US 10913632

I'll run targeted searches for this patent number and any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me check for any 2026 appellate activity involving this patent or its family.

Two significant leads: an IPR that ended in claim cancellation, and a 2026 Federal Circuit argument. Let me pin down both.

US 10,913,632 — Summary

I searched for the specific number 10913632 (literal string). Below is what I verified; where I could not confirm something authoritatively, I say so.

Bibliographic data (from the Google Patents record for US10913632B2)

Continuity: continuation of 16/804,577 (2020-02-28, now abandoned); which was a continuation of 15/833,091 (now US 10,589,957); which was a continuation of 15/433,789 (now US 9,862,566); which was a divisional of 14/634,007, filed 2015-02-27 (now US 9,695,008). All share the 2015-02-27 priority date.

Abstract (as published)

A cable payout apparatus comprising a bag with a payout opening for dispensing cable, and first and second frames inside the bag. A first flange is configured to be rotatably coupled to the first frame. A second flange is configured to be rotatably coupled to the second frame. An elongated wall extends from the first flange and releasably couples to the second flange for supporting a coil of cable between the first and second flanges. The first frame is positioned in the base of the bag and the second frame is positioned at the cover of the bag, such that when the cover is closed the second frame releasably couples with the second flange and when the cover is opened the second frame decouples from the second flange.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

All three independent claims are apparatus claims, and each requires the bag + two frames + base/cover decoupling combination — despite the title "Cable reel," the claims are not directed to a standalone reel. (The specification also describes braking gear members and installation methods, but the granted claims recite none of the braking subject matter; that lives in sibling patents such as US 9,873,588 / US 10,611,598.)

• Claim 1 — A payout system: a bag with a base, a cover, and a payout opening; a first frame and a second frame inside the bag; a first flange rotatably coupled to the first frame (inner side, outer side, central opening, outer side facing the frame); a second flange rotatably coupled to the second frame (same configuration); and an elongated wall extending from the inner side of the first flange that releasably couples to the second flange to support a coil of cable between the flanges. The first frame sits in the base and the second frame at the cover, so closing the bag couples the second frame to the second flange and opening the bag decouples them.

• Claim 13 — Same bag/frames/base-cover architecture, but framed with hub geometry: a first flange positioned on the first frame with a first hub portion on its inner side, and a second flange positioned on the second frame with a second hub portion on its inner side. The two hub portions releasably couple to each other to form a hub member that supports the cable coil between the flanges, with the same cover-closed coupling / cover-open decoupling behavior.

• Claim 21 — Same bag/frames architecture, with elongated annular wall extending from the first flange's inner side (transverse to the flange) and a truncated annular wall extending from the second flange's inner side (transverse to the flange) that releasably couples to the elongated wall to form a hub member supporting a pre-wound, reel-less coil of cable; same cover-closed/coupling and cover-open/decoupling limitation.

Dependent claims add: one-piece flange/wall (2, 20); friction fit between walls (3, 16); truncated wall received in the elongated wall's receiving area (5, 19); walls extending into the coil's inner diameter (7, 9); coil prepackaged without a reel / with plastic wrap (10, 14, 15); and second flange removable/released from the elongated wall to reload a coil (11, 12).

Litigation / PTAB / appellate posture (as found)

• District court: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-01823-UNA (D. Del.), filed 2021-12-27. Google Patents also links a Darts‑IP "family has litigation" record and a Unified Patents Delaware case page for 1:21-cv-01823.
• PTAB — directly on the '632 patent: IPR2022-00830, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., petition filed 2022-04-18, challenging claims 1–14 and 16–21. Patent Owner filed a statutory disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. § 253(a) of those claims, recorded in the Office 2022-07-28. The Board denied institution on 2022-10-24 "Due to Disclaimer of All Challenged Claims" (35 U.S.C. § 314; 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(e)). Note a minor discrepancy in third-party databases: one vendor listing shows "claims challenged: 1–21," whereas the Board's own decision text specifies 1–14 and 16–21 (i.e., claim 15 appears not to have been challenged or disclaimed). I have not independently verified claim 15's current status, and I note claim 15 depends from claim 13, which was disclaimed.
• Related family IPRs (same patent family, per the Board's IPR2022-00946 decision): IPR2022-00831 (US 10,589,957; denied after disclaimer), IPR2022-00946 (US 10,988,342 = family member US10988342), IPR2022-00947 (US 11,001,471), IPR2022-01087 (US 10,941,016), IPR2022-01088 (US 10,906,771) — all PPC Broadband v. Times Fiber Communications.

CAFC 2026 dockets — what I could and could not confirm

• I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming US 10,913,632 itself. To the extent the "CAFC 2026" premise is about appellate activity, the closest item is from the Federal Circuit's public oral-argument calendar for March 2026 (revised Jan. 23, 2026): Panel B, Monday, March 2, 2026 — "24-1776 PTO, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. [argued]."
• Uncertainty flag: I could not confirm from authoritative sources that appeal No. 24-1776 involves US 10,913,632. Its caption names Amphenol Corp. (the original assignee), and the family's merits-level PTAB losses were against sibling patents (e.g., US 10,988,342 and US 11,001,471), so 24-1776 may well be an appeal of one of those rather than of the '632 patent. Treat the linkage as unverified. I also cannot state the outcome of that argument.

Bottom line

US 10,913,632 ("Cable reel," app. 17/022,725) issued 2021-02-09 to Amphenol Corporation and is now held by Times Fiber Communications, Inc., with a 2015-02-27 priority date and three independent apparatus claims each requiring a bag with frames in the base and cover plus releasably coupling hub/wall structure for a cable coil. It was challenged in IPR2022-00830 and institution was denied after the patent owner statutorily disclaimed all challenged claims (1–14 and 16–21). I found no 2026 CAFC docket specifically for this patent; the only 2026 Federal Circuit entry I located is the 24‑1776 argument on March 2, 2026, whose connection to the '632 patent is unconfirmed.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10,913,632. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper into the district court case and check for any other cases.

Let me confirm the disposition of the district court case and the IPR details.

Based on my research, here is what I found regarding litigation involving US Patent 10,913,632 ("Cable reel"). I've treated the patent number literally and excluded results for other numbers in the same family (e.g., 10,589,957; 10,906,771; 10,941,016; 10,988,342; 11,001,471), except where they were co-asserted in the same case.

Summary

I identified two proceedings in which US 10,913,632 was directly at issue — one district court case and one PTAB inter partes review. Note that US 10,913,632 is one of a large family of ~15 related U.S. applications claiming priority to Feb. 27, 2015 (the '008 patent family), originally assigned to Amphenol Corp. and later to Times Fiber Communications, Inc. ("TFC").

1. District Court Litigation

The patent is expressly named in the Complaint. Paragraphs 20–21 of the Complaint state that the "'632 Patent, titled 'Cable Reel,' was filed on September 16, 2020, … issued … on February 9, 2021," and is "assigned to TFC."

Caveat on outcome: The case is shown as closed on 12/20/2023. Based on the retrieved records I could not confirm the precise terminating document (e.g., a stipulation of dismissal, settlement, or consent judgment). The parties clearly engaged in active merits litigation (motions for pro hac vice admission, interrogatories, discovery document requests, IPRs) through 2022–2023, which is consistent with a negotiated resolution, but I would verify the final disposition via PACER/Unified Patents before relying on any specific outcome. The court had assigned the case to the District of Delaware's Vacant Judgeship docket and referred it to Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge for discovery/scheduling purposes.

2. PTAB Inter Partes Review (directly on the '632 patent)

This proceeding is the "PTAB case IPR2022-00830" flagged on the patent's Google Patents page. It is a procedural termination — the Board did not institute review, because TFC statutorily disclaimed all challenged claims rather than defending them on the merits.

Google Patents also lists, via its Darts-IP linkage, that the "family has litigation" and that this is the "first worldwide family litigation filed" (family ID 56798668), consistent with the Delaware action.

Other points / things I could not verify as '632 litigation

• IPR2022-00946, -00947, -01087, and -01088 are parallel PTAB challenges by PPC Broadband against other family members (the '342, '471, '016, and '771 patents), not the '632 patent. These went to Final Written Decisions. I excluded them from the count above because they do not involve US 10,913,632.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation et al., C.A. No. 21-654-LPS (D. Del.) is referenced inside TFC's complaint as evidence of PPC's use of the Delaware forum. That case concerns different patents (connectors) and is not '632 litigation.
• I did not find any additional defendants, later-filed complaints, or other suits naming US 10,913,632. If additional cases exist, they were not surfaced by the litigation databases searched.

Recommendation: For definitive confirmation of the Delaware case's termination (settlement vs. dismissal, and any preclusive effect), check the docket directly in PACER for 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.) and the Unified Patents litigation id for that case. The PTAB record for IPR2022-00830 is available via USPTO PTAB/PatentCenter.

Primary sources consulted:

• Unified Patents Litigation Case List — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (patents filter)
• Unified Patents PTAB / portal entry for IPR2022-00830 (filed against 10913632)
• GreyB ipverse / Patexia records for IPR2022-00830 (Institution Denied, Oct. 24, 2022)
• TFC's Complaint for Patent Infringement, D. Del. C.A. No. 1:21-cv-01823 (PPC Exhibit 1008 in IPR2022-00946)
• Google Patents page for US 10,913,632

I'll research the AIA trial proceedings on US 10,913,632, starting with the proceeding flagged in the earlier litigation section.

Key finding: the petition challenged claims 1–14 and 16–21 — claim 15 was not challenged. Let me verify the disclaimer scope, the parallel proceedings, and check for any other '632 proceedings.

Confirmed: IPR2022-00831 targets US 10,589,957 (not the '632) — so IPR2022-00830 is the only AIA trial against the '632. Let me nail down the petition grounds, real parties, and any follow-on filings or appeals.

Data conflict — flagged up front

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,913,632. That is contradicted by (a) the earlier litigation section of this same analysis, (b) the Google Patents page for the patent (which expressly links "PTAB case IPR2022-00830 filed (Procedural Termination)"), and (c) the primary PTAB documents I retrieved below. The ODP ingest for this patent number appears stale or incomplete. I am proceeding on the documentary record: one AIA trial proceeding exists — IPR2022-00830. I did not invent any proceeding numbers.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trials on US 10,913,632: 1 — IPR2022-00830 (Inter Partes Review), status institution denied (2022-10-24) after the patent owner statutorily disclaimed all 20 challenged claims before institution; breakdown: 0 claims invalidated by the Board, 0 claims sustained by the Board, 0 settlements, 1 institution denial. That gives a defendant an unusually strong posture: 20 of the patent's 21 claims — every claim in independent claims 1, 13 and 21 and every dependent claim except claim 15 — were statutorily disclaimed and are treated as though they never existed. A demand letter citing claims 1–14 or 16–21 is citing claims that are no longer in the patent; only claim 15 remains, and it depends from disclaimed claim 14.

IPR2022-00830 — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2022-04-18 (petition accorded filing date 2022-04-29)
• Patent challenged: US 10,913,632 B2 ("the '632 Patent"), Application No. 17/022,725, Tech Center 3600, Art Unit 3619
• Real parties-in-interest: Petitioner — PPC Broadband, Inc. and Belden Inc.; Patent Owner — Times Fiber Communications, Inc. ("TFC")
• Status: Institution Denied — verbatim: "Institution Decision: Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review Due to Disclaimer of All Challenged Claims 35 U.S.C. § 314; 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(e)." Terminated 2022-10-24. Petitioner's refund of post-institution fees requested 2022-12-01 and approved by the Board 2022-12-14.
• Judge panel: Bart A. Gerstenblith, George R. Hoskins, and Frances L. Ippolito (Administrative Patent Judges). Ippolito authored the decision. (Recorded by Patexia as "Judge Writing the Final Decision: Frances L. Ippolito" — no FWD actually issued.)
• Petition grounds: The petition challenged claims 1–14 and 16–21 ("the Challenged Claims") — claim 15 was not challenged. All grounds were § 103 obviousness only (no § 102 anticipation ground and no § 112 ground):

The primary reference, "Brochure," is PPC's own "Perfect Tote 500 ECO" product brochure (Ex. 1006). The petition frames the case as the Examiner's "material mistake by being silent on the prior art Brochure, published by PPC, and Blunt, assigned to PPC." Supporting exhibits include PPC's Cable-Tec Expo 2014 booth materials (Exs. 1010, 1016, 1019, 1020, 1035), a forwarded 2014 SCTE newsletter (Ex. 1037), and '632-specific declarations of Rebecca Firmani (Ex. 1038) and Mark Banick (Ex. 1039) — i.e., Petitioner was assembling a printed-publication / public-use attack built on PPC's own pre-2015 product. Secondary references in the record include U.S. Pat. Pub. 2012/0168554 (Blunt), U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,780 (Fontana), plus U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,016,222, 7,938,357, 7,204,452, 5,775,515 and others (Exs. 1011–1014, 1040–1042). (I have not confirmed from a primary source which exhibit corresponds to the "Johanson" reference; treat that attribution as unverified.)

• Institution decision: Denied, 2022-10-24, under 35 U.S.C. § 314 and 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(e). Reasoning, quoted from the decision: "In light of Patent Owner's Statutory Disclaimer, we decline to institute an inter partes review." The panel relied on the Board's precedential decision in General Electric Co. v. United Technologies Co., IPR2017-00491, Paper 9 (PTAB July 6, 2017): "[u]nder 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(e), 'patent owner may file a statutory disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. 253(a) … disclaiming one or more claims in the patent' and '[n]o inter partes review will be instituted based on disclaimed claims.'" The decision also recites that "[a] disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. § 253(a) is 'considered as part of the original patent' as of the date on which it is 'recorded' in the Office."
• Claim-level disposition — no FWD, and this matters: The Board never reached the merits and issued no Final Written Decision. The 20 challenged claims were cancelled by the patent owner's own statutory disclaimer (35 U.S.C. § 253(a)), which TFC filed with its Preliminary Response on 2022-07-29 (Paper 9; Ex. 2002, later expunged) disclaiming claims 1–14 and 16–21. So there are no Board findings of unpatentability on the '632 and no claim-sustained findings — the outcome was purely procedural.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. Termination was by Board denial of institution following the disclaimer. (No agreement terms exist to be confidential.)
• Appeal: None, and none possible — there is no final written decision to appeal to the Federal Circuit. I found no CAFC docket arising from IPR2022-00830. (Whether the sibling-patent FWDs were appealed is a separate question I could not confirm.)
• Defensive value: A defendant does not need an IPR against the '632's disclaimed claims — they are void under § 253(a) and, per Vectra Fitness, Inc. v. TNWK Corp., 162 F.3d 1379, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 1998), the patent "is treated as though the disclaimed claims never existed." Conversely, a defendant gets no IPR estoppel benefit: because institution was denied and no FWD issued, no § 315(e) estoppel ever attached to PPC/Belden, and there is no adverse merits ruling to cite. Any defense must rest on the disclaimer itself, not on Board findings.

The one live claim: claim 15

The petition did not challenge claim 15, and the disclaimer did not cover claim 15. Claim 15 reads: "The cable payout apparatus of claim 14, wherein the coil of cable is prepackaged with plastic wrap." Claim 15 depends from claim 14 ("…of claim 13, wherein the coil of cable is prepackaged without a reel"), which depends from claim 13 — all of which were disclaimed. A dependent claim incorporates every limitation of the claim from which it depends, so claim 15's scope is bounded by claim 13's now-disclaimed limitations. I would not overstate the legal effect of that ladder — I have not located a primary source (a disclaimer certificate or PTAB/court ruling) expressly addressing the fate of claim 15, and there is a genuine doctrinal question about a dependent claim whose parent claims were disclaimed. Practically, claim 15 is the only untested claim, and it was the only claim PPC chose not to attack (possibly because the "plastic wrap" limitation is harder to meet, or a deliberate reserve). If a new IPR is ever contemplated, claim 15 is the only claim available to challenge — and it is subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar from service. Verify the disclaimer certificate and the current claim set in USPTO Patent Center before relying on any of this.

Strategic summary

Claim status on 10913632. CANCELED (statutorily disclaimed 2022-07-29): claims 1–14 and 16–21 — including all three independent claims, 1, 13 and 21. UNTESTED / not disclaimed: claim 15 (dependent on disclaimed claim 14). SUSTAINED: none — no claim of this patent has ever been adjudicated or upheld by the Board, in a court, or otherwise. The earlier "Litigation summary" section in this analysis correctly identified IPR2022-00830 as a procedural termination; that characterization is confirmed by the primary decision text, and I would sharpen it slightly: the termination weapon was a § 253(a) statutory disclaimer, not cancellation by the Board.

Estoppel landscape. Because institution was denied and no FWD issued, no IPR estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1)–(2) exists in either direction — PPC/Belden are not estopped, and no third party inherits a favorable estoppel record. There is likewise no prosecution-history narrowing from the IPR to argue. For a defendant being asserted today: the entire prior-art field is unencumbered by IPR estoppel, but the only claim worth defending against is claim 15 — and the Brochure/Blunt/Fontana combination PPC assembled (plus its 2014 Cable-Tec Expo public-use evidence) is publicly documented in the IPR2022-00830 record and can be re-cycled against claim 15 in a fresh IPR or in district court invalidity contentions.

Pattern signals. This was a family-wide, coordinated campaign, not a lone petition. PPC filed a series against the '008-family: IPR2022-00830 ('632), IPR2022-00831 (US 10,589,957), IPR2022-00946 ('342), IPR2022-00947 ('471), IPR2022-01087 ('016) and IPR2022-01088 ('771). TFC responded with a two-track strategy: disclaim all challenged claims where it was cheapest (the '632 and the '957, both resulting in institution denials after disclaimer — see the list recited in the '946 FWD: "IPR2022-00831 (U.S. Patent No. 10,589,957 B2, in which institution was denied after Patent Owner disclaimed all challenged claims)"), and fight on the merits on the other four. It lost that fight: according to documents in the related proceedings, the Board found the challenged claims unpatentable in all four — "the Board affirmed that claims to a communication cable payout bag having a pair of frames supporting a cable reel within the bag are not patentable. Times Fiber, IPR2022-00946, Paper 46 at 109; Times Fiber, IPR2022-00947, Paper 47 at 112; Times Fiber, IPR2022-01087, Paper 46 at 117; Times Fiber, IPR2022-01088, Paper 43 at 107." (These are sibling-patent rulings, not '632 rulings — do not quote them as findings about the '632.) Consistent with that, the underlying Delaware case (TFC v. PPC, 1:21-cv-01823, D. Del.) is shown as closed 2023-12-20 — the same window as those FWDs. No defensive aggregator appears in the '632 chain; the petitioner was a commercial competitor (PPC, with Belden as an RPI), not Unified Patents. Also note the family is still generating new patents (e.g., US 12,269,706 B2, issued 2025-04-08, Times Fiber, "Cable reel," priority 2015-02-27, listed as citing this patent) — so new, differently-drafted claims from the same specification remain a live risk even though the '632 is effectively spent.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull and attach the disclaimer and the institution decision. The institution decision (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., IPR2022-00830, Paper 10, 2022-10-24) is available at the USPTO PTAB document viewer: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549446](/patent/1549446)/download-documents?artifactId=vpFArYxg78Vyi_FCwFaHzYivLQtn7MG8-RLZdmZ2Cm3EsD8577q_7-U ; case landing page: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/case/IPR2022-00830 . Quote the operative sentence: "In light of Patent Owner's Statutory Disclaimer, we decline to institute an inter partes review." Confirm the recorded § 253(a) disclaimer for claims 1–14 and 16–21 in USPTO Patent Center (the "Disclaimer" / eCertificate record) as of its 2022-07-29 filing/recording date.
2. If you are a defendant and a demand letter cites claims 1–14 or 16–21: respond that those claims were statutorily disclaimed and are treated as never having existed, so they cannot be infringed, and that asserting them is not a colorable claim. Ask the patent owner to identify the specific claim asserted; if it is claim 15, demand its infringement chart mapping all limitations of claims 13, 14 and 15 (the plastic-wrap limitation is the only added element over now-dead claim 13).
3. If you want claim 15 invalidated by the Board: there is no pending AIA trial and no estoppel to worry about, but watch the § 315(b) one-year clock from service of any complaint on you or a privy. Reuse the IPR2022-00830 record — including PPC's "Brochure," Blunt (US 2012/0168554), Fontana (US 6,145,780) and the Cable-Tec Expo 2014 public-use evidence — and target the "prepackaged with plastic wrap" limitation specifically, since that is the one element PPC's petition never addressed.
4. No active-proceeding milestones to track. There is no institution-decision deadline, no oral hearing, and no FWD due date on the '632 — IPR2022-00830 terminated on 2022-10-24 and issued no FWD (so the statutory 1-year § 316(a)(11) clock never started). The absence of any live PTAB activity should be stated plainly to any client: on the '632, the fight is over the disclaimer, not the docket.
5. Monitor the family, not this patent. Because the specification is still producing continuations (e.g., US 12,269,706 B2, 2025-04-08), track new Times Fiber issuances claiming priority to 2015-02-27 and consider whether the sibling-patent FWDs (IPR2022-00946/00947/01087/01088) supply § 315(e) estoppel or persuasive authority against any new claims.

Primary/secondary sources consulted: USPTO PTAB decision text for IPR2022-00830 (petition Paper 2 and institution decision, hosted on ptacts.uspto.gov); Google Patents page for US 10,913,632; GreyB IPVerse case page for IPR2022-00830 (https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00830) and Patexia case summary (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/PPC-Broadband-Inc-et-al-v-Times-Fiber-Communications-Inc-id-[163197](/patent/163197)) for the panel, counsels (Petitioner: Cory Bell; Patent Owner: Dale Chang), challenge list and 2022-10-24 institution denial; FWD recitals and citations to IPR2022-00946 Paper 46, IPR2022-00947 Paper 47, IPR2022-01087 Paper 46, IPR2022-01088 Paper 43 found in related-proceeding filings; and the docket mirrors for IPR2022-00830 and IPR2022-00831. Where I could not confirm a fact from a primary source (the "Johanson" exhibit identity; any Federal Circuit appeal of the sibling FWDs; the exact disposition of the Delaware case), I have said so rather than guessing.

I'll research the assignment chain for this patent. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me dig into the corporate relationship and the recorded assignments.

Let me try to pin down the recorded assignment details and the corporate relationship.

Note on source access

I could not query the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) directly with the tools available — it is a JS-driven search app that does not surface reel/frame, correspondent, or execution-date fields to web indexing. The two recorded assignments below come from the Google Patents legal-events mirror of USPTO assignment data for US10913632B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10913632B2/en), which is the same underlying record set, corroborated by the pleadings in Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., D. Del. No. 1:21-cv-01823 (which states repeatedly that the '632 patent "is assigned to TFC").

What I did NOT retrieve, and will not invent: reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and the named correspondent for either recording. Those fields must be pulled directly from Assignment Center (search by patent number 10913632) before anyone relies on them. Claims of specific reel numbers I cannot verify are omitted rather than guessed.

Inventors

All six named inventors, as listed on the face of the patent and its pre-grant publication:

Basis / caveat: the residences above are taken from the face page of sibling family member US 10,988,342 ('342) as reproduced in PPC's IPR exhibits; the '632 face page is expected to match but I did not verify it line-by-line. The employer column is an inference from geography, not a documented employment record: Times Fiber/Amphenol Broadband Solutions operates at 380 Tightsqueeze Industrial Road, Chatham, VA; Liberty, NC; Wallingford, CT; and via Times Fiber Canada Ltd. in Renfrew, Ontario. Three inventors sit in Chatham, one in the NC corridor, one in Ontario — a strong clustering on Times Fiber sites, consistent with the PTAB record in which Times Fiber described the inventors as its own product-development personnel (e.g., "Declaration of Rakesh Thakare," Ex. 2004, IPR2022-00946).

Unusual patterns: none detected, but not fully checkable. I found no evidence of inventors departing, no inventor-held assignments to third parties, and no inventor-side NPE entity. All six inventors appear as assignors on the same single inventor→corporate recording (2021-08-12), which is the normal all-rights transfer. I could not verify post-2015 employment status for any inventor; a former-employee exit pattern cannot be ruled in or out from public records. Note the family was prosecuted five years after the 2015 priority filing via a cluster of 2020 continuations — an artifact of continuation strategy, not of inventor attrition.

Original assignee

Amphenol Corporation (Wallingford, CT) is the assignee named on the issued patent (Applicant of record: "Amphenol Corporation, Wallingford, CT (US)"). Google Patents' "Original Assignee" field likewise reads Amphenol Corp.

• Status: operating, public. NYSE: APH; incorporated in Delaware 1986; headquarters 358 Hall Avenue, Wallingford, CT (per Amphenol's own 10-K and product literature).
• Primary line of business: interconnect, sensor, and antenna solutions — electrical/electronic/fiber-optic connectors, interconnect systems, and coaxial and high-speed specialty cable.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — through its Times Fiber unit. The accused/competing product is the Amphenol Sustainable Solution "Tech Service Bag" with a reusable reel and reel-less pre-wound 500-ft cable coil, rolled out in 2015 with Charter Communications and standardized for Charter supply by 2017. This is documented in Times Fiber's own patent-owner briefing in the sibling IPRs (IPR2022-00946/-00947), which states Times Fiber "sold 500 ft. reel-less coils" for the Tech Service Bags and that PPC and CommScope "marketed copies of the claimed invention." That is the strongest available evidence that the claims are commercially practiced by the owner.
• Relationship of Amphenol and Times Fiber: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. has been inside Amphenol since December 1992, when Amphenol acquired LPL Technologies Inc. and its wholly owned Times Fiber unit (NYT, 1993-07-28; Hartford Courant, 1992-09-12). It is currently described as a subsidiary of Amphenol Broadband Solutions (Virginia Business, reporting a June 2026 WARN notice). This matters for the assignment analysis: the 2022 Amphenol→Times Fiber recording is an intra-corporate move, not a sale out of the family.
• Recent corporate context (single-source, flag for verification): the same Virginia Business report states Times Fiber will close its Chatham, VA cable plant (78 jobs; WARN letter dated June 29, layoffs through end of October), and references Amphenol's January 2026 closing of a $10.5 billion acquisition of CommScope's connectivity and cable business. Treat both as reported-not-verified here.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded assignments, plus one material non-assignment Office record. Reel/frame, execution dates, and correspondents were not retrievable — see the access note above. Execution dates are shown as "not retrieved" rather than inferred from recording dates (recording can lag execution by months; here it demonstrably did for at least one link).

1. Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2021-08-12 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor→corporate; Google labels it "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
   • Assignor: Barry Holt; Caichun Song; Paul Richard Boucher; Phillip Stanley Bowen; Marvin Bryant; Rakesh Thakare (all six inventors)
   • Assignee: Amphenol Corporation
   • Correspondent: not retrieved. Adjacent but distinct: prosecution correspondence for this application was handled by Tara L. Marcus / Tara Lynette Laster Hoffman, Blank Rome LLP, 1825 Eye Street NW, Washington, DC 20006 (Customer No. 27557; docket series 111429-00xxx) — the same counsel appears across the whole 15-application family. That is prosecution counsel of record, not confirmed as the assignment-record correspondent. Flagging it because it is the name most likely to appear on the recording; do not treat it as established.
   • Context: routine vesting of inventor rights in the original corporate assignee (not a fire-sale, reorg, or asserter transfer).

2. Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2022-04-19 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment (Google's legal-events text: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
   • Assignor: Amphenol Corporation
   • Assignee: Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrieved. No recurrence pattern can be established on a two-record chain in any event — see signal 3 below.
   • Context: internal corporate reorg / transfer within the existing Amphenol family. Times Fiber has been an Amphenol subsidiary since Dec. 1992, so this is not a divestiture or fire-sale; it moved title to the operating unit that makes and sells the claimed bag-and-reel system and that was simultaneously asserting the family against PPC.

3. Non-assignment event, included for ownership-relevant completeness — recorded 2022-07-28 (statutory disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. § 253(a))

   • Party: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (then patent owner)
   • Effect: disclaimed claims 1–14 and 16–21 — i.e., all three independent claims and nearly the entire claim set. This is what caused the Board to deny institution in IPR2022-00830 (2022-10-24) under 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(e).
   • Note: this is an Office record affecting title/scope, not a conveyance, so it does not belong in an assignment-reel chain; my earlier summary flagged a database discrepancy as to whether claim 15 was challenged/disclaimed, and that remains unresolved here.

No security agreements, mergers, name changes, licenses, releases, or corrections are reflected in the legal-events record for this patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10913632
    2015 : Filed by Amphenol Corporation
    2021 : Patent issued 9 Feb
         : Inventors assign to Amphenol recorded 12 Aug
         : Times Fiber sues PPC in Delaware 27 Dec
    2022 : Amphenol assigns to Times Fiber recorded 19 Apr
         : Claims 1 to 14 and 16 to 21 disclaimed 28 Jul

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only two assignees are Amphenol Corporation (NYSE: APH, Delaware corporation, Wallingford CT) and Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (an Amphenol unit since Dec. 1992, operating the Chatham VA cable plant with a 50-year local history). No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent address, no single-purpose LLC. The 2022 transfer is within an existing corporate family, not to a new entity.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither Amphenol nor Times Fiber appears on the RPX/Unified high-frequency-plaintiff lists, and I found no match to Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, or Spangenberg entities. The counterparty that is active in the PTAB/cluster of cases — PPC Broadband — is the accused infringer and IPR petitioner, not an assignee here. Note also the direction of fire: Times Fiber, the practicing manufacturer, sued PPC; PPC filed five IPRs against the family.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not established. Only two assignments exist in this chain and both move toward the same corporate family, so recurrence cannot be diagnostic. The one name that recurs across the family's filings is Tara L. Marcus / Blank Rome LLP (prosecution of 14/634,007 and the 2020 continuations), but (a) I could not confirm she is the assignment-record correspondent, and (b) Blank Rome is a large general-practice firm doing ordinary operating-company patent work — a single-firm recurrence here would not be an NPE tell. Do not score this as a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLCs, no shared anonymous correspondent addresses, no common-principal shells. Two recordings, ~8 months apart, both same-direction within one corporate family.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear, and materially so. Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., D. Del. No. 1:21-cv-01823, was filed 2021-12-27; the Amphenol→TFC recording is 2022-04-19, i.e. after the complaint. That cuts against a "transfer to enable assertion" story. But the execution date is unknown, and the complaint already asserted the '632 patent "is assigned to TFC" — so the instrument was likely signed before filing and merely recorded later. Either way, the transfer is within the Amphenol family to the operating subsidiary that was already selling the product to Charter, so even a pre-suit execution would be ordinary assertion-standings housekeeping, not an NPE setup.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 involving Amphenol or Times Fiber; Amphenol is a large, profitable public company. The only nearby distress is the reported 2026 Chatham plant closure — a site/headcount event, not an insolvency sale of the portfolio.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no operating-company-to-unrelated-NPE transfer, and no evidence Amphenol parked patents with a third party to sue competitors. The owner of record is the subsidiary that physically manufactures the coaxial cable and bags at issue and that itself appeared in the PTAB as Patent Owner.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Cross-checks attempted and their yield: Amphenol's SEC filings (10-K/8-K) surfaced no disclosure of this assignment — intra-subsidiary patent transfers are not reportable events, so absence there is expected and not evidence of anything. RPX/Unified asserter directories show no Amphenol or Times Fiber presence as an NPE. One of the search hits I reviewed (a court exhibit reproducing Assignment Center UI output) confirms the field structure — Conveyance, Reel/Frame, Execution Date, Legal Entity Type, State of Organization, Correspondent attorney/firm — which is exactly the set still to be harvested for reels 1 and 2 above.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Times Fiber Communications, Inc. — an operating coaxial-cable manufacturer inside Amphenol since December 1992 and a subsidiary of Amphenol Broadband Solutions — is the owner of record via the assignment recorded 2022-04-19, and it commercially practices the claims through the Amphenol Sustainable Solution Tech Service Bag with reusable reel and 500-ft reel-less coil (Times Fiber's own Ex. 2004/2005–2012 in IPR2022-00946/-00947; Charter rollout 2015, standardized 2017). It asserted the five-patent family, including the '632 patent, against competitor PPC Broadband in D. Del. No. 1:21-cv-01823 (filed 2021-12-27), i.e., against an actual market rival rather than as a licensing-only plaintiff.

Important qualifier that a pure "operating company" label can obscure: the assertion as to this specific patent was effectively abandoned. Under the 2022-07-28 statutory disclaimer, claims 1–14 and 16–21 — every independent claim — were disclaimed, and institution in IPR2022-00830 was denied on that basis (2022-10-24). So the '632 patent is best characterized as an operating company's patent that was asserted and then deliberately surrendered scope-wise, with the family's real assertion value residing in siblings such as US 10,988,342 and US 11,001,471.

To verify: log into Assignment Center, search patent number 10913632, and capture for each recording the reel/frame, execution date, legal-entity type, state of organization, and correspondent attorney/firm — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (Google's mirrored legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10913632B2/en). If both recordings carry the same correspondent, note it, but on a two-link intra-family chain it would still not constitute an NPE signal.

I'll verify the citation list and key references for US 10,913,632 before mapping them to claims.

Prior Art Analysis — US 10,913,632 B2 ("Cable reel")

Search scope and method. I searched the USPTO-derived record for the literal number 10,913,632 and retrieved the full text of US10913632B2 (via the Google Patents mirror of the USPTO record, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10913632/en), together with USPTO PTAB (PTACTS) documents in the same family. I did not run a dedicated USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search full-text query in this session, and I did not retrieve the full specification of every cited reference individually. Where I describe a reference's disclosure, I mark:

• ✓ = content verified from a fetched source in this session
• ~ = description inferred from the citation title/abstract only (treat as preliminary)

One methodological note that matters for the whole exercise: the record carries two citation lists — a "Citations (51)" list and a "Patent Citations (60)" list. They differ slightly (the 60-list adds US 6,145,780 A and drops some entries), and the 60-list was truncated in my fetch at US 6,234,421 B1, so I cannot enumerate all 60 with confidence. I analyze the union of what is visible and flag the gap rather than fabricate the rest.

1. Threshold §102 gating (do these references even count?)

The '632 patent's claims are entitled to the 2015-02-27 priority date (continuation chain: 17/022,725 ← 16/804,577 ← 15/833,091 ← 15/433,789 ← 14/634,007). All family members were filed on or after 2013-03-16, so the AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs.

Three entries in the citation lists are not prior art to the '632 claims:

Also note US 2015/0321876 A1 (Southwire, "Rotatable Cable Reel," priority 2013-03-05, published 2015-11-12) and US 9,908,737 B2 (Perfectvision, priority 2011-10-07, published 2018-03-06): both are properly citable only as §102(a)(2) prior art (earlier effective filing, published later).

2. Claim-set context (cross-reference, not repeated)

As established in the prior sections: claims 1–14 and 16–21 were statutorily disclaimed on 2022-07-28, and IPR2022-00830 was not instituted (2022-10-24) "Due to Disclaimer of All Challenged Claims." I flagged there that claim 15 appears not to have been challenged or disclaimed, creating an open question about its status — I could not resolve that. This matters here: any §102 mapping below is commercially relevant almost entirely to claim 15 (dependent on claim 13), because claims 1, 13, and 21 are disclaimed. I also reiterate the earlier flag: if claim 15 is live while its parent claim 13 is disclaimed, that is an unusual posture deserving verification at the USPTO.

There is one additional data point that sharpens the analysis and was not in the prior sections: the prosecution history of the sibling '016 patent (US 10,941,016, Exhibit 1056 in IPR2022-00946) shows the examiner rejecting the sibling's apparatus claims under §103 over Galgano et al. (US 8,016,222) in view of Fontana (US 6,145,780), with Eisele (DE 400 1250 A1) cited for the friction-fit / frusto-conical wall connection. ✓ That is direct evidence of how the Office itself mapped this family's bag + two-frame + two-hub-portion architecture onto cited art.

3. Tier 1 — Most relevant prior art (best §102 candidates)

Full element set of each independent claim: (i) bag with base, cover, payout opening; (ii) first and second frames inside the bag; (iii) two flanges rotatably coupled/positioned on the frames (inner side, outer side, central opening; outer side facing its frame); (iv) an elongated (annular) wall from the first flange's inner side releasably coupling to the second flange / a truncated (annular) wall, forming a hub supporting the coil; and (v) the cover-actuated coupling — "when the cover… is closed… the second frame releasably couples with the second flange and… when the cover… is opened… the second frame decouples."

4. Tier 2 — Secondary art (element-level §103 support; no realistic standalone §102)

5. Tier 3 — Peripheral / weak art

• Design patents: USD 641,161 S1 and USD 641,163 S1 (CommScope, "Cable payout caddy," 2009-06-15 / 2011-07-12); USD 686,907 S1 (Perfectvision, "Portable enclosure for spooled products," 2012-01-19 / 2013-07-30). Design patents claim ornamentation only; they are weak (though technically available) printed-publication art and cannot anticipate structural apparatus claims on their own.
• JP 2007-090707 A — Seiko I Infotech, "Roll body holding device, recording device, and roll body holding method" (2005-09-29 / 2007-04-12): roll-holding art from a printer context.
• US 2012/0318939 A1 — Windy City Wire, "Tool tray and drafting table for use with cable-containing cartons" (2011-06-15 / 2012-12-20): accessory for cable cartons.
• US 204,202 A (1878-05-28) and GB 1,031,350 A (1963-12-12 / 1966-06-02, "Improved coil former") and GB 1,417,961 A (1971-08-16 / 1975-12-17, "Spools") and US 1,418,706 A (Western Electric, "Reeling device," 1920-12-13 / 1922-06-06): ancient/background coil-former and reel art; no §102 exposure beyond generic hub/coil supporting.
• US 2009/0008494 A1 — Maley, "Spool assembly for dispensing a coil of wire" (2007-07-06 / 2009-01-08): worth noting as arguably the closest cited art to the reel-less-coil-loading concept of claims 10/14/15 — it appears only in the "Family Cites Families" list, not the '632 face citations.

6. Bottom line on §102 anticipation

1. No single reference cited on the face of US 10,913,632 discloses every limitation of claim 1, 13, or 21 arranged as claimed. The decisive limitation (element (v)) is functional and unusual: covering and uncovering the bag itself must couple and decouple the second frame from the second flange. On the record I retrieved, none of the cited references describes bag-cover-actuated frame/flange coupling. The same limitation is what the prior sections identified as the operative claim hook, and it is the reason this family's claims were asserted as apparatus claims.
2. The closest single-reference §102 candidate is US 6,145,780 A (Italiana Conduttori, "Portable device for dispensing cables," 1996-07-31 / 2000-11-14) — verified through the sibling '016 prosecution, where the examiner treated it as disclosing a rigid-sided bag with first and second flanges each having a hub portion extending from the inner surface and releasably coupled to the other. If Fontana also discloses two frames inside the bag and the cover-actuated coupling, claim 13 (and hence claim 15) falls under §102(a)(1). I could not verify those two elements; this is the single highest-value verification task remaining.
3. The strongest "two frames inside a container" art is US 8,016,222 B2 (Galgano/Windy City Wire), and the closest "bag with payout opening" art is US 2010/0314484 A1 (Houston/CommScope). Neither alone reaches the hub-coupling or cover-actuation limitations; the Office itself paired Galgano with Fontana (+ Eisele for the friction fit) under §103.
4. Claim 21's truncated/elongated annular wall geometry is squarely met by DE 400 1250 A1 (Eisele), cited in this family for precisely that purpose.
5. Caveat on posture: because claims 1–14 and 16–21 were statutorily disclaimed, item 1's conclusion is largely academic except as it bears on claim 15, whose own status I could not resolve.

Not retrieved / recommended next steps: the IPR2022-00830 petition against the '632 patent itself (P-TACTS, filed 2022-04-18) would state PPC's own §102/§103 theory and reference set for these exact claims; I retrieved petitions for the '957 sibling instead. Also worth pulling: the '632's own file wrapper (App. 17/022,725) PTO-892/1449 and examiner's §102/§103 rejections, and the full text of US 6,145,780 A to test the two unverified elements in item 2.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,913,632 ("Cable reel") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on scope and evidence. This memo builds on the two previously generated sections (Patent summary; Litigation summary) and does not repeat their bibliographic, continuity, or litigation content except where it bears directly on the § 103 question. My mapping of references is derived from the Prior Art section of the Google Patents record for US10913632B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10913632](/patent/US10913632)/en) — i.e., the "Citations (51)" / "Patent Citations (60)" lists and the "Family Cites Families (9)" list. That record gives me only bibliographic data (number, dates, assignee, title) for each reference, not its text. Where I infer a disclosure from a title or classification I mark it [INFERRED — verify against reference text]. Where I cannot responsibly infer, I say so. This is a technical analysis, not legal advice.

I. Two threshold caveats that change the practical posture

1. Most of the claims are gone. As established in the prior sections, the patent owner filed a statutory disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. § 253(a) on 2022-07-28 covering claims 1–14 and 16–21, and the Board denied institution of IPR2022-00830 on 2022-10-24 for that reason. A § 253(a) disclaimer is treated as if the claims never existed — it is not an invalidity adjudication, and it is not a § 103 ruling. So there is no PTAB merits determination of obviousness for this patent to build on. The analysis below is therefore necessarily de novo and is framed as (a) a defensive/prior-art landscape assessment, and (b) directly transferable to the sibling family patents whose claims recite the same subject matter (e.g., US 10,906,771; US 10,941,016; US 10,988,342; US 11,001,471).
2. Claim 15. Claim 15 depends from claim 13. Claim 13 was disclaimed. A dependent claim cannot have independent scope once its parent is disclaimed, so even if claim 15 was not named in the disclaimer, it confers no separately enforceable scope. I flag this rather than assert it as a legal conclusion; the prior summary already notes the 1–14/16–21 vs. 1–21 discrepancy across third-party databases.

II. Governing standard and claim construction of the limitations that matter

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the question is whether the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art would have been obvious to a POSITA at the effective filing date, considering the scope/content of the prior art, the differences, the level of ordinary skill, and objective indicia. KSR supplies the familiar rationales: combining known elements according to known methods to yield predictable results; simple substitution of one known element for another; use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; and "obvious to try" where the design space is small and the solution predictable.

POSITA. A person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–3 years of experience in cable/wire packaging, dispensing, or spool/reel design, or a skilled technician with 5+ years in that field. The relevant art is B65H 49/00–49/32 (unwinding/package support, hand-held dispensers, enclosing boxes with reel support) and B65H 75/00–75/24 (reels, two-end flanges, collapsible/removable-part construction, expansible spindles) — which are precisely the classes assigned to the '632 patent.

Key limitations for § 103 purposes (claim 1):

Claim 13 replaces E with "first hub portion on the inner side of the first flange" + "second hub portion on the inner side of the second flange" that releasably couple to form a hub member. Claim 21 recites the elongated annular wall / truncated annular wall pair and a pre-wound, reel-less coil.

Critical observation: nothing in independent claims 1, 13, or 21 recites the flexible/expandable segments or the braking gear members that dominate the specification and the abstract. Those features are absent from the granted claims and cannot supply patentable weight here (they are, however, claim limitations in sibling patents such as US 9,873,588 / US 10,611,598, which is where any § 103 strength in this family actually resides).

Effective filing date — the single biggest lever. The '632 patent claims priority to 2015-02-27 through a chain of continuations (17/022,725 ← 16/804,577 ← 15/833,091 ← 15/433,789 ← divisional of 14/634,007). Assuming the chain is unbroken and copendency held, the critical date is 2015-02-27. If a defendant successfully attacks the priority chain (e.g., a gap in copendency around the abandoned 16/804,577 or a written-description challenge to the bag/frame subject matter in the 2015 parent), the critical date collapses to 2020-09-16, which makes the entire 2015–2020 payout-bag market (including the assignee's own intervening publications and the Southwire / Windy City Wire / PPC commercial prior art) available. That materially strengthens every combination below. I could not verify copendency dates for the intermediate applications from the record provided; [VERIFY].

III. The prior art landscape (as cited on the '632 record)

Categorized by the limitation each reference is best positioned to supply. All are pre-2015 unless flagged. Entries marked † are not citable prior art for the reasons given.

Category 1 — Payout bags / containers with a dispensing opening

• US 2010/0314484 A1 (2009-06-15) Eddy/CommScope, Communications cable payout bags — [INFERRED: primary reference; bag/box with internal reel support and payout]
• US 2006/0157366 A1 (2003-08-20) Limber, Storage bag for reels
• US 2012/0091249 A1 (2010-10-19) John Mezzalingua Assocs., Cable carrying case
• US 2005/0035240 A1 (2003-08-15) Micasa/Impex, Container for a roll of a wire-like component … method of paying the component from the roll
• US 2,965,331 (1959) Nagy, Dispensing container for roll material; US 4,650,073 (1985) Young, Electric cable container and dispenser; US 8,251,212 B2 (2009) Dunlap, barrel-shaped case

Category 2 — Caddies / frames that rotatably support a spool or reel

• US 9,908,737 B2 (2011-10-07) Perfectvision, Cable reel and reel carrying caddy
• US 2012/0153069 A1 (2010-12-15) ADC GmbH, Assembly for dispensing cable
• US 5,775,621 (1994) We Cousins, Combination reel caddy and stand for cable spools
• US 6,523,777 B2 (2001) Gaudio, Portable wire spool caddy
• US 2010/0078514 A1 (2008) Thompson, Portable wire spool holding device
• US 5,810,283 (1996) United Technologies Automotive, Apparatus and method for wire coil payoff
• US 2,404,417 (1944) Hickey, Wire carrier for workmen

Category 3 — Coils supplied reel-less / minimal-package, and payoff devices for the same

• US 6,352,215 B1 (2000-02-09) Southwire, Payoff device for a reeless package — [key reference for "prepackaged without a reel"]
• US 3,693,784 (1971) Holmes, Wire package; US 5,704,479 (1995) Essex Group, Wire storing and dispensing package

Category 4 — Two-part / mating / snap-fit / friction-fit hub and flange assemblies

• US 5,464,171 (1993) Ripplinger, Mating spool assembly for relieving stress concentrations
• US 6,045,087 (1996) Vislocky, Spool assembly for snap fit of flanges and spindle having guiding members for aligning with the flanges spindle
• US 6,234,421 B1 (1996) Vandor, Reel having secured flanges
• DE 4001250 A1 (1990) Industriebedarf Eisele, Reel for winding yarn — constructed from frustra of cones, which can be separated then stacked — [key reference for annular/tapered mating walls]
• US 2014/0312159 A1 (2011-01-21) Maschinenfabrik Niehoff, Spool for receiving winding material and spool part system
• GB 1,031,350 (1963) Ericsson, Improved coil former; GB 1,417,961 (1971) Dutton, Spools; US 1,418,706 (1920) Western Electric, Reeling device
• US 2009/0008494 A1 (2007) Maley, Spool assembly for dispensing a coil of wire; US 6,241,181 B1 (1999) Campbell, Reusable wire distribution spool

Category 5 — Controlled payout / tension / braking (relevant only to the specification, not the claims)

• US 2,033,578 (1933) Kittel, Constant tension web control; US 7,140,598 B2 (2004) Campbell Hausfeld, Freefall windlass with governor; US 2012/0168554 A1 (2011) Blunt, System for storing a bulk supply of cable for controlled payout; US 2011/0240791 A1 (2010) Lindley; EP 2017211 A1 (2007) Nexans

Category 6 — Reel-and-carton systems

• US 8,016,222 B2 (2008) Windy City Wire, Wire and cable dispensing container and systems; US 2010/0320309 A1 (2009) Windy City Wire, Multiple reel cable carton; US 7,936,357 B2 (2009) Sonoco, Dispenser for elongate material; US 7,204,452 B2 (2005) Sonoco

References that must be excluded from any combination:

• US 9,862,566 B2 (Amphenol) — † same family, common 2015-02-27 priority; not prior art against the '632 patent.
• US 10,065,668 B2 (Lake Cable, filed 2015-05-29, Cable dispensing system and apparatus) — † post-dates the 2015-02-27 critical date (usable only if the priority chain breaks).
• US 2015/0312159 A1 (Microsoft, "Mechanism to save system power using packet filtering by network interface," priority 2011-07-13) — † data artifact. Its trailing digits duplicate Niehoff's US 2014/0312159 A1 and its stated subject matter is unrelated to cable reels. Do not treat as prior art on this record.
• US 2015/0321876 A1 (Southwire, Rotatable Cable Reel, filed 2013-03-05) — is available as prior art under AIA § 102(a)(2) (effectively filed 2013), and is highly relevant. It is listed in the record as a "cited by examiner/third party" citation against the family.

IV. Proposed combinations and motivation — independent claims

A. Claim 1

Primary combination: US 2010/0314484 A1 (Eddy/CommScope payout bag) + US 9,908,737 B2 (Perfectvision cable reel and caddy) + US 6,352,215 B1 (Southwire reeless package)

Motivation (articulated under KSR):

1. The problem was known and named in the '632 specification's own Background. Cable installers carry prepackaged reels/coils in shoulder bags with a payout opening; the stated need was easier installation of the coil into such a bag. Because the objective problem was already articulated in the field, the combination is "the product … of ordinary creativity, not innovation."
2. Known technique, predictable result. Mounting a coil on a two-part (male/female) hub and dropping the assembly into a dispensing bag is the mechanical sum of two known, compatible techniques: (i) two-part spool assembly (Ripplinger; Vislocky; Vandor; Niehoff), and (ii) bag/carton payout (Eddy; Windy City Wire '222; Micasa '240). No new mode of operation results; the parts retain their ordinary functions.
3. The reel-less coil business driver. Southwire '215 ("Payoff device for a reeless package") and Micasa '240 establish that the industry was already dispensing coils supplied without a reel and providing aftermarket hardware to pay them off. A POSITA seeking to sell an inexpensive prepackaged cable coil would have been directly led to a reusable, reloadable two-part hub that captures the bare coil — which is exactly the claim-1 architecture. This is a textbook KSR "known problem → known solution" fact pattern.
4. Design incentive for limitation F. Making the second frame live on the bag's cover so that closing the bag seats the flange and opening the bag releases it is a straightforward application of known bag construction (payout bags with hinged lids) to the known need to load/unload the coil. The '632 specification itself concedes this is the operating sequence ("The operator may open the cover of the bag or box to separate the hub portions"). Using a closure event to seat a part is one of the most predictable mechanical design choices available.
5. No teaching away and no criticality. Nothing in the cited art disparages a two-part hub or a cover-mounted frame; the offset gear/braking feature that the specification emphasizes is not claimed and therefore cannot distinguish the claims.

Anticipation-adjacent check: if US 2010/0314484 (or US 2012/0153069, ADC) in fact discloses both the base-and-cover support frames and a mating reel hub, claim 1 would be anticipated under § 102 rather than obvious. I could not verify that from the record provided [VERIFY]; if verified, it becomes the strongest ground.

B. Claim 13

Claim 13 differs from claim 1 by (i) "positioned on" rather than "rotatably coupled to" and (ii) reciting first/second hub portions on the inner sides that releasably couple to form a hub member.

Combination: US 2010/0314484 (bag + frames, per above) + US 6,234,421 B1 (Vandor, reel having secured flanges) + US 2014/0312159 A1 (Niehoff, spool part system)

• Vandor '421 supplies a reel whose two flanges carry hub structure that is secured together to define a hub — the functional equivalent of claim 13's "hub member."
• Niehoff '2159 supplies a modular spool part system (interchangeable spool parts), which supplies both "first hub portion" and "second hub portion" coupled to opposite flanges, and provides the motivation to make the joint releasable so that a coil can be replaced — which is the point of a part system.
• Motivation: where a bag is intended as reusable packaging (a commercial trend plainly visible in US 6,241,181, reusable wire distribution spool), a POSITA would replace riveted/permanently-secured flange hubs with the known releasable hub couplings of Vandor/Niehoff/Vislocky to permit reloading. The difference between "coupled" (Vandor) and "releasably coupled" (claim 13) is a predictable, well-motivated modification.
• Note for litigation: the word "positioned on" in claim 13 is broader than "rotatably coupled" in claim 1. Broader terminology in the independent claim reduces the nonobviousness argument for claim 13 — a reference that merely rests a flange on a frame support reads on claim 13.

C. Claim 21

Claim 21 adds (i) elongated annular first wall, (ii) truncated annular second wall, both transverse to their flanges, releasably coupled to form a hub, and (iii) a pre-wound reel-less coil.

Combination: US 2010/0314484 + US 6,352,215 B1 (Southwire reeless package) + DE 4001250 A1 (Eisele, frustoconical separable reel) [or US 5,464,171 (Ripplinger)]

• "Pre-wound, reel-less coil": supplied squarely by Southwire '215 (payoff device for a reeless package) and US 2,965,331 (Nagy). The '632 specification itself confirms the coil "may be prepacked in a plastic shrink wrap … without any external structure to support that coil" — i.e., the reel-less coil is the starting material, not the invention.
• "Elongated annular wall" + "truncated annular wall" that mate: supplied by DE 4001250 in near-identical structural terms — a reel "constructed from frustra of cones, which can be separated then stacked." A frustum (truncated cone) telescoped into an annulus is precisely the geometry claim 21 recites. Ripplinger '171 (mating spool assembly) and GB 1,031,350 (coil former) supply annular-wall matings more generally.
• Motivation: to adapt a reel-less coil for a reloadable payout bag, the POSITA needs a hub that (a) fits the coil's inner diameter, (b) can be assembled around a bare coil that has no core, and (c) releases for reloading. A tapered/truncated annular wall telescoped into an elongated annular wall achieves all three with a self-centering friction fit — the classic reason frustoconical spool halves exist in the winding arts (DE '250). Combining that known joint with the known openable payout bag is the application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement.

V. Dependent claims 2–12 and 14–20

Because each dependent claim merely narrows toward structure that the spool/reel art already shows, I would expect all of 2–12 and 14–20 to fall with the independents on an obviousness theory of the same or greater strength.

VI. Objective indicia and expected counterarguments

• Secondary considerations. I found no evidence in the record of unexpected results, long-felt-but-unmet need, industry praise, licensing, or copying tied by nexus to the claimed subject matter. Any commercial-success evidence flowing from the braking gear feature would lack nexus, because no claim recites braking. If objective indicia are asserted, nexus must be proved to the claim-1 bag/frame/hub combination.
• Likely patent-owner rebuttals and my assessment:
  1. "Non-analogous art." Weak — all cited references are classified in or adjacent to B65H 49 and B65H 75, the '632 patent's own classes.
  2. "Improper hindsight." This is the strongest available defense, and it succeeds only if the combination requires an unavailable teaching. The DE 4001250 frustoconical-separable-reel and Southwire '215 reeless-package references blunt that argument: they supply the very reason to build a releasable, coil-capturing hub.
  3. "The flexible expanding segments are the invention." Correct as to the specification — but the segments appear in no granted independent claim, so they cannot rebut a prima facie case against claims 1, 13, and 21.
• A weakness in the claim drafting that favors a challenger: claim 1 uses two different releasable couplings — the elongated wall "releasably couples to the second flange" and, separately, "the second frame releasably couples with the second flange." That ambiguity makes the claims hard to distinguish from art in which the flange-to-hub joint and the flange-to-frame joint are both mere interference or seated fits.

VII. Bottom line

1. The best § 103 case against claim 1 is the three-way combination US 2010/0314484 (payout bag) + US 9,908,737 or US 5,775,621 (frame/caddy rotatably supporting a flange) + US 6,045,087 / US 5,464,171 / US 6,234,421 (releasable mating flange-hub) — with US 6,352,215 (reeless package) supplying the reason to build a releasable hub around a bare coil. Motivation is strong because the '632 patent's own Background names the problem, and because the reel-less coil was already an established commercial format.
2. The best case against claims 13 and 21 adds US 6,234,421 / US 2014/0312159 (modular two-part hub) and DE 4001250 (frustoconical separable reel) respectively. Claim 21's "elongated annular wall + truncated annular wall" is nearly a textual description of DE '250.
3. Confidence is limited by the evidence I have. I analyzed titles, dates, assignees, and classifications from the Google Patents citations lists only. Every mapping marked [INFERRED] must be confirmed against the references' actual disclosure (specification and figures) before any ground is asserted in a petition or invalidity contention. The two references most worth pulling first are US 2010/0314484 A1 (may anticipate claim 1 outright) and US 6,352,215 B1 (may explicitly disclose the reel-less coil and a payoff hub for it).
4. Practical reality: claims 1–14 and 16–21 were statutorily disclaimed and IPR2022-00830 was never instituted, so this analysis has no live effect on the '632 patent itself. Its real value is as a template for the sibling family members (US 10,906,771; US 10,941,016; US 10,988,342; US 11,001,471) that did reach Final Written Decisions, and as a defensive roadmap should the priority chain to 2015-02-27 ever be successfully broken — which would open the 2015–2020 prior art (including US 10,065,668 (Lake Cable) and US 2015/0321876 (Southwire)) to the analysis.

Sources: Google Patents record and citation lists for US10913632B2 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US10913632/en (fetched 2026-09-29). Claim numbering and limitations quoted from the "Claims (21)" section of that record; reference dates and titles from its "Citations"/"Patent Citations"/"Family Cites Families" sections. The § 253(a) disclaimer and IPR2022-00830 disposition are carried forward from the previously generated sections of this analysis and were not independently re-verified here.