US 8836503

I'll search for this specific patent number in the USPTO and related sources.

The first search returned results for an unrelated patent (10,531,883, a catheter patent) — not our target. Let me run more targeted searches for US 8,836,503 specifically.

Let me verify the abstract and check for any litigation/docket history for this specific patent.

I have enough verified information to answer. Note on the search process: queries for "8836503" initially surfaced unrelated documents (e.g., IPR papers for U.S. 10,531,883, a catheter patent — not our target). Targeted searches against USPTO-mirror and Google Patents sources confirmed the correct record. No CAFC 2026 docket entries for this specific patent were found in any search.

US Patent 8,836,503 B2 — Summary

Title: Apparatus for compact internetworked wireless integrated network sensors (WINS)

Bibliographic data (high confidence, corroborated across Google Patents and USPTO-mirror sources):

• Patent number: US 8,836,503 B2
• Application: No. 12/758,749, filed April 12, 2010 (a continuation in the WINS family; earliest priority date October 6, 1999, from provisional application 60/158,013 and related filings)
• Issue date: September 16, 2014
• Inventors: David C. Gelvin (Escondido, CA); Lewis D. Girod (Los Angeles, CA); William J. Kaiser (Los Angeles, CA); William M. Merrill (Los Angeles, CA); Frederic Newberg (San Diego, CA); Gregory J. Pottie (Los Angeles, CA); Anton I. Sipos (Los Angeles, CA); Sandeep Vardhan (Walnut, CA)
• Assignee history: Originally Sensoria Corporation → Borgia/Cummins, LLC (2010) → Benhov GmbH, LLC (2015 merger) → Intellectual Ventures I LLC (2021 assignment). Google Patents currently lists Intellectual Ventures I LLC as assignee.
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration September 21, 2023). Google Patents flags the patent family as having litigation history, but I located no CAFC 2026 docket for this specific patent number.
• Government interest: Made with U.S. Government support (DARPA-related contract DAAD16-99-C-1024, per family records).

Abstract: "The Wireless Integrated Network Sensor Next Generation (WINS NG) nodes provide distributed network and Internet access to sensors, controls, and processors that are deeply embedded in equipment, facilities, and the environment. The WINS NG network is a new monitoring and control capability for applications in transportation, manufacturing, health care, environmental monitoring, and safety and security. The WINS NG nodes combine microsensor technology, low power distributed signal processing, low power computation, and low power, low cost wireless and/or wired networking capability in a compact system. The WINS NG networks provide sensing, local control, remote reconfigurability, and embedded intelligent systems in structures, materials, and environments."

Independent claims — important caveat: The full-text copy of the patent provided to me (fetched from Google Patents) is truncated mid-specification and does not include the claims section, and my searches did not surface the verified claim text specific to this patent number (the lengthy claim set that appeared in one search result belongs to a sibling patent, 7,844,687, not 8,836,503). I therefore cannot responsibly enumerate the exact independent claims with claim-by-claim wording. Rather than fabricate claim language, here is what the specification establishes as the core claimed subject matter, flagged as provisional:

The patent centers on a self-assembling, multi-cluster sensor network. The central mechanism described in the specification is a distributed network-assembly algorithm in which:

1. A start node becomes a base on a first cluster and floods an "assembly packet" to neighbors.
2. Each receiving node that has not already seen an assembly packet assigns itself a cluster and role based on alternating "become-base"/"become-remote" instructions, modifies the packet (incrementing the cluster indication and flipping the instruction), and re-floods it.
3. Nodes that have already received an assembly packet ignore later ones, making the process self-terminating and guaranteeing connectivity where connectivity is physically possible.
4. The network then supports sensing, and distributes storage and processing of collected data among clusters/nodes (including cross-cluster data transfer and local same-cluster cooperative processing).

Dependent-type features prominent in the disclosure (likely reflected in the full claim set, again unverified): layered preprocessor/processor node architecture for low-power "continuously vigilant" operation, APIs for remote reprogramming/control, wired/wireless hybrid links with a common protocol, gateway/Internet coupling, GPS-based self-location, distributed-database/query handling, security via public-key and confounder/decoy messaging, and heterogeneous node types (WINS NG, PicoWINS tags).

If you need the exact independent claims, I recommend pulling the claims from the USPTO Patent Center (or the Google Patents "Claims" tab for US8836503B2), which my available search excerpts did not capture. I'd rather state that limitation than guess at claim boundaries.

The initial searches returned no results. Let me try other litigation-specific sources.

Based on the searches I was able to perform, I could not locate any case-specific litigation records tied to US Patent 8,836,503 B2.

Result: No case-specific litigation identified.

I ran multiple web searches (queries included "8836503" patent case lawsuit, US8836503 litigation, 8836503 Intellectual Ventures Borgia Cummins lawsuit, and patent 8836503 WINS sensor network litigation district court), and none returned verified case records identifying the patent by its specific number. All queries either returned empty result sets or were cut off before returning usable data.

A few caveats so you don't over-read this negative result:

1. Family-level litigation indicator exists. The Google Patents record for US8836503 displays a "Family has litigation" marker and links to a Darts-ip family record (family ID 27496316). That indicates some member of the patent family has been involved in litigation, but it does not confirm that this specific patent (US8836503) was asserted in any given case. This patent is in the Sensoria/Borgia Cummins lineage, which has been associated with broader patent-assertion campaigns, but I could not verify a specific suit naming US 8,836,503.

2. The patent expired. The record shows "Expired - Lifetime," with an adjusted expiration date of 2023-09-21. Post-expiration, new infringement suits based on this patent would be unlikely.

3. What I could not check. I did not successfully pull records from RPX, Unified Patents' litigation portal, PACER, or the CAFC opinion database in these searches. If you need a definitive answer, I'd recommend searching:

   • Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
   • RPX (rpx.com) patent litigation search
   • Darts-ip family 27496316 (linked from the Google Patents record)
   • PACER for the relevant district courts (D. Del., E.D. Tex. being the most common for this type of NPE assertion)

In sum: Based on the information available to me, I cannot identify any specific litigation case — with plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or status — directed at US Patent 8,836,503. If litigation exists, it would most likely be found through the family-level Darts-ip record or paid litigation databases that my searches could not access.

I'll verify the canonical "no PTAB proceedings" status against public sources before concluding.

The initial searches only surfaced an unrelated patent (10,531,883, RapidPulse). Let me run more targeted checks for PTAB proceedings and litigation on this specific patent number.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) on file for US 8,836,503. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) ingest shows no proceedings, and independent web searches of PTAB, USPTO, docket aggregators, and practitioner press surfaced no petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision referencing this patent number. (Search hits for "'883 patent" IPRs — e.g., IPR2021-01466 — relate to unrelated U.S. Patent 10,531,883, an aspiration-thrombectomy patent, not the WINS sensor-network patent here.) The defensive bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to leverage or fear — no claims canceled, none sustained, and no estoppel created against any party — so invalidity strategy must be built in district court or via ex parte reexam, not IPR.

A threshold practical point: this patent is Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2023-09-21 per USPTO records). An expired patent can still support a damages-only claim for pre-expiration conduct if suit is timely, but it is ineligible for the forward-looking relief that typically drives IPR economics, which helps explain the absence of PTAB activity.

No proceedings to report

Because the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block is empty and web search confirmed nothing, the per-proceeding template cannot be filled with real data. I will not invent proceeding numbers, panel names, grounds, or outcomes.

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial proceeding has ever been instituted, denied-in-part, or terminated against this patent.
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: None exists.
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A
• Defensive value: There is no PTAB-based defense available or needed from a proceeding history standpoint; any validity attack on this patent must be mounted in district court under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103/112 or through ex parte reexamination, where the requester does not participate after filing.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All claims of 8,836,503 are UNTESTED before the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, and no claim has been sustained in an AIA trial. The only "adjudication" relevant to scope is whatever happened in parallel district court litigation — the patent family has a litigation history (per Google Patents' "Family has litigation" flag and Darts-ip family record 27496316), but that is not a PTAB merits determination and I have not verified the docket contents in this search.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone, because no petitioner ever existed. Every prior-art ground — § 102, § 103, and § 112 challenges of any kind — remains fully available to any defendant in district court. The corollary: because the patent is expired, be aware that a district court invalidity defense is the primary lever, and the pre-AIA vs. AIA prior-art analysis will hinge on the claim's priority date (application family reaching back to 1999-10-06) and the on-sale/public-use bar dates, not on any PTAB claim construction.

Pattern signals. No pattern exists. The owner chain (Sensoria → Borgia Cummins LLC → Benhov GmbH LLC → Intellectual Ventures I LLC) is a classic monetization lineage — Intellectual Ventures entities are frequent IPR targets, and Unified Patents has filed IPRs against other IV patents (e.g., IPR2016-01404 on U.S. 6,775,745; IPR2016-01643 on a different IV patent). The fact that no defensive aggregator or accused infringer ever filed an IPR against this particular WINS patent is itself informative: it suggests either (a) the assertion campaign around this patent did not reach the scale/recency that triggers IPR economics, (b) the patent's expired status and 1990s priority made invalidity cheaper to litigate in court, or (c) the specific claims in suit were narrow enough that challengers chose other vehicles. Do not read the absence as a merits signal on validity.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant facing assertion of 8,836,503: There is no PTAB FWD to quote and no claim canceled — do not represent otherwise to a court or opposing counsel. Your invalidity case must be built for district court. Given the 1999 priority date and the crowded prior art around LWIM/AWAIRS sensor networking (much of it cited on the face of the patent and in its file history, including the Gelvin/Kaiser family patents such as 6,835,251; 6,815,542; 7,480,008; and 7,309,467), focus on § 102/§ 103 combinations of mid-1990s wireless-sensor literature, and on § 112 issues if any claim term lacks written description support.
• Consider ex parte reexamination as an alternative: with the patent expired and no IPR window pressure, an EPR (control number 90/xxx) can be filed by anyone at any time, but the requester drops out after filing and cannot control the proceeding.
• Verify current owner and litigation posture before spending: Confirm through USPTO Assignment records that Intellectual Ventures I LLC is the current assignee (recorded 2021-10-14) and check the Darts-ip litigation dataset (family 27496316) for any active district court cases naming this patent, because the realistic threat is money damages for pre-2023 conduct, not injunctive relief.
• Monitor, but don't hold your breath: No PTAB petition is pending, and the statutory IPR filing window for an expired patent is not a practical concern for petitioners. If no district court case is pending against you, the absence of PTAB activity plus expiry means the practical exposure window is narrow and shrinking.

Sources checked: USPTO ODP structured data (canonical, empty); Google Patents bibliographic record for US8836503B2 (status: Expired – Lifetime; adjusted expiration 2023-09-21; assignments Sensoria → Borgia Cummins → Benhov GmbH → Intellectual Ventures I LLC); USPTO PTAB decision PDFs and docket aggregators (Docket Alarm, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report); Unified Patents insight pages (IV IPRs cited involve other patents, not 8,836,503). No PTAB proceeding number for this patent exists in any source located; none is fabricated here.

I have to be upfront about data limits before the analysis: my searches did not return direct USPTO Assignment Center hits with correspondent names and reel/frame numbers for every link in this chain. I can verify the chain of ownership events from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record embedded in the patent text (which I treat as primary), plus one reel/frame reference that appears in that record. I will flag every field I could not independently verify rather than fabricate it. Recommended verification: USPTO Assignment Center search by patent number at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

Inventors

Per the patent's face (US 8836503 B2, inventors listed on the Google Patents record):

1. David C. Gelvin
2. Lewis D. Girod
3. William J. Kaiser
4. William M. Merrill
5. Frederic Newberg
6. Gregory J. Pottie
7. Anton I. Sipos
8. Sandeep Vardhan

Employers at time of filing — partially determinable. The specification's own background describes the WINS work as originating under DARPA programs at UCLA (the LWIM and AWAIRS programs), and the priority applications (filed 1999-10-06, WO 2001/0263xx family published under "Sensoria Corporation") were assigned to Sensoria Corporation. The named inventors span the UCLA/Rockwell/Sensoria WINS research community: Kaiser and Pottie are the UCLA faculty leads of the WINS program, and Girod and Merrill were UCLA researchers; the balance (Gelvin, Newberg, Sipos, Vardhan) were, to the best of available information, Sensoria Corporation personnel. I could not verify each inventor's individual employer from the records I retrieved, so I will not assign employer-by-employer labels beyond this. Unusual-pattern note: no mass inventor departure within 12 months of filing is evidenced; the more relevant pattern is the portfolio's 2010 migration out of Sensoria to a holding LLC roughly a decade after the original filings.

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: Borgia/Cummins, LLC (listed as the "Original Assignee" on the Google Patents record for US 8836503, because the continuation application 12/758,749 was filed 2010-04-12 after the Sensoria assignment was recorded the same day).

The underlying technology and earliest applications originated with Sensoria Corporation, the assignor on the recorded 2010 assignments.

• Did they ship a product? Sensoria did field actual WINS hardware: the specification and prior sections of this analysis document WINS NG nodes deployed in US Marine Corps live-fire exercises and on the USS Rushmore for condition-based maintenance. So the underlying technology had real embodiments. Borgia/Cummins, LLC itself — the named assignee at issuance — has no evidence of product operations; it is a patent-holding LLC.
• Line of business: Sensoria — wireless integrated network sensor (WINS) hardware/software. Borgia/Cummins — patent holding.
• Current status: Sensoria Corporation no longer operates as an independent going concern; its patent portfolio was assigned away in 2010 (per the recorded assignments below). Borgia/Cummins, LLC was merged out of existence into Benhov GmbH, LLC in 2015 (recorded merger, per legal events). Current assignee per USPTO/Google Patents is Intellectual Ventures I LLC.

Assignment timeline

The Google Patents legal-events record for US 8836503 shows the following recorded events. Only the first carries a reel/frame citation in the record I have; I could not verify reel/frames or correspondents for the 2015 and 2021 recordings in my searches (assignment-center query results did not return). I am flagging each accordingly rather than inventing details.

• 2010-04-12 (recorded) — Reel 024220/0498 (per the corrective-assignment reference below)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: Borgia/Cummins, LLC (city recorded as "Willington," later corrected)
  • Correspondent: not verified in available records
  • Context: Portfolio transfer from the operating company (Sensoria) to a holding LLC, recorded the same day the continuation application 12/758,749 (which matured into the '503 patent) was filed. This is the transfer-to-holding-LLC step.

• 2010-07-23 (recorded) — same assignment, corrective filing

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (correcting assignee city spelling from "WILLINGTON" to "WILMINGTON")
  • Assignor: Sensoria Corporation
  • Assignee: Borgia/Cummins, LLC
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Purely ministerial correction of the assignee's address on the April 2010 recording; confirms reel 024220/0498 as the original recording location.

• 2014-09-16 — Patent US 8,836,503 B2 granted to Borgia/Cummins, LLC.

• 2015-12-06 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Borgia/Cummins, L.L.C.
  • Assignee: Benhov GmbH, LLC
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Internal reorganization — the holding LLC merged into another LLC (Benhov GmbH, LLC), an entity whose patent records show a parent-company relationship to Intellectual Ventures LLC in third-party databases (e.g., Unified Patents lists "Parent Company: Intellectual Ventures LLC" for Benhov-owned patents).

• 2021-10-14 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Benhov GmbH, LLC
  • Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC
  • Correspondent: not verified
  • Context: Consolidation of the portfolio into Intellectual Ventures I LLC, the well-known monetization entity.

Note on completeness: Because I could not query the Assignment Center directly, there may be additional recorded documents (e.g., the original 1999/2001 inventor-to-Sensoria assignments, or security/confirmation filings) not surfaced in my searches. The chain above is complete as to the post-issuance ownership events shown on the Google Patents legal-events record, which is the authoritative source embedded in this patent's file history. Correspondent data for all entries remains unverified — this is a genuine gap, not a finding of absence.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8836503
    1999 : Original WINS applications filed by Sensoria
    2010 : Sensoria assigns portfolio to Borgia Cummins LLC
         : Continuation application refiled
    2014 : US 8836503 granted to Borgia Cummins LLC
    2015 : Borgia Cummins merged into Benhov GmbH LLC
    2021 : Benhov assigns to Intellectual Ventures I LLC
    2023 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent moved from an operating assignor (Sensoria, which built and fielded WINS hardware) to a licensing-oriented LLC chain: Borgia/Cummins, LLC (2010, reel 024220/0498) → Benhov GmbH, LLC (2015 merger) → Intellectual Ventures I LLC (2021). Borgia/Cummins and Benhov show no product operations; Benhov's third-party patent records carry "Parent Company: Intellectual Ventures LLC." Supporting cites: reel 024220/0498 (2010-04-12 and corrective 2010-07-23); legal events of 2015-12-06 and 2021-10-14.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present. The chain terminates at Intellectual Ventures I LLC (assignment recorded 2021-10-14), a household name on every public NPE/patent-monetization directory (RPX, Unified Patents, Patent Progress). Intermediate assignee Benhov GmbH, LLC is IV-affiliated (parent-company field in Unified Patents data). This is the single strongest signal and is documented, not inferred.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not verified. I could not retrieve correspondent-of-record data for any of the recordings. No finding either way. This is a data gap to close via the Assignment Center before finalizing any diligence memo.

4. Cascading transfers — not present (as a rapid cascade). The three post-Sensoria transfers span 2010 → 2015 → 2021 — an 11-year arc, not a burst of chained LLC transfers within 24 months. The pattern is consistent with an IV-style portfolio assembly, but it is not a fast cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. Google Patents displays a "Family has litigation" marker (Darts-ip family 27496316), indicating some family member has been litigated, and the 2010 Sensoria→Borgia/Cummins transfer precedes later family litigation. However, I found no verified case naming US 8,836,503 specifically, and the patent expired 2023-09-21, making new assertion unlikely. No specific suit/date can be tied to the recorded assignments on the evidence I have.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No evidence Sensoria's portfolio moved through a Chapter 7/11 proceeding (contrast Kodak, Nortel, etc.). The 2010 transfer was an outright assignment, not a bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — not present / unclear. No SEC or press evidence that an operating company transferred this patent to an NPE to attack its competitors. The assignors here (Sensoria, then LLCs) do not fit a classic privateering disclosure pattern on available records.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Intellectual Ventures I LLC — the inverse of the defensive-aggregator signal.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain ends at Intellectual Ventures I LLC, a canonical patent-monetization/NPE entity (assignment recorded 2021-10-14), via IV-affiliated holding LLC Benhov GmbH, LLC (2015 merger), and the portfolio left the only operating company in the chain — Sensoria Corporation — in 2010 (reel 024220/0498), with none of the intermediate LLCs evidencing any product operations. Two strong signals are present: the shell-entity transfer out of an operating company into licensing LLCs, and a known high-volume asserter (Intellectual Ventures) as the current assignee. Caveats: no verified case names this exact patent (the family-level litigation marker is the only litigation signal), the correspondent-of-record data is unverified, and the patent has expired — so this is an ownership-chain NPE assessment, not a prediction of active assertion.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 8836503; cross-check reel 024220/0498 and the 2015-12-06 and 2021-10-14 recordings, whose reel/frames and correspondents I could not retrieve and recommend confirming there).

I have to stop searching at this point, so I will give you the most complete, accurately-sourced answer I can from the data actually retrieved, and I will clearly flag what could not be verified rather than guess.

USPTO Database Search: US 8,836,503 B2

1. Patent identification (verified)

The USPTO record for the specific patent number 8,836,503 (no similar numbers substituted) is confirmed via the USPTO-derived record at uspto.report/patent/grant/8,836,503 and Google Patents (US8836503B2):

• Patent No.: US 8,836,503 B2
• Title: Apparatus for compact internetworked wireless integrated network sensors (WINS)
• Inventors: David C. Gelvin; Lewis D. Girod; William J. Kaiser; William M. Merrill; Frederic Newberg; Gregory J. Pottie; Anton I. Sipos; Sandeep Vardhan
• Application: US 12/758,749, filed 2010-04-12
• Granted: 2014-09-16
• Earliest priority date claimed: 1999-10-06
• Assignee history: Sensoria Corp. → Borgia/Cummins LLC → Benhov GmbH LLC → Intellectual Ventures I LLC
• Status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2023-09-21)

Note: because the application was filed before March 16, 2013, the governing statute is pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102, and the § 102(b) analysis turns on whether a reference predates the October 6, 1999 priority date. Several citations on the face of the patent postdate that priority date and therefore cannot be § 102 prior art against claims validly entitled to the 1999 priority date; they can only matter under § 102 if the priority claim fails for a given claim, or under § 103.

2. Important limitation I must disclose up front

The full text of the claims of 8,836,503 was not available to me in this session (the supplied patent text is truncated in the description, before the claims), and the complete examiner's "References Cited" list for this specific patent could only be partially retrieved. I will therefore (a) report the references that are verifiable from the retrieved USPTO-derived pages, (b) describe each, and (c) give a provisional subject-matter-level § 102 assessment rather than fabricate claim-number mappings. Where I cannot verify a title or a claim correspondence, I say so explicitly.

3. References cited on the face of 8,836,503 (retrieved)

A. Foreign patent documents (verified from uspto.report for grant 8,836,503)

I could not retrieve verified English titles/abstracts for these foreign documents within the step limit. All except WO 00/54237 (Sep 2000) predate the 1999-10-06 priority date.

B. Non-patent literature (verified from uspto.report, marked "cited by applicant")

The WINS team's own publications are heavily cited, the most relevant being:

• Asada et al., "Wireless Integrated Network Sensors (WINS)," Proc. SPIE 3673:11-18 (1999) — describes the WINS node architecture (sensors, low-power signal processing, radio, multihop). Published ~Mar 1999, before the priority date. Highly relevant to apparatus claims describing a compact integrated sensor node.
• Sohrabi et al., "A Self-Organizing Wireless Sensor Network," Proc. 37th Allerton Conf. (Sep 1999) — self-organizing network protocols; on the priority-date edge (pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) analysis needed).
• Bult et al., "Wireless Integrated Microsensors," Solid-State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, Hilton Head (Jun 1996) and Bult et al., "Low Power Systems for Wireless Microsensors," ISLPED (1996) — earlier WINS/LWIM hardware descriptions.
• Asada et al., "Low Power Wireless Communication and Signal Processing Circuits for Distributed Microsensors," ISCAS (Jun 1997) — low-power front-end circuits.
• Baker & Ephremides, "The Architectural Organization of a Mobile Radio Network via a Distributed Algorithm," IEEE Trans. Commun. Com-29(11) (clustering algorithm; ~Nov 1981) — highly relevant to self-assembly/cluster claims.
• Gerla et al., "Multicluster, mobile, multimedia radio network," ACM-Baltzer J. Wireless Networks 1(3):255-265 (1995) and Lin & Gerla, "Adaptive Clustering for Mobile Wireless Networks," IEEE JSAC 15:1265-1275 (1997) — multicluster/multihop architecture.
• Young, "USAP: A Unifying Dynamic Distributed Multichannel TDMA Slot Assignment Protocol," MILCOM 96 (Oct 1996) — TDMA slot-assignment, relevant to MAC/self-organization claims.
• Ephremides et al., "A Design Concept for Reliable Mobile Radio Networks with Frequency Hopping Signaling," Proc. IEEE 75(1):56-73 (Jan 1987) — frequency-hopping robustness.
• Abramson, "The Throughput of Packet Broadcasting Channels," IEEE Trans. Commun. Com-25(1):117-128 (Jan 1977) — Aloha throughput; foundational.
• Wesson et al., "Network Structures for Distributed Situation Assessment," IEEE Trans. SMC-11(1):5-23 (1981) and Iyengar et al., "Information Routing and Reliability Issues in Distributed Sensor Networks," IEEE Trans. Signal Processing 40(12):3012-3021 (1992) — distributed sensor data fusion/routing.
• Lohle et al., "Bordermaster 2000 – An Advanced Border Surveillance System," Electrical Communication, Alcatel (1994) — fielded surveillance sensor network.
• Bhatnagar et al., "Layer Net: A New Self-Organizing Network Protocol," IEEE MILCOM (1990) — self-organizing protocol.
• Elson et al., "Fine-Grained Network Time Synchronization using Reference Broadcasts" (2002) and Merrill et al., "Open Standard Development Platforms for Distributed Sensor Networks," Aerosense (Apr 2002) — both postdate the 1999 priority date; relevant only if priority fails or under § 103.

C. U.S. patent documents

A listing retrieved from the FreePatentsOnline page for 8836503 shows U.S. documents in descending date order (2006-2010). I could not independently confirm in this session that this particular list is the examiner's "References Cited" list rather than a citing-documents list, so treat it as provisional pending a check of the USPTO file wrapper. Entries captured include:

• 2010/0146045 (Moore et al., Jun 2010) – Multi-class heterogeneous clients in a clustered filesystem
• 2010/0114826 (Voutilainen et al., May 2010) – Configuration management in distributed data systems
• 2010/0057290 (Brillhart, Mar 2010) – Cooperative vehicle diagnostics
• 2009/0304009 (Kolhi et al., Dec 2009) – Access network node
• 2009/0282458 (Hjelm, Nov 2009) – Remote/local compound device capability synchronization
• 7,606,867 (Singhal et al., Oct 2009) – Ordered application message delivery using multiple processors
• 7,577,872 (DiBartolomeo et al., Aug 2009) – Dynamic system diagnosis
• 2009/0183260 (Hernacki, Jul 2009); 2009/0122723 (Hirano et al., May 2009)
• 7,484,008 (Gelvin et al., Jan 2009) – Apparatus for vehicle internetworks (same inventor family; describes in-vehicle WINS node networks, FIGS. 51-52 subject matter)
• 7,468,661 (Petite et al., Dec 2008) – System and method for monitoring and controlling remote devices
• 7,305,467 (Kaiser et al., Dec 2007) – Autonomous tracking wireless imaging sensor network including an articulating sensor and automatically organizing network nodes
• 2008/0031213 (Kaiser et al., Feb 2008) – Autonomous tracking wireless imaging sensor network
• 2008/0015748 (Nagy, Jan 2008) – Vehicle operation monitoring/reporting via OBD port
• 7,207,041 (Elson et al., Apr 2007) – Open platform architecture for shared resource access management
• 7,161,926 (Elson et al., Jan 2007) – Low-latency multi-hop ad hoc wireless network
• 7,287,180 (Chen et al., Oct 2007); 7,387,341 (Saito et al., Jun 2008); 7,158,758 (Lim et al., Jan 2007); 2007/0060056 (Whitaker, Mar 2007); 2006/0235972 (Asnis, Oct 2006); 7,120,508 (Oct 2006) and further entries truncated in the search result.

All of the C-list documents postdate the October 6, 1999 priority date, so none of them can be § 102 prior art against claims that validly carry the 1999 priority date. Their likely role in prosecution was § 103, or § 102 against claims not entitled to the old priority date.

4. Most relevant prior art and provisional § 102 assessment

Because the independent claims of 8,836,503 are directed to a compact WINS node apparatus (per the specification: a sealed/shock-resistant compact package, low-power preprocessor separate from a general-purpose processor, sensor interface with preamplifiers/anti-aliasing filters/converters, spread-spectrum radio, self-organizing multihop networking, gateway/Internet access, substrate-based construction) and the searchable claim keywords include substrate, shock, environmental effect, and supporting, the strongest true § 102 (pre-AIA) candidates — those published before 1999-10-06 — are:

1. Asada et al., "Wireless Integrated Network Sensors (WINS)," Proc. SPIE 3673:11-18 (1999) — before the priority date; discloses the WINS node combining microsensors, low-power signal processing, computation, and wireless networking in a compact system. Potentially anticipates apparatus claims reciting the integrated sensor/processor/radio node combination, subject to exact element-by-element comparison (I cannot verify the claim text to give claim numbers).
2. Bult et al., "Wireless Integrated Microsensors" (1996) and "Low Power Systems for Wireless Microsensors" (1996) — disclose the earlier LWIM integrated microsensor node (sensing, micropower electronics, radio); strong § 102(b) candidates for claims covering the compact low-power integrated sensor node core.
3. Asada et al., ISCAS 1997 — low-power wireless communication and signal-processing circuits for distributed microsensors; relevant to claims covering the low-power sensor interface/signal-processing path.
4. Baker & Ephremides (1981) — distributed clustering algorithm for mobile radio networks; relevant to claims covering self-assembly/cluster formation in multihop networks.
5. Gerla (1995) / Lin & Gerla (1997) — multicluster/multihop mobile radio network architectures; relevant to claims covering gateway/cluster/multihop topology.
6. Young, USAP (1996) and Ephremides (1987) — TDMA slot assignment and frequency-hopping reliability; relevant to MAC/spread-spectrum claims.
7. Wesson (1981) / Iyengar (1992) — distributed sensor-array processing and information routing; relevant to distributed-processing claims.
8. Lohle, Bordermaster 2000 (1994) — fielded distributed surveillance sensor network; relevant to claims covering networked remote sensing with event-triggered reporting.

The same-family U.S. patents that appear in the retrieved listing (7,484,008 Gelvin; 7,305,467 and 2008/0031213 Kaiser; 7,207,041 and 7,161,926 Elson) describe overlapping WINS architecture subject matter but issued 2004-2009 and, as continuations sharing the 1999 priority date with 8,836,503, are not § 102 prior art against it — they are, at most, evidence about the scope of the disclosure, and any overlap would raise obviousness-type double patenting issues rather than § 102 anticipation.

5. Bottom line

• The USPTO record confirms US 8,836,503 B2 as the target patent.
• The verified front-page citations I could retrieve are dominated by the inventors' own 1990s WINS/LWIM publications (Asada 1999; Bult 1996 ×2; Asada 1997; Sohrabi 1999) plus classic distributed-network papers (Baker/Ephremides 1981; Gerla 1995; Lin/Gerla 1997; Young 1996; Ephremides 1987; Abramson 1977; Wesson 1981; Iyengar 1992) and six foreign patent documents (DE 19743137; EP 0560047; EP 0814393; WO 98/56140; WO 99/17477; WO 00/54237).
• The single most relevant § 102 candidate class is the pre-1999 WINS/LWIM literature (especially Asada et al., Proc. SPIE 1999 and the 1996 Bult papers), which discloses the claimed compact integrated sensor node concept by the same inventors.
• I cannot, with integrity, assign specific claim numbers (e.g., "claims 1, 4, 12") to each reference because the full claim text of 8,836,503 was not available in this session and the U.S.-patent portion of the cited list is only partially verified. To complete that mapping, the next steps would be: pull the claims from the USPTO Patent Center/Google Patents "Claims" tab for US 8,836,503, and pull the examiner's complete "References Cited" from the USPTO file wrapper (image file wrapper for Application 12/758,749), which I was unable to do within the search limit.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,836,503 B2 (WINS "Apparatus for compact internetworked wireless integrated network sensors")

0. Important scope caveat (read first)

Two constraints govern this analysis, and I want them explicit rather than buried:

1. The verbatim claim text of US 8,836,503 was not available in the materials provided or retrievable in the searches I could complete. The patent text supplied in the task is the full specification (background, figures, architecture descriptions) but cuts off before the "Claims" section. The only claim-level evidence I have is: (a) Google Patents' structured claim-term counts for the '503 record, which show claim language touching "environmental effect," "communication," "substrate," "supporting," and "shock"; (b) the parallel-family claim language of US 7,797,367 B1 (same title, same inventors, same 1999-10-06 priority line), where dependent claims recite a sensor node providing "node information including node resource cost and message priority," "wireless internetworking compris[ing] providing remote accessibility to data, code, management, and security functions," layered network-element sets, message aggregation, APIs for remote reprogramming, and database coupling; and (c) the '503's own detailed specification.

   Because the '503 is a continuation in a family whose members share near-identical specifications and titles, I can analyze obviousness at the feature level with high confidence, but I cannot truthfully produce a claim-element-by-claim-element chart against a verbatim claim 1. Where a conclusion depends on the exact claim wording, I say so.

2. "Use the results from the Prior Art section of this page" — no Prior Art section was actually included in the message. I therefore reconstructed the prosecution prior-art record from the references surfaced on the USPTO/Google Patents record for 8,836,503 (uspto.report grant page), which lists the Gelvin-family patents and the non-patent literature cited by the applicant, plus the prior-art systems the specification itself admits (LWIM, AWAIRS, prior control/sensor/Internet networks of FIGS. 1–7).

1. Executive summary

US 8,836,503 claims an apparatus — a compact, low-power wireless sensor node and the network/gateway structure around it — drawn from the UCLA/Rockwell "WINS Next Generation" (WINS NG) architecture whose inventors' own specification describes the foundational elements (multihop self-assembly, layered low-power signal processing, gateway internetworking, distributed processing, frequency-hopped/TDMA radios) as already existing in prior-art LWIM and AWAIRS systems demonstrated from 1996–1999.

The strongest § 103 case is therefore built on the applicant-admitted prior art combined with the published WINS/AWAIRS literature (Bult 1996; Asada 1997 & 1999; Sohrabi 1999; Agre 1999) and the 1990s self-organizing/multicluster radio-network literature (Baker 1981; Ephremides 1987; Bhatnagar/Layer Net 1990; Gerla 1995; Lin 1997; Young/USAP 1996). A POSITA in this field — which was a small, heavily inter-cited DARPA-funded community — would have had concrete, documentable reasons to combine all of these references: the identical problem (scalable, low-power, self-installing sensor networks for surveillance and monitoring), overlapping authors and programs, and the express research agenda of the papers themselves.

The realistic caveat: the claims that issued in 2014, after a prosecution starting in 2010, were very likely narrowed away from the admitted prior art toward the "compact apparatus" details (the claim-term fingerprints of substrate, shock, environmental effect, supporting suggest packaging/physical-construction limitations). Those narrower apparatus limitations are where an obviousness challenge is hardest and where the challenger will need non-cited art (e.g., flexible-substrate/RFID packaging and compact-antenna references) rather than the WINS papers alone.

2. The legal framework and the person of ordinary skill

§ 103 framework (Graham factors): scope and content of the prior art; differences between the prior art and the claimed subject matter; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. (2007), a combination of known elements is obvious when it yields predictable results and the skilled artisan had reason to combine them — explicit teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the references is not required; common sense, design incentives, and market/field pressures suffice.

Effective prior-art date. The '503 claims priority through a chain reaching provisional application 60/158,013 filed October 6, 1999 (parent non-provisionals filed October 4, 2000; this continuation filed April 12, 2010). For § 103 purposes, references must have been available before the earliest effective filing date to which the challenged claims are entitled — nominally October 6, 1999. This matters: Elson et al. (2002) and Merrill et al. (Aerosense, April 2002) appear on the face of the patent as applicant-cited references but post-date the priority date and are not § 103 prior art unless the challenger can show a claim lacks written-description support back to 1999 (a § 112 issue, not a § 103 one). Everything else cited below is pre-October 1999.

Level of ordinary skill (circa 1999): an engineer with a B.S./M.S. in electrical engineering or computer science and 3–5 years' experience in low-power embedded system design, wireless/RF communications (spread spectrum, TDMA), and network protocols, and familiarity with the DARPA WINS/LWIM/AWAIRS sensor-network literature — which by 1999 was a compact, well-known body of work (the '503's own background cites roughly twenty of its central papers).

3. The prior-art record

3.1 Applicant-admitted prior art (in the specification itself)

The specification concedes that by 1999 the following were already in the prior art:

• LWIM (Low-power Wireless Integrated Microsensors), fielded 1996: two-way master/node communications; nodes with signal processing that "analyze the data and make decisions on what is to be communicated"; parameters negotiated between master and nodes; "signal processing layered between special purpose devices and the general-purpose processor to conserve power"; LWIM-II demonstrated "multihop, self-assembled, wireless network nodes" operating "at micropower level"; demonstrated in five USMC live-fire exercises and as condition-based maintenance aboard USS Rushmore.
• AWAIRS (1995–1999): self-assembling networks; "layered signal processing of signals (including use of multiple processors within nodes, as in LWIM)"; "data aggregation to allow scaling"; energy-minimizing multihop routing; cooperative beamforming/data fusion; distributed self-location; modular node design with swappable sensor/processor/radio boards.
• FIGS. 1–7 (all labeled prior art): master-controlled control loops (FIG. 1); hand-registered sensor networks with limited self-assembly (FIG. 2); AWAIRS self-organizing networks with multihop routing and user-interface/gateway coupling (FIG. 3); distributed signal processing and fusion centers (FIG. 4); TDMA-based self-organization protocols with radio power management (FIG. 5); TDOA/GPS self-location (FIG. 6); and sensor-to-Internet connections where images are posted to web sites and trigger levels are controlled remotely via the web (FIG. 7).

These admissions are powerful: for any claim limitation that merely restates LWIM/AWAIRS functionality, the specification itself is a concession of prior art, and the examiner's own allowance necessarily rested on claim features beyond those admitted systems.

3.2 Pre-1999 non-patent literature cited on the face of the '503

3.3 Same-family Gelvin patents

US 6,735,630; 6,826,607; 6,832,251; 6,859,831; 7,020,701; 7,484,008; 7,797,367; 7,904,569 (all Gelvin et al., same priority line) are not § 102/§ 103 prior art against the '503 because they share its earliest effective filing date and ownership. They are, however, useful as evidence that the "invention" as originally conceived was a family-wide architecture and that the '503's claims are one branch of a much larger disclosure — useful for claim-construction and § 112 context, not as prior art.

4. The claimed subject matter, reconstructed at feature level

Based on the title, abstract, specification, family claim language, and the '503's claim-term fingerprints, the claims most plausibly cover combinations of:

• (F1) A compact/low-power sensor node combining sensors, signal processing, decision capability, and wireless networking in a single package — with claim language touching a substrate, supporting structure, shock resistance, and environmental effect robustness (i.e., the "compact apparatus" limitations).
• (F2) Layered processing architecture: a low-power preprocessor (sensing front end, alarm/threshold triggering, platform power management) continuously vigilant while a higher-level general-purpose processor (standard OS, e.g., Windows CE/QNX/Linux) sleeps and is awakened — the dual-processor power-management split.
• (F3) Self-organizing, multihop network of such nodes using low-duty-cycle, TDMA-scheduled, frequency-hopped spread-spectrum links (2.4 GHz ISM in the described embodiments).
• (F4) Gateway internetworking: a gateway node coupling the sensor network to the Internet/external networks, with remote (web-based) access to data, code, management, and security functions and database coupling.
• (F5) Distributed, resource-aware processing: nodes publishing resource cost/message-priority information; APIs; distributed resource management; processing distributed in response to node information; message aggregation; data predistribution.
• (F6) Heterogeneous/layered networks: wired + wireless links using a common protocol; simple "PicoWINS" tag nodes on flexible polymer substrates overlaid by more capable nodes; multiple user classes.

5. Combinations that would render the claims obvious

Combination A — The core node + layered low-power processing (F1, F2)

References: Bult et al. 1996 (Low Power Systems for Wireless Microsensors and Wireless Integrated Microsensors); Asada et al. 1997 (ISCAS); Asada et al. 1999 (SPIE); Sohrabi et al. 1999 (Allerton); plus the specification's own LWIM/AWAIRS admissions.

Mapping: These WINS-program papers — several co-authored by named inventors Kaiser and Pottie — describe precisely the "compact, low-power node with sensing + signal processing + radio," the use of multiple processors of differing types with signal processing layered between special-purpose and general-purpose devices, and micropower continuous-vigilance front ends with higher-power processors woken on alarm. The '503's FIG. 15/16 architecture (WINS preprocessor 1504 + WINS processor 1502 with duty-cycling under preprocessor platform management) is, at the feature level, the architecture the specification itself attributes to LWIM ("signal processing can be layered between special purpose devices and the general-purpose processor to conserve power") and AWAIRS ("layered signal processing of signals (including use of multiple processors within nodes, as in LWIM)").

Motivation: The papers' shared, express objective is energy conservation through event-driven wake-up and hierarchical processing — the identical reason the '503 gives for its preprocessor/processor split. Combining a published low-power WINS node design (Asada/Bult) with the published layered-processing power-management concept (LWIM/AWAIRS) is a textbook obvious combination of known elements for their known purpose: the patent admits LWIM did it.

Verdict: If any claim reads on F2 without an additional narrowing limitation, Combination A alone is likely fatal. The specification itself describes the F2 architecture as pre-existing in LWIM and AWAIRS, which the applicant cannot now deny was prior art.

Combination B — Self-organizing multihop, multicluster network and TDMA/FHSS radio discipline (F3)

References: Baker et al. (distributed mobile-radio self-organization); Ephremides et al. 1987 (frequency-hopping reliable mobile radio); Bhatnagar Layer Net 1990; Gerla et al. 1995 (multicluster/multihop with gateways between clusters); Lin et al. 1997 (adaptive clustering); Young USAP 1996 (distributed TDMA slot assignment); Sohrabi et al. 1999 (self-organizing WINS with TDMA frames).

Mapping: The '503's network features — self-assembly by distributed messaging, cluster formation, promotion/demotion between master (base) and slave (remote) modem states, gateways bridging clusters, TDMA frames with frequency-hopped channels, low-duty-cycle receiver operation, and energy-aware routing — map one-to-one onto this literature:

• Gerla 1995 and Lin 1997 describe exactly the multicluster networks with nodes belonging to more than one cluster relaying between clusters (the '503's FIGS. 29–31 architecture) and adaptive cluster reconfiguration as nodes arrive/depart.
• Ephremides 1987 and Young 1996 supply frequency-hopped, distributed TDMA channel assignment with power management — the '503's radio discipline.
• Bhatnagar Layer Net 1990 supplies a layered self-organizing network protocol.
• Sohrabi 1999 — published one month before the priority date, and cited by the applicant — supplies a self-organizing wireless sensor network with TDMA, energy-aware routing, and scalability, i.e., the AWAIRS network the '503 describes as its own lineage.
• The specification admits LWIM-II demonstrated "multihop, self-assembled, wireless network nodes" and AWAIRS was "self-organizing" with multihop routing to minimize energy — i.e., F3 in the prior art by admission.

Motivation: The entire field's motivation is stated in the '503 itself: RF received power decays as R^(−α) (α ≈ 3–5), so multihop short-range links reduce transmit power by ~N^(α−1), enabling dense, low-power, scalable deployment. That is the patent's own rationale for multihop operation, and it is the same rationale given in Gerla, Sohrabi, and the WINS papers for multicluster/multihop design. No hindsight is needed — the motivation is in the references and the admitted prior-art programs.

Verdict: Strong for F3. The genuinely inventive-sounding network claims (self-assembly, multihop, multicluster gatewaying, TDMA/FHSS) are, by the applicant's own description, restatements of LWIM-II/AWAIRS and the 1981–1999 literature.

Combination C — Internet/gateway internetworking, remote web control, and databases (F4)

References: The specification's FIG. 7 (admitted prior art: sensor cameras + host computer + web posting + remote trigger-level control via a web site); Lohle Bordermaster 2000 1994; Iyengar et al. 1992; Wesson et al. 1981; plus the general, well-known state of the art in 1999 of HTTP/web servers, Internet gateways, and embedded web devices.

Mapping: The '503's gateway-and-Internet features — a gateway node coupling low-power sensor nodes to an IP network; browser-based remote monitoring and control (FIGS. 12–14); downloadable code; database linkage — are the same functions the specification describes in FIG. 7's prior-art sensor/Internet system (images posted to web sites, trigger levels controlled remotely via the web). The '503's advance over FIG. 7 is presented as integration: embedding the web/Internet interface into the low-power WINS node/gateway rather than requiring "a costly interface platform, or computer, at both ends." Lohle's Bordermaster 2000 (1994) shows fielded remote surveillance with networked reporting; Iyengar 1992 and Wesson 1981 show the distributed-sensor routing and fusion concepts.

Motivation: By 1999, internetworking embedded systems and sensors was a recognized, mainstream design goal (web cams, remote telemetry), and the patent admits the FIG. 7 approach was prior art. The only question is whether the particular integration — running standard protocols (IPv4/IPv6, TCP/IP) and a standard OS on the node/gateway — was obvious. It was: the '503 itself motivates this by the need to "support standard operating systems and development environments" and "be capable of being easily integrated into larger networks," and it acknowledges the custom-OS prior sensor nodes were an obstacle. Moving a known web-server/modem interface from a PC (FIG. 7) into a known low-power sensor node (Combination A) by using known standard-OS components is the kind of "obvious to try" / predictable-application combination KSR treats as obvious — unless the claims capture some non-obvious engineering solution to the power/OS tension (see § 7).

Combination D — Resource-aware distributed processing, message priority, APIs (F5)

References: Iyengar et al. 1992 (information routing and reliability in distributed sensor networks — energy, reliability, aggregation); Gerla et al. 1995 (QoS/priority in multicluster networks); Young USAP 1996 (distributed resource/bandwidth allocation); Ephremides et al. 1987 (distributed, priority-capable FHSS control); Wesson et al. 1981 (distributed situation assessment with message/hypothesis passing); plus Sohrabi 1999 and the AWAIRS literature for energy-aware routing.

Mapping: Claim features involving nodes publishing resource cost and message priority and distributing processing in response (the language seen in family claim 17 of US 7,797,367) are functional descriptions of the energy-aware, priority-routed, self-organizing protocols in Iyengar, Gerla, and Sohrabi, dressed in API language. The APIs themselves (WINS Basic; SET_AGC; TRANSMIT_DATA; Processor_Power_Control, etc.) are ordinary software-interface design — exposing known hardware functions through a callable library.

Motivation: Every one of these references addresses the same design constraint the '503 states: sensor nodes have scarce energy and bandwidth, so routing and processing decisions must account for resource cost, message urgency, and aggregation to scale. The motivation to "publish resource costs and priorities through an API" is the standard software-engineering response (abstraction + information exposure) to a distributed resource-allocation problem that the prior art had already solved at the protocol level.

6. Why a POSITA would combine these references (the motivation story)

1. One community, one program, cross-citing authors. Bult, Asada, Sohrabi, Kaiser, and Pottie (the latter two are named inventors on the '503) are co-authors across the LWIM/AWAIRS/WINS papers; Gerla, Lin, Ephremides, Baker, and Young are the canonical citations inside those papers and inside the '503's own background. A POSITA researching low-power wireless sensor networks in 1999 would have encountered all of these references together; combining them requires no hindsight reconstruction.

2. Identical problem statement. The references and the '503 share the same articulated problem: scalable, dense, low-power, self-installing sensor networks for surveillance/monitoring/condition-based maintenance, with the communications energy/bandwidth burden reduced by local processing and short-range multihop links. When references address the same problem, the law presumes a reason to combine.

3. The '503 supplies its own motivations. The specification's rationale for multihop (power-law path loss), for TDMA/low-duty-cycle radios (receive power ≈ transmit power), for layered processing (event-driven wake-up), and for standard-OS internetworking (developer productivity) is stated as general design logic — and most of it is attributed to the prior-art LWIM/AWAIRS programs. Using the patent's own reasoning to show why a POSITA would combine the prior art is the strongest possible obviousness narrative.

4. Predictable combination of known elements. Each reference performs a known function (sensing, low-power vigilance, self-assembly, TDMA scheduling, frequency hopping, clustering, gatewaying, web access); the '503 combines them in the way the field's own roadmap (WINS → LWIM-II → AWAIRS → WINS NG) was already heading. Under KSR, that is the paradigm of obviousness.

5. Applicant admissions close the loop. For features F2, F3, and F4 (and much of F5), the specification affirmatively states the feature existed in LWIM/AWAIRS or in the FIG. 1–7 prior art. Where the specification concedes a feature is prior art, the § 103 hurdle for that feature is effectively met by admission, and the claim can only survive if some other limitation supplies patentable weight.

7. Where the obviousness case is weakest (the honest counter-analysis)

The examiner allowed this patent in 2014 after a 2010 filing, in a family whose earlier members were also allowed — which strongly suggests the ultimately-issued claims are not the broad LWIM/AWAIRS restatements above but are narrowed to the "compact apparatus" details. The claim-term fingerprints support this: substrate, shock, supporting, environmental effect point to physical-package limitations. Candidate patentable-weight limitations a challenger must confront:

• Compact physical construction — a sealed, waterproof, compact node, optionally with sensors on flexible polymer substrates, and the compact annular-ring patch / stacked patch antennas reflected in the '503's classification (H01Q 9/0464, H01Q 1/22). The WINS literature (Bult, Asada) describes chip-scale low-power systems but does not clearly disclose a compact internetworked node on a flexible polymer substrate with an integral annular-ring antenna. A defendant would need additional art — 1990s flexible-circuit/RFID/antenna references (e.g., smart-tag and conformal-antenna literature, G06K 19/07-class RFID art, which the examiner's own classifications suggest was considered) — to fill this gap.
• "Dual-mode" radio that can simultaneously join two clusters and the master/slave promotion/demotion scheme (FIGS. 29–31): Gerla and Lin describe multicluster membership but the specific implementation of a frequency-hopped modem "simultaneously join[ing] two clusters" may be a point of novelty — though the specification hedges by describing it as solving a "long-standing problem," which a challenger can use to argue the problem (not the solution) was long-known.
• Standard-OS + low-power coexistence — the specific engineering solution of encapsulating real-time functions in a preprocessor so a Windows CE/QNX/Linux-class processor can duty-cycle. The prior art (custom OS sensor nodes) is admitted; whether the particular architecture of FIG. 15 was an obvious design choice is the sharpest genuine dispute.
• Secondary considerations appear weak or absent from the record: no demonstrated long-felt need resolved only by this patent (the AWAIRS program was already fielding self-organizing networks before the priority date), no industry acclaim attributable to the '503 specifically, and the later IoT market success is not legally attributable to this patent. The family's monetization via NPE assignment (Borgia Cummins → Benhov → Intellectual Ventures) is not a non-obviousness consideration.

8. Recommended primary combinations (ranked)

For a complete § 103 case, a defendant should plead A + B + C (+ D) for the network/architecture features, and develop Combination E only after obtaining the verbatim claims and the file wrapper's Reasons for Allowance, because the examiner's allowance will reveal exactly which limitations carried the claims — almost certainly the packaging/antenna details.

9. Practical notes for use of this analysis

• This patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2023-09-21), and no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever filed (per the earlier PTAB analysis). There is no PTAB estoppel and no FWD constraining any ground — every § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground remains available. The realistic uses of a § 103 analysis here are (a) a district-court invalidity defense/declaratory posture for pre-expiration damages, or (b) an ex parte reexamination (90/xxx), where the requester can file but not control the proceeding.
• Get the verbatim claims and file history before finalizing any chart. My feature-level mapping is high-confidence but not claim-element-precise; the file wrapper will also show whether the applicant made § 112(1) priority arguments that could let a challenger use the 2002 references (Elson, Merrill) as prior art against any claim not entitled to the 1999 date.
• The specification is the defendant's best witness. Nearly every architectural pillar of the claims — multihop self-assembly, layered processing, TDMA/FHSS low-duty-cycle radio, gateway/web internetworking, distributed fusion, GPS/TDOA self-location — is described in the '503's own words as existing in the LWIM, AWAIRS, and FIG. 1–7 prior art. An obviousness argument that quotes the patent's Background section against itself, then shows the claims' only delta is routine integration of known components, is the strongest and most defensible form of this challenge.

Sources: US 8,836,503 B2 specification (Google Patents, full text supplied in task); uspto.report grant-page reference list for 8,836,503 (Gelvin-family patents and NPL, incl. Wesson 1981, Iyengar 1992, Sohrabi 1999, Baker, Gerla 1995, Lin 1997, Asada 1999, Lohle 1994, Bhatnagar 1990, Abramson 1977, Young 1996, Asada 1997, Bult 1996, Ephremides 1987, Elson 2002, Merrill 2002); US 7,797,367 B1 family claim language (Espacenet/Google Patents); FreePatentsOnline family records for US 6,859,831 and US 8,836,503. Verbatim claims of the '503 were not available in the provided materials or retrievable within search limits; conclusions dependent on exact claim wording are flagged as such above.