US 8753147

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any CAFC or litigation activity.

Let me run additional targeted searches for litigation/docket activity specific to this number.

Let me do one final check for any PTAB/IPR proceedings involving this specific patent.

US 8,753,147 B2 — Patent Summary (verified against full patent text)

Note on methodology: The authoritative full text of this patent was provided to me and is the primary source below. I also searched for USPTO/PTAB and CAFC 2026 docket activity. I found no CAFC 2026 appeal or PTAB proceeding specific to US 8,753,147. Details on that, and on one conflicting data point, appear in the "Uncertainty" section.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as issued)

"A jumper comprising a first connector, wherein the first connector includes a post configured to receive a center conductor surrounded by a dielectric of a coaxial cable, a connector body attached to the post, and a coupling member attached to the post, the coupling member having one or more resilient contacts, wherein the resilient contacts are configured to pass over the external threads in a first axial direction, and physically engage the external threads in a second axial direction, and a second connector, wherein the first connector is operably affixed to a first end of the coaxial cable, and the second connector is operably affixed to a second end of the coaxial cable is provided."

Technology Background (plain language)

The patent addresses push-on F-type coaxial cable connectors used in CATV/broadband. Push-on connectors are easy to install but tend to loosen or fall off the interface port — a serious problem because a loose connector breaks the RF ground/shield path, causing signal leakage, ingress, and "truck rolls." The disclosure teaches a coupling member (nut) with two sets of integral resilient contacts:

• A first set of contacts (protrusions/bumps, near the coupling member's second end) that bias against the post's tapered flange to maintain electrical continuity (a continuous ground path) between the coupling member and the post.
• A second set of contacts (prongs/fingers, "one-way latch fingers") that are ratcheting — they ride over the port's external threads when the connector is pushed axially forward, but the tips lodge against the thread working surface to resist pull-off in the reverse axial direction. Reverse rotation of the coupling member "unthreads" the contacts to release the connector.

In several alternative embodiments the continuity contact is instead made to a conductive component that touches the port but not the prepared cable end (connectors 200/300/400), and a further embodiment (connector 500) adds an outer sleeve (590) that rotates the coupling member for disengagement.

Independent Claims — Plain Language

Claim 1 — Jumper with locking, rotatable coupling member
A jumper (a coaxial cable assembly with a connector on each end) where the first connector has: (a) a post receiving the cable's center conductor/dielectric, (b) a connector body on the post, and (c) a coupling member that is rotatably attached AND electrically grounded to the post. The coupling member has one or more resilient contacts that engage the working surface of an interface port after the coupling member has been moved over that working surface in an axial direction (i.e., by push-on motion). A second connector is also present. Key functional limitation: rotation of the coupling member rotates the resilient contacts over the working surface to disengage the coupling member from the port.

Claim 14 — Jumper with embedded conductive grounding ring
A first connector rotatably attached to a first end of the coaxial cable, having a post, connector body, and a coupling member attached and electrically grounded to the post. The coupling member's resilient contacts are "configured with a working surface" of the port after axial movement over it. Distinctive feature: the coupling member has a coupling member body with a conductive grounding ring embedded within it, and the grounding ring defines the resilient contacts. A second connector is rotatably attached to the second cable end. Key limitation: rotation of the first connector relative to the coaxial cable disengages the coupling member from the port.

Claim 16 — Jumper with grounding rings in both connectors
A jumper where both the first and second connectors (each rotatably attached to a respective cable end) have a post, a connector body, and an electrically grounded coupling member whose embedded conductive grounding ring defines the resilient contacts configured with the port's working surface. Key limitations: (i) rotation of one of the connectors relative to the cable disengages its coupling member from the port; and (ii) the resilient contacts are biased inwardly against the post.

Noteworthy Claim-Drafting Observations

• All three independent claims are drawn to a "jumper" (a two-connector cable assembly), even though the specification's bulk describes a single connector (connector 100). This is why the issued abstract is written entirely around the jumper.
• Antecedent-basis irregularity: Claim 17 depends from claim 16 and recites "the connection interface is an interface port on a signal receiving device," yet claim 16 introduces no "connection interface" element — a potential indefiniteness vulnerability.
• Claims 14 and 16 use the phrase "configured with a working surface" (rather than "configured to engage"), which is arguably ambiguous as drafted.
• Claims 6/18 require the first set of resilient contacts to be "structurally and electrically integral with" the second set — matching the specification's single embedded metal strip embodiment.
• Claim 13 ("plurality of arcuate projections biased inwardly against a flange of the post") tracks the FIG. 4–6 flange-continuity embodiment.
• Claim 7/19 tie the "working surface" to "a profile surface of a spiral thread," and claim 12 requires the contacts to be normally biased so an edge projects inwardly between a pair of axially-spaced threads.
• Specification inconsistency (minor): in one introductory passage of the description the connector 100 component list includes "a biasing member 70," but reference numeral 70 is elsewhere used for the first set of continuity contacts/elastic protrusions. This appears to be a drafting slip, not a claim issue.

Litigation / Post-Grant Activity

No CAFC 2026 appeal and no PTAB IPR specific to US 8,753,147 was located in my searches. What I was able to confirm:

• A Fed. Cir. 2026 decision in PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, -1777, -1778, -1779 (judgment entered March 4, 2026, per curiam, Rule 36 affirmance), arising from PTAB IPRs IPR2022-00718 through -00721. Amphenol's four IPR final written decisions (Oct. 2023) invalidated claims in four PPC coaxial-connector patents. I could not confirm that the '147 patent is one of those four patents, so I do not attribute this appeal to '147.
• PPC's extensive coaxial-connector litigation has involved other PPC patents (e.g., 6,558,194; 6,848,940; 6,676,446; 8,192,237; 8,313,353; 8,323,060; 8,337,229; 8,475,205; 8,480,413; 8,480,430; 8,485,845; 8,386,481; 8,469,740) against Corning Gilbert/Corning Optical Communications RF, PCT International, Times Fiber, PerfectVision, and Amphenol. I found none of these expressly asserting 8,753,147.

Caveat: This is a search-based finding, not a substitute for a Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / PACER docket check on the patent number itself. A definitive litigation history would need a direct docket query.

Uncertainty & Data Conflicts

1. Priority date conflict. Google Patents lists the priority date as 2011-06-10 (matching the filing date of parent 13/157,340). Aggregator pages returned in search (Unified Patents portal) showed "2011-06-09" for US-8753147-B2. I treat 2011-06-10 as authoritative because it matches the parent application filing date recited in the patent itself.
2. Assignee chain. I did not independently verify from an assignment record image that the assignee chain ran John Mezzalingua Associates → PPC Broadband for this application (the legal-events snippets returned by search were for other patents, e.g., one showed a maintenance-fee lapse that does not belong to '147). The patent front page lists PPC Broadband, Inc. as current/original assignee, which I accept.
3. Some search-result snippets conflate patents. Several Google Patents "cited by"/legal-event fragments returned by my queries pertained to unrelated patents (e.g., US 8,877,550; US 9,153,917; US 11,283,226) and were not used above.
4. No authoritative CAFC 2026 docket item for '147 was found. Any statement that '147 was adjudicated in 2026 would be unsupported by what I retrieved.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8753147. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me run additional targeted searches on litigation databases.

Answer: No litigation specific to US 8,753,147 was located

Bottom line: Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no record of any federal court litigation, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding that specifically asserts or challenges U.S. Patent No. 8,753,147. I cannot confirm that none exists — only that my searches returned no hit tying that specific number to a case. I am flagging this explicitly rather than inferring from the patent family.

What I searched and what came back

Important distinction — the PPC Broadband litigation I found involves sibling patents, not the '147

My searches surfaced a substantial body of PPC Broadband (John Mezzalingua Associates) connector litigation. None of the cases I reviewed identify 8,753,147 as a patent-in-suit. The patents actually asserted were different members of PPC's portfolio (e.g., the '194, '940, '446, '990, '612, '035, '126, '455, and '416 patents). Representative cases found (listed to show what I did locate, and to make clear the '147 was not among the patents asserted):

• Corning Gilbert Inc. v. John Mezzalingua Assocs., Inc. d/b/a PPC, No. CV-12-2208-PHX-SMM (D. Ariz.) — asserted the '990 and '612 patents; ended by joint stipulation of dismissal (Jan. 2017).
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Gilbert Inc., No. 5:11-cv-761 (GLS/DEP) (N.D.N.Y.) — '194 and '940 patents; jury verdict for PPC, willful infringement.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc., No. 5:13-cv-460-TJM-DEP (N.D.N.Y.) — four connector patents (prosecution-bar dispute).
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PCT International, Inc., No. 5:13-cv-0135-GTS-DEP (N.D.N.Y.).
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. PerfectVision Manufacturing, Inc., No. 4:22-cv-00163-LPR (E.D. Ark.) — the "Bence Patents": '990, '035, '126, '612, '455.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-938.
• PTAB IPRs involving PPC patents: IPR2013-00340/-00342/-00345/-00346/-00347 (Corning v. PPC); IPR2022-00718/-00719/-00720/-00721 (Amphenol v. PPC) and the mirror-image PPC filings.

Why the '147 may simply be absent from the dockets

US 8,753,147 is a divisional of application Ser. No. 13/157,340 (issued as US 8,758,050), both claiming priority to June 10, 2011. In connector litigation, PPC has often asserted the parent/other family members rather than this divisional, which would explain its absence from the dockets I could reach. That is an inference about why, not evidence that litigation on the '147 exists.

Caveats on completeness

• Paywalled/limited-coverage sources: I could not access Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or full PACER/Unified Patents case-list queries. A case naming the '147 could exist there without appearing in the open-web results I retrieved.
• PTAB vs. litigation: IPR/PGR challenges (e.g., an Amphenol v. PPC petition) would not necessarily be captured by a district-court-focused search; I found none keyed to the '147.
• Verification recommendation: To confirm a negative, run the patent number through Unified Patents' litigation case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, and PACER searching "8,753,147" as a patent-in-suit, plus the PTAB Patent Trial & Appeal Board's API for the same number.

Conclusion: Known litigation involving US 8,753,147: none found. If you need a court-ready negative-assertion, please have someone with Docket Navigator/Lex Machina access run the number directly, since my open-web and portal searches cannot rule out an unindexed or paywalled docket.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against web sources before finalizing.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,753,147: 0. The structured USPTO ODP block is the canonical source and reports no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest; my independent web searches (Google Patents, PTAB decision text, PTAB-focused trackers) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition ever filed against US 8,753,147 — no petition numbers, no institution decisions, no FWDs, no appeals. The practical defensive posture is therefore "untested at the PTAB": all 19 claims — independent claims 1, 14, and 16 and their dependents — remain in force, unconstrued by the Board, and not narrowed by any AIA final written decision. That cuts both ways for a defendant: nothing is canceled, so infringement theories built on claims 1/14/16 are not dead; but there is also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel wall, no adverse FWD reasoning to inherit, and no prior petitioner's work product to free-ride on. You would be the first challenger.

No proceedings on file — detail

There is no proceeding of any type to report for this patent, so the per-proceeding template does not apply. For completeness, the verified negative:

• IPR: No petition found. Searches for "8,753,147" / "8753147" against PTAB decision text and IPR-tracker databases returned zero hits tied to this patent number.
• PGR: No petition found. (Note: this family claims priority to 2011-06-10 via parent application 13/157,340, which places it in pre-AIA territory; the PGR window under § 321(c) has long since closed in any event.)
• CBM: No petition found — and CBM would not have been available on the merits, since US 8,753,147 claims a coaxial cable connector (a mechanical/electrical apparatus), not a method or apparatus for a financial product or service.
• Federal Circuit appeals: None found, which follows directly from the absence of any Board decision to appeal.

Every claim of US 8,753,147 is UNTESTED. No part of the patent has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board.

Verification caveat: I could not run a live PTAB E2E / PatentCenter docket query in this session. A true negative here is best confirmed by pulling the "PTAB Trials" tab on PatentCenter for application 13/947,612 and the family members (US 8,758,050 B2 from parent 13/157,340; EP3621163B1; CA2838847C; BR112013031495B1; DK2719028T3; WO2012170861A2). You should also check whether any later-filed petition was filed in the days before this analysis — the ODP ingest lags filings.

Adjacent PTAB activity (context only — NOT proceedings on '147)

PPC Broadband is a frequent PTAB party, so the absence here is notable rather than an artifact of a company that never gets challenged. Petitions involving PPC Broadband patents other than US 8,753,147 include:

None of these involves US 8,753,147. Do not cite the Corning/Amphenol outcomes as if they decided this patent — different claims, different specification, no estoppel effect on '147.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 19 of 19 claims stand, all UNTESTED. Independent claim 1 (jumper with a rotatably attached, electrically grounded coupling member having resilient contacts engaging a port working surface, disengageable by rotating the coupling member); independent claim 14 (jumper where the coupling member body has an embedded conductive grounding ring defining the resilient contacts); and independent claim 16 (both connectors of the jumper so configured, with contacts biased inwardly against the post). Dependent claims 2–13 and 15 and 17–19 are likewise untouched. Nothing to cross off a demand letter — if a plaintiff asserts claim 1 or claim 16, there is no PTAB record showing those claims unpatentable, and no FWD reasoning you can quote to show the Board disagreed with the patent owner.

Estoppel landscape: a clean slate. Because no IPR was ever instituted on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue — no petitioner, privy, or real party in interest is barred from anything with respect to '147. For a defendant now being asserted against, every prior-art ground remains available: § 102 anticipation, § 103 obviousness, and (in litigation, though not in IPR) § 112. The only constraints you face are ordinary: § 315(b)'s one-year bar runs from service of the complaint alleging infringement of this patent, and § 315(a)(1) bars an IPR if you filed a civil action first seeking a declaratory judgment of invalidity. Two practical notes: (1) because '147 issued 2014-06-17 and is a divisional of a 2011 application, the prosecution file history — including any art cited in parent 13/157,340 (US 8,758,050) — is fair game for § 325(d) arguments, so don't recycle references the Examiner already considered without a material-error showing under Advanced Bionics; (2) the most obvious art pool here is the pre-2011-06-10 coaxial push-on/locking-connector space, including references that the family itself later cited — e.g., US 7,114,990 B2 (Corning Gilbert, priority 2005-01-25), US 8,075,337 B2 (Belden, priority 2008-09-30), and US 8,157,588 B1 (Belden, 2011-02-08) — all of which predate the '147 priority date and would be § 102(b)/§ 103 candidates on their faces.

Pattern signals. PPC Broadband (now PPC Broadband, Inc., successor to John Mezzalingua Associates) is a serial and sophisticated PTAB litigant on both sides of the v., and it has been the target of coordinated multi-petition campaigns (Corning Gilbert around 2013–2014; Amphenol around 2022–2023). It is also an active petitioner (e.g., IPR2022-00946/00947/01087/01088 against Times Fiber; IPR2025-00833 against CommScope). No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain for '147. The fact that this patent has been in force since 2014-06-17 with an anticipated expiration of 2031-06-10 yet has attracted zero PTAB challenges is itself a signal — most plausibly that the claims are not the ones PPC has chosen to assert in its connector campaigns, and challengers have focused their budgets on sibling patents (US 8,313,353; 8,323,060; 8,287,320; 8,597,041; 8,562,366; 8,075,338). If you are receiving assertion correspondence citing US 8,753,147, you may be the first party to make this patent worth attacking.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the true negative directly. Pull the PatentCenter "PTAB Trials" and "Litigation" tabs for application 13/947,612 and for parent 13/157,340 (US 8,758,050 B2), plus the EP/CA/BR/DK/WO family members listed above. This analysis is based on the canonical ODP block stating no proceedings, corroborated by web search; it is not a substitute for a live docket pull, and new filings would not appear in either source immediately.
2. Since no FWD exists, do not build a defense on PTAB outcome. There is no dispositive claim-level ruling to cite. Your invalidity case must be constructed from scratch, which means an early, disciplined prior-art search against the 2011-06-10 priority date and the actual claim language — particularly the "jumper" framing of claims 1, 14, and 16 and the "working surface of an interface port" / "embedded conductive grounding ring" limitations, which are narrower than the generic push-on-connector disclosures in the specification.
3. Watch the § 315(b) clock. If you have been served with a complaint alleging infringement of '147, your IPR petition window closes one year after service. Because there is no prior petitioner, there is also no possibility of joining an existing IPR — you would be filing standalone, so budget for a full petition with expert declaration and a claim-construction position on "working surface" and "jumper."
4. If no assertion has occurred, treat the absence of PTAB activity as a market signal, not a clearance. Zero IPRs correlates with non-assertion in PPC's campaigns, not with invalidity. A freedom-to-operate analysis on this patent, if you are in the coaxial connector space, is still warranted.

Bottom line for a defendant: No PTAB proceeding exists on US 8,753,147. There is no canceled claim to hide behind, and no prior-petitioner estoppel to inherit — but equally, no adverse Board ruling has hardened the patent against you. The patent is a blank slate at the PTAB, and the first-mover position is open.

I'll reconstruct the assignment chain from the authoritative patent text and cross-reference with live sources for recorded assignments, corporate status, and assertion history.

Let me pin down the specific reel/frame for the recorded assignment and check for any assertion history on this patent.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 8,753,147 B2

Patent: US 8,753,147 B2 — Connector having a coupling member for locking onto a port and maintaining electrical continuity
Appl. No.: 13/947,612 (divisional of 13/157,340) · Filed: 2013-07-22 · Priority: 2011-06-10 · Granted: 2014-06-17 · Anticipated expiration: 2031-06-10 · Status: Active
Current assignee of record (Google Patents): PPC Broadband, Inc.

Data-access note (important): I could retrieve the fact and dates of the single recorded assignment from the patent's Google Patents legal-events record, but the live search results I could access did not expose the reel/frame number or the recorded correspondent for that entry. I have not fabricated a reel/frame or an attorney name. Where a reel/frame is required below, it is marked [not retrievable from available sources]. Verify directly at the USPTO Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Inventors

• Sole named inventor. The application is a divisional of Ser. No. 13/157,340 (filed 2011-06-10), which issued as US 8,758,050 B2 with the identical title and inventor — i.e., PPC deliberately split this disclosure into a parent + divisional pair.
• No unusual inventor-departure pattern. Montena is a prolific PPC/Belden engineer. He continued filing for the same assignee for at least a decade after this 2011 priority filing (e.g., continuations through the mid-2020s still listing "PPC Broadband, Inc." as assignee). There is no signal of the inventor leaving the assignee near filing — the opposite of a pre-fire-sale tell.

Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. (formerly John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. d/b/a PPC), East Syracuse, NY.

• Primary line of business: design and manufacture of coaxial connectors and broadband/telecom connectivity hardware. It is a genuine operating manufacturer, not a holding vehicle.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes. PPC's "continuity" F-type connector line is a commercially sold product; in the later PVM/PerfectVision antitrust counterclaim, PPC was alleged to hold >80% of the U.S. market for "continuity" F-type connectors. The patent itself is directed to that exact product category (push-on connector that locks onto a port and maintains electrical continuity).
• Corporate history / current status: Operating. Corporate name changed from John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. to PPC Broadband, Inc. in December 2012 (a change-of-name, not an asset transfer). In December 2012 Belden Inc. acquired PPC for $515.7 million; PPC has operated as a wholly owned Belden Inc. subsidiary since (confirmed in PPC's own PTAB mandatory notices: "PPC Broadband, Inc. is wholly owned by Belden, Inc."). As of 2024 PPC continues to operate and expand in DeWitt/East Syracuse, NY.

Assignment timeline

Only one Patent Assignment Search record is associated with this patent as surfaced via the legal-events feed. Belden's later acquisition of PPC was a corporate (equity) transaction — it did not generate a per-patent assignment record in the Assignment Center for this patent, which is why "PPC Broadband, Inc." remains the assignee of record.

• executed ~2013-07-24 / recorded ~2013-07-24 — Reel [not retrievable from available sources] / Frame [n/a]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignor's Interest — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Montena, Noah (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc. (assignee/applicant of record; formerly John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.)
  • Correspondent: [not retrievable from available sources] — cannot be assessed for recurrence without the recorded attorney of record.
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-original-assignee assignment, recorded contemporaneously with the 2013-07-22 divisional filing. This is the ordinary "I assign my rights to my employer" filing, not a transfer to a third party.

• Event not recorded as a patent assignment (context only): 2012-12-10 — Belden Inc. acquires PPC (a division of John Mezzalingua Associates). This is an M&A/equity event; no Assignment Center entry against US 8,753,147. Source: Belden press release / Reuters ("Belden buys privately held PPC for $515.7 million," 2012-12-11).

No post-issuance assignments exist. There is no record of this patent moving to any licensing entity, holding company, or aggregator. The chain is a single link: inventor → operating manufacturer → (parent) Belden, and it terminates there.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8753147
    2011 : Parent filed by Montena
         : Rights assigned to PPC
    2012 : JMA renamed PPC Broadband
         : Belden acquires PPC for 515M
    2013 : Divisional filed
         : Inventor assignment recorded
    2014 : Patent issued as US 8753147
    2031 : Anticipated expiration

(The 2012 Belden step is an equity/M&A event with no per-patent reel/frame; shown for context only.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. There is no assignment to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity. The sole recorded assignment (2013-07-24) runs inventor → PPC Broadband, Inc., an operating manufacturer with a Syracuse manufacturing footprint. No single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent address in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither PPC Broadband nor Belden appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg NPE lists. PPC is a prolific patent plaintiff, but it asserts against direct product competitors (Corning Gilbert / Corning Optical Communications RF; PCT International; PerfectVision/PVM; Times Fiber; ICC/Belden), which is operating-company assertion behavior, not NPE monetization.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / cannot be assessed. With only a single recorded assignment and the recorded correspondent name unavailable from the sources I could reach, there is no basis to detect (or rule out) a repeat-player filing attorney. Flagged as a data gap, not a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. One assignment in the entire record; no chained LLC hops, no <24-month cascade, no shared correspondent addresses.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only assignment (2013-07-24) predates the first suing activity by years and is a standard employer assignment. When PPC does sue on its connector patents, it sues as the long-standing owner and original manufacturer — not via a freshly assigned standing vehicle.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. PPC's 2012 event was a $515.7M all-cash acquisition by Belden, the opposite of a distress sale. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving the assignee appears in the record.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No evidence that Belden/PPC transferred this patent to a separate assertion entity to sue on its behalf. PPC litigates in its own name through its own counsel.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The patent remains with the operating manufacturer/parent.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The record contains exactly one assignment — inventor Noah Montena → PPC Broadband, Inc., recorded 2013-07-24, with no subsequent transfer to any licensing entity, holding company, or aggregator (no cascading LLC chain, no shell-entity assignee, no asserter directory match). The current owner, PPC Broadband, Inc., is a genuine operating manufacturer of "continuity" F-type connectors (alleged >80% U.S. market share in the PVM counterclaim) that is a wholly owned Belden Inc. subsidiary (Belden acquired PPC in December 2012 for $515.7M, per Belden's own PTAB mandatory notices and contemporaneous press coverage). Because Belden's acquisition was an equity transaction that produced no per-patent assignment record, the patent's own chain simply terminates at the original operating assignee — the antithesis of an NPE chain.

Caveat on confidence: The verdict rests on the absence of any post-issuance assignment, which is itself the strongest available signal here. If you need the reel/frame and correspondent to close the file definitively, retrieve them directly from the USPTO Assignment Center:

• Search by patent number 8753147 — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy interface — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

If an assignment entry beyond 2013-07-24 exists but was not surfaced in the sources available to me, that would require re-running the analysis; nothing I found indicates such an entry.

I'll research US8753147 and its cited prior art. Let me start with targeted searches.

Let me research the key cited prior-art references and the examiner's citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,753,147 B2

Note on scope before I begin: US 8,753,147 B2's record lists on the order of 560 cited references (I retrieved the head of that list, which is dominated by very early art from 1885–1977, plus the "Cited By" table and the family citation table). It is not possible to analyze all 560 individually and reliably in a single response, and I will not fabricate content for references I could not verify. Below I (a) fix the patent and claim scope, (b) flag the critical "prior art vs. cited-by" distinction, and (c) analyze the most relevant, verifiable references with dates, descriptions, and § 102 mapping, clearly marking anything I could not verify this session.

1. The patent as literally identified

• Patent: US 8,753,147 B2 — "Connector having a coupling member for locking onto a port and maintaining electrical continuity"
• Application: US 13/947,612; filed 2013-07-22; granted 2014-06-17
• Priority: 2011-06-10 (divisional of US 13/157,340, filed 2011-06-10)
• Inventor: Noah Montena; Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
• Pre-grant pub.: US 2013/0309902 A1 (2013-11-21)
• Anticipated expiration: 2031-06-10
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8753147/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8753147](/patent/8753147)

Claim scope (the 19 granted claims are all "jumper" claims). Because this is a divisional, the claims are restricted to the connector-as-jumper species rather than the coupling-member/method claims that issued in the parent US 8,758,050 B2 (see § 3 below):

• Claim 1 (independent): A jumper with (i) a first connector attached to a coaxial cable, (ii) a post receiving the center conductor/dielectric, (iii) a connector body on the post, (iv) a coupling member rotatably attached, and electrically grounded, to the post, (v) the coupling member having one or more resilient contacts configured to engage a working surface of an interface port after the coupling member is moved over the working surface in an axial direction, and (vi) rotation of the coupling member effects rotation of the resilient contacts over the working surface to disengage the coupling member from the port; plus a second connector.
• Claim 14 (independent): As claim 1 but the coupling member includes a coupling member body and a conductive grounding ring embedded within the coupling member body, the conductive grounding ring defining the one or more resilient contacts; first connector rotatably attached to a first end, second connector rotatably attached to a second end.
• Claim 16 (independent): Both connectors have the embedded grounding ring; rotation of one connector relative to the cable disengages its coupling member; and the resilient contacts are biased inwardly against the post.
• Dependent claims 2–13, 15, 17–19 add: identical/non-identical second connector; continuity across the connection interface; first and second sets of resilient contacts structurally/electrically integral; working surface a profile surface of a spiral thread; inwardly biased contact sets; arcuate projections against the post flange; and "interface port on a signal receiving device."

Anticipation standard applied: a single reference must disclose every element of the claim, arranged as claimed (35 U.S.C. § 102). Where a reference discloses only some elements, I say so and note the reference is at most § 103 material.

2. Critical distinction — "References Cited" vs. "Cited By"

Several references that a casual reader might assume are prior art are not prior art against the 2011-06-10 priority, because they post-date it and appear only in the "Cited By" table (later patents citing this family's disclosure):

These are useful for understanding the field's evolution (push-on/locking connectors with resilient contact members) but they are not § 102 references for US 8,753,147.

Also note the parent US 8,758,050 B2 (US 13/157,340, filed 2011-06-10) is same-family, not prior art against this divisional — it shares the same priority. It is nonetheless the most closely "related" document in the record (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8758050](/patent/8758050).html).

3. Most relevant prior art (verifiable), with § 102 mapping

A. US 8,157,588 B1 — "Cable connector with biasing element" (Belden Inc.)

• Citation: US 8,157,588 B1, Rodrigues et al., Belden Inc.; Appl. 13/023,102; filed 2011-02-08; granted 2012-04-17 (continuation issued as US 8,469,739 B2). EP 2 673 845 A1 / WO counterpart.
• Disclosure: Coaxial connector with a connector body, a nut rotatably coupled to the body, an annular post in the body providing an electrical path, and a biasing element that exerts a force to maintain the electrical path (continuity/ground) between the mating connector and the cable. The biasing element may be external to the nut/body or surround a portion of the nut, and compresses when the connector is mated, maintaining continuity even if the nut backs off.
• § 102 analysis: Its effective date (2011-02-08) precedes the 2011-06-10 priority, so it qualifies as § 102(e) art. It discloses a rotatable nut, post, and a resilient biasing element maintaining ground/continuity — relevant to the "electrically grounded to the post / resilient" limitations of claims 1, 14 and 16. However, it does not anticipate: (i) the nut is internally threaded and screws onto the port rather than being moved over the port's working surface axially; (ii) it lacks resilient contacts that ratchet over the port working surface and that are turned off by rotating the coupling member. It is therefore at most § 103 material against claim 1's combination, not an anticipation.
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8157588 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8157588](/patent/8157588).html

B. US 8,075,337 B2 — "Cable connector" (Belden Inc.)

• Citation: US 8,075,337 B2, Malloy et al., Belden Inc.; Appl. 12/568,179; filed 2009-09-28; granted 2011-12-13; pub. US 2010/0081322 A1 (2010-04-01).
• Disclosure: Connector body, a nut rotatably coupled to the body's forward end, an annular post with an annular notch at its forward end, and a biasing element located in the notch to provide continuity/retention at the reference plane.
• § 102 analysis: Qualifies as § 102(e) art (filed 2009-09-28) and its publication as § 102(a) art (2010-04-01). Relevant to the "rotatably coupled + electrically grounded to the post" and "working surface" concepts of claims 1/14/16. Does not anticipate: no push-on resilient contacts riding over and engaging a port's working surface, and no "rotate-to-disengage" structure. Relevant element-wise (§ 103), not as anticipation.

C. US 7,114,990 B2 — "Coaxial cable connector with grounding member" (Corning Gilbert Inc.)

• Citation: US 7,114,990 B2, Corning Gilbert Inc.; priority 2005-01-25; granted 2006-10-03.
• Disclosure: A coaxial connector in which a grounding member (a conductive element/ring) bridges the nut/post interface to maintain electrical continuity/ground through the connector regardless of nut tightening.
• § 102 analysis: Granted 2006-10-03, more than one year before the 2011-06-10 priority → § 102(b) art. This is the most on-point reference for the "conductive grounding ring … electrically grounded to the post" limitations of claims 14 and 16, i.e., an embedded conductive ring establishing continuity between the coupling member and the post. But it lacks the thread-engaging resilient contacts and the axial push-on then rotate-to-disengage behavior of claim 1, so it does not anticipate the independent claims; it is strong § 103 material for claims 14/16's ring feature when combined with a push-on contact connector.

D. US 5,746,619 — "Coaxial plug-and-socket connector" (cited on the face of US 8,753,147)

• Citation: US 5,746,619 (title "Coaxial plug-and-socket connector"); appears in US 8,753,147's citation set (the US 5,746,619 record lists US 8,753,147 as a citing document).
• § 102 analysis: 1990s-era coaxial plug/socket patent, hence § 102(b)-eligible on its face. I could not verify its specific disclosure this session, so I will not assert an element mapping. Flagged as a face-cited reference warranting a full-text read; its title suggests push-on/plug-type coaxial mating, which is directly in the claimed field.
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5746619

E. US 3,879,102 — "Entrance connector having a floating internal support sleeve" (Gamco Ind. Inc.)

• Citation: US 3,879,102; granted 1975-04-22.
• § 102 analysis: § 102(b) (decades pre-2011). Cited on the face of the patent. It discloses a coaxial entrance connector with a floating internal sleeve for mating with a port; it is structural background art. Without a verified full text read I do not assert it meets the "resilient contact engaging a working surface / rotate-to-disengage" limitations; likely § 103/background only.

F. Non-patent literature — Digicon AVL Connector (ARRIS Group Inc.)

• Citation: "Digicon AVL Connector," ARRIS Group Inc., 3 pages, retrieved Apr. 22, 2010 (listed as NPL in the references considered).
• § 102 analysis: Dated before the 2011-06-10 priority, so § 102(b)-eligible NPL. It is a commercial broadband connector reference; its relevance is to the general push-on/port-continuity problem, not a verified element-by-element anticipation.

4. What the cited art does and does not do

• No located reference anticipates independent claims 1, 14, or 16 as a whole. To anticipate, a single reference must disclose, in combination: (1) a jumper (two connectors on one cable), (2) a coupling member rotatably attached and electrically grounded to the post, (3) resilient contacts that engage the port's working surface after axial insertion, and (4) rotation of the coupling member turns the resilient contacts over that working surface to disengage — plus, for claims 14/16, a conductive grounding ring embedded in the coupling-member body. The closest references (US 8,157,588; US 8,075,337) are threaded-nut + separate biasing element designs, and US 7,114,990 is a grounding member design; none combines push-on resilient contact engagement with rotate-to-release.
• Strongest § 102-type individual mappings:
  • US 7,114,990 B2 → the "conductive grounding ring / electrically grounded to the post" limitations of claims 14, 16 (and the continuity aspects recited in claim 4).
  • US 8,157,588 B1 and US 8,075,337 B2 → the "rotatably coupled nut + post + continuity-maintaining resilient element" sub-combinations underpinning claims 1, 14, 16.
  • US 5,746,619, US 3,879,102, and the Digicon AVL NPL → background/plug-and-socket and port-interface art; verify full text before relying on them.
• Anticipation vs. obviousness: On the record I could verify, the citations function principally as § 103 combination art (and as support for the examiner's understanding of the push-on connector field) rather than clean § 102 anticipation.

5. Limitations / honest caveats

1. Not exhaustive. US 8,753,147's record cites ~560 references (largely pre-1977 art). I retrieved and verified a subset; I have not analyzed all 560, and I declined to invent content for references I could not read.
2. Unverified items are labeled. US 5,746,619 and US 3,879,102 are confirmed as cited on the face of the patent, but I did not obtain their full texts this session; their § 102 mappings above are deliberately tentative.
3. Date discipline. I applied the 2011-06-10 effective priority. Any reference with a filing/priority date on or after that date (e.g., US 8,915,753 B2, US 2014/0024234 A1) is treated as not § 102 prior art here, notwithstanding that it appears in the patent's "Cited By" table.
4. Identifiers kept literal. I have not renumbered or "corrected" any patent number; e.g., US 8,753,147 B2 (this patent) and US 8,758,050 B2 (its parent) are distinct documents and are treated as such.

If you want a complete, claim-by-claim § 102/§ 103 matrix, the next step is to pull the full "References Cited" list (all 560 entries) from the USPTO PatentCenter/Global Dossier file wrapper for US 13/947,612 and the examiner's reasons for allowance, so each reference can be mapped to claim elements without gaps.

I'll verify the key references from the Prior Art sections before building the combination analysis.

Good — that resolves TWI558022B to US 9,071,019 B2 (Burris et al., Corning Gilbert). Now let me verify the grounded-continuity references.

Two more confirmations on the push-on/retention side of the cited art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,753,147 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analytical caveat: This is a technical prior-art assessment, not a legal opinion. Element-by-element mapping below rests on the abstracts, claim sets, and full-text excerpts that could be retrieved for each reference; a formal opinion would require certified copies and construction of each claim term. Where I could not verify a reference's disclosure, I say so.

1. Governing framework and the critical date

The application (US 13/947,612) was filed 2013-07-22 as a divisional of US 13/157,340, filed 2011-06-10 (granted as US 8,758,050 B2), with a claimed priority date of 2011-06-10 (US8753147B2). Because every claim is supported solely by the 2011-06-10 disclosure, the application appears to be a transition application to which pre-AIA §§ 102/103 apply. The practical consequence is that prior art must predate 2011-06-10 (102(a)/(b)), or be a US patent/application entitled to a § 102(e) date before that date.

Two dates matter for the "prior art section" of the page:

• The "Citations (560)" list (examiner/third-party cited art) is the operative prior-art universe. The fetched page truncates this list at US 4,131,332 A (1978), so roughly the first 120 of 560 references were visible. The nine-decade span of even that fragment (US 331,169 (1885) → US 4,131,332 (1978)) is itself probative of an extraordinarily crowded art.
• The "Families Citing this family (34)" list is forward citation — art citing this patent family, not art available against it. Several entries postdate 2011-06-10 and cannot be § 102/§ 103 prior art, including US 8,915,753 B2 (filed 2011-12-12), US 9,627,814 B2 (2012-04-04), US 9,873,288 B2 (2012-06-11), US 2014/0024234 A1 (2012-07-19), and US 9,922,010 B2 (2015). Their near-identical subject matter is relevant only as evidence of the state of the art and contemporaneous independent solutions, not as statutory prior art. Only five forward-listed items even arguably predate the critical date: US 7,114,990 B2 (2005-01-25), US 8,075,337 B2 (2008-09-30), US 8,888,526 B2 (2010-08-10), TWI558022B (2010-10-27), and US 8,157,588 B1 (2011-02-08) — each still needing its § 102 date verified (publication vs. filing vs. provisional).

2. What the claims add up to

Building on the claim set already set out for this patent: independent claim 1 requires only (a) a first connector on a cable having a post, a body, and a coupling member rotatably attached and electrically grounded to the post, (b) resilient contacts that engage the working surface of a port after axial movement over that surface, (c) a second connector, and (d) rotation of the coupling member sweeps the resilient contacts over the working surface to disengage. Claims 6–13 add the two-set (continuity + retention) architecture and geometry details. Claims 14–19 substitute a "conductive grounding ring embedded within the coupling member body" for the general grounding contact, and claim 16 requires both connectors to use that architecture while reciting resilient contacts "biased inwardly against the post."

The claims are therefore directed to two known functions performed by resilient members in the coupler — (i) holding a push-on coupler onto a threaded F port and (ii) maintaining a ground/continuity path through the rotatable coupler — plus the jumper packaging of two such connectors on one cable.

3. The strongest § 103 combination (claims 1–13)

Primary references:

Why a POSITA would combine these

1. Same field of endeavor and same art unit. Every reference is an RF/coaxial F-type connector art (the '147 is classified H01R 9/05, H01R 24/38), and the patent's own "Prior art keywords" — coupling member, connector, post, jumper, resilient contacts — describe exactly what these references disclose.
2. The references address the same two problems the '147 specification identifies. Corning's US 7,114,990 opens by describing the loose-coupler gap and consequent RFI leakage and unstable ground paths; Belden's US 8,157,588 recites the SCTE 25–30 in-lb torque requirement and the ingress/egress risk at the reference plane. The '147 background states the identical problems: push-on connectors "rarely stay properly secured onto the port," RF leakage, and the need for continuous contact of conductive components. Where two references and the application all frame the same deficiency, the motivation to combine is strong and articulated in the art itself (KSR rational (A): known elements combined according to known methods to yield predictable results).
3. Only two functions, both already solved separately by the same technique — a resilient contact inside the coupler. Belden '337/'588 and Corning '990/8,172,612 solve continuity with resilient members bearing on the post/nut (US 8,172,612 reexam certificate, claim 24: "a plurality of projections extending radially outwardly from the axially extending outer surface of the flange of the post, and contacting the annular recess"). Zerlin '922 solves retention with resilient spring tabs. Using the same known technique (spring fingers in the coupler) to serve both the retention and continuity functions in one part is "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way" (KSR rational (C); MPEP 2143(A)(3)).
4. Finite, predictable solutions / obvious to try. Given (i) a coupler that must embrace a threaded port and (ii) the known failure mode of push-on fits, the field had identified a small set of candidate geometries — resilient fingers, tines, teeth, ramp/ratchet tips. The '147 specification itself concedes the mechanism: contacts "pass over the crests of the threads" and then "come to rest with the tips… lodged securely against the working surface," and disengagement occurs by "rotat[ing] the coupling member 30 in a counter-clockwise direction." No new cooperation between retention and continuity is asserted; the two sets of contacts are independent (In re Kerkhoven-style mere aggregation; MPEP 2144.04).
5. The result would have been reasonably expected to work. Each element was already proven in the F-connector environment, and both the retention force and the ground path are functions of the same design variable (contact bias) — not a source of unpredictable interaction.

Claim-by-claim disposition

4. Counter-considerations the record would need to address

• Objective indicia. Assignee would likely point to the long-recognized need for a lockable push-on F connector (the '147 background), the commercial success of PPC's push-on jumpers, and copying. But the "long-felt need" narrative is weakened by the fact that three independent competitors (Corning, Belden, Holland) were solving the identical continuity/retention problems in 2010–2011, and the asserted nexus would have to link the claimed combination (not the commercial product) to any success (KSR; MPEP 716.01(c)).
• Date vulnerabilities. TWI558022B (which resolves to US 9,071,019 B2, Burris et al., Corning Gilbert, filed 2011-10-26, priority 2010-10-27) is the closest single reference to the port-thread-engaging resilient contacts of claim 1, but its US filing and publications postdate 2011-06-10. It is prior art only if its § 102(e) date reaches an earlier US provisional, or via its TW/WO publication if that published before 2011-06-10 — a point that must be verified before it is relied upon. The same verification applies to US 8,888,526 B2.
• The fetched citation list is truncated (560 references, only through 1978 visible). A complete § 103 analysis must run the full list; the 1979–2011 segment almost certainly contains additional resilient-coupler and push-on references.
• § 112 shadows the § 103 analysis for claims 14–19. The "conductive grounding ring embedded within the coupling member body" and the terminal "resilient contacts are biased inwardly against the post" in claim 16 sit uneasily with the port-engagement function and with the specification (which discloses an embedded strip, not a ring). If those terms are construed narrowly, the Belden '337 "notch-seated biasing element" and Belden '588 ring-shaped element remain the best art; if construed broadly along the specification's strip, the combination is stronger.
• Practical note (verify before relying on it): records accessible for IPR2016‑01573 identify the patent owner of US 8,075,338 as PPC — suggesting assignee overlap with the Belden connector family. Assignee identity does not affect prior-art status, but it affects which references an assignee can comfortably assert.

5. Bottom line

Within the art cited on the page, the claims of US 8,753,147 are strongly vulnerable to a § 103 rejection built on: (Corning US 7,114,990 B2 and/or Belden US 8,075,337 B2 / US 8,157,588 B1 — resilient, integral grounding contact between a rotatable coupler and the post ) in view of (push-on/locking connector art such as US 3,671,922 A, and the thread-engaging resilient contact teachings of the Corning push-on family), further in view of (ordinary coaxial jumper practice — duplication of parts). The motivation is supplied both by the references' own express statements of the loose-coupler/RF-leakage problem and by the '147 specification's admission that its solution is nothing more than lodging resilient contacts in the port threads and unscrewing them, while a known resilient member keeps the coupler grounded to the post.