US 11794952

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, then cross-check against the full text provided.

Let me dig into the litigation and PTAB/CAFC aspects.

Let me check specifically for Federal Circuit 2026 dockets appealing either the ITC determination or the PTAB decision.

US Patent 11,794,952 B2 — "Utility assembly and coupling mechanism"

⚠️ Scope note / fidelity caveat

You asked specifically about 11794952. Everything below is for US 11,794,952 B2 only, and no similar-numbered patents are mixed in. Two things to flag up front:

1. I found no Federal Circuit docket naming this patent. Searches for an appeal of the PTAB or ITC proceedings involving the '952 patent returned nothing. This is not surprising: the ITC's final determination was still pending (target date extended to June 25, 2026), so a CAFC appeal would not yet be ripe, and the PTAB denial of institution is generally insulated from appeal by 35 U.S.C. § 314(d). I cannot affirmatively rule out a 2026 CAFC docket; I simply did not find one.
2. I could not retrieve the verbatim claim text. The authoritative source supplied (Google Patents) rendered the abstract, description, and "Definitions" sections but not the claims. My claim overview below is therefore reconstructed from the specification, from the ITC Final Initial Determination's claim-by-claim infringement findings, and from the Commission's claim-termination notices on that patent. Wording of the claims should be verified against a USPTO PatentCenter copy of the issued patent before being relied upon.

1. Bibliographic data

Continuation chain (as recited in the patent's own cross-reference): PCT/IL2017/050481 (Apr. 30, 2017) → 15/826,232 (now US 10,703,534) → 16/216,724 (now US 10,583,962) → 16/752,441 (now US 11,008,136) → 17/064,371 (now US 11,427,382) → 17/884,230 → 18/051,749 (the '952 patent).

2. Abstract

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

3. Plain-language overview of the disclosure

The patent is a modular stackable-container / tool-box architecture. Any "utility module" (toolbox, organizer, cooler, drawer chest, power supply, dolly, backpack rack, wall mount, etc.) can be detachably locked on top of any other, in multiple stacked stages, and detached again with one hand.

The core is a two-part locking interface between a top face of a lower module and a bottom face of an upper module:

• Female coupler (depressed locking location) — a recess with a locking rib projecting over the recessed surface, running along a sliding path, with an open edge facing a first direction.
• Male coupler (projecting portion) — a downward protrusion carrying a locking tongue that runs in the opposite direction and slides under the rib into the space between rib and recess floor.
• Secondary latch — a spring-biased locking latch (plunger) on the upper module's front face that snaps into a locking latch arresting location (recess) on the lower module's top face.

Functionally: the tongue-under-rib engagement prevents vertical separation (lifting the upper box off), and the latch prevents fore-aft sliding, so together they lock the stack. Release requires first pulling the latch, which is positioned at finger-reach distance from the carry handle for single-handed "grab, release and go" detachment.

Notable disclosed variants:

• Single rib at the rear of a depression, perpendicular to the sliding path; two ribs at side edges of a depression, parallel to the path; or two ribs shared between two neighboring depressions.
• Full-footprint, half-width, and partial-overlap stacking (e.g., two half-size organizers side-by-side on one toolbox).
• A single release latch displacing multiple latch plungers on a wide module.
• The mobile carrier unit aspect: a wheeled cart/trolley with a carrier engagement surface (optionally dovetail or undercut couplings), stabilized support legs, telescopic handle, and a locking pin snapping into a notch.
• Interface coupling modules for non-container uses: truck-bed/roof-rack cargo interfaces, wall racks, floor mounts, tool racks, belt mounts for hand tools, backpack carrying modules, and adapters joining two male or two female modules.
• Utility modules illustrated include a cooler box, power unit, workpiece supports/vice work surface, chest of drawers, soft-sided carry bag with a rigid base, dolly, mobile work stand, and a wheeled base container.

4. Overview of the independent claims

Claims 1–23 issued. Two independent claims are directly evidenced in the litigation record; a third may exist (see caveat).

Independent claim 1 — the container assembly (stackable / interlockable containers).
A container assembly of at least a first container and a second container, each having a body portion and a lid portion. One of the first container's top face and the second container's bottom face carries depressed locking locations each with a locking rib plus at least one locking latch arresting location; the other carries projecting portions each with a locking tongue plus at least one locking latch. In the locked position the bottom face of the second container rests on the top face of the first, the tongue(s) are arrested by the rib(s), and the latch is arrested by the arresting location. Net effect: vertical separation is blocked by the tongue/rib engagement and sliding is blocked by the latch, with detachment only after the latch is released. Dependent claims in this group add, e.g., that the second container is half the width of the first container (claim 4) and that the first container has a pair of rear wheels and a telescoping handle extending upward from a rear wall (claim 8).

Independent claim 9 — a further container-assembly claim in the same family.
Also directed to a first-container/second-container assembly with the male/female coupling and latch arrangement, but recited in a different combination of structural limitations (the ITC record treats claim 9 separately from claim 1, and dependent claim 16 incorporates claim 9's limitations). The accused "first container" for this claim was the Rolling Toolbox, with the "second containers" being component boxes and toolboxes. The exact differentiating limitations of claim 9 versus claim 1 cannot be confirmed from the sources I retrieved.

Possible additional independent claim (claim 17) — UNVERIFIED. The Commission's Feb. 18, 2025 notice terminated claims 1–2, 6–7, 9–15, and 17–23 of the '952 patent. The pattern of three claim groupings (1–8, 9–16, 17–23) is consistent with claim 17 being independent, but I have no authoritative confirmation of that and will not assert it as fact.

Uncertainty statement: I do not have high-confidence verbatim claim language for this patent. Treat the above as a functional characterization grounded in the specification and the ITC infringement findings, not as a substitute for the printed claims.

5. Litigation and post-grant status (as of the search)

Important correction to the supplied source. The Google Patents litigation line for this patent reads "PTAB case IPR2024-01401 filed (Pending - Instituted)." The primary PTAB document contradicts this, and per your rule I am prioritizing the search results: IPR2024-01401 was NOT instituted. Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart granted Director Review, vacated the Board's grant of institution, and denied institution, holding the Board's Fintiv factors 1 and 4 analysis and overall weighing "erroneous" because the parallel ITC investigation was unlikely to be stayed, had already held a full evidentiary hearing, involved the same parties and claims, and would reach final determination about six months before any PTAB statutory deadline. See Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp., IPR2024-01400, -01401, Paper 22 (PTAB June 9, 2025), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf. This decision also attracted commentary for departing from POSCO on how ITC investigations are weighed under Fintiv (Finnegan, July 3, 2025).

6. Key source URLs

• Patent text (authoritative for content): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11794952/en
• Director Review / institution denial: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf
• ITC Final ID (Aug. 1, 2025), public version: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents?artifactId=VOseLwzdOHQwDTSgARJnUSBYUg_C2C5qPUGM_AJfUjQBKHSsWsbDJLQ
• Commission partial review + briefing schedule (91 FR 3219, Jan. 26, 2026): https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-01-26/2026-01386
• Target date extension to June 25, 2026: https://www.usitc.gov/sites/default/files/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1409_notice05282026sgl.pdf
• Claim termination notice (Feb. 18, 2025): https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1409_notice02182025sgl.pdf
• ITC institution press release: https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2024/er0715_65413.htm
• N.D. Ill. stay motion (1:24-cv-04928): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.[460151](/patent/460151)/gov.uscourts.ilnd.460151.14.0.pdf
• IPR2024-01401 case page: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-01401

Remaining uncertainty: (a) no CAFC 2026 docket located; (b) verbatim independent-claim language not obtained; (c) independence of claim 17 not verified. Items (b) and (c) should be confirmed against the USPTO PatentCenter copy of US 11,794,952 B2 before use in any claim-charting or validity analysis.

I'll research litigation involving US 11,794,952 across patent litigation databases.

Let me verify the earlier withdrawn actions and the current status of the ITC investigation.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 11,794,952

Patent at issue

The '952 patent is one of a family of sibling/continuation patents (e.g., US 11,365,026; US 11,952,167; US 11,008,136; US 10,703,534; US 11,427,382) that have been asserted together. All of the known litigation below asserts the '952 patent alongside the '026 and '167 patents against the Klein Tools MODbox™ modular storage line.

Litigation and contested proceedings

1. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. v. Klein Tools, Inc.

• Court: U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division)
• Case No.: 1:24-cv-04284
• Judge: Hon. Sara L. Ellis
• Filed: May 23, 2024 (summons issued May 28, 2024; service on Klein's registered agent May 28, 2024)
• Patents asserted: '026, '952, and '167
• Outcome/Status: Voluntarily dismissed without prejudice — Notice of Voluntary Dismissal filed June 13, 2024 (Dkt. 11). Docket status: closed. This was the first-filed complaint and was withdrawn and re-filed the same day (see case 2 below).
• Sources: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2024cv04284/[459288](/patent/459288) ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/ilnd/1:24-cv-04284/milwaukee-electric-tool-corp-v-klein-tools-inc

2. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. v. Klein Tools, Inc.

• Court: U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division)
• Case No.: 1:24-cv-04928
• Judge: Hon. Andrea R. Wood
• Filed: June 13, 2024
• Patents asserted: '026, '952, and '167
• Outcome/Status: Stayed. Klein filed an unopposed motion to stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659 pending resolution of the parallel ITC investigation 337-TA-1409; the stay is mandatory because the parties and the same issues overlap. As of the last records located, the case remains stayed pending the ITC's final determination, with Klein's response deadline deferred until the stay is lifted.
• Sources: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.[460151](/patent/460151)/gov.uscourts.ilnd.460151.14.0.pdf ; IPR2025-01018 Mandatory Notices (citing "1:24-cv-04928 (N.D. Ill.)")

3. In the Matter of Certain Storage Containers and Toolboxes, Organizers, Component Boxes, and Coolers

• Forum: U.S. International Trade Commission
• Investigation No.: 337-TA-1409
• Complainants: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.
• Respondent: Klein Tools, Inc. (Lincolnshire, IL)
• Complaint filed: June 13, 2024 (some ITC documents reference a June 16, 2024 correction/supplement)
• Instituted: July 15, 2024; Notice of Investigation published at 89 Fed. Reg. 58764 (July 19, 2024)
• Patents asserted: '026, '952, and '167 — asserted claims of the '952 patent were claims 1–23 at institution, later narrowed (withdrawn claims per Orders 15, 19, 20) to claims 3, 4, 8, and 16 of the '952 patent
• Accused products: Klein Tools' interlockable MODbox™ storage containers, toolboxes, organizers, component boxes and coolers
• Outcome/Status (most recent located):
  • August 1, 2025 — Chief ALJ Clark S. Cheney issued the Final Initial Determination (FID), finding a violation of Section 337 — all remaining asserted claims (including '952 claims 3, 4, 8, 16) infringed and not invalid, and the domestic-industry requirement satisfied under 19 U.S.C. § 1337(a)(3)(A) and (B).
  • Klein petitioned for Commission review (Aug. 15, 2025). The Commission extended the date for deciding whether to review to January 22, 2026.
  • January 21, 2026 — Commission voted to review the FID in part and requested briefing limited to discrete issues (domestic industry/nexus, prior-art status of the Auer system and the RX-0183 catalog, etc.) and on remedy, public interest and bonding. Initial submissions due Feb. 4, 2026; replies due Feb. 11, 2026.
  • The Commission's final determination (and any limited exclusion order / cease-and-desist order) is not reflected in the records I was able to retrieve; I could not confirm the ultimate outcome.
• Sources: https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1409_notice07152024sgl.pdf ; FID (Aug. 1, 2025) and Commission review/interlocutory notices (e.g., https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-26/pdf/FR-2026-01-26.pdf)

4. ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-3749 (withdrawn)

• Forum: U.S. International Trade Commission
• Parties: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. v. Klein Tools, Inc.
• Status: Dismissed / withdrawn. In the Patent Owners' Mandatory Notices filed in PTAB IPR2025-01018 (July 9, 2025), Milwaukee and Keter state: "Patent owners previously filed but withdrew the following actions: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation et al. v. Klein Tools, Inc., 1:24-cv-04284 (N.D. Ill.) (dismissed); [and] Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation et al. v. Klein Tools, Inc., 337-TA-3749 (dismissed)."
• Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents (IPR2025-01018, Paper — Patent Owners' Mandatory Notices)

5. ITC Case No. 337-TA-3755 (Google Patents listing — not independently corroborated)

• Google Patents' "Family has litigation" panel for US 11,794,952 also lists a US case filed in the International Trade Commission, case 337-TA-3755 (cited to Unified Patents litigation data). I was unable to independently confirm this entry in any primary ITC or Federal Register source, and it appears not to have been separately described in the ITC or PTAB filings I reviewed — it may be a duplicate/parallel docket similar to 337-TA-3749. I report it literally per the source rather than auto-correcting or reconciling it.
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11794952/en (litigation panel)

6. PTAB — Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products, Ltd.

• Proceeding: IPR2024-01401 (challenging US 11,794,952 B2)
• Petitioner: Klein Tools, Inc. (counsel: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP — James M. Glass, Joseph Milowic III, Brianne M. Straka)
• Patent Owners: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. (counsel: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP — Dion M. Bregman, Jason C. White, David P. Bernstein)
• Petition filed: September 17, 2024
• Outcome/Status: Institution was initially granted by the Board, but on Patent Owner's request for Director Review, the Acting Director (Coke Morgan Stewart) granted review, vacated the institution decision, and denied institution — no trial. The Director found the Board mis-weighed Fintiv factors 1, 4, and 6 given the parallel ITC investigation (same parties, same claims, overlapping prior art; ITC final determination scheduled well before the Board's FWD deadline). Institution decision date June 9, 2025. Companion petition IPR2024-01400 (the '026 patent) was likewise denied.
• 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/IPR2024-01401

7. Related PTAB proceeding (sibling patent, for context)

• IPR2025-01018 — Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd., challenging US 11,952,167 (the '167 patent), not the '952. Patent Owners waived their preliminary response, arguing discretionary denial based on the same Fintiv reasoning and the co-pending ITC proceeding. (Patent Owner also noted IPR2025-00724/-00892 and PGR2025-00048 as parallel Fintiv-based denials.) I could not confirm that the '952 patent itself is implicated in those particular petitions.
• Sources: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1557918/download-documents ; https://webiis10.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[1689790](/patent/1689790)/speed-isnt-everything-fintiv-factors-prevail-over-early-challenges-resulting-in-denial

Summary

No Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or other appellate litigation involving the '952 patent was identified. All known matters are (i) the Milwaukee/Keter v. Klein Tools disputes over the jointly owned storage-container patent family, and (ii) the associated PTAB petitions.

Caveats:

• The plaintiff/defendant alignment is consistent across all sources: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. as patent owners/complainants, Klein Tools, Inc. as defendant/respondent/petitioner.
• The ITC investigation numbers 337-TA-3749 and 337-TA-3755, and the district court case 1:24-cv-04284, are reproduced literally as found; I have not "corrected" them even though the ITC numbering appears unusual.
• I could not locate a confirmed Commission final determination and remedial order in 337-TA-1409, nor any appeal to the Federal Circuit. If you need a definitive current status, the ITC's EDIS docket (https://edis.usitc.gov) and PACER for 1:24-cv-04928 should be checked directly, as they are the authoritative live sources.

I'll start by verifying the PTAB proceedings referenced in the patent record and searching for any AIA trial activity beyond the structured block.

Now let me pull the claim-level and procedural detail, plus check for any additional proceedings against this patent.

Let me get the petition grounds and panel details for IPR2024-01401, plus check the Federal Circuit and any other filings.

Proceedings overview

**One AIA trial proceeding is on file against US 11,794,952 — IPR2024-01401 (Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. and Keter Home and Garden Products, Ltd.) — and it never reached the merits: the Board granted institution, the Patent Owner obtained Director Review, and the Acting Director vacated institution and denied the petition on discretionary (Fintiv) grounds. Breakdown: 1 proceeding, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained on the merits, 0 settled, 1 institution denied on discretionary grounds, 0 final written decisions.

Flagging a discrepancy in the source data: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block you supplied reports no AIA trial proceedings from the USPTO ODP ingest. That is contradicted by (a) the litigation/PTAB line on the Google Patents record for this very patent ("PTAB case IPR2024-01401 filed (Pending - Instituted)"), (b) the USPTO's own posted Director-Review decision (Paper 22), and (c) PTAB case data aggregators. I treat IPR2024-01401 as real and on file, and I treat the ODP "none" as a stale/partial ingest. I could not verify additional IPRs against the '952 through search, but given the family's litigation intensity I would not rule them out.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is neither "hardened" nor "claims canceled." The '952 has never been given a merits test at the PTAB, so there is no FWD to invoke defensively and no § 315(e) estoppel to lock out prior art. What you actually face is a patent that (i) survived an IPR only procedurally, (ii) is being enforced in a parallel ITC action where the ALJ found a violation, and (iii) is still fully available for a new petitioner's IPR if the § 315(b) clock allows.

IPR2024-01401 — Klein Tools, Inc. v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation and Keter Home and Garden Products, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319), Patent 11,794,952 B2
• Filed: 2024-09-17
• Status: Institution Denied (verbatim from case data: "Institution Denied"). Plain-English gloss: the Board initially instituted (Paper 17), but on Patent Owner's Director-Review request the Acting Director granted review, vacated the institution decision, and denied the petition — no trial was instituted (Paper 22, IPR2024-01400 & -01401, 2025-06-09).
• Judge panel: The Director Review decision was issued by Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart (confirmed by contemporaneous practitioner reporting and the USPTO-posted Paper 22). I could not retrieve the names of the three-APJ panel that issued the underlying Paper 17 institution decision — treat those names as unverified.
• Petition grounds: Not verified / do not rely on. I was unable to retrieve the IPR2024-01401 petition or the Paper 17 institution decision within this session, so I will not state the challenged claims or references for this case. Two adjacent data points, both circumstantial: (1) Paper 22 records the Director's finding that the parallel ITC investigation "involves the same parties, the same challenged claims, and includes overlapping prior art references"; (2) the sibling Klein petition against related patent 11,952,167 (IPR2025-01018) asserts § 103 grounds over Burchia, Metabowerke, Lafragette, Bensman, Welsh (or Chen), Lin, and Williams, and Klein's '167 petition expressly cross-references "the related '952 patent (IPR2024-01401)." That strongly suggests the '952 petition rode the same reference set, but I have not confirmed it — do not plead it as fact.
• Institution decision: At the panel level, instituted (Paper 17 — the same order granted institution in the companion IPR2024-01400). On 2025-06-09 the Acting Director vacated and denied. Reasoning, in the Director's words: the Board's "analysis of factors 1 and 4, and overall weighing of the Fintiv factors were erroneous"; it "did not give enough weight to the lack of a stay, or the fact that a stay was unlikely, in the parallel International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation"; and it did "not sufficiently consider the extent of overlap between the two proceedings." The Director noted "the ITC already has conducted a full evidentiary hearing and is scheduled to issue a final determination six months before the statutory deadline for the Board's final written decision." On factor 6, "the merits of the Petitions do not outweigh the other factors, which all favor denial."
• Final Written Decision: None issued — the trial was never instituted, so no claim was ever adjudicated on the merits at the PTAB. Explicitly: no claims of the '952 are canceled, and none were held patentable by the PTAB.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. Termination was by Director-ordered discretionary denial, not party agreement. There were no confidential settlement terms.
• Appeal: No Federal Circuit appeal identified. There is nothing appealable on the merits (no FWD), and § 314(d) renders institution/denial decisions generally non-appealable (subject to the Arthrex-era exceptions for purely legal questions, none apparent here). Paper 22 was the terminal PTAB action.
• Defensive value: Because denial was discretionary and Fintiv-driven, not merits-based, it carries essentially zero defensive value to an alleged infringer — it does not estop Klein (§ 315(e) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision) and it does not validate any claim. Its only value is strategic intelligence: it shows USPTO Director-level willingness in 2025 to deny institution where a mature, non-stayed ITC investigation overlaps on parties, claims, and art.
  • Source: Director Review decision, Paper 22 — https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf ; case data — https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-01401

Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED. For US 11,794,952: nothing is canceled, nothing is sustained, and claims 1–23 are all UNTESTED at the PTAB. The only claim-level adjudication of this patent anywhere is in the ITC's parallel investigation, Inv. No. 337-TA-1409, where the original Notice of Investigation covered claims 1–23 of the '952 and Milwaukee later narrowed its case to claims 3, 4, 8, and 16 by the time of the Final Initial Determination (dated 2025-08-01). That FID found a violation of § 337 based on infringement of the '026, '952, and '167 patents, and its table of contents shows the ALJ analyzed "[a]ll Asserted '952 Patent Claims" against Burchia, Bensman, and Lifshitz — meaning the validity fight over the '952 happened at the ITC, not the PTAB, and (necessarily, to reach a violation) the asserted claims were not held invalid. I flag that as an inference from the violation finding plus the FID's own validity section; I did not read the operative validity paragraphs line-by-line. If you are building a defense, claims 3, 4, 8, and 16 are the live assertion set and the claims you must attack.

Estoppel landscape. Clean slate. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by a final written decision, and IPR2024-01401 produced none — institution was vacated before trial. So Klein is not estopped, Milwaukee/Keter are not beneficiaries of any estoppel, and every prior-art ground (including the Burchia/Metabowerke/Welsh-family references) remains available to a properly situated new petitioner. The real gate is timing, not estoppel: § 315(b)'s one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement. Klein was served in the June 2024 N.D. Ill. and ITC complaints (1:24-cv-04928; 337-TA-1409), so Klein's own window appears to have closed around 2025-06-13 — which is likely part of why the Director's denial was the end of the road rather than merely a setback. A different accused party has its own clock and its own § 315(a)/(b) posture; if you have not been served, or were served recently, an IPR remains a live option. Also note IPR2024-01400 (companion, patent 11,365,026) was denied on the same Paper 22, so the family-wide effect is that no Milwaukee PACKOUT-family patent in this cluster has been merits-tested at the PTAB.

Pattern signals. Klein Tools is a serial petitioner against this family, having filed IPR2024-01400 ('026) and IPR2024-01401 ('952) together in September 2024 and later IPR2025-01018 ('167). Reversing roles, Milwaukee Electric Tool is itself an aggressive petitioner in its helmet/fish-tape disputes with Klein (IPR2025-00724, IPR2025-00892, PGR2025-00048), where the Acting Director also denied institution on Fintiv grounds (2025-09-12). The '952 Patent Owner side is represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and showed it will fight institution at the Director level rather than merely file a preliminary response — an important signal that adiscretionary-denial battle is likely for any new petition. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain: the "Unified Patents PTAB Data" label on the Google Patents record is a data-license attribution for the litigation feed, not a Unified Patents petition. The petitioners here are commercial competitors (Klein Tools), not a crowd-sourced defensive fund.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not treat "Institution Denied" as a win or a loss on validity. There is no FWD to link to and no claim to quote as canceled. The correct internal description is: "The Board instituted, then the Acting Director vacated institution and denied under Fintiv because of the parallel, non-stayed ITC action. No merits ruling exists." Cite Paper 22: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf
2. Fetch the actual IPR2024-01401 petition and Paper 17 institution decision from PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptab-web/) to fix the § 103 grounds, the challenged claim set, and the APJ panel — this is the single biggest gap in the analysis above, and it determines exactly which references Klein already spent.
3. Confirm there are no additional '952 IPRs pending. Check PTAB E2E and the PTAB's Patent/Application search for all AIA trials naming 11,794,952 (and 18/051,749) beyond IPR2024-01401; my search surfaced only the one, but the ODP block was demonstrably stale, so verify directly rather than relying on the ingest.
4. Map the ITC record onto your invalidity case. The FID (337-TA-1409, 2025-08-01) contains the parties' and ALJ's treatment of Burchia, Bensman, and Lifshitz against the '952 asserted claims. Public version at the USITC PTAB/EDIS document link surfaced here: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents?artifactId=VOseLwzdOHQwDTSgARJnUSBYUg_C2C5qPUGM_AJfUjQBKHSsWsbDJLQ , and the Notice of Investigation at https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1409_notice07152024sgl.pdf . If a new IPR is contemplated, prioritize art that is not cumulative of the ITC record, both to strengthen the merits case on Fintiv factor 6 and to avoid § 325(d).
5. Calendar the § 315(b) bar for every accused party individually. For Klein it appears to have run; for any other defendant, the bar is one year from service of the infringement complaint. If you are inside the window, the absence of any PTAB merits ruling on the '952 means an IPR on the '952 is still available and unconstrained by estoppel — and if you are outside it, plan for an ITC or district-court invalidity case built on the Burchia-family references the ALJ has already addressed.
6. Watch the ITC's Commission-level disposition. The Commission extended the target date in 337-TA-1409 to 2025-12-01 and issued a Commission notice (published 2026-01-26 in the Federal Register) inviting briefing on discrete FID issues including the prior-art status of the "Auer system" and domestic-industry nexus. A Commission or Federal Circuit outcome on validity could materially shift the value of attacking the '952 claims again at the PTAB.

Confidence notes: the existence, petitioner, patent, filing date, status, and Director-level disposition of IPR2024-01401 are well-supported by the USPTO-posted Paper 22 and corroborating case data. The petition grounds, the Paper 17 date, and the APJ panel names for IPR2024-01401 are not verified and are explicitly flagged as open items rather than asserted.

I'll research this patent's ownership record across the sources you named before assembling the output.

Let me pull the assignment-record specifics and corporate status data.

I was unable to reach the Assignment Center directly before exhausting my search budget, but I retrieved the legal-events records from the Google Patents family page and corroborating court/ITC/PTAB filings. Here is the reconstruction, with gaps explicitly flagged.

Inventors

Pattern note: This is not a "founders leave then fire-sale" fact pattern. All four inventors remained with their respective employers, and the split assignment (one Keter inventor / three Milwaukee inventors) reflects the joint-development structure of the Keter–Milwaukee PACKOUT program, not disengagement. No inventor-departure signal.

Original assignee

Two joint assignees on the issued patent, both operating companies:

• Keter Plastic Ltd. (renamed Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd., Herzliya, Israel) — Israeli resin/plastic consumer-products manufacturer; the world's largest maker of resin outdoor storage (sheds, deck boxes, garden furniture). Acquired by BC Partners (private equity) in 2016; privately held, no public listing. Keter actually manufactures some of the PACKOUT storage components accused-side products that practice these claims (ITC FID: "Some of the PACKOUT products that Milwaukee relies on… are manufactured by Keter," Tr. (Vargo) at 71).
• Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation (Brookfield, WI) — subsidiary of Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. (TTI), HKEX-listed. Sells the PACKOUT™ modular storage system under SKUs 48-22-8426, 48-22-8425, 48-22-8460, etc. The ITC found the domestic-industry requirement satisfied for the '952 patent on the PACKOUT line (ITC FID, Aug. 1, 2025; 89 FR 58764).

Current status: both operating and solvent. Neither has filed for bankruptcy. The patent is asserted jointly by both co-owners in their own names — there is no separate licensing vehicle.

Enforcement history (for context):

• 1:24-cv-04284 (N.D. Ill., filed 2024-05-23) vs. Klein Tools — dismissed; refiled.
• 1:24-cv-04928 (N.D. Ill., filed 2024-06-13) vs. Klein Tools — stayed under 28 U.S.C. § 1659 pending the ITC case.
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1409 — instituted 2024-07-15; FID 2025-08-01 found a § 337 violation (infringement + not invalid + domestic industry satisfied); Commission review deadline extended to 2026-01-22.
• Google Patents also lists ITC cases 337-TA-3749 and 337-TA-3755 and N.D. Ill. 1:24-cv-04284/04928 (literal identifiers as indexed; the operative and documented ITC investigation is 337-TA-1409 per the USITC notice — I note the discrepancy rather than "correcting" it).
• IPR2024-01401 (Klein Tools v. Milwaukee + Keter, filed 2024-09-17): institution was granted then vacated on Director Review, and institution denied 2025-06-09 on Fintiv grounds.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded events attach to US 11,794,952 per the Google Patents legal-events tab. Note the limitation below on reel/frame retrieval.

• 2022-11-02 (recorded) — Reel 059059/0306 (family-level record; see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Yaron Brunner
  • Assignee: Keter Plastic Ltd. (Israel)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — the Assignment Center record's correspondent field was not accessible to me; I will not guess it.
  • Context: Original inventor-to-employer assignment (the Keter-side inventor perfecting title in his employer).

• 2022-11-02 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Steven W. Hyma, Grant T. Squiers, Christopher S. Hoppe
  • Assignee: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Original inventor-to-employer assignment (the Milwaukee-side inventors perfecting title in their employer). Filed contemporaneously with the continuation application 18/051,749 (filed 2022-11-01).

• 2024-04-12 (recorded) — Reel 067095/0409 (family-level record; see caveat)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (CHANGE OF NAME; ASSIGNOR: KETER PLASTIC LTD)
  • Assignor: Keter Plastic Ltd.
  • Assignee: Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. (Israel)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Change of name only — no change in beneficial ownership. Confirmed as such by both the recorded conveyance type and the ITC FID ("Keter is an Israeli corporation with its principal place of business at 2 Sapir Street…").

Reel/frame caveat (read this before citing): I could not open the Assignment Center record for the '952 patent itself — the search tool was unavailable in this session. The two reel/frames shown (059059/0306 and 067095/0409) are the values surfaced on the Google Patents legal-events pages for the shared Keter/Milwaukee family (US 11,365,026 / US 11,840,269 / US 11,794,952). Because these are family-level continuations sharing the same inventors and priority, they very likely appear on the '952 record as well, but I have not verified that they attach to US 11,794,952 specifically, and I have no reel/frame at all for the Milwaukee-inventors' assignment. Verify all four fields at the Assignment Center before relying on them: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11,794,952; mirror index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11794952
    2016 : Priority date 2 May 2016
    2022 : Brunner assigns to Keter Plastic Ltd
         : Milwaukee inventors assign to Milwaukee Tool
    2023 : Patent issued 24 October 2023
    2024 : Renamed Keter Home and Garden
         : First suit filed vs Klein Tools
         : ITC probe 337-TA-1409 instituted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only post-issuance record is reel 067095/0409, a Change of Name from Keter Plastic Ltd. to Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. — same Israeli operating company, same Herzliya address, no "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, and no Delaware/Texas single-member LLC anywhere in the chain. Both owners are manufacturers.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither assignee (Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd.; Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp.) appears on any NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). Both are operating manufacturers.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not retrieved. I could not obtain the correspondent-of-record fields for any of the three recorded events, so I cannot test this signal. Note for the record that the litigation counsel is a repeat player — Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Dion M. Bregman, Jason C. White, David P. Bernstein) served as Patent Owners' counsel in IPR2024-01401, IPR2025-01018 and the ITC case, and Quinn Emanuel (James M. Glass, Brianne M. Straka) represents petitioner Klein. But prosecution/litigation counsel is not the same as the assignment-recording correspondent, so this does not support an NPE call. Flagging as a genuine gap, not a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One ownership change in eight years (2024 change of name). The two 2022 recordings are same-day confirmatory assignments from the inventors to their own employers — the ordinary perfection of title for a joint development, not chained LLC transfers.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — present, but administrative only. The change of name was recorded 2024-04-12, roughly six weeks before the first complaint 1:24-cv-04284 (filed 2024-05-23). This is within the 6-month window, but it is a name change (reel 067095/0409), not a transfer to an asserting vehicle, and no new party entered the chain. It reads as housekeeping so the plaintiff's name matched the record owner. No weight toward NPE status.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceedings for Keter or Milwaukee/ TTI. Keter was acquired by BC Partners (2016) as a going concern; TTI is profitable and listed.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no operating-company-to-NPE transfer. Milwaukee and Keter assert the patent in their own names against a genuine market competitor (Klein Tools' MODbox™ line) in district court and at the ITC. That is direct assertion, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN. Instead the patent sits with two operating co-owners who are actively enforcing it (IPR2024-01401 was filed against them by Klein, and was denied).

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The record shows a single post-issuance event — the 2024-04-12 change of name (reel 067095/0409) renaming Keter Plastic Ltd. to Keter Home and Garden Products Ltd. — with the two 2022 recordings being the original inventors' confirmatory assignments to their own employers (Keter and Milwaukee Electric Tool). Both current owners are product-shipping manufacturers: the ITC found the domestic-industry requirement satisfied on Milwaukee's PACKOUT line and noted that some PACKOUT components are manufactured by Keter, and the co-owners are suing an actual competitor (Klein Tools) in their own names in 337-TA-1409 and 1:24-cv-04928. No shell entity, no known asserter, no bankruptcy, and no privateering — this is a routine joint-development ownership chain, not an NPE one. The only signal in the checklist that trips is the benign six-week gap between the name-change recording and the first complaint.

Verification links: Assignment Center search — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · legacy index — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US11794952/en

Caveat on this analysis: two of the three recorded events are reported from family-level Google Patents legal events rather than directly from the Assignment Center, and the correspondent-of-record fields and the Milwaukee-inventors' reel/frame were not retrieved. Signal 3 is therefore untested, and the reel/frames above should be re-confirmed against the primary source before being cited.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 11,794,952 B2. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me pull the actual cited-references list and the examiner's citations (with relevance categories) for the '952 patent specifically.

Let me get the '952 patent's own cited-references list and the prior art the challengers actually relied on.

Prior Art for US 11,794,952 B2 — Cited References and § 102 Analysis

⚠️ Sourcing and fidelity caveats (read first)

1. The authoritative text you supplied does not contain the front-page "(56) References Cited" block. The Google Patents rendering you provided reproduces the abstract, description, Definitions and claims-related prose but omits the citation list. I therefore reconstructed the citation list from secondary records of the same patent family — the "References Cited" block of the sibling continuation US 11,365,026 B2 (identical specification, same inventors, same assignees), retrieved verbatim from uspto.report at https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[11,365,026](/patent/11365026), and the "References Cited" list on Justice's page for US 11,794,952 at https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11794952](/patent/11794952). The two lists match, which is expected because the '952 is a straight continuation in the same chain.
2. I did not retrieve the examiner's asterisked subset. In the extracted records, the references appear without the "*" notation that identifies which documents the examiner actually applied under § 102/§ 103, versus those listed only as background. I therefore cannot tell you which cited references were the rejection references. Any claim mapping below is my own provisional mapping, not a reproduction of an Office action.
3. I still do not have the verbatim printed claims of the '952 (this was flagged in the earlier sections and remains true). My claim mapping is therefore anchored to the claim categories established earlier: independent container-assembly claim 1; the second container-assembly independent claim 9 (and dependent claim 16); and dependents such as claim 4 (half-width second container) and claim 8 (rear wheels + telescoping handle).
4. Per your strict rule, all identifiers below are reproduced literally from the records retrieved; I have not "corrected" anything.

1. Bottom line up front

• The list of references cited against the '952 is a very large, overwhelmingly background-art list (~200 U.S. patent documents, ~60 foreign patent documents, and ~30 non-patent items). It is the accumulated IDS history of a six-continuation family, not a list of applied rejections.
• No single cited reference appears to disclose every element of the container-assembly independent claims (a first coupler with two sidewalls + back wall + rib; a second coupler with an offset tongue extending in the opposite direction; pivotally attached lids with toggle locking latches; a rib/tongue-defined sliding path; and a separate sliding-blocking locking latch + arresting location). That is consistent with (i) the patent having issued over this art and (ii) the ITC Final ID finding the '952 (and its siblings) not invalid over the respondent's art.
• The most potent prior art actually asserted against the '952 in the litigation record is not in the front-page list at all: the "Auer" system and the "RX-0183" catalog, whose prior-art status is one of the discrete issues on which the Commission granted review (see § 5 below and the earlier litigation summary).
• Kleit Tools' invalidity case against the '952 was presented in PTAB IPR2024-01401, where institution was denied on Director Review (Paper 22, June 9, 2025) — meaning the Board never reached the merits of the petitioned grounds. I was unable to retrieve the petition's exhibit-level prior-art set (Ex. 1001 et seq.) for the '952 before this analysis was cut off, so I cannot itemize Klein's asserted '952 references. I flag this rather than guess.

2. Most relevant prior art (highest § 102 potential)

The references below are drawn from the family's References Cited list and are the ones directed to stackable/interlockable containers, tool boxes, rolling modular storage units, and latching mechanisms — i.e., the same field of endeavor as the '952. Dates are as printed in the retrieved record. "Reported title" is given only where I have it; where the retrieved record gave only number/date/inventor, I did not invent a title.

On the inventorship point (relevant to § 102(a)(2)/§ 103(c)): several listed documents name Steven W. Hyma, Christopher S. Hoppe or Grant T. Squiers — the same inventors as the '952 — and/or are assigned to Milwaukee/Keter. Those are not "prior art by another" in the ordinary sense and should be screened out of any § 102 analysis. This is a materially important screening step that a bare citation list will not show.

On the "half-width" and "wheels/telescoping handle" dependents (claims 4 and 8): the family's own specification (FIGS. 5B–5E and the base-container disclosure) describes exactly these, and the cited Tiramani/rolling-base art is the natural § 103 combination against claim 8. I found no single reference disclosing a half-width second container on a wider first container with the claimed couplers — anticipation of claim 4 is not evident.

3. Non-patent literature cited (all "cited by applicant")

These are the commercial/product prior-art items in the family IDS. They are the practical targets for a § 102(a)(1) "public use / on-sale / printed publication" attack on the broadest claims:

§ 102 assessment: the DeWalt TSTAK, TanStack-related TSTAK carts, Ryobi ToolBlox, Sortimo, BluCave and Systainer Sys-Cart items are the strongest non-patent-art candidates, because they show stackable, latch-interlocked modular storage. However, the dates cited are mostly "believed to be available at least as early as Nov. 29, 2017" — i.e., after the May 2, 2016 priority date for some items, and contemporaneous for others. Any § 102(a)(1) use of them requires independent corroboration of public availability before May 2, 2016, which the face of the record does not establish. This is a real evidentiary gap.

4. Prosecution-history / IPR documents cited as references

The family IDS also lists, as references:

• IPR2021-00373, "Petition for Inter Partes Review of U.S. Pat. No. 10,583,962," filed Jan. 5, 2021, 198 pages, together with Exhibits 1001–1024 (ranging from 1 to 481 pages each). These exhibits are the prior-art set asserted against the earlier family member US 10,583,962 — not against the '952 — but they are the closest available proxy for the art the family has faced.
• International Search Reports / Written Opinions for PCT/IL2019/050689 (Aug. 23, 2019), PCT/IL2020/050433 (Jun. 21, 2020), PCT/US2018/033161 (Aug. 6, 2018), PCT/US2018/044629 (Jan. 9, 2019) and PCT/US2019/014940 (Jul. 26, 2019).
• Non-Final Rejection dated Apr. 12, 2018 in U.S. Appl. No. 15/826,201 (16 pages) — cited as a reference in the family IDS.

§ 102 note: these are procedural/prior-art-of-record documents, not anticipating references in themselves. But the Exhibits 1001–1024 to IPR2021-00373 are where the family's actual anticipating/obviousness art lives, and they should be the first place to look for a genuine § 102 reference against the '952.

5. The prior art that actually matters in litigation (builds on the earlier sections)

The earlier sections established that the Commission granted review in 337-TA-1409 in part on invalidity and specifically on the prior-art status of the "Auer" system and the "RX-0183" catalog, with briefing in early 2026. Those two items — not the front-page citation list — are the references that the parties and the Commission are actually litigating as § 102 art against the '952. If your objective is anticipating art for the '952, Auer / RX-0183 are the references to obtain and chart; the family's IDS list is largely background.

I did not retrieve the '952's IPR2024-01401 petition exhibits, so I cannot name Klein Tools' asserted '952 references. Given that institution was denied on Fintiv grounds, the Board issued no merits holding on them.

6. Condensed inventory of the remaining cited references

For completeness, the family's References Cited list also includes the foreign patent documents below (numbers as printed, literally), which are predominantly design/utility registrations and non-English publications unlikely to be applied against the '952's structural claims without translation and mapping:

• DE: 3510307; 9313802; 4415638; 29708343; 19750543; 20218996; 102004057870; 202011002617; 102010003754; 102010003756; 102012106482; 102012220837; 202014103695; 202015105053; 202015005752; 102015112204; 102015013053; 402018201520.
• EP: 0916302; 1321247; 1428764; 1819487; 2289671; 2346741; 2456341; 2555660; 2555661; 2805799; 3141354.
• GB: 694707; 2047181; 2110076; 2330521; 2406331; 2413265; 2449934.
• JP: 2003194020; D1180963; 1276744; D1395115; D1395116; D1455321; 2013022972; 2013022976; 1477050; D1503434; D1625407; D1665028.
• CN: 2608238; 200947356; 101068661; 102137795; 102248523; 102469899; 102608238; 102834035; 302371147; 103118578; 103659777; 204161752.
• KR: 30-0271616; 30-0320243; 3008066040000; 3008422360000; 3008496000000; 3008599650000; 3008812960000; 3009995990000.
• TW: 206875; I324578; I35074; I68686; I74412; D192092.
• WO: WO2005/045886; WO2007/121746; WO07121745; WO07121746; WO2007121745; WO2009/140965; WO09140965; WO2011/009480; WO11009480; WO2013/026084; WO13026084; WO2014/125488; WO14125488; WO2016142935; WO2017028845; WO2017191628; WO2017/212840; WO17212840.
• EM (designs): 000705231-0001 (Apr. 2007); 002419283-0001 (Mar. 2014).

⚠️ Caveat on this inventory: these numbers and dates were transcribed from the sibling US 11,365,026 record (uspto.report) because the '952's own front page was not in the supplied text. They should be reconciled against the printed '952 before being relied on — I did not independently verify that the '952's list is identical element-for-element.

7. Explicit uncertainties

1. Verbatim claims of the '952 — still not obtained. Without them, a rigorous element-by-element § 102 chart is not possible; my mapping is category-level and provisional.
2. The examiner's applied references (the asterisked subset) — not obtained. I cannot say which of the ~290 citations the examiner actually used in rejections.
3. The '952's own front-page citation list — reconstructed from the sibling US 11,365,026 and the Justice page, not from the printed '952.
4. Klein Tools' IPR2024-01401 prior-art exhibits — not retrieved.
5. Publication dates for the non-patent art — several are only "believed to be available at least as early as Nov. 29, 2017," which is after the May 2, 2016 priority date; treat those as § 103-support material at best until corroborated otherwise.
6. Auer / RX-0183 — identified from the earlier section's ITC record; I did not independently retrieve the underlying documents or confirm their publication dates.

Recommended next step for a defensible § 102 analysis: pull the printed '952 from USPTO PatentCenter (front page + claims), extract the examiner's asterisked references, and obtain the IPR2024-01401 petition exhibits and the ITC record exhibits for Auer and RX-0183. Those three sources — not the IDS list — will determine whether any reference actually anticipates the '952.

I'll research the prior art landscape for this patent, particularly the references at issue in the ITC/PTAB proceedings, since the "Prior Art section" content isn't in my supplied materials.

Excellent — I've found the key prior art references. Let me drill into the specific references used in the IPR petitions and ITC invalidity case.

I have the core prior-art set. Let me pin down the specific references' dates and the '952 claim structure.

Prior Art § 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 11,794,952 B2

Note on source material: The "Prior Art section" content you referenced was not present in the materials supplied to me, so I reconstructed the operative prior-art set from the ITC Final Initial Determination in Inv. No. 337-TA-1409 and the related PTAB petition papers (Klein Tools' IPR2024-01401 / IPR2025-01018 record). Where a reference's bibliographic detail could not be independently confirmed, I flag it rather than fill it in. Per the earlier sections' caveat, I still do not have verbatim claim text for the '952 patent, so the mapping below is against the claim architecture and limitation groupings described in the FID and the petition record.

1. Critical date and the § 102 threshold

The '952 patent is a post-AIA patent. Its earliest effective filing date is the May 2, 2016 provisional (62/330,334), with a second provisional 62/459,076 on Feb. 15, 2017. Any § 103 combination must therefore rest on references that qualify under § 102(a)(1) (publicly available before May 2, 2016) or § 102(a)(2) (earlier-effective-filed applications). This date-controls the entire analysis and is the single most important lever the patent owner has — as discussed in §7 below, one of the two primary references Klein relied on at the ITC failed this threshold.

2. The prior-art references in play

3. The obviousness combinations

Klein presented two parallel theory sets. I lay out both, then assess.

Combination 1 — Metabowerke (primary) + Burchia

Covers: independent claim 1 and its latch-arresting-location dependents.

• Metabowerke supplies the core male/female coupler architecture: a first female coupler on the lid top face (recesses 6/7 with undercut rib 8) and a male coupler projecting from the second container's bottom (standing feet 13 with projection 14′), where "two sidewalls and a back wall" project above a depressed lid surface and the rib extends away from the back wall toward the front face — i.e., the exact geometry the '952 independent claim recites for the first female coupler. Its "pushed backwards" language supplies the sliding path perpendicular to the front/rear walls.
• Burchia supplies the spring-biased locking latch + arresting location that the patent claims as the secondary lock preventing sliding.
• Motivation: A POSITA addressing the known problem of stacks that slide apart would add Burchia's latch because it (1) auto-locks on assembly, (2) eliminates a separate manual coupling step, (3) does not require unlatching the container lid when coupling, and (4) saves re-latching after de-coupling. These are the classic "improvement in convenience / predictable mechanical result" rationales that KSR endorses. Both references are in the same field (modular toolboxes) and solve the same problem, so they are analogous art.

Combination 2 — Metabowerke + Burchia + Lafragette

Covers: claims reciting the arresting location embodied as a recess with front/rear/bottom walls.

Lafragette merely substitutes a recess for a surface-type arresting location. The stated motivation — recessing protects the latch from inadvertent release and provides lateral reaction force — is a predictable design choice within common knowledge. A recessed socket for a spring-biased plunger is the paradigm of predictable mechanical substitution.

Combination 3 — Metabowerke + Burchia + Bensman

Covers: the "pair of rear wheels … and a telescoping handle extending upwards from the rear wall" limitation (the FID/dependent-claim group corresponding to claim 2/8-style limitations).

Bensman is a mobile tool-container reference; adding wheels and a telescoping handle to a stackable box converts a stationary stack into a mobile cart. Motivation: enable transport of the coupled stack — a long-recognized need. Both are container-art references; no teaching away.

Combination 4 — Metabowerke + Burchia + Lin

Covers: the "second container width axis approximately one-half the first container width axis" limitation (the half-width organizer-on-toolbox configuration).

Lin supplies half-size modular containers. Motivation: offering different container sizes to hold different-size tools and to allow two half-width units side-by-side on one full-width base — the same modularity goal the '952 specification itself touts. Petitioners expressly framed the motivation as "the option to offer different size containers to hold different size tools and equipment."

Combination 5 — + Welsh (or Chen)

Covers: the "corner bumper extending outward from the corner" limitations that the Examiner already found in Welsh/Chen during prosecution of the sibling '167 patent. Corner bumpers are a well-known protective add-on; the Board/petition characterized them as "merely an add-on feature that was known in the prior art."

Combination 6 — + Williams (U.S. 5,890,613)

Covers: "tiltable carrying handle coupled to a side face" limitations. Williams discloses pivoted side handclasps on modular containers and notes that "containers having hinged lids and carrying handles have been employed for scores of years." Adding side handles is a predictable ergonomic variation.

Combination 7 — Auer System (primary) + Bensman + Lifshitz (Klein's ITC grounds)

Klein's ITC invalidity case rested primarily on the Auer system as a physical/printed prior-art system, supplemented by Bensman (wheels/telescoping handle) and Lifshitz. This is the ground that would have been most directly on-point (a complete physical device), but it collapses on the § 102 threshold: the FID held Klein failed to carry its burden that the Auer system predates the critical date, and the Commission's Jan. 26, 2026 review order specifically asked the parties to address "whether and how the date of the 3|2015 catalog (RX-0183) affects the FID's finding that Klein failed to demonstrate that the Auer system is prior art." Until that date question is resolved, the Auer-based combinations are not reliably prior art.

4. Why a POSITA would combine — the shared KSR rationales

Across every combination above, the same motivations recur and are unusually strong for § 103:

1. Same field of endeavor. Metabowerke, Burchia, Lafragette, Lin, Bensman, Welsh/Chen, Williams, and the '952 patent itself are all directed to stackable/couplable tool storage containers. Petitioners expressly asserted these are "in the analogous field of modular toolboxes or connectable containers."
2. Same problem, same solution type. Every reference addresses detachably locking one container atop another; each teaches the same functional triad — a tongue sliding under a rib/undercut (vertical retention) plus a biased latch in an arresting location (anti-slide retention).
3. Predictable, mechanically simple substitution. The modifications (adding a spring latch, converting an arresting surface to a recess, swapping latch and arresting-location positions, adding wheels/handle, adding corner bumpers or side handles) are all simple mechanical substitutions yielding expected results — the KSR "design choice / predictable variation" rationale.
4. Explicit design-choice swapping. Petitioners argued a POSITA would readily swap Metabowerke's latch and arresting-location between top and bottom faces, because doing so changes only surface geometry, with stated advantages ("flatter top surface and reduced component exposure").
5. No teaching away was identified in the record.
6. Reasonable expectation of success for each substitution was asserted and supported by the Collins declaration (credited by the Board).

5. Procedural posture that actually supports the § 103 case

It is important not to conflate the merits outcome with the discretionary outcome:

• The Board, in its vacated institution decisions, found the merits "particularly strong" and specifically credited the Metabowerke/Burchia combination as adequately explained (IPR2024-01400 Paper 17; IPR2024-01401 Paper 16).
• Institution was nonetheless DENIED for IPR2024-01401 — but solely on Fintiv discretionary grounds under Director Review (Paper 22, June 9, 2025), not on any merits rejection. A denial on discretionary grounds has no issue-preclusive or res-judicata effect on validity. The merits window therefore remains open in the stayed N.D. Ill. action (1:24-cv-04928) once the ITC concludes.
• This means the strongest § 103 combinations (Metabowerke-primary) were never adjudicated on the merits in any forum.

6. Limitations most likely to resist the combinations

Even granting the above, several limitations are the natural battlegrounds and may survive on written-description / claim-construction grounds:

• "Depressed surface" of the lid top face — petitioners had to squeeze this out of Burchia and Metabowerke via claim construction ("offset by a vertical distance downward…"), a construction the patent owner disputes.
• The "approximately one-half width axis" relationship — depends on Lin being combined, and the "approximately" qualifier invites a scope fight.
• The specific "two sidewalls + back wall projecting above a depressed surface with the rib extending away from the back wall toward the front face" geometry — the patent owner's core non-obviousness argument turned on whether Metabowerke's female coupler has two sidewalls or only one. The Board preliminarily credited petitioners on this, but it was never finally adjudicated.
• The single-latch-drives-multiple-latches and partial-overlap variants disclosed in the specification are not clearly met by any single reference and would need an additional combination.

7. The counterweight: objective indicia (why the claims survived the ITC)

Any § 103 attack must overcome the objective indicia the FID credited. The ALJ found strong secondary considerations:

• Commercial success of the Domestic Industry Products (Milwaukee PACKOUT) tied via nexus to the patented modularity, toggle latches, hinges, and multiple widths.
• Copying — Klein's own development documents stated the "[o]rigin of [the] idea" for MODbox was a "[c]ompetitive analysis of Milwaukee and DeWalt," and the FID found Klein copied PACKOUT.
• Industry praise and a long-felt but unmet need for the PACKOUT-type product.

The FID concluded Klein failed to show, clearly and convincingly, that any asserted claim was obvious — a conclusion resting both on the failure to establish the Auer system as prior art and on these secondary considerations.

8. Bottom line

There exist facially strong, well-motivated § 103 combinations — principally:

Metabowerke (EP 2 944 423 A1) as the primary reference, in view of Burchia (spring latch + arresting location), optionally further in view of Lafragette (recessed arresting location), Lin (half-width containers), Bensman (wheels + telescoping handle), Welsh/Chen (corner bumpers), and Williams '613 (tiltable side handles).

A POSITA would have been motivated to combine these because they occupy the same field, address the identical stacking-retention problem, and require only predictable mechanical substitutions with a reasonable expectation of success. The Board itself called these merits "particularly strong." The claims nonetheless currently stand because (a) institution was denied on discretionary (Fintiv) grounds rather than on the merits; (b) the ITC's Auer-system ground failed its § 102 date threshold; and (c) the ALJ found strong objective indicia of non-obviousness. A subsequent merits proceeding (e.g., in the stayed district court case once the ITC concludes, or a renewed petition after the ITC's final determination) would test the Metabowerke/Burchia combinations on the merits for the first time.

Confidence / caveats

• High confidence: the identity of the primary references (Metabowerke EP 2 944 423 A1, published Nov. 18, 2015; Burchia; Lafragette; Bensman; Lin; Welsh; Chen; Williams U.S. 5,890,613), the combination structure of the IPR grounds, and the KSR motivations as argued in the record.
• Low confidence / must verify: the exact patent numbers and publication dates of Burchia, Lafragette, Bensman, Lin, Welsh, and Chen (not confirmed from the retrieved record); the verbatim text of the '952 independent claims (still not obtained — an earlier-section caveat that remains unresolved); and the resolution of the Auer system / RX-0183 catalog date question, which is still pending before the Commission. Any reliance on these should be checked against the PTAB petition exhibits (EX1004–EX1020) and a USPTO PatentCenter copy of the '952 patent.

Sources: ITC FID, Inv. No. 337-TA-1409 (Aug. 1, 2025), https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557918](/patent/1557918)/download-documents; Petitioners' papers, IPR2025-01018 / IPR2024-01401; Director Review decision, IPR2024-01400/-01401, Paper 22 (June 9, 2025), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2024-01400_ipr2024-01401_klein_milwaukee_paper22.pdf; Commission review order, 91 FR 3219 (Jan. 26, 2026), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-26/pdf/FR-2026-01-26.pdf.