US 7672219

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent.

Let me refine my search for litigation and any 2026 Federal Circuit activity.

Let me look specifically for the claims and litigation/post-grant history.

Patent Analysis Report — US 7,672,219

Scope note on my search: I searched for the exact number "7672219" / "7,672,219" and for CAFC 2026 dockets referencing it. I did not find any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding naming this patent. Several results that surface when searching near-adjacent strings refer to different patents (e.g., U.S. 7,679,637 in U.S. Patent No. 7,679,637 LLC v. Google LLC, Fed. Cir. Jan. 22, 2026, 2026 WL 174922; and a "‘221 patent" in a District of Delaware § 101 brief that is a media-content patent, not US 7,672,219). Per the operating rule, I am treating these as unrelated numbers and not substituting them for 7,672,219.

1. Bibliographic data

Important correction to an easy misreading of the record: the face of the patent lists a single inventor (Geile), but the USPTO assignment records for this application list a large inventor/assignor group including Calvin G. Nelson, Scott Sarnikowski, Debra Lea Enfield, Joe Hall, Thomas Smigelski, Mark S. Wadman, Mark J. Dapper, Thomas C. Tucker, Brian D. Anderson, Adam Opoczynski, Joseph F. Chiappetta, James J. Herrmann, Terrance J. Hill, Niranjan R. Samant, Somvay Boualouang, Jeffrey Brede, Steven P. Buska, Michael J. Fort, Michael J. Geile, John M. Logajan, Heng Lou, David S. Russell, Darrell Berg, Matt Downs, Mark D. Elpers, Tammy Ferris, Robert J. Kirscht, Harold A. Roberts, and Jeff Solum. That is consistent with the 11/671,786 application being a continuation of a much older 1995-era application in the ADC "multicarrier telephony transport" family (see below). A corrective assignment in 2009 also corrected "Thomas G. Tucker" to "Thomas C. Tucker" and Joe Hall's execution date.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7672219 ; https://hu.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=20100302&DB=EPODOC&locale=hu_hu&CC=US&NR=[7672219B2](/patent/7672219B2)&KC=B2&ND=9

2. Abstract / disclosure summary

The patent describes a multipoint-to-point communication system for multicarrier telephony transport over a hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) distribution network. A head end terminal transmits downstream control data and downstream telephony information in a first frequency bandwidth, and receives upstream telephony information and upstream control data in a second frequency bandwidth. The head end includes a head end multicarrier modem that modulates/demodulates telephony information onto a plurality of orthogonal (OFDM) carriers. Each service unit (associated with remote units) has a service unit multicarrier modem that modulates upstream telephony information onto at least one carrier that is orthogonal, at the head end, to at least one other carrier, and demodulates downstream information from a band of orthogonal carriers. A service unit controller controls the modem.

The specification's summary also discloses a cluster of related techniques, which is why the document runs to 181 claims:

• Control channels interspersed among payload channels in both directions; payload sub-bands each containing multiple data channels plus a control (IOC) channel, enabling cheaper narrowband remote modems.
• Scrambling payload channels with pseudorandom sequences (different sequences per channel) to avoid untoward spectral effects from repetitive data.
• Locking carrier and symbol clocks to a common source, and transmitting each symbol with more than 360° of phase per carrier cycle, to reduce intersymbol interference.
• Flexible FEC: transparent real-time handling of parity-type and Reed-Solomon-type error control by repacking data words, with staggered message start times to spread processor load.
• Differential BPSK for IOC channels and QAM32 for payload channels, with Gray-code-like constellation mapping to minimize bit errors.
• Polyphase filters (including two overlapping, offset polyphase filters) at the head-end demodulator for ingress protection, plus a tunable notch filter to block corrupted carriers.
• Channel monitoring using the parity bit of an n-bit channel to derive a probable bit error rate, compared against predetermined thresholds over short and long observation windows, to decide whether to reallocate a corrupted channel or raise its transmit power; also equalizer-based monitoring and periodic monitoring of unallocated channels.
• Distributed system control for acquisition and tracking of newly connected remote service units (frequency, phase, symbol-timing estimation; round-trip delay; a special non-valid data signal to mark the start of a training pattern).
• Power balancing/leveling among upstream remote units using a head-end AGC/equalizer combined with remote transmitter output power control.
• Scanning: remote units scan downstream regions, lock onto each region's control channel, read a unique identifier, and thereby learn which downstream region to tune to and which upstream region to transmit in.
• FFT/DFT machinery: mixed-radix FFT flow graphs, a three-part RAM structure with permutable input/conversion/output functions, and a Sigma-Delta ADC with decimation producing bandwidth-limited digital I and Q signals (e.g., 200 kHz analog modem bandwidth) at high resolution.

3. Independent claims — plain-language overview

Uncertainty flag (important): My tools retrieved the patent's specification and summary-of-invention text, plus a record confirming 181 claims, but I could not retrieve the authoritative verbatim claim text of US 7,672,219. Accordingly, I will not fabricate claim language. What follows is what the independent claims are drawn to, based on the patent's own "summary of the invention" passages and its prior-art keyword set (isu, data, upstream, telephony, downstream) — and it is inference, not a quotation.

The independent claims appear to fall into these families:

1. Multipoint-to-point multicarrier telephony system. A head end terminal (head end multicarrier modem + head end controller) that sends downstream control data and downstream telephony on orthogonal carriers in a first bandwidth, and receives upstream control data and upstream telephony on orthogonal carriers in a second bandwidth; plus at least one service unit (service unit multicarrier modem + service unit controller) that transmits upstream on a carrier orthogonal at the head end to another carrier in the second bandwidth and receives downstream from a band of orthogonal carriers. In plain terms: a many-to-one OFDM telephony system where the head end and each remote each have an OFDM modem and a controller, and the remotes' upstream carriers are orthogonal to each other as seen at the head end.

2. Channel-structure claims (control channels among payload channels). Versions where the downstream carriers include at least one control channel plus multiple telephony channels; where control channels are interspersed among the telephony channels; and where telephony channels are grouped into sub-bands, each sub-band having multiple payload channels and a control channel. Plainly: dividing the OFDM spectrum into payload sub-bands, each with its own control channel, so the remote modem can be a narrowband device.

3. Configurable/adaptive modulation and scrambling claims. Different modulation on different carriers and/or different telephony channels (e.g., BPSK control channels, QAM32 payload channels), and scrambling payload data with pseudorandom sequences, with different sequences per channel, to flatten the multicarrier spectrum.

4. Ingress-protection claims (polyphase filtering). A head end demodulator with polyphase filter(s) — including first and second overlapping/offset polyphase filters, each passing a different plurality of channels of non-contiguous channel sets, such that together all desired channels are passed. Also a receiver apparatus claim and a method of polyphase filtering claim, plus variants using a tunable notch filter to block corrupted carriers. Plainly: filtering the upstream OFDM band with offset polyphase filter banks so that noise/ingress outside the wanted channels is rejected without losing wanted channels.

5. Channel-monitoring / error-rate claims. Methods that sample a parity bit of an n-bit telephony channel, derive a probable bit error rate, compare it to predetermined thresholds (and, in one variant, over a shorter first period and a longer, concurrent second period), and thereby decide whether the channel is corrupted — with the option to reallocate the channel or increase its transmit power. Companion claims monitor via equalizer adaptation and periodically monitor unallocated channels, accumulating error data to decide whether to allocate them.

6. Power/level and acquisition control claims. A system in which the head end controller detects a local transmission characteristic of a service-unit modem and sends an adjustment command in downstream control data, and the service-unit controller adjusts a local transmission characteristic in response; and an acquisition/tracking process using a special non-valid data signal to mark a training pattern for newly connected remotes.

7. Scanning claims. A system with a plurality of downstream regions (each with control data on control channels) and a scanner in each service-unit modem that scans the regions, locks onto each region's control channel, and detects a unique identifier to determine which downstream region to tune to and which upstream region to transmit in.

8. Signal-processing claims (FFT and Sigma-Delta ADC/decimation). A fast Fourier transform method/apparatus (mixed-radix, with a three-part RAM whose input/conversion/output functions are permutable, and a conversion RAM section configured to offer four values for simultaneous access), and a Sigma-Delta analog-to-digital conversion-and-decimation method/apparatus for a modem.

Again — items 1–8 reflect the specification's stated inventive aspects and are my best characterization of what the independent claims cover; the precise claim boundaries would need confirmation from the granted claim set (USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents "Claims (181)" tab / Espacenet original document).

4. Enforcement / litigation history (verified from the record)

• HTC Corporation v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Civil Action No. 1:11-cv-00715 — HTC asserted US 7,672,219, US 7,417,944, and US 7,765,414 (August 2011), seeking damages (including a request for treble damages) and an injunction, and simultaneously filed a parallel ITC complaint. US 7,672,219 and 7,417,944 came from the ADC Telecommunications portfolio that HTC acquired in April 2011 (~82 patents, reported at ~$75 million); US 7,765,414 was HTC's own. Google Patents' litigation links point to these same two dockets: Delaware 1:11-cv-00715 and ITC 337-TA-808, and to a Darts-ip first-worldwide-family-litigation entry for family 27095858.
• CAFC 2026 check: no results. I found no Federal Circuit appeal docketed in 2026 (and no ITC or PTAB 2026 activity) involving US 7,672,219. This is consistent with the patent having expired (fee-related, adjusted expiration 2016-03-23), which makes live appellate or ITC assertions in 2026 unlikely.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219/en (litigation and assignment links) ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A11-cv-00715 ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/International%20Trade%20Commission/case/337-TA-808 ; https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=27095858

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim granted claims of US 7,672,219. The claim-count is confirmed (181), but the claim-by-claim plain-language mapping in §3 is derived from the patent's summary-of-invention text and is inference, not authoritative claim language. Anyone needing the literal independent-claim scope should read the granted claims directly.
2. No 2026 CAFC docket found. I found no 2026 Federal Circuit, ITC, or PTAB matter naming this patent. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence, but it is my honest state of knowledge.
3. The applicant/prosecution history (e.g., whether the 181 claims issued on a first action, and what art was cited) was not retrieved; I have no authoritative information on the specific prior-art references applied during prosecution of 11/671,786.
4. Family scope: the pre-grant publication US 2007/0116209 A1 and sibling publications such as US 2007/0174890 ("Synchronized multipoint-to-point communication using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing") and US 2007/0192815 ("Method for tone hopping…") share the same lengthy specification, so text quoted from one may also appear in the others. I verified the identifier US 7,672,219 itself in each citation above.

I'll research litigation involving US 7,672,219 using the sources you specified.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers and outcomes.

Now let me verify the Delaware docket and check for any other cases involving this patent.

Litigation involving US Patent 7,672,219

Bottom line: I found one affirmative infringement case and two related proceedings in which US 7,672,219 ("the '219 patent") was at issue. All three were brought in the 2011–2012 Apple vs. HTC smartphone patent war and all terminated in the November 2012 global Apple–HTC settlement (dismissal of all lawsuits plus a 10‑year cross-license). I found no other litigation — no assertion against cable/telecom operators, no post‑2012 assertion, and no case after HTC acquired the patent from ADC Telecommunications in April 2011.

I did not auto-correct any identifiers; patent numbers and case numbers below are reproduced as they appear in the sources.

1. HTC Corporation v. Apple Inc. — D. Del. (affirmative infringement suit)

Sources: Communications Litigation Today, MacRumors, Android Community, TIPA/Taiwan IPO case compilations (tiponet PDF, mmot.org PDF), Apple/HTC joint press release.

2. In the Matter of Certain Electronic Devices with Communication Capabilities, Components Thereof, and Related Software — USITC

Note: one Finnegan LLP experience page lists the ALJ as "Judge Gildea"; the ITC press release and the Lexology/ITC Analytics reports identify ALJ Pender as the presiding ALJ who issued Order No. 16. I'm reporting both without correcting either.

Sources: USITC News Release 11-123, Lexology — ALJ Pender claim construction order, Unified Patents litigation portal — 337-TA-808, Finnegan experience page.

3. Apple Inc. v. HTC Corporation — FRAND/antitrust action touching the '219 patent (related, not an infringement suit)

Sources: TIPA case compilation (tiponet PDF); TIPA report discussing the June 21, 2012 Apple counterclaim and transfer to D. Del. (tiponet PDF).

What I did not find (explicit gaps)

• No other District Court or ITC cases asserting the '219 patent. Searches for the patent number and its ADC/HTC portfolio family returned only the Apple–HTC disputes above.
• No post-2012 assertions. Consistent with the patent's status on Google Patents: current assignee HTC Corp (assignment from ADC Telecommunications dated June 3, 2011), legally "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2016-03-23.
• No CAFC appeal involving the '219 patent. The ITC investigation terminated by settlement (reported 2013-01-10 / 2013-01-14), and the Delaware cases were dismissed, so no appellate decision exists for this patent.
• Caveat on procedural particulars: I could not pull the raw PACER docket for 1:11-cv-00715 or the ITC docket myself in this session. The August 15 vs. August 16, 2011 filing date discrepancy and the "HTC America as co-plaintiff" question should be verified directly against PACER/CourtListener and the ITC EDIS record before being relied upon. The Google Patents page for US 7,672,219 itself only flags two litigation links — ITC case 337-TA-808 and Delaware case 1:11-cv-00715 — plus a Darts-ip "first worldwide family litigation" reference (family 27095858), which is consistent with the findings above.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 7,672,219 ("Multipoint-to-point communication using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing")

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The canonical structured block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 7,672,219 as of the most recent ODP ingest; breakdown by status is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained in a Final Written Decision / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, with no PTAB-originating Federal Circuit appeals. Defensive-posture bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to lean on either way — no canceled claims to point at (so you cannot say "the troll's claims are already dead"), and no PTAB validity finding to overcome. The absence here does not read as "hardened patent" — it reads as a timing artifact explained in the strategic section below: this patent was only in force-and-asserted for roughly four months after IPR became available on 2012-09-16, and the record indicates it is now expired.

Because the structured data is the canonical source and it is empty, I am not reporting any proceeding numbers, panels, or outcomes. My independent web searches for "7,672,219" / "7672219" combined with IPR/PTAB terminology returned no petition, institution decision, or FWD for this patent — only district court and ITC activity (surfaced below). I flag one caveat per the task instructions: ODP ingest can lag, and I could not run a complete PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm query before exhausting my search budget. If a proceeding exists that is not in ODP, it did not surface in my searches.

No proceedings to report

There is no "### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner}" entry to write. Fields that would normally be populated (type, filed date, status, judge panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD claim-level verdict, settlement, appeal, defensive value) have no data — not "unknown data I am omitting," but no proceeding exists in the record.

Related, non-PTAB record (context only — do not cite these as PTAB outcomes)

These are Article III / Section 337 events, not AIA trials, but they are the only adversarial record on this patent and they matter for a defendant today:

• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-808, In the Matter of Certain Electronic Devices With Communication Capabilities, Components Thereof, and Related Software — complaint filed 2011-08-16 by HTC Corp. against Apple Inc.; instituted 2011-09-30 (76 FR 60870). The `219 patent was one of eight asserted (with U.S. 7,765,414; 7,417,944; 6,708,214; 6,473,006; 7,289,772; 6,868,283; 7,020,849). Source: https://regulations.justia.com/regulations/fedreg/2011/09/30/2011-25279.html and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/International%20Trade%20Commission/case/337-TA-808
• D. Del. 1:11-cv-00715 (HTC v. Apple) — parallel district court case filed the same day. Source: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A11-cv-00715
• Claim construction, 2012-06-18 — ALJ Thomas B. Pender rejected Apple's proposed limiting constructions for the 944 and 219 patents, while adopting Apple's construction of "OFDMA" digital modulation architecture for the `944 patent (which moved Apple's accused LTE products outside that claim scope). Source: USPTO/TIPO case study, https://tiponet.tipo.gov.tw/downloads/module030/communication_3_5.pdf
• FRAND / antitrust counterclaim — on 2012-06-21 Apple filed an antitrust/FRAND counterclaim (E.D. Va. 1:12-cv-00686, later transferred to D. Del. 1:12-cv-01055) alleging misuse of the ADC-acquired patents as LTE standard-essential patents with undisclosed FRAND commitments.
• Termination: settlement. The investigation was terminated 2013-01-14 on settlement, with no appeal of the ITC determination to the Federal Circuit (no CAFC docket exists for this patent). Sources: https://tiponet.tipo.gov.tw/downloads/module030/communication_3_5.pdf ; https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/certain-electronic-devices-with-communication-capabilities-components-thereof-and-related-software-htc-v-apple-337-ta-808-itc.html
• Ownership trail (from the record): ADC Telecommunications (original assignee) → assigned to HTC Corporation 2011-06-03; HTC had bought the ADC patent portfolio (~82 patents, reported ~$75M) in April 2011. Google Patents lists HTC Corp as current assignee. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219/en

Strategic summary

Claim-level status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 7,672,219 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. There is no narrowing IPR to identify surviving claims from; the full claim set as granted on 2010-03-02 (application US 11/671,786, filed 2007-02-06, claiming priority to 1995-02-06) stands as issued. Any statement that claims of this patent "survived IPR" or "were invalidated" would be fabrication.

Why the absence, and why it is not a strength signal. Inter partes review became available on 2012-09-16. The `219 patent's only enforcement campaign (HTC v. Apple, ITC 337-TA-808 / D. Del. 1:11-cv-00715) settled on 2013-01-14 — a ~4-month window in which any respondent could realistically have prepared and filed a petition, and Apple's energies in that window went to the FRAND counterclaim, not the Board. The Google Patents record further shows legal status "Expired – Fee Related" with an adjusted expiration of 2016-03-23 (an ODP/Google-derived value, not a legal conclusion — treat the exact date as unverified, but note the 1995 priority date means the enforceable term has almost certainly run). So the "no IPR" signal here is wrong-timing + likely-expired, not "hardened." Note also that PGR was never available — PGR reaches only patents with an effective filing date on/after 2013-03-16 — and CBM is doubly unavailable (not a financial-services patent, and the CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16).

Estoppel landscape: clean. Because no petition was ever instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one. There are no privities, no real-parties-in-interest, and no "reasonably could have raised" bars carried over from a prior petitioner. A defendant today faces no estoppel restriction whatsoever on prior-art grounds — with the practical caveat that the same prior-art universe is old: pre-AIA §§ 102/103 apply (1995 priority), art must pre-date the critical date, and any petition must clear § 314(a) plus the Board's current discretionary-denial practice (the 2025-2026 institution environment — "settled expectations," parallel-litigation stipulations, bifurcated institution — is materially hostile to petitions against very old, expired patents; see the USPTO/PPAC and practitioner commentary surfaced in search, e.g. https://prod-web-alb-tris.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/20191114_PPAC_PTAB_Update.pdf). Also watch the § 315(b) one-year clock from service of a complaint. The realistic defense posture on this patent is § 286 damages-window and expiration/standing arguments in district court, not an IPR.

Pattern signals. (1) No repeat petitioner — there is no petitioner at all. (2) The patent owner never had a PTAB appeal to pursue (nothing to appeal). (3) No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) appears anywhere in this patent's chain — the only article is the Unified Patents litigation docket entry for 337-TA-808, which is a third-party docket mirror, not a filing. (4) The patent is a member of an eight-patent ADC/Geile assertion cluster from 337-TA-808; the related patents (414, 944, 214, 006, 772, 283, 849) are the places where PTAB activity is more likely to exist, if any exists in the family. I did not confirm or find any such proceeding and do not assert that one exists.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the empty result independently, in this order — PGR/CBM exclusions mean the only AIA vehicle ever open was IPR: (a) PTAB E2E / USPTO Patent Center "Proceedings" tab for 7,672,219; (b) the ODP patent/appeals and ptab endpoints (the API this block came from) re-queried at filing time; (c) Docket Alarm / Lex Machina PTAB search filtered to 7672219, since ODP ingest lags.
2. Run the same check across the 337-TA-808 sibling patents (U.S. 7,765,414; 7,417,944; 6,708,214; 6,473,006; 7,289,772; 6,868,283; 7,020,849). A demand letter on this family often cites several; an IPR/FWD on a sibling is not an FWD on the `219 and must not be described as one.
3. Do not build a defense on PTAB outcomes — there are none. Build it on: (i) the patent's term/expiration status (the record shows "Adjusted expiration 2016-03-23," legal status "Expired – Fee Related"); (ii) 35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year damages lookback; (iii) the 2012-06-18 ALJ claim construction in 337-TA-808 (rejecting limiting constructions Apple advanced on the `219); and (iv) the FRAND/standard-essential allegations Apple raised (E.D. Va. 1:12-cv-00686 → D. Del. 1:12-cv-01055) if a licensing/FRAND theory is in play.
4. If you nonetheless want Board relief, the good news is that no estoppel or RPI/privy bar exists. The bad news is the current discretionary-denial environment for old, expired patents; a petition would need compelling merits and a clean § 315(b) timeline.

Confidence statement: High confidence that no AIA trial proceeding exists for US 7,672,219 in the canonical ODP data (zero). Medium-high confidence in my search-based corroboration, limited by the fact that I could not complete a full-text PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm sweep. Any specific IPR number, panel, or FWD outcome for this patent would be fabrication, and I have reported none.

I'll verify the assignment chain, corporate lineage, and the litigation references surfaced in the patent record before writing anything.

Let me pin down the reel/frame numbers, the inventor list, and any post-HTC transfers.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 7,672,219 B2

Verification caveat up front: I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) — it is a JavaScript-only application that does not return record contents to automated retrieval. Everything below is reconstructed from (a) the Google Patents full-text/legal-events record supplied in the source text, (b) the USPTO reassignment events indexed there, and (c) primary corporate sources (HTC investor filing, Tyco/TE press release) and the ITC Federal Register notice. Reel/frame numbers are only available where the record itself disclosed them; I have flagged every gap rather than inventing a reel/frame. Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 7672219) and https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219/en#legalEvents.

Inventors

Important discrepancy, stated plainly: Google Patents indexes only Michael J. Geile as the inventor on this patent. However, the recorded assignment at Reel 022071/Frame 0467 lists a ~30-person assignor group (Nelson, Sarnikowski, Enfield, Hall, Smigelski, Wadman, Dapper, Tucker, Anderson, Opoczynski, Chiappetta, Herrmann, Hill, Samant, Boualouang, Brede, Buska, Fort, Geile, Logajan, Lou, Russell, Berg, Downs, Elpers, Ferris, Kirscht, Roberts, Solum). The most defensible reading is that this recording is a portfolio-wide assignment covering the ADC 1995 "Geile et al." family rather than a patent-specific instrument — which is why the assignor list is far broader than the inventor field on this single continuation. I could not confirm the complete, patent-specific inventorship from the sources available; treat the single-inventor indexing as unverified.

Unusual patterns:

• Assignment executed January 1997, not recorded until 2009-01-08 — a ~12-year gap between execution and recording. This is a classic pre-transaction cleanup: the chain was perfected and then corrected (2009-05-22) shortly before ADC began shopping the portfolio to HTC.
• No evidence of inventor flight is available. The relevant event here is not inventor departure but the corporate transfer of the entire portfolio. ADC's Eden Prairie site did not close until May 2011.
• The 2009-05-22 corrective assignment fixed an inventor name misspelling ("Thomas G. Tucker" → "Thomas C. Tucker") and a wrong execution date for Joe Hall ("01/31/1997" → "01/21/1997") — an administrative correction, not a transfer.

Original assignee

ADC Telecommunications, Inc. — Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Minneapolis suburb).

• Primary line of business: telecommunications network connectivity hardware — copper/fiber connectivity, the Bantam jack, broadband connectivity products, and Distributed Antenna System (DAS) products. Founded 1935 as Audio Development Company.
• Did ADC ship a product embodying the claims? Partially, and not at the time of sale. ADC built the 1990s hybrid fiber/coax and DSL telephony-transport equipment this family describes, but — per the firm that ran the monetization — ADC divested its data transport business unit after the dot-com bust and retained the patent assets. The patent was therefore an out-of-product-line monetization asset by the time it was sold, not a live product-line patent.
• Current status: Acquired. Tyco Electronics Ltd. completed a $12.75/share tender offer (≈$1.25B enterprise value) and short-form merger on 2010-12-09; ADC became an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary and ceased to exist as a separate entity in 2011. The former ADC business was later sold to CommScope as part of TE's Broadband Network Solutions unit (announced 2015-01-28, closed 2015-08-31).

Assignment timeline

Only one reel/frame is disclosed anywhere in the available records. The other two links are documented by date and assignor/assignee but their reel/frame was not retrievable from the sources below. Do not treat the missing numbers as "no recording."

1997-01-21 (executed) / recorded 2009-01-08 — Reel 022071/0467

• Conveyance: Assignment (of assignors' interest)
• Assignor: the ~30-person ADC inventor group listed above
• Assignee: ADC Telecommunications, Inc.
• Correspondent: Not retrievable from the indexed record — the Google Patents reassignment event text omits the correspondent. Flag: cannot assess recurrence; needs direct Assignment Center pull.
• Context: Original invention assignment, portfolio-wide, recorded ~12 years late as pre-sale housekeeping.

2009-05-22 (recorded; execution date not stated) — Reel/Frame not retrievable

• Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (corrects inventor name "Thomas C. Tucker" and Joe Hall's execution date; recorded against Reel 022071/Frame 0467)
• Assignor: same inventor group
• Assignee: ADC Telecommunications, Inc.
• Correspondent: Not retrievable. Flag: unknown — cannot confirm whether the same recording attorney handled 022071/0467 and this correction.
• Context: Administrative correction only — chain cleanup ahead of the HTC sale.

2011-04-02 (executed) / recorded 2011-06-03 — Reel/Frame not retrievable (Google Patents shows "Assigned to HTC CORPORATION" reassignment event dated 2011-06-03)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: ADC Telecommunications, Inc.
• Assignee: HTC Corporation (Taoyuan, Taiwan)
• Correspondent: Not retrievable from the indexed record. Flag: unknown. Separately — and this is not the same thing as the recording correspondent — Carlson Caspers (Philip Caspers, Samuel Hamer) publicly states it ran the ADC monetization, negotiated the $75M sale, and then assisted HTC's enforcement. That is a repeat-player firm across the monetization → sale → enforcement continuum, but I cannot confirm it was the attorney of record on the USPTO recording.
• Context: Portfolio sale — 82 issued patents + 14 applications for USD $75,000,000 (USD 67.5M due 2011-04-15; USD 7.5M due 2014-04-15), disclosed in HTC's investor filing.

Legal-status events (not assignments): 2010-03-02 granted as US 7,672,219 B2; 2016-03-23 adjusted expiration; status Expired – Fee Related.

No later transfer is on record. Google Patents lists the current assignee as HTC Corp, so HTC still held the patent as of the legal-events snapshot. (I found no evidence of a post-2011 HTC shell spinoff for this patent.)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7672219
    1995 : Priority application filed by Geile et al
    1997 : Inventors assign rights to ADC Telecommunications
    2007 : Continuation application filed
    2009 : Assignment recorded reel 022071 frame 0467
         : Corrective assignment recorded
    2010 : Granted as US 7672219
         : ADC acquired by Tyco Electronics
    2011 : ADC portfolio sold to HTC for 75 million USD
         : HTC sues Apple at ITC and in Delaware
    2016 : Patent expires fee related

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only post-issuance transfer is ADC → HTC Corporation (executed 2011-04-02, recorded 2011-06-03). HTC is a publicly listed Taiwanese handset manufacturer that ships products — not a licensing-only LLC, no "IP/Holdings/Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent service address in the chain. No shell layer exists anywhere in the recorded chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
Neither ADC Telecommunications, Inc. nor HTC Corporation appears on the enumerated NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) or as an RPX/Unified "high-frequency plaintiff." HTC is the inverse — a very frequent defendant — and was itself sued by the NPE Cellular Communications Equipment LLC in E.D. Tex. 6:13-cv-00507.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR.
I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for any of the three recordings (022071/0467, the 2009 corrective, or the 2011 HTC assignment), because the indexed reassignment events omit that field. Therefore I cannot establish or rule out a single repeat recording attorney. The nearest adjacent evidence is that one law firm (Carlson Caspers) ran the ADC monetization, the HTC sale, and HTC's ITC enforcement — but public descriptions do not confirm it was the USPTO recording correspondent, so this is not scored as present.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Two assignment links, 14 years apart (1997 execution → 2011 execution). No chained LLCs, no transfers inside 24 months, no shared correspondent addresses or common principals.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
Assignment executed 2011-04-02; HTC filed the ITC complaint on 2011-08-16 (Inv. 337-TA-808, asserting the '219) and the parallel D. Del. action 1:11-cv-00715 on 2011-08-15 — roughly 4.5 months after execution, inside the 6-month window. Note the quality of this signal: it reflects a deliberately assembled enforcement portfolio bought for assertion, not a shell-entity standing maneuver — HTC sued in its own name as an operating company.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
ADC was acquired via a $1.25B cash tender offer by Tyco Electronics (completed 2010-12-09), not a Chapter 7/11. The HTC sale was a voluntary monetization. No bankruptcy docket in this chain.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company to transfer to an NPE that asserts on the operating company's behalf. Here the operating company (HTC) kept the patent and asserted it itself against Apple. There is no separate NPE asserting for HTC on this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain ends at HTC Corporation, an operating handset maker. No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN entity appears.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The chain is short and clean — ADC Telecommunications, Inc. → HTC Corporation by assignment executed 2011-04-02 and recorded 2011-06-03 (the $75M, 82-patent portfolio sale), with no downstream shell or NPE. HTC is a product-shipping operating company and it asserted this exact patent in its own name against a direct competitor (Apple) in ITC Inv. 337-TA-808 (complaint 2011-08-16) and D. Del. 1:11-cv-00715 (2011-08-15), which is operating-company assertion rather than NPE conduct. The single NPE-adjacent signal — a pre-litigation transfer at ~4.5 months (signal 5) — is present but here reflects a purchased enforcement portfolio, not the shell-entity / repeat-correspondent / cascading-transfer pattern that defines an NPE chain; signals 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8 are all absent.

Residual verification items (not fabricated findings, just open):

• Pull reel/frame and correspondent of record for all three recordings directly from Assignment Center.
• Confirm the patent-specific inventorship of the '219 continuation against the printed patent / PEDS (Google Patents shows Geile alone; the assignment group is portfolio-wide).

Verify links: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent 7672219) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219/en#legalEvents · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/International%20Trade%20Commission/case/337-TA-808

I'll search for this specific patent and its cited prior art.

Let me dig into the citation records specifically.

Let me try to retrieve the actual front-page citation list for US 7,672,219.

Scope and tool limitations (stated up front)

I ran searches against Google Patents, Justia, Espacenet, USPTO/PTAB document mirrors, and litigation records. I was not able to retrieve the complete "References Cited" block printed on the face of US 7,672,219 within this session (the Google Patents citation table and the patent PDF front page did not render in the results I obtained). I am therefore giving you:

• (A) references I could verify verbatim from the authoritative full text of the patent itself, and
• (B) references from the immediately related sibling patent US 7,310,522 (same inventor, same specification family), flagged as indicative but unverified for the '219,
• (C) forward citations, which are not prior art, included so you don't mistake them for it.

I have not invented patent numbers to fill gaps. Anything below not traceable to a source is labeled as unverified.

1. Confirmed bibliographic record for US 7,672,219 B2

Litigation context confirming the same: the ITC claim-construction order states the '944 and '219 patents "share the same specification and are related, each claiming priority to the same parent patent application," and were assigned from ADC to HTC by assignment dated April 12, 2011.

Priority-date consequence for § 102: The '219 is a later-filed continuation in a chain tracing to 1995-02-06 (and to CIP parents filed 1995-06-01, 1996-05-20, 1996-06-28). Because it issued from a post-1995 filing, references from 2003 (e.g., US 2003/0058975, US 2003/0016731) and 2007 (US 2007/0201347) cannot be § 102 prior art against it on the face of that priority chain. Any § 102 analysis must use pre-1995 art for subject matter entitled to the 1995-02-06 date.

2. (A) References cited within the '219 specification — verified from the authoritative text

These are the references the patent itself discusses. All predate the 1995-02-06 priority date.

Non-patent literature cited in the specification:

3. (B) References on the face of sibling US 7,310,522 (Geile, ADC) — indicative, not verified for the '219

The front page of US 7,310,522 B2 ("Systems for Synchronous Multipoint-to-Point Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Communication," Geile, ADC, granted 2007-12-18) lists the following U.S. patent documents. Because the '219 and '522 share the same specification and prosecution family, the '219 IDS very likely overlaps — but I have not confirmed this for the '219, and you should not treat it as established.

US 3,539,924 (Daskalakis et al., 11/1970); US 3,609,328 (Kiebutz, 9/1971); US 3,628,057 (Mueller, 12/1971); US 3,700,820 (Blasbalg et al., 10/1972); US 3,706,933 (Bidell et al., 12/1972); US 3,742,145 (Clarke et al., 6/1973). Foreign: CA 1,204,230 (5/1986).

(A search result also rendered "3,609,328 A 9/1971 Kiebutz" — I am reproducing the literal strings and the month/year as shown; I have not verified the exact issue days.)

§ 102 assessment: These are 1970–1973 data-transmission/multiplexing references. They are § 102(b) art, but they are single-carrier/analog-era art. They are realistically § 103 background for modulation/demodulation and multiplexing elements, not § 102 anticipators of the OFDM multipoint-to-point claims.

4. (C) Forward citations — NOT prior art

Several sources list the '219 as a citation in other patents (e.g., US 5,909,436 "Random access orthogonal frequency division multiplex system and method" cites US 7,672,219 B2; likewise EP 0 318 333 and EP 0 499 065 records). These are forward citations and have no § 102 significance for the '219.

I also want to flag a mis-citation in the press record: an Italian-language report on HTC v. Apple (telefonino.net) describes patent 7672219 as concerning "il metodo di modulazione di frequenze" ("the method of frequency modulation") and repeats "7417944." The authoritative patent text supersedes this: the '219 is directed to multipoint-to-point OFDM communication. I am reporting the news string literally rather than "correcting" it. Similarly, a KIPO ISR renders the inventor as "MICHAEL J. GELLE"; I am not auto-correcting that string to "Geile."

5. Two caveats on the "744 backward citations" figure

A litigation-presentation source states the '219 has 744 backward citations. That figure is consistent with this being a very large family IDS, but I could not independently verify it, and a 744-reference list is far beyond what any session can reproduce faithfully. If you need the complete list, the authoritative sources are:

• Google Patents, US7672219B2 → "Patent Citations" / "References Cited" tables: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7672219B2/en
• USPTO PatentCenter for application 11/671,786 → the PTO-1449 / IDS and the printed front page
• The patent PDF itself (front page "References Cited")

6. Bottom line

• Verified prior-art character: The '219's cited references fall into three buckets — HFC/CATV architecture (Balance '593, Pidgeon '763 and '883, Chiddix & Pangrac 1988), OFDM-as-a-modulation-scheme (CableLabs 1993), and FFT algorithms (DeMuth 1989).
• § 102 posture: On the record I could verify, none of these references appears to anticipate the '219's core multipoint-to-point OFDM claims on its own. The strongest genuine § 102 candidates are the DeMuth FFT paper and the 1993 CableLabs OFDM reference, and only against claim subject matter that is purely "perform an FFT with mixed radix" or "modulate data on OFDM subcarriers" without the synchronized multipoint-upstream limitation. The realistic challenge posture for the core claims is § 103 (e.g., HFC background + OFDM modulation reference + a multiple-access/synchronization teaching), not § 102.
• I cannot give you a verified claim-by-claim anticipation chart for the '219, because I did not obtain the patent's actual claim set or its complete face-page citation list in this session. If you supply the claims (or the PTO-1449), I can map each reference element-by-element.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references identified on the patent page and recover what I can about the granted claims.

I now have claim 1's actual text. Let me pin down the full claim set and the prior-art references on the patent page.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 7,672,219 B2

Scope note. Per the task instruction, I am working from the prior art identified on the patent page for US 7,672,219 (the references recited and characterized in the specification's background/"Description of Related Art" discussion, plus the page's prior-art keyword set: isu, data, upstream, telephony, downstream). I have supplemented that with one new, directly relevant piece of intrinsic evidence I recovered this session — the actual text of claim 1 — and with the ITC's construction of the asserted claims. Where I rely on my own knowledge of the art rather than on this page, I flag it explicitly.

0. Corrections and cross-reference flags to the earlier sections

Two items in the previously generated sections must be updated; I am flagging rather than silently overriding them, per the operating rules.

(a) Claim count — the earlier "181 claims" figure appears to be wrong for this document. RPX Insight's patent record for US7672219B2 lists "12 Claims" (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7672219B2). This is corroborated by intrinsic record: HTC's and the Staff's briefing quoted in ITC Order No. 16 refers to "claim 12 of the '219 patent" reciting "wherein the processor causes the transmissions to be orthogonal with respect to other signals when received at the multipoint-to-point host unit" (https://iknow.stpi.niar.org.tw/Post/Files/complaint/Claim%20construction_pclass_11_A172_order16in808.pdf). A patent cannot have a claim 12 if it has 5 claims, and the asserted set was claims 1–5 (https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_808_notice09272011sgl.pdf). I therefore treat 12 claims (claim 1 independent, claims 2–5 dependent as asserted, claim 12 dependent) as the operative count, and treat the earlier "181/181 Claims" Espacenet reading as likely belonging to a different document in the family (the family's EP/WO members, or a sibling US member) rather than to the granted '219 claim set. Residual uncertainty: RPX may display only an asserted subset; verification against the granted printed claim set is still advisable.

(b) The "verbatim claims not available" caveat in §3 of the Patent summary is now partly resolved. I recovered claim 1 verbatim (below), and claim 2 verbatim from a bilingual reproduction in a Taiwanese IPO/TIPA litigation compilation. The plain-language characterizations in that earlier §3 (drawn from the specification's "summary of invention" passages) describe the family accurately but do not describe claim 1 of the '219 patent, which is far narrower in subject matter and quite different in character than the "head end / service unit system" summary text. This is a material difference and I flag it explicitly.

1. The claim actually at issue (verbatim, as recovered)

Claim 1 of US 7,672,219 B2 (source: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7672219B2; consistent with the terms construed in ITC Order No. 16):

"1. A remote communication device for operation in a bidirectional communication system, the device comprising:
at least one symbol mapper for mapping symbols using quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbol mapping and phase-shift keying (PSK) symbol mapping;
a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) engine that receives a frame of parallel data based on symbol data generated by the symbol mapper, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) engine generating a frame of time domain in-phase and quadrature phase data from the symbol data generated by the symbol mapper;
at least one converter generating an analog signal based on the stream of time domain in-phase and quadrature phase data;
a radio frequency transmitter for transmitting a radio frequency signal based on the analog signal; and
a processor, wherein the symbol mapper is responsive to the processor, and the processor controls synchronization of symbol timing and carrier frequency of transmissions from the radio frequency transmitter."

Claim 2 (verbatim, from the TIPA compilation at https://tiponet.tipo.gov.tw/downloads/module030/communication_3_5.pdf): "The remote communication device of claim 1, wherein the radio frequency transmitter modulates a carrier frequency with the at least one analog signal." (Claim 3 begins "The remote communication device of claim 1, further including: at least one …" — text truncated in my source; claims 3–5 not fully recovered.)

Claim 12 (quoted in ITC Order No. 16): "wherein the processor causes the transmissions to be orthogonal with respect to other signals when received at the multipoint-to-point host unit."

Constructions that define the effective scope for a § 103 analysis (ITC Order No. 16, June 18, 2012, ALJ Thomas B. Pender):

• "a remote communication device" = "a communication device that shares a medium with one or more communication devices to communicate with a host unit in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing multipoint-to-point communication system."
• "the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) engine generating a frame of time domain in-phase and quadrature phase data from the symbol data generated by the symbol mapper" = the FFT engine "operating on the frequency domain data produced by the symbol mapper to generate time domain in-phase and quadrature values" — i.e., the claim reads on an inverse Fourier transform (IFFT) modulator.
• "synchronization of symbol timing and carrier frequency of transmissions from the radio frequency transmitter" — the parties disputed whether the reference for synchronization is the host unit/other remotes (Apple's position, to avoid § 112 ¶ 2 indefiniteness) or something else (HTC's position, invoking claim differentiation against claim 12). Sources: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6bb264c0-5974-4d43-aaf2-3b3a7ad06991 ; https://iknow.stpi.niar.org.tw/Post/Files/complaint/Claim%20construction_pclass_11_A172_order16in808.pdf

Why this matters for § 103: claim 1 as construed is, functionally, an OFDM/DMT transmitter architecture — bit-to-symbol mapper supporting two modulation alphabets (QAM and PSK), an inverse-FFT multicarrier modulator producing time-domain I/Q, a D/A converter, an RF transmit chain, and a processor closing a timing/frequency synchronization loop — for use in a bidirectional, shared-medium, multipoint-to-point system. The "orthogonality at the host" requirement is expressly pushed to claim 12. That framing drives everything below.

2. Governing law and the level of ordinary skill

• Statute: The application (11/671,786) was filed February 6, 2007, before the March 16, 2013 AIA date, and claims priority to February 6, 1995. Pre-AIA § 103(a) applies, with the February 6, 1995 date as the presumptive critical date for prior-art qualification (subject to the applicant's ability to swear behind under pre-AIA § 1.131, and to the § 119/§ 120 chain running back to the 1995 and 1994 ADC applications).
• Framework: Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope/content of the prior art; differences; level of skill; secondary considerations), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a claimed combination is obvious where the elements were "known" and the combination "does what it is known to do," where the improvement is "a predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," and where a POSITA would have had a "reason to combine" from design incentives, market forces, or the "interrelated teachings" of the references. In re Keller /In re Merck allow a single reference to be modified in view of another's teaching; there is no requirement that all elements come from a single reference.
• Level of ordinary skill (Feb. 1995): a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (or equivalent) plus roughly 2–4 years of experience in digital communications and multicarrier modem design, or a master's degree with less experience; practical familiarity with FFT/IFFT-based multicarrier modulation (OFDM/DMT), QAM/PSK constellations, D/A and A/D conversion, RF/coax transmission, and hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) plant. This is a moderate skill level — the claims recite board-level architectures, not pioneering algorithmic breakthroughs. (Note: the '219 specification itself assumes such a POSITA, repeatedly stating "It should be apparent to one skilled in the art…" and explicitly contemplating non-HFC distribution such as wireless systems, '219 patent at 18:17–24.)

3. The prior art on the page — what each reference actually teaches

I keep the page's references as the backbone and mark clearly where a needed element is not supplied by them.

Two cross-reference points to the earlier sections: (i) the earlier "Patent summary" §2 described the scrambling, BPSK/QAM32, polyphase-filter, parity-monitoring and acquisition material as the invention's embodiments — for § 103 purposes it is important to note that the specification frames several of these as existing techniques being applied, which is why they are admissible as [AAPA]; (ii) the earlier "Litigation summary" correctly established that no court or the Commission ever reached validity — the D. Del. and ITC matters both terminated by the November 2012 Apple–HTC settlement (ITC termination recorded 2013-01-10/2013-01-14). So the § 103 case below is my construction, not a restatement of any adjudicated holding.

4. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

The column "Supplied by" identifies which reference supplies the element; [K] marks elements supplied by the knowledge of a POSITA (which, for pre-AIA § 103, is a permissible part of the "background knowledge" that may be combined with references — KSR; In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 1998)).

5. The combinations, with motivation to combine

I set out four grounds. Grounds I and II are the primary § 103 theories; Grounds III–IV address the remaining disclosed subject matter families from the earlier sections.

Ground I — Claim 1 (and claims 2, 12): multicarrier-modem art in view of the HFC multipoint-to-point references

Combination: a primary multicarrier/OFDM multiple-access reference (my knowledge, flagged for verification: U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,222 to Fattouche & Stuber, "Method and apparatus for multiple access between transceivers in wireless communications using OFDM spread spectrum," issued 1994-01-25 — many transceivers, each assigned subsets of orthogonal subcarriers, transmitting to a common receiver) + [C&P] + [Balance] + [DeMuth], optionally with [Pidgeon-763/883].

Why a POSITA would combine them (articulated reasons):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution type. [C&P] establishes the deployment context (HFC, headend-to-node fiber, two-way coax, a reverse band that is "a much more reliable data path than before") and [Balance] establishes that the upstream is inherently many-to-one over a shared medium. The multicarrier reference addresses exactly that topology: multiple transmitters sharing a medium to one receiver.
2. Known technique applied to a known problem with predictable results (KSR). Substituting orthogonal-subcarrier multiple access for Balance's TDM upstream was a "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," and the payoff — simultaneous upstream transmission without the tight burst-timing/ranging that TDM demands — was the recognized benefit of orthogonal multiplexing.
3. Design incentives and market forces. [C&P] itself articulates the drivers: bandwidth expansion without rebuilding the plant, reliable reverse-path data services, pay-per-view/interactive/LAN services. Delivering those services digitally over the multipoint upstream is a direct design incentive.
4. Interrelated teachings. [DeMuth] supplies the mixed-radix FFT flow-graph technique needed to build the claimed "FFT engine" efficiently at the modem's channel counts, which is why the FFT-engine implementation reference is properly combinable with the modulation reference.
5. The reference for synchronization is inherent in the architecture. The construed claim 1 requires processor-controlled synchronization of symbol timing and carrier frequency. In a multipoint-to-point system where the host receives a composite OFDM symbol, the remote must synchronize to the host's symbol timing and carrier (the '219 specification says so at 39:50–55: "symbols modulated on each carrier by the ISUs must be aligned within a certain phase margin"). One solution — [Balance]'s coordination of outstations around a central station — renders the synchronization limitation obvious.

Predicted result / reasonable expectation of success: Each element retained its known function; the combination does what the elements were known to do (digital modem mapped onto an HFC reverse path).

Ground II — Claim 1 using only the page's references plus Applicant's Admitted Prior Art (the "no-extra-reference" theory)

Combination: [C&P] + [Balance] + [Pidgeon-763] + [Pidgeon-883] + [DeMuth] + [AAPA].

Motivation: [C&P] and the two Pidgeon references teach the fiber/coax distribution plant, the two-way reverse path, and the distortion/bandwidth problems that motivate converting to digital multiplexing; [Balance] teaches the multipoint-to-point upstream topology and a scheme for sharing it; [DeMuth] teaches the FFT machinery; and [AAPA] — the '219 specification's own admissions — supplies the remaining digital-modem elements (OFDM modems, QAM/PSK constellation mapping, sigma-delta A/D, FFT processors, Reed-Solomon, scrambling).

Candid weakness (I flag this rather than hide it): Ground II is materially weaker than Ground I because none of the page's references discloses an IFFT-based multicarrier modulator, and relying on the specification's own admissions to supply that element borders on reading the claim on the reference "in the shadow of the specification." A tribunal could find the motivation element thin: nothing in C&P, Pidgeon or Balance points to OFDM as the upstream multiple-access scheme. Ground I avoids this by adding a real multicarrier-multiple-access reference.

Ground III — Claim 12 (orthogonality at the multipoint-to-point host) and the "synchronization/ranging" family

Combination: Ground I or II + the '219 specification's own statement of the problem ('219 at 39:50–55) + [Balance].

Motivation: [Balance]'s TDM upstream demonstrates that a multipoint upstream over a shared path requires some discipline for coordinating transmissions; the multicarrier reference demonstrates that subcarrier orthogonality is one such discipline and yields the benefit of concurrency. Where the host is to receive a unified OFDM waveform, per-remote alignment of symbol timing and carrier frequency is a necessary condition of the asserted benefit, not an added invention — which is precisely why the specification frames alignment as a known constraint. (Note for the record: in a different IPR involving a different patent, the Board record shows patent-owner argument that a multicarrier multiple-access prior-art reference taught its portables taking turns in TDMA fashion and using carrier-frequency offsets, so it did not teach simultaneous same-carrier transmission to a common receiver — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1481216](/patent/1481216)/download-documents?artifactId=KF9CYmHStONc7VoC-VNdSCZ6vuWCVHiB4DRXFJ6Ou7nEetMxvZldlCk. That is a genuine non-obviousness argument a patent owner could raise here too, and it is the strongest available.)

Ground IV — The remaining claim families from the earlier sections

6. Weaknesses in the § 103 case — and what a patent owner would argue

1. The page's own references do not teach multicarrier modulation or any digital modem. Ground II is therefore incomplete standing alone; it survives only by leaning on [AAPA] and on the POSITA's background knowledge. If the tribunal demands that the motivation come from the references rather than from general knowledge, Ground II fails for claim 1.
2. Ground I's primary reference should be verified. I flagged US 5,282,222 (Fattouche & Stuber) from memory; it is not on the '219 page and I have not re-verified its number, issue date, or disclosure in this session. The § 103 theory as to claim 1 is robust in substance (IFFT/OFDM transmitters with QAM/PSK mapping were well known by Feb. 1995) but the citation must be verified against the actual document before it is relied on in a filing.
3. The "simultaneity" argument (Ground III). As noted, a patent owner can argue that the multicarrier multiple-access art of the era allocated subcarriers but had remotes transmit in non-overlapping slots, with deliberate frequency offsets, so it does not teach remote units whose transmissions are simultaneous and orthogonal when received at the host. Whether the prior art actually lacks that teaching is the crux of any § 103 contest on claim 12 and on the construed claim 1 — and the Board record in the unrelated '488 IPR shows the argument has traction.
4. Secondary considerations. The record shows (a) HTC paid ~US$75M for the ~82-patent ADC portfolio including the '219 and '944 patents (per the earlier sections' sources), (b) HTC and the Staff treated the '944/'219 pair as 4G/LTE-related standard-essential technology, and (c) Apple sought to have the ADC-acquired patents declared standard-essential with FRAND obligations (E.D. Va. 1:12-cv-00686, transferred to D. Del. 1:12-cv-01055). A patent owner would cite commercial value and industry adoption as objective indicia. But this evidence cuts both ways: a finding that the claims read on standardized, widely implemented OFDM technology is, if anything, corroborative that the subject matter was a conventional approach available to the art — and any commercial-success or long-felt-need argument requires a nexus to the claimed invention, which (given claim 1's breadth) is difficult to establish. No secondary-considerations evidence on this patent has ever been adjudicated.
5. No validity ruling exists. Both the D. Del. action (1:11-cv-00715) and the ITC investigation (337-TA-808) terminated by the November 2012 global Apple–HTC settlement. The ITC reached only claim construction (Order No. 16). So there is no judicial or Commission § 103 holding on this patent to build on or to distinguish.
6. Post-expiration posture. The patent is Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2016-03-23, per Google Patents). Any § 103 challenge would now have value only as a defense to pre-expiration damages; there is no live injunctive exposure.

7. Verification items and explicit uncertainties

1. Claim count: I identified a direct contradiction between the earlier section's "181/181 Claims" (Espacenet) and RPX Insight's "12 Claims." The intrinsic record (a claimed claim 12; asserted claims 1–5) supports 12. Resolve before relying on either figure.
2. Claim 1 provenance: the verbatim text I used comes from RPX Insight's patent page, a secondary commercial database, and is corroborated by the claim terms construed in ITC Order No. 16. It is not a copy of the printed patent. Verify against the granted claims at USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents "Claims" tab.
3. Claims 3–5, and identification of any second independent claim (RPX's snippet contains the phrase "a symbol mapper that produces at least one stream of symbols," which does not appear in claim 1 as reproduced and likely belongs to another independent claim). I have not verified the remaining independent claims. My § 103 mapping therefore covers claim 1 (and, by extension, claims 2) with reasonable confidence, and claims 3–5 and any other independents only by family inference from the specification.
4. The prior-art references on the page are the background references; the patent's actual "References Cited" front-page list was not retrieved in this session. An accurate § 103 opinion should also consider the examiner-cited U.S. and foreign patent documents on the face of US 7,672,219 (which the page's "Prior Art" section did not surface in the text I obtained), plus the prosecution history of 11/671,786 (including the July 24, 2009 amendment referenced in the ITC order).
5. Dates: I have not re-verified the exact issue dates of US 5,153,763 and US 5,262,883 (I state 1992 and 1993); the Chiddix & Pangrac 1988 paper is confirmed as 1988 NCTA Technical Papers, page 74 (https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/1988/1988-fiber-backbone-a-proposal-for-an-evolutionary-catv-network-architecture/download); DeMuth is confirmed as IEEE Trans. ASSP, Vol. 37, No. 9, Sept. 1989, pp. 1349–1358, as recited on the patent page.
6. The Fattouche reference (US 5,282,222) is my own recollection, not from this page, and is flagged for verification before use.