US 11365026

I'll search for current information on this patent, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me check for any Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 appeal activity and verify the claim text.

Let me retrieve the actual claim set for this patent to accurately describe the independent claims.

US Patent 11,365,026 — Summary

Caveat up front: I was able to verify bibliographic data, the abstract, and litigation status from authoritative sources (Google Patents, USPTO/PTAB filings, ITC Federal Register notices, and the N.D. Ill. complaint). I could not retrieve the complete, word‑for‑word claim set of the '026 patent in full. My claim descriptions below are reconstructed from the asserted claim elements quoted in the ITC Final Initial Determination, the district‑court complaint, and the joint claim‑construction chart. Where I am inferring rather than quoting, I flag it.

Bibliographic data

Continuity chain (per the patent and the complaint): continuation of 17/391,904 (Aug. 2, 2021) → 17/132,609 (Dec. 23, 2020) → 17/064,371 (Oct. 6, 2020) → 16/752,441 (now U.S. 11,008,136) → 16/216,724 (now U.S. 10,583,962) → 15/826,232 (now U.S. 10,703,534) → PCT/IL2017/050481.

Abstract (verbatim)

"The present disclosure concerns a coupling mechanism for detachably attaching two or more utility modules to one another, utility assembles, mobile carriers and other attachable modules and articles."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The '026 patent has three independent claims (1, 4, 8), with dependent claims 2‑3, 5‑7, and 9‑11. (This 1/4/8 independence structure is inferred from the ITC FID's statement that "the asserted claims of the '026 patent each recite a 'container assembly' having a 'first container' and 'second container.' See, e.g., '026 patent at claims 1, 4, 8," combined with the claim‑construction chart. I could not confirm the exact dependency text of every claim, so treat the dependence structure as probable rather than certain.)

Independent Claim 1 — the core slide‑and‑lock container assembly. A "container assembly" with two containers:

• A first container having a first coupler (female‑type) on a first face, made up of two sidewalls, a back wall, and a rib, with the back wall between the sidewalls; the walls project from a depressed surface of the face, and the rib extends from the back wall in a first direction;
• A lid pivotally attached to the first container and a toggle locking latch that latches the lid closed;
• A second container having a second coupler (male‑type) on a second face, comprising a tongue;
• A locking‑latch arresting location on one of the containers and a locking latch on the other, positionable into a locked position that limits sliding displacement;
• The two couplers engage each other when the containers are slid relative to one another along a sliding path defined by the rib and the tongue.

Independent Claim 4 — the same detachable container‑assembly concept, recited separately. Per the ITC FID's claim‑4 analysis, it likewise requires a container assembly with a first and second container whose couplers "engage each other when the first and second containers are slid … along a sliding path defined by the rib and the tongue," plus "a locking latch arresting location defined by one of the first container or the second container" and "a locking latch coupled to the other … positionable in a locked position … thereby limiting sliding displacement." I cannot confirm what additional or alternative limitation distinguishes claim 4 from claim 1 — the two appear closely related.

Independent Claim 8 — the half‑width stacking variant. Adds the limitation that "a width of the second container is half of a width of the first container, and the second container is located on top of the first container." This is the claim the ITC relied on for the "Full Width" (first container) + "Half Width" (second container) accused‑product pairings.

Common inventive idea across all three: a two‑part male/female coupler in which a projecting tongue slides under/behind a rib on a depressed surface (preventing vertical separation/lifting), combined with a spring‑biased latch that drops into an arresting recess to prevent sliding back out — i.e., a "drop on and slide to lock, lift latch and slide to release" modular tool‑box interconnection (commercialized as the Milwaukee PACKOUT system).

Litigation / PTAB status (the reason this patent is significant)

The '026 patent is the lead asserted patent in the Milwaukee/Keter v. Klein Tools PACKOUT v. MODbox dispute:

• ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1409, Certain Storage Containers and Toolboxes, Organizers, Component Boxes, and Coolers — instituted July 19, 2024 against Klein Tools, Inc. Complainants: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.

• After withdrawals, the remaining asserted claims were claims 4 and 8 of the '026 patent (plus claims of U.S. 11,794,952 and U.S. 11,952,167).

• On Aug. 1, 2025 the CALJ issued a Final Initial Determination finding a violation — all asserted claims infringed and not invalid, and domestic industry satisfied.

• On Jan. 21, 2026 the Commission determined to review the FID in part (economic and technical prongs of domestic industry, invalidity, and underlying claim construction). 91 FR 3219‑21.

• The Commission extended the target date to June 25, 2026 (notice published May 28, 2026 in the Federal Register).

• PTAB IPR2024‑01400 (Klein Tools v. Milwaukee/Keter, on the '026 patent), filed Sept. 16, 2024: institution was initially granted, then Director Review was granted, the institution decision vacated, and institution DENIED (decision dated June 8, 2025). (Note: Google Patents' sidebar still shows "Pending – Instituted," which conflicts with the USPTO's Director‑Review order; I am treating the USPTO order as authoritative per the ground‑truth rule.) Counsel: Quinn Emanuel for petitioner; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius for patent owner.

• Parallel N.D. Ill. cases: 1:24‑cv‑04284 and 1:24‑cv‑04928 (Milwaukee/Keter v. Klein Tools). A related IPR2025‑01018 (on the '167 patent) saw patent owners waive their preliminary response, citing the earlier discretionary denials.

On the "CAFC 2026 docket" request

I found no Federal Circuit appeal docketed in 2026 involving US 11,365,026, and I cannot confirm one exists. As of the current date the ITC investigation is still pending (target date June 25, 2026), so an appeal to the Federal Circuit under 19 U.S.C. § 1337 would not yet be ripe. I did not find any CAFC docket entry, notice of appeal, or briefing for this patent number. I am flagging this as a negative finding with incomplete coverage — a CAFC appeal could exist that my searches did not surface.

Uncertainty summary

1. Full claim text not independently verified — I reconstructed claims from litigation quotes, not the granted document. Use the patent's own claim set for exact wording.
2. Independence of claims 1/4/8 — highly likely but inferred.
3. IPR2024‑01400 status — sources conflict (Google Patents sidebar vs. the USPTO Director‑Review order); the USPTO order (institution denied) governs.

I'll research this systematically. Let me start with searches on litigation databases.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers and the other matters listed.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,365,026 ("Utility assembly and coupling mechanism")

I searched the patent's own litigation record (Google Patents "Family has litigation" links to Unified Patents), the ITC/EDIS docket, PTAB records, and N.D. Ill. dockets. The following matters are confirmed. Note: the '026 patent is one of three patents in the same family asserted together ('026, 11,794,952, and 11,952,167), so several of the cases below also involve those siblings. I flag where I could not independently verify a case.

1. ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-1409 — the principal and best-documented matter

• Caption/Title: Certain Storage Containers and Toolboxes, Organizers, Component Boxes, and Coolers
• Complainants: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation (Brookfield, WI) and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. (Herzliya, Israel)
• Respondent: Klein Tools, Inc. (Lincolnshire, IL)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. International Trade Commission (Section 337)
• Filing date: Complaint filed June 13, 2024 (89 FR 58764 notes a June 13, 2024 filing; the Final ID recites "On June 16, 2024" — minor record discrepancy)
• Instituted: July 15, 2024; Notice of Investigation published July 19, 2024, 89 FR 58764
• Asserted claims of the '026 patent: claims 1–5 and 7–11
• Status:
  • Claims 1–3, 5, 7, and 9–11 of the '026 patent were terminated from the investigation (Order No. 15, Jan. 6, 2025, unreviewed Feb. 18, 2025; along with orders terminating claims of the '952 and '167 patents).
  • The ALJ issued a Final Initial Determination on August 1, 2025 finding a violation of Section 337 based on infringement of the '026 patent (among the asserted patents), with a recommended determination on remedy and bond.
  • Target date extended to December 1, 2025 (Order No. 23; Commission notice of Aug. 12, 2025).
  • The Commission determined to review (Federal Register notice of Jan. 26, 2026), asking the parties to brief domestic-industry issues and the status of the "3/2015 catalog" (RX-0183) as prior art; initial submissions were due Feb. 4, 2026 and replies Feb. 11, 2026.
  • Current status: Under Commission review/post-FID remedy phase; I could not confirm the final Commission determination from the sources retrieved. Any remedial order would be subject to 60-day Presidential review.
• Sources: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/19/2024-15890 ; https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1409_notice07152024sgl.pdf ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents (Final ID and target-date notice)

2. N.D. Ill. Case No. 1:24-cv-04928 (parallel district court action)

• Plaintiffs: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.
• Defendant: Klein Tools, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Judge Andrea R. Wood)
• Filing date: June 13, 2024
• Patents asserted: 11,365,026; 11,794,952; 11,952,167
• Status: Klein moved for a mandatory stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659 pending resolution of ITC 337-TA-1409 (unopposed by plaintiffs); the case is stayed and Klein's response deadline deferred until the stay is lifted. No merits adjudication yet. Accused products: Klein's MODbox™ modular storage system.
• Source: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.[460151](/patent/460151)/gov.uscourts.ilnd.460151.14.0.pdf

3. N.D. Ill. Case No. 1:24-cv-04284 (dismissed)

• Plaintiffs: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.
• Defendant: Klein Tools, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Judge Sara L. Ellis)
• Filing date: May 23, 2024
• Patents asserted: 11,365,026; 11,794,952; 11,952,167
• Status: Voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on June 13, 2024 (Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, Dkt. 11) — apparently refiled as 1:24-cv-04928 the same day. Case closed.
• Sources: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2024cv04284/[459288](/patent/459288) ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557918/download-documents (identifying this case as "dismissed")

4. PTAB proceeding IPR2024-01400 (contested validity proceeding, not court litigation)

• Petitioner: Klein Tools, Inc.
• Patent Owner: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.
• Jurisdiction: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Filing date: September 16, 2024
• Patent challenged: U.S. 11,365,026 (application 17/536,521) — companion IPR2024-01401 challenged 11,794,952
• Status: The Board's decision granting institution was vacated on Director Review, and institution was denied — no trial instituted (Order granting Director Review, vacating institution, and denying institution; institution decision date reported as June 8, 2025). The Google Patents page labels this matter "Pending – Instituted," which is outdated relative to the Director Review outcome.
• Sources: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-01400

5. Matters listed in the patent record that I could NOT independently verify

The patent's Google Patents "Family has litigation" section additionally lists, from Unified Patents data:

• ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-3749 — a PTAB/ITC filing in this family describes "Klein Tools, Inc., 337-TA-3749 (dismissed)" among actions "previously filed but withdrew." I could not retrieve a primary ITC record confirming the parties, dates, or substance for this investigation number.
• ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-3755 — listed as a "US case filed in International Trade Commission" in the patent record. I could not verify this investigation number in any ITC or Federal Register source; my searches for the number returned unrelated matters.

I am reporting these two investigation numbers literally as they appear in the patent's litigation record, without correction, but I cannot confirm their details and they should be treated as unverified. It is also possible these are database artifacts rather than distinct Section 337 investigations, since the only fully documented ITC matter in this family is 337-TA-1409.

• The record also contains a generic Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" entry (family 60202865), which is a family-level pointer without US case specifics.

6. No CAFC appeal found

I found no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal involving the '026 patent in the sources retrieved (any appeal from the ITC final determination, if filed, would post-date the Commission's final determination and I could not confirm it).

Summary table

Caveat on currency: Sources retrieved run through early 2026. The ITC's final determination (and any resulting exclusion/cease-and-desist order) and any subsequent Federal Circuit appeal may have issued after the latest documents I could access; those should be confirmed directly on EDIS and PACER before relying on this as a complete record.

I'll reconcile the structured ODP block against the patent text and verify with live searches.

Important conflict found: the ODP block says "no proceedings," but Google Patents lists IPR2024-01400. Let me verify its status and look for others.

Now let me pin down IPR2025-01018, any other filings against the '026 family, and the exact dates.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding is on file against US 11,365,026 — and it ended in a discretionary denial before trial: 1 proceeding total, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained on the merits, 1 institution denied, 0 settled, 0 FWDs, 0 appeals. That is the bottom line: the '026 patent is completely untested at the PTAB — all 11 claims are alive and no claim has ever been construed or adjudicated in an AIA trial — so there is no IPR-based "claim 1 is dead" argument available to a defendant today. The defensive value runs the other way: the patent owner (Milwaukee/Keter) obtained a Director-level denial of institution over a unanimous Board panel's contrary ruling, which shows this patent owner litigates PTAB challenges aggressively and has the resources to take Fintiv fights to the Acting Director.

⚠️ Conflict flag on the source data. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is incorrect / stale. IPR2024-01400 (Patent 11,365,026 B2) is confirmed by the Director Review decision hosted on uspto.gov itself and by third-party PTAB trackers. Note also that the Google Patents family-litigation block in the patent text still reads "IPR2024-01400 … Pending – Instituted," which is also stale — the institution was later vacated by the Acting Director. The accurate current status is institution denied. Do not rely on either structured block for status; if you need the docket, pull PTAB E2E / PatentCenter directly.

IPR2024-01400 — Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-09-16 (Klein's own case listing shows 2024-09-17; PTAB trackers show 2024-09-16 — a one-day docket discrepancy, immaterial)
• Patent: U.S. Patent No. 11,365,026 B2 (application 17/536,521, Tech Center 3700)
• Status: Institution Denied (institution initially granted, then vacated on Director Review; petition denied and no trial instituted). Plain English: the Board said "yes, we'll try this," the patent owner took it to the Acting Director, and the Acting Director reversed and shut the case down on discretionary (Fintiv) grounds — without ever reaching the merits.
• Judge panel: As a Director Review decision, the operative Paper 22 was decided by Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for IP and Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart. The identity of the original three-APJ merits panel that issued the institution decision (Paper 17) is not confirmed in the sources I retrieved — I am not going to guess at APJ names. Confirm on PTAB E2E if you need them.
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed. I did not retrieve the '026 petition itself, so I cannot state which of claims 1–11 were challenged, or the specific § 102/§ 103 art, without fabricating. (For contrast only — and this is a different patent, not the '026 — Klein's IPR2025-01018 against the '167 patent asserted obviousness over Burchia, Metabowerke, Welsh/Chen, Lin, Lafragette and Bensman. Do not attribute that art to IPR2024-01400.)
• Institution decision: Instituted by the Board (Paper 17), which found the Fintiv factors did not warrant discretionary denial — the panel followed the then-leading approach of POSCO Co. v. ArcelorMittal, IPR2024-01376, Paper 11 (P.T.A.B. 2025-03-18), which shifts Fintiv weight from factor 1 (likelihood of a stay) to factor 4 (overlap with the parallel ITC investigation). Then vacated on Director Review, 2025-06-09 (Paper 22). The Acting Director held: "The Board's analysis of factors 1 and 4, and overall weighing of the Fintiv factors were erroneous." She found factor 1 weighed against institution because a stay of the parallel ITC investigation (Inv. No. 337-TA-1409) was unlikely; factor 4 weighed against institution because the ITC investigation "involves the same parties, the same challenged claims, and includes overlapping prior art references"; and factor 6 (merits) did not outweigh factors 1 and 4. Order: "Director Review is granted … the Board's Decision granting institution of inter partes review (Paper 17) is vacated … the Petition is denied, and no trial is instituted." Full text: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf — see also Finnegan's At the PTAB analysis: https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/blogs/at-the-ptab-blog/in-klein-tools-v-milwaukee-the-acting-director-moves-away-from-the-itc-fintiv-factor-balancing-of-posco.html
• Final Written Decision: None. No trial was instituted, so there is no FWD, no claim canceled, no claim upheld. Every claim of the '026 patent (claims 1–11) remains intact and untested at the PTAB.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The proceeding terminated by denial of institution on 2025-06-09, not by party agreement.
• Appeal: None, and none is available. A denial of institution is not appealable to the Federal Circuit under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) and Cuozzo. Director Review was the only avenue, and it was exercised. There is no CAFC docket number to give you.
• Defensive value: Low as an invalidity tool, high as an intelligence signal. Klein got zero claim-level benefit — no FWD, no cancellation, no narrowing, and (critically) no estoppel. If you are being asserted on the '026 patent, the '026 IPR well is dry in the sense that a Klein-style Fintiv-based denial in the face of a co-pending ITC investigation is now the expected outcome in this family; you should not build a defense budget around IPR institution while the ITC case is live.

Context: sibling proceedings in the same family (not on the '026)

These are worth knowing because they show the pattern, but none of them adjudicates US 11,365,026:

• IPR2024-01401 — Klein Tools v. Milwaukee/Keter, U.S. Pat. No. 11,794,952. Filed 2024-09. Institued by the Board, then institution vacated and petition denied in the same Paper 22 of 2025-06-09.
• IPR2025-01018 — Klein Tools v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., U.S. Pat. No. 11,952,167, filed 2025-05-22 (petition signed by James M. Glass, Quinn Emanuel; challenged claims 1–16 on § 103 grounds over Burchia, Metabowerke, Welsh (or Chen), Lin, Lafragette and Bensman). Third-party trackers (ipverse.greyb) list the status as "Discretionary Denial" — i.e., a second Fintiv denial in the same family. Petition available via PTAB: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents
• Related district-court/ITC history (for the § 315(e)(2)/timing picture): ITC 337-TA-3749 (dismissed) and 337-TA-3755; N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04284 (dismissed) and 1:24-cv-04928 (the live case, now effectively stayed pending the ITC).

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '026 patent: 11 claims, all UNTESTED. Claims 1–5 and 7–11 were the ones asserted in the ITC (Inv. No. 337-TA-1409, instituted 2024-07-15) and in N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04928; claim 6 was not asserted. Because IPR2024-01400 was denied institution, no claim of the '026 patent has been canceled, narrowed, or held patentable in any AIA trial. There is no surviving-claim list to give you because nothing was eliminated. Any argument that "the claims have been invalidated" or "the patent has been narrowed through IPR" is false as to this patent — the only substantive validity adjudication in the family so far has been in the ITC, where the Chief ALJ's Final Initial Determination of 2025-08-01 found a § 337 violation based on infringement of the '026 (and '952 and '167) patents, and the Commission determined to review the FID in part on 2026-01-21 (89 FR notice; see the Commission notice at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/01/26/2026-01386 and the FID text via https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/). Note that F1D invalidity analysis (Klein's Burchia/Bensman/Lifshitz/Lafragette theories) is where the real claim-level work happened — that is ITC work product, not PTAB.

Estoppel landscape: there is effectively none, which helps you. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision; IPR2024-01400 produced no FWD and IPR2025-01018 (different patent) was also denied. So no petitioner is estopped, and Klein remains free to raise in the stayed N.D. Ill. case (and in the ITC) the same prior art and grounds it put in its petitions — and you, a different defendant, are under no estoppel at all. Practically, the entire prior-art universe remains available to you in district court or the ITC: nothing was "reasonably could have been raised" and foreclosed. The counterweight is the ITC FID's finding that Klein failed to prove the Auer system was prior art and its rejection of Klein's obviousness theories as to the '026, which tells you what the ITC record has already been picked over and where a fresh defendant should look for new art rather than re-running Burchia/Bensman/Lifshitz/Lafragette.

Pattern signals. One petitioner — Klein Tools, represented by Quinn Emanuel (James M. Glass, Joseph Milowic III, Brianne M. Straka) — filed three IPRs across this family ('026, '952, '167), and all three were shut down on discretionary/Fintiv grounds, two of them by Director Review over a contrary Board panel. The patent owner, Milwaukee Electric Tool + Keter Home and Garden, represented by Morgan Lewis (Dion M. Bregman, Jason C. White, David P. Bernstein), has pursued Director Review aggressively and won. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain on the '026 — the "Unified Patents" label in the Google Patents litigation block is merely the data source attribution for the IPR2024-01400 entry, not a Unified Patents petition. The absence of any non-Klein, third-party IPR is itself a signal: this is a commercially important, well-asserted patent family ($ PACKOUT™ vs. MODbox™) that has so far attracted exactly one challenger, and that challenger was procedurally shut out because a live ITC investigation made discretionary denial the path of least resistance. Expect the same Fintiv outcome for any new IPR filed while 337-TA-1409 remains on foot. Also watch the pending Director Review of POSCO (IPR2024-01376) — the Acting Director's Klein decision partly departs from it, and a POSCO ruling could shift how ITC-parallel petitions are weighed in this family going forward.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion of the '026 patent:

1. Do not expect IPR institution while the ITC case is live. The controlling practical authority is Klein Tools, IPR2024-01400/-01401, Paper 22 (P.T.A.B. 2025-06-09), which states: "the Petition is denied, and no trial is instituted." Link: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf. If you file an IPR, expect a Fintiv factor 1/4 denial premised on "the same parties, the same challenged claims, and … overlapping prior art references" in the ITC. Budget accordingly — or wait out the ITC as to the '026 (statutory deadline for a Board FWD would be 1 year from institution, but there is no institution here, so there is no PTAB clock running at all).
2. Attack validity in the district court / ITC, not the PTAB. No FWD exists, so no § 315(e)(2) estoppel limits anyone. But be aware the ITC FID already disposed of the Auer prior-art theory (found not prior art) and Klein's obviousness combinations; the productive move is new art, not the petition art.
3. Get the actual IPR2024-01400 petition and Exhibit list before you rely on any characterization of its grounds — I could not confirm which claims or references were challenged, so do not build a strategy document on secondhand descriptions. Pull them from PTAB E2E / PatentCenter (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11365026B2](/patent/US11365026B2)/en links the USPTO PatentCenter and Assignment records; PTAB E2E is at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/).
4. Watch the ITC Commission determination and any CAFC appeal of it. The Commission ordered review in part on 2026-01-21 following the 2025-08-01 FID finding a violation. A Federal Circuit appeal of the Commission's final determination on the '026 would be the first appealable claim-level adjudication of this patent — that, not the PTAB, is where claim 1 of the '026 will live or die.

If the structured ODP block is what your matter management system relies on: correct it. The block's "no AIA trial proceedings" statement is wrong for US 11,365,026; the correct entry is IPR2024-01400, Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products, Ltd., filed 2024-09-16, institution granted (Paper 17) then vacated on Director Review, institution denied 2025-06-09 (Paper 22), no FWD, no appeal.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation context before drafting. Let me run several searches.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,365,026 B2

Data limitation up front (read this first). The tools I have available return search-engine excerpts, not authenticated queries against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov. Google Patents' legal-events feed for this patent does mirror the recording events (it lists "Assigned to …" entries with assignor names), and I have that. What I could not retrieve by any means is the reel/frame number and the correspondent of record for either recording. I will not invent those. Every reel/frame and correspondent field below is marked [not retrieved], and the chain is reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events mirror plus the litigation record. Verify at the Assignment Center before relying on it: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 11365026).

One reel/frame reference did surface in search results — 035906/0864, "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; ASSIGNOR: BRUNNER, YARON; ASSIGNEE: KETER PLASTIC LTD." That reel series corresponds to ~2015 recordings, i.e. a different, earlier Brunner/Keter filing, not this patent. I am explicitly not attributing it to the '026 chain.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — no signal. This is a two-employer joint-development invention (one Keter inventor, three Milwaukee inventors), consistent with a co-developed product. There is no inventor departure cluster, no all-inventors-walked pattern, and no re-assignment of inventor rights to any third party. Yaron Brunner remained the named Keter-side inventor across the entire continuation family; Hyma remains a high-volume Milwaukee filer to the present. The 2022-02-21 recordings are the routine inventor→employer confirmatory assignments for the continuation, recorded ~3 months after the 2021-11-29 application filing.

Original assignee

The issued patent names two assignees — a joint ownership:

• Keter Plastic Ltd., Herzliya, Israel — the plastics/home-and-garden manufacturer; the Keter business was 80%-acquired by BC Partners in 2016 (~$1.36 B) and operated as a portfolio company. It ships product embodying the claims: per the ITC Final Initial Determination, several PACKOUT products that Milwaukee relies on for the domestic-industry showing "are manufactured by Keter" (JX-0090; Tr. (Vargo) 71:7-15). Status: operating, but see the corporate-event note under signal 6 below.
• Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., 13135 W. Lisbon Rd., Brookfield, WI — operating manufacturer/marketer of power tools, hand tools and storage; the PACKOUT™ modular storage system practices the claims (CX-0105.0024-25; ITC FID). A subsidiary of Techtronic Industries.

Stated directly in the pleadings: "Milwaukee Tool and Keter jointly own by assignment the entire right, title, and interest in the '026 Patent" (N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04928 complaint ¶ 12). This is an operating-company joint ownership, not an NPE acquisition.

Assignment timeline

The '026 is a continuation (filed 2021-11-29 from the 17/391,904 chain back to PCT/IL2017/050481 and provisional 62/330,334). The Assignment Center/Google legal-events record shows only the following post-filing events on this patent:

2022-02-21 (executed date not shown; recorded 2022-02-21) — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Assignment (confirmatory inventor→employer)
• Assignor: Steven W. Hyma; Grant T. Squiers; Christopher S. Hoppe
• Assignee: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation
• Correspondent: [not retrieved] — cannot assess recurrence
• Context: routine confirmatory assignment of the three Milwaukee inventors' rights to their employer for the '026 continuation.

2022-02-21 (recorded same day) — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Yaron Brunner
• Assignee: Keter Plastic Ltd.
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: routine confirmatory assignment of the Keter-side inventor's rights; recorded concurrently with the Milwaukee record, evidencing the deliberate joint-ownership structure of the co-developed product.

2024-04-12 (executed date not shown; recorded 2024-04-12) — Reel [not retrieved]

• Conveyance: Change of Name (not an asset transfer)
• Assignor/Beneficiary: Keter Plastic Ltd. → Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: internal renaming only — no change in beneficial ownership and no new consideration. After this date the two co-owners are Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd., exactly as named as complainants in the ITC and district-court actions.

Two secondary legal-events entries on Google Patents are not assignments and are shown only so they are not mistaken for one: 2021-11-29 "Application filed by Keter Plastic Ltd, Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp" (the filing/priority event) and the 2022-03-17 / 2022-06-21 publication and grant events.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11365026
    2016 : Provisional 62330334 filed
    2017 : PCT IL2017050481 filed
    2021 : US continuation filed Nov 29
    2022 : Inventors assign to employers Feb 21
         : Milwaukee Tool takes 3 inventor rights
         : Keter Plastic takes Brunner rights
    2022 : Patent issued Jun 21
    2024 : Keter Plastic renamed Keter Home and Garden
    2024 : ITC and district suits v Klein Tools

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignee carries an "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix; no Delaware/Texas single-purpose LLC appears anywhere. The only post-issuance entry (2024-04-12) is a Change of Name from Keter Plastic Ltd. to Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. — same legal person, same address (2 Sapir Street, Industrial Zone, Herzliya 4685206 per the ITC notice of investigation), no new consideration. Both current owners are the original joint owners.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Current and prior assignees are Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and the Keter entity — neither appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg lists or on Unified Patents or RPX high-frequency-plaintiff directories.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (data gap, not a finding). I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for any of the three recordings, so I cannot test for recurrence. No correspondent name is asserted here. The litigating counsel (Morgan Lewis for Milwaukee/Keter; Quinn Emanuel) appear in the merits proceedings, not in the assignment records, and are operating-company litigation counsel — not NPE recording agents.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. There are no LLC-to-LLC hops. Total recorded events on this patent: two same-day inventor assignments (2022-02-21) and one name change (2024-04-12). Nothing approaches the "<24 months through chained LLCs" pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2024-04-12 event sits ~2 months before the June 13, 2024 complaints, but it is a name change inside the pre-existing co-owner, not a transfer to an asserting vehicle. The plaintiffs named in both the ITC action (337-TA-1409, instituted 2024-07-15, 89 FR 58764) and N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04928 are the same two co-owners who held title before the suit. No standing-manufacturing transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present as to this patent's chain; corporate-level event noted separately. No Chapter 7/11 sale, no stalking-horse transfer of this patent. Separately, and outside the assignment record, an Israeli financial report indicates the Keter home-and-garden corporate entity came under creditor control and then new investor control (Kedma / Community funds) in 2025. That is an equity event at the corporate parent, not a recorded assignment of the '026 patent; I flag it only as corporate-distress context and do not treat it as a patent-chain signal. I have not verified it against a primary filing.

7. Privateering — not present (inverse pattern). The operating co-owners are litigating directly, in their own names, as complainants/plaintiffs. There is no operating-company → NPE hand-off.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The IPRs on this family (IPR2024-01400 / -01401, and later IPR2025-01018 on the sibling '167 patent) were filed by the litigation defendant Klein Tools, Inc. as petitioner — not by a defensive aggregator. Note a source conflict: Google Patents' litigation metadata labels IPR2024-01400 "Pending – Instituted," while a later PTAB filing states the Director denied institution of IPR2024-01400 and -01401; I lean to the PTAB primary document and flag the conflict.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Two operating manufacturers — Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. (which ships the PACKOUT™ system practicing the claims) and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. (which manufactures PACKOUT components, per ITC JX-0090) — are the original and current joint owners and are suing a direct competitor, Klein Tools, Inc., in both the ITC (337-TA-1409, instituted 2024-07-15; Final Initial Determination of violation, 2025-08-01) and N.D. Ill. (1:24-cv-04928). The entire recorded chain consists of two confirmatory inventor→employer assignments recorded 2022-02-21 and one Change of Name on 2024-04-12 (Keter Plastic Ltd. → Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.); there is no shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading transfer, no pre-suit transfer to an assertion vehicle, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. The only unmet check — repeat-correspondent recurrence (signal 3) — is unclear solely because the reel/frame and correspondent fields could not be retrieved, and an absence of data is not evidence of an NPE pattern.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 11365026; the two 2022-02-21 inventor assignments and the 2024-04-12 change-of-name are the records to pull for reel/frame and correspondent confirmation.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 11,365,026 systematically. Let me start with searches.

Let me retrieve the detailed citation lists from patent databases.

Let me look specifically at the citation lists on the patent's own pages.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,365,026 ("Utility assembly and coupling mechanism")

1. Identification of the subject patent (as verified)

Identifier caution (per operating rules): the string "11365026" also appears as an application serial in an unrelated matter (US application 11/365,026, filed 2006-03-01, which published as US20060196340A1, a plectrum/pick patent). That is a serial-number collision, not the patent at issue. All analysis below concerns Patent No. 11,365,026 only.

2. Method and a material limitation you must know about

I searched the USPTO-family sources (Google Patents, USPTO/PatFT-derived records, uspto.report, Justia, and the PTAB/ITC records already retrieved). A key limitation:

• I was not able to retrieve a clean, per-document "References Cited" (face-of-patent) list for U.S. 11,365,026 alone. The lists that are publicly indexed for this family are attached to its sibling continuations (e.g., US 11,027,883; US 10,981,696; US 11,794,952; US 11,192,690). Because all of these share the same specification, drawings, inventors and priority chain as the '026, their cited-art lists are the closest reliable proxy for the '026's own art of record — but they are not identical to the '026's face citations, and I flag that expressly rather than imply the lists below are the '026's literal front page.
• The only "Patent Citations (8)" count I could see in the family record was on the PCT publication WO2017191628A1; the enumerated text of those eight documents did not render in the retrieved sources.

So: treat the tables below as the family-level art of record (highest-confidence proxy), not as a verbatim reproduction of the '026 front page. Where I state a specific claim mapping I flag whether it is verified from a primary record or inferred.

3. Prior art of record (family-level; § 102(b) / § 102(a)(2)-type art)

The following categories/exemplars were located in the record. Dates are the publication dates as listed; for pre-AIA documents they are § 102(b) art relative to the 2016-05-02 priority date; post-2016 items are only relevant as § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art if they predate the actual filing chain (many "cited" items in the family list are actually applicant's own or later-dated and are listed for completeness).

3.1 Most relevant U.S. patents (the ones that actually read on a sliding-rib/tongue interlock)

Note on assignments: a number of these are Keter/Milwaukee's own earlier filings (Brunner, some Koenig-adjacent). Those are simultaneously § 102(a)(1) prior art and a potential § 102(b)(2)(C)/common-ownership or double-patenting issue, which is why the ITC/IPR record focused on them.

3.2 U.S. patent-application publications of record (exemplars)

US 2002/0000440 A1 (Sagal, 2002-01-03); US 2003/0094392 A1 (Meier, 2003-05-22); US 2003/0094393 A1 (Sahm III); US 2003/0115715 A1 (Valentini); US 2003/0146589 A1 (Jarko); US 2003/0184034 A1 (Pfeiffer); US 2003/0205877 A1 (Verna); US 2004/0103494 A1 (Valentini); US 2004/0195793 A1 (Sullivan); US 2004/0206656 A1 (Dubois); US 2005/0062244 A1 (Guirlinger); US 2005/0104308 A1 (Barnes); US 2005/0230561–region (Kurtenbach); US 2006/0119060 A1 (Sullivan); US 2006/0186624 A1 (Kady); US 2006/0254946 A1 (Becklin); US 2007/0084143–region (Duvigneau); US 2007/0180711 A1 (Park); US 2008/0104921 A1 (Pervan — floor-panel mechanical locking). These are § 102(b)/§ 102(a)(2) art for the coupling/tongue-rib and stacking concepts.

3.3 Foreign patent documents of record (exemplars)

DE 19750543; DE 20218996; DE 102004057870; DE 102010003754; DE 102010003756; DE 102012106482; DE 102015112204; DE 102015013053; DE 202015005752; EP 0916302; EP 1321247; EP 1428764; EP 1819487; EP 2289671; EP 2346741 (July 2011 — "Storage arrangement consisting of two parts…"; the EPO opposition record for this number cites US 7,219,969 Bezzubov and WO2006099638A1); EP 2456341; EP 2555660; EP 2555661; EP 2805799; EP 3141354; GB 694707; GB 2047181; GB 2110076; GB 2330521; GB 2406331; GB 2413265; GB 2449934; JP 2003194020; JP 2013022972; JP 2013022976; KR 30-0271616; KR 30-0320243; KR 3008066040000; EM 000705231-0001; EM 002419283-0001. These are § 102(a)/(b) art; the German and EP stacking-container references are the most technically on-point.

4. The references most likely to matter for an anticipation attack on the '026

The '026's independent claim 1 (as characterized in the parallel N.D. Ill. complaint, Case 1:24-cv-04928, Dkt. 1-17) recites, in substance: a first coupler on a first face comprising two sidewalls, a back wall, and a rib (projecting from a depressed surface); a lid pivotally attached to the first container; a toggle locking latch; a second coupler on a second face comprising a tongue offset from the second face, the tongue extending opposite the rib direction; and the couplers engaging when the two containers are slid along a sliding path defined by the rib and the tongue.

Given that element set, the highest-relevance prior art is:

1. US 7,219,969 B2 (Bezzubov, 2007-05-22) — the single reference most often reached for in this family's art; a stacking organizer/toolbox with interengaging coupling structure. Best § 102(b) candidate against the coupling/stacking limitations; whether it discloses a toggle locking latch on a pivotal lid in combination with the rib/tongue slide is the decisive question and I have not verified that from the four corners of Bezzubov here.
2. US 6,347,847 / 6,601,930 / 6,176,559 (Tiramani) — modular interlocking toolcases; § 102(b) art for stacked, latch-coupled cases.
3. The Koenig patents (US 8,459,495; US 8,875,888) and Keter's own Brunner patents (US 8,851,282; US D649,783) — modular interlock + latch; note the common-ownership / § 102(b)(2) overlay because Brunner is a named '026 inventor.
4. EP 2346741 / DE stacking-container references — foreign § 102 art showing rib-in-groove sliding interlocking storage arrangements.
5. US 2008/0104921 A1 (Pervan) — mechanical locking (tongue-and-groove) with a slide path; relevant to the "sliding path defined by the rib and the tongue" limitation, though in a completely different (flooring) field.

Realistic assessment: no single one of these references, as listed, is a clean, complete § 102 anticipation of claim 1 across all elements simultaneously (projecting sidewalls + back wall + opposite-direction tongue + pivotal lid + toggle latch + slide-path engagement). They are, however, § 102 art for subsets of limitations and § 103 combination art, which is consistent with why the family's actual validity fights (below) proceeded on obviousness/ITC grounds rather than a bare anticipation.

5. Prior art specifically surfaced in the '026's own adversarial record (most probative)

These are more probative than the face citations because the parties actually litigated them:

• "3/2015 catalog" (ITC No. 337-TA-1409, Exhibit RX-0183). The Commission's Jan. 2026 review notice asked the parties to brief the status of the 3/2015 catalog as prior art. If its March 2015 public distribution is proven, it is a § 102(a)(1) printed publication predating the 2016-05-02 priority date and can be asserted against claim 1 (and the asserted dependent claims 4 and 8, which were the claims remaining at the Final ID). Source: Commission review notice / FID briefing, Inv. 337-TA-1409.
• Klein Tools' IPR2024-01400 petition (challenging the '026) — the Petitioner's grounds and exhibits constitute an obviousness/anticipation theory; note the Board denied institution after Director Review, so those references are not art "of record" in the patent, but they are the most aggressive art set asserted against it. I was not able to retrieve the specific reference list from the IPR2024-01400 petition in this session; I am flagging this as a gap rather than inventing citations.

⚠️ Important disambiguation: a PTAB petition excerpt that surfaced in search results (citing Ramorino, Feil, Rigollet, Gardner, Blocher, Korgaonkar around a "'868 patent'") belongs to a different, unrelated patent (a firestop-collar matter) and has no bearing on the '026. I am excluding it.

6. Claim mapping summary (inferred; verify against the reference texts)

7. Explicit caveats (do not over-read this)

1. I could not retrieve the literal face-of-patent citation list for U.S. 11,365,026. The lists above are the family/sibling art of record (same spec/priority), which is the strongest available proxy — but it is a proxy.
2. No single listed reference is confirmed here as a complete § 102 anticipation of claim 1. The element-by-element anticipation call requires reading each reference's full text, which I did not complete for each.
3. The IPR2024-01400 petition's specific prior-art references were not retrievable in this session; do not treat the § 5 gap as an absence of such art.
4. Dates/titles are as listed in the retrieved records; several family-list entries are the applicant's own or post-2016 items listed for completeness and are not all prior art to the '026.
5. Everything in § 5 should be confirmed on EDIS (Inv. 337-TA-1409) and PTAB (IPR2024-01400) primary documents before being relied upon.

If you want, I can next (a) pull the grounds/exhibits from the IPR2024-01400 petition, or (b) do an element-by-element claim 1 chart against Bezzubov (US 7,219,969) and Tiramani (US 6,347,847) specifically — those are the two references I'd prioritize for a § 102/§ 103 analysis.

I'll research the prior art landscape before drafting the obviousness analysis. The provided patent text does not itself include the cited-references section, so I need to identify the prior art that has actually been asserted against this family.

I have the actual claim language now (the pre-grant publication US20220081162A1 maps to this application). Let me pin down the key prior-art references and the asserted invalidity grounds.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,365,026 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Read-me-first: two corrections to the earlier-generated sections

1. The "Prior Art section" you pointed me to is not a reference list. The patent text supplied here contains only the Google Patents "Prior art keywords" line (container; locking; utility; utility module; module) and "Prior art date 2016-05-02." There is no "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" table in the fetched document. So I have built this analysis from the prior art that the litigation and PTAB record actually establishes as having been arrayed against this family — not from a face-of-patent citation list. Flagging that so you don't think I silently substituted sources.

2. Claim structure — the earlier sections were wrong, and this matters a lot for § 103. The previously-generated "Patent summary" and "PTAB challenges" sections asserted three independent claims (1, 4, 8) and stated the full claim text was unverified. I retrieved the pre-grant publication of this application (US 2022/0081162 A1, app. 17/536,521 — Google Patents records the '026's own "Publication of US20220081162A1" event on 2022‑03‑17). Its claim set (published claims 21–31, which renumber to issued claims 1–11) shows a single independent claim (1) with a dependent tree — not three independents. Source: https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20220081162 (claim 1 of the published set matches, near-verbatim, the '026 claim 1 quoted in the N.D. Ill. complaint, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68854921/1/17/milwaukee-electric-tool-corporation-v-klein-tools-inc/). Because there is only one independent claim, a § 103 attack succeeds or fails on claim 1; the dependents are icing.

1. Claim 1 (the claim that carries the patent)

A container assembly comprising: a first container comprising: a first coupler extending from a first face, the first coupler comprising two sidewalls, a back wall, and a rib, the back wall located between the two sidewalls, the two sidewalls and the back wall projecting from a depressed surface of the first face, and the rib extending from the back wall in a first direction; a lid pivotally attached to the first container; and a toggle locking latch configured to latch the lid closed; a second container comprising: a second coupler extending from a second face, the second coupler comprising a tongue offset from the second face, the tongue extends in a second direction opposite the first direction, the tongue engageable with the rib of the first container; a lid pivotally attached to the second container; and a toggle locking latch; wherein the first and second couplers engage each other when the first and second containers are slid … along a sliding path defined by the rib and the tongue; a locking latch arresting location defined by one container; and a locking latch coupled to the other container, positionable in a locked position engaging the arresting location thereby limiting sliding displacement.

Dependents: 2 (sliding path ⟂ latch); 3 (latch has a rear surface; sliding path ⟂ rear surface); 4 (latch spring biased); 5 (second coupler front surface oblique); 6 (tongue slanted surface parallel to that front surface); 7 (first face = lid top; second face = bottom of second container); 8 (second container half the width of the first, located on top); 9 (second toggle latch on first container); 10 (front handle between the two toggle latches); 11 (second container has rear wheels + telescoping handle).

2. Framework and critical date

• Priority date: May 2, 2016 (Prov. 62/330,334), per the '026 specification and Google Patents. The '026 is a 6th-generation continuation; every claim element must trace to that date or the earlier-disclosed chain. Working assumption: claim 1 is entitled to 2016‑05‑02. If any "toggle latch" or directional-relationship limitation was added later without § 112 support, the critical date for that limitation moves — a predicate worth testing.
• Law: AIA §§ 102/103. Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (scope/content of art, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations); KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (predictable combinations of known elements; design incentives; "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way").
• PHOSITA: a mechanical-engineering-skilled designer (≈ bachelor's degree or equivalent experience) with 2–3 years in portable tool-storage / stackable-container design. This is the level the ITC and the IPR petitions effectively used.

The commercial subject matter — Milwaukee PACKOUT™ vs. Klein MODbox™ — is narrow: an interlockable tool-box/cooler stack.

3. The prior art actually in the record

Sources for the above: IPR petition/ID documents hosted at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents (Exhibit list and grounds, e.g. Burchia = EX1004, Lafragette = EX1005, Bensman = EX1008, Metabowerke = EX1020); ITC FID, Inv. 337‑TA‑1409 (Aug. 1, 2025); Director-Review order, https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf.

Update to the earlier PTAB section. That section said I could not confirm IPR2024-01400's grounds. The record now shows the '026 petition charted the Auer system (Auer-Press/Auer-Catalog) and Madsen against the '026/"container assembly" claim language. Confidence: medium — the exhibit numbering is drawn from petition artifacts that also contain '952/'167 material, so pull the '026 petition itself (PTAB E2E) before relying on this.

4. The § 103 grounds

Ground 0 — Auer alone (single reference; strongest if the predicate holds)

The Auer claim chart maps every material limitation of '026 claim 1, including the "depressed surface + back wall + rib" female coupler and the oppositely-directed male tongue. If Auer (the March‑2015 catalog plus the Auer-Press document) is authenticated as a printed publication / public use before 2016‑05‑02, it is a § 102(a)(1) single-reference anticipation, and a fortiori renders claim 1 obvious, with dependents 2–11 covered by ordinary design choices (half-width sizing; toggle lid latches; wheels/handle).
The fatal problem is the predicate: the ITC found the Auer system was not prior art, and the Commission specifically ordered briefing on the status of the 3/2015 catalog (RX‑0183). An § 103 ground cannot rest on a reference that isn't prior art. Unless a challenger cures the authentication/date defect, Auer is unusable — and the earlier FID rejection of the Auer theory is the single most important reason no § 103 attack has yet landed on the '026.

Ground 1 (primary) — Burchia + Lafragette (+ Bensman / Metabowerke for dependents)

• Claim 1 coverage. Burchia supplies the whole slide-and-lock architecture: bottom-face male couplers (24/25/28/29) that drop into a female depression and then slide (arrow 34) so the tongue seats under the rib, with a spring locking element arresting against a stop/setback surface, plus introduction bevels to take up play. Lafragette supplies the precise "depressed surface having a back wall, sidewalls, and a rib" geometry and the resilient spring-biased tab seated in a recess ("arresting location") at the end of the sliding stroke — i.e., the exact claim‑1 language for the first coupler and the latch/arresting‑location pair that Burchia's disclosure arguably leaves implicit.
• Motivation (KSR). Both references are in the same field (detachably connectable containers) and solve the same problem by the same mechanism (tongue slid under a rib + spring latch). Peterson's* own record concedes this: "Burchia, Burchia, Lafragette … are each directed to container assemblies that are detachably connectable using the same or similar mechanism, a tongue sliding into a depressed surface and engaging a rib and being held in place by a spring-biased locking latch." The motivation to use Lafragette's recessed arresting location in Burchia's container is stated and supported: a recess shields the latch, resists accidental release and lateral movement, and the result is predictable in "the simple mechanical technology (a recessed surface)."
• Teaching away? None on this record for the '026's limitations. (Patent Owner's teaching-away argument about Welsh's corner bumpers covering Burchia's top face was made against the '167 claims' bumper limitation and does not map onto '026 claim 1.)

Ground 2 (alternative) — Metabowerke + Burchia + Lafragette

Useful precisely because it repairs two soft spots in Ground 1: (i) Metabowerke's "rear standing foot 13" independently teaches a bottom-face male coupler, and Metabowerke's own disclosure teaches the depressed surface/back wall/sidewall/rib geometry if Burchia is argued not to; and (ii) Metabowerke teaches the toggle-locking latch — a claim‑1 element that Burchia and Lafragette may not show. Petitioner's articulation: a POSITA would separate the lid-latching toggle from the container-coupling latch so the user can open the lid without splitting the stack — a concrete, functional motivation.

Ground 3 (toggle-latch supply) — add Bensman (and/or Metabowerke)

Claim 1 requires each container's lid to have a toggle locking latch. Bensman teaches exactly that (plus, for dependent claim 11, the rear wheels + telescoping handle). Motivation: wheels/handle = obvious mobility design choice ("wheels are the most obvious way to assist with moving stacked, heavy containers"; Metabowerke itself notes such assemblies "can be easily transported together and stored stacked"), and toggle latches are "conventional latching mechanisms" with a reasonable expectation of success in the simple mechanical arts.

Ground 4 — Madsen + Burchia/Lafragette

Madsen teaches couplers, tongue/rib engagement, latches, and unlimited stackability; it was already deployed against the '026-family ancestor '962. Use it as the coupler/latch backbone and Burchia/Lafragette for the depressed-surface + back-wall + rib geometry and the spring-biased recessed latch.

5. Claim-by-claim disposition (predicted)

6. Secondary considerations (the counterweight)

This is where the § 103 story actually lives, and it cuts against obviousness on the present record:

• Commercial success + copying: PACKOUT™ is a market-defining product; Klein's MODbox™ is accused of copying the very slide-and-lock coupling. If a nexus to the claimed coupler is shown, Graham factor 4 favors the patentee.
• The ITC already adjudicated this: the CALJ's Final Initial Determination (Aug. 1, 2025) found no invalidity of the asserted '026 claims, and rejected the Auer prior-art predicate. The Commission determined to review in part on Jan. 21, 2026, asking for briefing on the status of the 3/2015 catalog (RX‑0183) — i.e., the Commission is scrutinizing the prior-art status of the best single-reference attack.
• PTAB: IPR2024‑01400 institution was denied on Director Review (Paper 22, June 9, 2025) on Fintiv grounds — no claim was ever construed or cancelled. So no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists and all 11 claims are untested at the PTAB.

7. Bottom line

1. The art supports a legally sufficient § 103 case on paper — principally Burchia + Lafragette (with Bensman/Metabowerke for the toggle latches and dependents, and Madsen as a coupler/latch backbone), all in the same field, using the same slide-under-rib + spring-latch mechanism, with articulated, KSR-compliant motivations (latch protection, mobility, separating lid-latch from coupling-latch). The Auer system is the only single-reference knockout and maps claim 1 element-for-element.
2. But it has not worked in practice. Auer failed on prior-art status at the ITC, and the IPR was shut down on discretionary grounds. Any new challenger must therefore (a) re-establish the reference dates, and (b) bring new art rather than re-running Burchia/Bensman/Lafragette/Lafragette/Auer, because the ITC record has already picked those over.
3. Highest-yield openings for a fresh § 103 attack: (i) authenticate a pre-May‑2016 printed publication or public use of a tongue-under-rib + spring-latch stacker (the Auer fix); (ii) collapse the "toggle locking latch" limitation onto Bensman/Metabowerke with a clean separation-of-function rationale; (iii) attack the priority chain if the "opposite direction" tongue limitation lacks § 112 support in the 2016 provisional; and (iv) pre-empt the patentee's nexus argument for PACKOUT commercial success.

Explicit uncertainty flags

• Burchia's prior-art date is not independently verified here. U.S. 10,750,833 issued in 2020, after the 2016 critical date; it can only be § 102 art via a pre‑2016 effective filing date (hence the petition's "Burchia priority application" + certified translation, Ex‑1018/1019). I could not fix that date from the sources retrieved — treat the date as the gating predicate, exactly as Auer's status is.
• Lafragette, Metabowerke, Lin, Welsh, Chen, Bensman, Madsen: I have their identities/roles and the petition's characterizations, not full texts. Verify each reference's teaching and date before filing or relying.
• The issued claim set vs. the published claim set: I used the published claims (21–31 → 1–11), which match the complaint's claim 1. The claims could have been amended between the 2022‑03‑17 publication and the 2022‑06‑21 grant — pull the granted claims from PatentCenter.
• IPR2024‑01400's exact grounds: I attribute Auer (Ex‑1004/1006) + Madsen (Ex‑1003) to the '026 petition at medium confidence; the petition artifacts I retrieved are commingled with the '952/'167 filings.