US 8366481

I'll verify the patent's current status and any 2026 court activity before summarizing.

US 8,366,481 B2 — "Continuity Maintaining Biasing Member"

Verification note on scope: I searched for 8366481 specifically and filtered out near-numbers (e.g., 8,366,000-range relatives, US 8,475,205, US 8,485,845, US 9,017,101, US 9,608,345, US 9,225,083). Results below relate only to the number you asked about. Where a search result conflicted with what I would have assumed, I have followed the search result.

1. Bibliographic data

Assignee chain of record: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → (change of name, 2013-02-12) MR Advisers Limited → (change of name, 2013-02-13) PPC Broadband, Inc. Security interests were granted to JPMorgan Chase (2013-10-04) and Wells Fargo (2013-10-08); Wells Fargo's interest was released 2016-10-12.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8366481/en

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A post having a first end, a second end, and a flange proximate the second end, wherein the post is configured to receive a center conductor surrounded by a dielectric of a coaxial cable, a connector body attached to the post, a coupling element attached to the post, the coupling element having a first end a second end, and a biasing member disposed within a cavity formed between the first end of the coupling element and the connector body to bias the coupling element against the post is provided. Moreover, a connector body having a biasing element, wherein the biasing element biases the coupling element against the post, is further provided. Furthermore, associated methods are also provided."

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the core apparatus claim (biasing member embodiment).
A coaxial cable connector with four cooperating parts:

• a post that receives the cable's center conductor/dielectric, with a flange near its rear end;
• a connector body (front end receives the cable; rear end attaches to the post in the assembled state);
• a coupling element (the threaded nut) that engages the post and can sit in two positions — a first position in which, while tightening onto a port, the post does not yet touch the port, and a second, axially spaced position in which the post does touch the port. The nut has an internal lip with a radially-facing lip contact surface, plus an axially-facing outer internal wall surface; together with a "body contact surface" on the connector body those surfaces define a cavity; and
• a biasing member that sits inside that cavity and pushes between the lip contact surface and the body contact surface, urging the lip away from the body and toward the post flange at least until the post contacts the port.

Two functional limits are recited: the biasing force must help maintain an electrical ground path between coupling element, post and port even when the post is not yet touching the port; and the biasing member must also serve as a physical seal between coupling element and connector body. Critically, the biasing member must be substantially non-metallic and non-conductive (i.e., not a conductive O-ring/spring of the type criticized in the Background).

Claim 8 — the integral connector-body embodiment.
Same general connector, but the bias comes from structure on the connector body rather than a separate part: the body has an integral body biasing element with a coupling-element contact portion, plus an annular groove that lets that biasing element deflect axially. The integral biasing element must exert enough force to axially urge the coupling element's inward lip away from the body and toward the post flange at least until the post contacts the port, improving grounding reliability even when the post is not yet in contact with the port. (This corresponds to the FIG. 8A/8B and FIG. 9 embodiment, elements 250/255/256/258.)

Claim 14 — the "means-plus-function" claim.
A connector for a coaxial cable connecting to an interface port with a conductive mating surface, reciting: tubular post (with mating edge that contacts the port's conductive surface), connector body, and a threaded coupling element rotatable relative to the post. It defines the first position as the coupling element "partially tightened… only engaged with the interface port by two threads," and the second position as "fully tightened… where the conductive mating surface of the interface port makes initial contact with the mating edge of the tubular post." The inventive element is recited as a "means for exerting a biasing force" between the lip contact surface and the body contact surface, fitted within the cavity, also providing a physical seal, and made of substantially non-metallic, non-conductive material. Because this is means-plus-function drafting under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), the "means" would be limited to the corresponding structures disclosed in the specification and their equivalents.

Claim 17 — method claim (first of the claimed methods).
A method of facilitating electrical continuity by providing a connector in which (i) the post engages the connector body so the body can be firmly attached to the post in the assembled condition, and (ii) the coupling element is attached to the post such that it can rotate a full 360 degrees around the post, the coupling element having a cavity partially bounded by an internal lip and an outer internal wall — followed by the step-level recitations continued in the truncated claim text I was given.

(Note: the granted claim text I have available is truncated after the opening of claim 17. Based on the E.D. Ark. claim-construction record, the '481 patent's independent claims are 1, 8, 14, 17, 20 and 24. I therefore flag that claims 20 and 24 are also independent, but I do not have their full text and will not paraphrase them.)

Representative dependent claims worth noting:

• Claim 2: biasing member simultaneously contacts the outer internal wall of the coupling element and a surface of the body's annular recess.
• Claim 3: biases the lip of the coupling element against a surface of the flange.
• Claim 5: biasing member is resilient.
• Claim 6: the biasing member is an over-sized O-ring whose axial dimension exceeds the axial depth of the cavity.
• Claim 7: biasing member resists degradation and rust.
• Claims 9–13: radial extension of the integral body biasing element, cooperation with the annular groove, and extending radially past the inward lip.
• Claims 15–16: lip biased toward the flange; means continuously axially displaces the coupling element.

The specification's stated technical purpose: continuous contact between the coupling element (nut) and the post maintains an electrical ground path, reduces/eliminates RF leakage, and holds continuity even when the connector is not fully tightened on the port; a non-metallic, resilient biasing member is used so it does not corrode in outdoor environments and deforms elastically rather than permanently under mating torque (unlike metallic continuity members/O-rings).

4. Litigation and PTAB status — including the 2026 check you requested

No 2026 CAFC docket was found for US 8,366,481. I searched specifically. The only 2026 Federal Circuit activity involving PPC Broadband that surfaced is:

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779 — judgment entered March 4, 2026 (nonprecedential, per curiam, affirmed under Fed. Cir. R. 36). Appeals from PTAB IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, -00721. Those IPRs concern U.S. Pat. Nos. 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 — not the '481 patent. URL: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html and https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf

So the March 2026 affirmance does not invalidate or otherwise directly adjudicate US 8,366,481. I did not verify whether any of those four patents share the '481 specification; do not assume the '481 is bound by that outcome.

PTAB matters that do name the '481 patent:

• IPR2016-01570 and IPR2016-01572 — Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, Corning Incorporated, and Corning Optical Communications LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc. Both were filed August 9, 2016 against claims 1, 3–7 and 14–16 of US 8,366,481. Both were terminated by settlement before institution (Board paper dated 2017-01-17). Confirmed by the PTAB docket: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-01572/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8366481/docs/01-17-2017-Board/Settlement_Before_Institution-15-Termination_Settlement_before_institution.pdf

District court matters naming the '481 patent:

• PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark., W.D.). The '481 was one of the patents-in-suit; the court construed "to bias" as "to exert force in a particular direction against an object." This construction was more favorable to PPC than PerfectVision's broader proposal. See the claim construction discussion and account at: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914fbf4add7b049349b0b8b ; NPE database entry: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[8366481](/patent/8366481)
• Google Patents also records US cases filed in the Northern District of New York: 5:13-cv-00134 and 5:13-cv-00135, and 5:16-cv-00162 (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC — matching the Corning IPR petitioners). I did not independently retrieve the complaints for the two 2013 NYND cases and cannot tell you from the record to hand which defendant or which patents were asserted in each.

Family note: The '481 application (13/075,406) is a family root. Its continuation/continuation-in-part descendants include US 8,475,205; US 8,485,845; US 8,480,430; US 8,469,740; US 8,480,431; US 8,475,205; US 9,017,101; US 9,608,345; and US 9,596,776 / 9,660,360 etc. Several of those carry terminal disclaimers (the disclaimer notices appear on the continuation patents, not on the '481 itself in the material I reviewed). Foreign family members include EP 2 692 026 B1, CA 2 831 726 C, CN 102738605 B, and others.

5. Explicit uncertainty / caveats

1. Claims 20 and 24 of the '481 patent are identified in litigation as independent claims, but the full granted text of claims 18–29 was not available in the material I fetched (the claim set truncated at claim 17). I have not summarized them and did not want to guess.
2. Claim 14 contains apparent antecedent-basis looseness ("the conductive surface of the interface port" vs. the earlier "conductive mating surface"), and claims 15 and 16 are mislabeled in the printed patent as "The coaxial cable of claim 14." These are as-printed artifacts, not my transcription errors.
3. I found no 2026 CAFC docket entry naming 8,366,481. If you need a definitive negative, the authoritative check is the CAFC docket/opinions-orders search and USPTO PatentCenter for App. 13/075,406 — I can run targeted queries against those dockets if you confirm.
4. The "expires 2031-06-06" date is Google's adjusted-expiration calculation (Patent Term Adjustment based). Whether any applicable terminal disclaimer shortens the enforceable term, and the exact PTA figure, should be confirmed against the USPTO Patent Term Adjustment determination for App. 13/075,406.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8366481 using the sources you specified.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases identified.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,366,481

Note on interpretation: I have treated "8366481" literally as U.S. Patent No. 8,366,481 B2 ("Continuity maintaining biasing member," Ehret et al., issued Feb. 5, 2013, assigned to PPC Broadband, Inc.). Where searches returned related-family patents (e.g., 8,313,353; 8,075,338; 8,323,060; 7,188,416, or the "Bence Patents"), I have excluded them unless the '481 patent itself was at issue.

Summary

The '481 patent has been asserted in a small, tightly related cluster of disputes — essentially PPC Broadband's campaign against competing "continuity" connector makers (PerfectVision, PCT International, Corning Optical). The district-court suits and the parallel PTAB challenges were overwhelmingly resolved by settlement or dismissal, and I found no judgment on the merits (no infringement/invalidity verdict, no damages award) specifically as to the '481 patent.

Known Litigation and Proceedings

Key Grounding Quotes / Sources

• PerfectVision DJ action and the '481 patent's origin: "the Ehret Patent issued on February 5, 2013, becoming United States Patent Number 8,366,481. Also on February 5, PPC filed a complaint against PerfectVision in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, alleging that PerfectVision's SignaLoc connector infringes the Ehret Patent." — PerfectVision Mfg., Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark.), Doc. 37 (June 10, 2013).
• PCT International case: "yet again on February 5, PPC filed a complaint against PCT International, Inc., claiming that PCT's coaxial cable connectors infringed the Ehret Patent … PCT Int'l, Inc., No. 5:13-CV-0135."
• Arkansas dismissal: CourtListener docket — "AGREED ORDER TO DISMISS CASE WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Signed by Judge J. Leon Holmes on 1/13/2015" (entry #110).
• IPR2016-01572 termination: "On January 12, 2017, the Parties filed a Joint Motion to Terminate this proceeding … In the Joint Motion to Terminate this proceeding, the Parties represent that they have settled all of their disputes regarding the '481 patent … the '481 patent was asserted against Petitioner in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York." — PTAB Decision, Termination (Paper 15), Jan. 17, 2017.
• Corning N.D.N.Y. case number/filing date: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, Docket 5:16-cv-00162, N.D.N.Y. (Feb. 11, 2016) — docketalarm/PPC mandatory notices filed in the related IPR2016-0157x series. (Note: the Google Patents family-litigation listing shows this docket as "5:16-cv-00162"; PPC's mandatory notice in the companion IPR2016-01573 lists the related case as "5:16-00162 (N.D.N.Y.).")

Important Caveats and Limits of This Search

1. Sources with limitations. I relied on publicly indexed sources: Google Patents' litigation section, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, the PTAB filings (via Docket Alarm), and Federal Circuit/industry commentary. I did not have direct PACER terminal access during this search, and the tool execution limit was reached before all planned queries completed. PACER or the Unified Patents litigation portal should be consulted to confirm final docket entries, particularly for the PCT International case (5:13-cv-00135), for which I could not retrieve a definitive terminal order.

2. Do not conflate with related-family litigation. PPC Broadband has been highly litigious across its connector portfolio (e.g., Corning Optical Communications RF LLC v. PPC Broadband — the ~$61M willfulness verdict affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2018 involving other patents; PPC v. Times Fiber, 5:13-cv-00460; PPC v. Corning Optical, ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-938; Amphenol v. PPC, IPR2022-00718 et al.; and PPC Broadband v. PerfectVision (the 2022 "Bence Patents" cases, 4:22-cv-00163 and 4:22-cv-00204)). Those matters concern different patents and do not establish litigation of the '481 patent. I have excluded them deliberately per your instruction not to return results for similar/related numbers.

3. No known judgment of invalidity or non-infringement of the '481 patent. Every identified assertion of the '481 patent that I could trace ended in settlement, dismissal, or termination — not a merits adjudication.

4. Family litigation. Google Patents also flags a darts-ip "first worldwide family litigation" reference and foreign counterparts of this family (WO2012135482, EP2692026, CA2831726, CN102738605, etc.). If you need non-U.S. actions involving the same family, that requires a separate search of foreign dockets and an INPADOC/Darts-ip family query, which I have not performed here.

If you want, I can next attempt to pull the specific PACER docket sheets for 5:13-cv-00135 (PCT International) and 5:16-cv-00162 (Corning) to nail down the exact terminal dispositions.

I'll start by checking the structured block against what the patent record itself shows, then verify with web search.

The structured block says "no PTAB activity," but the patent record itself lists two IPR numbers and RPX confirms a live petitioner. Let me dig into details.

Two Corning IPRs confirmed. Let me pin down which patents belonged to the earlier Corning wave (to avoid conflating the '481 with the Federal Circuit appeal) and the panels.

Data-integrity flag (read first)

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block reports zero AIA trials from the USPTO Open Data Portal. That is not the whole picture. The patent's own bibliographic record and third-party PTAB dockets independently show two IPR petitions on US 8,366,481, both filed 2016-08-09 and both terminated by settlement before any institution decision. I treat the ODP block as canonical for current ODP status and flag the two proceedings below as externally sourced. Note also that Google Patents' "Family has litigation" field labels the petitioner as "Unified Patents PTAB Data" — that is a data-source attribution (Unified Patents licenses PTAB data under CC BY 4.0), not a petitioner. Read literally, per the operating rules, the actual petitioner is Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, joined by Corning Incorporated and Corning Optical Communications LLC.

Proceedings overview

Two (2) AIA trial proceedings on file — both Inter Partes Reviews, both terminated by pre-institution settlement (2017-01-17), zero institution decisions, zero Final Written Decisions, zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained. The '481 patent is therefore entirely untested at the PTAB: nothing about its validity has been adjudicated, and no petitioner has ever been put under § 315(e) estoppel. A defendant today faces a patent with all 29 claims intact and no favorable PTAB record to point to — but equally, no unfavorable PTAB record either. The defensive reality: you cannot borrow an invalidation ruling from anyone, but the Board has never endorsed these claims, and Corning's public litigation record against PPC (including a Federal Circuit claim-construction ruling on sibling patents) supplies real ammunition.

IPR2016-01570 — Corning Optical Communications RF LLC et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319; 37 C.F.R. § 42.100)
• Filed: 2016-08-09 (petition, 83 pages)
• Status: Settlement Before Institution (Board decision titled "Termination of the Proceeding, 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.72 and 42.74"). Plain English: the parties settled and the Board killed the case before it ever decided whether to institute. No claim was ever construed on the merits, let alone canceled.
• Judge panel: Not confirmed from the materials retrieved for the -01570 paper itself. The companion -01572 termination decision was issued "Before JOSIAH C. COCKS, JAMES B. ARPIN, and SHEILA F. [surname truncated in the available copy]." Treat the -01570 panel as unknown/possibly identical — I will not guess.
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1, 3–7, and 14–16 of the '481 patent. The statutory basis is stated in the petition caption as §§ 311–319 and § 42.100; the specific prior-art references and the § 102 vs. § 103 allocation are not in the public record I could retrieve, and I will not fabricate them.
• Institution decision: None issued. The proceeding was terminated 2017-01-17, before the ~6-month statutory institution deadline (roughly 2017-02-09). No institution, partial institution, or denial reasoning exists.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim-level verdict exists for this proceeding. Claims 1, 3–7, and 14–16 were challenged but never adjudicated.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2017-01-12; termination decision 2017-01-17. The parties represented that they "settled all of their disputes regarding the '481 patent." The settlement agreement was filed as Ex. 2031 and was granted business-confidential treatment under 35 U.S.C. § 317(b) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c) — so the terms are confidential and not in the public record.
• Appeal: None. A pre-institution termination is not appealable to the Federal Circuit. (Do not confuse this with PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 734 (Fed. Cir. 2016) — see the pattern note below; that appeal involved different PPC patents.)
• Defensive value: This proceeding is a dead end in both directions. Nothing was canceled, so it gives you no invalidity leverage; nothing was sustained, so it gives the patent owner no PTAB endorsement. Its only real value is evidentiary: the petitions identify claims 1, 3–7, and 14–16 as the commercially relevant claim set and are prior-art roadmaps you can mine for free (the petitions themselves are cited in the IDS of later PPC family member US 9,608,345).

IPR2016-01572 — Corning Optical Communications RF LLC et al. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016-08-09 (petition, 79 pages) — filed the same day as -01570, on the same patent and the same claim set, evidently as a parallel/contingent second petition with different grounds.
• Status: Settlement Before Institution — verbatim Board disposition: "FURTHER ORDERED that the Joint Motion to Terminate this proceeding is granted, and this proceeding is hereby terminated."
• Judge panel: Josiah C. Cocks, James B. Arpin, and Sheila F. (third APJ's surname is truncated in the copy available to me — likely Sheila F. McShane, but I am not asserting that without confirmation).
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1, 3–7, and 14–16 of the '481 patent. Specific references and § 102/§ 103 split not confirmed in retrievable public materials.
• Institution decision: None. The Board expressly noted "This proceeding is still in its preliminary stages." Patent Owner had filed a Preliminary Response; no institution decision was reached. Board reasoning: "Under these particular circumstances, we determine that it is appropriate to terminate this proceeding without rendering any further decisions. See 37 C.F.R. [§ 42.72]."
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled; no claim was held patentable.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2017-01-12 with a true copy of the settlement agreement (Ex. 2031) and a § 317(b) / § 42.74(c) confidentiality request; granted 2017-01-17. The Board's decision records the parties' statement that they are involved in both -01570 and -01572 on the '481 patent, that they "have concurrently filed a Joint Motion to Terminate in that proceeding," and that the '481 patent was asserted against Petitioner in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, No. 5:16-cv-00162 (N.D.N.Y.)). Terms: confidential.
• Appeal: None. Not appealable.
• Defensive value: Same as -01570 — no estoppel, no cancellation, no adjudication. If a demand letter on this patent cites claim 1, claim 14, or the dependent claims in the 3–7 / 14–16 range, that assertion rests on claims the Board has never examined, and you have a clean slate to file your own IPR.

Strategic summary

Claim status. There is no PTAB claim-level verdict on US 8,366,481. The Board never instituted on either petition and never issued a Final Written Decision, so no claim is canceled and no claim is sustained by the PTAB. All 29 claims of the patent remain in force (the patent shows as Active, with adjusted expiration 2031-06-06). The challenged set — claims 1, 3–7, and 14–16 — was left wholly unadjudicated, as were claims 2, 8–13, and 17–29, which no petitioner ever challenged. For orientation, the E.D. Ark. claim-construction order in PerfectVision Mfg., Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-00623 (E.D. Ark.) treats claims 1, 8, 14, 17, 20, and 24 of the '481 patent as the independent claims, and construed "to bias" as "to exert force in a particular direction against an object" — a construction that is favorable to infringement plaintiffs on that term and worth accounting for in any obviousness theory.

Estoppel landscape. No § 315(e)(2) estoppel applies to anyone. Section 315(e) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision; there was none here. Corning's petitions, its expert declarations, and its claim charts did not produce estoppel — which means a defendant today is free to raise any prior-art ground Corning raised, and any ground Corning reasonably could have raised, without the § 315(e) bar. The only constraint is contractual, not statutory: the confidential January 2017 settlement binds Corning, not you. Note, though, that the Corning petitions were filed against a 2016 N.D.N.Y. complaint (5:16-cv-00162), not the 2013 N.D.N.Y. suits (5:13-cv-00134 / 5:13-cv-00135) — so § 315(b) timing analysis is fact-specific to your own service date, and a well-documented earlier service of an '481 complaint is the single most useful fact you can develop for a time-bar defense against a repeat petitioner.

Pattern signals. (a) Within a single day (2016-08-09) Corning filed a duplicate pair of IPRs (-01570 and -01572) on the same patent and same claims — a two-shot strategy, both of which were extinguished by one settlement. The same filing wave included at least -01569 and -01573 on a different PPC patent, 8,075,338, confirming a coordinated multi-patent campaign, not a one-off. (b) Corning is a repeat, sophisticated challenger, not a defensive aggregator: it ran earlier IPR waves against PPC patents 8,313,353 (IPR2013-00345), 8,597,041 and 8,562,366 (IPR2014-00440 / -00441), and 6,676,446 (IPR2014-00736), and it also pursued ex parte reexaminations of the '194 and '940 patents. (c) The Federal Circuit decision everyone will cite — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 734 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Moore, O'Malley, Wallach), and its remand order in IPR2013-00345 — does NOT involve US 8,366,481. It arose from IPRs on sibling PPC patents and addressed the "continuity member" / "maintain electrical continuity" / "reside around" terms under BRI. It is highly relevant technically (same specification family, the '481 and its siblings share identical disclosure "in all relevant respects" per the E.D. Ark. order) but it is not a holding on the '481 claims. There is no Unified Patents (or other aggregator) proceeding in this chain. (d) The patent owner PPC Broadband litigates aggressively and did secure a $61 million enhanced-damages judgment against Corning on other patents (affirmed, No. 17-1347, cert. denied 2018-12-10) — expect a well-funded, litigation-tested adversary.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to a court that "claims 1–5 of the '481 have been canceled." They have not. Any such statement would be a Rule 11 problem. The correct statement is: two IPRs were filed on 2016-08-09 challenging claims 1, 3–7 and 14–16; both were terminated by settlement on 2017-01-17 before institution under 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.72 and 42.74; no claim was canceled and no claim was sustained.
2. Link the disposition, not a merits ruling. The -01572 termination decision is public: IPR2016-01572, Paper 15 — Termination (Settlement Before Institution), 2017-01-17 — quote: "the Joint Motion to Terminate this proceeding is granted, and this proceeding is hereby terminated." Docket-level docketing for -01570 is at RPX Empower, IPR2016-01570. Verify final papering on PTAB E2E.
3. No trial-stage milestones are pending. There is no live proceeding on the '481; there is no institution deadline, no oral hearing, and no statutory one-year FWD clock running. Confirm current ODP status before filing anything, since ODP shows no AIA trials while the Google Patents record shows these two.
4. Your realistic defense is a fresh IPR. With no § 315(e) estoppel and no adjudication of any claim, a new petition on claims 2, 8–13, and 17–29 (entirely untested) or a re-run at claims 1, 3–7, 14–16 is unencumbered. Budget for the § 315(b) one-year clock from your service date, and consider § 325(d) discretion — the Board may weigh the fact that Corning's petitions were never instituted.
5. Harvest the Corning petitions for free. The -01570 and -01572 petitions are referenced in PPC's own IDS in US 9,608,345 (see US9608345), which recites both petitions, the challenged claims, and the statutory basis — a clean, admissible citation for the existence and scope of the Corning challenges.
6. Do not cite PPC Broadband v. Corning, 815 F.3d 734, as an '481 invalidity ruling. It is a sibling-patent, BRI/Phillips claim-construction decision; its "continuity member" and "maintain electrical continuity" constructions are persuasive authority only, and the '481's operative terms are "biasing member" / "biasing force" (plus a § 112(f) means-for limitation in claim 14 that no one has ever litigated).

I'll reconstruct the chain from the authoritative patent text first, then verify against live sources.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,366,481 B2

Patent: Continuity maintaining biasing member · App. 13/075,406 · filed 2011‑03‑30 · issued 2013‑02‑05
Source of record used below: the Google Patents legal‑events mirror of the USPTO assignment file (fetched 2026‑09‑30) plus corroborating public records. Important limitation up front: the legal‑events mirror does not expose reel/frame numbers, execution dates, or the correspondent of record. I could not retrieve those three fields from the sources reachable in this session, and I will not invent them. Every reel/frame and correspondent field below is marked as unavailable rather than estimated. The authoritative source is USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 8366481) — the records definitively exist; only their indexing fields are missing here.

Inventors

Pattern notes. The inventor set is a normal in‑house engineering group for a connector manufacturer; no academic or third‑party co‑owners. The one unusual item is procedural, not sinister: the first recorded assignment (2011‑06‑13) covers only three inventors, and a second assignment recorded 2012‑01‑11 adds Zraik and re‑covers the original three. That is the signature of a missing‑inventor or omitted‑signature cure, i.e. an in‑house docket‑clearing exercise.

Departure analysis: not determinable. The named inventors are line engineers, not named executives, and no source in this session evidences their departure dates. Note the relevant non‑inventor fact: principal John Mezzalingua exited post‑sale and founded JMA Wireless (a 5G components maker), and the sale forced five‑year noncompetes on Daniel N. and John Mezzalingua per the Belden 8‑K. That is a founder‑exit, not an inventor walk‑out, and it did not precede any fire‑sale — it followed a $515.7M cash purchase.

Original assignee

Name on the issued patent (printed front page, as indexed in third‑party citation listings): John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (d/b/a PPC), 6176 East Molloy Road, East Syracuse, NY 13057.

Caveat on a genuine inconsistency in the source: Google Patents' structured "Original Assignee" field for this patent returns PPC Broadband Inc, while the same record's citation listings show "US8366481B2 … John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc." The name change was only recorded 2013‑02‑13 — eight days after the 2013‑02‑05 issue date — which is consistent with the printed patent bearing the old name and Google's structured field reflecting the eventual owner.

• Business: design/manufacture of coaxial and (later) fiber connectivity for broadband and wireless service providers — F‑connectors, hardline connectors, splitters, traps/filters. Founded 1942 as Production Products Co.
• Product embodiment: yes — a real manufacturer with 774 employees and ~$238M 2012 revenue at the time of sale, shipping commercial connector lines, and self‑reporting a portfolio of 446+ patents worldwide. PPC states it holds more patents in connector technology than any other company. (I am not asserting a specific PPC SKU as claim‑chart‑identical to claim 1 of the '481 without a chart; the point is that the assignee is a volume manufacturer of the accused class of goods, not a paper owner.)
• Current status: operating. Renamed PPC Broadband, Inc.; since 2012‑12‑10 a wholly owned subsidiary of Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC), within Belden's Broadband Solutions / Smart Infrastructure Solutions segment. PPC's own materials and its ISO 9001 certificate (registration 10009432 QM15, valid to 2028‑02‑12) describe "PPC Broadband, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Belden." It was still expanding in DeWitt/East Syracuse as recently as 2024. Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

Acquisition facts (SEC‑sourced): Belden acquired PPC Broadband, Inc. (Delaware) and SKT International Holdings B.V. under a Stock Purchase Agreement dated 2012‑12‑10 for $515,700,000, funded partly by a $375M draw on Belden's revolver with JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as administrative agent; $54.5M escrowed; sellers were Daniel N. Mezzalingua and family trusts; JM Representatives, LLC acted as seller's representative. Belden 8‑K (filed 2012‑12‑12) and 8‑K/A (filed 2013‑02‑25).

Assignment timeline

All entries below are from the USPTO legal‑events mirror. Reel/frame and correspondent are not exposed by that mirror and are recorded here as "not available." The YYYY-MM-DD shown is the recordation date as published; where the source only gives the recording event, the execution date is likewise not available.

1. Recorded 2011‑06‑13 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: Trevor Ehret; Richard A. Haube; Noah Montena
   • Assignee: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not available in the mirror. (Contextual only: JMAA's prosecution address of record was in‑house — "John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., Legal Department, 6176 East Molloy Rd, East Syracuse, NY 13057," as printed on WO 2010/135181 — suggesting in‑house handling, but this is not the assignment correspondent and I am not substituting it.)
   • Context: original employment assignment — three of four inventors.

2. Recorded 2012‑01‑11 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
   • Assignor: Trevor Ehret; Richard A. Haube; Noah Montena; Souheil Zraik
   • Assignee: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: corrective / confirmatory assignment — re‑records the original three and adds the omitted fourth inventor.

3. Executed on or about 2012‑09‑19 (third‑party NY assumed‑name registry aggregator; not a USPTO conveyance) — no reel/frame

   • Conveyance: state fictitious/assumed‑name filing for "John Mezzalingua Associates" and "Mr Advisers Limited"; aggregator shows the "PPC Broadband, Inc." name filing on 2012‑12‑07
   • Context: state‑level DBA housekeeping preceding the sale. Marked low confidence — this is not a USPTO assignment record and Google Patents' own change‑of‑name dates (Feb 2013) do not line up with it. Not relied on for the verdict.

4. Recorded 2013‑02‑12 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Change of Name (see document for details)
   • Assignor: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
   • Assignee: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: internal reorg / name change, first step. Recording is ~2 months after the Belden closing — consistent with post‑closing name‑change cleanup rather than a transfer of ownership.

5. Recorded 2013‑02‑13 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Change of Name
   • Assignor: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
   • Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: internal reorg / name change, second step — completing the rename to the Belden acquisition vehicle's name. The two‑step Limited→Inc. change is unusual on its face, but both conveyances are name changes only, with no consideration and no third‑party acquirer, so it is a reorg signature, not a shell transfer.

6. Recorded 2013‑10‑04 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignor: PPC Broadband, Inc.
   • Assignee: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., AS ADMINISTRATIVE AGENT
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: securitization / collateral perfection — consistent with the JPMorgan Chase administrative agency on Belden's credit facility (the same lender that funded the $375M draw). A lien recordation, not an ownership transfer.

7. Recorded 2013‑10‑08 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Confirmatory Grant of Security Interest in US Patents
   • Assignor: PPC Broadband, Inc.
   • Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS ADMINISTRATIVE AGENT
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: securitization / collateral perfection — lender‑side confirmatory filing. Not an ownership transfer.

8. Recorded 2016‑10‑12 — Reel/Frame: not available

   • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
   • Assignor: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
   • Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not available
   • Context: lien release — the encumbrance is cleared, returning a clean record to PPC Broadband, Inc.

There are no further recorded ownership transfers. The record terminates at PPC Broadband, Inc., a Belden subsidiary, from 2013 through the present. No assignment to any licensing entity, no IP‑holding LLC, no asserter acquisition.

*(Two adjacent hazards in the source, flagged so they are not mistaken for assignments: Google Patents' "Priority to US13/726,330 / ‑339 / ‑347 / ‑349 / ‑356" and "Priority to US13/758,586" rows are continuation‑filing data, not prior‑art dates, and the same page's "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data" line on the IPR entries is a dataset‑attribution string under a CC‑BY license — the petitioner of record was Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, not Unified Patents.)*

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8366481
    2011 : Filed 30 Mar by John Mezzalingua Associates
         : First inventor assignment recorded 13 Jun
    2012 : Second inventor assignment recorded 11 Jan
         : Belden Inc buys PPC for 515.7M on 10 Dec
    2013 : Patent issues 5 Feb under John Mezzalingua name
         : Name change to MR ADVISERS LIMITED
         : Name change to PPC BROADBAND INC
         : JPMorgan security agreement recorded 4 Oct
         : Wells Fargo confirmatory security grant 8 Oct
    2016 : Wells Fargo lien release recorded 12 Oct
         : Corning IPRs filed 9 Aug and settled Jan 2017

NPE / troll‑pattern signals

1. Shell‑entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only name changes run from an operating manufacturer (John Mezzalingua Associates) to PPC Broadband, Inc., the Delaware target Belden bought in a $515.7M stock purchase (Belden 8‑K, 2012‑12‑12). PPC Broadband has 774+ employees at signing, a real plant at 6176 E. Molloy Road / 6712 Kinne Street, East Syracuse, and an ISO 9001 certificate naming it "a wholly owned subsidiary of Belden" (reg. 10009432 QM15, valid to 2028‑02‑12). No "IP / Holdings / Ventures / Licensing" suffix anywhere in the chain; no registered‑agent address; no single‑purpose LLC. The MR ADVISERS LIMITED step (recorded 2013‑02‑12) is a name change only — same owner, no consideration.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. No assignee in the chain matches any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Current owner PPC Broadband, Inc. is a Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC) subsidiary — a publicly traded operating manufacturer, not an asserter directory entry. The Google Patents NPE‑adjacent artifacts on this page (the "Unified Patents PTAB Data" and Darts‑ip strings) are data‑license attributions, not party data.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT DETERMINABLE. The legal‑events mirror exposes no correspondent field, so I cannot state who filed any of the eight recordings, and I will not infer a name. The only correspondent‑adjacent datum available is not an assignment correspondent: WO 2010/135181 (a sibling JMAA filing) lists the applicant at "Legal Department, 6176 East Molloy Rd" — i.e., in‑house prosecution — and the unrelated reexam 95/001,689 shows Foley & Lardner LLP acting as third‑party requester, neither of which is evidence of who recorded this chain. Verdict on this signal: insufficient data, pending a Reel/Frame pull from Assignment Center.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Eight recorded events over five and a half years, of which exactly two are ownership changes (both name changes) and three are lender lien actions. Nothing resembles chained LLC‑to‑LLC transfers within 24 months; no shared correspondent address can even be tested because no correspondent is exposed.

5. Pre‑litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The last ownership event is the 2013‑02‑13 change of name. The first infringement actions against the coaxial‑connector competitors run earlier, from 2009 onward under the JMAA name and from 2013 under the PPC name (John Mezzalingua Associates d/b/a PPC v. PCT International, W.D. Tex. 5:09‑cv‑00410); the '481‑specific IPRs (IPR2016‑01570 / ‑01572, Corning Optical Communications RF) were filed 2016‑08‑09 and terminated on settlement 2017‑01‑17, and PPC Broadband v. Corning Optical Communications RF LLC, 5:16‑cv‑00162 (N.D.N.Y., 2016‑02‑11), post‑dates the chain by three years. Nothing was transferred into a vehicle to set venue or manufacture standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the chain. The 2012 transaction was a negotiated $515.7M cash stock purchase from a profitable, family‑owned seller (~$238M revenue, 774 employees), with $54.5M escrowed and five‑year noncompetes from the principals. That is a premium exit, the opposite of a distress sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. PPC/Belden asserts against direct commercial competitors in markets where PPC itself sells — Corning Gilbert (multiple IPRs and N.D.N.Y. suits), Corning Optical Communications RF, PCT International, Times Fiber Communications, Amphenol (IPR2022‑00718 family). Where the operating company sues its own competitors in its own product market, the privateering tell (operating co. → NPE → suits against the operating co.'s competitors) is absent; the operating co. is the plaintiff. Notably, PerfectVision Manufacturing v. PPC Broadband, 4:12‑cv‑00623 (E.D. Ark.), is a declaratory‑judgment action brought against PPC and is indexed in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database against this patent — i.e., PPC appears here as a defendant/target, which is evidence of an operating patentee, not of an asserter.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at PPC Broadband, Inc. / Belden Inc., which continues to assert. Thus the patent is not neutralized; the 2017 IPR settlement terminated those two proceedings without cancelling claims.

Verdict

Operating‑company assertion.

Justification: the chain contains zero transfers to a licensing entity — the entire post‑filing record consists of two corrective/cumulative employment assignments (recorded 2011‑06‑13 and 2012‑01‑11) to John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., two Change of Name recordings (2013‑02‑12 to MR ADVISERS LIMITED and 2013‑02‑13 to PPC BROADBAND, INC.) that track Belden's $515.7M acquisition of PPC closed 2012‑12‑10 per Belden's 8‑K of 2012‑12‑12, and three lender actions (JPMorgan Security Agreement, 2013‑10‑04; Wells Fargo Confirmatory Grant of Security Interest, 2013‑10‑08; Wells Fargo Release by Secured Party, 2016‑10‑12). The current owner is a wholly owned subsidiary of a NYSE‑listed manufacturer that ships broadband connectors from East Syracuse and asserts these claims — in district court and the ITC — against competing connector makers (Corning, PCT, Times Fiber, Amphenol), with the 2016 Corning IPRs terminated by settlement on 2017‑01‑17 without cancellation of any claim. Neither of the two signals I would need for an NPE call (shell‑entity transfer, known asserter in the chain) is present, and the correspondent signal is simply unavailable in the data I could reach.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center, patent‑number search for 8366481 — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (and the mirrored interface at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — for the reel/frame numbers and correspondents that the Google Patents mirror omits. Patent record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8366481/en.

I'll research the prior-art citations on the face of US 8,366,481 and its prosecution history.

Let me pull the actual "References Cited" table from the patent's front page.

I have the patent text and its family, but I still need the front-page "References Cited" for US 8,366,481 specifically. Let me target that directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,366,481 B2 ("Continuity maintaining biasing member")

0. Scope, literal-ID handling, and one important verification limitation

• I treated the identifier "8366481" literally as U.S. Patent No. 8,366,481 B2 (Ehret, Haube, Montena, Zraik; filed 2011‑03‑30; issued 2013‑02‑05; PPC Broadband, Inc.). I did not substitute any nearby number (8,366,482 / 8,364, 8,475,205, etc.).
• Sources actually retrieved in this session: the Google Patents record for US8366481B2 (mirrors USPTO data); the Justia record for 8366481; FreePatentsOnline records for the two publications of this application (US 2012/0252263 A1 and US 2013/0109230 A1); and Justia records for the same‑specification, same‑title Ehret siblings US 8,475,205 and US 8,480,431.
• Limitation you must weigh: I was not able to retrieve the actual front‑page "References Cited" table (the U.S. Patent Documents / U.S. Application Documents / Foreign Documents / Other Documents boxes) of the '481 in this session. Per the operating rule against fabrication, I am not presenting an invented citation list as if it were the '481's own face citations. Instead I give (A) the closest verified proxy — the IDS reference lists of same‑specification Ehret siblings bearing the identical title — and (B) the salient prior art in this field, each clearly labeled by confidence level. Where I cannot confirm a reference was on the '481's face, I say so.

⚠️ Flag / contradiction check with the earlier litigation section: the earlier section is consistent with what I retrieved (priority 2011‑03‑30; issuance 2013‑02‑05; app. 13/075,406; the two Corning IPRs terminated by settlement pre‑institution). No contradiction found. One nuance to add: because the '481 was filed 2011‑03‑30, before the AIA's 2013‑03‑16 changeover, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. That fixes the critical dates: § 102(b) art must predate 2010‑03‑30, and § 102(a)/(e) art must predate the invention / effective filing of 2011‑03‑30.

1. The reference point: what the claims actually require (built on the prior sections)

The granted patent has 29 claims, with independent claims 1, 8, and 14 (and method/structure independents appearing at 17, 20, 24 in the text retrieved). The anticipation‑critical limitations are:

Practical consequence for § 102: because claim 1 requires a non‑metallic, non‑conductive member that simultaneously biases and seals, most of the field art (which uses conductive continuity members) cannot anticipate claim 1 alone. That art is powerful under § 103, but it is generally not clean § 102 art for the independents. This is the single most important analytical point in this memo.

2. Proxy "references cited" inventory (same‑specification Ehret siblings)

The following are drawn from the IDS/"References Cited" listings of US 8,475,205 and US 8,480,431 — continuation siblings filed 2012‑12‑24 with the identical specification and title. They are the best verified proxy for the '481's own citation picture, but they are proxy lists, not the '481's face table, and the later‑dated entries could only have appeared in the siblings' IDS (the '481, filed 2011‑03‑30, predates them).

U.S. Patent Application Publications (inventor — publication date):

* Published after 2011‑03‑30 and therefore cannot have been in the '481's own IDS (they postdate filing); included only to show the family's cumulative citation set. The pre‑2011 entries (bolded ones plus the 2005–2010 block) are the ones that could legitimately bear on the '481.

Other NPL on the sibling lists: Digicon AVL Connector, ARRIS Group Inc. (retrieved 2010‑04‑22) — a public‑use / on‑sale‑type reference (§ 102(a)/(b)) for a drop‑in "continuity" AVL connector.

Forward citations (context only — these cite the '481, they are not prior art to it): e.g., US 9,018,101; 9,017,101; 9,564,695; 9,564,694; 9,548,572; 9,577, and the Ehret siblings 8,469,740 / 8,475,205 / 8,480,430 / 8,480,431 / 8,485,845.

3. The most relevant prior art (salient field art — candidate, not confirmed face citations)

These are the references a § 102/§ 103 analysis of the '481 must confront. I mark confidence in each.

3.1 Corning Gilbert "Bence" continuity patents/publications — highest relevance

Analytical note: the Bence family is the adversary's art in this space — Corning asserted the Bence‑family patents against PPC, yielding the ~$61M willfulness verdict noted in the earlier litigation section. That is precisely why the Corning IPRs (IPR2016‑01570 / ‑01572) targeted the '481; the specific grounds are not confirmed in the materials I retrieved (both proceedings were terminated by settlement before institution, so no Board claim construction exists to cite).

3.2 PPC's own earlier continuity‑member publications (pre‑2011 subset)

3.3 Sealing / grommet art (relevant to the "physical seal" limitation)

3.4 Structural/biasing deflectable‑element art (relevant to claim 8's "integral body biasing element + annular groove")

Claim 8's "integral body biasing element … configured to contact … with an annular groove … to allow … deflection along the axial direction" is the limitation most exposed to non‑analogous‑arts anticipation. The classic generic deflection‑groove/lock‑washer art (e.g., the US 3,194,292 "Lock Washer" to Borrowsky, issued 1965‑07‑13, which surfaced in the Unified Patents cross‑reference to this family) and similar resilient‑ring/spring‑washer teachings are the kind of art a challenger would try under § 102 for the deflection limitation, though not for the connector context.

3.5 Public‑use / on‑sale NPL

• Digicon AVL Connector (ARRIS Group Inc.), on the sibling IDS lists (retrieved 2010‑04‑22). A pre‑filing commercial "continuity" connector → potential § 102(a)/(b) prior‑use/on‑sale art directed to the same RF‑continuity problem.

4. § 102 mapping — claim‑by‑claim

5. Bottom line

1. No reference in the material I could verify cleanly anticipates independent claim 1 (or claims 8/14) as a whole. The reason is structural, not incidental: claim 1 requires a non‑metallic, non‑conductive member that both biases the coupler toward the post flange and seals the coupler/body interface. The field art — above all the Bence continuity patents (US 7,114,990; 7,479,035; pubs. 2007/0026734; 2009/0098770) and PPC's own Purdy continuity publications (US 2010/0255721; 2011/0021072) — teaches the ground‑path function but with conductive members, and the Shaw sealing art (US 7,841,896) teaches the seal without the bias. That's a § 103 story, not a § 102 one.
2. Strongest § 102 candidates exist only for individual limitations (ground‑path‑under‑loose‑tightening → Bence; seal → Shaw; conventional compression fastener → Shaw) — and each is more naturally a § 103 building block.
3. Timing gate to apply rigorously: pre‑AIA § 102 governs. § 102(b) art must predate 2010‑03‑30; § 102(a)/(e) art must predate 2011‑03‑30. Several items on the family IDS lists (2011‑05‑19 onward, including the '481's own US 2012/0252263) post‑date filing and cannot be prior art to the '481.
4. The Corning IPRs (IPR2016‑01570 / ‑01572) are not a usable § 102 authority — both terminated by settlement before institution, so no Board findings on any reference exist. The earlier litigation section's conclusion ("no merits adjudication") stands and is reinforced here.

What I could not verify (stated plainly, per the no‑fabrication rule)

• The '481's actual front‑page "References Cited" table (examiner‑cited and applicant‑cited U.S./foreign/other documents) — not retrieved; the § 2 list is a same‑specification sibling proxy.
• The specific prior‑art grounds pleaded in the PerfectVision invalidity contentions or raised in IPR2016‑01570/‑01572 — not retrieved.
• Exact filing dates / § 102(e) status for several 2010–2011 publication entries (e.g., 2010/0255720; 2011/0021072) — to be confirmed against the USPTO PatentCenter (application data) before any § 102(e) date is relied upon.

If you can authorize a direct pull of the '481's front‑page citation table (USPTO PatentCenter/Global Dossier) and the Corning IPR petitions (Papers 1–2 in IPR2016‑01570/‑01572), I can convert §3 into a fully verified, face‑citation‑anchored § 102/§ 103 mapping with exact column/line pin cites.

I'll start by locating the prior-art references associated with this patent, since the "Prior Art" section was not included in the text provided to me.

Let me pull the actual prior-art citation list for the '481 patent and the grounds raised in the related IPRs.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,366,481 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold issue: the "Prior Art section" was not available to me

Flagging an explicit limitation before anything else. The Google Patents text supplied for US 8,366,481 does not contain a "Prior Art," "Citations," "Cited By," or "Similar Documents" section. The markup I was given is almost entirely empty table scaffolding; substantive text begins only at the Classifications heading and runs through the Claims (which are themselves truncated mid-claim 17). I therefore cannot work from "the results from the Prior Art section of this page," because that section is absent from the source I was given.

Rather than silently substitute my memory for the missing record, I have reconstructed the relevant prior-art landscape from (a) the prosecution/IDS record of the '481's own continuation (US 9,608,345 / US 8,475,205 / US 8,485,845), (b) the parallel Corning–PPC PTAB proceedings in the same connector portfolio, and (c) the recorded prior art of the parties' litigation. Every reference below is tagged with my confidence level, and I identify which ones I could not verify to a document number. If a live "Prior Art" section is available on the page you intended, the analysis should be re-run against it, because that list would control.

1. Framing

Because the priority date is 2011-03-30, pre-AIA §§ 102/103 govern, and the critical date for § 102(a)/(b) art is 2011-03-30.

Level of ordinary skill. Consistent with the POSITA definition PPC itself used for the sibling patents in this portfolio (2009-era filings, e.g., the Eldering declaration in IPR2013-00342: "a person that has at least a bachelor's degree in engineering and several years experience in the cable and telecommunications industry relating to the design, manufacture, or utilization of coaxial cable connectors"), a POSITA here is an engineer with a bachelor's degree and a few years of F-connector design experience. This matters because the "loose-connector continuity" problem was, by the '481's own admission and by the prior art, a known, long-standing problem in the field.

The invention in one sentence. The '481 puts a resilient, non-metallic, non-conductive ring (e.g., an oversized O-ring) in the annular cavity bounded by (i) the coupler's internal lip / outer internal wall and (ii) the connector body's contact surface, so that the ring pushes the nut's lip axially against the post flange — maintaining the ground path even when the nut is only hand-tight — while simultaneously acting as a moisture seal.

2. The relevant prior art

Own-work caution — do not use as § 103 art. US 8,636,541 / US 2012/0129387 A1 ("Enhanced coaxial connector continuity," Mezzalingua/PPC) discloses almost exactly claim 1: a D-ring nested in a groove in the body, pressing forward on the F-connector nut to tension the contact between the post flange and the inner nut shoulder, and also serving as a moisture barrier. But it published 2012-05-24, after the 2011-03-30 filing, and shares the '481's assignee chain. It therefore qualifies, if at all, only as § 102(e) art and is disqualified from a § 103 combination by the common-ownership proviso (pre-AIA § 103(c)). I flag it because it is powerful evidence of what the art considered conventional, not because it is combinable art. (Ownership/date should be confirmed before relying on this point.)

3. Element mapping — claim 1

Note that claim 1 does not require the biasing member itself to be conductive — it requires only that the biasing force helps the ground path. That is a significant drafting choice: it lets a non-conductive elastomer satisfy the continuity function, and it is precisely what makes the Burris-'-951-plus-Bence-'-990 combination read cleanly on the claim.

4. Combinations rendering the claims obvious

Combination 1 (independent claim 1): Burris '951 + Bence '990

Why combine. Both references are in the same field (F-type coaxial connectors), address the same physical interface (nut / post flange / connector body end), and would be found together by any POSITA working the loose-connector problem. Burris '951 supplies the structure — an elastomeric ring seated in a cavity defined by the nut collar, the post shoulder, and the body end. Bence '990 supplies the problem and the function — the express recognition that a loosely-tightened coupler creates a ground gap, that fortuitous coupler/post contact is unstable, and that a resilient member in that interface will maintain continuity regardless of tightening.

Why it would have worked (predictable result). An elastic ring seated in the Burris cavity and sized larger than the cavity's axial depth necessarily exerts an axial reaction force on the nut's radial lip, pushing the nut toward the post flange. That is a straightforward spring/compression result, i.e., a "known technique used to improve [a known device] in the same way" (KSR) with a predictable outcome. A POSITA would also recognize Burris '951's teaching that the nut must remain free-spinning could be preserved by sizing the ring to pre-load axially without radially gripping the nut — which is exactly what the '481's third general aspect claims ("the means does not hinder rotational movement of the coupling element").

Motivations in the record. (i) Solve the loose-connector RFI-leakage/ground problem that Bence '990 identifies; (ii) obtain a dual-function part (bias + seal), since Burris '951's ring is already a seal; (iii) avoid the degradation/permanent-deformation failure modes of metallic members — the '481's own stated reason for going non-metallic; (iv) reduce part count versus Bence '990's separate grounding member.

Combination 2 (claim 1, alternative): Bence '990 + the JP ring-shaped contact spring + Burris '951

The Japanese publication independently discloses placing a ring-shaped elastic member between the nut and the outer contact/post specifically to eliminate the "intermittent connection state" that occurs when the nut is turned, and expressly describes axial-waveform ("250B") spring variants whose compression varies as the nut is screwed deeper. That is the axial-bias architecture of claim 1. Substituting an elastomeric (rather than metal) ring for that spring, seated in the Burris '951 cavity, yields claim 1; the substitution of a rubber/elastomer O-ring for a metal spring as a biasing element is a routine materials choice with predictable results, and the '481 itself concedes the equivalence by listing polymers/rubber as suitable.

Combination 3 (independent claim 8): Burris '081 + Bence '990

Claim 8 replaces the loose ring with an integral body biasing element having a coupling-element contact portion and an annular groove permitting axial deflection. Burris '081 discloses an F-connector in which a deformable lip on the connector body is compressed between the post flange and the nut collar, the lip being "elastically or plastically deformable." Adding an annular relief groove to permit the required axial deflection is a predictable mechanical expedient (a "design choice" for tuning stiffness) that a POSITA would adopt to control deflection force. Bence '990 supplies the continuity motivation. The '481's own FIG. 9 notch 258 is described as a "notch, groove, channel, or similar annular void" — i.e., expressly generic.

Combination 4 (claim 14): means-plus-function

Under § 112(6), the means for exerting a biasing force is the annular/semi-annular resilient ring disclosed in the '481 spec (the oversized O-ring and its equivalents). Combinations 1 and 2 supply that structure and the corresponding function, so claim 14 stands or falls with claim 1.

Dependent claims

• Claim 2 (simultaneous contact with the outer internal wall and the annular recess): met by Burris '951 claim 3 (ring bounded by nut collar, post shoulder, body end).
• Claim 3 / 13 (bias the lip against the flange): inherent in the biasing function of Bence '990 and Combination 1.
• Claims 4 / 12 (fastener member radially disposed over the body to compress it): a ubiquitous compression F-connector element — Holland '782 and Burris '191 (both used in the PPC-portfolio IPRs) show it.
• Claim 5 (resilient): Burris '951; Bence '990 ("resilient").
• Claim 6 (over-sized O-ring whose axial dimension exceeds the cavity depth): a sizing/design choice given Burris '951's O-ring in a bounded cavity; the claim recites no unexpected result.
• Claim 7 (resists degradation and rust): inherent in the non-metallic elastomer of Burris '951.
• Claims 9–11 (radial extension past the inward lip; cooperating with the groove): mechanical consequence of Combination 3.
• Claims 15–16: functional restatements of Combination 1.
• Claim 17 (method): performed by providing the Combination-1 connector and assembling it in the ordinary way.

5. The counter-case (what PPC would argue, and how strong it is)

1. Teaching away / inoperability. PPC's consistent position in the sibling IPRs is that Bence '990 requires an electrically conductive member and therefore teaches away from a non-conductive one. In Corning v. PPC, IPR2013-00345 ('353), PPC argued the prior art "admittedly [did] not teach or suggest the claimed continuity member which makes consistent contact with the post." In IPR2016-01569 ('338), PPC framed Bence as teaching "the use of a separate grounding member from the post that would not interfere with nut rotation." A skilful rebuttal is that claim 1 does not require the member to conduct; the member need only produce the contact, so substituting a non-conductive elastomer does not make Bence's device inoperative — it moves the conduction to the nut/flange interface, which is exactly what '481 claim 1 recites.
2. Burris '951 teaches away from pre-loading. Burris '951 deliberately permits axial play so the nut "avoid[s] significant engagement with" the O-ring while spinning. That is a genuine tension with claim 1's "sufficient to urge … at least until the post contacts the interface port." Expect this to be the strongest non-obviousness argument.
3. Secondary considerations. PPC has a well-developed record of objective indicia in this portfolio — long-felt but unsolved need, industry skepticism, copying by competitors, and commercial success (see PPC's POR in IPR2013-00345 and IPR2014-00736). Those arguments, if carried over to the '481, would be the main obstacle.
4. No adjudicated result either way. This is the decisive procedural fact: there is no merits ruling on the '481's validity. Corning's IPR2016-01570 and IPR2016-01572 (challenging claims 1, 3–7 and 14–16) were terminated by settlement before institution (joint motion 2017-01-12; Board termination 2017-01-17), and the district-court actions ended in dismissal without prejudice (E.D. Ark. 4:12-cv-00623, agreed order 2015-01-13) or settlement (N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-00135; 5:13-cv-00134 dismissed under the first-to-file rule; 5:16-cv-00162 settled). So no tribunal has accepted or rejected any of the combinations above.

6. Conclusion

On the merits, the '481 is a strong § 103 candidate and, in my assessment, likely obvious over Burris '951 in view of Bence '990 (independent claims 1 and 14, and the dependent claims), with Burris '081 in view of Bence '990 reaching independent claim 8, and the JP ring-shaped contact spring as an independent third route to the axial-bias limitation. The core structural cavity, the elastomeric ring in it, the sealing function, and the "continuity when loose" purpose each existed in the art before 2011-03-30; the '481's contribution is the recognition that a non-conductive ring can be used to bias rather than to conduct — a difference a POSITA would likely have bridged, especially given Bence '990's explicit identification of the unstable loose-connector ground path. The chief open questions are (a) Burris '951's free-spinning teaching and (b) PPC's objective-indicia record — both of which belong in the rebuttal, not the prima facie case.

Reliability statement. High confidence: Burris '951, Bence '990's disclosure and problem statement, the '481 claim text, and the IPR/litigation terminations. Medium confidence: the exact document identity/dates of Bence '035, the JP publication, and US 6,790,081. Not verified: the actual contents of the PerfectVision invalidity contentions against the '481 — a 96-page public document listed in the IDS "Other Publications" of US 9,608,345 ("Plaintiff's Invalidity Contentions—U.S. Pat. No. 8,366,481. 96 pages.") that would contain the combinations actually asserted against this patent. Retrieving that document and the IPR2016-01570/01572 petitions (83 and 79 pages respectively) is the single highest-value next step, and I flag that I could not access them within this run.