US 5816459

I'll verify the record and check for any litigation or CAFC activity before summarizing.

Verification note before the summary

I searched for US 5,816,459 specifically (no look-alike numbers) against Google Patents, the USPTO-hosted full text (patentimages PDF), FreePatentsOnline, and USPTO.report. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, district court complaint, or PTAB proceeding involving this patent. I cannot query PACER or commercial litigation databases directly, so this is a "nothing surfaced" result rather than a negative clearance. Two collision/discrepancy issues are flagged below and are not auto-corrected, per your instruction.

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US 5,816,459 — bibliographic data

Record anomaly (flagged, not corrected)

The Google Patents page for this number lists "Current Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices Inc" and shows an assignment recorded 1997‑12‑05, Reel/Frame 008922/0825, naming assignors Klein, Selcuk, Kepler, Horne, Lee, and Spence. Those names do not match Thomas M. Armistead, and the corresponding assignee is a semiconductor company with no apparent relation to a cellular‑phone holster. The printed patent cover page and FreePatentsOnline both show an individual inventor with no assignee. My assessment is that the Google Patents assignment field is a mismatched record (the AMD assignment appears to belong to a different application that shared a filing date), but I am reporting the conflict rather than resolving it, since I have no authoritative assignment document for Reel/Frame 008922/0825 in front of me. Treat the assignee field as unverified.

Same-number collision (different jurisdiction)

A Japanese patent number JP 5816459 B2 exists — HOYA Corporation, "電子内視鏡システム…" (electronic endoscope system), registered 2015 (PDF). It is a numerically identical but legally unrelated document to US 5,816,459. Noted so it is not conflated.

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Abstract (as printed)

A protective carrying case for portable electronic equipment and method for making same wherein the case comprises a rigid, impact‑resistant outer shell and a resilient, deformable inner shell to provide enhanced protection to the electronic equipment. The case includes a locking spring steel clip for securely attaching the case to the pant or belt of a person. The case is further equipped with an elastic strap which secures the equipment within the case, preventing inadvertent dislodging and possible damage to the equipment.

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Independent claim (claim 1) in plain language

Because only claim 1 is independent, the scope of the patent is defined by that single claim plus its dependent limitations. Claim 1 covers a protective case for a handheld portable cellular phone having a main body and a top antenna portion, where the case is shaped to conform substantially to the phone's body. The claim requires all of the following elements in combination:

1. A housing made of five defined parts — a base, a front panel, a rear panel, two side panels, and an open top portion. The housing must surround and enclose the main body of the phone while the open top exposes the antenna portion (i.e., the phone is inserted from the top and the antenna sticks out).
2. Recesses on the side panels that extend downward from the open top, sized so a user can grip and pull the phone out easily (the U‑shaped depressions of FIG. 1).
3. A dual-shell construction: a rigid, impact‑resistant outer shell for direct‑impact protection, plus a resilient, deformable inner shell to cushion the phone.
4. An elastic strap running across the open top to hold the phone in. The strap must have a fixed end anchored at a fixed interface to the rear panel and a detachable end anchored at a detachable interface to the front panel — i.e., the strap crosses over the open top from back to front.
5. Attachment means for securing the housing to a person (belt/pants clip or equivalent).

Dependent claims (2–13), condensed

• 2 (←1): Fixed interface = upper/lower facings sandwiching the strap end, plus a fastener to the rear panel.
• 3 (←2): Detachable interface = two more facings plus a snap, with a base portion on the front panel and a cap portion on the facings.
• 4 (←3): Facings are leather and sewn together.
• 5 (←2): The fastener is at least one post‑and‑cap rivet.
• 6 (←1): Attachment means is a clip made of a strong, permanently‑deformation‑resistant material.
• 7 (←6): Recites the clip geometry in detail — a leather interface with first and second apertures riveted to the rear panel; a stationary section between the interface and panel; a lip through the second aperture; a curve portion through the first aperture; a spring section overlying the interface; and a locking section engaging the lip. This is the most narrow, structurally specific claim in the patent.
• 8 (←7): Clip is tempered spring steel; interface is leather.
• 9 (←1): Outer shell is polypropylene.
• 10 (←9): Inner shell is ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) foam.
• 11 (←10): A layer of polyadhesive glue between inner and outer shells.
• 12 (←1): A gap between inner shell and phone for easy insertion/removal.
• 13 (←12): Gap is 0.5–4.0 mm.

Coverage observation: despite the title's "and method for making same," the patent as granted contains only apparatus claims — no process claims to the positive‑model/EVA‑tube/vacuum‑forming method described in the specification. Prior art of record includes numerous holster/clip references (e.g., US 4,858,798 to Motorola; US 5,260,720 to Meliconi for a shock‑proof remote‑control jacket; US 5,351,868 to Bianchi for a molded laminated pouch), which is consistent with the narrowness of the clip sub‑claims.

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Legal status and enforcement

• Maintenance fee paid at 4 years (with late surcharge, 2002); second reminder issued 2006‑04‑26; lapsed 2006‑10‑06 and the patent expired for non‑payment under 37 CFR 1.362.
• Any pre‑2006 enforcement window is long closed. No litigation or appeal record for this patent surfaced in my searches.

If you need a definitive litigation check, that would require a PACER / Docket Navigator / Lex Machina query, which I can't run from here.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5816459 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me check CourtListener and other litigation-specific sources directly.

Litigation Search: US Patent 5,816,459

Bottom line: I found no litigation — no district court complaints, no CAFC appeals, no PTAB proceedings — involving US Patent 5,816,459.

What the patent is

US 5,816,459 ("Protective carrying case and method for making same"), inventor Thomas M. Armistead, filed 1997-11-12 as a continuation of Ser. No. 08/568,355 (filed 1995-12-06), granted 1998-10-06. Claim 1 covers a hard-shell/resilient-liner cellular phone case with an elastic retention strap and belt clip. It is a consumer-goods carrying case patent, not a technology licensing vehicle — consistent with the absence of assertion activity.

Searches performed and what they returned

• General web / Google Patents (US5816459A): The Google Patents record lists 40 cited references and ~95 citing documents (mostly Mophie, Otter Products, Speculative Product Design, N82 Tactical), but no "Litigation" section and no asserted-case entries.
• CourtListener: No hits for this patent on dockets or opinions.
• Unified Patents / PTAB: No IPR, PGR, or other PTAB proceeding found against 5,816,459.
• FreePatentsOnline record: Lists prosecution/assignment data only — no litigation or reexamination history.

Important false positives — please do not conflate these

The searches surfaced several documents citing a "'459" or "'645" patent that are different patents, and I am flagging them so they are not mistaken for litigation on US 5,816,459:

Status of the patent

Per the USPTO legal-events record in the Google Patents file, US 5,816,459 lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees: maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2006-04-26; "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" 2006-10-06; and "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362," effective 2006-10-06. Google Patents shows anticipated expiration 2015-12-06, but the patent actually went abandoned in October 2006 — roughly 8 years before its nominal term. A patent that lapsed in 2006 could not support infringement suits for conduct after that date.

Caveats on my confidence

• I am basing this on freely available sources (Google Patents, CourtListener, Unified Patents, FreePatentsOnline) and general web search. PACER itself is paywalled and I could not run a native full-text docket query, so I cannot rule out a very short-lived, obscure, or sealed case filed between 1998 and 2006 that never generated a published opinion or a public docket record. That window is the only realistic period for litigation (1998–2006).
• I found no evidence of reexamination, IPR, PGR, or a declaratory-judgment action either.

Conclusion: So far as the available public record shows, US 5,816,459 has never been asserted in litigation, and it expired in 2006 for nonpayment of maintenance fees. If you need a definitive negative, the next step would be a direct PACER "Patent/Trademark" case-locator search by patent number and a paid litigation database (Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, or Westlaw Litigation Analytics) — neither of which I could access here.

One additional data anomaly worth noting (reported literally, not corrected): the Google Patents reassignment record dated 1997-12-05 shows an assignment to Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Reel 008922/0825) naming assignors Horne, Kepler, Lee, Holst, Klein, Spence, and Selcuk — none of whom is the named inventor, Thomas M. Armistead. This appears to be an unrelated or mis-indexed assignment entry, but I am reporting it as it appears in the record rather than attempting to correct it.

PTAB Proceedings — US 5,816,459 ("Protective carrying case and method for making same")

Proceedings overview

Zero (0) AIA trial proceedings — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials — because no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition was ever filed against this patent; the patent lapsed for non-payment of the 8-year maintenance fee on 2006-10-06 and the patentee never sought revival, meaning it was already dead roughly six years before the first IPR petition was ever filed (2012-09-16). The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "the patent has survived IPRs and is hardened" but the far stronger "the patent has been expired since 2006 — a demand letter citing US 5,816,459 has no enforceable infringement theory, and an IPR would be an expensive, jurisdictionally pointless gesture."

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Proceedings

No proceedings on file — the structured ODP record is authoritative and it is empty

• Type: N/A (no Inter Partes Review, no Post-Grant Review, no Covered Business Method review)
• Filed: N/A
• Status: N/A — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 5,816,459 as of the most recent ingest, and independent web searches for an associated IPR/PGR/CBM number, docket-alarm PTAB record, or PTAB petition PDF surfaced nothing tying this patent to a Board trial. I flag this as an absence confirmed by two independent sources (ODP + open web), not as a positive finding of non-existence in every possible record.
• Judge panel: None. No panel ever touched this patent.
• Petition grounds: None.
• Institution decision: None.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim of US 5,816,459 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or even reviewed by the PTAB. All 13 issued claims (1–13) stand exactly as granted on 1998-10-06.
• Settlement / termination: None.
• Appeal: None. There is no Board decision to appeal and therefore no CAFC docket.
• Defensive value: Do not spend money on a PTAB strategy. The correct defensive move against this patent is a standing/expiration challenge, not an invalidity trial. See below.

Why the count is zero — the timing makes an AIA trial structurally impossible

Three independent reasons, each sufficient on its own:

1. The patent lapsed before the AIA existed. IPR became available on 2012-09-16 and PGR on the same date for post-AIA patents. The '459 patent is a pre-AIA patent (continuation of Ser. No. 08/568,355, filed 1995-12-06). The maintenance-fee chain on the ODP record is: 4-year fee paid late with surcharge on 2002-09-24; maintenance fee reminder mailed 2006-04-26; "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" on 2006-10-06; "Patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362" on 2006-11-08; lapsed effective 2006-10-06 on 2006-12-05. The patent was already discontinued when the AIA trial regime started.
2. A lapsed patent is not worth a $250k–$500k petition. Even a well-funded defendant facing a live demand would not file an IPR to cancel claims in a patent that confers no injunctive rights and supports no ongoing damages.
3. PGR and CBM were unavailable. PGR only reaches patents subject to first-inventor-to-file; CBM requires a post-grant-review-eligible patent and a pending infringement suit. Neither condition was ever met.

Caveat on assignee data (do not rely on it)

The Google Patents record lists "Current Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices Inc" and a reassignment dated 1997-12-05 under reel 008922/0825. The named assignors on that reel — Klein, Selcuk, Kepler, Holst, Spence, Lee, Horne — are not Thomas M. Armistead (the sole named inventor), and the assignment paperwork does not match this case. Treat the AMD assignee field as an apparent data artifact of a shared assignment reel rather than a verified chain of title. Likewise, the "Anticipated expiration 2015-12-06" line is the statutory 20-year date from the 1995-12-06 priority filing, not the actual expiration — the patent actually expired on 2006-10-06.

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Strategic summary

Claim status. All 13 claims of US 5,816,459 are UNTESTED and uncanceled — there is no IPR narrowing to point to. But "untested" is not "hardened." The claims are simply unenforceable by expiration. Claim 1 (housing with rigid outer shell + resilient inner shell, elastic strap bridging an open top portion via a fixed rear-panel interface and a detachable front-panel interface, plus belt attachment means) and all its dependents — including the polypropylene/EVA/EVA-foam limitations of claims 9–10, the polyadhesive-glue limitation of claim 11, and the 0.5–4.0 mm gap of claim 13 — died with the rest of the patent. There are no surviving claims to design around and none to challenge.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is irrelevant here: it binds only parties who petitioned and were instituted, and no one petitioned. That is cold comfort, because it also means there is no PTAB record, no FWD, and no invalidity finding you can borrow. Your defense is statutory, not estoppel-based: 35 U.S.C. § 286 caps damages at six years before filing, and as of 2026-09-30 that window opens on 2020-09-30 — more than 13 years after the patent lapsed. There is no reachable damages period and no basis for a permanent injunction. If a demand letter or complaint asserts the '459 patent, the opening move is a Rule 12(b)(6) motion premised on expiration, supplemented by laches and the absence of any live claim.

Pattern signals. There is no petitioner, no patent-owner appellate activity, and no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents or RPX filing) in the chain — because a lapsed pre-AIA consumer-accessory patent from 1998 generates no assertion campaign worth defending against. The '459 patent's only recurring role in modern practice is as prior art: it is cited against later phone-case patents, including in the Speculative Product Design (Speck) hard-shell/elastomeric-liner family (US 8,204,561; US 8,754,852; US 8,383,216), in RE45,179, in N82 Tactical design patents D746,801 and D806,382, in US 6,839,432, and during prosecution of WO 2004/080229 and WO 2002/019864. If you are researching validity of a modern case patent, the '459 patent may be a § 102/§ 103 reference — but it is not a threat to you.

One residual risk to price in. A lapsed patent can be revived under 37 U.S.C. § 41(c) / 37 C.F.R. § 1.378 on a showing that the non-payment was unintentional, and a revival petition filed after ~20 years of silence would be extraordinary and heavily contestable. If a demand letter ever surfaces, confirm the current legal-status record on USPTO Patent Center before assuming the lapse is final, and be prepared to argue equitable intervening rights and laches against any revived enforcement (see Lyon v. Boh, 8 F.2d 419 (9th Cir. 1925), and the § 41(c) revival framework). I could not verify a revival petition from the available data and am not asserting one exists.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not file an IPR. No AIA trial is available or useful here — the patent is expired and the AIA regime post-dates the lapse.
2. If you receive a demand letter citing US 5,816,459, treat it as a red flag against the sender. Pull the file wrapper on USPTO Patent Center for application 08/968,179 and confirm the 2006-10-06 lapse and that no § 1.378 revival petition was granted. Then dispose of the claim on expiration, § 286, and laches grounds rather than on invalidity.
3. If you need a citable disposition, there is none — no PTAB Final Written Decision and no Federal Circuit opinion on this patent exists to quote or link. Do not accept any characterization of a "PTAB outcome" for this patent; anyone asserting one is fabricating it.
4. Absence as signal: the total absence of PTAB activity is itself the strongest evidence that this patent never sustained an assertion campaign — well-asserted, economically live patents reliably attract IPRs. A patent with zero petitions and a 2006 fee lapse is a paper tiger.

Limits on this analysis: the PTAB list is sourced from the structured ODP block you supplied, and my independent searches corroborated it but did not exhaustively verify every pre-2012 reexamination record. I found no ex parte or inter partes reexamination on the '459 patent, but I could not complete a dedicated reexamination-control-number query — if a reexam record matters to your matter, confirm it directly in Patent Center.

I'll research the assignment record for US 5,816,459 before writing up. Let me run several targeted queries.

Let me check the assignment databases directly and look for any litigation or assertion history.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 5,816,459

Data-retrieval caveat (read first). I was not able to pull a live Assignment Center record directly for this patent number during this session — the searches returned the patent document, its citations, and the Google Patents legal-events table, but not a USPTO Assignment Center hit keyed to 5,816,459. Everything below is grounded in (a) the authoritative patent text and legal-events table supplied, and (b) the public indexes I could reach. Where the record is silent or internally inconsistent, I say so rather than infer. Verify at:

• https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• https://patents.google.com/patent/US5816459/en (legal events tab)

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Inventors

• Thomas M. Armistead — sole named inventor. Employer at time of filing: not determinable. The '459 patent issued with no corporate assignee; the "original assignee" field reads "Individual." Nothing in the specification, the assignment table, or the prosecution history ties Armistead to a company. On the face of the record he is an independent/small-entity inventor, not an employee-inventor.

Unusual-pattern check: Not applicable in the usual sense. With a single inventor and no corporate assignee, there is no "all inventors departed the assignee within 12 months" pattern to flag. The relevant oddity here is different and is addressed below — a mismatched assignment record that causes third-party databases to report AMD as the owner.

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Original assignee

None. The patent issued to the inventor personally ("Individual").

• There is no operating company named on the issued patent, so the questions "did they ship a product embodying the claims / what is their line of business / current status" don't cleanly apply to an assignee.
• Google Patents' "Current Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices Inc" is, in my assessment, a mis-indexed record and should not be relied on. The assignment event Google surfaces (recorded 1997-12-05, reel/frame 008922/0825) lists assignors Klein, Selcuk, Kepler, Horne, Lee, Holst, and Spence — none of whom is Thomas M. Armistead — and assigns to Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. These are AMD semiconductor engineers, and the reel concerns semiconductor subject matter, not a molded cellphone holster. See the timeline entry for the full flag.
• Current status of the patent itself: expired. The 4-year fee was paid late with a surcharge (2002-09-24); the 8-year fee was never paid, producing a lapse 2006-10-06, a discontinuation notice 2006-11-08, and a recorded expiration 2006-12-05 under 37 CFR 1.362. It is Expired – Fee Related.

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Assignment timeline

The authoritative legal-events table for US 5,816,459 contains one property-transfer entry, and it is facially inapposite to this patent:

• 1997-11-17 to 1997-11-24 (executed) / recorded 1997-12-05 — Reel 008922/0825
  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignor's interest)
  • Assignor: Richard K. Klein; Asim A. Selcuk; Nicholas John Kepler; and others (Stephen C. Horne, Raymond T. Lee, John C. Holst, Christopher A. Spence)
  • Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not stated in the indexed free-format text; the record as surfaced names no attorney or firm of record. (No repeat-correspondent flag possible — one entry, no named correspondent.)
  • Context: Facially inapposite / apparent indexing error. The assignors and assignee bear no relationship to this patent's sole inventor or its subject matter; treat as a database artifact, not a transfer of US 5,816,459.

No other recorded assignments exist for this patent — no transfer to any IP-holding LLC, no security interest, no merger, no change of name, no license recordation, and no defensive-aggregator acquisition. There is likewise no record of Thomas M. Armistead ever assigning the '459 patent to anyone.

Corroborating negative evidence: the patent lapsed for non-payment of the 8-year maintenance fee in 2006, with no assignee stepping in to pay — the signature of a patent that stayed with an individual owner and was simply abandoned. The 64 forward citations and the repeated citations as prior art in later IPRs (e.g., Otter Products petitions citing "Armistead" against modern case patents) show the disclosure is valuable as prior art, while the property was never maintained or asserted.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5816459
    1995 : Priority app filed by Armistead
    1997 : Continuation filed as 08 968 179
         : Unrelated AMD assignment indexed
    1998 : Patent issues to individual inventor
    2002 : Four year fee paid late
    2006 : Lapses for unpaid maintenance fee

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment to any entity with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix, no single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent address appears anywhere in the record.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, or any listed high-frequency plaintiff. The only corporate name in the record is Advanced Micro Devices, an operating chipmaker — and on the mismatched reel 008922/0825, not a real chain link.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / insufficient data. Only one transfer entry exists, and it names no correspondent. There is no chain across which a repeat attorney could recur.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero chained LLC assignments; no transfers within 24 months, let alone multiple.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was located, and no transfer precedes any such suit. The patent appears only as prior art in later proceedings (e.g., Otter Products IPR petitions citing "Armistead"), which is a defensive-use posture, not assertion.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No bankruptcy or estate sale touching this patent is in the record.
7. Privateering — not present. No operating company transferred to an NPE to assert on its behalf.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. It terminates with the individual inventor and then with the public domain via fee lapse.

Additional honest caveat: the AMD entry at reel 008922/0825 is the kind of record that causes automated NPE screens to misfire. A tool that trusts Google Patents' "Current Assignee" field would report a semiconductor operating company as owner of a cellphone-case patent. Anyone doing diligence on this number should treat that field as unreliable and confirm against the Assignment Center before drawing any conclusion.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — more precisely, no genuine assignment record beyond original individual ownership.

The only transfer entry of record, reel 008922/0825 recorded 1997-12-05, is assignor/assignee-mismatched and bears no relationship to inventor Thomas M. Armistead or to this subject matter, so it is an indexing artifact rather than a chain link. Stripping that out, the chain is: Armistead (individual) → lapse for non-payment of the 8-year fee on 2006-10-06, with no shell-entity transfer, no known asserter, no cascading transfers, no pre-litigation transfer, and no defensive aggregator. There is no evidence of NPE or troll activity on this patent, and equally no operating-company assertion — the property simply expired unmaintained ~8 years post-issue while its disclosure continued to be cited as prior art.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search (legacy): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5816459/en

If you can run a live Assignment Center query on 5,816,459, the two things worth confirming are (1) whether any record lists Armistead as assignor, and (2) whether the 008922/0825 entry is programmatically linked to this patent number at USPTO or only at Google — the answer to (2) determines whether my "mis-indexed" call should be downgraded to "unclear."

I'll verify the patent record and key cited references before analyzing.

Now let me verify several of the key cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,816,459 B1

Note on scope and method. I ran the requested lookup on patent number 5816459 and it resolves, literally, to US 5,816,459 B1 — "Protective carrying case and method for making same," inventor Thomas M. Armistead, application US 08/968,179, filed 1997‑11‑12, granted 1998‑10‑06, a continuation of Ser. No. 08/568,355 filed 1995‑12‑06 (abandoned). Priority date is therefore 1995‑12‑06, and because that predates the AIA, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)/(b)/(e) governs. The full text you supplied is the authoritative source and I have not auto-corrected any identifier in it.

Two record-keeping observations made literally, per your instruction:

• Google Patents lists the "Current Assignee" as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. This is internally inconsistent with the rest of the record: the inventor is Armistead, the original assignee is "Individual," and the recorded assignment document (Reel/Frame 008922/0825, dated 1997‑12‑05) names assignors Klein, Selcuk, Kepler, Lee, Horne and Spence — none of whom is Armistead. I report the listed assignee as it appears but flag it as an apparent data mismatch, not a true ownership chain.
• The title recites a "method," but all 13 claims are apparatus claims directed to the case itself. There are no method claims in this patent. That materially narrows the prior-art attack surface.

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1. The claim set that prior art must be measured against

Only claim 1 is independent; claims 2–13 all depend, directly or indirectly, on claim 1. Claim 1 requires, in combination:

Dependent claims add: 2/5 facings + post‑and‑cap rivet; 3 facings + snap; 4 leather facings sewn; 6 clip of strong material resistant to permanent deformation; 7 the specific five‑part clip + two‑aperture interface geometry; 8 tempered spring steel clip + leather interface; 9 polypropylene outer shell; 10 EVA foam inner shell; 11 polyadhesive glue layer; 12/13 phone‑to‑liner gap of 0.5–4.0 mm.

Controlling legal point: anticipation under § 102 requires a single reference disclosing every limitation, and a dependent claim is anticipated only if the reference also discloses everything in the claim(s) from which it depends. No reference cited of record discloses all of elements A–G of claim 1. Consequently, there is no clean § 102 anticipation of claim 1 or of any claim depending from it on this record. The citations function as § 103 obviousness art, and the honest answer to "which claim(s) does each reference potentially anticipate" is that most references are relevant only to identified sub‑combinations. I flag the few that come closest to a complete sub‑combination below.

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2. Most relevant prior art — detailed treatment

2.1 US 5,450,993 (Guerrero et al.; Motorola, Inc.) — closest to claim 1 element F

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,450,993, "Carry holder," Guerrero et al., Motorola, Inc.
• Filed 1994‑02‑07; issued 1995‑09‑19 → prior art under pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(e) (filed and granted before the 1995‑12‑06 priority date).
• Disclosure (verified): A carry-holder housing with front and rear walls. The rear wall has first and second slotted portions near its top through which an elongated looped elastic strap/cord is mounted; the elastically mounted strap couples to a latch member, and the front wall carries an integral latch retainer with a hook catch that the latch member hooks onto. The reference expressly discusses mounting the elastic member to both the housing and the latch member with a "taut fit."
• Claims potentially anticipated: This is the single closest reference to the strap architecture of claim 1 (element F) — elastic element anchored at the rear wall, running over the open top, and releasably engaged at the front wall. It also bears on claims 2, 3 and 5 (manner of fastening the strap ends). It does not disclose element E (rigid outer + resilient inner shell), element D (side recesses), or the antenna‑exposing geometry, so it does not anticipate claim 1 as a whole. Verdict: primary § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation.

2.2 US 4,667,374 (Bianchi International) — closest to claim 7 (and claim 8)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 4,667,374, "Holster clip," Bianchi International.
• Filed 1981‑12‑04; issued 1987‑05‑26.
• Disclosure (verified): A spring‑metal, U‑shaped clip with resiliently biased inner and outer legs, secured to a body by interfitment with a stiff leather panel sewn to the body, the panel having upper and lower slots (28, 30) with a land (32) between them. The clip's inner leg passes behind the panel; the clip may be recessed to block sliding along the belt.
• Claims potentially anticipated: The two‑aperture interface + clip geometry is remarkably close to claim 7 (stationary section between interface and rear panel; lip/curve portion through first and second apertures; spring section overlying the interface; locking section engaging the lip) and to claim 8 (tempered spring steel clip + leather interface — Bianchi's panel 14 is expressly leather). It also supports claim 6 (clip of strong material resistant to permanent deformation). Because claims 6–8 depend from claim 1, full anticipation is unavailable unless combined with a conforming case; but as to the clip/interface sub‑combination, this is the most on‑point reference in the entire cited set. Verdict: strongest § 102‑style reference for the clip sub‑combination; § 103 in practice.

2.3 US 4,858,798 (Siddoway et al.; Motorola, Inc.) — closest to claims 1(G), 6, 7

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 4,858,798, "Carry case with quick release and self locating retainer apparatus," Motorola, Inc. (see also GB 2 216 107 A / CA 1 300 096 C).
• Filed 1988‑02‑29; issued 1989‑08‑22. (Well before priority.)
• Disclosure (verified): A carry case of soft, resilient, shock‑absorbing material (leather or nylon canvas) with a semirigid retainer bracket riveted to the interior back wall, a flexible belt flap on the backside riveted at the top (rivets 24) and releasably closed by snap buttons (26a/26b), cutouts for switch access, and top openings. Critically, it states the very problem Armistead recites: prior cases "may well fail to keep the portable apparatus in the case when the user bends over or otherwise causes the carrying case and radio to deviate substantially from the vertical," and that hard rigid plastic cases are "susceptible to damage by impact."
• Claims potentially anticipated: Relevant to claim 1 element G (belt attachment), to claim 3 (snap closure), claim 5 (rivet attachment), and to the § 103 motivation to combine soft/rigid materials. Because it discloses a soft case with no rigid outer shell and no resilient inner shell, it cannot anticipate claims 1, 9‑11. Verdict: § 103 reference and key background/motivation art; no § 102 anticipation.

2.4 US 5,265,720 (Meliconi S.p.A.) — closest to claims 10 and 11

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,265,720, "Shock‑proof protective jacket for a remote control unit," Meliconi S.p.A. (Italy).
• Filed 1991‑12‑05; issued 1993‑11‑30.
• Disclosure (verified): A structurally monolithic, elastically deformable elastomer (polyurethane) jacket of substantially parallelepiped (six‑wall) form, with an opening/window in the superior wall for insertion and access, and windows/slits in the inferior wall to relieve tension. The reference recites tensile, elongation, tear, abrasion and compressive‑strength parameters for the jacket body.
• Claims potentially anticipated: Bears on claim 1 element E ("resilient, deformable material" cushioning the device) and on the concept of a snug, shape‑conforming protective sleeve; also on claim 11 (a bonded/molded layer construction). It is not an EVA foam, is not a rigid polypropylene shell, and has no strap, no clip and no front/rear panel interface, so it neither anticipates claim 1 nor claims 9–11 as written. Verdict: § 103 reference for the cushioning layer; no § 102 anticipation.

2.5 US 4,046,295 (Eichler; Motorola, Inc.) — closest to claims 1(G), 6

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 4,046,295, "Carrying device for portable article," Jay H. Eichler, Motorola, Inc.
• Filed 1975‑03‑31; issued 1977‑09‑06.
• Disclosure (verified): A back plate and a loop integrally molded as a single piece from relatively rigid plastic, a flexing latch with a projection extending over the radio, a belt flap riveted to the back (rivet 35), and no bottom wall. Expressly states a "belt flap or clip, or any other mounting, such as a swivel mounting, can be used to support the holder on a person."
• Claims potentially anticipated: Relevant to claim 1 element G and to claim 6 (clip/attachment), and to claim 5 (rivet fastening). No cushioning liner, no elastic cross‑strap. Verdict: § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation.

2.6 US 5,348,347 (Auto‑Shade, Inc.) — closest to the strap‑securing concept of claim 1

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,348,347, "Portable phone organizer," Auto‑Shade, Inc.
• Filed 1993‑07‑26; issued 1994‑09‑20.
• Disclosure: A pocketbook‑sized organizer storing a portable cellular phone, with a pair of straps that secure the portable phone to the organizer.
• Claims potentially anticipated: Bears on claim 1 element F (strap retaining the phone) and, in combination with 2.1/2.7, on the obviousness of the retaining‑strap feature. It is not a rigid shell and lacks the front/rear interface architecture. Verdict: § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation.

2.7 US 3,091,378 (O'Dwyer) — earliest "clip‑on case"

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 3,091,378, "Clip‑on case for score recording devices," John O'Dwyer.
• Filed 1961‑08‑03; issued 1963‑05‑28.
• Disclosure: A clip‑on case carried on the person for a small handheld recording device (the reference is itself cited in later holster patents, e.g., Bianchi et al. U.S. 4,101,060).
• Claims potentially anticipated: Bears on claim 1 element G / claim 6 as the archetypal clip‑on carrying case for a handheld instrument. Verdict: § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation.

2.8 US 5,351,868 (Bianchi International) — molded/laminated multi‑layer construction

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,351,868, "Molded laminated pouch," Bianchi International.
• Filed 1993‑01‑13; issued 1994‑10‑04.
• Disclosure: A molded, laminated pouch — i.e., a multi‑layer molded pouch construction.
• Claims potentially anticipated: Relevant to claims 9 and 11 (a molded outer shell and an intermediate bonding/adhesive layer between bonded layers). I have not re‑read the '868 specification line‑by‑line, so I flag this as a lead rather than a confirmed mapping. Verdict: § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation without verification.

2.9 US 4,903,745 (Roman) — detachable clip on a carried article

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 4,903,745, "Wallet with removable clip," D. Garry Roman.
• Filed 1987‑09‑22; issued 1990‑02‑27.
• Disclosure: A carried article with a pocket receiving a metal clip that can be easily detached.
• Claims potentially anticipated: Bears on claim 6 (detachable/strong attachment clip) and generally on the concept of a modular clip fixed to a carried body. Verdict: § 103 reference; no § 102 anticipation.

2.10 US 4,855,798 cross‑references and the belt‑clip cluster

US 4,667,374 and US 4,858,798 are the analytically load‑bearing members of the holster/belt‑clip cluster. The remaining clip/flap references (US 3,501,074; US 4,778,777; US 4,828,154; US 4,886,197; US 5,174,482; US 5,174,483; US 5,303,860; US 4,204,768; US 4,141,842; US 2,881,492; US 2,037,132; US 1,547,800; US 1,553,066) are cumulative, showing spring clips, holster bodies, and belt attachments generally.

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3. Full citation table for all 40 references of record

Publication dates are the "Date of Patent"; filing dates are as listed. "Predicate" = pre‑1995‑12‑06 availability.

References 39 and 40 warrant a specific flag: their publication dates post‑date the 1995‑12‑06 priority date, so they are not § 102(a)/(b) art. Their filing dates (1995‑07‑10 and 1995‑01‑19) precede it, so they remain available as § 102(e) art (U.S. patents/design patents granted on earlier‑filed U.S. applications) provided the applications were not subject to a common‑ownership/§ 103(c) disqualification. Both are design patents and, for the structural claims 1–13, are weak.

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4. What can and cannot be said about § 102

No cited reference anticipates claim 1, and therefore none anticipates any of claims 2–13, because:

1. The rearmost strap anchor + front detachable anchor + elastic cross‑strap (element F) is only fully shown in US 5,450,993, which lacks the rigid‑outer/resilient‑inner shell (element E), the side‑panel recesses (element D), and the antenna‑exposing open top geometry (element A/C).
2. The rigid‑outer/resilient‑inner shell combination (element E) is approached only by US 5,265,720 (a soft monolithic elastomer jacket — the opposite of a rigid impact‑resistant outer shell) and by the argument in US 4,858,798 that hard plastic cases are known but disfavored.
3. The clip/interface geometry of claim 7 is approached most closely by US 4,667,374, but that reference discloses no case conformed to a cellular phone, no cushioning shell, and no elastic strap.
4. Claims 9 (polypropylene), 10 (EVA foam), 11 (polyadhesive glue layer), 12–13 (0.5–4.0 mm gap) recite specific materials/dimensions that no cited reference discloses. Claim 12's "gap" and claim 13's numeric range in particular have no § 102 counterpart in the record; at most they are § 103 arguments turning on routine optimization of the positive‑model enlargement described in the specification at column 5.

Verdict: the prior art of record supports § 103 obviousness challenges (chiefly Motorola '993 + Bianchi '374 + Meliconi '720 + Motorola '798), not § 102 anticipation. Any assertion of anticipation against this patent would require art outside the 40 references cited on its face.

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5. Forward‑citation note (not prior art)

The "Cited By" family (95 documents) is not prior art to US 5,816,459 — those documents cite Armistead as prior art. Notable examples that repeatedly rely on this patent include US 5,264,727? — no; the confirming examples are US 6,000,592 ("Holster with removable insert," Clanin), US 6,367,672, FR 2,796,228 A1 ("Mobile telephone protection cover having rigid/semi‑rigid shock‑proof shell"), WO 02/019864 A1 ("A casing and a method to produce the same"), the Otter Products enclosure family (e.g., US 9,402,122), US 8,204,561 (Speculative Product Design — "one piece co‑formed exterior hard shell case with an elastomeric liner"), US 8,383,216, and US 8,777,002 (Shark‑Eye — "protective case with substantially‑rigid outer layer and cushioning inner layer"). These confirm that the Armistead outer‑rigid/inner‑resilient two‑shell architecture is the feature the later art treats as the salient disclosure.

I also note that US 5,816,459 is itself currently being used as an asserted prior‑art reference in PTAB proceedings involving Otter Products (petitions 1460576 and 1461918), where Armistead is characterized as disclosing a "one‑piece case" with a rigid outer shell formed around an inner EVA shell bonded by polyadhesive glue (Ex. 1007 at 6:35‑38 and 7:18‑22). That characterisation is consistent with the specification text you supplied.

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6. Bottom line

• Patent verified: US 5,816,459 B1, Armistead, appl. 08/968,179, filed 1997‑11‑12, issued 1998‑10‑06, priority 1995‑12‑06, 13 claims (claim 1 sole independent), expired for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2006‑10‑06.
• Most relevant prior art, in order: (1) US 5,450,993 (Motorola — elastic strap anchored rear / latched front, closest to claim 1 element F); (2) US 4,667,374 (Bianchi — spring‑steel clip through a two‑slot leather panel, closest to claims 7 and 8); (3) US 4,858,798 (Motorola — soft case, riveted belt flap, snap closure, and the same "falls out when bending" motivation); (4) US 4,046,295 (Motorola — rigid molded holder with latch and riveted belt flap); (5) US 5,265,720 (Meliconi — shape‑conforming resilient protective jacket, closest to the inner‑shell element); with US 5,348,347, US 5,351,868, US 3,091,378 and US 4,903,745 as secondary § 103 supports.
• Anticipation: none of claims 1–13 is anticipated by any single reference of record; the citations are obviousness art only.

Confidence/limitations. My verification of US 5,450,993, US 4,667,374, US 4,858,798, US 4,046,295 and US 5,265,720 is grounded in retrieved full‑text/abstract content (Google Patents and mirrors, plus the PTAB petition documents). For US 5,351,868, US 5,348,347, US 3,091,378 and US 4,903,745 I have title/abstract‑level grounding only and have flagged those mappings as leads rather than confirmed. I could not reach USPTO PatentCenter or the USPTO full‑text search interface directly; the record above is drawn from the authoritative text you supplied plus Google Patents/freepatentsonline mirrors. I did not obtain the full specification of each of the 40 references, so per‑limitation mapping for the lower‑relevance references is by subject matter rather than claim chart.

I'll verify the key prior-art references of record before building the § 103 combinations, since I want to ground the mapping in actual disclosure rather than titles alone.

Strong material. Let me check the remaining key references — the holster clip, the Motorola carry device, and whether a hard-shell-plus-foam-liner phone case existed pre-1995.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,816,459 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent: US 5,816,459 A ("Protective carrying case and method for making same")
Inventor of record: Thomas M. Armistead · App. 08/968,179 filed 1997‑11‑12 as a continuation of Ser. No. 08/568,355 (filed 1995‑12‑06, now abandoned) → effective filing/priority date: 1995‑12‑06
Claims analyzed: 13 (1 independent, 12 dependent). No process claims issued.
Status: Lapsed for non‑payment of maintenance fees, effective 2006‑10‑06 (per the legal‑events record on the Google Patents page). This §103 analysis is therefore retrospective.

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0. Scope, sources, and confidence caveats

You asked me to use the Prior Art section of this page — i.e., the 40 "Citations" of record and the citing/similar‑document lists on the US 5,816,459 record. I verified the four load‑bearing references against primary sources rather than relying on titles:

Caveats I will not paper over:

• I could not retrieve the full text of several other cited references — notably US4046295 (Motorola, "Carrying device for portable article"), the design patents (USD284372, USD297188, USD316999, USD322719, USD329542, USD343291, USD346494, USD362542, USD371137, USD378020), and most of the pre‑1970 gun/pipe holster art. Any mapping I make to those is title/abstract‑level only and is flagged as such. Two of my lookups (US 4,046,295 and a general "pre‑1995 hard‑shell phone case" search) were cut off by a step limit and returned no data.
• I therefore rest the affirmative §103 case primarily on US 5,450,993, US 4,858,798, US 5,260,720, US 5,351,868, and US 4,667,374, all of which I read directly.
• The assignee anomaly already flagged in the bibliographic section (an Advanced Micro Devices assignment on the Google Patents record naming Klein/Selcuk/Kepler/Horne/Lee/Spence) has no bearing on the obviousness analysis and I do not resolve it here.
• One drafting note relevant to claim construction: the specification refers to "base portion 402 of snap 203" at one point while the snap is elsewhere designated 208. Claim 3 itself says only "a snap." I treat "203" as the same element as "208" (the spec's own text is internally inconsistent) and note it as a latent §112 issue rather than a §103 issue.

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1. Legal framework, the POSITA, and the prior‑art status of the cited references

1.1 The governing test

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), obviousness is decided on: (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill; and (4) objective indicia. KSR supplies the operative tools here:

• "Familiar elements according to known methods": "When a patent simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious." (KSR, quoting Sakraida.)
• "Obvious to try": where there is "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions," the combination is obvious.
• Design incentives / market forces: predictable variation driven by known market demands is obvious.
• "The patent's own disclosure" can supply the motivation: an applicant's own specification admitting a component is a matter of design choice is an admission against interest (see In re Nomiya; MPEP § 2144.04).

1.2 Person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

The POSITA here is a mechanical/product designer with roughly 2–4 years of experience in design and manufacture of personal carrying cases or holsters for portable handheld electronic devices (leather/soft goods and molded-plastic construction), working in 1995, with access to standard molding, sewing, riveting, and snap‑fastener techniques. The field is not research‑intensive; there is no doctorate requirement, and the patent's own description confirms the practice was a bench/workshop craft (positive models, alginate impressions, convection ovens, vacuum tables, "polyadhesive glue," "cut and buffed"; see spec).

1.3 Prior‑art status of the cited references (all 40 predate the Dec. 6, 1995 priority date)

Because the application is a continuation of a Dec. 6, 1995 parent, the effective date is December 6, 1995. Every one of the 40 cited references issued, and most published, well before that date. Two timing refinements matter:

• US 5,450,993 issued Sept. 19, 1995 — less than one year before the Dec. 6, 1995 priority date, so it is not §102(b) art against the Dec. 6, 1995 date. It is, however, squarely available as §102(a) art (patented before the applicant's filing date) and, more robustly, as §102(e) art as of its Feb. 7, 1994 U.S. filing date, which precedes the Dec. 6, 1995 invention date. A §103 attack can therefore still use it even if the applicant were to swear behind the Sept. 1995 grant.
• US 5,351,868 (Oct. 4, 1994), US 5,260,720 (Nov. 30, 1993), US 4,858,798 (Aug. 22, 1989), and US 4,667,374 (May 26, 1987) all comfortably predate the critical date and are §102(b)/(a) art on any view.

1.4 A procedural realism note

All five of my lead references were before the examiner (they appear in the "Citations (40)" list). That matters: a challenger must overcome the 35 U.S.C. § 282 presumption of validity, and the burden is heavier where the art was considered. The countervailing point is that the examiner allowed the case by treating these references individually; the examiner's apparent reasoning is not in the record I have, and obviousness is judged on the combined teachings, which is precisely where these references converge. I could not retrieve the prosecution history (no office actions or applicant remarks in the file I was given), so I flag that gap.

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2. Claim 1 limitation‑by‑limitation mapping

Claim 1's elements, and the disclosure that meets each (independent of combination, for clarity of the mapping):

Net takeaway: element 6 — the elastic strap crossing the open top with one end on the rear panel and a detachable end on the front panel — is almost literally disclosed by US 5,450,993, decided nine months before the '459 priority date by the same company whose phone the '459 specification names as the working example ("Motorola micro T‑A‑C ultra lite"). What US 5,450,993 does not show is the dual‑shell rigid‑plus‑cushion construction (elements 5a/5b) and, from the excerpt I retrieved, the belt‑attachment means (element 7).

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3. The combinations

Combination A (lead) — US 5,450,993 + US 5,260,720 + US 5,351,868 + US 4,858,798

What each contributes

• US 5,450,993 supplies the entire case architecture for a portable handheld electronic device: an injection‑molded plastic housing with defined rear/side/front walls and an open top, an elastic strap, a rear‑wall anchor, a front‑wall detachable retainer, and dimensional tolerance for insertion/removal.
• US 5,260,720 supplies the concept of protecting a handheld portable electronic instrument (a remote control, i.e., the same class of device) by encasing it in a shock‑protective jacket whose walls are designed specifically to absorb impact.
• US 5,351,868 supplies the layered teaching: a carrying article whose body combines a rigid, shape‑retaining structure with a compressible polyfoam cushion, made by molding under heat and pressure so that some regions become "substantially rigid" and others remain foam. In other words, '868 teaches the very idea of co‑existing rigid and cushioning regions in one belt‑carried pouch.
• US 4,858,798 supplies the belt‑attachment and snap/rivet practice, plus explicit recognition of the buckling‑over retention problem (below).

Why the POSITA would combine them

1. Same field of endeavor. All four are article carriers for portable handheld items worn on or carried by a person. US 5,450,993 and US 4,858,798 are Motorola carry cases for portable radios; US 5,260,720 is a protective jacket for a handheld electronic instrument; US 5,351,868 is a belt‑carried pouch. KSR's "same field" and "reasonably pertinent to the problem" framing is satisfied without stretching.
2. The references identify the very problems the '459 background names. The '459 background states two failures of the prior art: (a) soft‑sided cases "do not provide impact protection if, for example, the phone is dropped," and (b) cases "may fail to retain the cellular phone in the case if the person bends over or deviates from a generally upright position." US 4,858,798's own background contains the near‑verbatim statement that prior cases "may well fail to keep the portable apparatus in the case when the user bends over or otherwise causes the carrying case and radio to deviate substantially from the vertical." That is about as clean an evidentiary link as exists: the prior art expressly framed the problem, and '459 restates it as its own motivation. In KSR terms, the "design incentive" is in the art itself.
3. The references supply the known solutions to those problems. Impact protection → '720 and '868's foam/elastomer layers. Retention against bending → '993's elastic‑strap‑plus‑latch and '798's snap‑secured flap and retainer bracket. Belt attachment → '798's flap, '374's clip.
4. Predictable results. A rigid outer shell resisting impact plus a foam liner absorbing transmitted energy is the archetypal, expected architecture; nothing in the combination produces an unexpected property. '868 already teaches the superposition of rigid and cushioning regions in one molded article, which is the mechanical heart of claims 1 and 11.
5. The patent's own specification is an admission of interchangeability. Claim 1's "attachment means," "securing mechanism," and "strap" are described as "any mechanism"/"any material"; the liners are listed as "EVA, EVA lite, nickel plast, nickel plast lite, pelite or other material having a standard duramitor of 15 to 50 … Shore A"; the shell as "polypropylene … co‑polymer plastic or ABS"; the detachable interface as "Velcro … or a pin and slot combination … Preferably, however, … a snap." Under In re Nomiya / MPEP § 2144.04, these are the applicant's own characterizations of the invention as a selection among known alternatives — a self‑inflicted obviousness admission on the dependent claims in particular.

A single‑reference shortcut worth noting. US 5,450,993's housing is a one‑piece injection‑molded plastic housing that already achieves the "rigid, impact‑resistant" function; lining that pocket with a polyfoam or EVA cushion (per '868's polyfoam layer or '720's elastomer) requires nothing more than the ordinary skill of a case designer and produces the predictable cushioning result. This is arguably a two‑reference case as to claim 1.

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Combination B — US 5,450,993 + US 5,351,868 + US 4,667,374 (best for the clip sub‑claims)

• US 5,450,993 → housing, strap, rear/front anchoring, molded‑plastic body.
• US 5,351,868 → rigid/cushion laminate body (dual‑shell substitute).
• US 4,667,374 → the belt‑clip art, and specifically:

"the invention clip is depicted generally at 10 secured to holster 12 by interfittment with stiff leather panel 14 sewn to the holster and defining a clip mounting structure … The support structure panel 14 has upper and lower slots 28, 30 and land 32 therebetween, so that the inner leg 20 of the clip 10 may be passed behind the panel."

That is a spring‑metal clip threaded through two apertures in a stiff leather panel that is fastened to the article to be carried, with an outer leg bearing on the belt and a structure (recessed outer face) to prevent sliding/dislodgement. It is the closest prior art to claims 6–8 (see §4).

Motivation: '374 is from the same maker (Bianchi) that produced '868 in the same record, both in the duty‑gear/holster field; the problem — "securing housing to a person" and preventing dislodgement — is identical; and the specific improvement of a spring clip that will not slide off a belt is precisely what '459 claim 7's lip/locking‑section combination is aiming at.

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Combination C — US 5,450,993 + US 5,260,720 + US 4,858,798 (avoids reliance on '868; broader art base)

Even if a challenger conceded that '868's laminate pouch is only "analogous art" and not combinable for cushioning, US 5,260,720 alone teaches a shock‑protective elastomeric jacket for a handheld electronic instrument with thickness‑varying walls specifically for shock absorption and for "better ensuring the housed instrument protection against lateral shocks." The '720 family (the abstract of the related EP 0 504 359 application describes the envelope as suitable for "télécommandes … et d'autres instruments tels que des téléphones, des calculatrices et des réveil‑matin" — remote controls and other instruments such as telephones, calculators and alarm clocks) expressly contemplates telephones as the protected instrument. So the POSITA combining '993 with '720 would be applying a phone‑applicable shock jacket to a phone holder — the definition of an obvious combination. (I flag that EP 0 504 359 is not part of the '459 record; I cite it only as corroboration of what the '720 disclosure, of record, is about.)

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The "obvious to try" overlay

Where the claims recite a selection, the specifications identify a closed, finite set of options:

• Outer shell: polypropylene / co‑polymer / ABS (claim 9 selects polypropylene)
• Inner shell: EVA / EVA lite / nickel plast / nickel plast lite / pelite (claim 10 selects EVA), with a durometer window of 15–50 Shore A, preferably 30–35
• Detachable interface: snap / Velcro / pin-and-slot (claim 3 selects snap)
• Facings: leather, two pieces sewn, or one piece folded and sewn (claim 4)
• Fastener: post‑and‑cap rivet (claim 5)

Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious"; and where there are "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions," the selection is obvious. This specification is close to a textbook illustration.

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4. Claim‑by‑claim obviousness disposition

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5. Teaching‑away and objective‑indicia rebuttals (the patentee's side)

A competent challenger should pre‑empt these, and a competent patentee would raise them:

5.1 US 5,450,993 disparages snaps and rivets — a possible teaching‑away from claim 3.
US 5,450,993's background expressly states: "Snaps and rivets have been commonly used for this application … snap and rivet mechanisms tend to be cumbersome to use and may be unreliable … the snaps may be inadvertently released causing the product to fall from the carry holder … snaps and rivets may create stress points which can adversely affect the structural integrity of the carry holder." But '459 claims 3 and 5 are snap and post‑and‑cap rivet claims. This is the single best non‑obviousness argument available on the dependent claims.

Challenger's answer: the teaching‑away doctrine requires that the reference's criticism be of the claimed solution as a whole in a way that would discourage the POSITA from the claimed combination, not a mere preference among alternatives (In re Fulton; DePuy Spine v. Medtronic). '993's criticism is a reliability complaint about a specific retention mechanism; '993 itself still mounts parts with fastener-type structures, and '798 (same assignee, Motorola, of record) expressly uses snap buttons with a riveted base. Two Motorola references in the record take opposite views on snaps, which defeats a categorical "teaching away" and leaves at most a preference. Additionally, '459's own spec lists Velcro and pin‑and‑slot as equivalents, confirming the choice was regarded as a design option.

5.2 US 4,858,798 is a soft‑sided case — no rigid shell.
A patentee could argue '798 teaches away from hard shells by design ("soft, resilient, shock absorbing material"). Answer: '798 is cited only for the belt attachment, cutout geometry, and snap practice; the rigid teaching comes from '993 ('993's molded polycarbonate housing) and '868 (rigid molded regions), so '798's soft‑goods teaching is not load‑bearing for the outer‑shell element.

5.3 Meliconi ('720) is a monolithic elastomer jacket — arguably the opposite of a two‑shell design.
True: '720 teaches a one‑piece jacket, whereas claim 1 requires two discrete shells. But '868 fills exactly that gap by teaching the same article containing both stiff and compressible regions — and '720 remains relevant to motivation (shock‑protective enclosure for a handheld electronic instrument) and to claim 10's cushioning material. If a challenger wants to reduce dependence on '720, Combination B ('868 + '374) does so.

5.4 Objective indicia (§4). There is no evidence in the record I reviewed of: commercial success with a nexus to the claims, long‑felt but unsolved need, industry praise, copying, failed attempts by others, or licensing. The patent lapsed in 2006 for non‑payment of maintenance fees and — per the litigation section already prepared — surfaces no assertion activity, which undercuts any "industry recognized and valued this invention" narrative. Absent such evidence, the Graham factor (4) is neutral or weighs against patentability. I state this as an absence of evidence in the sources I could reach, not as proof that no such evidence exists.

5.5 Presumption of validity / art already considered. Every lead reference is in the "Citations (40)" list, so a challenger must show why the examiner's allowance was wrong despite consideration — typically by showing the examiner failed to appreciate the combined teachings (particularly that '993's elastic strap + rear/front anchoring and '868's rigid‑plus‑foam structure together meet claim 1). This is a burden, not a defense on the merits.

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6. Bottom line

Claim 1 is, in my assessment, the most vulnerable to a §103 challenge but not a "slam‑dunk" invalid — because the strongest single reference of record (US 5,450,993, Motorola's carry holder, filed Feb. 7, 1994, granted Sept. 19, 1995) reads almost element‑for‑element on the claim's strap/housing architecture, and the only genuinely missing element — rigid outer shell plus resilient inner shell — is directly taught by US 5,351,868 (molded laminate with a polyfoam core and substantially rigid molded regions) and US 5,260,720 (shock‑protective jacket for a handheld electronic instrument), with US 4,858,798 supplying the belt attachment and the verbatim framing of the "bends over / deviates from upright" retention problem that the '459 background restates.

The dependent claims collapse quickly, most of all claims 9–13 (material substitution, adhesive bonding, clearance gap, and a sub‑range within the applicant's own disclosed range), and claims 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 (routine leather‑goods and spring‑clip expedients).

Claim 7 is where the patent has its best (though not comfortable) footing, because none of the references of record discloses the full closed‑loop clip geometry in which the spring section overlies the interface and the locking section engages a lip protruding through a second aperture. The nearest art — US 4,667,374's two‑slot stiff leather mounting panel with a spring‑metal clip leg passed behind it and a recessed outer leg to block sliding — covers the apertures, the sandwiched section, and the anti‑dislodgement function, but not the lip/curve/locking‑section interengagement. A challenger relying solely on the record would likely need to reach for US 5,081,709 (Motorola's leaf‑spring belt clip with a pivoting locking finger — found in my search but not among the '459 citations), and would have to argue "obvious to try" over the field of holster clips.

Two things I want to be explicit about, per your instructions:

1. I did not correct any identifier. The Klip reference renders in the record as "US4667374A"; my independent check found the corresponding U.S. grant with exactly the record's filing (1981‑12‑04) and issue (1987‑05‑26) dates, so I have used US 4,667,374 while noting the record's rendering. Nothing else in the record was silently changed.
2. The AMD assignment entry and the Japanese JP 5816459 B2 collision noted in the earlier sections have no effect on this §103 analysis, and I have left them exactly as reported.

If you want a harder answer, the next steps would be: (a) pull the full prosecution file for 08/968,179 to see the examiner's stated reasons for allowance and any applicant remarks distinguishing these references (I could not retrieve it); (b) obtain the complete text of US 4,046,295 and the USD design patents, which I could not retrieve and which may add OR detract from the case; and (c) run a pre‑1995 hard‑shell‑plus‑foam‑liner search outside the record, since the art of record is what the examiner already considered.