on: "two-level authentication for secure transaction" (= Giobbi‑157), "a digital content security system" (= Giobbi‑139), and "a method, system, and apparatus having near field communication chip with configurable memory that is updatable via a host processor" (= Dua). That mapping is my inference from the titles, not a verbatim quote.

Combination 3 — Broadcom alone; Broadcom + Giobbi‑157 (Grounds 2A/2B)

• Broadcom supplies the zone-based secure-service provisioning architecture; Giobbi‑157 supplies the PDK/RDC concrete implementation. A POSITA improving a zone-based access-control system would naturally look to the PDK/RDC credential layer.

Combination 4 — Dua + Giobbi‑157 (+ Kotola) (Google Grounds 1‑2)

• Inverse framing of Combination 2: start from Dua's reader+tag phone (the "hybrid device") and borrow Giobbi‑157's RDC-decodes-encrypted-PDK-data and proximity-zone teaching. Kotola (unconfirmed identity — likely a low-power/short-range radio piece) supplies whatever implementation gap the petitioner needed.

Combination 5 — Buer (Google Ground 3)

• Asserted for claims 1‑7, 11, 14‑19. I cannot verify Buer's content from this page; the Bloomberg summary of the Apple FWD (Nov. 13, 2025) describes art for "controlling access to secured services based on the proximity of a wireless token to a computing device" and "a low-power wireless data communication system in which base stations can automatically interface with battery-powered portable data modules." Those descriptions plausibly correspond to the Buer/Nishikawa-type references, but I cannot assign them with confidence.

Overarching motivations (apply to all combinations)

1. Design need / market pressure (KSR): the patent itself states the goal of making cell phones "generic" and preventing theft ("[t]he cell phone is rendered useless … if the PDK is out of range") — solve-by-integration was the recognized solution.
2. Predictable result: no new mechanism is claimed; the claim is the juxtaposition of a credential store and a reader/decoder wired together.
3. No teaching away: both Giobbi references urge the mobile-device integration the claim recites.

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6. Dependent claims

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7. Outcome evidence and § 112 issues

• Microsoft IPR2024‑00407 — FWD July 17, 2025: all challenged claims (1‑20) unpatentable as obvious over the Giobbi‑157 / Giobbi‑139 / Dua and Broadcom combinations. This is the single strongest piece of grounding for a § 103 conclusion.
• Apple IPR2025‑00075 — FWD Nov. 13, 2025: challenged claims unpatentable as obvious over proximity-token and low-power-wireless-module art (identity unconfirmed).
• Google IPR2024‑00783 — instituted Nov. 18, 2024 on Dua-based grounds; later terminated as to Google. IPR2024‑01319 (Google) and IPR2025‑00074 (Apple) were not instituted (discretionary/procedural).
• Separate, non‑§ 103 theory: Patent Owner's principal defense was that "local, secured information," "RDC," and "enablement signal" invoke § 112(f) and lack a disclosed algorithm — i.e., indefiniteness under § 112(b). The Board rejected this twice. If it had succeeded it would be an invalidity ground independent of § 103, and it is worth keeping separate in any validity opinion.

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8. Weaknesses in the obviousness case (defense side)

1. The "hybrid device" construction fight. Patent Owner argues the claims require an integrated secure memory + integrated RDC within one device, and that Giobbi‑157's reader 108 is a separate box from PDK 102. Combination 1 (Giobbi‑157 + Giobbi‑139) is vulnerable on this point; combination 2 (with Dua) largely cures it because Dua discloses a single-module reader+tag device — which is why petitioners leaned on Dua.
2. § 103(c) / common-provenance risk for Giobbi‑157 as § 102(e)-type art.
3. No verified mapping for Buer, Kotola, Nishikawa, or the two Apple FWD references — these could not be confirmed from this page.
4. Secondary considerations are thin in the record; no nexus evidence tying commercial success to the claim elements was located.

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9. Bottom line

On the record tied to this page, claims 1 and 14 (and their dependents) are strongly obvious under § 103, with the cleanest combination being Giobbi‑157 + Giobbi‑139 + Dua:

• Giobbi‑157 supplies every claim‑1 element (secure PDK memory feeding an RDC that wirelessly reads an external device in a proximity zone and enables a service/transaction) and every claim‑14 step;
• Giobbi‑139 supplies the express teaching to integrate the RDC into the mobile device;
• Dua supplies the integrated reader+tag "hybrid" hardware and the reasonable expectation of success.

Motivation is supplied by the shared field, shared structures, shared provenance, and the references' own express integration teachings — i.e., the classic KSR "predictable result of using prior art elements according to their known functions." Broadcom alone and with Giobbi‑157 provide an independent route. The PTAB has already so held twice (Microsoft, Apple).

Confidence: high on the Giobbi‑157/Giobbi‑139/Dua combination and on the FWD outcomes; low on the identities and content of Buer, Kotola, Nishikawa, and the Apple FWD references. I could not verify the examiner-cited reference list from this page, and I could not confirm any 2026 CAFC appeal directed specifically at the '289 patent.