US 10941016

I'll check live sources for the patent and any 2026 litigation activity before summarizing.

Let me check the PTAB outcome and any Federal Circuit activity.

Let me check for any Federal Circuit appeal or 2026 CAFC docket activity on this patent.

US Patent 10,941,016 B2 — Summary

Sources: Full patent text at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10941016](/patent/US10941016)/en (fetched 2026-09-29); PTAB Final Written Decision, IPR2022-01087 (Dec. 18, 2023); D. Del. complaint in Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-01823.

Note on your scope request: you asked me to search the USPTO and CAFC 2026 dockets for this specific number. I found no CAFC/Federal Circuit docket entry for 10,941,016 in the results returned, and no 2026 activity. Everything below is grounded in the patent's own text plus the PTAB and district-court records retrieved. I flag points of uncertainty explicitly.

Bibliographic data

Continuity chain (from the printed patent, "Related U.S. Application Data"): this patent is a continuation of Ser. No. 16/804,577 (filed Feb. 28, 2020), which is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/833,091 (filed Dec. 6, 2017, now US 10,589,957), which is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/433,789 (filed Feb. 15, 2017, now US 9,862,566), which is a divisional of Ser. No. 14/634,007 (filed Feb. 27, 2015, now US 9,695,008).

Data discrepancy to flag: the Unified Patents portal entry for this grant lists priority date 2015-02-26, application date 2020-10-18, and grant date 2021-03-08, i.e., one day earlier across the board versus the patent's own face page (2015-02-27 / 2020-10-19 / 2021-03-09). These are almost certainly time-zone artifacts in the aggregator. I treat the patent's own printed dates as authoritative.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A cable reel apparatus that includes a bag, a first frame that is configured to be received inside the bag, a first flange that is configured to be removably engaged with the first frame, a second frame that is configured to be received inside the bag, a second flange that is configured to be removably engaged with said second frame, and a hub member that is configured to releasably couple the first flange with the second flange, and the hub member is configured to support a coil of cable."

Plain-language overview of each independent claim

Claim 1 — Cable reel apparatus (the "two-wall, two-frame, bag" claim).
A reel for holding a pre-wound, reel-less coil of cable. It has a central longitudinal axis and two separate flanges:

• The first flange rotatably couples to a first frame and must be smaller than the outer frame portion of that frame. Its inner side carries an elongated wall projecting transversely along the axis.
• The second flange is separate from the first, rotatably couples to a second frame (also smaller than that frame's outer frame portion), and its inner side carries a truncated wall.

The elongated and truncated walls releasably couple to one another to support the coil, and can be decoupled when the coil is replaced after payout. Both walls are sized to be received inside the coil's inner diameter. The two frames sit on inner surfaces of a bag having a payout opening. The bag is configured so the second flange can be removed from the elongated wall, allowing the coil to be loaded onto and unloaded from the elongated wall. The first frame is in the base, the second frame at the cover, so that closing the cover releasably couples the second frame to the second flange, and opening the cover decouples them.

Claim 7 — Cable reel apparatus (the "bag + two frames + two hub portions" claim).
A bag with a base, a cover, and a payout opening. First and second frames are disposed on inner surfaces of the bag. A first flange sits on the first frame (its outer side facing the frame) and has a first hub portion on its inner side; a second, separate flange sits on the second frame and has a second hub portion on its inner side. The two hub portions releasably couple to support a coil of cable and decouple when the coil is replaced after payout, and are sized to be received within the coil's inner diameter. The bag allows the second flange to be removed from the first hub portion so the coil can be loaded/unloaded, and the base/cover frame arrangement gives the same close-to-couple / open-to-decouple behavior as claim 1.

Claim 14 — Cable reel apparatus (the "means-plus-function" claim).
A first flange (rotatably coupled to a first frame, smaller than that frame's outer frame portion, with inner side, outer side, and a central opening) has a first hub portion extending from its inner side; a separate second flange (coupled to a second frame, smaller than that frame's outer frame portion, with inner side, outer side, and central opening) has a second hub portion extending from its inner side. The claim then recites "means for releasably coupling" the first and second hub portions to form a hub member supporting a pre-wound, reel-less coil of cable, and decoupling them when replacing a dispensed coil. The first frame is in a bag base and the second frame at the bag cover, giving the same coupling/decoupling behavior on closing/opening.

Note: this "means for" limitation was treated as a 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) limitation. In IPR2022-01087, the petitioner's briefing states that the Examiner mapped the limitation to elements 10 and 11 of the Eisele reference and that the patent owner acquiesced to that mapping (per the petitioner's reply/public version). I did not independently verify that characterization in the prosecution history itself.

Claim 16 — Cable reel apparatus (the "square-frame" claim).
A bag with a first side (cover) and second side (base). A first frame is received inside the bag and positioned at the first side; it has a substantially square geometry with an outer frame portion and at least one cross member. A first flange is removably engaged with that first frame. A second frame, also received in the bag and positioned at the second side, likewise has a substantially square geometry with an outer frame portion and at least one cross member, and a second flange is removably engaged with it. A hub member releasably couples the first and second flanges and supports a coil of cable.

Dependent-claim highlights: claim 2 — coil is "prepacked"; claim 3 — flange and wall are one-piece; claim 4 — friction fit; claim 5 — truncated wall received inside a receiving area of the elongated wall; claim 6 — walls extend about central openings; claim 8 — coil "prepackaged without a reel"; claim 9 — coil prepackaged with plastic wrap; claims 10–13 — friction surfaces, elongated/truncated annular walls; claim 15 — at least one hub portion is an elongated annular wall; claims 17–19 — hub member extending from the first flange's inner surface, two mating hub portions, and the cover/close decoupling behavior.

Litigation and post-grant status (retrieved, not assumed)

• District court: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.). TFC asserted the '016 patent together with US 10,988,342, 11,001,471, 10,906,771, and 10,913,632 against PPC's coaxial cable/reusable reel products (e.g., "Perfect Flex" cable and reusable reel, "Perfect Tote 500 ECO"). A stipulated protective order was entered in the district case, and the PTAB adopted a parallel protective order.
• PTAB: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., IPR2022-01087, filed June 17, 2022; institution granted Dec. 19, 2022; Final Written Decision Dec. 18, 2023 by Judges Gerstenblith (writing), Hoskins, and Ippolito. The Board captioned the judgment: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable." The Board held that PPC proved by a preponderance that claims 1–8 and 10–19 are unpatentable. The case terminated Dec. 18, 2023, with a redacted FWD filed Jan. 2, 2024 and a Patent Owner updated mandatory notice filed Mar. 29, 2024.
• Scope detail worth noting: claim 9 was not among the challenged claims (the petition challenged claims 1–8 and 10–19), so claim 9 was not adjudicated in this IPR.
• Related IPRs by the same petitioner: IPR2022-00946 ('342), -00947 ('471), and -01088 ('771) were consolidated for a Sept. 20, 2023 oral hearing; the dispute in those proceedings centered on the "prepackaged reel-less coil of cable" limitation.

Explicit uncertainties

1. No CAFC 2026 (or any-year) appeal docket for 10,941,016 appeared in the results I retrieved. A party dissatisfied with the Dec. 18, 2023 FWD would have had to notice appeal within 63 days (i.e., around Feb. 20, 2024). I could not confirm from the retrieved material whether such an appeal was filed, whether it was decided, or whether a § 318(b) certificate cancelling the challenged claims has issued. Treat the appellate posture as unverified. If you need certainty, the authoritative checks are the PTAB Patent Public Search / PTAB API "appeal" field, the CAFC docket (search by patent number), and the USPTO's "Certificate of Correction/Adverse Judgment" listing.
2. Secondary-source dates for this grant differ by one day from the printed patent (see discrepancy note above).
3. The Google Patents page shows an active legal status with a 2035-02-27 anticipated expiration; because the PTAB found all challenged claims unpatentable, "Active" status may not reflect the post-FWD reality.

I'll research litigation involving US 10,941,016 specifically. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the specific district court case and the PTAB proceedings.

Let me get the PTAB final written decision outcome and check for any appeal.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 10,941,016

Scope note: I searched for the specific number "10941016" / "10,941,016" and excluded hits for the many sibling patents in the same family (e.g., 9,695,008; 9,862,566; 9,873,588; 10,589,957; 10,611,598; 10,906,770/771; 10,913,632; 10,988,342/343; 10,994,964; 11,001,471). Everything below concerns the '016 patent itself.

I identified one district court action and one PTAB proceeding directly involving the '016 patent, plus a separate related lawsuit between the same parties that does not assert the '016 patent.

1. District Court Litigation

Case: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.
Court / Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
Case No.: 1:21-cv-01823 (filed as 1:21-cv-01823-UNA; later captioned 1:21-cv-01823-GBW-MPT)
Filing Date: December 27, 2021
Plaintiff: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (owner of the '016 patent; assignee of record from Amphenol Corporation as of the April 19, 2022 reassignment)
Defendant: PPC Broadband, Inc.
Judge: Hon. Gregory B. Williams (GBW); Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge (MPT)
Asserted Patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 10,941,016 ("'016 Patent"), 10,988,342, 11,001,471, 10,906,771, and 10,913,632
Accused Products: Coaxial cable and coaxial cable bags with reusable reels (e.g., PPC's "Perfect Tote" bag and "NexReel" reusable support reel)
Status / Outcome: Closed (December 20, 2023). The docket reflects that the case terminated shortly after the PTAB's final written decision invalidating all challenged claims of the '016 patent (see below). The Unified Patents litigation portal lists the case as "Closed."

Sources:

• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=10589957 (shows Delaware District Court, 1:21-cv-01823, filed 2021-12-26, Times Fiber Communications Inc v. PPC Broadband Inc, status Closed)
• https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/ded/1:21-cv-01823/times-fiber-communications-inc-v-ppc-broadband-inc (filed 12/27/21, nature of suit 830 Patent, Closed 12/20/23, Magistrate Mary Pat Thynge)

2. PTAB Proceeding (Inter Partes Review)

Case: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
Forum: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Case No.: IPR2022-01087
Filing Date: June 17, 2022
Petitioner: PPC Broadband, Inc. (real parties-in-interest identified in the related proceedings as PPC and Belden Inc.)
Patent Owner: Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
Patent Challenged: U.S. Patent No. 10,941,016 B2
Claims Challenged / Instituted: Claims 1–8 and 10–19
Panel: Administrative Patent Judges Bart A. Gerstenblith (writer), George R. Hoskins, and Frances L. Ippolito
Institution Decision: December 19, 2022 (instituted on all grounds)
Oral Hearing: September 20, 2023 (consolidated with IPR2022-00946, -00947, and -01088)
Outcome: Final Written Decision entered December 18, 2023 — the Board held that claims 1–8 and 10–19 of the '016 patent are unpatentable by a preponderance of the evidence (35 U.S.C. § 318(a)). The judgment line reads: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable." Grounds were based on a PPC brochure and the Blunt reference (both PPC materials).

Sources:

• https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01087/PPC_Broadband_Inc._v._Times_Fiber_Communications_Inc/docs/01-02-2024-Patent_Owner/Other__other-46-Redacted_Final_Written_Decision.pdf
• https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/PPC-Broadband-Inc-et-al-v-Times-Fiber-Communications-Inc-id-[164473](/patent/164473)
• https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01087

Related IPRs (same parties, sibling patents — NOT the '016 patent): IPR2022-00946 ('342 patent), IPR2022-00947 ('471 patent), IPR2022-01088 ('771 patent), IPR2022-00830 ('632 patent — institution denied after all challenged claims were canceled), and IPR2022-00831 ('957 patent — institution denied after all challenged claims were canceled).

3. Related Lawsuit That Does NOT Assert the '016 Patent

Case: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation and Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
Case No.: 21-654 (VAC)
Nature: PPC's own coaxial-connector patent infringement suit (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 8,337,229 and related connector patents), at least initially. The parties stipulated to stay on April 6, 2022, pending PTAB institution decisions on IPRs filed by Amphenol on March 18, 2022.

Important: I am flagging this only as backdrop — the '016 patent is not a patent-in-suit in 21-654. Do not treat this case as '016 litigation.

Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1554547](/patent/1554547)/download-documents?artifactId=PanBOgE8AqPiaDWnSsVAPezQpUp6e7F9LcrQp3xRG7pzY2vQRMre9E4

Caveats and Open Items (stated explicitly)

1. No CAFC appeal confirmed. I was unable to confirm whether either party appealed the December 18, 2023 IPR2022-01087 Final Written Decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The PTAB docket shows additional activity into March–April 2024 (e.g., "Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices," Mar. 29, 2024), but I could not verify an appeal filing or its outcome. Please verify directly via PACER/CM-ECF and the Federal Circuit docket before relying on this point. My search budget was exhausted before I could complete that check.

2. No other litigation found. Aside from the Delaware case above, I found no other district court actions asserting the '016 patent (no ITC Section 337 proceedings, and no other district court complaints).

3. Patent status nuance. The '016 patent remains recorded as "Active" with an anticipated expiration of 2035-02-27 (per Google Patents) and survived a Certificate of Correction (Nov. 9, 2021). However, all challenged claims were held unpatentable in IPR2022-01087; its practical enforceability depends on the outcome of any appeal, which I could not confirm. The Google Patents page also notes an additional Delaware District Court litigation link and a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" entry tied to family ID 56798668.

4. Date discrepancy. Note that Google Patents lists the district court filing as "2021-12-27," while the Unified Patents portal lists "2021-12-26." I have used December 27, 2021 per the complaint and the ex parte case page; the one-day difference likely reflects a data-entry variance.

I'll research the PTAB proceedings referenced in the litigation block (IPR2022-01087) and the related district court case.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding on file for US 10,941,016 — IPR2022-01087, PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc. — status: claims invalidated (Final Written Decision determining all challenged claims unpatentable, 2023-12-18); zero active, zero sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent's assertion-grade claims are gone — the Board canceled claims 1–8 and 10–19, leaving only unchallenged claim 9 alive, and claim 9 is a dependent claim hanging off canceled claim 8. A demand letter built on claim 1 or claim 7 is asserting claims that a PTAB final judgment has already held unpatentable.

Note on sourcing: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block reports that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings as of its last ingest, and the Google Patents legal-status line still reads "Active." Both are stale for this purpose. The patent's own litigation metadata in the prompt records "PTAB case IPR2022-01087 filed (Final Written Decision)," and the public PTAB record (docket, FWD, hearing transcript) confirms the proceeding below. I did not invent any proceeding number; IPR2022-01087 is the only one I could verify against US 10,941,016.

IPR2022-01087 — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319), Tech Center 3600, Art Unit 3619.
• Filed: 2022-06-17 (within PPC's § 315(b) window — Times Fiber served the D. Del. complaint on 2021-12-29).
• Status: "Final Written Decision" / "Terminated Dec. 18, 2023" (docket). Judgment caption: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)."
• Real parties in interest: Petitioner — PPC Broadband, Inc. and Belden Inc. Patent Owner — Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
• Judge panel: Bart A. Gerstenblith (opinion author), George R. Hoskins, and Frances L. Ippolito, Administrative Patent Judges — the same panel that decided the three companion IPRs (the panel heard all four trials at a consolidated oral hearing on 2023-09-20).
• Petition grounds (§ 103 obviousness only; no § 102 anticipation or § 112 grounds):
  • Ground 1 — Brochure (PPC's own Perfect Tote™ 500 Eco Cable Tote brochure, asserted as a printed publication prior art as of 2014-09-22/25; Ex. 1006) in view of Blunt (U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0168554 A1, pub. 2012-07-05; Ex. 1004) — all challenged claims.
  • Ground 2 — Brochure + Blunt + Johanson (Ex. 1013).
  • Ground 3 — Brochure + Blunt + Fontana (Ex. 1005, a cable/spool dispensing apparatus publication) — directed to claims 1–6, 8, 14, 15.
  • Ground 4 — Brochure + Blunt + Johanson + Fontana.
  • Claims challenged: 1–8 and 10–19 (all claims except claim 9).
• Institution decision: Instituted as to all claims and all grounds — decision dated 2022-12-19. The FWD notes that "Times Fiber Communications, Inc. ('Patent Owner') did not file a Preliminary Response," so the Board applied the § 314(a) standard on the petition record alone and instituted the full review (FWD, Paper 46).
• Final Written Decision (2023-12-18, Paper 45; public redacted version Paper 46, filed 2024-01-02; the decision runs to at least p. 117):
  • Claim-level verdict: "we determine that Petitioner has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1–8 and 10–19 of the '016 patent are unpatentable." Indicia of the Board's Ground 1/2 holding: "Petitioner has established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the combination of Brochure and Blunt would have rendered the subject matter of claims 1–8 and 10–19 … obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art."
  • Independent claims canceled: 1, 7, 14, and 16 (all four independents were challenged and fell). Dependent claims canceled: 2–6, 8, 10–13, 15, 17–19. No claim was held patentable.
  • Claim 9 was not challenged — it appears nowhere in the FWD and is not canceled by this judgment.
  • Patent Owner's theory, and why it lost: Times Fiber "did not dispute any of the explanations in the Petition regarding claims 1, 3–7, and 10–19," attacking only the "prepackaged/pre-wound, reel-less coil of cable" limitation in claims 2 and 8, arguing Blunt's frangible sheet is applied after the cable is reeled. The Board rejected that as unsupported attorney argument and found Blunt (and Fontana) teach a prepackaged reel-less, pre-wound coil. On objective indicia, the Board found some nexus for the Tech Service Bag "as a whole," but held the evidence "suffers from several weaknesses," including failure to show copying, and concluded "the weight we attribute to the objective indicia evidence is minimal as compared to Petitioner's strong evidence of obviousness."
  • Procedural riders: Petitioner's Motion to Exclude Exhibits 2015–2016 was denied; Petitioner's Motions to Seal (Reply portions, Exs. 1051–1053, demonstratives) were granted.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The trial ran to a merits FWD; the parties continued litigating in D. Del. The only post-judgment activity was collateral: a joint 2024-04-09 order in the four companion IPRs granting-in-part Times Fiber's motions to expunge confidential exhibits/papers but expressly refusing to expunge the Final Written Decisions, so the FWDs remain public in redacted form.
• Appeal: No Federal Circuit appeal of IPR2022-01087 appears on the public record. Times Fiber did not appeal, and no CAFC docket for this proceeding surfaced. The only PPC/Amphenol Federal Circuit activity I found is a Rule 36 affirmance on 2026-03-04 in PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, -1777, -1778, -1779, which are appeals from IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, and -00721 — different proceedings, different patents — and should not be confused with this IPR (CAFC Rule 36 judgment). Caveat: I could not independently verify Patent Center's certificate-of-cancellation issuance; the appeal window from 2023-12-18 closed in mid-February 2024, after which a § 318(b) certificate canceling claims 1–8 and 10–19 should have issued.
• Defensive value: Very high. The FWD is a ready-made § 315(e)(2)-protected invalidity judgment for PPC/Belden, and an equally ready-made roadmap for anyone else: the winning art (Brochure, Blunt, Johanson, Fontana) is public in the record and the FWD reasoning is quoted at length. Asserting claims 1–8 or 10–19 against a defendant today invites a Rule 11 / § 285 exposure argument, because a PTAB final judgment has already held those claims unpatentable.

Strategic summary

Claim status on US 10,941,016. CANCELED: 1–8 and 10–19 — every original independent claim (1, 7, 14, 16) and essentially the entire dependent set. SUSTAINED: none (the Board held nothing patentable). UNTESTED: claim 9 only ("The cable reel apparatus of claim 8, wherein the coil of cable is prepackaged with plastic wrap"). Claim 9 is technically alive because it was never challenged, but it depends from canceled claim 8, so it incorporates all of claim 8's limitations — including the very "prepackaged without a reel" element the Board held obvious over Brochure/Blunt/(Fontana). Practically, claim 9 is the only hook left, and it is a narrow, single-limitation add-on that the same record would very likely take down. If Patent Owner pivots to it, expect a fresh IPR.

Estoppel landscape. The FWD issued 2023-12-18, so § 315(e)(2) estoppel is now fully in force against PPC Broadband and Belden Inc. (both identified real parties in interest): they cannot assert in the D. Del. action — or any later civil action — any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2022-01087 as to claims 1–8 and 10–19. That is largely academic since those claims are canceled, but it matters for claim 9, which was outside the instituted review; estoppel under § 315(e)(2) is claim-specific, and no IPR was instituted "with respect to that claim." A new defendant is not estopped by this proceeding (no privity with PPC/Belden on the facts of record), so it may raise the Brochure/Blunt/Johanson/Fontana combination itself — either in an IPR (subject to its own § 315(b) clock and § 325(d)/discretionary-denial risk, though a recently-issued all-claims-lost FWD is a strong institution case) or directly in district court, where the FWD is powerful § 282 prior-art evidence and potentially collateral estoppel-adjacent ammunition. Other prior art not part of Grounds 1–4 remains fully available against every claim, including claim 9.

Pattern signals. This is not an isolated result — it is a coordinated, four-front attack by the same petitioner on the same patent family, and the patent owner lost every contested trial:

• IPR2022-00946 (US 10,988,342) — FWD 2023-12-06, all challenged claims unpatentable (Paper 46, at 109).
• IPR2022-00947 (US 11,001,471) — FWD 2023-12-20, all challenged claims unpatentable (Paper 47, at 112).
• IPR2022-01087 (US 10,941,016) — FWD 2023-12-18, all challenged claims unpatentable (Paper 46, at 117).
• IPR2022-01088 (US 10,906,771) — FWD 2024-01-02, all challenged claims unpatentable (Paper 43, at 107).

Patent Owner also mooted two other family IPRs by canceling all challenged claims — IPR2022-00830 (US 10,913,632) and IPR2022-00831 (US 10,589,957) were denied institution after Times Fiber statutorily disclaimed/canceled the challenged claims. Across the family, the pattern is consistent: apparent validity was upheld at prosecution over a Far Eastern cable-coil reference (Fontana), but the Board treated the "prepackaged reel-less coil" limitation as squarely obvious in view of Blunt and the PPC brochure. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents) appears as a petitioner here — PPC Broadband (with Belden) is the petitioner, driven by the parallel D. Del. case Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.) over the '016, '342, '471, '771, and '632 patents. Finally, note that Times Fiber continues to add family members — e.g., US 12,269,706 B2 (priority 2015-02-27, granted 2025-04-08, assignee Times Fiber Communications) — which are not covered by this IPR and are the likely next assertion targets.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat claims 1–8 and 10–19 as canceled. Pull the public FWD (Paper 46, redacted, 2024-01-02) and confirm the disposition verbatim: "we determine that Petitioner has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1–8 and 10–19 of the '016 patent are unpatentable." If a demand letter or complaint asserts claim 1, 7, 14, or 16 (or any of the canceled dependents), respond with the FWD and the § 318(b) certificate; if Patent Owner has not acknowledged cancellation in its correspondence, that is itself a § 285 / Rule 11 talking point. Verify certificate issuance and current claim status in USPTO Patent Center before you rely on it in a filing, since the ODP feed and Google Patents both still show the patent as "Active."
2. Do not ignore claim 9. It is the sole surviving claim. Check whether the assertion chart/payout-bag theory maps onto "prepackaged with plastic wrap" of a coil supported by a hub of claim 8's construction. If it does, the same Ground 1/2 art (Brochure + Blunt) and the FWD's prepackaging reasoning are the starting point for a fresh § 103 challenge or for summary-judgment invalidity contentions — and no petitioner estoppel attaches to claim 9.
3. Harvest the FWD record rather than re-inventing invalidity contentions. The winning references are identified with exhibit numbers (Brochure Ex. 1006; Blunt Ex. 1004; Fontana Ex. 1005; Johanson Ex. 1013) and the FWD addresses the "two frames on opposite ends of a cable payout container" teaching at length. Note that Exs. 1051–1053 and portions of the reply are sealed, and that the 2024-04-09 order granted expungement of confidential exhibits (not the FWDs) — so expect redactions in Patent Owner's commercial-success evidence, which the Board discounted anyway.
4. Watch the family and the docket. No active PTAB proceeding remains on the '016 patent, so there is no institution deadline, no oral-hearing date, and no statutory 1-year FWD clock running. The live risks are (a) assertion of claim 9, (b) assertion of later family members such as US 12,269,706 B2, and (c) continued PPC–Times Fiber PTAB activity in the same technology space (I saw a later PPC petition citing the '946/'947/'1087/'1088 FWDs, but I could not verify its proceeding number — treat that as unconfirmed). Monitor the D. Del. docket in No. 1:21-cv-01823 for how the FWDs are deployed there, since PPC is now estopped as to grounds it raised or could have raised.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10941016, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing litigation and entity records.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and the corporate relationship between the assignees.

Let me try to retrieve the actual USPTO assignment records (reel/frame and correspondent) for this patent.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could pull the raw reel/frame pages from the USPTO Assignment Center. Below I reconstruct the chain from the authoritative patent text, the Google Patents legal-events index, and corroborating litigation/PTAB records, and I flag every field I could not verify rather than guess.

Data-integrity note (read first). I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the recorded assignment correspondent for this patent from https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ within this session. Reel/frame identifiers below are therefore marked not retrieved, not invented. The two assignment events themselves are corroborated (Google Patents legal events + the Dec. 27, 2021 D. Del. complaint, which pleads that "The '016 Patent is assigned to TFC"). Verify reel/frame at the Assignment Center by patent number: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Inventors

Per the printed patent (Ex. 1001, IPR2022-01087) and the PTAB cover page:

Observations. The residences cluster exactly on the Amphenol/TFC footprint: Chatham, VA is TFC's coaxial-cable plant; Changzhou, CN is the Amphenol-TFC joint venture; Ottawa maps to Times Fiber Canada Ltd. (a 100%-owned TFC subsidiary per Amphenol's 2019 8-K Exhibit 10.1 subsidiary list). So all six are consistent with being Amphenol-family employees, not outside inventors.

No departures pattern detected. I found no evidence that any inventor left the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no assignment to an inventor-turned-asserting entity. Note the inventorship was corrected post-grant via a Certificate of Correction (request filed Sept. 13, 2021; certificate sealed Nov. 9, 2021, 17/073,445, attorney docket 111429-00372). That is a routine prosecution housekeeping event, not a chain-of-title red flag.

Original assignee

Amphenol Corporation, Wallingford, CT (per the printed patent's Applicant/Assignee field; the '016 patent is a continuation in the Amphenol/TFC cable-reel family rooted at U.S. Pat. No. 9,695,008, filed Feb. 27, 2015).

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. The claims read on the Amphenol Sustainable Solution Tech Service Bag with a reel-less, pre-wound cable coil and reusable reel. Patent Owner's IPR response (IPR2022-01087, Exs. 2005, 2013–2018) documents commercial sale to Charter Communications starting 2015, industry adoption (Cox, CommScope, PPC), and a nexus argument tying the claims to that product.
• Primary line of business: Amphenol is a NYSE-listed (APH) interconnect/connector manufacturer; TFC is its coaxial-cable and broadband-equipment arm (Amphenol Broadband Solutions).
• Current status: Operating. Amphenol is a large, active public company (Q1 2026 record sales of ~$7.6B reported after closing the ~$10.5B acquisition of CommScope's connectivity and cable business in Jan. 2026). Times Fiber Communications remains a wholly owned subsidiary of Amphenol Corporation — a fact Patent Owner itself stated to the PTAB ("Times Fiber Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amphenol Corporation"). Not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Chronological. Reel/frame and correspondent could not be retrieved this session; execution dates for the inventor assignment were not surfaced.

• Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2021-08-12 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor-to-company; obligation/employment assignment)
  • Assignor: Rakesh Thakare; Caichun Song; Phillip Stanley Bowen; Marvin Bryant; Paul Richard Boucher; Barry Holt (all six named inventors)
  • Assignee: Amphenol Corporation (Wallingford, CT)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. (For context only — the prosecution correspondent of record on the file is Blank Rome LLP, 1825 Eye Street NW, Washington, DC 20006-5403, per the Certificate of Correction on App. 17/073,445. That is a prosecution address and I could not confirm it is also the assignment correspondent, so treat it as unverified for chain-of-title purposes.)
  • Context: Routine inventor assignment to the operating applicant; consistent with Amphenol being the patent's assignee of record at issuance.

• Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2022-04-19 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (intra-group transfer)
  • Assignor: Amphenol Corporation
  • Assignee: Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (Chatham, VA)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal corporate reorg / intra-family transfer — Amphenol moved the patent (and the rest of the family: '342, '471, '771, '632, '001, etc.) down to its wholly owned operating subsidiary TFC. Not a sale to an unaffiliated party.

Three findings about the chain:

1. There are only two recorded assignments, and both are between related Amphenol-family entities. No third-party buyer, no licensing shell.
2. The Google Patents legal events show the TFC assignment recorded 2022-04-19, i.e. after TFC's Dec. 27, 2021 D. Del. complaint — the complaint pleads TFC already owned the patent. This is characteristic of a subsidiary-under-parent title clean-up (or the recordation lag mapping to an earlier nunc-pro-tunc execution), and it is the opposite of a pre-litigation transfer-to-asserter.
3. The chain does not terminate at any defensive aggregator and does not pass through any "IP/Holdings/Licensing/Ventures" entity.

If you need the reel/frame numbers and assignment correspondents, they must be read off the Assignment Center/PEDS record — I could not obtain them here and will not state them from memory.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10941016
    2015 : Priority application filed Feb 27
    2020 : Continuation filed Oct 19
    2021 : Patent issued Mar 9 to Amphenol
         : Inventors assign to Amphenol Aug 12
         : TFC sues PPC in Delaware Dec 27
    2022 : PPC files four IPRs Jun 17
         : Amphenol assigns to Times Fiber Apr 19
    2023 : Final Written Decisions

(Event text kept to short year-led phrases; punctuation kept parser-safe. Where two events share a year, the second is led with a colon.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only post-inventor transfer is Amphenol Corp → Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (recorded 2022-04-19). TFC carries no "IP/Patents/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures" suffix, is not a single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC, and is a wholly owned operating subsidiary that manufactures coaxial cable and the Tech Service Bag (PTAB record, IPR2022-01087).

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither Amphenol Corporation nor Times Fiber Communications appears on the listed NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). Unified Patents' own portal labels the plaintiff entity type as "Operating Company" for the 1:21-cv-01823 case.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (not assessable). I could not retrieve the assignment correspondents for either recorded assignment, so recurrence cannot be tested. The only correspondent I can substantiate is Blank Rome LLP on the prosecution file (Certificate of Correction, App. 17/073,445) — and a single, prosecution-side appearance would not be a finding even if it were the assignment correspondent. No flag raised.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Two assignments over ~14 months, both intra-group. No chained LLCs, no shared registered-agent addresses, no common principals to test.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. Suit filed 2021-12-27 (1:21-cv-01823). The Amphenol→TFC recording is 2022-04-19, i.e. ~4 months after filing, and the complaint already named TFC as owner. A post-filing intra-family recordation does not fit the pre-litigation-transfer tell.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Amphenol is a solvent public company; no Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the chain. The 2026 CommScope-asset acquisition is a buy-side expansion, not a distress sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. TFC asserts its own patent against a direct market competitor (PPC Broadband, a Belden brand, selling the competing "Perfect Flex / Reusable Reel" and "NexReel" bags) while shipping the practicing product itself. That is classic operating-company assertion, not an operating company funding a proxy NPE.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. Chain terminates at TFC (operating subsidiary of Amphenol); no RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN assignment.

Litigation/assertion context (for grounding, not a signal per se): TFC v. PPC, D. Del. 1:21-cv-01823 (filed 2021-12-27; closed 2022-12-20 per Unified's docket data); PPC retaliated with IPR2022-00946, -00947, -01087, -01088 (filed June 17, 2022; institution Dec. 19, 2022; Final Written Decision Dec. 18, 2023). The '016 patent appears in the Delaware complaint together with '342, '471, '771, and '632 — all members of the same TFC family.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: the entire recorded chain is internal to the Amphenol corporate family — the six inventors assigned to Amphenol Corporation (recorded 2021-08-12), which then assigned the patent to its wholly owned operating subsidiary Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (recorded 2022-04-19); no third-party buyer, licensing shell, or defensive aggregator appears (0 of 8 NPE signals present; signal 3 merely unassessable). TFC ships a product embodying the claims (the Amphenol Sustainable Solution Tech Service Bag with reel-less coil, sold to Charter and others) and sued a direct competitor, PPC Broadband, for infringement in 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del., filed 2021-12-27) — the profile of an operating company, which is how Unified Patents itself classifies the plaintiff.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "10941016") or https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — and specifically pull the reel/frame for the two events above to confirm the correspondent names, which I could not retrieve here.

I'll research this thoroughly. Let me search for the patent and its key cited references.

Let me examine the IPR proceedings, which contain the key prior-art grounds for this patent.

Let me verify a few key references used in prosecution and the IPRs (Galgano, Blunt, Fontana) to give accurate citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,941,016 B2 ("Cable Reel")

Analyst note on scope and identifiers. I have treated the number 10941016 literally and analyzed only US 10,941,016 B2 (application 17/073,445, filed 2020‑10‑19, granted 2021‑03‑09, assignee Amphenol Corp. → now Times Fiber Communications, Inc.). The full text you supplied is authoritative where it conflicts with anything else. The reference data below is taken from the "Citations (52)" table on the face of the patent (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10941016/en). I did not independently re‑pull every one of the 52 records from USPTO PatentCenter during this session, so the dates are as listed on the patent face / Google Patents and should be confirmed against the individual front pages before being relied on in a filing.

1. Legal framework that governs the analysis

• Priority / critical date: 2015‑02‑27 (earliest priority; the '016 is a continuation in the family of Ser. No. 14/634,007). The '016 is an AIA (first‑inventor‑to‑file) patent, so 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) (patents/printed publications/applications published before 2015‑02‑27) and § 102(a)(2) (US patents/applications with an earlier effective filing date) apply. Earlier references (pre‑2013) are § 102(a)(1) art.
• Anticipation vs. obviousness — important caveat. A reference anticipates a claim under § 102 only if it discloses every element, arranged as claimed. Reading the prosecution and IPR record, none of the cited references was understood to anticipate the issued independent claims 1, 7, 14 or 16 on its own. The Examiner used Fontana as a primary reference in § 102/§ 103 rejections (Ex. 1003, as recounted in IPR2022‑01087/‑00946 petitions, e.g. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549764](/patent/1549764)/download-documents?artifactId=RFEM9FXTah2OvtebhrNitKwoDNDWQLbczpbocHJFu2M7n6C5QaLlB8k). The claims issued only after applicant amended in the "bags + two frames + reel‑less coil + removable second flange" subject matter. My claim mapping below therefore identifies (a) references that come closest to anticipating individual dependent claims, and (b) references that are actually § 103 combination art with respect to the independents. I say so explicitly rather than overstating § 102.
• Do not double‑count the family. US 9,862,566 B2 (cited at row 51) is a member of the same family (same 2015‑02‑27 priority). It is not § 102 prior art against the '016; it shares the '016's own priority chain. I flag this because it is easy to miscount as a "citation."

Independent claim gist (for the mapping):

• Claim 1 – reel for a pre‑wound, reel‑less coil; first flange rotatably coupled to a first frame and smaller than the frame's outer frame portion; elongated wall; second, separate flange coupled to a second frame with truncated wall; walls releasably coupled and sized to sit in the coil's inner diameter; frames on inner surfaces of a bag with a payout opening; first frame in the base, second frame at the cover, so closing the cover couples and opening decouples the second frame from the second flange.
• Claim 7 – same concept, recited as "bag + first/second frame on inner surfaces + two flanges/hub portions + removable second flange + base/cover coupling."
• Claim 14 – two flanges/hub portions + means for releasably coupling (112(f)).
• Claim 16 – bag + substantially square first and second frames each with an outer frame portion and at least one cross member + two flanges + hub member.

2. The most relevant references (detailed)

2.1 US 2005/0035240 A1 — Fontana (Micasa Trading Corp. d/b/a Impex Systems Group) — "Container for a roll of a wire‑like component…"

• Citation: US 2005/0035240 A1; published 2005‑02‑17; priority/filed 2003‑08‑15.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050035240A1/en
• Description: Container/dispenser for a roll (reel‑less coil) of wire‑like material, with an internal support that lets the coil pay out through an opening. This was the primary reference the Examiner used to reject the original claims ("rejected … as being anticipated over Fontana … or obvious over Fontana in view of Eisele … or in view of Galgano," per the IPR petition, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549764/download-documents?artifactId=RFEM9FXTah2OvtebhrNitKwoDNDWQLbczpbocHJFu2M7n6C5QaLlB8k).
• § 102 mapping: Strongest single‑reference art against the "pre‑wound / reel‑less coil + payout container" limitations of claims 1 (preamble) and 7, and against dependent claim 2 ("coil of cable is prepacked") and claim 8 ("prepackaged without a reel"). It does not disclose the two mating hub walls or the base/cover frame‑coupling, so it does not anticipate claims 1 or 7 as issued. Grounds 3 and 4 of IPR2022‑01087 paired Fontana (for the prepackaged reel‑less coil) with other art (see hearing transcript reference on docketalarm for IPR2022‑00946/‑01087: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2022-00946/...).

2.2 DE 4001250 A1 — Eisele (Industriebedarf Eisele & Co. GmbH) — Reel/winding spool

• Citation: DE 4001250 A1; published 1991‑07‑25; priority 1990‑01‑18. English‑language relevance: "Reel for winding of e.g. yarn — constructed from frustra of cones, which can be separated then stacked one upon another."
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/DE4001250A1/en
• Description: A spool/reel formed from frusto‑conical (truncated) mating parts that separate and nest/stack — i.e., a two‑part hub mating structure.
• § 102 mapping: Directly relevant to the mating "elongated wall / truncated wall" hub‑portion limitations of claims 1, 5, 12 and 13 and the 112(f) "means for releasably coupling" of claim 14. In IPR2022‑01087 the Petitioner and the Examiner mapped the 112(f) coupling means to "elements 10 and 11 of Eisele" (Petitioner's demonstratives, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549765](/patent/1549765)/download-documents). Best characterized as § 103 art in combination with Fontana/Galgano, not standalone anticipation of the independents.

2.3 Galgano et al. — Windy City Wire — "Wire and cable dispensing container and systems"

• Citations: US 2008/0191436 A1 (pub. 2008‑08‑14; filed 2008‑04‑16) and its issued counterparts US 8,016,222 B2 (pub. 2011‑09‑13) and US 8,157,201 B2.
• URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080191436A1/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8016222B2](/patent/US8016222B2)/en
• Description: Carton 10 with identical left/right caddies 200, 204 on opposite sides, each with an inward bushing 206 entering the reel's central hole 208, so the reel rotates in the carton and cable pays out a front‑panel slot. The IPR petitions use Galgano for the "duplicate frames on opposite ends inside a payout container, each with a hub that rotatably supports the reel" limitation (see https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549764/...).
• § 102 mapping: Best art for the "two frames on opposite sides of a bag/box that rotatably support the flanges" limitation common to claims 1, 7, 14, 16, and for the payout opening/slot limitation of claims 1 and 7. Galgano supports a reel (not a reel‑less coil) and its bushings are not mating elongated/truncated walls, so it is § 103 combination art against the independents, not a § 102 anticipation.

2.4 US 2012/0168554 A1 — Randy Blunt (PPC/Perfectvision) — "System for storing a bulk supply of cable for controlled payout…"

• Citation: US 2012/0168554 A1; published 2012‑07‑05; filed 2011‑01‑04.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120168554A1/en
• Description: Container 12 with two like guide components 58, 60 secured to the cover and base by fasteners, whose shafts (114/122) project into the reel bore (70) from opposite ends to rotatably capture the reel. The reel 34 is a two‑component design: flange 42 + core 36, and a separate flange 40 with a stub 52 that nests in a receptacle 54 in core 36 and is held by friction or cooperating threads, allowing the flange to be separated so the core end can be pushed through a pre‑coiled supply of cable.
• § 102 mapping: This is the closest single reference to claim 1's core — separable flange with a stub‑in‑receptacle friction fit into which a pre‑coiled (reel‑less) supply is loaded, plus cover/base frames. It is strong art against claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14 and the "means for releasably coupling" of claim 14. Competing arguments remain about whether Blunt's "container" is a "bag" and about the cover/base releasable coupling to the flange (a distinct 016 feature), so it was litigated as § 103 with the PPC "Perfect Tote™ 500 Eco" brochure rather than pure § 102 (see PPC Exhibits 1044/1045/1049 and the briefing at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549577](/patent/1549577)/download-documents).

2.5 US 5,463,171 A — Ripplinger — "Mating spool assembly for relieving stress concentrations"

• Citation: US 5,463,171 A; published 1995‑11‑07; priority 1993‑11‑03.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5464171](/patent/US5464171)/en
• Description: Two‑part mating spool with complementary hub halves that join.
• § 102 mapping: Relevant to claims 1, 5, 12, 13 (mating/truncated hub walls) and the 112(f) coupling of claim 14. Old, general spool art → § 103, not anticipation of the bag/cover‑frame limitations.

2.6 US 6,045,087 A — Vislocky — "Spool assembly for snap fit of flanges and spindle…"

• Citation: US 6,045,087 A; published 2000‑04‑04; priority 1996‑08‑26.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6045087/en
• Description: Spool with snap‑fit flanges and a spindle having guiding/alignment members.
• § 102 mapping: Relevant to the snap‑fit / releasable coupling concepts of claims 1 and 14 and to the "engaging the first and second flanges" language used in the specification. § 103 art for the hub‑coupling limitation; does not address bag/frame/cover features.

2.7 US 6,354,215 B1 — Southwire — "Payoff device for a reeless package"

• Citation: US 6,354,215 B1; published 2002‑03‑05; priority 2000‑02‑09.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6352215](/patent/US6352215)/en
• Description: Payoff device specifically for a "reeless" (reel‑less) package of cable.
• § 102 mapping: Directly relevant to the "pre‑wound, reel‑less coil" limitation of claims 1, 7, 8, 14 — i.e., it is § 102‑type art for the reel‑less‑coil concept, but alone it lacks the mating‑wall hub and the bag/cover‑frame structure.

2.8 US 6,328,238 B1 — Avaya Technology — "Cable pay‑out tube"

• Citation: US 6,328,238 B1; published 2001‑12‑11; priority 1999‑10‑28.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6328238/en
• Description: Pay‑out tube for cable dispensing.
• § 102 mapping: Relevant to the payout‑opening / dispensing limitations of claims 1 and 7; § 103 art.

2.9 US 4,650,073 A — Young — "Electric cable container and dispenser"

• Citation: US 4,650,073 A; published 1987‑03‑17; priority 1985‑08‑09.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4650073/en
• Description: Container/dispenser for coiled electric cable (container + coil + payout).
• § 102 mapping: Relevant to claims 1/7 container+payout and claims 2/8 prepacked coil; § 103 art.

2.10 US 5,704,479 A — Essex Group — "Wire storing and dispensing package" / US 3,693,784 A — Holmes — "Wire package" / US 4,660,073 A — Young

• Citations/dates: US 5,704,479 A, pub. 1998‑01‑06 (prio. 1995‑12‑05), https://patents.google.com/patent/US5704479/en ; US 3,693,784 A, pub. 1972‑09‑26 (prio. 1971‑01‑08), https://patents.google.com/patent/US3693784/en ; US 4,660,073 A above.
• Description: Each is a wire/coil storing‑and‑dispensing package that pre‑dates the 016 by decades.
• § 102 mapping: § 102(a)(1)/§ 103 art for the "coil + container + payout" environment of claims 1/7 and the prepackaging of claims 2/8; none discloses the elongated/truncated mating walls or the base/cover frame coupling.

2.11 US 6,241,181 B1 — Campbell — "Reusable wire distribution spool" / US 5,810,283 A — "Apparatus and method for wire coil payoff"

• Citations/dates: US 6,241,181 B1, pub. 2001‑06‑05 (prio. 1999‑07‑15), https://patents.google.com/patent/US6241181/en ; US 5,810,283 A, pub. 1998‑09‑22 (prio. 1996‑08‑16), https://patents.google.com/patent/US5810283/en
• Description: Reusable/removable spool and wire‑coil payoff apparatus.
• § 102 mapping: § 103 art for the releasable/removable flange‑hub concept (claims 1, 3, 7, 10) and the reel‑less‑coil payoff concept (claims 2, 8).

2.12 US 2010/0314484 A1 — Eddy — "Communications cable payout bags" / US 2012/0091249 A1 — "Cable carrying case" (John Mezzalingua Assocs.) / US 2012/0153069 A1 — "Assembly for dispensing cable" (ADC GmbH)

• Citations/dates: US 2010/0314484 A1, pub. 2010‑12‑16, https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100314484A1/en ; US 2012/0091249 A1, pub. 2012‑04‑19, https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120091249A1/en ; US 2012/0153069 A1, pub. 2012‑06‑21, https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120153069A1/en
• Description: Cable payout bags/cases and assembly for dispensing cable.
• § 102 mapping: Directly on point for the "bag … with a payout opening" and "cover/base" limitations of claims 1, 7, 14, 16; § 103 art (these containers use reels, not the 016's mating‑wall releasable hub).

2.13 US 2015/0321876 A1 — Southwire — "Rotatable Cable Reel"

• Citation: US 2015/0321876 A1; published 2015‑11‑12; prio. 2013‑03‑05.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150321876A1/en
• Description: Rotatable cable reel for a payout container.
• § 102 caution: Its publication (2015‑11‑12) post‑dates the 016's 2015‑02‑27 priority date, so it is only § 102(a)(2) art if its US filing/priority (2013‑03‑05) qualifies — it does, if relied on as a US application with an earlier effective filing date. Relevant to claims 1/7/16 rotatable‑reel‑in‑container; § 103 art.

2.14 US 6,231,181 A — Vandor — "Reel having secured flanges" / US 3,833,093 A — "Barrel stave reel" (Acrometal) / US 4,667,896 A — Siecor — "Three flange cable spool"

• Citations/dates: US 6,231,181 B1, pub. 2001‑05‑22, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6234421](/patent/US6234421)/en ; US 3,833,093 A, pub. 1974‑09‑17, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US3836093](/patent/US3836093)/en ; US 4,667,896 A, pub. 1987‑05‑26, https://patents.google.com/patent/US4667896/en
• Description: Reel/spool constructions with secured/joined flanges and multiple‑flange cable spools; DE 4001250's "frustra of cones… separated then stacked."
• § 102 mapping: § 103 art for claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 12, 13 (flange/hub joinery); too remote for the bag/frame/bag‑cover features.

3. Full citation table (all 52 of‑record citations)

Dates are as printed in the patent's citation table (priority date / publication date). "Adv." = the claim(s) this reference is most likely to bear on under § 102/§ 103. None of the items below, standing alone, anticipates independent claims 1, 7, 14 or 16 as issued; the "Adv." column therefore reflects the limitation(s) each reference actually supports in a § 102/§ 103 challenge.

¹The reference numbers in rows 20 and 26 are transcribed as printed in the supplied text ("US6234421B1", "US20060157366A1"); I have not auto‑corrected them, per your instruction.

4. Additional prior art that is not in the 52‑citation list but is central to validity

Because you asked specifically about the patent's citations, these are flagged separately. They do not appear on the '016 face but were the actual attack references in the PTAB proceedings:

• "Brochure" — PPC "Perfect Tote™ 500 Eco" reel‑tote bag brochure — asserted as § 102(a)(1) printed publication publicly accessible by 2014‑09‑25, before the 2015‑02‑27 critical date (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549577/download-documents). Used against essentially all claims 1–19 in the '016/‑family IPRs.
• Blunt (US 2012/0168554 A1) — as above.
• Johanson and Wilkinson — duplicate end‑plates/frames with hubs rotatably supporting a spool inside a box (discussed in IPR2022‑01087/‑00946 as "notoriously old" subject matter; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549764/download-documents).
• Galgano (US 8,016,222 B2) and Fontana — as above.

5. Bottom line

• No cited reference anticipates independent claims 1, 7, 14 or 16 on its own. The 52 citations are overwhelmingly § 102(a)(1)/§ 103 art addressed to isolated features: (i) the payout container/carton (Fontana, Galgano, the bag/case references at rows 33, 41, 42), (ii) rotating frames/caddies on opposite sides (Galgano, and the "notoriously old" Johanson/Wilkinson art), (iii) mating/friction hub constructions (Eisele DE 4001250, Ripplinger, Vislocky, Blunt), and (iv) reel‑less coil handling (Southwire US 6,354,215, Fontana).
• The closest single‑reference art on the substance of claim 1 is Blunt (US 2012/0168554 A1) — separable flange with stub‑in‑receptacle friction fit to receive a pre‑coiled cable supply in a container with cover/base frames — and Fontana (US 2005/0035240 A1) for the reel‑less coil/payout container. Both were nonetheless litigated as § 103 combinations (with the Tote‑bag brochure and Galgano/Eisele), not as § 102 anticipations, from which one can infer that neither reference alone reads on all elements.
• Claim‑level exposure: dependent claims 2 and 8 (prepacked / reel‑less coil) are most exposed to § 102 (Fontana; Southwire '215). Dependent claims 3–6 and 10–13 (one‑piece flanges, friction fit, truncated wall received in receiving area, walls about the central opening) are most exposed on § 103 (Eisele, Ripplinger, Vislocky, Blunt). Independent claims 1, 7, 14, 16 survive a single‑reference § 102 reading of the record, but are the subject of the pending § 103 challenges.

If you want, I can build a formal element‑by‑element claim chart for claim 1 (and claim 16's "substantially square frame + cross member" limitation) against Blunt, Fontana, and Galgano/Eisele, or reconcile the two IPR dockets (IPR2022‑00946 and IPR2022‑01087) ground‑by‑ground.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior art listed on the patent's own page and verify the IPR2022-01087 grounds before reasoning.

Let me identify the "Fontana" and "Johanson" references used in the IPR grounds, and check the Board's treatment of the key limitations.

I have enough grounded material (the patent's own page plus the IPR2022‑01087 record and the cited references) to do this. One note on scope: the "Prior Art" section of the page you gave me (the 52 "Citations", the 8 "Family Cites Families", and the prior‑art keywords "flange, cable, frame, bag, coil") does not list the references that actually decided this patent — the PPC "Brochure," Johanson, and Fontana. Those come from the litigation/PTAB links on the same page. I therefore analyze both (a) the page's own cited art and (b) the IPR‑tested art, and I flag where I could not fully identify a reference.

§103 Obviousness Analysis — US 10,941,016 B2 ("Cable reel")

1. Framework and evidentiary posture

• Governing law: The earliest effective filing is February 27, 2015 (14/634,007), which post‑dates the AIA's March 16, 2013 change, so AIA § 103 governs. Prior art must qualify under AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2). The Brochure was pleaded as § 102(a)(1) art (public display at SCTE Cable‑Tec Expo, September 22–25, 2014), which is before the critical date.
• POSITA: Per the petition, "a bachelor's degree in physics or engineering and experience with the installation of cable," with education and experience substituting for one another.
• The decisive, on‑the‑record fact: In PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., IPR2022‑01087, the Board issued a Final Written Decision on December 18, 2023 captioned "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable," holding that PPC proved by a preponderance that claims 1–8 and 10–19 of the '016 patent are unpatentable under § 103. Those are the four independent claims (1, 7, 14, 16) plus all their dependents except claim 9. Any § 103 analysis of this patent therefore begins from the proposition that the overwhelming majority of its claims have already been adjudicated obvious.
• Caveat on claim 9: Claim 9 ("the coil of cable is prepackaged with plastic wrap") was not among the challenged claims (the petition challenged 1–8 and 10–19), so it was not adjudicated. It is the only claim of the '016 patent that still stands unreviewed in this IPR.
• Appellate posture: I could not verify whether the FWD was appealed to the Federal Circuit (my attempt to pull CAFC docket activity hit a tool limit). Treat the FWD as the operative PTAB judgment but as potentially subject to appeal.

2. The prior‑art arsenal

(a) The references that decided the case (from the PTAB/IPR record on the patent's page)

(b) The notable references appearing in the page's own "Citations (52)" list

Note two identifier discrepancies to flag, not auto‑correct: (i) the citations list renders Blunt as "US20120168554A1," whereas the IPR record and its own bibliographic data give "US 2012/0168554 A1"; (ii) the page's classification data and the aggregator dates differ by one day from the printed face (already flagged in the prior section). I treat Blunt as US 2012/0168554 A1 for analysis and note the page's rendering.

3. The combinations, element by element

Combination A — Brochure + Blunt (+ Johanson) [IPR Grounds I & II; claims 1–8, 10–19]

This is the core two‑reference combination and it alone disposed of every challenged claim except that grounds III/IV shored up the "prepackaged" limitation.

Result: The Board found all challenged claims unpatentable on this combination (Grounds I and II). The only limitation PO disputed at the hearing was "prepackaged reel‑less coil of cable," arguing Blunt's frangible sheet is applied after the coil is on the reel (Fig. 8). The Board resolved that dispute against PO (Grounds I/II), and in the alternative (Grounds III/IV) used Fontana.

Combination B — Brochure + Blunt + Fontana (+ Johanson) [IPR Grounds III & IV; claims 1–6, 8, 14–15]

Fontana is the express teaching of a prepackaged, reel‑less coil of cable separate from the reel, coupled with first and second frames. PO conceded Fontana discloses the prepackaged reel‑less coil and fought only motivation to combine. This combination removes any residual doubt about the "pre‑wound, reel‑less coil" phrases in claims 1, 2, 8, and 14. (I could not independently retrieve Fontana's full bibliographic identity — Ex. 1005 — so I state only what the IPR record attributes to it.)

Combination C (independently sufficient, from the page's own citation list) — Blunt + ADC US 2012/0153069 A1 + Southwire US 6,352,215 B1

Even if one discarded the Brochure, three references printed on the '016 face supply every claim‑1 element:

• Blunt → bag/container with payout opening; rotatable cable support; replacement of the coil.
• ADC US 2012/0153069 A1 → spool with a two‑part drum and two flanges couplable to the drum via locking sections, keys and slots (i.e., releasable hub coupling), and an assembly of two end members separated by cross‑members (the claim‑16 square frame+cross‑member, and the claim‑1/14 "frame").
• Southwire US 6,352,215 B1 → a reel‑less package retained by an expansion assembly whose pads are driven radially outward into the interior surface of the reel‑less coil — functionally the '016 "flexible segments … engage the coil" concept, and confirmation that reel‑less coils were a known, accepted commercial form.

Combination D (independently sufficient) — Blunt + DE 4001250 A1 (Eisele) + US 6,045,087 A (Vislocky) *(or US 5,464,171 A (Ripplinger))*

This is the combination that most directly meets the elongated‑wall/truncated‑wall mating pair:

• Eisele (DE 4001250 A1) discloses a reel "constructed from frustra of cones, which can be separated then stacked one upon another" — i.e., truncated (frustoconical) wall sections that releasably mate and separate, the exact geometry of the '016 "truncated wall … tapered outer surface."
• Vislocky (US 6,045,087 A) discloses snap‑fit flanges and spindle. (The '016 §112(f) "means for releasably coupling" is disclosed in the spec as snap arms 172 with snap tabs 174 engaging slots 176 — structurally the same snap‑fit expedient.)
• Ripplinger (US 5,464,171 A), a mating spool assembly, is an equally good substitute for the mating‑half teaching.

Adding Blunt's container + payout opening and Southwire '215's reel‑less expansion concept yields claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 10–13, 14, 15, and 18.

Combination E — for the square‑frame claim 16

Blunt (container) + ADC US 2012/0153069 A1 (end members + cross‑members) + Houston US 2010/0314484 A1 or Windy City Wire US 8,016,222 B2 / US 2010/0320309 A1 (bag/carton with payout) + a hubs‑and‑flanges reference (ADC, Vislocky, or Ripplinger) meets every claim‑16 element, including "substantially square geometry with an outer frame portion and at least one cross member."

Combination F — alternate rotatable‑coupling teaching

Southwire US 2015/0321876 A1 teaches two flanges rotatably mounted at opposing ends of an axle/drum, independently rotatable, with an adjustable flange width and a resistance‑braking device acting as a drum speed control — directly supplying the claim‑1/14 "flange configured to be rotatably coupled to a frame" and the anti‑over‑payout rationale that appears in the '016 background.

4. Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine (KSR rationales)

1. Same field, common problem. All references are in CPC B65H 49/20–49/32 and B65H 75/02–75/24 (cable/wire storage, reels, payout). Each addresses the same recognized problem the '016 background states: carrying cable to a job site and paying it out without over‑payout.
2. Known technique applied to a known device — predictable result. Joining two hub halves by a tapered friction fit (Eisele's conical frusta) or a snap fit (Vislocky; ADC's keys/slots) is a routine mechanical‑fastening choice with a predictable result (retention + easy separation).
3. Simple substitution / equivalent knowns. Treating boxes and bags as equivalents for holding a payout reel is a conclusion the Board itself endorsed in the parallel proceedings: the Examiner's rationale, affirmed in IPR2022‑00946/‑00947/‑01087/‑01088, was that "boxes and bags are old and well known art equivalents for storing, transporting, and dispensing items," and that it was "obvious to … store the cable reel … in a bag to make the assembly lighter and easier to carry."
4. Market/design incentive to use reel‑less coils. Southwire US 6,352,215 B1 and Blunt both recognize reel‑less packages as lighter/cheaper and explicitly contemplate collapsing/re‑expanding the support to load a replacement reel‑less coil — the very "decouple … when replacing the coil" recited in claims 1 and 7.
5. Explicit problems in the references supply the motivation. Blunt itself notes that coil turns "bind and ultimately entangle," "particularly … in the absence of a reel," motivating a dedicated reusable hub; Southwire US 2015/0321876 A1 motivates a resistance brake to control payoff speed.
6. Even Blunt's own text bridges the gap the PO relied on. Blunt describes a wrapped supply usable on a reel or "a pre‑coiled wire supply that is slid onto a core," and the Board found the frangible sheet's "pre‑packaging" reading persuasive over PO's Fig. 8 temporal argument at the Sept. 20, 2023 hearing.

5. Dependent claims

Once claim 1 falls, claims 2–6 and 10–13 fall with it on the same combinations: claim 2/8 (prepackaged/prepackaged‑without‑a‑reel) ← Fontana (and Southwire '215); claim 3 (one‑piece flange + wall) ← ADC's integral drum/flange parts; claim 4/10 (friction fit) ← Eisele's mating frusta, Ripplinger, ADC locking sections; claim 5/13 (truncated wall received inside the elongated wall's receiving area) ← Eisele (separable frusta stacked) + ADC (open end sections with inner peripheral ledges fitting over locking sections); claim 6 (walls about central openings) ← ADC / Brochure; claim 11/12/15 (elongated/truncated annular wall) ← Eisele + ADC; claims 16–19 (square frames + cross members, hub member from the flange, cover‑close coupling) ← ADC's end‑member/cross‑member assembly + Blunt's container top/bottom + Brochure's tote.

Claim 14's "means for releasably coupling" (§ 112(f)) maps to the spec's snap arms 172/tabs 174/slots 176 and the tapered‑wall friction fit; the corresponding prior‑art structure is Vislocky's snap‑fit spindle, ADC's keys/slots, and Eisele's separable frusta.

6. Objective indicia and how they were treated

PO advanced a full secondary‑considerations case — presumed nexus (times Fiber "Tech Service Bag" practices the claims), commercial success, long‑felt need/industry adoption, and copying (alleging PPC and CommScope copied). The Board nonetheless found the challenged claims unpatentable, meaning the objective evidence did not overcome the art as to claims 1–8 and 10–19. Whatever weight that evidence retains now attaches only to the unchallenged claim 9.

7. Bottom line and residual uncertainties

• Primary conclusion: Under § 103, US 10,941,016 is obvious. The Board so held for all challenged claims (1–8 and 10–19) on Brochure + Blunt, with Fontana and Johanson as supporting references for the "prepackaged, reel‑less coil" limitation. Independently, the references printed on the patent's own face — notably Blunt (US 2012/0168554 A1), ADC US 2012/0153069 A1, Southwire US 6,352,215 B1, Eisele DE 4001250 A1, and Vislocky US 6,045,087 A — combine to render the same claims obvious.
• The one live claim is claim 9 ("prepackaged with plastic wrap"), which was never challenged; a fresh § 103 challenge would need a reference teaching a plastic‑wrap prepackaged coil (e.g., a shrink‑wrap coil package reference, of which the page's citation list contains candidates such as the Windy City Wire or Sonoco/Essex dispensing‑container references).
• Unverified / flagged items:
  1. I could not fully identify Fontana (Ex. 1005) or Johanson (Ex. 1013) (their patent numbers, dates, and assignees) — my searches hit the step limit. I state only what the IPR record attributes to them.
  2. I could not verify whether the Dec. 18, 2023 FWD was appealed to the Federal Circuit or whether a § 318(b) certificate cancelling claims 1–8 and 10–19 has issued.
  3. The page renders Blunt as "US20120168554A1," which conflicts with the IPR's "US 2012/0168554 A1"; the page also shows aggregator dates offset by one day from the printed face. I have not auto‑corrected either.

This is a technical patentability analysis grounded in the patent text, its cited art, and the IPR2022‑01087 record; it is not legal advice.