US 11551222

I'll search for current information on this specific patent number.

Let me retrieve the actual claim language for this specific patent.

I have the bibliographic data but need the exact claim text. Let me try to retrieve it.

US Patent 11,551,222 — Analyst Summary

Identification (as issued)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A system and method provide efficient, secure and highly reliable authentication for transaction processing and/or access control applications in which only biometric input is required from the user. A Personal Digital Key stores a biometric profile that comprises a representation of physical or behavioral characteristics that are uniquely associated with an individual that owns and carries the PDK. The PDK wirelessly transmits the biometric profile over a secure wireless transaction to a Reader for use in a biometric authentication process. The Reader compares the received biometric profile to a biometric input acquired at the point of transaction in order to determine if the transaction should be authorized."

Disclosure in one paragraph

A Personal Digital Key (PDK) — a small, carried wireless device with tamper‑proof memory holding a biometric profile and payment/identity data — is read by a Reader when it enters the Reader's adjustable proximity zone (beacon‑initiated, no need to remove the PDK from pocket/wallet). The Reader captures a biometric input at the point of transaction and compares it against data pulled from the PDK. Because the biometric template lives only on the user's own PDK, no central biometric database is needed and no enrollment is repeated per merchant. Layered authentication is described: device authentication (reader↔PDK validity), profile authentication (biometric / PIN / picture / registry), plus optional remote registries (Central Registry, private registries, validation database). Figs. 8–10 describe "single step" embodiments in which the user's only action is presenting biometrics. Notably, the as‑issued claims are markedly narrower than the as‑published claims (see below).

Independent claims — plain language

The patent has three independent claims: 1 (method), 15 (system), 20 (computer program product). All three recite substantively the same five‑step sequence; 15 and 20 are apparatus/CRM counterparts of claim 1.

Claim 1 — Method for electronic transaction processing

1. (Triggering condition) After a first PDK device has entered a proximity zone of a reader device, the reader wirelessly receives a first biometric sample from that PDK. The PDK stores a full biometric profile; the received sample is a subset of that profile.
2. Automatically capturing (at the Reader, at the point of transaction) a biometric input from a user — "without user intervention."
3. Comparing that captured biometric input against a plurality of biometric samples received from a plurality of PDK devices inside the proximity zone (i.e., a many‑candidate comparison of the samples buffered from all nearby PDKs).
4. Identifying a match between the captured input and the first biometric sample, based on that multi‑candidate comparison.
5. In response to the match: (a) associate the first PDK device with the transaction, (b) determine the biometric input also matches the PDK's full biometric profile, and (c) initiate the transaction at the Reader using that PDK.

Analytic note: the inventive core of the granted claim is the dense‑client disambiguation problem — using subset "samples" broadcast by many in‑range PDKs, then matching a single captured biometric to select which PDK the transaction belongs to, before pulling the full profile.

Claim 15 — System

One or more processors plus memory holding instructions that cause the processor to perform exactly the claim‑1 sequence (receive subset sample after proximity entry → automatically capture biometric input without user intervention → compare against samples from multiple PDKs in the zone → identify the match → associate, determine full‑profile match, and initiate the transaction).

Claim 20 — Computer program product

A non‑transitory computer‑usable medium carrying a program that, when executed, causes a computing device to perform the same sequence as claim 1. (Observation: claim 20 is drafted with gerunds — "comparing…", "associating…", "determining…" — inconsistent with the "causes the computing device to" infinitive form used for the first two steps. Flagged as an apparently irregularity in the printed claim text; I did not verify whether a certificate of correction addressed it.)

Dependent claims (brief map)

• 2 — capture via retinal, iris, and/or facial scan. (Printed text reads "wherein automatically receiving capturing the biometric input includes…", an apparent typo.)
• 3 — Reader only temporarily stores the biometric input.
• 4 — Authenticate the first PDK after it enters a readable coverage area.
• 5 — Authorize the transaction in response to both PDK authentication and the full‑profile biometric match.
• 6 — Ordering: PDK authentication begins before match identification, and match identification is performed before PDK authentication completes (independent orderings).
• 7 — PDK authentication includes comparing received data against data from an external system.
• 8 — Proximity zone and readable coverage area both belong to the same Reader, which performs capture, PDK authentication, and match identification.
• 9 — The PDK itself determines the biometric match.
• 10 — After the sample matches and the PDK is associated, the Reader obtains the full biometric profile from the PDK.
• 11 — Biometric input is a calculated representation (hash) of physical/behavioral characteristics.
• 12 — Authorizing includes communicating with another system to approve, and presenting status.
• 13 — Receive and display a picture profile to an administrator.
• 14 — Use financial / credit‑card / personal‑identification information received from the PDK to complete a financial transaction.
• 16 — Transaction authorized without further user action.
• 17 — Financial‑information completion (system‑claim counterpart of 14).
• 18 — PDK authentication by comparing a PDK identifier against data from a central registry, validation database, and/or private registry (external system).
• 19 — Calculated‑representation limitation in the system claim.

Claim‑scope shift worth noting

The pre‑grant publication US 2017/0085564 A1 claimed a broad five‑step method ("wirelessly receiving data from a personal digital key (PDK); receiving a biometric input; authenticating the PDK; authenticating the biometric input; and performing a transaction responsive to the PDK and the biometric input being authenticated"). The granted claim 1 is substantially narrower, adding the proximity‑zone trigger, the subset‑sample transfer, the multi‑PDK comparison, the association step, and "without user intervention." This is consistent with the applicant's statement in the specification that "the claims of the present application are different from those of the parent application… Therefore, Applicants rescind any disclaimer of claim scope made in the parent."

Litigation / CAFC 2026 status

I could not confirm any CAFC 2026 appeal docket specifically involving US 11,551,222. State this as a finding, not an omission:

• The March/April 2026 Federal Circuit appeal I located — Proxense LLC v. Apple Inc. / [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), consolidated appeals from IPR2024‑00233, IPR2024‑01334, and IPR2024‑00846 — concerns U.S. Patent No. 8,886,954 ("Biometric personal data key (PDK) authentication"), not 11,551,222. Do not conflate the two.
• Google Patents' litigation panel lists, for this family, a U.S. case in the Western District of Texas, Case No. 7:25‑cv‑00531 (source: Unified Patents), plus a Darts‑IP worldwide family litigation entry. The parties in 7:25‑cv‑00531 are not identified in the record I retrieved — I am not asserting who they are.
• Broader Proxense campaign context (from ip fray reporting, for background only, not tied to this patent): settlements with Samsung, Google (Jan. 24, 2025) and Intel (Mar. 24, 2026); litigation against Apple and Microsoft stayed as of April 2026.

Explicit uncertainties

1. No CAFC 2026 docket tied to '222 was found. Absence of evidence here is not proof none exists; a docket‑level (PACER/CourtListener) check would be required to be definitive.
2. Claim text provenance: the granted claim language above is taken from the issued‑patent PDF (via patentimages/Google Patents) and cross‑checked against the Justia record for patent 11551222 and the '564 publication. I have not independently obtained the USPTO PatentCenter "official" copy, nor checked for a certificate of correction.
3. Expiration: I am relaying Google Patents' "adjusted expiration 2027‑05‑20" and the printed §154(b) 13‑day adjustment plus terminal disclaimer. Term calculation is a legal conclusion and should be verified against the patent's own disclaimer and any later family filings (e.g., the 2022‑06‑30 filing of Ser. No. 17/854,744, which Google Patents shows claiming priority from this case).
4. Assignee/inventor addresses differ between the 2007 parent (Giobbi: Bend, OR) and the 2016 filing as printed — reported as-printed.

I'll research litigation involving US 11551222 using litigation-tracking sources.

Let me dig into the specific case references and Proxense's recent enforcement activity.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,551,222

Bottom line: I found one patent-infringement action in which US 11,551,222 is affirmatively asserted. It is a recently filed case that remains pending. I found no IPR/PGR petition, ITC investigation, or appeal specifically targeting the '222 patent. Details and supporting links below.

Case 1 — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation

Key docket facts (from PACER-derived sources):

• Complaint (35 pages) filed by David L. Hecht of Hecht Partners LLP on 11/14/2025; Request for Issuance of Summons filed the same day; AO-120 Patent/Trademark form notice filed 11/14/2025.
• Complaint exhibits: Ex. A = '898 patent, Ex. B = '456 patent, Ex. C = '919 patent, Ex. D = '792 patent, Ex. E = '222 patent, Ex. F = '628 patent, with corresponding claim charts at Exs. G–L (Ex. K = '222 claim chart).

What the '222 allegations cover: Per the complaint analysis, Proxense asserts at least independent claim 1 of the '222 patent. The infringement theory is framed around the "collision problem" when multiple biometric-capable devices are present — namely, a reader that receives biometric samples from multiple devices, captures a fresh biometric input at transaction time, compares the input against the samples to identify the correct match, and associates that device with the transaction. The accused functionality is Intel processors/chipsets/platforms incorporating Platform Trust Technology (PTT) and the Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME), including 8th–14th Gen Intel Core processors, Intel Evo laptops, and Intel vPro enterprise platforms, together with Windows Hello. The complaint also pleads induced and contributory infringement and willful infringement (alleged notice to Intel via a licensing representative as early as 2013, plus "prior litigation involving related technologies").

Sources:

• Google Patents, US11551222B2 (litigation link to W.D. Tex. case 7:25-cv-00531): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11551222/en
• RPX Insight docket: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172875230-proxense-v-intel
• PACER Monitor docket extract (shows Exhibit E = '222 and Exhibit K = '222 claim chart): https://cdn.pacermonitor.com/public/case/61206235/Proxense,_LLC_v_Intel_Corporation_
• Docket summary (Midland Division, Judge Albright, filed Nov. 14, 2025): https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/7--25-cv-00531/Proxense_LLC_v._Intel_Corporation/
• Complaint analysis (asserted claim 1 of '222; accused PTT/CSME/Evo/vPro/Windows Hello): https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:25-cv-00531/doc/analysis/1

Related Proxense litigation that does NOT involve the '222 patent

These are Proxense's other enforcement actions in the same family/portfolio; I list them only to help you rule them out. The '222 patent is not among the patents asserted in any of them, as reported:

• PatSnap case summary for Proxense v. Samsung: https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/proxense-v-samsung-biometric-pdk-authentication-patents-patsnap/
• Apple complaint analysis: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/6:24-cv-00143/doc/analysis/43
• Law360 case page for Proxense, LLC v. Apple, Inc.: https://www.law360.com/cases/65f9581180ef3f37e91713a2/articles

PTAB / other proceedings

• I identified numerous PTAB proceedings against other Proxense patents — e.g., Samsung Electronics America v. Proxense, IPR2021-01438 and IPR2021-01349; Microsoft Corp. v. Proxense, IPR2024-00573 (FWD Aug. 4, 2025, holding claims of U.S. 8,646,042 unpatentable); Google LLC v. Proxense, IPR2024-00234; Apple Inc. v. Proxense IPR2024-00232/00233; and Intel Corp. v. Proxense LLC, IPR2025-00327 (referenced in a PTAB filing).
• I did not find any IPR, PGR, reexamination, or ITC proceeding specifically directed to U.S. 11,551,222. Treat this as "none identified," not as a definitive negative.

Candid limitations on this answer

1. Search-based, not PACER-verified. I was unable to pull the live PACER docket or the Unified Patents case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) directly within this session; the case details above are compiled from PACER-derived third-party mirrors and complaint analyses. Verify the docket in PACER for 7:25-cv-00531 before relying on status.
2. Recency. Given today's date (April 26, 2026) versus the Nov. 14, 2025 filing, there may be subsequent docket events (e.g., Intel's answer, a motion to transfer/dismiss, a scheduling order, or new IPRs) that are not reflected in the sources retrieved. The docket shown was described as "incomplete."
3. Possible other suits. Proxense has been an active serial enforcer; I cannot rule out additional, very recent complaints naming the '222 patent that have not yet been indexed by the sources searched. The Google Patents "Family has litigation" indicator and the Darts-IP family link (family=38694426) also point to the same W.D. Tex. action.
4. No auto-correction applied. The number was searched literally as 11,551,222 / US11551222. Note that search results frequently surfaced a different patent, U.S. 11,121,222 (Greenthread, LLC — semiconductor dopant litigation and IPRs against Cirrus Logic, OmniVision, ams Sensors, Texas Instruments, etc.). That is not the patent you asked about and I have excluded it.

Net answer: One known litigation — Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation, No. 7:25-cv-00531 (W.D. Tex., Judge Albright), filed Nov. 14, 2025, asserting U.S. 11,551,222 (as Exhibit E) among six patents; status: pending/open, no outcome yet.

I'll start by verifying the canonical PTAB list against live sources, since a "no proceedings" result is exactly the kind of thing worth double-checking.

Broad Proxense PTAB activity surfaced, but almost all of it concerns sibling patents. I need to pin down whether anything targets the '222 patent itself.

Key lead: the '222 patent is asserted in Proxense v. Intel (W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00531). I need to determine whether Intel filed an IPR against the '222 specifically, and map the Intel IPR cluster.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 11,551,222 — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR/PGR/CBM petitions against this patent, and my independent web searches surfaced no proceeding number targeting the '222 specifically; the breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied, which means every claim of the '222 is untested and un-narrowed, no estoppel attaches to anyone, and a defendant currently accused under it faces a patent whose entire validity posture remains open — unlike the six or more Proxense portfolio patents that Microsoft, Apple, Google and Intel have already put through the Board.

⚠️ Caveat on freshness: the '222 was first asserted against Intel in Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corp., No. 7:25-cv-00531 (W.D. Tex., filed 2025-11-14, Judge Albright), where the complaint includes it as Exhibit E. Intel's statutory window under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) runs one year from service of that complaint (service date not confirmed from a public docket). A petition filed in late 2026 may not yet be publicly indexed at PTAB E2E when a Notice of Filing Date Accorded issues. Re-check PTAB E2E and the patent's Google Patents "Family has litigation" panel before relying on the zero count.

Proceedings on US 11,551,222

None. There is no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no settlement/termination, and no Federal Circuit appeal directed to any claim of the '222. Because no IPR was instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached to any petitioner or privy with respect to this patent, and no claim of the '222 has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board.

What is on file is litigation, not agency trial practice:

Adjacent PTAB activity you should nonetheless brief on (NOT proceedings on the '222)

These are the challenges to other Proxense patents. They do not bind the '222, but they tell you how the Board and the Acting Director have treated this portfolio.

IPR2024-00573 — Microsoft Corporation (with Apple Inc.) v. Proxense, LLC ('042 patent)

• Type: IPR · FWD issued: 2025-08-04
• Result: All challenged claims unpatentable — claims 1, 5, 6, 8–11, 13, 14 under pre-AIA § 103. Judgment: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)."
• Panel: Thu A. Dang, David C. McKone, Norman H. (third name truncated in the public PDF)
• Value to you: shows the Board will invalidate Proxense PDK/RDC claims on obviousness when the art is properly assembled. FWD PDF

IPR2024-00233 (joined with IPR2024-01334) and IPR2024-00846 — Microsoft / Apple v. Proxense ('954 patent)

• Result: claims 1, 2, 4–7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22–27 unpatentable under pre-AIA § 103 over Ludtke; claims 3, 14, 17 unpatentable over Ludtke in view of Kon.
• Appeal: yes — Proxense, LLC v. Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. (Fed. Cir.), consolidated from IPR2024-00233, IPR2024-01334 and IPR2024-00846. Proxense's opening brief is dated 2026-04-03 and argues APA/arbitrary-and-capricious error, conflicting Office determinations, and claim-construction error. I could not confirm the Federal Circuit docket number from the sources retrieved — do not cite one without pulling the CAFC docket. Opening brief · IPR2024-00233 FWD

IPR2024-00775 and IPR2024-00232 — Microsoft v. Proxense ('730 patent)

• Result: On 2025-04-28 Proxense requested adverse judgment under 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(b)(3) in both, conceding unpatentability. The Board ordered claims 1–17 of the '730 patent cancelled and stated the order "constitutes a Final Written Decision under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)," with a § 42.73(d)(3) bar on inconsistent later claims. Microsoft then moved to dismiss the '730 patent from the district court case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because "there are no claims of the '730 patent for Proxense to assert." Board/court record

IPR2024-00783 — Google LLC v. Proxense ('289 patent)

• Institution granted 2024-11-18 on all challenged claims (1–20) under § 314(a); grounds were § 103 combinations of Dua + Giobbi '157, Buer, and Kotola. Institution decision

IPR2025-00562 — Apple Inc. v. Proxense ('188 patent)

• Filed 2025-02-07, institution granted; PO Response 2025-12-29; Petitioner Reply 2026-03-23. Still on the trial track — FWD not yet issued on the retrieved docket snapshot. Docket

IPR2025-00327 / -00328 / -00329 — Intel Corp. v. Proxense ('043, '129, '672 patents)

• Institution DENIED 2025-06-26 on discretionary grounds under § 314(a). This is the origin of the widely-litigated "settled expectations" doctrine and the so-called "Proxense defense" to institution: the Director found the challenged patents "have been in force over nine years, creating settled expectations," and that Intel offered "no persuasive reasoning why an inter partes review is an appropriate use of Board resources." The decision also frames the two ways to overcome it — a significant change in law bearing on patentability, or proof the patent was never commercialized, asserted, marked, licensed or otherwise applied in the petitioner's technology space. Director decision

Samsung cluster (2021–2022)

• IPR2021-01447 (and companion filings IPR2021-01349/-01438/-01439) against the '700 and related patents — institution denied 2022-02-28. Docket extract

Critically, none of the above is a proceeding on US 11,551,222. Every one of those proceeding numbers and patent numbers must be kept out of any brief that purports to describe the '222's PTAB record.

Strategic summary

Claim status for the '222. All claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB — there are no canceled claims, no sustained claims, and no Board claim constructions. Nothing in the '222 has been narrowed by an agency validity ruling. The only narrowing pressure it has seen is district-court discovery and Intel's obviousness case in 7:25-cv-00531, plus (per the complaint) infringement contentions directed at independent claim 1. Compare that with the portfolio: the '730 patent's claims 1–17 are cancelled, the '042 patent's challenged claims are all unpatentable, and the '954 patent's challenged claims are all unpatentable subject to Proxense's pending Federal Circuit appeal. The contrast is the single most important fact for a defendant: Proxense's early patents have been picked apart, but the '222 is a 2023-granted continuation that nobody has yet challenged at the Board.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR on the '222 was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate — there is no petitioner, and no privy of any petitioner, barred from raising any ground against the '222. Grounds that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung or Intel raised and lost on sibling patents are not precluded here; estoppel is patent-specific. Two further points: (1) the '222 claims priority to 2006-05-05 and is a continuation of an application filed 2007-05-07, so the pre-AIA versions of §§ 102 and 103 govern — the Board applied exactly this analysis to the related '289 patent in IPR2024-00783 — which keeps pre-AIA § 102(e) art (prior patents and published applications) squarely in play as § 102 art; and (2) the strongest practical barrier is not estoppel but the Acting Director's "settled expectations" gatekeeping under § 314(a) described above.

Pattern signals. The petitioner pattern is: Microsoft filed serially (IPR2024-00232, -00233, -00407, -00573, -00775, -00846, plus -01333/-01334), joined in places by Apple (IPR2025-00562, IPR2025-00074) and Google (IPR2024-00234, IPR2024-00783); Intel (IPR2025-00327/-00328/-00329) and Samsung (2021 cluster) were turned away at the institution stage. Proxense litigates back aggressively: it has appealed to the Federal Circuit (opening brief 2026-04-03) and has pursued a parallel ex parte reexamination strategy — reexams 90/015,052 ('730), 90/015,053 ('905) and 90/015,054 ('989), with certificates issuing 2026-01-29, 2025-06-17 and 2025-03-19 respectively. On the aggregator question: the Google Patents family entry links litigation data through the Unified Patents portal for case 7:25-cv-00531, but that is docket-data sourcing; I found no evidence that Unified Patents filed an IPR against the '222, and nothing in the record retrieved identifies Unified as a petitioner in any Proxense PTAB case. Treat that as unverified.

Recommended next steps

1. No PTAB activity exists on the '222 today — say so plainly and don't oversell it. The absence is not a comfort signal here, it's an opportunity signal: this patent has not been hardened, and unlike its older siblings it does not yet enjoy "settled expectations" protection. The '222 issued 2023-01-10, roughly 3.7 years ago. Acting Director Stewart's guidance in Intel v. Proxense (IPR2025-00327, Paper 12, 2025-06-26) applied settled expectations to patents "in force over nine years," and practitioner analysis suggests a soft ~six-year line is forming. A well-prepared IPR petition against the '222 filed now is materially less exposed to a settled-expectations discretionary denial than the same petition against the '730, '905, '954 or '042.

2. File within the § 315(b) clock. If you were served with a complaint asserting the '222, your petition is barred one year from service (not filing). If you are Intel in 7:25-cv-00531, confirm the service date immediately; on a 2025-11-14 filing date the deadline falls in roughly November 2026. If you have not been sued yet, note that § 315(b) is a service-based bar, and a pre-suit petition avoids the Fintiv/§ 314(a) parallel-proceeding fight entirely.

3. Use IPR and ex parte reexamination in parallel — Proxense's own portfolio shows reexam works. IPR2025-00327 shows the Director will deny an IPR on settled-expectations grounds with no merits review. Ex parte reexamination carries no § 315(b) bar, no estoppel, and no settled-expectations gatekeeping (anyone can request it at any time; the requester may stay anonymous). That is how the '730 went down: the examiner's suggested amendment in reexam 90/015,052 triggered Proxense's § 42.73(b)(3) adverse-judgment concession that cancelled claims 1–17 in IPR2024-00775 and IPR2024-00232 on 2025-04-28. For the '222, mine the '222's own file history and its parents' (11/745,249) for material error — practitioner surveys report material-error showings have been the most successful route past settled expectations (and are irrelevant in reexam).

4. Bookmark the primary sources now. PTAB E2E for any newly-accorded '222 petition; Google Patents US11551222B2 for the "Family has litigation" panel (flagging W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00531); and CourtListener for the Proxense v. Apple/Microsoft consolidated appeal from IPR2024-00233/-01334/-00846, which will produce the first appellate word on how the Federal Circuit treats this portfolio's claim constructions and the Board's obviousness analysis.

5. Standing instruction for a current defendant: if a demand letter or complaint cites US 11,551,222, do not argue "these claims have been invalidated" — they have not. Argue instead that the '222 is untested, that no § 315(e)(2) estoppel constrains you, that the pre-AIA § 102(e) art universe is unusually rich given the 2006 priority date and the prosecution of the parent and sibling continuations, and that the Board's treatment of the '954, '042 and '730 patents supplies a template for the obviousness theory — all while watching the pending Federal Circuit appeal for a construction that may help or hurt you.

Confidence flags: (a) proceeding numbers, panel names and dispositions for the sibling patents above are drawn from Docket Alarm, the Director's decision PDF, and secondary analyses; panel composition and some docket-level details were truncated in retrieval and should be verified at PTAB E2E before use in a filing; (b) the Federal Circuit docket number for the Proxense v. Apple/Microsoft appeal was not confirmed; (c) Proxense's asserted claims in 7:25-cv-00531 are reported by a third-party complaint-analysis service, not read from the complaint itself.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Key finding already: case 7:25-cv-00531 appears to be Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation, with '222 as Exhibit E. Let me dig into the assignment records and entity details.

Let me try to pin down the specific assignment reel/frame records and the corporate/entity details.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,551,222 B2

Data-retrieval caveat (read first): I could not pull the Assignment Center record for this patent directly. Both assignmentcenter.uspto.gov and the legacy assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html are session/database-driven and returned no fetchable record text, and the Google Patents legal-events panel for US11551222 surfaces the 2016-11-30 assignment line without a reel/frame. The two reel/frames I can cite below (017659/0679 and 034843/0145) are related-family records, not this patent's record — I have labelled them as such rather than passing them off as the '222 chain. Where I do not have a reel/frame I say so rather than guessing.

Inventors

Pattern note (mild, and the opposite of the usual red flag): there is no evidence of inventor departure following filing. Giobbi demonstrably remains at Proxense (he is its founder/CEO and is still prosecuting new applications — e.g., Proxense grants issued June 2024 and April 2025 name him). Two inventors, Brown and Hirt, are geographically dispersed (FL, IL) relative to the assignee (OR) and appear only as co-inventors on assignment-of-record filings; I found no evidence they were ever employees of Proxense, and no evidence they hold or held equity. Treat them as retained/contract inventors rather than as co-founders. The absence of the "all inventors leave within 12 months" tell is worth recording explicitly, because it is the standard precursor to a portfolio fire-sale and it is not present here.

Original assignee

• Entity as issued: Proxense, LLC, Bend, OR (address of record in the family: 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701 — taken from assignment reel 034843/0145).
• Formation / business: Founded 2001 (per Proxense's own complaint in Proxense v. Hyundai/Kia/Genesis, filed 2025-01-14). From roughly 2004–2012 it developed mobile-payment technology and proximity-based detection/authentication built on a Personal Digital Key (PDK) and a receiver-decoder circuit (RDC). Its pleadings assert that these "became primary differentiators of Proxense's product line, and significant elements on which its business was built," and that Proxense today "holds at least 65 patents on related technology."
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Partially confirmed, and I flag it as not fully verified. Proxense's pleadings describe a historical product line and press recognition beginning mid-2008, but I did not locate a currently-marketed commercial product, and I did not find a product revenue disclosure. What I did verify is a monetization posture: settlements with Samsung, Google (2025-01-24) and Intel (2026-03-24) and a broad assertion campaign (below). Do not state as fact that Proxense sells PDK hardware today.
• Current status: Operating, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. No Chapter 7/11, no wind-up, no SEC registrant (Proxense is a private LLC and files no 10-K/8-K). It continues to file and prosecute new applications.

No post-issuance sale of this patent was found. The original assignee is still the assignee. That is the central finding of this report.

Assignment timeline

Recorded 2016-11-30 — Reel/Frame: not retrievable from the sources available to me (Google Patents reports the assignment event but suppresses the reel/frame; the Assignment Center page would not load)

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
• Assignor: GIOBBI, JOHN J.; BROWN, DAVID L.; HIRT, FRED S. (three separate interest assignments, per the recorded caption)
• Assignee: PROXENSE, LLC, Bend, OR
• Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as a gap to close against the Assignment Center
• Context: Original assignment of the inventors' rights to the applicant, recorded one day after the 2016-11-29 filing of Application 15/364,039. Routine applicant-side perfection, executed as part of the continuation filing — not a transfer, not a fire-sale.

Related-family records (NOT this patent — cited only to fix the assignee's address and filing habits):

• Reel 017659/0679, effective date 2006-03-06 — GIOBBI, JOHN J. → PROXENSE, LLC (Oregon). Original-assignee perfection on an early Proxense application.
• Reel 034843/0145, recorded 2015-01-29 — GIOBBI, JOHN J. → PROXENSE, LLC, 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701. Same pattern, same address, on the Biometric Personal Data Key (PDK) Authentication line (family of US 8,886,954 / 9,298,905).

Observation on the above: Proxense's habit is to take individual inventor assignments rather than operating through a blanket employment-agreement dragnet, and it records them promptly (filing date + 1 day for the '222; the '905 line shows a similar tight loop). The corroborated assignee address (Bend, OR 97701) is a residential-scale street address, not a registered-agent service address — a point that cuts against the standard shell-LLC tell.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11551222
    2006 : Touch Pay provisional filed
    2007 : Parent application filed
    2016 : Continuation filed November 29
         : Inventors assign to Proxense LLC
    2023 : Patent issued January 10
         : Microsoft and Google suits filed
    2024 : Intel suit filed
    2025 : Intel suit lists 222 as Exhibit E
         : Hyundai Kia Genesis suits filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Assertion record for this patent (context for the entity-level call)

• W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00531, Proxense, LLC v. Intel Corporation — complaint filed on or about 2025-11-14, with US 11,551,222 as Exhibit E and a dedicated Exhibit K claim chart. (This corrects the gap flagged in the earlier generated section, which listed this docket with the parties unidentified. It is Proxense v. Intel.)
• Earlier campaign: Proxense v. Samsung (6:21-cv-00210-ADA, Judge Albright); Proxense v. Microsoft (6:23-cv-00319) and Proxense v. Google (6:23-cv-00320), both filed 2023-05-02; Proxense v. Intel (6:24-cv-00283, filed 2024-05-23, different asserted patents); Proxense v. Hyundai/Kia/Genesis (filed 2025-01-14).
• Counter-pressure: Google, Microsoft and Samsung have filed IPRs and ex parte reexamination requests against Proxense patents (IPR2024-00233, ‑00405, ‑00846, ‑01320, ‑01334; EPR 90/015,052–054). The prior section's note that the March/April 2026 CAFC appeals concern US 8,886,954 — not the '222 — remains correct and is not contradicted by anything found here.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification. The transfer-based signals — the ones this rubric is built around — are almost entirely absent, and I want that on the record: the '222 has never been assigned to anyone but Proxense, LLC, the original assignee named on the face of the patent, via the recorded 2016-11-30 inventors-to-Proxense assignment (reel/frame not retrieved; the family's corroborating records are reel 017659/0679 and reel 034843/0145). No shell LLC, no cascading transfers, no pre-suit transfer, no bankruptcy, no defensive-aggregator terminus. But the moderate call rests on the entity at the end of that unchanged chain: Proxense is a small, founder-led patent holder with no verified currently-shipping product embodying the claims, its disclosed revenue posture is litigation-and-settlement-driven (Samsung; Google 2025-01-24; Intel 2026-03-24), and it is simultaneously suing Intel, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Hyundai/Kia/Genesis — every major implementer of digital-key/biometric-key technology — while continuing to add patents rather than products. That is a monetization profile, not a product-competition profile. This is a deliberate departure from the transfer-based rubric, and I flag it as such: if you require at least one chain-based signal, this drops to Insufficient data on the ownership-chain question alone, because the only recorded assignment is the original one. Either way, the pattern here is not the classic sell-to-a-shell NPE formation — it is an original operating company that retained its own paper and converted to enforcement.

Verification links: USPTO Assignment Center / legacy assignment search — search patent 11551222 and application 15/364,039; Google Patents legal events for US11551222; Justia patent record.

Highest-value open item: the reel/frame and correspondent of record for the 2016-11-30 assignment. If the correspondent on that record is Patent Law Works LLP (Salt Lake City) — the firm already appearing as prosecution counsel across this family — that is still not an NPE signal by itself, but it becomes one worth noting if the same firm recurs as assignment correspondent across the other Proxense continuation filings.

I'll research the specific prior-art citations for US 11,551,222. Let me run several targeted searches.

The search results are mostly noise. Let me target the actual citation lists on patent databases.

Let me pull the actual citation lists from the patent databases.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 11,551,222 B2

1. Patent identification (verified)

Searches against the specific number 11551222 resolve to a single document; I discarded results for near-numbers (e.g., US 11,121,222 and US 11,317,279 appeared and are different patents — flagged here so they are not confused with this one, per the strict "do not auto-correct identifiers" rule):

2. IMPORTANT — limitation on what I was able to verify

I could not retrieve a complete, authoritative copy of the face-of-patent "(56) References Cited" table for US 11,551,222 within this session. The Google Patents page confirms the citation linkage exists (its family lists show US11551222B2 | 2006-05-05 | 2023-01-10 | Proxense, Llc inside the citation tables of sibling patents), and the Justia record exposes a long cited-document list, but:

• The large "Patent Citations (808)" table that surfaced belongs to the sibling US 10,764,044 B1, not to '222 (Google Patents URL: patents.google.com/patent/US10764044B1). I am not attributing that 808-entry list to '222.
• The Justia snippet for patent/11551222 returned a mixed cited-document run (U.S. Pat. Nos. 10,073,960 / 10,110,385 / 10,171,460 … 11,219,022, followed by a very long run of 2001–2003 U.S. publications). Because I could not confirm whether that run is the References Cited block, the Referenced By block, or an aggregate, I am treating it as unverified provenance.

I am therefore NOT going to present a fabricated, itemized (56) table. What follows separates (A) references I can tie to the Proxense PDK family's documented cited art, and (B) the analytical mapping to the '222 claims. Treat (A) as "documented cited art in the family, provenance noted" rather than "each verified as printed on the '222 cover page." Verifying the exact (56) list requires the USPTO PatentCenter official copy or the issued-PDF front page, which I could not open here.

Contradiction flag (vs. previously generated section): The prior summary states the granted claim language was "taken from the issued-patent PDF … and cross-checked against the Justia record." My searches could not independently re-open that PDF front page. No substantive conflict with the claim characterizations was found, but the (56) provenance remains unconfirmed in both passes — this is a gap, not a contradiction.

3. Reference set the claims must be measured against

Because § 102 anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation, the controlling claim text is claim 1 (and system claim 15 / CRM claim 20). The gating limitations — established in the prior section — are:

1. Trigger = first PDK entering a proximity zone of the reader;
2. Receipt of a biometric sample that is a subset of a full profile stored on the PDK;
3. Automatic capture without user intervention;
4. Comparison against a plurality of samples from a plurality of PDKs inside the zone (the dense-client disambiguation core);
5. Match → associate the first PDK, confirm full-profile match, initiate transaction.

Dependent claims add: retinal/iris/facial capture (2), temporary storage (3), PDK authentication via external/central/private registry (4, 7, 18), independent ordering (6), PDK-side matching (9), calculated representation (11, 19), picture profile (13), and financial completion from PDK data (14, 17).

4. References identified as cited art in the Proxense PDK / proximity-authentication record

Publication/filing dates below are from the sources shown; descriptions are my characterizations.

Proxense-family (self) documents appearing in the cited/referenced tables — e.g., US 10,073,960 (Brown), US 10,110,385 (Rush et al.), US 10,171,460 (Giobbi), US 10,229,294 (Giobbi et al.), US 10,398,983 / 10,431,282 / 10,469,456 / 10,698,989 / 10,764,044 / 10,769,939 / 10,909,229 / 10,943,471 / 11,212,797 / 11,219,022, and US 9,542,542 (the immediate parent, Giobbi et al.) — cannot be §102 art against claim 1 of '222 to the extent they share the May 5, 2006 priority chain (same effective date). They are relevant only as priority/§112 support, not as anticipation. Do not chart them as §102 references.

5. What actually reads on claim 1 (§ 102 assessment)

Applying the "single reference must disclose all elements" rule:

• No reference identified above anticipates claim 1. The distinguishing element is step 3–4 of claim 1: capturing the user's biometric without user intervention and comparing it against a plurality of biometric samples received from a plurality of PDK devices inside the proximity zone, to select which PDK the transaction belongs to, then pulling that PDK's full profile. R1/R3/R7 disclose proximity + token authentication, and R5/R4 touch computed biometric representations, but none of them, on the passages retrieved, discloses the multi-PDK subset-sample disambiguation step.
• The closest §102 candidates therefore target the broader, pre-grant claim (documented in the prior section as the '564 publication's five-step "receive data from PDK → receive biometric → authenticate PDK → authenticate biometric → perform transaction" claim), not the narrow granted claim. Against that broader formulation, R1 (Hawley, U.S. 2001/0021950 A1) and R7 (EP 1 536 306 / US 2005/0105734) are the most serious.
• The dependent limitations most exposed to §102/§103 are: claim 4 & 7 & 18 (PDK authentication against external/central/private registry — squarely taught by R1/R7 and registry-based systems); claim 11 & 19 (calculated representation/hash of biometrics — R5); claim 13 (picture profile — generic).

6. Explicit uncertainties and next steps

1. The (56) list for US 11,551,222 is not verified here. I did not obtain the PatentCenter/issued-PDF front page. Any itemized §102 chart must be rebuilt from that authoritative list. I have deliberately not manufactured one.
2. Provenance caveat on the Justia-sourced run of 2001–2003 publications: I cannot confirm those are the References Cited of '222 rather than the sibling US 10,764,044 B1's (808-entry) list. They are reported as "family cited art," not as "on the '222 face."
3. No §102 anticipation of granted claim 1 was found in the retrieved set; the strongest references (R1, R7) read on proximity/token authentication generally and would bear on the broader pre-grant claim and on dependent claims 4/7/18, not on the multi-PDK sample-matching core.
4. If a definitive anticipation/obviousness position is required, the authoritative next step is to pull the '222 front page and the examiner's cited art from USPTO PatentCenter for application 15/364,039, plus any IDS/892 forms, then re-run the chart.

I'll start by trying to retrieve the actual prior-art references cited on this patent's face (the "References Cited" / "Cited By" panels), since the fetched page text includes only the "Prior art keywords" fields.

Now let me try to retrieve the actual cited references on the '222 and check whether this patent has been challenged in an IPR (which would reveal the best prior-art combinations used in practice).

I have useful material. Let me run two more targeted checks: whether US 11,551,222 itself has been subject to any IPR, and whether the specific near-field art used in Proxense IPRs (Ludtke, Baird, Burger) shows up on the '222's face.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,551,222 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

0. Corrections / updates to the earlier sections (flagging explicitly)

Two items refine what was generated earlier, and one trap must be avoided:

1. What actually counts as "the prior art on this page"

The page I was given does not contain a "References Cited" panel. Its prior-art content is only:

• the prior-art keywords — biometric, personal digital, digital key, key device, reader; and
• the applications incorporated by reference in the '222 specification: Ser. Nos. 11/292,330 (PDK + receiver/decoder circuit), 11/620,581 (dense-client wireless synchronization), 11/620,577 (tiered client access), 11/620,600 (dynamically adjustable proximity zone), and 11/744,832 (now US 8,412,949, PDK initialization/registration).

Because that list cannot support a §103 case on its own, I supplemented it with (a) the front-page reference lists of the same-family patents that were retrievable (US 9,542,542, US 8,352,730, US 9,613,483), and (b) the art actually asserted against Proxense patents in PTAB/reexam proceedings, which is the best proxy for what practitioners believe reads on this disclosure.

Caveat on the retrieved front-page numbers: the OCR of those lists is unreliable (e.g., it renders US 4,993,068 Piosenka as "4,693,068 Pioscala," and mangles several other numbers and dates). I therefore cite only references I could independently corroborate by number/title/date, and I flag anything I could not.

2. Threshold issues that drive the whole §103 analysis

(a) Effective filing date. The '222 was filed Nov 29, 2016 as a straight continuation of 11/745,249 (May 7, 2007), which claims the May 5, 2006 provisionals. A continuation cannot add new matter, so the specification is the one published as US 2007/0245158 A1. If valid, the effective date is 2006/2007, and only pre-2006/2007 art is available.

(b) Pre-AIA or AIA? Because every application in the priority chain predates March 16, 2013, the claims should be governed by pre-AIA §102/§103 — unless the "subset-sample / plurality-of-PDKs / without-user-intervention" limitations lack written-description support in the 2006–2007 parents, in which case the effective date shifts to 2016 and the AIA applies. That determination materially changes the art set and is the single most leveraged argument a challenger has (see §7).

(c) The family's own art is usually not prior art — with two exceptions.

3. Proposed level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

A reasonable definition: a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science (or equivalent), plus 2–4 years of experience in wireless/RF authentication, smart-card or biometric access-control systems, with equivalent experience substituting for education. Petitioners against sibling Proxense patents have used comparable definitions; the '222's own field (G06Q 20/40, G06F 21/32, H04L 9/32, G07C 9/25) is squarely in that skill set.

4. Decomposing claim 1 — where the art is strong and where it isn't

The inventive core is 1.3–1.5: dense-client disambiguation. Any competent §103 challenge therefore needs a secondary reference that teaches resolving which of several in-range tokens/credentials an input belongs to, plus a reference for coarse-then-fine biometric matching. Everything else is a combination of long-known elements.

5. The reference set and what each teaches

6. The grounds

Ground 1 — Primary: portable biometric-token + wireless reader transaction

Ludtke (US 7,188,110) in view of Lapsley (US 2001/0000535) (alternatives: Burger 2005/0050367, Maes 6,016,476, Hsu 6,041,410).
Covers 1.1 and 1.6 (and, with Burger/Shreve/Beenau, the wireless proximity read).

Ground 2 — Ground 1 + multi-device arbitration (the key combination)

+ Freeny (US 6,490,443) and/or Patel (US 5,416,780).
This is where 1.4/1.5 come from: the reader must select one responder from many devices in range. In RFID/contactless systems this is the textbook anti-collision/singulation problem, and using it to disambiguate which credential belongs to a presented input is an application of a known technique to a known problem yielding a predictable result — the paradigm KSR case.

Ground 3 — Ground 2 + coarse-then-fine biometric matching

+ Smart Card Alliance (May 2002) / Match-On-Card white paper, and/or the general biometrics knowledge of fast 1:N pre-screening on a subset of reference data followed by full verification.
This supplies 1.2 and reinforces 1.5. Notably, the '222 itself justifies the "sample" concept on speed grounds ("quick comparisons"), which is exactly the motivation the secondary art supplies.

Ground 4 — "without user intervention"

Supplied by art teaching proximity-triggered, sensor-initiated capture (e.g., Saito, US 2004/0129787, Secure biometric verification of identity; Beenau's transponder-reader sensor). This element is also hard for the patent owner to press, because the '222's own FIG. 10 admits that capture is "automatic" whenever "the biometric reader 302 is part of Reader 108" — i.e., the drafter equated "automatic" with "the reader has the sensor," a plainly conventional arrangement.

Design-around note on Grounds 2/3

If the family art is not prior art (§2(c)), the multi-PDK limitation (1.4/1.5) is the only limitation for which I could not locate a clean, single-reference pre-2007 teaching. That is precisely why a challenger would pair Ground 2/3 with a priority attack (below).

7. Motivation to combine (must be explicit — KSR, InTouch v. VGo, In re Stepan)

1. Common field and common problem. All references address authenticating a person to authorize a transaction or access using a carried credential. Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill… would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
2. Shared, well-understood hardware. Both the primary and secondary references use the same building blocks (fingerprint sensor, controller, tamper-resistant memory, RF transceiver). Petitioners against Proxense patents have successfully framed this as "routine software and hardware integration."
3. Stated problem in the '222 itself. The background section frames the problem as the burden of PINs, the risk of central biometric databases, and the inefficiency of per-merchant enrollment. Reference combinations that (i) remove the PIN (Ludtke/Burger/Maes) and (ii) keep the template on the carried device (Lane; Smart Card Alliance) are directly responsive to those stated problems — legitimate evidence of motivation, so long as the rationale is drawn from the references and general knowledge, not from the '222 as a roadmap.
4. Predictable design choice — number of candidates. A POSITA deploying the system in a store with several customers in range must resolve which credential belongs to the person who just touched the sensor. Anti-collision/arbitration (Patel, Freeny) is the known solution, and adding it is a predictable variation, not a new principle.
5. Predictable design choice — matching order. Doing a cheap subset comparison before a full biometric match is the ordinary way to reduce computation in 1:N identification; the advantage is stated in the '222 itself (speed). A reference's own disclosed advantage can motivate the combination.
6. Motivations actually used in the Proxense IPRs (useful as templates): "enhance user convenience," "reduce the number of devices a user must carry," "eliminate a separate docking station," "predictable design choice." See the IPR2025-00600 petition summary.

8. Dependent claims

9. Why a §103 challenge could still fail (the patent owner's case)

1. The multi-PDK/subset-sample limitation (1.2, 1.4, 1.5) has no clean pre-2007 reference located. Grounds 2 and 3 require a "known technique" showing, and the KSR "obvious to try" rationale is weaker where the reference art is a different field (RFID anti-collision) from biometric matching.
2. The '718 family art is off-limits absent a priority break (common ownership/inventive entity; pre-AIA §103(c)). Expect the patent owner to argue that a challenger is using the '222's own family as the roadmap — exactly what In re NTP forbids.
3. Possible teaching away: the '222 disparages "one-by-one reader to client-held device" architectures and enrollment-based central databases. That is disparagement of the problem, not necessarily of the references, so it is a weak but non-frivolous argument.
4. Objective indicia. Proxense's W.D. Tex. complaint (6:23-cv-00319) pleads extensive R&D spend, >30 engineers, media recognition (2008 The Bulletin, 2009 DARKReading, 2009 Trend Hunter), and Microsoft's adoption of passwordless biometric authentication. Expect copying/industry-praise/long-felt-need arguments. Counter: nexus to these specific claim limitations (multi-PDK disambiguation) is thin; the media praise is directed at the general PDK/wireless-wallet concept; and the Samsung/Google/Intel resolutions look litigation-driven rather than praise-based.
5. Precedent cuts both ways: the PTAB's July 18, 2025 decision held claims of a related Proxense "hybrid device" patent obvious over Proxense's own earlier publications plus an NFC reference — showing that family publications can be lethal art when the effective date permits. But the Board has also denied institution of copycat petitions in the Proxense campaign (e.g., Google's IPR2024-01319 denial), so procedural posture matters.

10. Recommended challenge architecture and residual uncertainties

Architecture: (i) Move for a priority determination first — if the "plurality of biometric samples from a plurality of PDK devices inside the proximity zone" and "without user intervention" limitations are not supported in the May 2007 '249 (or the 2006 provisionals), the effective date moves to Nov 29, 2016, US 2007/0260883 A1 and US 2007/0245158 A1 become §102(b) art, and claim 1 falls without needing any third-party reference at all. (ii) In parallel, run Ludtke + Lapsley + Burger/Beenau + Freeny/Patel + Smart Card Alliance as a fallback ground, and (iii) attack claims 20 and 2 for indefiniteness on the drafting defects noted in the earlier section.

What I could not verify (do not treat as established):

1. The complete, clean "References Cited" list of the '222 itself — the page provided contained only prior-art keywords. My mapping is derived from the parent/sibling front pages and from PTAB filings against Proxense patents, not from the '222's own face.
2. Whether any IPR or reexam has been filed against 11,551,222 specifically. I found none; a PTAB/PACER docket check would be required to be definitive.
3. The precise publication number and date of the differentiation application (I have app. Ser. No. 11/744,833 → US 7,904,718, and a Google Patents citation to US 2007/0260883 A1; I did not independently open the '883 document).
4. Whether Ludtke (US 7,188,110) and Baird (US 2006/0075230) appear on the '222's own face — they appear in the Proxense IPR record, not in anything I retrieved from the '222.
5. Dates for Burger US 2005/0050367 and Baird US 2006/0075230 are taken from third-party petition summaries; the Baird publication (April 2006) is only about a month before the '222's earliest priority, so it can only be §102(e)/§102(a)(2) art as of its filing date — never §102(b)/§102(a)(1) art — if pre-AIA/AIA applies respectively.