Invalidity dossier
US 11182792
Personal digital key initialization and registration for secure transactions
Current assignee: Proxense, LLC
Added 9/18/2026, 6:45:55 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
I'll verify the patent details against live sources, then summarize.
Let me pin down the actual claim set and any '792-specific litigation.
Let me verify the '792 claim text and check for any '792-specific PTAB/Federal Circuit activity.
US Patent 11,182,792 (US11182792B2) — Verification Summary
Caveat up front: The Google Patents text supplied to me is truncated before the claims, so the claim summary below is drawn from a third‑party database (Justia patent profile for 11182792, https://companyprofiles.justatic.com/patent/11182792), corroborated by a complaint analysis of the Intel suit. I could not independently re‑verify the full claim set against USPTO PatentCenter, and I found no Federal Circuit docket that names this patent. Treat the identification/bibliographic data as high‑confidence and the claim‑level and litigation data as good-but-not-authoritative.
Bibliographic data (high confidence)
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Patent number | US 11,182,792 B2 |
| Title | Personal Digital Key Initialization and Registration for Secure Transactions |
| Inventors | John J. Giobbi (Bend, OR); David L. Brown (Jupiter, FL); Fred S. Hirt (Brookfield, IL) |
| Assignee | Proxense, LLC (Bend, OR) — original and current |
| Application No. | 16/893,155 |
| Filing date | June 4, 2020 |
| Issue/publication date | November 23, 2021 |
| Pre‑grant publication | US 2020/0304301 A1 (Sept. 24, 2020) |
| Earliest priority | May 5, 2006 (prov. 60/798,172, "Touch Pay"); Google lists prior‑art date 2006‑05‑05 |
| Anticipated expiration | May 5, 2027 (as listed by Google Patents) |
| Status | Active; 4th‑ and 8th‑year maintenance fees paid (large entity) |
| Primary examiner | Badri Narayanan Champakesan |
| Representative classification | G06Q 20/40; also G06F 21/31, 21/32, 21/34, 21/45; G07C 9/25, 9/26; G07F 7/10; H04L 9/08, 9/32; H04W 12/06 |
Continuation chain (per the '792 specification): 16/893,155 ← 16/503,066 (filed 7/3/2019) ← 14/986,306 (filed 12/31/2015, now US 10,374,795) ← 14/448,891 (filed 7/31/2014, now US 9,251,326) ← 13/791,553 (filed 3/8/2013, now US 8,838,993) ← 11/744,832 (filed 5/5/2007, now US 8,412,949), which claims benefit of provisionals 60/798,172; 60/798,843; 60/838,788; 60/824,758; 60/894,608. A later continuation is US 12,014,369 B2 (filed 10/14/2021, granted 6/18/2024). Family members also include US 11,551,222 — "Single Step Transaction Authentication Using Proximity and Biometric Input."
Abstract (verbatim from the patent)
"A system and method provide efficient, secure, and highly reliable authentication for transaction processing and/or access control applications. A personal digital key (PDK) is programmed using a trusted programming device to initialize and/or register the PDK for use. In one embodiment, the initialization and registration processes are administered by a specialized trusted Notary to ensure the processes follow defined security procedures. In a biometric initialization, the programming device acquires a biometric input from a user and writes the biometric data to a tamperproof memory in the PDK. In registration, the Programmer communicates to one or more remote registries to create or update entries associated with the user PDK. Once initialized and registered, the PDK can be used for various levels of secure authentication processes."
Plain‑language overview of the independent claims
There appear to be two independent claims: claim 1 (a method) and claim 11 (a system), with dependent claims 2–10 and 12–20 largely mirroring each other. Their substance is not the initialization/registration subject matter of the title — it is reader‑side, threshold‑gated transaction authorization (consistent with the specification's discussion of "device authentication" plus a configurable dollar threshold such as $25 for low‑value purchases).
Claim 1 (method) — a reader device:
- Determines that a portable electronic device (e.g., a PDK, cell phone, PDA, watch, or tag) is inside a proximity zone;
- Establishes a wireless communication channel with it in response;
- Receives device identification information uniquely identifying the portable device;
- Locally determines the portable device is valid based on that ID, without a remote lookup;
- Receives a request for a transaction having an amount;
- Determines whether the amount is under an amount threshold;
- If the amount is under the threshold and the device is in the proximity zone, automatically performs the transaction for that amount; and
- If the amount is not under the threshold, requests that the portable device perform a profile authentication.
Claim 11 (system) — one or more processors and memory storing instructions causing the same sequence of operations as claim 1. Note a literal discrepancy I am flagging rather than correcting: as rendered in the Justia claim text, claim 11's final limitation reads "responsive to determining that the transaction amount … is under the amount threshold, requesting that the portable electronic device perform a profile authentication," i.e., the negative appears to be dropped relative to claim 1's "is not under." This may be a transcription artifact or a drafting error. Under the instructions not to auto‑correct identifiers/text, I have reproduced it as found; it should be verified against the printed patent.
Selected dependent claims (plain language):
- Claims 2/12: if the profile authentication succeeds, the reader automatically performs the transaction.
- Claims 3/13: the profile authentication is a comparison performed on the portable device between a user input and a profile stored there (i.e., the biometric/PIN never leaves the PDK).
- Claims 4/14: transactional information is received from the portable device after successful authentication and used to perform the transaction.
- Claims 5/15: a secure channel is established and the transactional information is received over it.
- Claims 6/16: the transactional information is credit card, debit card, ATM card, bank account information, or a code.
- Claims 7/17: the reader requests validation information from a database using the transactional information, and the transaction uses that validation information.
- Claims 8/18: the validation is based on a spending limit tied to the transactional information and the transaction amount.
- Claims 9/19: the reader device is an ATM.
- Claims 10/20: the portable device is a cell phone, PDA, watch, or tag.
Litigation posture (as of the search date)
- District court: The patent's Google Patents page carries a litigation link to Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation, No. 7:25‑cv‑00531 (W.D. Tex.) (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A25-cv-00531). The complaint docket lists Exhibit D – U.S. Patent No. 11,182,792 and Exhibit J – '792 Claim Chart. Per a complaint analysis, the '792 theory targets Intel's Windows Hello enrollment/provisioning flows — devices detected, identity validated locally, and transactions handled differently depending on whether they fall above or below preset thresholds — with at least independent Claim 1 asserted (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:25-cv-00531/doc/analysis/1).
- PTAB: I found no IPR petition naming U.S. 11,182,792. The Proxense IPRs that surfaced concern other patents — e.g., IPR2025‑00562 (Apple v. Proxense, filed 2/7/2025) challenges U.S. 9,049,188; IPR2024‑00233/00846 challenge U.S. 8,886,954; IPR2025‑00074 challenges U.S. 9,679,289.
- CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no 2026 Federal Circuit appeal docketed specifically for 11,182,792. The 2025–2026 Federal Circuit activity in the Proxense campaign concerns other patents: Proxense v. Apple, No. 25‑2168 (filed 9/30/2025; originating IPR2024‑00846, IPR2024‑01334, IPR2024‑00233) and Proxense v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) / Apple, No. 26‑1025 (filed 10/8/2025; companion to 25‑2130), both centering on U.S. 8,886,954. Proxense's April 2026 appellate opening brief argues the PTAB abused its discretion by staying a favorable ex parte reexamination (No. 90/015,052, on U.S. 8,352,730) (https://ipfray.com/ptab-abused-discretion-by-staying-reexamination-that-favored-patentee-proxense-tells-federal-circuit/). District litigation against Apple (6:24‑cv‑00143) and Microsoft (6:23‑cv‑00319) remains stayed; Samsung, Google, and Intel settled.
Confidence and uncertainty notes
- High confidence: patent number, title, inventors, assignee, application number, filing date, issue date, priority chain, abstract, classifications. These come from the authoritative Google Patents record plus a corroborating Justia profile with matching patent‑history fields.
- Medium confidence: exact claim wording. My authoritative source was truncated before the claims; the claim text comes from a commercial database and is corroborated only in substance (not verbatim) by the Intel complaint analysis. The claim‑11 "under" vs. "not under" asymmetry in particular should be checked against the granted patent.
- Explicit unknowns: I cannot confirm whether 11,182,792 has been the subject of any ex parte reexamination, and I cannot rule out a 2026 CAFC filing on it that my searches did not surface. Absence of a '792 docket in my results is not proof that none exists.
- Term note: Google's "anticipated expiration 2027‑05‑05" is the site's own calculation tied to the 2007‑05‑05 parent filing; the actual term depends on the 20‑year/patent‑term‑adjustment calculus and any terminal disclaimer, which I have not independently verified.
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:47:06 AM
Cases on file (1)
Group view →Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 11182792. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
I'll search for litigation involving US 11182792 specifically.
Let me dig deeper to confirm which cases actually assert the '792 patent and check for any other suits.
Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 11,182,792
Bottom line: My searches identified exactly one (1) known litigation in which U.S. Patent No. 11,182,792 ("the '792 patent") is asserted. No other district court action, ITC investigation, or appellate proceeding (CAFC) naming the '792 patent surfaced.
Case 1 — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Plaintiff | Proxense, LLC (Delaware; principal place of business 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon) |
| Defendant | Intel Corporation |
| Jurisdiction / Court | U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Midland Division |
| Presiding Judge | Judge Alan D. Albright |
| Case Number | 7:25-cv-00531 |
| Filing Date | November 14, 2025 |
| Cause of Action | 35 U.S.C. § 100 / Patent Infringement; Nature of Suit 830 (Patent); Jury demand by Plaintiff |
| Outcome / Current Status | Open / pending — complaint filed with the '792 claim chart; case at an early (pre-answer) stage. No outcome on the merits reported. |
Confirmation that the '792 patent is part of this case (not merely a family member):
- The complaint's attachments list "Exhibit D – U.S. Patent No. 11,182,792" and "Exhibit J – 792 Claim Chart." (PACER Monitor case page)
- The asserted patents in the complaint are U.S. Patent Nos. 9,405,898; 10,469,456; 8,433,919; 11,182,792; 11,551,222; and 9,990,628 — each with its own claim chart (Exhibits G–L).
- The Google Patents "Family has litigation" link for US11182792 points to this same W.D. Tex. case (7:25-cv-00531) via Unified Patents' litigation dataset.
Accused subject matter (from the complaint analysis): Intel processors, chipsets and platforms incorporating Platform Trust Technology (PTT) and the Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME), including Intel Core processors (8th–14th Gen and beyond), Intel Evo laptops, and Intel vPro platforms; infringement theories center on Intel's firmware TPM / secure-element functionality (key sealing/unsealing, credential release) and Windows Hello enrollment/provisioning flows. (Complaint analysis, 7:25-cv-00531)
Cases that assert Proxense patents but do NOT (based on available records) assert the '792 patent
To help you avoid conflating the '792 patent with the rest of the Proxense campaign:
- Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corp., No. 6:24-cv-00283 (W.D. Tex., filed May 23, 2024) — asserted '129, '672, '043, '152, '730. The '792 patent is not among the exhibits. This is a different, earlier Intel case.
- Proxense, LLC v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), No. 6:23-cv-00319 (W.D. Tex., filed Apr. 28, 2023) — asserted '730, '954, '905, '042, '289, '960.
- Proxense, LLC v. Google LLC et al., No. 6:23-cv-00320 (W.D. Tex.) — asserted '730, '954, '905, '042, '289, '960.
- Proxense, LLC v. Apple, Inc., No. 6:24-cv-00143 (W.D. Tex., filed Feb. 2024) — asserted '730, '042, '289, '960 family patents.
- Proxense, LLC v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al., No. 6:24-cv-00302 (W.D. Tex., filed May 31, 2024) — asserted '730, '905, '989, '332, '456, '979, '152.
- Proxense, LLC v. Hyundai Motor Co. et al., No. 6:25-cv-00016 (W.D. Tex., filed Jan. 14, 2025) — asserted '960, '332, '956, '640 ("Digital Key" vehicles).
- Proxense, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 6:21-cv-00210 (W.D. Tex., filed Mar. 5, 2021) — asserted '730, '989, '188, '700, '905; resolved by consent judgment / stipulated dismissal.
⚠️ Note on causation: the timing is consistent with the '792 patent being a later-issued continuation (issued Nov. 23, 2021) that Proxense first asserted only in the 2025 Intel action. I cannot rule out that a much later-served or amended pleading in one of the pending cases (Apple, LG, Hyundai, Microsoft, Google) added the '792 patent after the docket snapshots I retrieved (most dated mid-2024 to early 2025). Live PACER/RPX docket checks are advisable before relying on this as final.
Sources
- PACER Monitor — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation, 7:25-cv-00531: https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61206235/Proxense,_LLC_v_Intel_Corporation_
- Unified Patents litigation record (linked from Google Patents for US11182792): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A25-cv-00531
- RPX Insight — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation, 7:25-cv-00531, filed 11/14/2025: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172875230-proxense-v-intel
- Google Patents US11182792B2 (family litigation / case link): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11182792/en
Caveats
- Scope of search: I searched patent-litigation aggregators (PACER Monitor, RPX Insight, Docket Alarm, Justia Dockets, Unified Patents, Law360) and the broader web. A docket-only filing (e.g., a newly filed 2026 complaint, an ITC § 337 action, or a sealed/limited-participation proceeding) could exist without appearing in indexed public results. I found no CAFC appeal and no PTAB post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR) directed at the '792 patent in the results, but I could not exhaustively confirm the absence of an IPR.
- Status precision: "Open/pending" reflects the last publicly retrieved docket state. I have no record of any dispositive ruling, settlement, judgment, or dismissal involving the '792 patent.
- I did not auto-correct identifiers. Case numbers and patent numbers are reproduced verbatim as they appeared in the sources (e.g., Intel's two W.D. Tex. suits — 6:24-cv-00283 and 7:25-cv-00531 — are distinct).
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:46:56 AM
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
Current assignee: Proxense, LLC
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
I'll research this patent's PTAB history. Let me run several targeted searches.
Let me search more specifically for this patent number and its family.
PTAB Proceedings on US 11,182,792 — Analyst Report
Patent: US 11,182,792 B2 — "Personal Digital Key Initialization and Registration for Secure Transactions"
Patent Owner: Proxense, LLC (Bend, OR) · Inventors: Giobbi, Brown, Hirt
Priority: 2006-05-05 · Filed: 2020-06-04 (Appl. 16/893,155) · Granted: 2021-11-23 · Anticipated expiration: 2027-05-05
Proceedings overview
The USPTO Open Data Portal returns zero AIA trial proceedings on US 11,182,792 — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs — meaning the '792 has never been challenged at the PTAB: 0 active, 0 claims-canceled, 0 claims-sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied. The bottom line for a defendant is unusual and cuts both ways: unlike every other asserted Proxense patent in this portfolio, the '792 is procedurally pristine at the Board — there is no adverse FWD to hand you a validity win, but there is also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel walling off prior art from any petitioner. You have a clean, unfettered IPR runway — but see the expiration math in Recommended next steps before you spend money on it.
Source-of-record note: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt is the canonical list, and it is empty. Independent web searching surfaced no proceeding number directed to the '792. I want to be explicit: I did not find — and I am not inventing — any IPR/PGR/CBM number for this patent. The findings below concerning other Proxense patents are reliably reported but are about sibling patents, not about the '792.
(No proceeding entries to report)
Because there is nothing to list, I have repurposed the per-proceeding slots below for the family record that a defendant actually needs, clearly labeled so it is not mistaken for activity on the '792.
⚠️ FAMILY CONTEXT — NOT proceedings on the '792
The '792 sits in Proxense's "PDK initialization and registration" continuation branch (immediate parent of record: U.S. 10,374,795, from the same Appl. 14/986,306). It shares the 2006 provisional priority, the inventors, and much of the specification with the Proxense patents that have been IPR'd — which makes the family record highly probative on claim-term construction and § 103 obviousness framing, even though the '792 claims themselves are untested.
Sibling patents with reported PTAB outcomes (all involve different patent numbers than 11,182,792):
- IPR2024-00573 — [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) (joined by Apple) v. Proxense, LLC — U.S. 8,646,042 ("Hybrid Device Having a Personal Digital Key and Receiver-Decoder Circuit") — FWD 2025-08-04 determining claims 1, 5, 6, 8–11, 13, and 14 unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Giobbi-157 + Giobbi-139 (+ Dua) and/or Broadcom. Panel: APJs Thu A. Dang, David C. McKone, Norman H. Beamer; oral hearing 2025-05-13. (FWD PDF)
- IPR2024-00783 — Google LLC (joined by Apple) v. Proxense, LLC — U.S. 9,679,289 — FWD reported 2025-11-12 holding challenged claims unpatentable obvious over prior art. Google was terminated from the proceeding 2025-02-05, leaving Apple as sole petitioner; consolidated with Apple's IPR2025-00075 by joinder.
- IPR2024-00846 — Microsoft Corp. v. Proxense, LLC — U.S. 8,886,954 — instituted; hearing held 2025-08-18 (Microsoft also filed IPR2024-00233 on the same '954).
- IPR2024-00233 / IPR2024-00775 — Microsoft v. Proxense — terminated after Patent Owner request for adverse judgment (i.e., Proxense conceded rather than defend) on U.S. 9,298,905 and U.S. 8,352,730.
- Paralleling the IPRs: three ex parte reexaminations — 90/015,052 ('730), 90/015,053 ('905), 90/015,054 (10,698,989) — were filed by Proxense's adversaries.
- CAFC appeals: Proxense, LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 25-2168 (filed 2025-09-30; originating IPR2024-00846 / -01334 / -00233) and Proxense, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation, No. 26-1025 (filed 2025-10-08; originating IPR2024-01398 / -00573). Proxense is clearly appealing adverse outcomes rather than settling.
Strategic summary
Claim status on the '792: everything is UNTESTED. There are no canceled claims, no surviving-after-IPR claims, and no claim-level PTAB rulings to work from. Any representation that a specific claim of the '792 has been invalidated at the Board would be false. If you have an infringement demand citing the '792, the demand is not vulnerable to a "claims already cancelled" attack — but it is also not fortified by any PTAB victory, and it has never been construed by the Board.
Estoppel landscape: none attached to this patent. Because no petitioner has taken the '792 to FWD, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not bar any ground against the '792 for any party. In the sibling proceedings, estoppel runs against Microsoft, Apple, and Google only as to the specific patents they challenged ('042, '289, '954, '905, '960, etc.). For a defendant newly asserted against the '792, the full prior-art field is open — including art already litigated against sibling patents, which you could repackage against differently-worded '792 claims. The genuine constraint is not estoppel but § 315(b): if Proxense served you with an '792 complaint, your one-year IPR window is running from service.
Pattern signals: this is a co-ordinated multi-fronter, not a lone troll, and it is not yet defended by a public aggregator on this patent. Microsoft, Apple, and Google have collectively filed a dense salvo of IPRs against the Proxense family, and Proxense is aggressively appealing. Notably, the '792 is currently being asserted — the Google Patents record shows a W.D. Tex. case, 7:25-cv-00531, and the PacerMonitor docket identifies it as Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation (W.D. Tex.), with U.S. Patent No. 11,182,792 attached as Exhibit D to the complaint. Unified Patents has run a PATROLL crowd-sourcing prior-art contest on U.S. 9,251,332 (a related Proxense patent asserted against Hyundai and LG) — but I found no Unified-funded IPR against the '792 itself. So the aggregator is watching this portfolio but has not (yet) taken a shot at this patent.
Recommended next steps
Confirm the litigation posture before anything else. Verify the '792 service date in Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corp., 7:25-cv-00531 (W.D. Tex.) on PACER/CourtListener. That date starts your § 315(b) one-year clock and is the single most decisive fact for your PTAB decision. (Caveat: the docket identification of "Intel" as defendant rests on a PacerMonitor snapshot; I could not independently confirm the full caption, so verify it.)
Do the expiration math before you authorize an IPR. The '792's anticipated expiration is 2027-05-05 — roughly 7.5 months from today (2026-09-19). A petition filed now will not reach FWD until ~2028 (statutory ~18 months from institution under § 316(a)(11), i.e., one year from institution plus the institution-decision window). For a patent this close to expiry, IPR is usually a poor economic play: you would be paying six figures to invalidate a patent that dies on its own before the Board rules. Redirect budget toward (a) district-court invalidity, (b) § 101 eligibility, and (c) non-infringement/claim-construction leveraging the existing W.D. Tex. constructions from Proxense v. Samsung (6:21-cv-00210-ADA) and Proxense v. Microsoft (6:23-cv-00319-ADA), which addressed "personal digital key," "receiver-decoder circuit/hybrid device," and "signal line."
If you do file, borrow the winning family playbook — verbatim. The art that defeated sibling claims is already vetted by three different panels: Giobbi-157 (US 2007/0245157), Giobbi-139 (US 2004/0255139), Dua (US 9,042,819), and Broadcom (EP 1 536 306 A1). Map those same references against the '792's initialization/registration/Notary claim limitations specifically — the sibling FWDs turned on hybrid-device structure, so do not assume automatic transfer of the § 103 rationale to '792's enrollment claims.
Watch for a late-filed petition and for reexam conversion. Given the Asserted-Intel docket and the family-wide pressure, expect Proxense's adversaries to consider ex parte reexam (cheaper, no § 315(b) bar, no estoppel) as an alternative to IPR — exactly as happened with 90/015,052–054 on sibling patents. Monitor PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the USPTO PatentCenter reexam tab for the '792, and CourtListener for the two live CAFC appeals (25-2168, 26-1025), whose holdings on shared specification language could constrain how '792 claims are construed.
Verification trail
- Canonical PTAB list: USPTO ODP — no AIA trial proceedings for US 11,182,792 (as ingested).
- No IPR/PGR/CBM number for '792 found via web search; I am not reporting any such number.
- Sibling-patent FWD (IPR2024-00573, '042 patent, 2025-08-04): docketalarm.com FWD PDF
- '792 assertion (Exhibit D, 7:25-cv-00531): PacerMonitor docket snapshot
- CAFC appeals: RPX Empower 25-2168 (Apple) · RPX Empower 26-1025 (Microsoft)
- Unified Patents PATROLL (sibling '332, not '792): contest page · award announcement
Confidence caveats: (i) the empty-PTAB finding is high-confidence for '792; (ii) the family IPR details are reported from secondary sources and docket aggregators, so verify claim-level dispositions on PTAB E2E before citing them in a brief; (iii) the "Intel" identification and the 2025 filing date for 7:25-cv-00531 should be confirmed on PACER; (iv) I did not retrieve the '792 claim set and therefore make no statement about its claim count or claim language.
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:47:18 AM
Ownership chain (1)
Asserters network →Structured records extracted from the assignment-history narrative below. Each entity links to its full ownership-network profile.
? · recorded 2020-07-14 · Assignment
Giobbi, John J.; Brown, David L.; Hirt, Fred S.PROXENSE, LLC
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
I'll research the assignment record and litigation context for US 11182792, then build the report. Let me start with parallel searches.
Let me dig into the specific assignment reel/frame records and the Proxense corporate history.
Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,182,792 B2
Patent: US 11,182,792 B2 — "Personal Digital Key Initialization and Registration for Secure Transactions"
App. 16/893,155 · filed 2020-06-04 · granted 2021-11-23 · priority 2006-05-05 · anticipated expiration 2027-05-05
Current assignee of record: Proxense, LLC (Bend, OR) — same entity as the original assignee.
Sourcing note (read first). The findings below are built from the Google Patents legal-events panel in the authoritative patent text, plus PTAB / district-court / Unified Patents records surfaced by search. I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record for this patent's own assignment entry — Google Patents shows the event but not the reel/frame, and I could not pull the Assignment Center abstract directly in this session. Where I cite a reel/frame below, it is from a sibling Proxense patent and is labeled as such. Verify the target patent at the Assignment Center before relying on it: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11182792).
Inventors
| Inventor | Residence at filing | Employer / affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| John J. Giobbi | Bend, OR | Founder & CEO of Proxense, LLC — the assignee. Named on ~200 patents. |
| David L. Brown | Jupiter, FL | Proxense-affiliated inventor; named on numerous Proxense PDK/authentication patents (e.g., is the named inventor on Proxense's '960 patent). Remote from the Bend HQ. |
| Fred S. Hirt | Brookfield, IL | Proxense-affiliated inventor; remote from the Bend HQ. |
Pattern notes.
- No "departing inventor" fire-sale precursor. The usual red flag — all inventors leaving the original assignee within 12 months of filing — is absent here. Giobbi remains the founder/CEO and the three inventors all executed an assignment to Proxense (recorded 2020-07-14).
- The unusual pattern is the inverse: the same three-inventor team has been filing continuations of the same 2006 priority family for over 14 years (11/744,832 → 13/791,553 → 14/448,891 → 14/986,306 → 16/503,066 → 16/893,155, and beyond to 17/501,734 and 18/664,076). This "evergreen continuation" prosecution is characteristic of a portfolio maintained for licensing/assertion rather than for a shipping product.
- Correspondent/agent of record on the application is Patent Law Works LLP (address of record: 201 South Main Street, Suite 250, Salt Lake City, UT 84111), with Greg Sueoka named on the file-history cover sheet as "Patent Law Works/Proxense."
Original assignee
Proxense, LLC — 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701 (Bend, OR per the patent front page).
- Business: Developer of the "Personal Digital Key" (PDK) — a compact, uniquely identifiable wireless device for proximity-based authentication — plus related mobile-payment technology ("ProxPay"). Founded 2001 by John Giobbi.
- Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Partially and historically. Per its own 2023 W.D. Tex. complaint (Proxense v. Google), from ~2004–2012 Proxense "developed, inter alia, mobile payment technologies and commercial products, employing over thirty engineers, and investing many millions of dollars," and was covered by press (The Bulletin 2008; DarkReading 2009) as "in the process of bringing to market" a proximity payment device. However, by its own admission it "would find itself unable to compete with companies like Google." There is no evidence of sustained commercial sales today, and Proxense is not shipping a product that currently practices the '792 claims.
- Current status: Privately held, not dissolved, not acquired, not in bankruptcy on the available record. It functions today as a patent-holding and patent-assertion entity (it describes holding ~80 related patents and "continues to prosecute new patents"). No SEC filings exist (privately held), so no 10-K/8-K corroboration is available.
Assignment timeline
The Google Patents legal-events record for US 11,182,792 shows exactly one assignment-type event and no change-of-name, security-interest, or release entries.
- Executed: not stated in retrievable record / recorded 2020-07-14 — Reel not retrieved (Research note: Google Patents displays the event but suppress the reel/frame; Assignment Center lookup required)
- Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("reassignment" per Google Patents legal events)
- Assignor: Giobbi, John J.; Brown, David L.; Hirt, Fred S. (all three named inventors)
- Assignee: Proxense, LLC, Bend, Oregon
- Correspondent: Not retrieved for this record. Analogous sibling entry for context: on US 9,298,905 (Appl. 14/521,982), the inventors' assignment to Proxense, LLC was recorded 2015-01-29 at Reel/Frame 034843/0145, and the correspondent of record was Paige M. Alsbury, 201 S. Main Street, Suite 250, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 — i.e., the same address as Patent Law Works LLP, Proxense's prosecution counsel. Flag: this is recurring outside counsel across the Proxense family, not an anonymous shell-recording front.
- Context: Founders'/inventors' routine assignment to their own company to perfect chain of title on a continuation filing — not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.
No other recorded post-issuance assignments exist. Proxense, LLC remains both the original and the current assignee — the patent has never left the original owner's hands.
Timeline diagram
timeline
title Ownership of US 11182792
2006 : Touch Pay provisionals filed
2007 : Priority application filed
2020 : Continuation application filed
: Inventors assign to Proxense LLC
2021 : US 11182792 granted
2025 : Asserted v Intel in W D Texas
NPE / troll-pattern signals
1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The patent has never transferred to an "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" vehicle. The sole recorded transfer runs from the three named inventors to the original operating company, Proxense, LLC, which is a real 2001-vintage company (30+ engineers, real product development, a Bend, OR headquarters address), not a single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC at a registered-agent address. No registered-agent-service address appears anywhere in this chain.
2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
The current assignee and the plaintiff, Proxense, LLC, is publicly catalogued as a non-practicing entity by two independent trackers:
- Unified Patents describes "Proxense LLC, an NPE" in its PATROLL prior-art bounty notices (e.g., re US 9,251,332 asserted against Hyundai and LG; re US 11,095,640 asserted against Hyundai).
- Stanford NPE Litigation Database lists Proxense, LLC with NPE Status "Non Practicing Entity" and notes a "3 Failed startup" asserter profile.
This is a strong signal and it is the only strong one. Note it does not match the enumerated list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, etc.) — Proxense is an independent, former-operating-company asserter, not a member of a known NPE holding family.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT (within this chain); recurring firm noted for context.
There is only one assignment in this chain, so "recurrence across the chain" cannot be established. For context, Patent Law Works LLP (Salt Lake City) recurs as prosecution counsel across the Proxense family, and Paige M. Alsbury is the recorded assignment correspondent on the sibling '905 patent (Reel/Frame 034843/0145). This is normal outside-counsel behavior and, by itself, is not an NPE tell.
4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
No chained LLCs; no back-to-back assignments. One inventor→company assignment followed by nothing.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only assignment (recorded 2020-07-14) predates the first suit naming this patent — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corp., 7:25-cv-00531 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025-11-14) — by roughly 5.3 years. It is nowhere near the 6-month window. The patent was not acquired to enable assertion; it was added to an assertion campaign Proxense had already begun (Samsung, 6:21-cv-00210, filed 2021-03-05).
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT / UNCLEAR.
No record of a Proxense Chapter 7/11 or of this patent being sold in bankruptcy proceedings surfaced. Because Proxense is privately held, there are no SEC filings to corroborate. On the available record this is a straightforward not present, with a residual data-availability caveat.
7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company to transfer rights to an NPE that asserts on its behalf. Here there is no separate NPE and no transfer: Proxense owns and asserts in its own name. It is a former operating company monetizing its own portfolio, not a proxy for a live manufacturer.
8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Caution: RPX appears repeatedly in search results, but in a different matter — the '936 and '639 patents that RPX held and later sold to a Fortinet-facing plaintiff. Those are not in the Proxense chain and must not be attributed to US 11,182,792.)
Verdict
NPE — moderate confidence.
Proxense, LLC is one of the cleanest examples of the "failed start-up turned patent asserter" profile rather than the shell-LLC cascade profile: the sole recorded assignment (recorded 2020-07-14) moves the patent from its three named inventors to their own operating company, and the patent has never left Proxense's ownership — so the shell-entity, cascading-transfer, and pre-litigation-transfer signals are all absent. The single strong signal is Signal #2: Proxense, the current assignee and plaintiff, is publicly catalogued as a non-practicing entity by both Unified Patents ("Proxense LLC, an NPE") and the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and it is asserting US 11,182,792 (Exhibit D; claim chart Exhibit J) against Intel in 7:25-cv-00531 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025-11-14) alongside six other patents, after earlier campaigns against Samsung (2021), Microsoft and Google (2023), and Hyundai/LG — while admitting in its own pleadings that it could not compete commercially. One strong signal supports moderate confidence; if the two independent NPE-catalog listings are treated as separate corroborating signals, the case edges toward high, but the assignment chain itself contributes no shell-or-cascade evidence.
Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 11182792) · family litigation: https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=38694426 · case: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A25-cv-00531
Bottom line: Proxense, LLC still owns this patent; the only recorded assignment is inventor→company; and the assertion activity against Intel and other platform vendors is real and current — but the NPE characterization rests on the nature of the patentee (publicly catalogued NPE / failed start-up asserting non-practiced patents), not on any shell-LLC transfer chain, because no such chain exists.
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:47:28 AM
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
I'll research US patent 11182792 and its prior art citations. Let me start with searches for the patent itself and its cited references.
Let me get the specific citations section from the Google Patents page and related sources.
Let me find the actual front-page "References Cited" section and citation list for US11182792B2.
I was unable to complete a full retrieval of the face-of-patent citations before hitting my tool-call limit, so I'll give you what I could confirm from primary sources, flag exactly what is not confirmed, and avoid fabricating any claim mappings. Per your rules, I'm treating US 11,182,792 B2 literally and not "correcting" it.
1. The patent at issue (confirmed)
| Field | Value (source: Google Patents US11182792B2) |
|---|---|
| Patent | US 11,182,792 B2 |
| Title | Personal digital key initialization and registration for secure transactions |
| Inventors | John J. Giobbi; David L. Brown; Fred S. Hirt |
| Assignee | Proxense, LLC |
| Appl. No. | 16/893,155, filed 2020‑06‑04 |
| Granted / Published | 2021‑11‑23 / US20200304301A1 (2020‑09‑24) |
| Priority date | 2006‑05‑05 (prov. 60/798,172) |
| Anticipated expiry | 2027‑05‑05 |
Critical structural fact: US11182792B2 is a continuation, not a new filing. The chain is 16/893,155 ← 16/503,066 (2019) ← 14/986,306 (2015) ← 14/448,891 (2014) ← 13/791,553 (2013) ← 11/744,832 (2007) ← provisionals 60/798,172 (2006‑05‑05), 60/798,843, 60/838,788, 60/824,758, 60/894,608. Because it claims the same 2006 priority, its "prior art citations" are effectively the citations of the entire family's original prosecution (11/744,832 / PCT/US07/11102), and its own earlier family members (e.g., US 8,838,993, US 9,251,326, US 10,374,795, US 9,990,628) are not prior art to it — they share the 2006‑05‑05 priority.
2. Prior art of record — what I could confirm, and what I could not
2A. Documents cited on the face of the family (US 10,374,795 B1 front page, same family, "References Cited (56)")
Source: US10374795 PDF front page
The retrieved front page shows only the top and bottom of the "References Cited" column (the middle is truncated in the source). Confirmed items:
| Ref. | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|
| US 4,759,060 A — Hayashi et al. | 7/1988 | U.S. patent, cited |
| US 4,993,068 A — Piosenka et al. | 2/1991 | U.S. patent, cited |
| (…middle of list truncated in source…) | — | not retrievable |
| WO 0062505 A1 | 10/2000 | Foreign patent document, cited |
| WO 0122724 A1 | 3/2001 | Foreign patent document, cited |
| NPL: Dai, "Toward Blockchain‑Based Accounting and Assurance," Journal of Information Systems, 2017, pp. 5–21 | 2017 | Non‑patent literature, cited |
⚠️ What I could not confirm: I could not retrieve the complete, numbered "References Cited" list on the face of US11182792B2 itself, nor the middle of the US10,374,795 list. I will not invent entries to fill that gap. If you need the exhaustive U.S.‑patent list, pull it directly from the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper or the granted-PDF front page.
Also note: US 4,759,060 (1988) and US 4,993,068 (1991) are identity/biometric-token documents that long predate the 2006 priority — consistent with the family's "Background of the Related Art" discussion of magnetic cards/PINs. I do not have their full text in front of me, so I will not assert a specific anticipatory claim mapping for them.
2B. The truly relevant prosecution art — PCT International Search Report for PCT/US07/11102
This is the search report for the parent application of US11182792 (filed 07 May 2007; priority 05 May 2006; applicant Proxense, LLC), so this is the art the ISA actually treated as relevant to the claims that later issued. Source: IPR2024‑00776 Ex. 1022‑3 (PCT/US07/11102 ISR, ISR/WO text)
| Category | Citation | Pub. date | Cited passages | ISA‑mapped claims |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| X | US 2003/0127511 A1 — Kelly et al. | 10 Jul 2003 | ¶ [0037] | 1–31 |
| X/Y | US 2006/0022046 A1 — Iwamura | 02 Feb 2006 | ¶ [0013] | 1–10, 12, 14–31 |
| X | US 5,416,780 A — Patel | 16 May 1995 | col. 7, lines 39–68 | — |
| (X) | US 2003/0139190 A1 — Steelberg et al. | 24 Jul 2003 | abstract; ¶ [0053] | 13 |
Descriptions / § 102 relevance (best‑effort, subject to the caveat below):
- US 2003/0127511 A1 (Kelly et al.) — the ISA cited this against the broadest claim class (1–31) at ¶ [0037], indicating it discloses core elements of the transaction‑authentication‑with‑stored‑credential architecture. Potential § 102 target: the independent method/system claim(s) of the family (the "1‑31" set), i.e., the generic device‑authenticates‑and‑executes‑transaction claims — not demonstrably the Notary/biometric‑initialization claims.
- US 2006/0022046 A1 (Iwamura) — cited with a narrower claim set (1–10, 12, 14–31), also at a single paragraph, i.e., treated as cumulative/anticipatory for the same broad claim group.
- US 5,416,780 A (Patel) — cited for col. 7, lines 39–68 only; no claim set given in the retrieved text. Insufficient basis to assert anticipation.
- US 2003/0139190 A1 (Steelberg et al.) — cited only against claim 13, i.e., a dependent‑claim element. Likely § 102 relevance to one narrow dependent limitation, not the independent claims.
How these map to US11182792B2 specifically: The parent ISR addressed the claims of PCT/US07/11102. Since US11182792B2 is a downstream continuation, its claims were not the ones the ISA searched, and I do not have the granted claim text of US11182792B2 in my retrieved sources. Accordingly I cannot responsibly name specific US11182792B2 claim numbers these references "anticipate." The honest mapping is: the Kelly and Iwamura references are the ones with the strongest § 102 posture against the family's broad independent claims; Steelberg is limited to a dependent claim.
2C. What these references do NOT appear to reach
The distinguishing subject matter of this family — a trusted "Notary" witnessing biometric enrollment, a programming device (Programmer) writing to a tamper‑proof PDK memory, and registry synchronization/audit‑history logging — was not the subject of the cited anticipatory references in the ISR I retrieved. That is consistent with the patent's "Definitions" and Background, which frame the invention as solving the enrollment/initialization problem (see US11182792B2 definitions).
3. Important distinctions (to avoid a common error)
- "Referenced By" / forward citations are NOT prior art. The Google Patents page lists many forward‑citing patents and Proxense's own later family members (e.g., US 12,014,369, US 12,597,030). These post‑date the 2006 priority and cannot be § 102 art against US11182792B2. Example cross‑reference pages: US9990628, US9265450.
- Family members are not prior art against each other here, because they all claim the 2006‑05‑05 priority.
- Later IPR art is not patent‑of‑record art. The Microsoft/Samsung/Apple IPRs (IPR2024‑00573, IPR2024‑00405, IPR2025‑00562, etc.) use Giobbi '157 (US 2007/0245157), Giobbi '139 (US 2004/0255139), Dua (US 9,042,819) and Broadcom (EP 1 536 306 A1) — but those proceedings concern other Proxense patents ('042, '960, '188), not US11182792B2. They are field‑relevant but were not cited during the prosecution of this patent and, being later than 2006 for most, largely cannot be § 102 art against the 2006 priority anyway. See IPR2024‑00573 FWD and IPR2025‑00562 petition summary.
4. Bottom line / honest caveats
- The single most probative prior‑art record for US11182792B2 is the PCT/US07/11102 ISR: US 2003/0127511 A1 (Kelly, 10 Jul 2003) and US 2006/0022046 A1 (Iwamura, 02 Feb 2006) are the references actually cited as anticipating the family's broad claims; US 5,416,780 (Patel, 1995) and US 2003/0139190 A1 (Steelberg, 24 Jul 2003) are secondary (Steelberg → dependent claim 13 only).
- I could not retrieve the full face‑of‑patent "References Cited (56)" list for US11182792B2 itself (only a truncated portion of the sibling US 10,374,795 front page, showing US 4,759,060, US 4,993,068, WO 00/62505, WO 01/22724, and NPL Dai 2017). I therefore do not assert an item‑by‑item § 102 mapping for those entries — doing so would be fabrication.
- I do not have the granted claim text of US11182792B2 in my sources, so any claim‑number‑specific § 102 mapping would be speculative. The claim numbers in the ISR table above are the parent application's claims, quoted verbatim from the ISR, not US11182792B2's.
If you can supply the granted‑PDF front page and claim set for US11182792B2 (or authorize me to run more searches), I can produce the exact reference‑by‑reference § 102 element chart you're asking for.
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:47:34 AM
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
I'll gather the cited prior art and claim text before analyzing.
Let me pull the granted claims and the prior-art-of-record lists.
Let me pin down the actual issued claims of the '792 patent and its examiner-cited art.
Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 11,182,792 B2 (Giobbi et al., Proxense LLC)
Analyst note on scope and a flagged contradiction (read first). My prior search work (Litigation section, above) confirmed the '792 as a continuation in the 11/744,832 family (11/744,832 → 13/791,553 → 14/448,891 → 14/986,306 → 16/503,066 → 16/893,155→ '792), priority 2006‑05‑05, filed 2020‑06‑04, granted 2021‑11‑23, examiner Badri Narayanan Champakesan, current CPC G06Q20/40, G06F21/31–21/34, H04L9/32, G07C9/25–9/26, H04W12/06.
During this pass I retrieved two different claim sets purporting to belong to this family:
- Set A (initialization/registration) — matching the record for parent US 9,251,326: reading notary information from a notary PDK; determining the notary PDK's status against a registry; "good standing" → notary authorized; acquiring a biometric input witnessed by the notary; responsive to authorization, storing a biometric profile on the first PDK (RPX claim text for US 9,251,326).
- Set B (proximity + authentication interval) — "detecting whether a first user device is within a proximity zone of a second user device… receiving… a biometric profile… and an authentication interval… determining whether a time from when the biometric profile was last authenticated… is within the authentication interval; and… automatically unlocking the second user device… bypassing another authentication…" (claim text surfaced on a Justia aggregation page keyed to patent 12,056,558).
Set B's prose tracks the FIG. 6 time‑interval embodiment (steps 906/916) that appears in the healthcare/ProxAccess sibling description, not in the '792 specification text supplied for this analysis (the '792 text supplied terminates the FIG. 6 discussion at "trigger" and never reaches the interval branch). This is a direct contradiction, and I flag it rather than resolve it. Because the source of Set B is a mixed aggregation page and the '792's own specification as supplied does not recite the interval, I treat Set A as the presumptive '792 claim scope and analyze Set B in the alternative, with the written‑description/AIA consequences noted.
1. Legal framework and the person of ordinary skill
- Pre‑AIA § 103 governs if every claim retains its 2006‑05‑05 effective filing date (the application contained no claim ever having a post‑2006 effective date). If Set B is the real claim set and is not supported by the 11/744,832 disclosure, the effective filing date shifts into 2020 and AIA § 102/103 applies — which only widens the prior art (everything below then qualifies categorically, and the "Pope 2006" reference ceases to be a grace‑period problem).
- Governing case law: Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966); KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (motivation may rest on "design incentives," "market forces," or "common sense"; predictable variations are obvious; a finite number of identified, predictable solutions = "obvious to try"). MPEP § 2143 exemplar rationales: (A) combining known elements according to known methods to yield predictable results; (B) simple substitution; (C) use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (D) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement.
- PHOSITA (2006): a B.S. in EE/CS plus 2–3 years in secure access control/biometric authentication and short‑range RF (RFID/Bluetooth), or an M.S. plus 1 year.
- Common ground that is not in dispute: the '792's own background concedes that (i) contactless tokens/readers existed, (ii) biometrics were a known authentication modality, (iii) "enrollment" of biometrics into a database was a known, though criticized, practice, and (iv) the problem to be solved was making the enrollment trustworthy and eliminating repeated, entity‑by‑entity enrollment. That concession frames the whole § 103 inquiry: the invention is largely in the process architecture for trusted enrollment.
2. Prior art of record relied on (with verification status)
| Ref | What it discloses (as I can verify) | Status for the '792 | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| US 2003/0079133 A1 — Breiter et al. (Motorola), pub. 2003‑04‑24 | Biometric transaction system with a portable wireless device and a trusted enrollment authority; enrollment and verification flows in FIGS. 4–5. Cited by the ISA as "Y" against claims 1–24 of PCT/US2007/011104 — the international counterpart of the '792's 11/744,832 root (WO2007133542A3 ISA report) | pre‑2006 § 102(b) | High (ISA citation verified) |
| US 6,256,737 B1 — Bianco et al., 2001‑07‑03 | Biometric enrollment station + database/registry; templates enrolled centrally, authentication by comparison | § 102(b) | High (listed on '795 front page) |
| US 7,272,805 B2 — Saito et al. (IVI Holdings), priority 2002‑09‑09 | "Secure biometric verification of identity": biometric template held in a tamper‑resistant portable device, enrolled through a trusted process | pre‑2006 § 102(e)/(b) via its pre‑2006 family publication | Medium‑High (listed in family art) |
| US 2005/0091338 A1 — De La Huerga, pub. 2005‑04‑28 | Electronic security device / portable token with a time component; user is logged on/off if "the current time is within a range defined by the time component"; proximity‑based logoff when the user leaves a limited range (quoted in the Unified Patents PATROLL chart for US 11,095,640) | § 102(b) | High |
| US 2005/0138576 A1 — Baumert et al. (Microsoft), pub. 2005‑06‑23 | "System and Method for Sharing Information Based on Proximity" — device proximity detection governing information/credential release | § 102(b) | High |
| US 2005/0287985 A1 — Balfanz et al., pub. 2005‑12‑29 | Proximity‑based authentication between a token and a device | § 102(b) | Medium‑High |
| US 6,016,476 (Maes), 6,041,410 (Hsu), 6,038,334 (Hamid), 5,892,825 (Mages), 6,088,450 (Davis) | Portable token/fob with biometric capture and secure storage; enrollment at a station; match against stored template | § 102(b) | High |
| NPL: Nordin, "Match‑on‑Card Technology" (2004); Nilsson et al., "Match‑on‑Card for Java Cards" (2004); Noore, "Highly Robust Biometric Smart Card Design," IEEE Trans. CE (2000); Smart Card Alliance, "Smart Cards and Biometrics" (2002) | Storing the biometric template on the tamper‑resistant token; matching on‑card; template never leaves the card | § 102(b) | High (all listed in the '792's own NPL record on Justia) |
| NPL: Pope et al., "OASIS Digital Signature Services: Digital Signing without the Headaches," IEEE Internet Computing 10(5):81–84 (Sep/Oct 2006) | Trusted third‑party notarization/time‑stamping of an event, with a record of who attested | Published after the 2006‑05‑05 priority date → weak as § 102(a) art; usable as state‑of‑the‑art / motivation evidence (and fully available if the effective date is 2020) | High that it is cited (it appears in the US 2007/0260888 and Justia '792 reference lists) |
| NPL: Bohrsatom et al., "Automatically unlock PC when entering proximity," 2005‑12‑07 | RF‑proximity trigger that auto‑unlocks a computer when the token‑bearer returns | § 102(b) (publication date before 2006‑05‑05) — treat as secondary, non‑patent, weaker evidence | Medium |
Caution: BlueProximity (Aug. 2007) and Pash (Jun. 2007) are listed in the family's reference record but post‑date the 2006 priority date; under a 2006 effective date they are not § 102/§ 103 prior art and must not be relied on. They become available only if the effective filing date is 2020.
3. Obviousness of the presumptive claim set (Set A)
3.1 Claim chart — Breiter in view of Bianco, Match‑on‑Card NPL, and Pope
| Claim element (per the family's issued claim language) | Primary/Secondary art | Mapping |
|---|---|---|
| (a) reading, with a programming device, notary information from a notary PDK to determine whether a notary is authorized | Breiter (enrollment authority) + Pope (trusted witness) + Mages/Hsu (second token) | Breiter's enrollment is performed by a trusted authority using a programmed terminal; Pope supplies the concept of an accountable attesting party whose credentials are verified before the attestation is accepted. Substituting a second portable credential for the human operator's login (a known technique — Mages, Hsu) is rationale (C)/(B). |
| (b) determining a status of the notary PDK based at least in part on a registry describing that status | Bianco + Bianco‑style central registry; Breiter's clearinghouse | Bianco enrols/authenticates against a central database; the '792 itself calls remote registry status checks a fraud‑prevention layer. Verifying the credentials of the enrolling party against a revocation/standing list was standard PKI practice (see also "Kuhn et al., Introduction to Public Key Technology and the Federal PKI Infrastructure, NIST 2001" in the family record — CRL/status checking). |
| (c) good standing → notary authorized | Bianco/PKI status logic | One‑to‑one computer implementation of a binary authorization decision; rationale (A). |
| (d) acquiring a biometric input witnessed by the notary | Breiter FIGS. 4–5 + Pope + Noore/Nordin (match‑on‑card) | Breiter captures the biometric during supervised enrollment at the authority's terminal; Pope teaches an attestation over an event ("I observed X"). |
| (e) responsive to authorization, storing a biometric profile on the first PDK | Breiter + Match‑on‑Card NPL + Saito | Breiter stores the biometric reference in the portable device; Saito/Noore/Nordin teach that the template belongs in the token's tamper‑resistant memory. |
Motivation to combine (KSR‑sufficient): (1) All references are in the same field and address the same problem the '792's background expressly states: a biometric enrollment is worthless unless the enrollment event is trustworthy. (2) Breiter already teaches "trusted enrollment"; the only gap the '792 fills is who is trusted and how that trust is verified — a recognized, finite design choice (human operator vs. second credentialed token; local list vs. central registry status). (3) Predictable results: adding a registry status check to an enrollment session does not change the principle of operation of Breiter's system. (4) KSR "obvious to try": the art identified a finite set of candidate trust anchors (notary, bank, government, employer PKI) and the claimed one is a routine selection.
3.2 Alternative, stronger‑on‑its‑face combination
US 7,272,805 (Saito) alone, or Saito + Bianco: Saito is directed to exactly the trust problem — biometric templates stored and enrolled securely so that the verification is trustworthy — and would disclose (d) and (e) with only routine adaptation for (a)–(c). I could not retrieve Saito's claim text in this pass, so I rate this combination probable but unverified; it should be checked against Saito's specification before reliance.
3.3 Where the art is weakest (the plausible non‑obviousness case)
- Symmetry of the notary mechanism — the same PDK technology used for the user's credential is used for the witness's credential, and the programmer reads authorization from the witness's PDK rather than from a network login. I found no single reference that clearly discloses a second PDK as the notary credential. The combination is still arguable under (B)/(C), but this is the element most likely to survive a § 103 challenge.
- Chained audit history written to three places (user PDK, programmer memory, and the notary PDK), including programmer ID, notary ID, site ID, and software revision/checksum metrics. Audit logging and version/checksum verification are independently known, but the specific tri‑location chained record is not clearly shown by any reference I verified.
- "Witnessing" as a legal‑notary analogue. Pope (OASIS DSS, Sep/Oct 2006) is the closest teaching, but it post‑dates the 2006 priority date. Under a pre‑AIA 2006 effective date, an examiner relying on Pope for the witnessing concept would face a § 102(a) "before the invention" problem; it should be paired with something clearly pre‑2005 (e.g., PKI registration‑authority practice, NIST 2001, or Breiter's supervised enrollment).
4. Obviousness of the alternative claim set (Set B), if it is the '792's claim scope
| Element | Reference(s) | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| detect first device within a proximity zone of second device | Baumert/Microsoft (US 2005/0138576), Balfanz (US 2005/0287985), De La Huerga (US 2005/0091338), Bohrsatom (Dec 2005) | Same field; proximity detection by RSSI/limited‑range RF was notoriously well known. |
| receive a biometric profile and an interval from the first device | Match‑on‑Card NPL; Saito; Maes/Hsu | Transmitting/writing a template to the authenticating device, and reading it out of the token, are the core teachings of match‑on‑card art. |
| determine whether the elapsed time since the last authentication is within the interval | De La Huerga (time component defining a range; log on/off within the range) + Bohrsatom | De La Huerga teaches precisely a time‑bounded validity window for a portable‑security‑device logon. |
| bypass a further biometric authentication and auto‑unlock | Bohrsatom; De La Huerga | Combination yields a predictable result: fewer repeated credential presentations. |
Motivation: reducing repeated logins while retaining a security bound is a recognized design objective; using a timer (De La Huerga) with a proximity trigger (Baumert/Bohrsatom) and a biometric token (Match‑on‑Card) is the classic "apply a known technique to a known device ready for improvement" rationale. However, if Set B is the real claim set, note the § 112 exposure: the interval embodiment does not appear in the '792 specification as supplied, which would (i) push the effective filing date to 2020, (ii) make all references above (including Pope 2006, BlueProximity 2007, Pash 2007) available under AIA § 102(a)(1), and (iii) invite a written‑description rejection. That is a materially easier § 103 posture for a challenger.
5. Secondary considerations
No evidence of unexpected results, industry praise, licensing‑driven nexus, or copying surfaced in the retrieved record. The family has, however, drawn substantial validity attacks — IPR petitions filed 2021‑08‑26 against US 9,049,188, US 9,235,700, US 10,698,989 and US 8,352,730, and ex parte reexamination requests filed 2022‑06‑08 against US 10,698,989, US 8,352,730 and US 9,298,905 (listed in the family's NPL record; e.g., Justia '792 reference list) — and the Unified Patents PATROLL chart for sibling US 11,095,640 builds its invalidity theory on De La Huerga, which is the same time‑window teaching that would defeat the interval element here. That signals the family's claims are considered vulnerable on the same general art.
6. Bottom line
- Probable § 103 rejection of Set A: Breiter (US 2003/0079133) in view of Bianco (US 6,256,737) and match‑on‑card NPL (Nordin/Nilsson/Noore) — with Pope or pre‑2005 PKI registration‑authority practice supplying the "witness" concept — renders elements (a)–(e) obvious. The Breiter ISA "Y" citation against the identical disclosure in the family's own PCT is the single most probative datum.
- Probable § 103 rejection of Set B (if claimed): De La Huerga (US 2005/0091338) + Baumert (US 2005/0138576)/Bohrsatom + match‑on‑card NPL.
- Best non‑obviousness positions for the patentee: (i) the Notary PDK as a second physical token whose authorization is read by the programmer, and (ii) the tri‑location chained initialization history (user PDK + programmer + notary PDK, with software revision/checksum metrics). I could not verify a reference that squarely discloses either, and those are where a § 103 challenge is most likely to founder.
Verification caveats (explicit)
- Claim text is not fully verified. Only the parent US 9,251,326 claim 1 was retrieved verbatim from a reliable source; the '792's own issued claim set could not be independently confirmed, and I surfaced a conflicting Set B whose provenance is an aggregation page. Any definitive § 103 opinion must start from the granted claims of US 11,182,792 B2 as issued (or as construed in the pending Proxense v. Intel action, No. 7:25‑cv‑00531).
- Reference content is described at the level documented in the record. Where I have not read a reference's specification directly (notably US 7,272,805 and the Breiter paragraphs), I say so; paragraph‑level citations should be confirmed before filing a petition or invalidity contention.
- No fabrication of identifiers. All patent/publication numbers, dates, and case numbers are reproduced as retrieved; I have not normalized or corrected any of them.
Generated 9/19/2026, 4:48:23 AM
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.
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