US 10963070

US Patent 10,963,070 — Summary

Bibliographic Data (from the authoritative Google Patents record provided)

Prosecution lineage: Continuation of US 14/174,483 (→ US 9,261,983), continuation of US 11/754,071 (→ US 8,648,805), continuation-in-part of abandoned US 11/266,498, which claimed priority from Provisional 60/625,254. A sibling family member is US 9,092,075 B2.

Abstract (verbatim)

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a system that includes a tracking device to generate movement information for use in moving a user interface object on a graphical user interface. The tracking device is configured to receive at least a portion of a user's finger. The system also includes a base device configured to receive the tracking device. The base device is configured to translate movement of the base device relative to an adjacent surface for use in moving the user interface object.

Claims Overview

The patent has 12 claims, of which only claim 1 is independent (claims 2–12 all depend from claim 1 or claim 2/3).

Claim 1 (independent) — A wireless finger-worn motion-detecting apparatus comprising:

• A housing configured to be worn on a portion of a user's finger such that the fingertip extends beyond the housing, having an internal finger-contact surface, an external outside surface, and an inner space between them that contains all electronics for operating the apparatus as a wireless finger-worn motion-detecting device;
• Wireless communication components in the inner space, operable to communicate with a separate computing system;
• A display device on the housing configured to output information; and
• A motion-detecting mechanism in the inner space that generates movement information based on housing movement, for controlling the separate computing system.

Dependent claims (plain language):

• Claim 2 — The separate computing system controls a display, and the movement information is used to generate display-control data.
• Claim 3 — Further includes a selection mechanism.
• Claim 4 — Selection mechanism is accessible on the housing's external surface and is activatable by a second finger of the user.
• Claim 5 — Motion-detecting mechanism is a first accelerometer; the selection mechanism is a second accelerometer generating selection information from sensed movement.
• Claim 6 — Selection mechanism comprises an accelerometer.
• Claim 7 — Combination with a charging system to which the apparatus can electrically couple for recharging.
• Claim 8 — The housing encloses the user's finger when worn.
• Claim 9 — Wireless communication is via Bluetooth.
• Claim 10 — The apparatus performs a scrolling function in response to input received by the motion-detecting mechanism.
• Claim 11 — Display device is an LED or an LCD screen.
• Claim 12 — Motion-detecting mechanism generates movement information without movement of the housing across a surface (e.g., free-space/accelerometer-based motion).

CAFC / Litigation Search Results

I searched for CAFC 2026 docket activity specific to 10963070 and found no evidence of any CAFC appeal, PTAB IPR, or other federal proceeding involving this patent. Two cautionary notes on search hygiene:

• A PTAB filing (IPR2024-00497, Cisco v. Umbra) involves U.S. Patent No. 10,630,505 — a different patent whose number resembles 10963070; it is not this patent.
• A docket hit for "10963070" in Llauripari-Rios v. Lyons (E.D. Va.) is merely a receipt number (AVAEDC-10963070), not a patent citation.

Uncertainty note: My searches did not surface any post-issuance proceedings (reissue, ex parte reexam, IPR, or CAFC appeal) for 10963070 as of the search date, but the absence of results is not definitive proof that none exist in USPTO/CAFC systems not indexed by the searched sources. The bibliographic data above is taken directly from the authoritative patent record and is high-confidence; the "Expired – Lifetime" flag and 2025 anticipated-expiration date are as reported by Google Patents and reflect its term assumptions (notably, an unexpired maintenance-fee record exists through 2024).

I found a promising lead. Let me dig deeper into that case and search for any other litigation involving this patent.

Based on the search results available, here is what I can report regarding litigation involving US Patent 10,963,070 ("Fingertip mouse and base").

Known litigation

1. Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products v. [[Samsung Electronics America](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20America), Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.)

• Case number: 2:26-cv-00760
• Court / Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Marshall Division)
• Plaintiff: Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products (the patent owner/assignee; note the assignee of record is FTM COMPUTER PRODUCTS)
• Defendant: Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
• Filing date: Reported by the sources as 08/26/26 (August 26, 2026). ⚠️ Date discrepancy flag: Your task states today's date as April 26, 2026, which would make an August 26, 2026 filing date impossible. The system context date is 2026-08-27, under which an August 26, 2026 filing (the day prior) is plausible. The source data may also reflect a mis-OCR'd 2025 date. I could not resolve this within my search limit; treat the filing date as "August 26 (year as reported: 2026)" with that caveat.
• Cause of action: Patent infringement (Nature of Suit 830)
• Status: Open / pending; case listed as "Open" with judge assignment pending per the docket sources.
• Patent linkage: The complaint's exhibits explicitly include "Exhibit C – 10,963,070" and "Exhibit F – Claim Chart for USP 10,963,070", confirming that US Patent 10,963,070 is asserted in this action. The complaint also attaches other US patents (Exhibit A – US Patent No. …), so 10,963,070 appears to be one of multiple patents-in-suit.
• Source: PACER Monitor public case page (cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/66471915/...) and Ex Parte case tracker (ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:26-cv-00760/...).

Not litigation (excluded to avoid false positives)

• Unified Patents, LLC v. AK Meeting IP LLC — involves U.S. Patent 10,963,124 (a groupware patent), not 10,963,070. The number similarity (10,963,124 vs. 10,963,070) is coincidental.
• Earlier searches (in the prior summary section) for CAFC/PTAB proceedings specific to 10963070 found no IPR, reexam, reissue, or CAFC appeal as of the search date.
• A docket hit for "10963070" in Llauripari-Rios v. Lyons (E.D. Va.) was a receipt number (AVAEDC-10963070), not a patent citation.

Candid limitations

• I hit my search-step limit before I could run supplementary searches (e.g., checking whether FTM Computer Products filed parallel cases against other defendants, or whether the Samsung case has since been transferred, consolidated, or dismissed). The Samsung action may not be the only case, and its current status may have evolved beyond "open/pending."
• The "filed 08/26/26" date is ambiguous given the conflicting dates in your prompt vs. the system date; I recommend verifying the exact filing date directly on PACER (case 2:26-cv-00760, E.D. Tex.) before relying on it.

Bottom line: One district-court infringement action is known — FTM Computer Products v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., 2:26-cv-00760 (E.D. Tex.), asserting US 10,963,070, currently open/pending. No IPR, reexam, or Federal Circuit proceedings are known for this patent.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) on file for US Patent 10,963,070 — the USPTO Open Data Portal ingest shows no AIA trials for this patent, and independent web searches for the patent number and its family members (US 8,648,805, US 9,261,983, US 9,092,075) surfaced no petitions, no institution decisions, no final written decisions, and no PTAB-related Federal Circuit appeals. For a defendant, the bottom line is: the patent has never been challenged at the PTAB — all 12 claims (1 independent + 11 dependent) remain in full force and are completely untested by AIA trial, which means the patent is "unhardened" (no PTAB win to cite) but equally means no estoppel bars you from raising any prior-art ground against it today.

(Search-hygiene note: a PTAB matter indexed near this patent number — IPR2024-00497, Cisco v. Umbra, involving US 10,630,505 — concerns a different patent and is not this one. The prior patent-summary section separately confirmed no CAFC docket activity for 10,963,070.)

Individual proceedings

There are no proceedings to report. No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has been filed against US 10,963,070 (or, per searches, against its continuation predecessors US 8,648,805 / US 9,261,983 / US 9,092,075) as of the search date. I will not invent proceeding numbers, judge panels, grounds, or decisions.

The one family-member artifact found in searching is a Unified Patents portal page for US-9261983-B2 (the 2016 parent of this patent) — that page is a patent-ratings/analytics page, not evidence of a Unified Patents IPR challenge. No Unified Patents (or any other petitioner) challenge to this family was located.

Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. Every claim of US 10,963,070 is UNTESTED at the PTAB: claim 1 (the sole independent claim — wireless finger-worn housing containing all electronics, wireless comms, a display, and a motion-detecting mechanism) and dependent claims 2–12 have never been the subject of any AIA trial petition, institution decision, or final written decision. No claim has been canceled, and none has been affirmatively sustained by a PTAB merits decision either. The only status change on the record is the Google Patents "Expired – Lifetime" flag, which reflects patent-term assumptions (priority to Nov. 2004; anticipated expiration Nov. 3, 2025; 4th-year maintenance fee paid Sep. 30, 2024) — it is not a PTAB outcome.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR has ever been instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no previously-raised-or-reasonably-could-have-raised ground that is off the table. For a defendant facing assertion today, every prior-art ground is available: § 102 and § 103 combinations from the crowded finger-worn-pointer prior art (the patent itself cites dozens of family references, including US 5,704,602 (Kent), US 5,484,922 (Wambach), US 6,587,090 (Jarra), US 6,597,056, US 2003/0071787, US 2002/0186198, US 2003/0174124 — a rich field), plus any § 112 written-description/enablement/indefiniteness arguments you might want to develop. Note, however, that the claims were materially narrowed through reissue-style continuation prosecution — claim 1 now requires the fingertip to extend beyond the housing, all electronics in a defined inner space, a display device, and free-space motion detection (claim 12) — so the surviving claim scope is tighter than the 2004 filing and will need fresh, claim-specific art.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, no defensive-aggregator involvement, no patent-owner aggressiveness at the PTAB (there has been nothing to be aggressive in). The notable pattern is the absence of challenges: this family has been in force since the 2004 provisional, issued in final form in 2021, and still has drawn no IPR in roughly five years since issuance. That is a meaningful signal — heavily-asserted patents of this vintage normally attract petitions. It suggests either (a) the patent has not been asserted aggressively enough to motivate a petition, (b) asserted matters have settled pre-petition, or (c) the narrowed claim scope has kept the patent out of the crosshairs. For a defendant, the absence cuts both ways: there is no PTAB precedent to lean on, but there is also no estoppel and no judge or panel that has already formed an adverse view of the art.

Recommended next steps

• Confirm the "no activity" state authoritatively before trial strategy. Run the patent number through the USPTO PTAB E2E / PRPS search portal (and the USPTO Patent Center) yourself, and check the PTAB's live "Trial Search" for "10,963,070" — my searches returned no petitions, but the USPTO's own systems are the definitive source. If nothing appears there, you can state with confidence there is no AIA trial risk currently pending.
• Treat the patent as fully enforceable but fully attackable. Since no claims have been canceled, any infringement theory based on claims 1–12 is legally live, and you cannot argue "the troll has no case" on PTAB grounds. Your defense must be built on the merits: a fresh § 102/§ 103 petition remains available (no estoppel), with the best prior art likely being the finger-worn pointer art catalogued in the patent's own family-citations list (e.g., Kent '026, Wambach '922, Jarra '090, Coghan '198, Movahed '401) — all pre-2004 and squarely in the field.
• Watch the litigation-driven IPR filing window. If you are being sued, the IPR petition deadline is one year from service of the complaint (35 U.S.C. § 315(b)). If you are in pre-suit demand territory, note that a petition filed now preserves the § 315(b) clock. If you intend to petition, budget for: petition + expert declarations (the § 112 and free-space-motion issues in claims 5, 6, 10, 12 will need technical explanation), a preliminary response from the patent owner, an institution decision within roughly 6 months of filing, and — if instituted — a statutory 1-year trial clock to final written decision.
• If the goal is quick cost reduction instead of invalidation, the absence of any prior PTAB history means the patent owner has no track record at the Board; settlement leverage from a credible, well-prepared IPR petition may be higher than usual precisely because the patent has never faced one.

I'll research the ownership chain for US 10,963,070 — starting with the recorded assignment, the assignee entity, and any asserter-directory or litigation evidence.

Key finding: the plaintiff in the Samsung suit is "Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products." I need to trace whether there is a recorded assignment creating that entity, plus the correspondent of record on the one known reel/frame.

I hit my search-step limit before I could finish cross-checking the Assignment Center directly, so I'm flagging confidence levels tightly below rather than papering over gaps.

Method / access caveat (read first). My toolset gave me open-web search only — no terminal access to assignmentcenter.uspto.gov. The assignment data below is drawn from the reproduced USPTO assignment record in the Google Patents "Legal Events" block for application US 15/016,567 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10963070/en), which is a mirror of the Assignment Center record format. Every reel/frame and date below comes from that record or from a document I could actually open; nothing is reconstructed from naming inference.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — cannot be run as specified. The "all inventors depart the original assignee within 12 months" fire-sale precursor is inapplicable here: there is a single inventor and he is the assignor to his own company. What is notable is the reverse pattern — see the assignment timeline below, where the inventor→company assignment was executed in 2007 but not recorded until 2016, nine years later, during prosecution of the continuation that became this patent. That lag, plus the publication-record quirk noted below, is the real anomaly in this chain.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: FTM Computer Products, Duluth, Minnesota (US) — assignee of record on the face of US 10,963,070 and on siblings US 9,092,075 (assignee "FTM Computer Products, Duluth, MN (US)"), US 9,261,983 and US 8,648,805.
• Primary line of business: Per the specification, an input-peripheral/hardware concept business — the entire disclosure is directed to a finger-worn "tracking device" and a docking base, and the spec characterizes it as a small, portable cursor-control peripheral. The patents are the only artifacts of the business I could verify.
• Shipped a product embodying the claims? No evidence found. I searched for a commercial FTM Computer Products / Fingertip Mouse product and found none. ⚠️ Explicit non-finding / false-positive warning: a "Panelmount Industrial Fingertip Mouse" sold as model FTM-PM-FSR by Stealth Computer (stealth.com) surfaced in results — that is a different company's unrelated panel-mount industrial pointing device, and "FTM" there denotes "fingertip mouse" generically. It is not evidence of an FTM Computer Products product. Absence of a product page is absence of evidence, not proof of non-manufacture.
• Current status: Cannot be confirmed as operating, acquired, or dissolved. No Minnesota corporate-status record, dissolution filing, bankruptcy docket, or SEC filing was surfaced. The entity is not a public company, so no 10-K/8-K exists to cross-reference. This is an open item, not a finding.
• Address of record on the 2008 PCT: 23 West Central Entrance, Suite 195, Duluth, MN 55802 — a suite-number-only commercial address. That is the kind of address format often associated with small businesses, virtual offices, or mail-forwarding/registered-agent services, but I did not verify which it is, so I am not scoring it as a shell-entity tell.

Assignment timeline

Summary of the record first, because it is the central finding of this section: the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record for application US 15/016,567 shows exactly ONE assignment-conveyance event in the life of this patent — reel 038049/0901. There are no post-issuance assignments, no security agreements, no mergers, no change-of-name recordings, and no licenses recorded against this application/patent on that record. The only other legal events are procedural (abandonment 2017-07-20, revival 2020-11-18, issue-fee payment 2021-03-04, grant 2021-03-10) and a maintenance-fee payment on 2024-09-30.

• 2007-07-18 (executed) / recorded 2016-03-21 — Reel 038049/0901

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest; record text: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: BAILEN, MICHAEL P. (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: FTM COMPUTER PRODUCTS, State of Minnesota, USA
  • Correspondent of record: NOT RETRIEVED. I could not open the reel/frame image or the Assignment Center correspondent field, and I will not name an attorney I did not verify. The closest verified related fact — which is not the same thing as the assignment correspondent — is that the prosecution attorney/agent of record for this family was FISH & RICHARDSON P.C. (TC), Minneapolis, MN, per the published application US 2015/0123905 (assignee line: "Attorney, Agent or Firm: FISH & RICHARDSON P.C. (TC) (MINNEAPOLIS, MN, US)", https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2015/0123905.html). Treat Fish & Richardson as the likely but unconfirmed recording correspondent. Recommend pulling the 038049/0901 image to fill this field — it is the single most valuable un-retrieved datum in this analysis.
  • Recurrence flag: With only one assignment event in this application's record, no correspondence pattern can be established for this chain. I also found no other patent family on which I could confirm the same correspondent, so Signal 3 (repeat correspondent) cannot be scored, not because it is absent but because the field is blank in my data.
  • Context: Founder-to-company assignment with severe recordation lag — executed in July 2007 (during the CIP family's prosecution) but not recorded with the USPTO until March 21, 2016, roughly six weeks after the 2016-02-05 filing of the continuation that issued as this patent. This is the signature of a nunc pro tunc cleanup recording filed to perfect the chain of title contemporaneously with a new continuation, not a market transfer. It is not an acquisition, not a fire-sale, and not a securitization.

• The chain-of-title gap that matters more than any recorded assignment: the plaintiff in the current litigation is "Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products" (Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1 disclosure statement filed by "Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products"; complaint filed by same), while the recorded owner remains "FTM COMPUTER PRODUCTS" and Google Patents still lists the current assignee as FTM COMPUTER PRODUCTS. I found no recorded assignment from FTM Computer Products to Fingertip Mouse Corporation in any source I searched. Possible benign explanations (the corporation is the same business trading under the FTM name; a conversion; a d/b/a registration) and a possible adverse explanation (assertion by a non-owner or a separately-acquired entity) both remain open. I am reporting this as a verification gap in the recorded chain, not as a legal conclusion — the Assignment Center's assignee-name search and the Rule 7.1 disclosure statement's content are the two documents that would resolve it. This is exactly the kind of plaintiff-name/recorded-owner mismatch that a standing inquiry targets, and it is worth pulling before anything else.

Also flagged — a family-record inconsistency worth verifying: sibling application US 14/592,475 published as US 2015/0123905 A1 with the assignee listed as "BAILEN MICHAEL P." (the inventor individually), whereas the patent that issued from it, US 9,092,075, carries FTM Computer Products as assignee. That is consistent with the late-recordation pattern above (applications publishing before the assignment was on the record) and suggests the family's title cleanup ran late across multiple members. It is not evidence of a competing owner.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10963070
    2004 : Provisional filed by Bailen
    2005 : Nonprovisional filed by Bailen
    2007 : Assignment executed to FTM Computer Products
         : PCT filed listing FTM Computer Products
    2016 : Continuation filed by FTM Computer Products
         : Assignment recorded Reel 038049 frame 0901
    2021 : Patent issues
    2025 : Patent term expires
    2026 : Samsung suit filed in E D Texas

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — UNCLEAR (verification gap). The single recorded transfer (038049/0901) is inventor → operating company, the opposite of the classic operating-assignee → licensing-LLC move; there is no "IP/Patents/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures" assignee anywhere in the chain. However, the unrecorded appearance of "Fingertip Mouse Corporation" as the asserting plaintiff in 2026 — an entity I could not tie to the recorded owner by any recorded instrument — means a later transfer into an assertion vehicle is neither confirmed nor excluded. Naming alone is not the basis for this call; the missing recording is. Present only in the limited sense of "asserting entity differs from owner of record."

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT on the enumerated lists, with a third-party contrary characterization. FTM Computer Products / Fingertip Mouse Corporation do not match any entity on the enumerated list (Acacia/Research Corp, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). The one Unified Patents-family artifact found is a patent analytics page for US 9,261,983 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[9261983](/patent/9261983)-B2) listing "Parent Company: Ftm Computer Products" — a rating page, not a challenge or an NPE designation. But a Korean trade-press report on the Samsung suit (THE Biz, 2026-08-28) explicitly describes the plaintiff as a "특허관리전문회사(NPE)" — a patent-management-specialist company — and frames the suit as a portfolio being "taken out" once the smart-ring market opened ("22년전 특허…스마트 반지 시장 개화하자 꺼내들어"). That is a secondary-source characterization, not a registry entry, but it is concrete published evidence and I am recording it as such.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / cannot be scored. Only one assignment exists in this application's record and its correspondent field was not retrievable. A single appearance would not be a finding anyway; recurrence is the signal, and there is no recurrence available to assess. Notable adjacent fact, clearly labeled as prosecution counsel, not assignment correspondent: Fish & Richardson P.C. (TC), Minneapolis, MN as attorney of record on the family.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT (on the available record). One assignment in ~19 years; no chains of LLCs; no shared correspondent addresses because there is no chain. The 2007-executed / 2016-recorded sequence is a single transfer with recordation lag, not cascading transfers.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT on the recorded record; UNCLEAR if the plaintiff-entity gap is real. The only recorded assignment predates the 2026 suit by roughly 10 years (recorded 2016-03-21; suit filed 2026-08-26). The drafting of a complaint so close to a 2030 docket date indicates the chain was NOT arranged in the six months before filing as far as the record shows — but if a Fingertip Mouse Corporation acquisition exists unrecorded or recorded outside my retrieval, that timing test must be re-run.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 filing, no bankruptcy docket, no portfolio sale proceeding surfaced for FTM Computer Products, Fingertip Mouse Corporation, or Michael P. Bailen.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. Privateering requires an operating company transferring to an NPE that asserts on its behalf against competitors. Here the transferor is the individual inventor and the first recorded assignee is already the entity that later asserts; there is no separate practicing-company sponsor, and no SEC filing exists to surface one.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at an asserter, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized; it is being actively enforced.

Date contradiction resolved (per instruction to flag contradictions): the earlier Litigation section flagged that a 2026-08-26 filing was impossible against a stated "today" of 2026-04-26. With this task's date of 2026-09-22, that conflict dissolves: a 2026-08-26 filing is 27 days old and consistent with the docket entry ("08/26"), the PACER Monitor page, and the Korean report published 2026-08-28 describing the suit as filed "26일" (the 26th). The earlier flag can be closed.

Strategic context that bears on ownership value: the Korean report states all three asserted patents expired on November 3, 2025 — before the August 2026 complaint. If accurate (and it matches the Google Patents "Anticipated expiration 2025-11-03" field), the claim set can only reach past conduct, subject to the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback, i.e. an infringement window of roughly Nov. 2019 – Nov. 2025. That is a damages-only posture, which is itself a classic non-practicing-entity assertion profile — the owner is selling a right to past damages, not protecting a product or a market position.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: the assertion profile is functionally an NPE's — an owner with no verifiable product embodying the claims sues a large consumer-electronics maker (Samsung Electronics America) over the Galaxy Ring on patents already expired on 2025-11-03, i.e. a past-damages claim against a non-competitor, and a Korean trade-press report identifies the plaintiff outright as a patent-management company (NPE). That is one strong functional signal plus published third-party corroboration. I stop short of high confidence because the ownership-chain evidence that would clinch it is missing rather than adverse: the only recorded assignment in the life of this patent is reel 038049/0901 (executed 2007-07-18, recorded 2016-03-21), a founder-to-company transfer to an entity named FTM COMPUTER PRODUCTS that still appears as assignee of record — while the 2026 plaintiff is a differently named Fingertip Mouse Corporation for which no assignment was found. Confirming (a) the correspondent on reel 038049/0901, (b) whether any recording transfers title to Fingertip Mouse Corporation, and (c) the contents of the Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure statement filed in 2:26-cv-00760 could move this verdict to NPE — high confidence, or could reveal a benign same-business explanation.

Verify here: USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search US 10,963,070, then run the assignee-name search "Fingertip Mouse"); mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Also pull the reel/frame image for 038049/0901 and docket entry 1/2 in Fingertip Mouse Corporation dba FTM Computer Products v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-00760 (E.D. Tex.) (https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/66471915/).

I'll research the cited prior art for US 10,963,070. First, let me verify the patent record and pull details on each citation.

I've confirmed the citation list from Justia (matching Google Patents). Now let me pull details on the remaining cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US Patent 10,963,070 ("Fingertip mouse and base")

0. Patent-number verification (no ID confusion)

I confirmed the target is US 10,963,070 B2 (app. US 15/016,567, filed Feb. 5, 2016; issued Mar. 30, 2021; inventor Michael P. Bailen; assignee FTM Computer Products). The record was cross-checked on Google Patents and the Justia patent mirror (both of which republish USPTO data). I deliberately did not substitute similar numbers (e.g., 10,630,505, which appears in unrelated PTAB/IPR dockets). One transparency note: the toolset available here does not give direct PatFT/PAIR terminal access, so the citation list below is taken from the on-face-of-patent record as reproduced by Google Patents and Justia — those two sources agree on the six cited references, which is strong corroboration of the USPTO record.

1. Legal framework applied

The '070 patent is a continuation claiming priority through US 14/174,483 → US 11/754,071 (CIP, filed May 25, 2007) → US 11/266,498 (filed Nov. 3, 2005, abandoned) → Provisional 60/625,254 (Nov. 5, 2004). Because the family contains claims with an effective filing date before Mar. 16, 2013, the claims are analyzed under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 (a)/(b)/(e). Two date anchors matter:

• Earliest possible priority date: Nov. 5, 2004 (provisional) / Nov. 3, 2005 (non-provisional).
• CIP anchor (likely effective date for later-added subject matter such as the on-housing display and wireless embodiments): May 25, 2007 (filing of US 11/754,071).

Whether each reference is available as § 102 art depends on which anchor the claim is entitled to; whether it anticipates is a separate question. No single cited reference appears to read on all elements of claim 1, so my claim mapping below flags the closest element-level hits and the dispositive misses.

Claim 1 element checklist (used below):

• (A) housing worn in a finger-worn position on a portion of a finger, with the tip end portion of the finger extending beyond the housing;
• (B) internal finger-contact surface + external outside surface;
• (C) an inner space between those surfaces containing all electronics for operating as a wireless finger-worn motion-detecting device;
• (D) wireless communication components communicating with a separate computing system;
• (E) a display device located on the housing configured to output information;
• (F) a motion-detecting mechanism in the inner space generating movement information for controlling the separate computing system.

All of claims 2–12 depend from claim 1 (or claim 2/3), so a reference that fails claim 1 cannot anticipate any dependent claim standing alone.

2. The six patent citations, one by one

2.1 US 4,780,707 A — "Analog input device for a computer"

• Citation: Selker, Edwin J. (IBM). US 4,780,707, filed Jul. 18, 1985, issued Oct. 25, 1988.
• Description (verified from the PDF/Google Patents): An improved "mouse" comprising a pen-shaped stylus/wand having an opto-electrical transducer on one end (detecting motion relative to a surface) that can be used alone as a stylus mouse, or inserted into a rectangular-prism base having a hole, so the assembly operates as a conventional mouse. Claim 1 recites "a wand having a transducer on one end; a base … having a hole formed therein for receiving said wand."
• § 102 analysis: The wand is hand-held like a pen, not worn on a finger (fails A); no wireless communication (fails C/D); no display device on the device (fails E); the transducer detects surface-relative movement of a hand-held implement (fails F as claimed, i.e., housing-movement-based control of a separate system). Anticipates none of claims 1–12. Its relevance is to the base-docking embodiments described in the '070 specification, but those are not in the granted claims.

2.2 US 4,954,817 A — "Finger worn graphic interface device"

• Citation: Levine, Neil A. US 4,954,817, filed May 2, 1988, issued Sep. 4, 1990.
• Description (verified from the full text/claims): A miniaturized finger-worn X-Y graphic interface emulating a mouse: a stylus ring worn on the thumb with a protruding stylus point, and a finger "palette" worn on the index finger (ring-mounted housing) containing a multi-layer sensing element that detects X-Y position and pressure; signals are processed in an electronic module and sent to the computer via a coiled interface cable (tethered).
• § 102 analysis: Meets (B) and arguably (A) as to the palette ring (the fingertip can extend beyond the ring), and discloses position/pressure sensing. But the device is tethered by cable — not wireless (fails C/D); it has no display device on the housing (fails E); and movement is detected by stylus-on-palette contact rather than by a motion-detecting mechanism generating movement information from housing movement (fails F as claimed). Anticipates none of claims 1–12.

2.3 US 5,706,026 A — "Finger operated digital input device"

• Citation: Kent, Robert Hormann; Wentz, John Dyer. US 5,706,026, filed Mar. 13, 1995 (priority Jan. 25, 1993), issued Jan. 6, 1998.
• Description (verified from Espacenet/Google Patents): A thimble worn on a finger that operates as a mouse (surface displacement encoding via a contact roller at the end of the thimble, with metering strips and sensing elements) or as a pointer (angular encoding against a base unit with a cup-shaped surface coupled at a universal joint). The sensor can be pivoted back on the finger to permit typing, and can attach to a stylus.
• § 102 analysis: Strongest structural analog among the older references for a finger-worn tracking device (meets B; F via the roller-based motion sensor). However: the thimble covers the fingertip, so the "tip end portion of the finger extends beyond the housing" limitation (A) is not met; it couples to a base unit rather than communicating wirelessly (fails C/D); and it has no display device (fails E). Anticipates none of claims 1–12.

2.4 US 2006/0033710 A1 — "Computer mouse on a glove"

• Citation: Bajramovic, Mark B. US 2006/0033710 A1, filed Jul. 6, 2001, published Feb. 16, 2006 (family sibling of US 2003/0006962 A1).
• Description: A computer mouse integrated into a glove worn on the user's hand, with cursor-control and button functionality moved onto the hand. (Confidence note: I verified the bibliographic data and family from the patent record and Justia, but did not retrieve the full application text in this session; the description is drawn from the title/family and is consistent with the "Computer mouse on a glove" family.)
• § 102 analysis: Even on the title/family disclosure, the device is a hand/glove-mounted system, not a housing worn on a portion of one finger with the fingertip extending beyond (fails A/B); it does not disclose the claimed on-housing display device (fails E) or the "all electronics in the inner space" structure (fails C). It is § 102(e) art as of Jul. 6, 2001 (predating even the 2004 priority date), but it does not read on claim 1. Anticipates none of claims 1–12.

2.5 US 2008/0180433 A1 — "Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and storage medium"

• Citation: Nakamoto (Canon Kabushiki Kaisha). US 2008/0180433 A1, filed Jan. 31, 2007, published Jul. 31, 2008.
• Description: An image processing apparatus/method — on its face unrelated to finger-worn input devices. (Confidence note: I verified the bibliographic data; I could not retrieve the full text in this session, and its title suggests it concerns image processing rather than pointing-device hardware, so I cannot identify a specific teaching it was cited for without the full document.)
• § 102 analysis: No plausible element mapping to claim 1 (no finger-worn housing, no wireless motion-detection device, no on-housing display as claimed). It is § 102(e) art only as of Jan. 31, 2007 — i.e., after the 2004/2005 priority dates but before the May 25, 2007 CIP filing, so it could only be § 102 prior art against claims entitled to no earlier date than the CIP. On the record available, it anticipates none of claims 1–12 and appears to be a background/§ 103 citation.

2.6 US 8,405,612 B2 — "Method and apparatus for wearable remote interface device"

• Citation: Kruse, Barbara; Steger, Ryan (Immersion Corporation). App. 11/871,495 filed Oct. 12, 2007; published as US 2009/0096746 A1 on Apr. 16, 2009; granted Mar. 26, 2013.
• Description (verified from the full application text): A wearable haptic ring worn on a finger (between the DIP/PIP or PIP/MCP joints — so the fingertip extends beyond the ring), containing a sensor (e.g., accelerometer) that senses impacts/movements of the finger against a surface, a filter to remove extraneous gestures, an input identifier that generates inputs (mouse clicks, keystrokes), a transmitter that sends inputs wirelessly (explicitly mentioning Bluetooth) to a processing device, and a haptic actuator (piezo/ERM/LRA/SMA) for tactile confirmation. It expressly describes emulating a virtual mouse ("smart fingertips or mouse replacement").
• § 102 analysis — closest reference to claim 1: Meets (A) (ring on a finger portion; fingertip extends beyond), (B) (ring surfaces), (D) (wireless transmitter to a separate processing device, Bluetooth), and (F) (accelerometer generating movement/input information). Two dispositive misses:
  • (E) No display device — the ring outputs haptic/tactile feedback, not visual information on a display device located on the housing (claim 11's LED/LCD display has no counterpart).
  • (C) The application does not describe the claimed inner-space-between-surfaces structure containing "all electronics," and the sensor/actuator/filter/identifier functions are described functionally rather than as all-electronic-in-housing.
  • Therefore it anticipates none of claims 1–12 alone (it is the strongest § 103 starting point, however).
• Date caveat (important): Filed Oct. 12, 2007 and published Apr. 16, 2009 — both after the '070 family's earliest priority dates (Nov. 5, 2004 / Nov. 3, 2005) and after the May 25, 2007 CIP filing. Unless a claim is held not entitled to the family priority dates (e.g., deemed to have an effective filing date of Feb. 5, 2016), US 8,405,612 cannot be § 102 prior art at all against the '070 claims; its citation on the face of the patent is most plausibly as § 103/IDS material in the 2016 continuation prosecution.

3. Ranking of relevance

4. Bottom line

• All six on-face citations are examiner citations ("* Cited by examiner" per the Google Patents record) and match the Justia republished USPTO record exactly.
• No single cited reference anticipates any claim of US 10,963,070 under § 102, because claim 1's combination of (A) fingertip-extending-beyond-housing, (C) inner space containing all electronics for a wireless device, (D) wireless communication with a separate computing system, and especially (E) an on-housing display device (LED/LCD) is not disclosed in any one reference. Since claims 2–12 all depend from claim 1, none is anticipated alone either.
• The strongest § 102/103 candidate is US 8,405,612 B2, but it is missing the display limitation and is likely date-barred as § 102 art if the claims are entitled to the family's 2004/2005/2007 priority dates. The strongest structural finger-worn-mouse prior art is US 5,706,026 A (Kent).
• Highest-confidence data: bibliographic facts and claim text for US 4,780,707, US 4,954,817, US 5,706,026, and US 8,405,612 were verified against full-text sources. Lower-confidence items: the full specification of US 2006/0033710 A1 and US 2008/0180433 A1 were not retrieved in this session; their descriptions rest on titles/family records and should be confirmed against USPTO full text before reliance.