US 7924156

I'll search for this specific patent number and check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me dig into the USPTO assignment/ownership record and any litigation or appellate activity.

Now let me look for the actual claim set of the '156 patent and any appellate activity.

Scope and verification note

I searched for US Patent No. 7,924,156 specifically (not similar numbers) and for any 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity. Two caveats up front:

1. The authoritative full text you supplied is truncated before the issued claims. It ends in the middle of the detailed description (FIG. 4A discussion) and contains the Summary ("Various embodiments of the invention include…") but not the actual claim set. The Summary paragraphs are not the claims, and I will not present them as such.
2. I found no CAFC 2026 docket naming 7,924,156. What I did find is a pending 2026 district-court case and a Federal Circuit argument calendar that does not list this patent. Details below.

Also note an internal date inconsistency in your prompt: the header says the current date is April 26, 2026, while my system date is September 23, 2026. Some results I retrieved (e.g., a June 2026 Fed. Cir. calendar, a September 5, 2026 Korean article) post-date April 26, 2026. I report them as found.

Bibliographic data (US 7,924,156 B2)

Ownership chain (recorded, as listed on the patent page):

• 2016-10-24 — assignment from Colby, Steven M to Colby Trust, Steven M
• 2016-10-24 — assignment from Colby Trust, Steven M to MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC. (spelling reproduced literally from the record; appears to be a typo for "Technologies" but I am not auto-correcting it)
• 2025-12-29 — assignment from MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC. to SURECELL TRANSACTIONS, LLC

Family/priority: The application is a continuation-in-part of US 11/382,050 and also CIPs of 11/382,052, 11/382,053, 11/382,054, 11/382,265, 11/382,264 and 11/420,721, and claims benefit of provisional applications 60/700,884; 60/712,308; 60/715,641; 60/752,933; 60/758,751; 60/782,068; 60/744,154; and 60/746,636. It also incorporates US 11/350,309 by reference.

Abstract (verbatim)

"Various switchable RFID devices are disclosed. These switchable RFID devices may include one or more RFID tags and one or more switches. Some of these one or more switches are optionally wireless. In various embodiments, the switchable RFID devices include identity devices, financial devices, remote controls, and the like. In some embodiments, switches are configured to enter data into a switchable RFID device, for example to select a financial account."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Uncertainty flag: I do not have the issued claim text in the material provided, so per your instruction I will not reconstruct it. What follows is (a) what a third-party claim-analysis source reports about which claims are independent, and (b) a plain-language description of the subject matter those claims are reported to cover.

Reported independent claims. A third-party complaint analysis of the 2026 E.D. Tex. action (Ex Parte analysis of 2:26-cv-00106) states that the '156 patent's asserted claims are "at least independent claims 20 and 29, and method claim 60." That report also summarizes the patent as covering "an RFID device that includes a mechanical switch for selecting between two or more 'ON states,'" where "[t]he ability of the device to transmit an RF signal is dependent on the selected state, providing a physical control layer for RFID communication." Treat claim numbers 20, 29 and 60 as reported but not independently verified by me.

Plain-language substance (from the specification, which is authoritative for what the disclosure supports):

• Apparatus-type independent claim (reported as claim 20) — A switchable RFID tag built from (i) an antenna that receives a first RF signal and harvests energy from it, and (ii) an integrated circuit that takes the data and the harvested power from the antenna, holds an ON/OFF state in a state memory, holds a key in a key memory, and includes switch logic. The switch logic compares data received over the air against the stored key; if they match, it changes the stored ON/OFF state. It then decides whether to send a return RF signal at all based on that stored state. In other words: a remotely (wirelessly) switchable RFID tag — the tag can be turned on or off by an authenticated RF command, and stays quiet when off.

• Apparatus-type independent claim (reported as claim 29) — Same general architecture, but emphasizing the multiple ON states aspect: the stored state can be one of several ON states, and the tag transmits different data or different amounts of data depending on which ON state is stored (e.g., a name only in one state; name plus address/account/medical data in another). Detection (any response at all) and readability (what the response contains) are separately controllable.

• Method-type independent claim (reported as claim 60) — A method of changing the ON/OFF state of an RFID tag: harvest enough RF energy through the tag's antenna to power the tag; receive first data through that antenna; read a key from key memory; use the powered integrated circuit to compare the received data with the key; and, responsive to the comparison, write to state memory to flip the tag from an OFF state (no RF transmission) to an ON state (will transmit). The specification gives the mirror-image "operating" methods as well — read state from state memory and transmit unless the state is OFF / only if the state is ON — but I cannot confirm from the supplied text whether those are separate independent claims or dependents.

Structural/mechanical subject matter also disclosed (may appear in other independent claims I cannot see): a multilayer identity document with a spacer layer, an opening containing a switch activator, and a conductor; a switchable RFID tag with the switch physically surrounded by the antenna; an irreversible one-time-programmable conductor that is broken to lock data; and remote-control embodiments where the return signal is generated solely from harvested RF power.

Litigation and 2026 appellate status

No CAFC 2026 docket for 7,924,156 found. I reviewed Federal Circuit 2026 docketing notices and the June 2026 scheduled-argument calendar surfaced in search and found nothing captioned to this patent or to SureCell/MyNette. The 2026 case is at the trial stage and would not yet be appealable.

Pending district court case (this is where 7,924,156 currently sits):

• SureCell Transactions LLC v. [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.), et al., No. 2:26-cv-00106 (E.D. Tex., Marshall Division), filed February 12, 2026, before Judge Rodney Gilstrap; Magistrate Roy S. Payne; jury demand; damages demand $500,000,000.
• Six asserted patents: 7,924,156; 11,347,949; 11,599,734; 11,687,741; 11,989,612; and 12,039,396. Accused products include Galaxy S/Note/Z Fold-Flip/A-series phones, Galaxy Watch wearables, and Galaxy Tab tablets, tied to Samsung Pay/NFC payment and biometric-authenticated transactions.
• The Ex Parte complaint analysis identifies the likely claim-construction battleground for the related '949 and '741 patents as the term "electronic switch" (hardware component vs. software-controlled state change in an NFC controller/SoC).

Other litigation of record (from the patent page):

• A US case in the United States Court of Federal Claims, case 1:16-cv-01647.
• A "first worldwide family litigation" entry via Darts-ip family 38040183.

Invalidity contentions of record: Justia patent pages for related Mynette/Colby patents list invalidity contentions against U.S. Pat. No. 7,924,156 based on, among others, the MiFare Functional Product Specification Rev. 3.1 (Oct. 2002), the RFID Handbook (2nd ed., 2003), the Smart Card Handbook (3rd ed., 2003), Juels "Squealing Euros" (Jan. 2003), Juels et al. "Security and Privacy Issues in E-Passports" (no later than Apr. 26, 2005), Knospe—RFID Security (2004), Gao et al. (Sep. 2004), Weis et al. (2004), EPC Global Specification for RFID Protocols (Jan. 2005), ICAO 2003 "Use of Contactless Integrated Circuits in MRTDs" (Apr. 2003), and the Morgantown ePassports Interoperability Test Sessions (Jul. 27–29, 2004). Note the priority-date sensitivity: several of these are dated between the May 6, 2005 priority date and the July 19, 2006 filing date.

Explicit uncertainties

• Claim text not verified. Independent claims 20, 29 and 60 are reported by a third-party analysis, not confirmed against the issued patent document. If exact claim language matters for your analysis, pull the granted claims from USPTO PatentCenter / the official PDF for US 7,924,156 B2.
• Assignee naming. "MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC." is reproduced literally from the assignment record; the correct legal name may differ.
• No 2026 CAFC activity. Absence of a hit in my searches is evidence of absence, not proof; a docket could exist that was not indexed.
• The reference to "FIG. 1" in the description of FIGS. 19–20, and to "State Memory 145" in the FIG. 20 walkthrough, are inconsistencies in the patent text itself (State Memory is labeled 1845 in FIG. 18) — I am flagging them rather than correcting them.

I'll search patent-litigation sources for US 7,924,156 specifically.

Let me dig further into specific cases and the earlier enforcement history.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,924,156

I searched patent-litigation sources (Google Patents' own litigation annotations, Unified Patents litigation portal references, the Ex Parte AI docket-complaint database, Justia, and general docket aggregators) using the literal identifier 7,924,156 / 7924156. I excluded hits for similar-but-different numbers. Findings below.

Date note (flagging, not correcting): your task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, but one retrieved source (a Korean article on the Samsung suit) is dated September 5, 2026. I report it as found; this is an internal inconsistency in the inputs, not something I have "fixed."

1. Currently pending district-court case (this is where the '156 patent sits now)

Reported (not independently verified by me) claim assertions for the '156 patent in this case: a third-party complaint analysis states the asserted claims are "at least independent claims 20 and 29, and method claim 60." Treat the claim numbers as third-party-reported only — they are consistent with the "reported independent claims" caveat already flagged in the earlier Patent Summary section.

The Korean trade-press article (Sept. 5, 2026, the-biz.co.kr) independently corroborates the same six asserted patents and the same accused Galaxy product lines in the Texas filing.

2. Court of Federal Claims case (listed on the patent record itself)

3. Family-level (worldwide) litigation entry

• Darts-ip family 38040183 — the patent page carries a "First worldwide family litigation filed" entry pointing to a Darts-ip family-level record. This is a family aggregate, not a discrete case caption; I could not extract individual case names/numbers from it. Treat as a cross-reference only.

4. Invalidity contentions of record (appears in litigation, not itself a case)

Justia's page for the related '741 patent lists invalidity contentions against U.S. Pat. No. 7,924,156 based on: MiFare Functional Product Specification Rev. 3.1 (Oct. 2002); RFID Handbook, 2nd ed. (2003); Smart Card Handbook, 3rd ed. (2003); Juels, "Squealing Euros" (Jan. 2003); Juels et al., "Security and Privacy Issues in E-Passports" (no later than Apr. 26, 2005); Knospe, RFID Security (2004); Gao et al. (Sep. 2004); Weis et al. (2004); EPC Global Specification for RFID Protocols (Jan. 2005); ICAO 2003 "Use of Contactless Integrated Circuits in MRTDs" (Apr. 2003); and the Morgantown ePassports Interoperability Test Sessions (Jul. 27–29, 2004).

These are defendant contentions served in the litigation in which the '156 and '741 patents were jointly asserted — i.e., they are litigation activity attributable to the pending E.D. Tex. case (and/or the earlier enforcement efforts of the same family). They are not a separate lawsuit.

What I did not find

• No CAFC/2026 appellate docket naming 7,924,156. The only 2026 case is at the trial stage and would not yet be appealable.
• I was unable to complete verification searches on "Mynette Technologies" as a party and on the details of the Court of Federal Claims 1:16-cv-01647 case before hitting my research-step limit. I am not asserting that no additional cases exist; I am reporting that the sources retrieved surfaced only the cases above.

Explicit uncertainties

• Plaintiff/defendant identities in the CFC case 1:16-cv-01647 are unverified.
• The '156 asserted claim numbers (20, 29, 60) come from a third-party complaint analysis, not the issued patent document.
• "Absence of other cases in my searches" is evidence of absence, not proof. A docket that was not indexed by the aggregators I queried could exist.

I'll start by pulling what's publicly available on the single proceeding in the canonical list, plus any sibling PTAB activity on this patent family.

Let me dig for the specific docket details of IPR2026-00506 and any sibling PTAB activity on the '156 patent or its family.

Let me try to pull the actual PTAB docket page and petition details for IPR2026-00506.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trials on US 7,924,156: one (1). Breakdown: 1 active/pending (IPR2026-00506, filed 2026-09-22), 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The defensive posture is therefore neither "hardened" nor "broken" — the patent is PTAB-untested. The single petition was filed the day before this analysis (2026-09-23), is still in its three-month preliminary-response window, and no institution decision exists. A defendant today can build an IPR-based defense only by riding on Samsung's petition; there is no PTAB outcome, no Federal Circuit appeal, and no estoppel to point to.

IPR2026-00506 — [[Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.) et al.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.%20et%20al.) v. Steven M. Colby (Patent Owner: SureCell Transactions LLC)

• Type: Inter Partes Review (post-AIA, 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2026-09-22 (per USPTO Open Data Portal; record last modified 2026-09-22)
• Status: Pending (verbatim). Plain-English gloss: petition filed, notice-of-filing-date not yet reflected in the structured data, Patent Owner Preliminary Response (POPR) window open; no institution decision on the merits.
• Judge panel: Not yet public / not determinable. Panels are assigned at institution; pre-institution there is no merits panel on the record. I will not invent APJ names. (PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/)
• Petition grounds: Not verified. I could not retrieve the petition PDF or its exhibit list on this run, so I cannot state which claims are challenged, which references are asserted, or whether the theory is § 102 anticipation, § 103 obviousness, or § 112. Do not represent grounds to a court without pulling Paper 1 from PTAB E2E.
  • What is inferable from the co-pending litigation: the asserted claims in E.D. Tex. are reported as independent claims 20 and 29 plus method claim 60 (Ex Parte complaint analysis of 2:26-cv-00106, https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:26-cv-00106/doc/analysis/9). Petitioners in parallel NPE cases typically track the asserted set. This is an inference, not a confirmed ground.
  • Prior art already teed up in other fora: Justia's invalidity-contention listings for this family name the MiFare Functional Specification Rev. 3.1 (Oct. 2002), the RFID Handbook (2d ed. 2003), the Smart Card Handbook (3d ed. 2003), Juels "Squealing Euros" (Jan. 2003), Juels et al. "Security and Privacy Issues in E-Passports" (≤2005-04-26), Knospe–RFID Security (2004), Gao et al. (Sep. 2004), Weis et al. (2004), EPCglobal RFID protocol spec (Jan. 2005), ICAO 2003 contactless MRTD guidance (Apr. 2003), and the Morgantown ePassport interoperability sessions (Jul. 2004). Note the priority-date gap: priority is asserted at 2005-05-06 but the application was filed 2006-07-19 — several of these references sit inside that gap, which will drive any § 102/§ 103 fight.
• Institution decision: None. Statutory deadline under 35 U.S.C. § 314(b) is six months from the date the petition is accorded a filing date → approximately 2027-03-22 if the 2026-09-22 filing date is accorded.
• Final Written Decision: None exists. No claim of the '156 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board. No FWD to link or quote.
• Settlement / termination: None. No joint motion to terminate appearing in the structured record.
• Appeal: None. There is nothing appealable; the proceeding has not been instituted.
• Defensive value: Low today, rising to moderate on institution. Because there is no institution decision, a co-defendant cannot yet free-ride and cannot claim estoppel or a stay-triggering "review in progress" event. Watch the institution decision as the single dispositive milestone: if Samsung wins institution on claims 20/29/60, the E.D. Tex. case becomes a much stronger stay candidate; if institution is denied (merits or § 314(a) discretion), the patent emerges confirmed as to patentability on the petitioned record and the troll's position hardens considerably.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of 7,924,156 — asserted or unasserted, independent or dependent — has been canceled or upheld at the PTAB, because no trial has been instituted. If you are drafting a defensive narrative, the accurate statement is: "the asserted claims 20, 29 and 60 are untested before the Board, with a single pending petition filed 2026-09-22." Any assertion that "claims X have been invalidated" is false on this record; likewise, any assertion that "the patent has survived an IPR" is false — there has been no IPR trial yet.

Estoppel: none has attached, and none will until a final written decision issues. Under § 315(e)(2), estoppel binds a petitioner (and its privies) only after an FWD in an instituted trial, and it covers grounds raised or that reasonably could have been raised. With IPR2026-00506 merely pending, Samsung retains the full universe of § 102/§ 103 patent-and-printed-publication art in the district court. Practical consequences for a non-Samsung defendant: (i) your own invalidity case is unconstrained and can run on art Samsung did or did not plead; (ii) if Samsung institutes, a Sotera-type stipulation is the lever that moots § 315(e)(2) overlap and supports a stay — Samsung has used precisely that device in its other 2025–2026 campaigns (see its stipulations in IPR2025-00933/-00934 and the Netskope/Fortinet pattern in IPR2026-00025 et seq.); (iii) conversely, if the Board denies institution on discretionary grounds, expect the district court to lean on the Board's merits signal.

Pattern signals. This is Samsung's first-ever PTAB challenge to the '156 patent, and the first AIA trial of any kind against it in the fifteen years since the 2011-04-12 grant — notable, given the patent's 2029-06-06 adjusted expiration and its history of assertion. The petitioner is the district-court defendant itself, not a defensive aggregator: I found no Unified Patents (or similar) IPR on '156, so there is no third-party coalition defense to leverage. Samsung's "et al." designation almost certainly folds in Samsung Electronics America, Inc., the named co-defendant in 2:26-cv-00106 — but real parties-in-interest are unconfirmed and are a standard early-filing attack point (compare the RPI challenge mounted against Samsung in IPR2025-01431). Separately, Samsung has shown a multi-front habit in parallel campaigns (e.g., pairing an IPR with a PGR, as with PGR2026-00001/IPR2026-00018), and the Office is currently policing inconsistent claim constructions across forums under Revvo (IPR2025-00632) and Tesla (IPR2025-00340) — a live discretionary-denial risk to watch here as well.

Non-PTAB context that matters. The '156 patent was previously construed on the merits in Mynette Technologies, Inc. v. United States, No. 1:16-cv-01647 (Fed. Cl.), where Senior Judge Braden issued a reported claim-construction opinion covering 7,924,156 on 2018-08-17 (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4527821](/patent/4527821)/mynette-technologies-inc-v-united-states/). That prior construction is a ready-made source of prosecution-history and disclaimer arguments — and a template for how the Board or Judge Gilstrap may read the same terms. The current assertion case is SureCell Transactions LLC v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-00106 (E.D. Tex., filed 2026-02-12, Judge Gilstrap, $500M demand).

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the petition now. Retrieve Paper 1 and the exhibit list for IPR2026-00506 from PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) or the PTAB public-information endpoint. Until you have the challenged-claim list and the art, nothing in this report can be represented as the petition's grounds.
2. Calendar the § 314(b) institution deadline (~2027-03-22) and the POPR due date (ordinarily three months from the notice of filing date, ~2026-12-22). The institution decision is the only event that meaningfully changes the defensive calculus between now and next year.
3. If you are a defendant: the accurate posture is "one petition pending; no estoppel; full invalidity case preserved." Consider (a) whether to piggyback on Samsung's art or run independent grounds, and (b) whether to seek a stay conditioned on a Sotera-type stipulation — the same tool Samsung used to obtain institution over discretionary-denial objections in IPR2025-00933/-00934.
4. Preserve the priority-date attack. The 2005-05-06 priority claim versus the 2006-07-19 actual filing is the pressure point for the ICAO/EPCglobal/Juels references dated inside that 14-month gap.
5. Mine the Fed. Cl. construction. Cite Judge Braden's 2018-08-17 opinion for intrinsic-record positions on the asserted terms; where the Board's institution decision picks up those constructions, it becomes a direct estoppel-adjacent lever in E.D. Tex.
6. If no institution by ~2027-03-22, treat it as a discretionary denial and immediately re-tune the district-court invalidity theory — a denied petition returns the patent to the field effectively un-narrowed, and the absence of any earlier PTAB challenge over fifteen years will be argued by Patent Owner as a robustness signal.

Fabrication guardrail: The structured data lists exactly one proceeding. I have not added any others, and I found no FWD, settlement, or CAFC appeal to report. Where a field above says "not verified," it means exactly that — treat it as a to-do, not a finding.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,924,156, focusing on reel/frame numbers, correspondents of record, and NPE signals.

Useful leads. Let me dig for the assignment reel/frame data and the correspondent of record.

Let me try to pin down the actual assignment record entries and the recording correspondents.

Scope note before the sections

Two things up front, because they bear on the reliability of everything below.

1. I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent in this session (I exhausted my search budget before the Assignment Center returned data). The traversal below is therefore reconstructed from (a) the Google Patents "Legal Events" / "Reassignment" entries on the authoritative full text you supplied — which are themselves transcriptions of USPTO assignment records — and (b) the sworn ownership statements and judicial findings in Mynette Techs., Inc. v. United States, No. 16-1647 (Fed. Cl.), including the complaint (Doc. 1), the claim-construction opinion (Doc. 68, Aug. 17, 2018), and the sanctions opinion (Doc. 155, filed sealed Dec. 5, 2022 / public Dec. 20, 2022). I have no reel/frame numbers, execution-vs-recording date splits, or correspondent-of-record identities. I flag each place that matters rather than guessing. To close those gaps, query the patent number directly at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html or https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

2. Cross-reference contradictions with the previously generated sections are flagged inline below (they are not repeated).

Inventors

Steven M. Colby — sole named inventor. Confirmed on the face of US 7,924,156 and in Mynette Techs. v. United States ("Plaintiff Steven Colby is … the sole inventor of each of the Infringed Patents," Doc. 1 ¶ 7; the ’156 Patent's "Related U.S. Application Data" lists Colby as the applicant throughout the CIP chain).

Employer at the time of filing (July 19, 2006): Colby was a patent agent/attorney at Carr & Ferrell LLP (Menlo Park, CA). The Fed. Cl. sanctions opinion records: he joined Carr & Ferrell in 2000 as a technical writer and patent agent, attended law school 2001–2004, joined the California bar, and "continued working for Carr & Ferrell as a patent attorney until 2007." He holds a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry with a minor in chemical physics (Indiana University, 1992) and is named on roughly thirty patents across unrelated fields (MALDI, LED lighting, location-based services, RFID, e-paper, chemical instrumentation, phone systems).

Unusual patterns — two worth noting:

• No employer assignment. Despite inventing while employed as a patent professional at Carr & Ferrell, Colby retained personal ownership of the invention — Google Patents lists the original assignee as "Individual," and there is no pre-2016 corporate assignment in the record. So the classic "all inventors departed the assignee within 12 months" tell does not apply — there was never a company assignee to depart from.
• Inventor–counsel overlap. The man who later asserted the patent on Mynette's behalf, Robert J. Yorio, was Colby's partner at the same firm, Carr & Ferrell, and became a Mynette owner/director. The court documented that this relationship was concealed for nearly five years of litigation (see below). That insider-entanglement, not inventor attrition, is the governance anomaly in this file.

Original assignee

Individual — Steven M. Colby personally. Google Patents records "Original Assignee: Individual," and the Fed. Cl. complaint states Colby was "the assignor and sole inventor of the '156 Patent" (Doc. 1 ¶ 16).

• Product embodying the claims: None identified. No operating company ever held or practiced the ’156 claims. Colby produced RFID marketing materials in 2005 and lobbied California legislators on RFID, but there is no evidence of a shipped product.
• Primary line of business: None — an individual inventor who was contemporaneously a patent prosecutor at Carr & Ferrell.
• Current status: Colby is an individual (last known residence in the litigation: Mountain View, CA). He is no longer the owner. The patent is now held by Surecell Transactions LLC (see below).

Assignment timeline

Reel/frame numbers: NOT RETRIEVED. The Assignment Center interface was not reachable in this session, so I cannot supply reel/frame or correspondent data. Execution dates and the substance of each transfer are corroborated by the Fed. Cl. record and Google Patents legal events; treat the reel/frame and correspondent fields as open items to verify at the Assignment Center.

There are three recorded post-issuance transfers (the patent issued April 12, 2011 and sat unassigned in Colby's name for ~5 years). Sequence:

• 2016-09-25 (executed) / recorded 2016-10-24 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Steven M. Colby
  • Assignee: Steven M. Colby Trust
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag: pull this record first; the same recorder likely appears on the next two entries.
  • Context: internal reorg / estate step — first hop of a two-day, two-hop transfer structure. Per Doc. 68: "On September 25, 2016, Mr. Colby assigned 'the entire right, title[,] and interest' in the '156 and '425 Patents … to the 'Steven M. Colby Trust.'"

• 2016-09-26 (executed) / recorded 2016-10-24 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Steven M. Colby Trust
  • Assignee: MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC. (spelling reproduced literally from the assignment record; appears to be a typo for "Technologies" — not corrected)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter — the second hop moves the patent into the newly formed NPE (Mynette incorporated in Delaware on 2016-07-07; Colby is officer/director/shareholder, Yorio is owner/director).

• 2025-12-29 — Reel/Frame not retrieved (Google Patents lists this as the event date; I cannot tell whether it is execution or recording)

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST" per the Google Patents reassignment entry)
  • Assignor: MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC.
  • Assignee: SURECELL TRANSACTIONS, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter / portfolio sale — follows the Sept. 22, 2025 joint motion for judgment pursuant to stipulation that resolved the Fed. Cl. case, and precedes Surecell's Feb. 12, 2026 E.D. Tex. suit against Samsung.

Record of licenses/security interests: None surfaced. The only encumbrance of record is the court-imposed covenant not to sue (a sanction remedy in 16-1647, running with the "Restricted Patents" against the U.S./Gemalto/Idemia and carrying an "Assignee Notice Obligation" binding successors and assigns). No recorded license or security agreement appears in the chain.

Cross-reference flags vs. earlier sections:

• The earlier section's reported independent claims ("at least independent claims 20 and 29, and method claim 60") remain unverified, and I found a differing asserted-claim set for the same patent in the Fed. Cl. record: the Oct. 19, 2023 scheduling order (No. 16-1647, Doc. 182) defines the Asserted Claims as "claims 1, 5, 51, and 53 of U.S. Patent No. 7,924,156." That confirms the patent has ≥53 claims; it does not confirm 20/29/60. Flagging, not resolving.
• The earlier section's "No CAFC 2026 activity" is consistent with mine; note additionally that the Fed. Cl. case is now resolved by stipulated judgment (joint motion filed Sept. 22, 2025, Doc. 210, signed by Robert J. Yorio of Carr & Ferrell), which is why no appeal is pending.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7924156
    2006 : Filed by inventor Steven M Colby
    2011 : Issued to Colby as individual
    2016 : Colby assigns to Steven M Colby Trust
         : Trust assigns to Mynette Technologies
         : Mynette sues US in Court of Federal Claims
    2022 : Court calls Mynette a nonpracticing entity
    2025 : Stipulated judgment ends Fed Cl case
         : Mynette assigns to SureCell Transactions LLC
    2026 : SureCell sues Samsung in EDTX

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. Two consecutive hops move the patent from Colby individually → Steven M. Colby Trust (2016-09-25) → Mynette Technologies, Inc. (2016-09-26), both with recording date 2016-10-24. Mynette was incorporated in Delaware on 2016-07-07 — roughly eleven weeks before taking title — and is judicially characterized: "Mynette Technologies, Inc. is a nonpracticing entity, formed in 2016 for the purpose of pursuing patent infringement claims against the government" and "Mynette does not make any products" (Doc. 155 at 2, 4). It is a two-person entity (Colby and Yorio). The chain then ends at another non-operating holder, SURECELL TRANSACTIONS, LLC, on 2025-12-29. Caveat: I do not have Surecell's registered-agent address or formation papers, so the "registered-agent service / single-member Delaware or Texas LLC" tells are not yet evidenced for Surecell — only for Mynette (single-purpose Delaware entity, no products).

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT against the named lists (unclear otherwise). Neither Mynette nor Surecell matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, or Spangenberg entities in what I retrieved. However: (a) Mynette is a court-recognized nonpracticing entity, and (b) the family appears in Darts-ip family 38040183 and Unified Patents litigation data. Also note a classification oddity: an Ex Parte directory page lists Surecell Transactions LLC as "Operating Company" with "Total Cases 1" — I would treat that label as a directory default, not evidence of product sales, since no products are known and Surecell's sole activity is the Samsung suit. Do not infer NPE status from the LLC name; infer it from the no-products finding and the two pre-suit transfers.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (unverifiable this session). This is the highest-value unretrieved data point. The circumstantial case for a recurring attorney is strong but not a recorded-assignment finding: Robert J. Yorio, Carr & Ferrell LLP, is the attorney of record for both plaintiffs in 16-1647 and was simultaneously a Mynette shareholder and director (and, at formation, Mynette's VP and CFO — see Org. Resolutions, Pls.' Ex. 3). If Yorio or Carr & Ferrell is the correspondent of record on the 2016 reel/frame entries, that is a textbook "the LLCs are anonymous but the lawyer is not" finding. I cannot confirm this without the reel/frame records. Verify before relying on it.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (moderate). Two stacked assignments executed on consecutive days (2016-09-25 and 2016-09-26), both recorded the same day (2016-10-24), to a company formed ~11 weeks prior, with the same two principals (Colby, Yorio) on both sides of the structure. This is not the <24-month chained-LLC fact pattern, but it is a single-week transfer structure designed to move clean record title into an assertion vehicle.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT, twice.

   • Instance 1: Mynette incorporated 2016-07-07; ’156 assigned effective 2016-09-26; first suit naming the ’156 filed 2016-12-14 (Mynette Techs. & Colby v. United States, No. 16-1647) — ~11 weeks from assignment to filing.
   • Instance 2: ’156 assigned to Surecell 2025-12-29; Surecell's suit naming the ’156 filed 2026-02-12 (E.D. Tex. No. 2:26-cv-00106, per the earlier section) — ~45 days.
   • Both fall inside the 6-month window and indicate the chain was arranged to enable assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11; the 2025 change of hands followed a stipulated judgment, not insolvency.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no operating company in this chain transferring to an NPE to assert on the company's behalf. The original owner was an individual inventor, not a product company.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT (chain ends at an asserter), with one partial-neutralization note. The chain terminates at Surecell Transactions LLC, an active plaintiff, so this is not an RPX/AST/LOT/OIN endpoint. That said, the Fed. Cl. sanctions remedy imposed a covenant not to sue running with the "Restricted Patents" against the U.S., Gemalto, and Idemia, plus an Assignee Notice Obligation intended to bind future assignees. That neutralizes the patent only against those parties — it did not stop the 2025-12-29 transfer or the 2026 Samsung suit.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain is Colby (individual) → Steven M. Colby Trust (2016-09-25) → Mynette Technologies, Inc. (2016-09-26, recorded 2016-10-24) → Surecell Transactions LLC (2025-12-29), and Mynette is judicially found to be a nonpracticing entity that "does not make any products" (Doc. 155). Three strong signals converge: a shell-entity transfer into a single-purpose Delaware assertion vehicle with no products; a pre-litigation transfer in both instances (~11 weeks in 2016 and ~45 days in 2025); and a cascading two-hop transfer executed on consecutive days into a company formed eleven weeks earlier. The surviving uncertainty is the correspondent of record on the reel/frame entries — retrieving it is the fastest way to upgrade signal 3 from "unclear" to a finding.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center / Assignment Search by patent number — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/). Search 7,924,156; capture the reel/frame, execution date, recording date, and correspondent for each of the three entries above (especially the two 2016 entries and the 2025 Surecell entry).

I'll search for the specific patent and its cited references.

Let me look for the actual examiner-cited prior art list for this patent.

Let me pull the citation lists from alternate patent portals.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,924,156

0. What was searched, and one important gap up front

Searched (literal ID 7924156 / 7,924,156 only; hits for similar numbers such as 7,924,155 / 9,924,156 excluded): Google Patents (US7924156B2), Justia Patents, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, EPO/Google patentimages search-report PDFs, and PTAB/PTACTS documents surfaced incidentally.

Verified: US 7,924,156 B2 exists — "Electronically switchable RFID tags," App. No. 11/458,620, filed 2006-07-19, granted 2011-04-12, inventor Steven M. Colby, pre-grant pub. US 2007/0109101 A1 (2007-05-17). This is consistent with the bibliographic table already built in the earlier Patent Summary section — no contradiction, no correction needed.

Gap I must flag (and it matters for this task): I was unable to retrieve the examiner-cited "Patent Citations" (backward-citation) table for 7,924,156 itself within my search budget. The full text supplied to me is truncated before the claims and before any References Cited section, and neither Google Patents' citation table nor the USPTO PatentCenter document was returned in a form I could read. I therefore cannot give you a verified list of the patent documents cited on the face of 7,924,156. Per your rule, I will not fabricate titles, dates, or §102 mappings to fill that table, and I will not pass off another document's citation list as this one's.

Two things I found that are not the '156 citation table — stated so you don't mistake them for it:

• The Justia "Referenced Cited" list I retrieved belongs to US 9,495,852 (a later Colby continuation, issued 2016). That list contains post-2006 documents (e.g., US 7,832,771 (2010), US 8,816,826 (2014)) that cannot be prior art to a 2006-filed patent. It is a proxy/wrong-document list and I am excluding it.
• The Google Patents "Cited By (19)" list on the '156 page (e.g., US 2009/0167484 A1, Intel, "RFID enabled light switches"; US 2010/0026466 A1, Colby, "Passive Radio Frequency Data Logger"; US 9,285,594 B1; US 9,495,852 B1) is forward citation (later patents citing '156), i.e., the opposite of prior art. Not usable as §102 art against '156.

So the body below is organized around what the documentary record actually shows to have been asserted as prior art against 7,924,156 (the litigation invalidity contentions), which is the most reliable, sourced prior-art set I could reach — plus the §102 framework you need to apply it.

1. The §102 framework that governs this analysis

These are the levers that determine whether any reference can anticipate a given claim of '156. Get these right and the rest follows.

The critical, often outcome-determinative point: because '156 is a CIP, the effective date is claim-by-claim. The disclosure in '156 that is not in the 2005 parents is supported only as of 2006-07-19. That shifts the §102(b) bar from 2004-05-06 to 2005-07-19, which moves several of the references below from §102(a) ("before the invention") into §102(b) (statutory bar — unremovable by a later-claimed date of invention). Any faithful §102 analysis of '156 must first fix the effective date of each challenged claim; I cannot do that without the issued claims and the parent specifications, and I flag it as a prerequisite rather than assume it.

Two other structural points:

• US 2006/0187061 A1 (Colby, pub. 2006-08-24) and the other Colby filings (US 7,719,425; the 11/382,05x series) are family members, not prior art. The BR search report on PCT/BR2014/000297 and the JP search report on PCT/US2021/049439 both list US 7,924,156 in the patent family of US 2006/0187061 A1 — confirming same-family status and confirming they cannot be §102 art against '156.
• The '156 specification expressly incorporates by reference U.S. nonprovisional 11/350,309 (filed 2006-02-07) and its parent applications. Again, family/related, not prior art.

2. Prior art of record asserted against 7,924,156 (litigation)

The invalidity contentions reported on the Justia records for the related Colby/Mynette patents name the following combinations as invalidating U.S. Pat. No. 7,924,156. Each entry below is a reported contention (third-party record), not something I re-verified against a served contention document — treat the existence of these references as well-sourced and the per-claim mapping as my reasoned inference.

2a. Non-patent literature (printed publications)

2b. Patent-art candidates

I cannot present a verified per-patent table for '156 (see §0). What the record does support:

• The invalidity contentions as reported are framed as single-reference and combination attacks built on the NPL above, with the patent art appearing as secondary/combination references. I did not obtain the specific U.S. patent numbers designated against '156, so I am not going to guess at them.
• One patent-family fact worth isolating: US 2006/0187061 A1 (Steven M. Colby, pub. 2006-08-24) is a same-family document (the BR and JP search reports list US 7,924,156 in its patent family). It is therefore not §102 art against '156, and any contention resting on it would be a family/§102(e)-self problem rather than true prior art.

3. Claim mapping — the caveat you must carry forward

Contradiction flag (internal to this analysis): The earlier Patent Summary section stated, correctly, that the issued claim set of '156 was not available and that the reported independents were 20, 29 and 60 (third-party source). In this round I did retrieve a claim set, but it is the claim set of the pre-grant publication US 2007/0109101 A1, which runs only to claim 20 (claim 1 = RFID tag with antenna + IC/key-memory/state-memory/switch-logic; claim 10 = RFID tag with a mechanical switch; claim 20 = method of changing state). Because the issued patent reportedly reaches at least claim 60, the published claim numbering and the issued claim numbering do not line up, and I will not treat them as equivalent. So:

No reference in the record gives me a clean, single-reference, every-element §102 hit on a claim that includes the combination of (i) RF-harvested power, (ii) a resident stored ON/OFF state, (iii) a key memory, and (iv) logic that both authenticates and gates transmission on the stored state. That combination is the novelty question a §102 analysis of '156 has to resolve, and it cannot be resolved on the sources retrieved.

4. What I could not verify (stated rather than invented)

• The face-of-the-patent "References Cited" list for 7,924,156 — not retrieved. Any statement naming specific patent numbers cited on '156 would be fabrication on my part; I have made none.
• Exact issued claim text and numbering — not retrieved. The report of "independent claims 20 and 29, method claim 60" remains third-party-sourced; the published claims (1–20) are from US 2007/0109101 A1 and may differ.
• Effective date per claim — cannot be fixed without the parents (11/382,050, etc.) and the issued claims; this is the single most important unresolved input, because it decides whether refs #5, #7, #11 and the 2005-dated public demonstrations are §102(b) bars or merely §102(a) art.
• Whether the contentions were served in SureCell Transactions LLC v. Samsung (2:26-cv-00106, E.D. Tex.) or in the earlier enforcement/CFC activity (U.S. Court of Federal Claims 1:16-cv-01647). The contention list is tied to the '741/'156 joint assertion per Justia; the specific case of service was not confirmed.
• "MYNETTE TECHNOLGIES, INC." — reproduction of the assignment record's spelling, per the earlier section; not corrected here.
• Date inconsistency — this task header says 2026-04-26; the underlying system date is 2026-09-23. Reported as-is, not reconciled.

Recommendation to close the gap: pull the official US 7,924,156 B2 grant from USPTO PatentCenter (or the patentimages PDF for the grant) and read the "References Cited" column and the claims 1–60+ directly. That single document gives you both the true patent-citation table you asked for and the issued claim text needed to make the §102 mappings above authoritative rather than inferred.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the actual prior art references identified in the invalidity contentions. Let me research those references.

I now have the court's claim construction order (CFC 1:16-cv-01647) quoting actual claim language. Let me get the full issued claim set and more prior-art detail.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,924,156 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Scope, sources, and hard caveats

Tell me if I get a claim wrong. I still do not have the complete issued claim text (columns 23–25 of the '156 patent). This analysis is built on:

• The actual claim-construction opinion in the Court of Federal Claims case, Memorandum Opinion and Order Construing Certain Claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,719,425; 7,924,156; 9,524,458; and 9,569,777 (Judge Braden), which quotes issued claim 1, claim 7, claim 20, claim 24, and part of claim 29 of the '156 patent — https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/federal-claims/cofce/1:2016cv01647/33829/68/0.pdf?ts=1534585283
• The pre-grant publication US 2007/0109101 A1, whose claims 1–20 track the issued claim 1 recitations — https://patents.justia.com/patent/20070109101

Two important cross-section flags:

1. Contradiction with the earlier "Patent summary" section. That section said the asserted claim numbers (20, 29, 60) were "reported but not independently verified." The CFC claim-construction order now independently confirms that claims 1, 7, 20, 24, and 29 exist with the recited content, and confirms that claim 1 is also an independent claim (the earlier section treated 20/29/60 as the independents). Treat "claim 1 is independent and includes the key-comparison switch logic" as now verified; treat "claim 20 = mechanical switch" and "claim 24 depends from 20" as verified; claim 60 (the method) remains unverified.
2. The claim construction cuts against the patentee here. The court rejected the patentee's attempt to construe "switch logic" as something that "controls a 'switch,'" and held one of ordinary skill "would understand the term 'switch logic' to mean a part of integrated circuitry." The same order construed "ON/OFF state" broadly as:

"A switchable status that includes an OFF state and at least one ON state. An OFF state is one in which data cannot be transmitted from a RFID tag; an ON state is one in which data can be transmitted from a RFID tag."

Broad constructions of "switch logic" and "ON/OFF state" are what make the prior-art combinations below stick. This is the single most useful thing I found for your § 103 question, and it is the patent's own litigation record.

Legal framework applied. The application was filed 2006-07-19 with a priority claim to 2005-05-06, so pre-AIA § 103(a) governs. I apply Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (motivation may come from the references, the problem the inventor faced, or common knowledge; "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA). A transponder/secure-memory engineer with a B.S.E.E./C.S. and ~2–4 years designing passive RFID tags and contactless memory architectures, familiar with ISO/IEC 14443, ISO/IEC 15693, ISO/IEC 18000-6, the EPCglobal Class-1 Gen-2 air-interface spec, and the MIFARE product family. This is the skill level the CFC court's construction presupposes.

The prior art set is the invalidity-contentions list you supplied: MiFare Functional Product Specification Rev. 3.1 (Oct. 2002); RFID Handbook, 2nd ed. (Finkenzeller, 2003); Smart Card Handbook, 3rd ed. (2003); Juels & Pappu, "Squealing Euros" (Jan. 2003); Juels et al., "Security and Privacy Issues in E-Passports" (≤ Apr. 26, 2005); Knospe, RFID Security (2004); Gao et al. (Sep. 2004); Weis et al. (2004); EPCglobal Specification for RFID Protocols, Class-1 Gen-2, V1.0.9 (Jan. 2005); ICAO 2003 "Use of Contactless Integrated Circuits in MRTDs" (Apr. 2003); and the Morgantown ePassports Interoperability Test Sessions (Jul. 27–29, 2004).

1. What each key reference actually teaches

(a) EPCglobal Class-1 Gen-2 UHF RFID Protocol, V1.0.9 (Jan. 2005) — the primary reference

Verified content: a compliant tag must contain two 32-bit passwords stored in Reserved Memory — a Kill Password and an Access Password. The Access Password authenticates readers that wish to access tag information and "provides a form of access control on the information." The Kill Password is used to disable the tag; a killed tag "would stop responding to reader queries and no further communication with it would be possible." The tag has a documented state machine — Ready, Arbitrate, Reply, Acknowledged, Open, Secured, Killed — and a Lock command that independently locks/unlocks the kill password, access password, EPC bank, TID bank, and User memory.

Sources: https://reference.opcfoundation.org/v104/AutoID/v101/docs/B.3 ; https://www.atlasrfidstore.com/rfid-insider/uhf-rfid-security-measures/ ; the spec TOC (Reserved Memory → Kill password / Access password; tag states → Secured state, Killed state; commands → Read, Write, Kill, Lock, Access).

Why this matters: a Gen-2 tag already contains (i) a passive antenna that harvests reader energy and backscatters a reply, (ii) an input that receives data and power, (iii) an output that drives the backscatter, (iv) a stored state (the state machine), (v) a stored key (Reserved Memory), (vi) a comparator that tests received data against that key (the Kill/Access handshake), and (vii) logic that changes the stored state responsive to that comparison and then decides whether to reply based on the state. That is the architecture of '156 claim 1, before you add any other reference.

(b) MIFARE MF1 IC S70 Functional Specification Rev. 3.1 (Oct. 2002)

Verified content: "three pass authentication"; "Individual key set per sector (per application) to support multi-application with key hierarchy"; "access to a block is only possible via the two keys specified for each block"; per-block access conditions (C1/C2/C3 bits) that can set a block to e.g. "key A read, never write" or "never read." Once authenticated, memory operations on that sector are permitted (and encrypted).

Source (actual exhibit from a PTAB proceeding): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-00957/Google_LLC_v._RFCyber_Corp/05-19-2021-Petitioner/Exhibit-1018-GOOG_1018___Philips_Semiconductor_mifare_MF1_IC_S70_Functional_Specification_v31/

Why this matters: MIFARE is the clearest prior-art teaching of key memory + read-the-key + compare + gate access, and of different read access yielding different data (the "two or more ON states" limitation). Its authentication is reversible (re-authenticate at any time; keys are 0xFF..FF at delivery and can be rewritten), which defeats a "but Gen-2 kill is permanent" non-obviousness argument.

(c) Juels & Pappu, "Squealing Euros: Privacy Protection in RFID-Enabled Banknotes," Financial Cryptography '03, pp. 103–121

Verified content (from the authors' own slides): an RFID tag "simply calls out its (unique) name or static data at a range of several meters"; tags have "little computational power … Static keys for read/write permission"; the stated problem is that "anyone" can read tags ("Fairly easy tracking of people and transactions by anyone!"; "Law-enforcement snooping capabilities made freely available"); proposed fixes include a law-enforcement/access key and restricting access via an optical channel key K — the shop "optically reads printed key K … Uses K to gain read access."

Sources: https://www.arijuels.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/JP03slides.pdf ; bibliographic record via DBLP http://www09.sigmod.org/sigmod/dblp/db/indices/a-tree/p/Pappu:Ravikanth.html

Why this matters: this is the reference that supplies the problem statement and the motivation — the exact problem the '156 patent recites in its Background ("an RFID reader can read any RFID tags that pass within its range … a possibility of unauthorized access"). It also expressly contemplates static keys stored on the tag for read/write permission and restricting read access by presenting a key.

(d) Juels et al., "Security and Privacy Issues in E-Passports" (≤ Apr. 26, 2005) + ICAO 2003 "Use of Contactless Integrated Circuits in MRTDs" (Apr. 2003) + Morgantown Interoperability Sessions (Jul 2004)

Verified content: these establish Basic Access Control (BAC) in e-passports — the reader optically reads the machine-readable zone, derives a key, performs mutual authentication, and the tag releases protected data only if authentication succeeds. Juels et al. is the canonical description of BAC and of the skimming/eavesdropping threat it addresses.

Why this matters: BAC is a key-memory + compare + gate-readability architecture deployed in an identity document — exactly the "identity device / passport / driver's license" embodiments of the '156 patent.

(e) Finkenzeller, RFID Handbook 2nd ed. (2003); Smart Card Handbook 3rd ed. (2003); Knospe, RFID Security (2004); Gao et al. (Sep 2004); Weis et al. (2004)

These are the general-knowledge treatises and survey papers of the field. They (i) document that mechanical, magnetic, optical, and electrical switches/contacts had long been used to enable or disable a data carrier, and (ii) survey the privacy/authentication problem and known access-control solutions. Weis et al. in particular frames the eavesdropping/authentication problem and the standard keyed-challenge solutions. I have not re-verified page-level content of the two Handbooks, so I use them only as evidence of the background knowledge and of what a POSKITA would treat as conventional — not as a stand-alone anticipatory reference.

2. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Issued claim 1 (as quoted in the CFC opinion, col. 23) requires a switch logic that will "receive data from the input, … read the key from the key memory, … compare the received data with the read key, … change the ON/OFF state stored in the state memory responsive to this comparison," and "determine whether or not to provide the second RF signal to the antenna for transmission, the determination being responsive to the ON/OFF state stored in the state memory." The CFC order further indicates claim 1 recites that the ON/OFF state "includes two or more ON states" ('156 col. 23 ll. 1–2).

Conclusion on claim 1: Gen-2 alone discloses every structural element; the only genuinely arguable gap is the word "OFF" implying a reversible return path (Gen-2's Kill is permanent). That gap is closed by Gen-2's own Access/Secured and Lock/Unlock reversible transitions, and independently by MIFARE's reversible authentication.

3. The obviousness combinations

Combination 1 (lead theory) — EPCglobal Gen-2 + Juels & Pappu "Squealing Euros"

• Where each teaches: Gen-2 supplies the complete hardware/state architecture (antenna, power harvester, key memory, comparator, state machine, state-gated reply). Juels & Pappu supplies the problem (any reader can read any tag) and the solution direction (restrict read access with a key held on the tag / presented by the reader).
• Motivation to combine (KSR): both references are in the same field (passive RFID security/privacy); Juels & Pappu articulate the identical problem the '156 Background recites; and Gen-2 already contains the key memory, comparator, and state logic necessary to implement Juels' key-gated read access without new silicon or a new air interface. The combination is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."
• Result → claim 1: key memory = Reserved Memory; compare = Kill/Access handshake; state change = state-machine transition; state-gated transmission = killed/blocked vs. responsive.

Combination 2 — EPCglobal Gen-2 + MIFARE S70 Spec Rev 3.1 (for the "two or more ON states"/different-data claims, e.g. claim 7 and reported claim 29)

• Where each teaches: Gen-2 supplies RF powering, the memory banks, and the command/state framework; MIFARE supplies the per-sector key hierarchy with access-condition bits that make different data readable depending on which key/state is active. MIFARE states expressly that the block is accessible only via its two keys, and that access conditions can restrict read, write, increment, or decrement independently — i.e., detectability and readability are separately controllable, which is precisely the '156's stated distinction ("Detection occurs when Tag 160 sends any response signal, while readability is a function of the data that may be included in the contents of the response signal").
• Motivation: both are ISO/IEC-family contactless memory architectures; a POSKITA building a multi-application / multi-account secure tag would naturally combine Gen-2's passive RF front end with MIFARE's key-and-access-condition model to expose different data sets under different authenticated states.

Combination 3 — EPCglobal Gen-2 + ICAO 2003 / Juels et al. e-Passport + Morgantown results (for the method claim and the identity-document embodiments)

• BAC is literally: the tag stores a key; the reader sends data derived from that key; the tag compares; only on a match does the tag release data. Combined with Gen-2's RF-powering and backscatter, this yields the "change ON/OFF state" method (harvest energy → receive first data → read key → compare → write state memory to go OFF→ON). The Morgantown interoperability sessions demonstrate the BAC scheme was actually implemented in the 2004 timeframe.
• Motivation: the e-passport skimming threat is the same unauthorized-reading problem; documents of record show the industry had already adopted key-gated read access in identity documents by 2004.

Combination 4 — Any of the above + a mechanical switch (claim 20; and claim 24, which depends from 20)

Claim 20 (per the CFC order) recites "a switch logic configured to receive data from the input, and to determine whether or not to provide the second RF signal to the antenna for transmission, the determination being responsive to the state stored in the state memory or the mechanical switch."

• The '156 specification itself concedes that the switch may be "a sliding switch, a flip switch, a rotating switch, membrane switch, pushbutton switch, or other mechanical switch known in the art of mechanical switches." That is a § 103 admission that the mechanical switching element is old.
• The Handbook references (Finkenzeller; Smart Card Handbook) and the general smart-card art document mechanically actuated contacts/switches used to enable a data carrier.
• Motivation: a user-operable physical gate is the obvious way to let the holder, rather than a remote reader, decide when a tag is live — a point the '156 specification concedes and KSR disposes of.

4. Why a POSKITA would have combined these (the KSR record)

1. Same field, same problem, recognized in the art. Juels & Pappu, Juels et al., Knospe, Gao, and Weis all state the unauthorized-read/privacy problem before the critical date. Where the prior art identifies the very problem, the motivation requirement is satisfied.
2. The elements are individually known and their interaction is mechanical, not synergistic. Key memory + comparator + a state bit gating an RF response is the textbook architecture of any password-protected transponder (Gen-2; MIFARE; BAC).
3. Standards context. Gen-2 already mandates the key memory and the compare-then-change-state logic. Implementing a key-gated ON/OFF on such a tag is a mere substitution of a known use of the known password/state machinery for the permanent Kill.
4. No unexpected result. The claimed advantage (a tag that stays quiet until authorized) is exactly the predictable consequence the references describe.

5. Where obviousness is weakest — be honest about this

• "OFF" vs. "Killed." The strongest non-obviousness argument is that Gen-2's Kill is permanent, whereas the '156 requires a reversible ON/OFF that the key can flip repeatedly (claim 1; claim 3 "OFF by default and temporally ON"; the Revert behavior). A patentee will say the reference teaches away from reversibility. Rebuttal: Gen-2's Access/Secured state and Lock/Unlock commands are reversible, key-controlled state transitions on the same tag; MIFARE's authentication is likewise reversible. So the reversible-state teaching is in the same reference set. This argument will turn on the exact claim language, which I cannot fully see.
• The "mechanical switch" claims (20/24). I have not verified a specific anticipatory mechanical-switch tag in the contentions list. The strength here rests on the specification's own "known in the art" admission plus the general knowledge in the Handbooks — strong for § 103, weaker for § 102.
• Priority date / CIP problem — this cuts for the invalidity contentions. The '156 is a continuation-in-part. Claim subject matter not supported by the 2005-05-06 provisional takes the 2006-07-19 filing date, pushing the pre-AIA § 102(b) critical date to 2005-07-19 — which makes EPCglobal Gen-2 (Jan. 2005) a § 102(b) reference (statutory bar) rather than merely § 102(a)/(e) art. Any claim whose ON/OFF-key material was added in the CIP gets the later date and loses the § 102(a)/inventive-date escape. This is worth preserving in any invalidity contention.

6. Bottom line

On the record I can verify, claim 1 is obvious over EPCglobal Class-1 Gen-2 V1.0.9 (Jan 2005) in view of Juels & Pappu (2003) — and alternatively over Gen-2 in view of MIFARE MF1 IC S70 Rev. 3.1 (2002) — with the "two-ON-states / different-data" dependents obvious over Gen-2 + MIFARE (access-condition bits), the method claim obvious over Gen-2 + ICAO 2003/Juels e-Passport (BAC), and the mechanical-switch claims obvious over any of those in further view of the admitted "mechanical switch known in the art" and the Handbook treatises. The patent's own claim-construction order (broad "ON/OFF state"; "switch logic" = "a part of integrated circuitry") enlarges the claims onto exactly what these references disclose.

Residual uncertainty: the full issued claim set (cols. 23–25 of the '156) and method claim 60 remain unverified by me; and I did not re-verify page-level content of the two Handbook treatises. If exact claim language controls your conclusion, pull the granted claims from USPTO PatentCenter for US 7,924,156 B2.