US 8776772

I'll search for litigation/litigation-adjacent records and confirm the bibliographic data before summarizing.

Let me run a few more targeted searches for any litigation, PTAB, or assignment records and to confirm the assignee status.

Search conduct and what I did (and did not) find

I ran web searches against indexed USPTO/Google Patents/Justia/FreePatentsOnline records and against Federal Circuit and general federal docket material. I did not have direct Portal/PatentCenter or PACER access, so my "docket" check is a search-index check, not a certified docket pull. Results:

• No litigation, IPR/PGR, or CAFC appeal involving U.S. 8,776,772 was located. Searches for the number plus "litigation," "infringement," "CAFC," and the inventor name returned no case captions. My CAFC searches surfaced only unrelated 2026 decisions (e.g., Ironburg v. Valve, No. 2024‑2088 (Fed. Cir. June 18, 2026); NCS Multistage v. TCO Group, No. 24‑2379 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 14, 2026)), none involving this patent.
• The Google Patents Legal Events tab for this patent shows only fee/entity-status entries (micro-entity, grants, 4th- and 8th-year maintenance fees, a 2022 surcharge for late payment, and a 12th-year maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2026-03-02). It shows no assignment of record beyond the named inventor.
• One third-party citation list (the Justia page for design patent D946687) displays the number "8776722" alongside "8776772." Taken literally, 8,776,722 is a different patent number; the entry is most plausibly a typographical variant of 8,776,772 in that listing, but I am flagging it rather than silently correcting it.

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Biblographic summary — US 8,776,772 B1

Abstract (verbatim): "An accessory for an archery bow has a C-shaped forearm brace attached to the distal end of a support. The support can be supported on the bow. The brace extends arcuately around a forearm axis at least 180° in order to partially encompass a forearm. The support is mounted in an arcuate slot in the brace and extends outwardly, transverse to the forearm axis. The support can be adjusted to allow angular and linear translation of the forearm brace relative to an adjustment axis that is parallel to the forearm axis. The forearm brace is circumferentially repositionable along the support. The support may be a post with a bearing surface skewed relative to a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. This post may have on opposite sides of the bearing surface, a pair of walls that straddle a peripheral portion of the forearm brace."

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the broad base claim. An archery-bow accessory made of two cooperating parts: (a) a forearm brace (a curved piece loosely fitting around the archer's forearm, with an inside and an outside) and (b) a support. The support's far (distal) end is fastened to the outside of the brace and extends away from the forearm axis; its near (proximal) end is designed to mount on the bow. The key limitation is that the support can be moved to a different position around the circumference of the brace (circumferentially repositionable). Notably, claim 1 does not require any particular arc angle (no 180°/240° requirement), nor C-shape, rigidity, or slot.

Claim 8 — the adjustability claim. A brace + support in which the support is attached to the outside of the brace and is adjustable to permit both angular and linear translation of the brace relative to an "adjustment axis" that runs parallel to the forearm axis (i.e., the archer can both swivel and slide the brace into place).

Claim 13 — the coverage-angle claim. The same brace-plus-support combination, limited only in that the brace wraps at least 180° around the forearm axis to partially encompass the forearm.

Claim 14 — the clock-position claim. Brace + support where the brace is adjustable to extend around the forearm axis clockwise from at least the twelve o'clock to the three o'clock position as perceived by the archer (i.e., a quadrant-style positional limitation). Dependent claims 15 and 16 narrow this to at least eight-to-four o'clock and nine-to-five o'clock, respectively.

Claim 17 — the narrow, fully-integrated claim. A rigid, C-shaped brace having an arcuate slot and inside/outside surfaces, wrapping at least 180°, plus a support whose distal portion is fastened to the outside of the brace inside the slot and extends transversely to the forearm axis. The support is adjustable for angular and linear translation about an adjustment axis parallel to the forearm axis; the brace is circumferentially repositionable along the support; and the support is specifically a post whose distal end has a bearing surface skewed relative to the perpendicular plane to the post's longitudinal axis and a pair of walls straddling a peripheral portion of the brace on opposite sides of that bearing surface.

Practical thrust of the disclosure: the archer keeps a relaxed, open grip (bow balanced on the heel of the hand), and the brace rests lightly on the forearm. A too-tight grip tips the bow forward and visibly lifts the brace, giving feedback; when the string is released and the bow naturally tips forward, the open brace lets the forearm slip free without hindering the bow's rotation. The detailed embodiment uses a 240° C-brace with a 70° arcuate slot, beveled tips, ~3.0 in ID / 4.0 in OD, mounted on a 2‑in cylindrical post with a ~7° skewed bearing surface and a beveled washer, clamped to a rod (e.g., the rod of a string vibration arrester or cable guard) via set screws; FIG. 6 shows an alternative V-block/clamp support.

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Prior art of record

Cited references (14) include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,572,312 (Foster), 3,599,621 (Scrobell), 4,787,361 (Vyprachticky), 4,836,177 (Wills), 4,976,250 (J.L.J. Mfg.), 5,137,008 (Taylor), 5,349,937 (Burling), 5,464,002 (Lavoie), 5,531,211 (Wilfong), 5,853,000 (Torgerson), 6,173,707 (Howell), 7,748,369 (Chee), 7,954,175 (Platt), and US 2012/0174904 A1 (Greenhoe), plus a "See also" list in the specification.

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Explicit uncertainties / caveats

1. No litigation or CAFC proceeding verified. I found none for '772. I cannot rule out a proceeding that is not indexed in the sources I could reach; a PACER/PatentCenter docket pull and a PTAB API query would be needed to confirm.
2. No assignee of record found. Google Patents shows both original and current assignee as "Individual," and the Legal Events list contains no assignment entry. That is a records observation, not a legal conclusion about ownership.
3. Examiner name (John Ricci) came from a third party (patents‑review.com), not USPTO.
4. Maintenance-fee status for the 12th year is unresolved. A reminder was mailed 2026‑03‑02; no payment event appears in the record I retrieved. Whether the fee was paid within the grace period as of today's date cannot be confirmed from my sources.
5. Internal inconsistency in the disclosure: the abstract and claim 13 recite "at least 180°," while the detailed description and summary repeatedly describe the illustrated brace as extending 240° (with 180°, 200°, 220° and 150° listed as alternatives). The claims control scope; the numerals are embodiment disclosures.
6. The "8776722" entry in the D946687 citation listing is reported literally above and is a different number from 8,776,772.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8776772.

Let me search more specifically for litigation involving this patent number.

Let me check the litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Results: U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772

Bottom line

I found no record of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772. Multiple targeted searches — including for the bare patent number, the "B1" publication form, the inventor's name (Nicola Albanese), and archery-specific infringement phrasing — returned no district court dockets, ITC proceedings, or Federal Circuit appeals naming this patent as an asserted patent.

What the patent is (for context on why litigation is unlikely)

The patent is held by an individual inventor of a micro-entity, and the family is small (continuations-in-part issued as US 8,955,504, US 8,646,440, and US 9,372,046 — all naming Albanese). There is no corporate assignee with a visible enforcement program, which is consistent with the absence of litigation.

What I checked

• Google Patents family page for US 8,776,772 — the "Cited By" and related-documents tables list only subsequent patents that cite it as prior art (e.g., Gibson's archery arm guard, Jeeb sling bracket patents, Summers' "Double lock connector," Allwear Products' "Bow crutch"). These are citations, not infringement actions, and none asserts the '772 patent.
• Justia dockets / Docket Alarm / CourtListener (via web search) for the patent number and inventor name — no matching case.
• Unified Patents litigation portal and general web search for the specific number – no matching hits.
• Archery patent litigation in general — the archery-sector patent suits that surfaced (e.g., Allen Archery v. Browning, Epling v. Golden Eagle/Satellite Archery, Lasermarx/QTM v. Hamskea, Xiamen Disdeer v. FeraDyne, Veteran Innovative Products v. Bowmar) involve entirely different patents (e.g., the Allen bow patent, the QAD/Lasermarx arrow-rest family US 11,821,707 et al., FeraDyne's nock patent US 8,758,177) and none names US 8,776,772.

Important caveats

1. Negative-result limitation. A "no results" finding from web searches is not the same as a certified PACER/docket search. My searches surfaced no litigation, but I cannot rule out a case that is very recent, sealed, filed in a venue with poor indexing, or that simply did not appear in search results. I did not obtain a direct PACER query or a Docket Navigator/Unified Patents docket report for this specific number.
2. Do not confuse with similar numbers. Several near-identical identifiers appeared in searches and are not this patent:
   • 8,758,177 — FeraDyne lighted arrow nock (Xiamen Disdeer v. FeraDyne DJ action).
   • 8,877,776 — Exelixis cabozantinib patent (Exelixis v. Cipla).
   • 8,776,722 (and 9,372,046) — separate Albanese archery patents.
   • '776 patent in Masimo v. Apple refers to 10,433,776, unrelated.
3. Status data is not litigation data. The Google Patents "legal events" for the '772 patent show maintenance-fee payments (4th year in 2018; 8th year in 2022, with a late-payment surcharge) and a 2026 reminder — indicating the patent remains in force, but no enforcement activity.

Conclusion

Based on the available search results, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772. If you need a definitive answer, I'd recommend a direct PACER "patent number" party-search or a Docket Navigator / Unified Patents docket query, which I was unable to complete within the search steps available here.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB proceedings on file" finding against the public record before finalizing.

The first pass surfaced only numeric noise. Let me run targeted searches on the inventor and on PTAB dockets specifically.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block returns no AIA trials, and my independent web verification (targeted searches on the patent number, the "B1" form, the inventor "Nicola Albanese," and the archery/forearm-brace subject matter) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming 8,776,772 as the challenged patent — breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied, and the defensive posture is "a pristine, never-challenged patent in a low-enforcement niche — there is no PTAB record to lean on, and the claims stand exactly as granted on 2014-07-15."

Because there are no proceedings, there are no per-proceeding subsections to write. I will not manufacture proceeding numbers or outcomes to fill the template.

What this means concretely

• All 17 claims of the '772 patent (independent claims 1, 8, 13, 14, and 17, plus dependents 2–7, 9–12, 15–16) are UNTESTED at the PTAB. None is canceled. None has been confirmed in a Final Written Decision. No certificate under 35 U.S.C. § 318(b) has issued for this patent.
• There is no 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attachable to this patent, because estoppel is triggered only by a final written decision (or termination by settlement after institution). No petitioner exists, so no ground is barred.
• There is no claim-construction record from the Board to borrow, and no PTAB panel findings on the skew-angle limitation (claim 3's "bearing surface skewed relative to a plane perpendicular to said longitudinal axis") or the angular-position limitations (claims 14–16's clock-position language) that a defendant could adopt in a district court Markman.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no petition has ever been filed, the entire claim set of 8,776,772 — claims 1–17 — remains live and unadjudicated. There is no narrowed set of "surviving claims" to identify, and equally no dead claims to warn an opponent about. The one useful inference from the file history is that the patent issued with 17 claims that the examiner allowed over the 14 references cited of record (see the Citations table — e.g., Foster 3,572,312; Scrobell 3,359,621; Vyprachticky 4,787,361; Wills 4,836,177; Taylor 5,137,008; Wilfong 5,531,211; Torgerson 5,853,000; Platt 7,954,175), so the prosecution-built distinction is between peripheral-post-mounted forearm-engagement structure and the earlier handgrip/wrist-brace/armguard art.

Estoppel landscape. With no AIA trial, § 315(e)(2) imposes nothing on anyone. A defendant is free to raise any prior-art ground — § 102, § 103, or § 112 — whether or not it appears in the patent's IDS. This is the most favorable possible estoppel posture, and it also means there is no defensive-aggregator trail: no Unified Patents, RPX, or other third-party filer has put this patent at issue.

Pattern signals. None exist because there is no petitioner to compare. There is also no parallel litigation to correlate against — the previously generated litigation section found no district court or ITC action naming 8,776,772, and the Google Patents "Cited By" list for the '772 patent contains only later patents citing it as prior art (e.g., Gibson's archery arm guard, the Jeeb sling-bracket family, Summers' "Double lock connector," Allwear Products' "Bow crutch"), not validity challenges. The absence of both litigation and PTAB activity is consistent with the patent being held by an individual micro-entity (maintenance fees paid in 2018 and 2022, with an 8th-year late-payment surcharge, per the legal events) with no visible enforcement program. Caveat consistent with the prior section: a "no results" search finding is not a certified docket search.

One important disambiguation warning. Several near-identical identifiers are actively litigated or challenged and must not be confused with this patent: the Fractus '677 patent (8,874,677) is in Vivint v. Fractus, IPR2024-00087/-00088; the Intellectual Ventures '722/'772 patents in IV v. American Airlines (E.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-00980) and IPR2025-00786 concern routing-network update messages, not archery; DISH's streaming '772 patent is asserted in DISH Technologies v. Fenix International (D. Utah 2:26-cv-00547); and FeraDyne's 8,758,177 nock patent is a different number entirely. None of these involves Nicola Albanese's archery accessory.

Recommended next steps

1. For a defendant facing assertion of 8,776,772 today: there is no PTAB FWD to cite and no canceled claim to quote, so build the invalidity case from scratch in district court. The good news is that no estoppel blocks any ground, and the patent's own IDS (the 14 cited references) is a ready-made starting map for § 102/§ 103 work. Check the archery accessory art in the 1969–2011 window, including the sling-bracket and arm-guard patents that later cited the '772 patent, since "cited-by" references often share the same problem space.
2. Verify the negative independently before you rely on it. The USPTO Open Data Portal ingest can lag recently filed petitions, and my web searches are not a substitute for a certified query. Run a direct PTAB E2E search (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/) by "Patent Number = 8776772," "Application Number = 13/337,430," and "Party Name = Albanese," and confirm on the patent's Google Patents family page (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8776772](/patent/US8776772)/en) that no trial has posted since the ingest date. Also check the sibling family members (US 8,955,504, US 8,646,440, US 9,372,046) — I was not able to complete those queries within my search budget, and a challenge to a sibling would not appear on the '772 docket.
3. Watch the clock, not a trial schedule. There is no institution-decision deadline, oral hearing, or statutory one-year FWD date to track here because no trial exists. The relevant date is the anticipated expiration of 2031-12-27, which sets the maximum exposure horizon if the patent is ever asserted.
4. If you are considering filing a petition: nothing in the record bars you. Confirm the patent's pre-AIA status (effective filing 2011-12-27, so IPR under § 311 is the vehicle; PGR is time-barred; CBM is unavailable for this non-financial technology), and note the patent owner's micro-entity status, which may influence settlement posture.

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Sources / grounding

• Structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal) — canonical list: no AIA trial proceedings.
• Patent text and citations: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8776772/en (claims 1–17; cited references; family members; legal events).
• PTAB E2E public search portal (for the confirming direct query I was unable to run within search steps): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/.
• Because no FWD, institution decision, or CAFC opinion exists for this patent, I have no PTAB E2E or CourtListener document to link or quote — and I will not fabricate one.

Explicit uncertainty statement: I did not complete a direct PTAB E2E or Docket Navigator query for this patent within the available search steps, and I did not fully check the three sibling family patents. My conclusion is that there is no PTAB activity on 8,776,772, but that conclusion rests on the structured ODP block plus web search, not a certified docket pull — verify before relying on it in a brief or opinion.

I'll research the assignment/ownership record for US 8,776,772, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

Let me check for direct assignment records and any business entity associated with the inventor.

Ownership / Assignment Reconstruction — US 8,776,772 B1

Patent: US 8,776,772 B1 — "Accessory for an archery bow"
App. No.: 13/337,430 | Filed: 2011-12-27 | Granted: 2014-07-15
Priority family: US 13/559,918 → 8,955,504 (CIP, filed 2012-07-27); US 13/753,807 → 8,646,440 (filed 2013-01-30); US 14/580,372 → 9,372,046 (filed 2014-12-23)

Sourcing note / limitation up front: the USPTO Assignment Center is an interactive query tool; the search steps available to me returned no assignment-record page for this patent. My findings below therefore rest on (a) the Google Patents bibliographic and legal-events record reproduced in the authoritative patent text, which carries explicit "Original Assignee: Individual" and "Current Assignee: Individual" fields, and (b) the complete absence of any AS (Assignment) event in that record's legal-events table — the table contains only FEPP/STCF/MAFP fee and grant events, whereas neighboring archery patents in the same dataset (e.g. US 4,976,250) do show their AS entries. A live Assignment Center "Abstract of Title" pull would be the definitive confirmation; see the verification link in the Verdict.

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Inventors

• Nicola Albanese — sole named inventor. Per the patent front matter and the Google Patents record, he is listed as the original assignee as well (i.e., he took the grant in his own name rather than assigning to an employer). His residence is reported as Flemington, New Jersey in the earlier litigation section of this analysis (not re-verified independently here).

Unusual patterns: none of the classic departure signals are present — and several are structurally impossible here. This is a single-inventor, unassigned case: there is no original corporate assignee for inventors to depart from, no co-inventor team to dissolve, and no evidence in the record of an employment agreement or obligation-to-assign. The family continuity runs the other way: the same sole inventor filed three further applications (the 2012 CIP, the 2013 application, and the 2014 continuation) all claiming the 2011-12-27 priority date, which is the pattern of an individual inventor self-funding a personal portfolio rather than a portfolio being assembled for sale.

Employer at time of filing: not determinable from the patent record. The grant names no employer-assignee, which is itself the data point (an employed inventor in a corporate program would normally appear with the company as assignee). Note the patent text repeatedly generates "prior art keywords: forearm / brace / support / axis / bow" and the specification describes the device in hobbyist/hunter terms.

Original assignee

There is no corporate original assignee — the named assignee of record is "Individual," meaning inventor Nicola Albanese personally.

• Product embodying the claims: I found no evidence of a commercial product. Searches for an Albanese-branded archery forearm brace returned only unrelated mass-market arm guards (SPG, NRJSSCC, and similar Amazon/retail items), and return hits for this family consistently resolve to the patent documents themselves, not a product page.
• Primary line of business: unknown / not an operating company. Nothing in the record identifies a business entity associated with the inventor for this technology.
• Current status: N/A as to an entity. The individual owner's status is not reflected in the patent record.
• Confirming evidence of continuing individual ownership: the patent was recorded as a micro entity on 2014-02-28 (FEPP), and both post-grant maintenance fees — the 4th year paid 2018-01-10 and the 8th year paid 2022-05-12 (with late-payment surcharge) — were paid as MICRO ENTITY. A 12th-year reminder issued 2026-03-02, again with no change of entity status noted. Micro-entity fee status is inconsistent with a transfer of the patent to a large operating company or to a conventional licensing entity (a transfer would ordinarily trigger a change in entity status and in the fee schedule paid).

Assignment timeline

No recorded assignments. The USPTO assignment record for US 8,776,772 contains no post-issuance conveyance of any type — no assignment, security agreement, merger, change of name, license, release, or correction.

Concretely:

• Google Patents' bibliographic record for this patent states Original Assignee: Individual and Current Assignee: Individual (with the standard disclaimer that the listing may be inaccurate and is not a legal conclusion).
• The legal-events table for the patent contains only: 2014-02-28 FEPP (entity status set to MICRO), 2014-06-25 STCF (patent grant), 2018-01-10 MAFP (4th-year maintenance fee, micro entity), 2022-03-07 FEPP (reminder), 2022-05-12 FEPP (late-payment surcharge) + 2022-05-12 MAFP (8th-year fee, micro entity), 2026-03-02 FEPP (reminder). No AS code entries appear.
• The only ownership-adjacent records in the family are the three sibling applications (13/559,918 → 8,955,504; 13/753,807 → 8,644,440; 14/580,372 → 9,372,046), each also naming Albanese. Google Patents labels these "Priority to" — co-pendency, not conveyance.

Because no assignment documents are of record, there is no assignor, no assignee, no reel/frame, no execution date, no recording date, and no correspondent of record to report for this patent. The practitioner who prosecuted the application (the attorney of record on the face of the patent) is a separate field from the assignment correspondent and is not present in the authoritative text provided to me; I did not retrieve it and will not guess at it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8776772
    2011 : Filed by Nicola Albanese as individual
    2014 : Patent granted in inventors own name
         : Micro entity status recorded
    2018 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid
    2022 : Eighth year maintenance fee paid
    2031 : Anticipated expiration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Framing note: eight of the nine signals below are defined in terms of a recorded transfer. Where no transfer exists, the signal is "not present" for lack of any triggering document — not "unclear." I mark "unclear" only where the underlying fact is genuinely unverifiable.

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment of record. There is no post-issuance assignee at all, therefore no "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" transferee, no LLC, no registered-agent address. The current owner is the named individual inventor.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee of record means there is no link to compare against the Acacia / Marathon / Intellectual Ventures / Wi-LAN / Mosaid-Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Innovatio / MPHJ / Lumen View / Round Rock / Document Generation lists. Nothing in the family or in the litigation search (see the earlier section) surfaces any of these names. For completeness: the entities that cite this patent as prior art (Jeeb, Inc.; Ricky Wayne Gibson; Gregory E. Summers; Allwear Products LLC) are citing parties, not assignees — a citation is not a conveyance.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. There is no chain and no assignment correspondent of record, so no recurring recording attorney can be identified. This signal is inapplicable rather than negative; if a live Abstract of Title pull showed even one conveyance, the correspondent on it would be the field to check.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero recorded conveyances; nothing in the family shows chained LLC-to-LLC transfers. The only intra-family movement is the inventor filing three more applications off the same 2011-12-27 priority date.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignment of record, and the earlier litigation search for this patent number returned no district court dockets, ITC proceedings, or Federal Circuit appeals asserting it. With no suit and no transfer, there is no venue-setting or standing-record arrangement to detect.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No corporate assignee exists to have entered Chapter 7/11, and no sale-of-assets conveyance is recorded. (Contrast the pre-existing art of record US 4,976,250, whose J.L.J. Manufacturing → Mountaineer Archery → bank security-interest chain does show this pattern in the same technology space.)

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company transferred this patent to an NPE, because no operating company ever held it. No SEC filing linkage exists, as the owner is not a reporting issuer.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent is also not neutralized in the ordinary sense — it remains in force (8th-year fee paid with surcharge 2022-05-12; 12th-year reminder 2026-03-02; anticipated expiration 2031-12-27) and simply sits with its individual owner.

One non-signal worth recording so it is not mistaken for one later: the CIP/continuation family (8,955,504; 8,644,440; 9,372,046) is a prosecution artifact, not an ownership chain. Every member names the same inventor, and no assignment recorded on one member implies a transfer of the others.

Verdict

Insufficient data.

The verdict is driven by the absence of any recorded assignment, not by ambiguity about who owns the patent: the bibliographic record states Original Assignee: Individual and Current Assignee: Individual, and the legal-events table contains no AS assignment entries — only micro-entity fee events on 2014-02-28, 2018-01-10, and 2022-05-12, which are cumulatively consistent with uninterrupted individual ownership by inventor Nicola Albanese. None of the eight NPE signals is triggered by any reel/frame record, and the separate litigation search found no assertion activity, so there is no corporate chain to characterize as either a troll pattern or an operating-company assertion. Per the taxonomy, a patent with no records beyond the original (here, self-) assignment falls into Insufficient data — but the honest characterization is stronger than that label suggests: this is a genuine solo-inventor holding, not a concealed chain.

Caveat and verification: this conclusion is drawn from the Google Patents-derived bibliographic and legal-events record plus the absence of any retrievable assignment page, not from a completed live PACER-style assignment pull. To confirm, run the patent number on the USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy entry point: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — and read the "Abstract of Title." If it also returns nothing, the "no recorded assignments" finding is confirmed, and the "stop after this section" condition in the brief is satisfied by the Assignment timeline section above.

I'll research the specific prior-art references cited on the face of US 8,776,772, focusing on those I couldn't retrieve primary text for previously. Let me run targeted searches.

I retrieved substantial primary content. Let me now pull the remaining cited references I haven't yet verified.

Prior-Art Analysis of U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772 B1

Reference-by-reference § 102 mapping for the specific number 8776772

Read-me first (scope and method). I searched for 8776772 exactly and did not substitute any similar number. I did not have a live, certified USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment query within the tool budget; the identifiers, dates, and the citation list below come from the authoritative full patent text for US 8,776,772 B1 reproduced in this record (F41B 5/14 class; filed 2011‑12‑27; issued 2014‑07‑15), supplemented by primary-text retrieval of several references. Where I relied on the patent's own citation table or on the background section of a document of record rather than the reference's own text, I say so explicitly and do not manufacture quotations.

Terminology. "§ 102 anticipation" is used strictly: a single reference disclosing every element of a claim as arranged. Where a reference discloses most but not all elements it is flagged as a § 103 reference only, even if the gap is small.

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0. The claim set the references must be measured against

Independent claims are 1, 8, 13, 14, 17 (per the biblio section generated earlier). The common architecture is: a forearm brace arcuately around a forearm axis, with an inside and an outside, plus a support whose distal portion is attached to the brace, extends away from the forearm axis, and whose proximal portion is adapted to be supported by the bow. The distinguishing structural limitations are:

• Claim 1 — distal portion attached on the outside of the brace and circumferentially repositionable along the outside;
• Claim 8 — support adjustable for angular and linear translation about an adjustment axis parallel to the forearm axis;
• Claim 13 — brace extends ≥180° around the forearm axis;
• Claim 14 (and 15/16) — brace adjustable to sweep clock positions 12→3, 8→4, 9→5 o'clock;
• Claim 17 — the integrated claim: rigid C-shaped, arcuate slot, ≥180°, distal portion in the slot on the outside, plus skewed bearing surface and pair of straddling walls.

Keep those five "hooks" in mind; the references below sort cleanly against them.

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1. The 14 references cited of record — citations, dates, description, § 102 mapping

(1) US 3,572,312 — Foster

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 3,572,312, Archery bow with sling attachment, Merle L. Foster.
• Dates: filed 1969‑03‑26; issued 1971‑03‑23. Class 124/88.
• Description: A sling attachment for an archery bow — a generally U-shaped bracket secured to the front of the bow just below the handle, carrying an elongated sling member. (Confirmed by the citing patent US 4,714,071, which lists "3572312 … 1971‑03‑23 … Foster … 124/88.")
• § 102 mapping: No claim read. It discloses only a bow-mounted bracket — no forearm brace, no forearm axis, no arcuate slot, no skewed surface. Relevant at most to the "proximal portion adapted to be supported by the bow" boilerplate. § 103 background reference only.

(2) US 3,599,621 — Scrobell

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,621, Archery bow with rotatable handgrip, Delvin A. Scrobell.
• Dates: filed 1969‑02‑10; issued 1971‑08‑17. Primary Examiner: Marlo, George J.
• Description (primary text retrieved): A bow handle assembly connected at a single point, rotatable about an axis substantially parallel to the bow's longitudinal axis and pivotable about an axis transverse to it, to isolate hand movement from the bow. Critically, dependent claims 2 and 4 recite "an arm support member is connected to said handle assembly to support the archer's arm." The Vyprachticky '361 background (below) characterizes Scrobell as having a forearm protector that "goes over the top of the forearm not alongside of it."
• § 102 mapping: This is the closest single-reference teaching of a bow-mounted support with an arm-engaging member that passes over the forearm. It is a § 102 candidate for claims 1 and 13 only if its arm-support member is read as (a) "extending arcuately around a forearm axis" and (b) "partially encompassing a forearm ≥180°" — a stretch, since Scrobell's element is a support/brace for the arm rather than an arcuate brace on a peripheral post. No element discloses the claim‑1 "attached on the outside … circumferentially repositionable" hook. Best characterized as a strong § 103 reference for claims 1, 5–7, 13.

(3) US 4,787,361 — Vyprachticky

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,361, Archery bow with self-aligning combination handgrip and forearm protector, Emil Vyprachticky (also rendered "Vyprachtichy" in later citing art).
• Dates: filed 1987‑01‑27; issued 1988‑11‑29. Class F41B 5/14; 124/8.
• Description (primary text retrieved): A combination handgrip and forearm protector hingedly attached to the riser, the handgrip extending laterally and the protector extending rearwardly at an acute angle. Claim 10 recites a three-part hinge whose leaves "have complementary surfaces arcuately curved about an axis perpendicular to said longitudinal axis which permit said other of said leaves to be tilted … for adjusting the tilt of the forearm protecting means." The protector has a concave contour 64 "adapted to more or less fit the forearm of the user just forward of the elbow." The stated object is to "self-adjust to accommodate different size forearms and the clothing covering them" and to prevent forearm rotation.
• § 102 mapping: Directly relevant to the tilt/skew concept of claims 3 and 4 and to the "angular translation" of claim 8 — but its tilt is achieved by arcuate hinge-leaf surfaces, not by (i) a skewed post bearing surface (claim 3) or (ii) straddling walls (claim 4), and it has no arcuate slot, no circumferential repositioning, and no ≥180° encircling brace. No full § 102 read; it is the best § 103 secondary reference for claims 3, 4, 8, and 14–16 (why: the specification discloses the brace "may have an angular dimension smaller than 240°, for example, 180°, 200°, 220°," and '361 already teaches tilt-to-fit as an adjustable design choice).

(4) US 4,836,177 — Wills

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,836,177, Archery bow wrist brace apparatus, Larry B. Wills.
• Dates: filed 1988‑06‑02; issued 1989‑06‑06.
• Description: Bow-mounted wrist/forearm brace architecture — two laterally spaced rigid leg members extend rearwardly from the handle to a bent member that "passes over and bracially engages upper and adjacent opposite side surfaces of the forearm," with a strap passing beneath; connecting bracket bolted to the handle; a vertical slot provides height adjustment.
• § 102 mapping: This is the single most dangerous reference on the brace side. Its rigid, rearwardly-extending, U-/C-style frame that passes over the top and down the sides of the forearm, with a strap beneath, is the closest read on claim 13 ("at least 180°") and on claims 5–7 ("rigid," "C-shaped") — and if the frame is treated as encompassing the forearm peripherally, claim 13 is arguably anticipated. However, Wills mounts its frame from beneath/behind the forearm and does not disclose the claim‑1/17 hook — a support attached on the outside of the brace and circumferentially repositionable along that outside. Strongest § 103 primary reference; a genuine § 102 candidate for claim 13 alone only if the ≥180° read is accepted.
• Retrieval caveat: I did not secure Wills' own full text in this session; the characterization above is drawn from the previously generated "Prior art of record"/obviousness sections and should be verified against the document before being pleaded.

(5) US 4,976,250 — J.L.J. Manufacturing, Inc.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,250, Adjustable compound bow, Jeffrey L. Jennings; original assignee J.L.J. Manufacturing, Inc. (parent per third-party data: Mountaineer Archery Inc).
• Dates: filed 1988‑12‑02; issued 1990‑12‑11. Examiner: Cuomo, Peter M.
• Description (primary text retrieved): A compound bow "fully adjustable in draw length, draw weight and the percentage of dropoff." Claim 2: "a pivot pan assembly that couples the bow grip assembly to the frame assembly, wherein the pivot pan assembly permits the frame assembly to be adjusted along an arc." Claims 4–5: "bow grip assembly includes a handle and an arm stabilizer assembly adjustably coupled to the handle … the arm stabilizer assembly includes a telescoping member attached to an arm cup."
• § 102 mapping: Discloses angular (arc) + linear (telescoping) adjustment of a bow-mounted arm-engagement member — the mechanics of claims 8 and 9. But the "brace" is an arm cup, not an arcuate ≥180° forearm brace, and there is no support attached on the outside of a brace. No § 102 read; § 103 reference for claims 8–9 (and useful to show that arcuate-slot plus telescoping adjustability was a known, conventional combination in this art).

(6) US 5,137,008 — Taylor

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,008, Arm guard, Anthony Taylor.
• Dates: filed 1990‑11‑26; issued 1992‑08‑11.
• Description (primary text retrieved): An arm guard with a mounting arm having a mounting plate with a plurality of apertures, "releasably attached to the stabilizer aperture found in a bow limb with a conventional set screw." A "forearm protector includes a pivotally mounted arm guard which can be angularly adjusted," and "the archer may press his forearm against the guard which helps to stabilize the bow during use." Alternative embodiments use "similar structure." Later art (Lavoie '002) notes Taylor's guard "includes an armguard with a rectangular plate that is pivoted to a hinge bracket, the hinge bracket being … anchored to the bow frame."
• § 102 mapping: Directly relevant to claim 8 ("adjustable … angular … translation") and to the "adapted to be supported by the bow" element (it bolts via set screw into a bow accessory aperture). If Taylor's pivot is read as sweeping the guard through the recited quadrants, it is a § 102 candidate for claims 14–16; otherwise it is a § 103 reference for claims 1, 8, 9, and 14–16. It does not disclose an arcuate brace with a slot, an "outside-of-brace" post, or a skewed bearing surface.

(7) US 5,349,937 — Burling

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,937, Torque free bow with improved handle grip assembly, Michael R. Burling.
• Dates: filed 1991‑11‑15; issued 1994‑09‑27.
• Description: A "torque-free" bow/handle-grip assembly addressing hand-induced torque — i.e., the same problem the '772 patent frames (open-grip, no azimuthal/elevational torquing).
• § 102 mapping: No retrieved disclosure of a forearm brace, slot, skewed surface, or peripheral post. It is a § 103-motivation reference (common problem of hand-induced bow torque), not an anticipation reference for any claim.
• Retrieval caveat: primary text not retrieved this session; do not rely on the above beyond the title-level characterization.

(8) US 5,464,002 — Lavoie

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,464,002, Archery armguard device, Camilien Lavoie.
• Dates: filed 1994‑08‑30; issued 1995‑11‑07.
• Description: Per the background of US 6,173,707 (a document of record) and the '772 specification, Lavoie's armguard clamps to a conventional rearwardly projecting stabilizer rod and is offset toward the forearm; the '002 itself critiques the Taylor '008 and McGraw/Baker '798 armguards.
• § 102 mapping: The clamp-to-a-rearwardly-extending-rod disclosure is the closest single-reference read on claim 12 ("proximal portion has a clamp adapted to be secured to said rearwardly extending accessory") and is highly relevant to claim 10. Because the '772 specification itself concedes the rod "may be part of another accessory, such as a string vibration arrester or cable guard," claims 10 and 12 are the most vulnerable claims in the set — see § 2 below. § 102 candidate for claim 12 (if the clamp + forearm-rest combination is present); § 103 reference for claims 1, 8, 10–12.
• Retrieval caveat: I relied on the '707 background and the '772 spec's own description, not on Lavoie's primary text — verify before relying.

(9) US 5,531,211 — Wilfong, Jr.

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,211, Archery arm guard, Gary R. Wilfong, Jr.
• Dates: filed 1994‑11‑02; issued 1996‑07‑02.
• Description (primary text retrieved): An assembly of "metal blocks and rods movably interconnected and adapted for facile adjustable, removable attachment to a compound bow." A mounting block is "radially pivotally adjustably mounted upon the straight rod"; the straight rod is "pivotally positioned on the bow"; a bent rod maintains a substantially vertical barrier that positions the archer's bow-supporting arm out of the string-recoil line; alternative embodiments attach to a bow with a built-in cable guard (FIG. 7) and attach "in a first/second alternative manner" to the bow (FIGS. 8–9).
• § 102 mapping: This is the closest single-reference teaching of a bow-mounted block that is both pivotally and linearly adjustable on a rod, i.e., the claim‑8 adjustability and the claim‑10/11/12 mounting. The "radially pivotally adjustably mounted upon the straight rod" language is a serious § 102 candidate for claim 8 and for claims 10–12. It does not, however, disclose a forearm-encircling (≥180°) brace, an arcuate slot in a brace, or the skewed bearing surface between straddling walls.

(10) US 5,853,000 — Torgerson

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,000, Archery bow riser with wrist brace, Michael D. Torgerson.
• Dates: filed 1997‑01‑09; issued 1998‑12‑29. Primary Examiner: John A. Ricci.
• Description: A bracket screwed to the riser, an upright brace arm, an adjustment plate with an arcuate slot, screws mounting the brace arm for rotation/pivot about the slot screw, a telescoping arm segment locked by a set screw, and a flat abutment surface preventing the arm from twisting; the arc range is stated as roughly 180°, and the device is stated to accommodate right/left shooters.
• § 102 mapping: The arcuate slot + pivot (angular) and telescoping (linear) combination maps onto claims 8 and 9, and the ~180° swing bears on claims 14–16. But the '772 slot is in the brace, whereas Torgerson's slot is in an adjustment plate, and Torgerson has no forearm-encircling C-brace and no skewed post surface. No full § 102 read for an independent claim; the best single § 103 primary reference for claims 8, 9, 14–16.
• Retrieval caveat: primary text not retrieved this session; characterization is from the prior obviousness section and should be verified.

(11) US 6,173,707 — Howell

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,707 B1, Archery bow firearm brace and guard, Dewight A. Howell.
• Dates: filed 2000‑02‑28; issued 2001‑01‑16.
• Description (primary text retrieved): A forearm brace and guard whose frame has "upper and lower longitudinal members which attach respectively to the conventional overdraw arrow rest and stabilizer attach points of a conventional compound bow," the arms "extend rearwardly," a "bracket is removably and adjustably secured to the two longitudinal arms," and "forward and rearward straps" "positively secur[e] about the bow holding forearm of the archer" to "hold the archer's forearm clear of the path of the bowstring."
• § 102 mapping: This is the most structurally complete single reference in the set against the '772 independent architecture: a bow-mounted (two-point) support with a rearwardly extending arm arrangement and a forearm-encircling strap/brace, with an adjustably secured intermediate bracket. It is therefore a serious § 102 candidate for claim 13 (forearm-encircling ≥180°) and is the best § 103 anchor for claims 1, 8, 10–12. It still lacks the "attached on the outside of the brace + circumferentially repositionable" hook of claims 1/17 and the skewed straddling channel of claims 3/4/17.

(12) US 7,748,369 — Chee

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 7,748,369 B2, Launching apparatus and assembly, Tyson Chee.
• Dates: filed 2006‑10‑16; issued 2010‑07‑06.
• Description: A bow/launching (crossbow-style) apparatus and assembly — a firearm/bow hybrid-type launching device rather than an arm-engaging archery accessory.
• § 102 mapping: No claim read for the '772 brace/support architecture. § 103 context reference only (shows the general state of bow-launching accessory art).
• Retrieval caveat: primary text not retrieved this session.

(13) US 7,954,175 — Platt

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 7,954,175 B2, Structure and method for stabilizing an archer's hand, David C. Platt.
• Dates: filed 2007‑01‑29; issued 2011‑06‑07.
• Description: Hand-stabilization structure for an archer — addressing the bow-hand/grip interface and the torque problem. It was retrieved (in part) in the earlier obviousness section of this analysis but is characterized here only at the level its title and the '772 citation support.
• § 102 mapping: No forearm brace, arcuate slot, skewed surface, or peripheral post is disclosed; it is a hand-grip/stabilization § 103 context reference, not an anticipation reference.

(14) US 2012/0174904 A1 — Greenhoe

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0174904 A1, Archery bow stabilizer, Jerry Alan Greenhoe.
• Dates: filed 2011‑01‑10; published 2012‑07‑12.
• Prior-art status note (important): because it was filed 2011‑01‑10 — before the '772 filing date of 2011‑12‑27 — it qualifies as prior art under pre‑AIA § 102(e) even though it published after the '772 filing. This is the only reference in the set whose prior-art date is close to the '772 date.
• Description: An archery bow stabilizer (the cantilevered-weight accessory class the '772 background describes).
• § 102 mapping: Discloses only a bow-mounted accessory — relevant to the "proximal portion adapted to be supported by the bow" element and to motivation (accessory attachment onto existing bow sockets). No brace, no slot, no skewed surface. No § 102 read; § 103 motivation/context reference.

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2. Where § 102 (anticipation) actually bites — ranked

Net § 102 conclusion: No cited reference is a clean, single-reference anticipation of any of independent claims 1, 8, 13, or 17. The realistic § 102 exposure is confined to the narrow mounting claims (10–12), the ≥180° claim (13) if Wills/Howell is read expansively, and the clock-position claims (14–16). Every other citation functions as § 103 material or pure background.

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3. Identification of "the most relevant" prior art

If forced to name the most relevant references (as opposed to the most numerous), they are:

1. US 4,836,177 (Wills) — bow-mounted, forearm-encircling rigid brace (the "brace + support" architecture; claim 13 / claims 5–7).
2. US 6,173,707 (Howell) — bow-mounted rearwardly-extending support with an adjustable bracket and a forearm-encircling strap (the closest whole-architecture read; claims 1, 10–13).
3. US 5,853,000 (Torgerson) — arcuate-slot angular adjustment + telescoping linear adjustment of a bow-mounted brace arm (claims 8, 9, 14–16).
4. US 4,787,361 (Vyprachticky) — tilt-adjustable forearm protector to fit forearm/clothing (claims 3, 4, 8).
5. US 5,531,211 (Wilfong) and US 5,464,002 (Lavoie) — mounting the arm/forearm guard on a rod/rearwardly projecting bow accessory (claims 10–12).
6. US 5,137,008 (Taylor) — significant because it was expressly considered by the examiner and otherwise maps onto the "guard adjustable on a bow aperture" concept (claim 8, 14–16).

These six carry essentially all of the invalidity weight; the remaining eight (Foster, Scrobell, J.L.J., Burling, Chee, Platt, Greenhoe) are supporting/背景 references.

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4. Caveats and negative results

1. No similar numbers were substituted. I searched the exact string 8776772. I did not return or rely on 8,776,722 (the number that appears in the D946687 citation listing, carried forward from the earlier sections), nor on 8,758,177, 8,874,677, or any other near-neighbor. The D946687 oddity remains a records observation, not prior art against '772.
2. Retrieval asymmetry. I obtained primary text this session for Scrobell '621, Vyprachticky '361, J.L.J. '250, Taylor '008, Wilfong '211, Howell '707, and partial primary text for Lavoie '002 (via the '707 background) and Foster '312 (via a citing patent). I did not retrieve primary text for Wills '177, Burling '937, Torgerson '000, Chee '369, Platt '175, or Greenhoe 2012/0174904 within the tool budget; the characterizations for those rest on the patent's own citation table and the previously generated sections. Verify every one of those against the document before use.
3. Examiner corroboration only. "John A. Ricci" is confirmed as the Primary Examiner on US 5,853,000, and "John Ricci" on US 7,708,004 — corroborating an active F41B/124‑88 examiner, not confirming who examined the '772 application (the earlier biblio section already flagged the third-party source for that).
4. Status of the patent unchanged. Consistent with the earlier sections, the '772 patent shows fee-only legal events (4th-year 2018; 8th-year 2022 with late-payment surcharge; 12th-year reminder 2026‑03‑02) and no AS assignment entry — relevant because there is no assignment/chain-of-title fact that affects the prior-art analysis.
5. This is a § 102-focused mapping by request. For the corresponding § 103 combinations ((Wills + Torgerson), (Vyprachticky + Torgerson), (Lavoie/Wilfong + Wills/Torgerson), and the claim‑17 concatenation), see the previously generated Obviousness section; it is not repeated here.

Bottom line: Of the 14 references cited on the face of US 8,776,772 B1, none is a clean § 102 anticipation of independent claims 1, 8, 13, or 17. The realistic § 102 exposure is limited to the mounting claims 10–12 (Lavoie / Wilfong), the ≥180° claim 13 (Wills / Howell, if read expansively), and the clock-position claims 14–16 (Taylor / Torgerson). Claims 3, 4, and 17 — built on the skewed bearing surface between a pair of straddling walls plus the slot-in-brace "outside" attachment — are the claims the cited record does not reach on a single-reference basis.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in what the cited references actually disclose. Let me pull the key prior-art references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,776,772 B1

35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA), using the prior art of record

Basis and scope. This section builds on the previously generated "Prior Art of record" and "Bibliographic summary" sections rather than repeating them. I treat the 14 references cited on the face of the '772 patent plus the specification's "See also" list as the prior-art universe. All of them have effective dates well before the '772 priority date of 2011‑12‑27, so they qualify as prior art under pre‑AIA §§ 102(a)/(b). Because the application was filed before 2013‑03‑16, pre‑AIA § 103(a) governs. All identifiers below are reproduced literally; I do not correct them.

Evidence-integrity note. Within the available search budget I retrieved primary text for US 4,787,361; US 4,836,177; US 5,853,000; US 6,173,707; US 5,349,937; US 4,966,124; US 7,708,004; US 7,954,175; and the D946687 listing. My characterizations of US 5,464,002 (Lavoie), US 5,531,211 (Wilfong), Hanneman, Vest, and Webster come from the background section of US 6,173,707 (itself a document of record) and from the '772 specification's own discussion — not from direct retrieval of those references. Where that distinction matters, I flag it. I could not retrieve primary text for US 3,572,312; US 3,599,621; US 4,976,250; US 5,137,008; US 7,748,369; or US 2012/0174904 within this session.

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1. The hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here would be a mechanical designer/engineer with 2–3 years of experience designing archery bow accessories (risers, grips, stabilizers, cable guards, string arresters, arm guards), or an experienced bowyer/hunting-equipment machinist with working knowledge of:

• compound-bow riser architecture (limbs, cams, cables, threaded accessory sockets on the riser);
• the standard short list of threaded accessory mounts (stabilizer bushing, cable-guard bushing, overdraw/arrow-rest mounts);
• common adjustment hardware — set screws, threaded fasteners riding in arcuate and linear slots, clevis/yoke channels, V-blocks and split clamps, telescoping tubes, and beveled washers;
• the shooters' lore that open/loose grips improve accuracy and that string slap on the forearm is a chronic problem.

That skill level is essentially the skill reflected in the cited Wills, Torgerson, Vyprachticky, Burling and Howell patents, all of which are themselves simple mechanical bracket/brace devices.

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2. Element mapping — what each reference actually discloses

Corroborating detail on the examiner: the previously generated biblio section flagged "John Ricci" as examiner from a third-party source. US 5,853,000 names "Primary Examiner: John A. Ricci," and US 7,708,004 names "Primary Examiner — John Ricci." That corroborates Ricci as an active examiner in F41B/124‑88 art but does not confirm he examined the '772 application.

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3. Proposed § 103 combinations, with motivation to combine

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 5–7, 13 (and 8, 9): Wills '177 in view of Torgerson '000

Wills supplies the whole architecture: a rigid frame anchored to the bow handle that partially encircles the forearm and bears on its upper and side surfaces. Torgerson supplies the two adjustments '772 claims: an arcuate slot + screw for angular repositioning of the brace arm and a telescoping arm + set screw for linear repositioning.

Motivation (KSR / TMC):

• Same field, same problem — both patents address bow-torque-induced inaccuracy and forearm clearance; Wills' stated object is to "stabiliz[e] the bow body against undesirable pivotal movement," Torgerson's is to "prevent over gripping or rotation of the riser during shooting." Identical field and problem is the classic Keller rationale.
• Express bodily incorporation is unnecessary; Wills' bracket 72 and Torgerson's bracket 34 are functionally the same bow-mounted interface.
• Articulated, pre-existing suggestion in Torgerson: the brace "can be adjusted to accommodate right or left hand shooters" and "might be mounted to selected bores or a channel at the riser, which permit different angular orientations." Wills likewise states the brace is "easily adjustable to suit various shooting styles by virtue of the vertical adjustment." That is an express teaching to make the brace positionally adjustable.
• Predictable result / finite solutions. Adjusting a brace into position with a screw-in-arcuate-slot and a telescoping tube is a "known technique used to improve a similar device in the same way" (KSR), and the anticipated benefit (fitting different forearm sizes/clothing) is exactly what Vyprachticky '361 already touts as "self-adjusting to accommodate different size forearms and the clothing covering them."

Result: claims 1 and 8 are rendered obvious; the added limitations of 5–7 (rigid; C‑shaped) are literally met by Wills' "generally U-shaped rigid frame," and claim 13's "at least 180°" is met by Wills' combination of a bent member over the top and a strap beneath the forearm.

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Ground 2 — Claims 1, 8, 9, 13, 14–16: Vyprachticky '361 in view of Torgerson '000

Vyprachticky '361 discloses a pivotally mounted combination handgrip (support) and forearm protector (brace) attached to the bow, self-aligned, and expressly tiltable to accommodate different forearms and clothing — i.e., a bow-mounted support with a forearm-engaging arc (claim 1 preamble), and a pivotal/angular adjustment (claim 8's "angular translation"). Torgerson adds the complementary slot + telescoping adjustability.

Motivation: both references are in F41B/124‑88; both recite the same design objective (cancelling torque, preventing forearm rotation, keeping the arm clear of the string); and Vyprachticky's express purpose — "self-adjusting to accommodate different size forearms" — supplies the reason to add Torgerson's indexed slot/telescope adjustability. Positional limitation claims 14–16 (12→3, 8→4, 9→5 o'clock) are met or rendered obvious because Torgerson's brace arm pivots over a "nominal range of 180 degrees" and is stated to be adjustable for right- or left-handed archers — which necessarily sweeps the brace through the 12-to-3 quadrant and the 9-to-5 orientation the '772 specification itself illustrates. Narrowing a disclosed adjustable range to a recited pair of endpoints is a classic "obvious to try / obvious design choice" limitation under KSR.

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Ground 3 — Claims 10, 11, 12: Lavoie '002 and/or Wilfong '211, in view of Wills '177/Torgerson '000

Claims 10–12 add only a location/mounting limitation: the proximal portion is attached to a rearwardly extending bow accessory, by a through bore (11) or a clamp (12).

• Lavoie '002 — an armguard that "clamps to a conventional rearwardly projecting stabilizer rod" and is "offset toward the forearm." That is claim 12 (clamp to a rearwardly extending accessory) and the claim-10 mounting concept.
• Wilfong '211 — a forearm guard carried on rearwardly extending bars (one a cable guard) and tied by an adjustable linkage.
• The '772 specification itself concedes the mounting concept's breadth: "This rod can be dedicated to supporting the brace or may be part of another accessory, such as a string vibration arrester or cable guard," and FIG. 6 shows the V-block clamp that claim 12 generically covers.

Motivation: the '772 background expressly notes that modern bows have limited threaded sockets and that accessories "must not interfere with the ease of use." Piggy-backing a new brace onto an existing stabilizer/arrester/cable-guard rod is the obvious way to avoid consuming another socket — an articulated, commonsense design incentive of the very kind KSR credits. Substituting a through-bore + set screws (claim 11) for Lavoie's clamp (claim 12) is a predictable, two-way mechanical substitution with no change in function.

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Ground 4 — Claim 3 (skewed bearing surface) and claim 4 (straddling walls): Vyprachticky '361 (tilt hinge) + Wills '177 (yoke/bosses) or Torgerson '000 (flat-abutting seat)

Claim 3's "bearing surface skewed relative to a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis" is, functionally, a fixed-tilt seat — the same end Vyprachticky '361 achieves by its "complementary surfaces arcuately curved about an axis perpendicular to said longitudinal axis which permit said other of said leaves to be tilted… for adjusting the tilt of the forearm protecting means" (see the '361 claim text retrieved via FreePatentsOnline). Claim 4's "pair of walls… straddling a peripheral portion" is the ordinary clevis/yoke form, which Wills '177 already uses — its bracket's "hollow cylindrical support bosses" receive the frame's upturned ends in a two-sided seat, and Torgerson's brace arm has a "flat surface 54 [that] abuts the adjustment plate 42 and prevents the brace arm from twisting."

Motivation: tipping a forearm brace toward the arm is a recognized objective (Vyprachticky: accommodate clothing thickness; Torgerson: "provide more of a rest or limit to the movement of the wrist and immediately adjacent forearm"), and a beveled seat in a two-wall channel is a predictable mechanical implementation of a tilt. Caveat: I found no single retrieved reference that discloses the specific skewed-floor-between-walls structure, so this ground depends on combining a tilt-teaching reference with a channel/yoke teaching — a combination a POSITA would find within the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions."

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Ground 5 — Claim 17 (the integrated claim)

Claim 17 is the concatenation of: (a) rigid C-shaped brace with arcuate slot, ≥180° [Grounds 1–2]; (b) distal portion attached outside the brace in the slot, extending transversely [Torgerson's slot+pivot geometry]; (c) angular and linear adjustment about an axis parallel to the forearm axis [Ground 1–2]; (d) circumferentially repositionable [Torgerson slot]; (e) skewed bearing surface + straddling walls [Ground 4].

The strongest prima facie case is therefore Wills '177 + Torgerson '000, further in view of Vyprachticky '361, with the motivation to combine supplied by the identical field, the identical problem, and the express adjustment teachings in Torgerson and Wills. Claim 17 is nonetheless the most defensible claim, because no retrieved reference discloses the skewed channel floor straddled by walls, and the "attached on the outside… in the slot" arrangement is a specific structural configuration rather than a bare functional result.

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4. Anticipation-adjacent observations (not just § 103)

For completeness, several claims sit close to anticipation rather than mere obviousness:

• Claim 13's "at least 180°." Wills' U-shaped rigid frame + strap "encircl[es] and peripherally engag[es] the forearm" — functionally ≥180°. If Wills' frame is read as a "brace extending arcuately around a forearm axis," claim 13 collapses to a § 102 issue against Wills alone. The '772 specification's own statement that the brace may be "180°, 200°, 220°, etc." (and elsewhere 150°) is not prior art, but it shows the numeral was a design choice.
• Claims 14–16. These are positional/orientation limitations recited as the adjustable range of a slot-and-pivot brace. Torgerson's "nominal range of 180 degrees" plus its express right/left-hand adjustability very nearly reads on the recited 12→3 / 8→4 / 9→5 ranges.

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5. Weak points in the obviousness case (be candid with the client)

1. The "on the outside of the brace + circumferentially repositionable" combination is not squarely met by any one retrieved reference. Wills' support legs attach beneath/behind the forearm; Vyprachticky's protector attaches at the handgrip end. The '772 arrangement — support riding on the outer periphery of the brace, movable around that periphery — is the genuine point of novelty. A strong prima facie case therefore needs Torgerson's arcuate-slot geometry to be treated as the functional equivalent of a slot in the brace, which is a § 103 argument, not anticipation.
2. The skewed bearing surface straddled by walls (claims 3, 4, 17) is the hardest element to attack on the retrieved record. I could not locate a reference disclosing it.
3. Applicant's own specification cuts both ways. The "modifications" paragraph states: "Instead of using a skewed bearing surface, the support may be a rod that curves toward the forearm… the support may be a flexible gooseneck or may incorporate one or more universal joints." That admission frames the skew as one of several known expedients for tilting the brace toward the forearm — useful for an obviousness argument under KSR's "design choice among known alternatives," but it is applicant argument, not prior art.
4. No secondary considerations are of record. Consistent with the earlier sections, I found no litigation, no IPR/PGR, no CAFC appeal, and no assignment of record for the '772 patent, and therefore no objective indicia (commercial success, copying, licensing, industry praise, long-felt need) to weigh against obviousness. Absent such evidence, the Graham secondary factors do not favor patentability.

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6. Claims most likely to survive a § 103 challenge

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7. Bottom line

• A defensible § 103 rejection can be built for every claim, with the two strongest primary references of record being US 4,836,177 (Wills) for the bow-mounted, forearm-encircling rigid brace and US 5,853,000 (Torgerson) for the angular (arcuate slot) and linear (telescoping) adjustability — combined, they map onto independent claims 1, 8, and 13.
• US 4,787,361 (Vyprachticky) and US 6,173,707 (Howell, describing Lavoie '002 and Wilfong '211) carry the tilt/adjustment and the "mount on a rearwardly extending accessory" limitations for claims 3, 4, 10–12.
• The residual novelty that any rejection must overcome is narrow: (i) the support fastened on the outside of the brace and circumferentially repositionable along that outside; and (ii) the skewed bearing surface between straddling walls. Claims 3, 4, and 17 are therefore the claims on which the patent's validity most likely stands or falls.
• Do not over-read my referenced disclosures. Where I relied on the background of US 6,173,707 for Lavoie and Wilfong rather than their own text, the citation should be verified against the primary documents before being pleaded in any proceeding. I flag this rather than fabricate a quotation.

Note on the "8,776,722" oddity (carried forward, not re-litigated): as flagged in the earlier sections, the D946687 (Justia) citation list at https://patents.justia.com/patent/D946687 shows both "8776722" and "8776772" as Albanese patents dated 2014‑07‑15. Taken literally these are different numbers. I have not used "8,776,722" as prior art against the '772 patent, and I make no assertion about its scope or existence beyond reproducing the identifier.