US 8884762

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

Important: an IPR (IPR2016-00892) found claims 1–27 unpatentable. Let me check the outcome and the Federal Circuit appeal 18-1236.

I have the litigation/IPR history. Now let me retrieve the exact claim text for the independent claims.

US Patent 8,884,762 — Analyst Report

Search scope note: I searched for the exact number 8884762 / 8,884,762. All results below are for that specific patent. I found no 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket for this patent; the only CAFC appeal I could locate is 2018-1236 (decided 2019). See "Litigation/PTAB" below.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text)

Priority chain: continuation of 13/169,968 (filed 2011-06-27, abandoned) → CIP of 12/770,321 (now US 7,969,305) → continuation of 11/639,102 (now US 7,737,846) → provisional 60/753,908.

Continuation family (same disclosure): US 9,135,800; 9,269,247; 9,396,631; 9,478,110; 9,576,452; 9,659,472; 10,013,867; 10,062,266; 10,403,122; 10,600,313; 11,721,198; 12,205,457; and US 2025/0166486 A1.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A programmable security system and method for protecting an item of merchandise includes a programming station, a programmable key and a security system. The programming station generates a security code and communicates the security code to a memory of the programmable key. The programmable key initially communicates the security code to a memory of the security device and subsequently operates the security device upon a matching of the security code in the memory of the security device with the security code in the memory of the programmable key. The programmable key may also transfer power via electrical contacts or inductive transfer from an internal battery to the security device to operate a lock mechanism. The security code may be communicated by wireless infrared (IR) systems, electrical contacts or inductive transfer. A timer inactivates the programmable key and/or the security device after a predetermine period of time. A counter inactivates the programmable key after a predetermined maximum number of activations."

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (system claim) — high confidence, verbatim from the PTAB Final Written Decision

"1. A programmable security system for protecting items of merchandise from theft, the programmable security system comprising: a programming station comprising a logic control circuit configured to generate a unique security code, and a memory for storing the unique security code; a plurality of programmable keys each configured to communicate with the programming station to receive and store the unique security code in a memory, each of the plurality of programmable keys having the unique security code stored in its memory; and a plurality of security devices each comprising an alarm and a memory for storing the unique security code, each of the plurality of security devices having the unique security code stored in its memory, each of the plurality of security devices configured to be attached to an item of merchandise, each of the plurality of security devices further configured to activate the alarm in response to the integrity of the security device being compromised; wherein each of the plurality of programmable keys is configured to arm or disarm each of the plurality of security devices upon a matching of the unique security code stored by the plurality of security devices with the unique security code stored by the plurality of programmable keys."

In plain terms, four elements: (1) a programming station that generates one unique security code and remembers it; (2) multiple programmable keys that receive and store that same code; (3) multiple security devices (alarm modules), each attachable to merchandise with an alarm that fires if the device's integrity is compromised, each storing the same code; and (4) any of those keys can arm or disarm any of those devices when the codes match. The "one code issued by one station, shared across a fleet of keys and devices" architecture is the heart of the claim — and the crux of the IPR discussed below.

Claim 25 (method claim) — reconstructed; flag as lower confidence

I could not retrieve claim 25 of the '762 patent verbatim from an authoritative source in this session. From the '762 Final Written Decision I can confirm it is the sole independent method claim, with claims 26 and 27 depending from it. Based on the parallel family member (US 9,269,247, whose claim 25 is independent with claims 26–27 dependent) and the IPR record, it appears to be the method counterpart to claim 1, i.e.: storing a unique security code in a programming station; providing that code to a plurality of programmable keys; storing the code at each of a plurality of merchandise-attached security devices having an alarm that activates when device integrity is compromised; and arming or disarming each security device upon a matching of the codes (with claim 27 adding inactivation after a predetermined time period or number of activations). Treat this wording as a reconstruction, not verbatim claim text.

Litigation / PTAB — this is the material part of the public record

• InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc., No. 3:15-cv-00610 (W.D.N.C.) — the '762 patent (with the '247 and '800 patents) was asserted against MTI. MTI's § 101 motion to dismiss was denied (Apr. 14, 2016). Other listed suits: N.D. Cal. 3:17-cv-00075; D. Or. 3:17-cv-01356.
• IPR2016-00892 (Petitioner: Mobile Tech, Inc.; filed 2016-04-14; instituted 2016-10-07). Final Written Decision entered 2017-09-28 holding that Petitioner proved by a preponderance that claims 1–27 of the '762 patent are unpatentable. Grounds included anticipation by US 2007/0159328 A1 ("Belden") for claims 1, 2, 5–9, 11–27 and obviousness over Belden+Sedon, Belden+Rothbaum, Rothbaum+Denison, and Rothbaum+Denison+Ott.
• CAFC 2018-1236 (consolidated with 2018-1238, 2018-1239, 2018-1304; appeals from IPR2016-00892/00896/00898/00899). Judgment entered March 8, 2019: AFFIRMED, per curiam (Dyk, Wallach, Stoll), under Fed. Cir. R. 36 (nonprecedential). Audio of the argument was posted by the court.
• No 2026 CAFC docket found. My searches for 2026 Federal Circuit activity on 8,884,762 returned nothing. The most recent Federal Circuit action I can substantiate is the March 2019 Rule 36 affirmance. I cannot rule out a very recent or very obscure 2026 filing, but I have no evidence of one and will not fabricate a docket number.

Uncertainty flags

1. Legal status is genuinely ambiguous. Google Patents labels the patent "Expired – Fee Related" while simultaneously listing an anticipated expiration of 2026-12-14 (20 years from the 2006-12-14 non-provisional filing). Those two data points can be inconsistent; maintenance-fee status should be verified at USPTO Patent Center before relying on it. Google's own disclaimer states the status is an assumption, not a legal conclusion.
2. The claims were held unpatentable. Given the PTAB FWD and the Rule 36 affirmance, claims 1–27 should be treated as cancelled for practical purposes. Note that Google Patents' page for this patent does not surface that outcome prominently. Later family members (e.g., US 11,721,198; US 12,205,457) are separate patents with their own claim sets and status.
3. Claim 25 wording is reconstructed, as noted above.
4. I could not directly query the CAFC docket system or USPTO Patent Center in this session; findings rest on web-indexed secondary sources (Google Patents, PTAB/PTABS documents, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, RPX, Patexia) plus the authoritative full patent text supplied in the prompt.

I'll research the litigation history of US patent 8884762 using the patent data I have plus targeted searches.

Let me dig into the PTAB proceeding, the Federal Circuit appeal, and the California case.

Let me verify the California case 3:17-cv-00075 and the outcome of the Oregon consolidated case.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,884,762 ("Programmable security system and method for protecting merchandise")

Bottom line: Yes — litigation is known. US 8,884,762 ("the '762 patent") has been the subject of a multi-front dispute between InVue Security Products Inc. (patent owner/plaintiff) and Mobile Tech, Inc. (d/b/a Mobile Technologies Inc. / MTI) (defendant/petitioner), spanning four district court cases (one of which was transferred and consolidated), one inter partes review, and a Federal Circuit appeal. There does not appear to be any third-party/NPE litigation — the assertion activity is attributable to the operating company InVue.

Below, patent numbers, case numbers, and dates are reported literally as found.

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Summary table

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1. InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc. — W.D.N.C. No. 3:15-cv-00610-MOC-DSC

• Plaintiff: InVue Security Products Inc.
• Defendant: Mobile Tech, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division (Chief Judge Frank D. Whitney initially; later District Judge Max O. Cogburn, Jr., with Magistrate Judge David S. Cayer)
• Case No.: 3:15-cv-00610-MOC-DSC
• Filed: December 14, 2015 (served on Mobile Tech December 21, 2015)
• Patents asserted: US 8,884,762 and US 9,135,800 (per the Rule 26/filing report of "patent numbers 9,135,800 and 8,884,762") — the complaint also charted the '762 patent's programming-station/programmable-key/security-device elements against accused products including the "Freedom Micro," "Freedom Micro DI," and "Intellikey Gen 2."
• Activity/outcome:
  • Mobile Tech moved to dismiss on patent-eligibility grounds under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Alice), attacking the claims as abstract. The court (Apr. 14, 2016) addressed the §101/claim-construction sequencing issue rather than granting dismissal outright.
  • On November 8, 2016, the court consolidated NCWD No. 3:16-cv-00734 into this lead case and stayed the consolidated matter pending the inter partes review proceedings (IPR2016-00892 et al.).
  • On August 21–30, 2017, the court consolidated this action with 3:17-cv-00270 and transferred it to the District of Oregon (Portland Division); thereafter it proceeded under the Oregon lead case (see #3).

Sources: CourtListener docket 6146522; Justia — consolidation/stay order; Casetext §101 opinion

2. InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc. — N.D. Cal. No. 3:17-cv-00075

• Plaintiff: InVue Security Products Inc.
• Defendant: Mobile Tech, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
• Case No.: 3:17-cv-00075
• Filed: January 5, 2017
• Status: Closed.
• Patents: Listed among the litigation associated with US 8,884,762 (and US 9,135,800).

Caveat: This case appears in the Google Patents "litigation" dataset attached to the '762 patent and in the Unified Patents caselist under the '800/'762 patents, showing filing date 2017-01-05 and a "Closed" status. I could not independently retrieve the full docket detail (parties' products, disposition terms) within this research, so the outcome should be treated as "closed" with limited further confirmation. See Google Patents — US8884762B2 and Unified Patents litigation caselist.

3. InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc. — D. Or. No. 3:17-cv-01356 (transferred/consolidated)

• Plaintiff: InVue Security Products Inc.
• Defendant: Mobile Tech, Inc. (d/b/a Mobile Technologies Inc.; formerly MTI)
• Jurisdiction: Originally W.D.N.C. (consolidated with 3:17-cv-00270), then transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Portland Division (Aug. 30, 2017), assigned to Judge Michael H. Simon.
• Case No.: 3:17-cv-01356
• Filed: 2017
• Patents asserted: US 8,884,762 and US 9,135,800 (the '762 patent is expressly identified in the complaint).
• Outcome/status: The consolidated lawsuits continued to be stayed in the District of Oregon pending the PTAB proceedings and the Federal Circuit appeal. The court adopted successive joint case-management schedules (status reports in March 2018, July 2018, January 2019, July 2019), allowing any party to move to lift the stay for good cause. The Stanford NPE database records InVue as a "Product company" asserter (i.e., an operating company, not an NPE).

Sources: CourtListener docket 6146522 (transfer/stay orders); Stanford NPE Litigation Database — 8884762

4. Mobile Tech, Inc. v. InVue Security Products Inc. — PTAB IPR2016-00892

• Petitioner: Mobile Tech, Inc.
• Patent Owner: InVue Security Products Inc.
• Forum: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Case No.: IPR2016-00892 (Patent 8,884,762 B2)
• Petition filed: April 14, 2016
• Institution Decision: October 7, 2016 (all claims 1–27 instituted)
• Final Written Decision: September 28, 2017 — the Board held claims 1–27 unpatentable by a preponderance of the evidence, on grounds of:
  1. §102 anticipation by Belden (US 2007/0159328 A1) — claims 1, 2, 5–9, 11–27;
  2. §103 obviousness over Belden and Sedon (US 2005/0073413 A1) — claims 3, 4;
  3. §103 obviousness over Belden and Rothbaum — claim 10;
  4. §103 obviousness over Rothbaum and Denison — claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27;
  5. §103 obviousness over Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott — claims 2–4, 21, 26.
• Panel: Administrative Patent Judges Justin T. Arbes, Stacey G. White, and Daniel J. Galligan (Judge Galligan authored the Final Written Decision).

Note on a data discrepancy: The Google Patents litigation table page attached to this family lists "NXP B.V./Freescale" entities in connection with IPR2016-00892. That appears to be a mis-assignment/misalignment in the scraped table; the PTAB Final Written Decision itself identifies the Petitioner as Mobile Tech, Inc., and third-party PTAB trackers (Patexia) likewise caption it "Mobile Tech, Inc. et al. v. InVue Security Products Inc." I have flagged rather than silently corrected this. (The Google Patents page separately notes a PTAB case and "Unified Patents PTAB Data" attribution.)

Sources: PTAB Final Written Decision (IPR2016-00892); Patexia — IPR2016-00892 summary

5. InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc. — Fed. Cir. Nos. 2018-1236 et al.

• Appellant: InVue Security Products Inc.
• Appellee: Mobile Tech, Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Appeal No.: 2018-1236 (lead), consolidated with 2018-1238, 2018-1239, and 2018-1304
• On appeal from: PTAB Nos. IPR2016-00892, IPR2016-00896, IPR2016-00898, and IPR2016-00899
• Notice of appeal / docketed: November 2017 (docketed November 30, 2017)
• Judgment: March 8, 2019 — AFFIRMED (nonprecedential, per curiam, Rule 36; panel: Circuit Judges Dyk, Wallach, and Stoll)
• Mandate issued: April 15, 2019
• Related companion appeal: 2018-1597 (from IPR2016-01241, US 7,737,846), also affirmed March 8, 2019.

Sources: CAFC judgment — InVue v. Mobile Tech; Unified Patents — CAFC 2018-1236

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Broader litigation context (same parties / patent family)

The '762 patent dispute was part of a larger InVue-vs-Mobile Tech campaign involving related patents in the same family (priority date Dec. 23, 2005), including US 7,737,846, 7,737,843, 7,737,844, 9,135,800, 9,266,927, 9,396,631, and 9,478,110, pursued through parallel IPRs (e.g., IPR2016-00896, -00898, -00899, -01241, -01915, -01900, -00344, -00345), many of which also ended in "all claims unpatentable" decisions and Rule 36 affirmances. A separate earlier InVue case (InVue Security Products Inc. v. Kum Oh Electronics Co., Ltd., W.D.N.C., filed Aug. 14, 2013) asserted US 7,737,843, not the '762 patent, so it is not counted here.

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Caveats and confidence

• High confidence: Cases #1, #3, #4, and #5 (W.D.N.C. 3:15-cv-00610; D. Or. 3:17-cv-01356; IPR2016-00892; Fed. Cir. 2018-1236) and their key facts and dispositions — these are confirmed by the PTAB Final Written Decision, the Federal Circuit judgment, and district court orders.
• Lower confidence: Case #2 (N.D. Cal. 3:17-cv-00075). It is listed in the '762 Google Patents litigation data and appears as a "closed" case, but I could not fully verify the parties and disposition in the sources retrieved; treat its details as provisional.
• The Google Patents page lists litigation-family flags (a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" entry) but does not give case-level detail; I did not retrieve the Darts-IP record.
• I found no evidence of any non-InVue/NPE-type plaintiff asserting the '762 patent. All assertion activity traced is by InVue (operating company) against Mobile Tech, Inc.

If you need the exact docket-level details (e.g., the N.D. Cal. disposition documents or the Oregon settlement/dismissal terms), I'd recommend pulling those directly from PACER/CourtListener, since I was unable to pull those specific records within this session.

I'll start by searching for the PTAB proceeding identified on the patent page and any others.

Let me dig into the FWD's claim-level outcome and check for additional proceedings against the '762 patent.

Let me pull the FWD's conclusion and the Federal Circuit disposition, plus check the Unified Patents caselist for the '762 patent.

Proceedings overview

Public records show one AIA trial proceeding against US 8,884,762 — IPR2016-00892 (Mobile Tech, Inc. v. InVue Security Products Inc.) — which went to a Final Written Decision finding all 27 challenged claims unpatentable, and which the Federal Circuit affirmed. The patent is dead: 27/27 claims canceled, 0 sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials, and no active proceeding. For a defendant today, that means any demand letter citing claims 1–27 of the '762 patent is citing canceled claims.

⚠️ Discrepancy flag (as instructed): the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is wrong as a factual matter — the patent's own Google Patents page carries the "Family has litigation / PTAB case IPR2016-00892 filed (Final Written Decision)" annotation, and the FWD is public. Treat the ODP block as a stale/empty ingest for this patent, not as evidence of no activity.

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IPR2016-00892 — Mobile Tech, Inc. v. InVue Security Products Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2016-04-14 (petition challenging claims 1–27; Tech Center 2600)
• Status: Final Written Decision — claims unpatentable (all claims challenged and instituted; no settlement, no termination). Plain-English gloss: Petition granted in full; every claim of the '762 patent was canceled.
• Judge panel: FWD panel = Justin T. Ares, Stacey G. White, Daniel J. Galligan (AJJ Galligan authored). One aggregator database lists the institution-stage panel as Galligan, Howard B. Blankenship, and White; the FWD caption controls for trial. I'm flagging the discrepancy rather than picking a winner — verify on PTAB E2E if the panel composition matters to your case.
• Petition grounds (as instituted, 5 grounds on claims 1–27):
  1. § 102 anticipation of claims 1, 2, 5–9, 11–27 by Belden (US 2007/0159328 A1, Ex. 1002);
  2. § 103(a) claims 3, 4 over Belden + Sedon (US 2005/0073413 A1);
  3. § 103(a) claim 10 over Belden + Rothbaum;
  4. § 103(a) claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27 over Rothbaum + Denison (US 5,543,782; US 2004/0201449 A1); and
  5. § 103(a) claims 2–4, 21, 26 over Rothbaum + Denison + Ott (US 6,380,855).
• Institution decision: Instituted 2016-10-07 on all five grounds and all 27 claims (Paper 9). No partial institution. (Headline note: institution pre-dated SAS v. Iancu, but the Board instituted on everything anyway, so SAS is not a vulnerability here.)
• Final Written Decision (issued 2017-09-28, Paper 33):
  • Ground 1 (Belden anticipation) FAILED — and this is the interesting part. InVue won the priority fight: the panel held the '102 Application (the parent of the '968 CIP) provides written-description support for "arming upon a matching and communicating," so claims 1, 2, 5–9, and 11–27 are entitled to the '102 Application filing date and Belden is not prior art to them. Quoted: "Petitioner has not shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1, 2, 5–9, and 11–27 are unpatentable as anticipated by Belden under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)."
  • But Petitioner won on the fallback obviousness grounds. The Board's disposition: "(1) claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, and 27 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as having been obvious over Rothbaum and Denison; and (2) claims 2–4, 21, and 26 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as having been obvious over Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott."
  • Order: "ORDERED that claims 1–27 of the '762 patent have been shown to be unpatentable" — i.e., independent claims 1 and 25 canceled, and every dependent claim 2–24, 26–27 canceled with them. No claim was held patentable.
  • Reasoning in brief: Denison's field-programmable electronic key/lock system (vending machines) supplied the electronic-key teachings, and Rothbaum supplied the merchandise-security alarm context; the Board credited Petitioner's declarant (Thaine H. Allison III) that a POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success (Ex. 1015 ¶¶ 172–178), rejected InVue's "no reason to combine" and "vending machines aren't analogous" arguments, and noted InVue offered no objective evidence of nonobviousness.
  • Patent Owner's Motion to Exclude (dictionary definitions, Exs. 1018–1020) was denied-in-part and dismissed-in-part.
• Settlement / termination: None. This was a merits FWD. (The docket label "Termination Decision Document" on one mirror is a docketing artifact, not a settlement.)
• Appeal: Yes — appealed by InVue to the Federal Circuit. Consolidated appeal nos. 2018-1236, 2018-1238, 2018-1239, 2018-1304 (covering IPR2016-00892, -00896, -00898, -00899). InVue's notice of appeal raised both the anticipation/obviousness findings and a constitutional challenge to IPR (Oil States). Disposition: AFFIRMED, per curiam (Dyk, Wallach, Stoll), nonprecedential, 2019-03-08. Opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4598031](/patent/4598031)/invue-security-products-inc-v-mobile-tech-inc/
• Defensive value: Total win for the defense. Every claim you could be accused of infringing has been canceled in a final, appeal-affirmed decision. "Claim 1 is dead — any infringement theory built on it is sanction-bait." Note the collateral status from the structured record: the '762 patent also shows "Expired – Fee Related" with anticipated expiration 2026-12-14 (maintenance-fee lapse), so it is doubly unavailable.
• Links: FWD (public mirror) https://mtigs.com/wp-content/uploads/IPR2016-00892-Final-Written-Decision.pdf · PTAB E2E docket: search Case No. IPR2016-00892 at https://ptacts.uspto.gov · CAFC/Appeal: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4598031/invue-security-products-inc-v-mobile-tech-inc/

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Strategic summary

Claim status. CANCELED: all of claims 1–27 of US 8,884,762. SUSTAINED: none. UNTESTED: none. Both independent claims (1 and 25) fell on the Rothbaum+Denison § 103 ground, and claims 3, 4, and 10 — including the timer/counter-flavored dependents — fell on the Rothbaum+Denison and Rothbaum+Denison+Ott combinations. The Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion, so there is no live appellate avenue and no claim to build an infringement theory on. If you are being asserted against on the '762, the only coherent response is to demand the assertion be withdrawn and to preserve a Rule 11 / § 285 record; there is no claim left to construe.

Estoppel landscape — largely academic here, but note the shape of it. § 315(e)(2) estops Mobile Tech, Inc. and its privies/RPIs from asserting in district court any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2016-00892 — which sweeps in the Belden, Sedon, Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott references and any obviousness combination built on them. Because the claims are canceled, that estoppel is moot for the '762 itself. The practical estoppel question for a different defendant today is not the '762 but its later continuation siblings (the same family includes US 9,135,800; 9,269,247; 9,579,645; 9,659,472; 10,013,867; 10,062,266; 10,403,122; 10,600,313; 11,721,198; 12,205,457 — per the Google Patents "Also published as" list). Prior art available against those patents is not restricted by the '762 estoppel, but the '762 FWD's priority analysis (that the '102 Application provides written-description support for the "arming upon a matching" concept) is a road map to the priority dates InVue will claim and to the art you must beat.

Pattern signals. Mobile Tech ran a coordinated five-petition campaign against the InVue family in April 2016 — IPR2016-00892 ('762), -00895 and -00896 ('800), -00898 and -00899 ('247) — plus IPR2016-01241 against US 7,737,846. InVue litigated hard and appealed aggressively: its notices of appeal in the '762/'800/'247 proceedings raised Oil States constitutionality as well as the merits, and it separately appealed the '846 FWD (IPR2016-01241, notice filed 2018-02-20). That's a patent owner that fights rather than settles. No defensive aggregator is in this chain — Mobile Tech, a competitor, was the petitioner. Later IPR activity against InVue came from Vanguard Products Group (six IPRs, IPR2020-00014/-00018/-00032/-00048/-00066/-00069) and from Mobile Tech again (IPR2020-00104/-00105), but none of those targeted the '762 — the Vanguard IPRs settled on 2020-07-08 and the Mobile Tech '787/'954 petitions were not instituted on the merits 2020-05-07.

Recommended next steps

• If you're a defendant being asserted on the '762: don't build a case — build a record. Pull the FWD (Paper 33, 2017-09-28) and the Federal Circuit judgment (2019-03-08, Nos. 2018-1236 et al., AFFIRMED) and quote the disposition: "ORDERED that claims 1–27 of the '762 patent have been shown to be unpatentable." Then demand written confirmation the assertion is withdrawn, and reserve fees.
• Confirm the cancellation certificate. A patent whose claims are all canceled in an IPR that is affirmed on appeal should have a certificate of correction/cancellation issued under 35 U.S.C. § 318(b). Verify on PTAB E2E and in Patent Center that the cancellation has been formalized, and check whether the "Expired – Fee Related" status was a separate maintenance-fee lapse.
• If the assertion is actually on a sibling patent, the '762 is a decoy. Identify the asserted patent from the "Also published as" family list above and treat the '762 FWD as (a) evidence of InVue's § 285 posture, and (b) a priority-date cheat sheet — InVue successfully argued the '102 Application supports the "arming upon a matching" limitations, so expect it to claim the 2005-12-23 priority date and expect Belden (US 2007/0159328) to be non-prior-art by design.
• No active proceedings = no trial milestones to track. There is no institution deadline, oral hearing, or § 316(a)(11) FWD due date pending. (The one-year statutory deadline from institution is irrelevant to a case that closed in 2017 and affirmed in 2019.)

Confidence notes / things I could not fully verify: (1) the institution-stage panel composition differs between the FWD caption and an aggregator listing — I flagged rather than resolved it; (2) I did not independently retrieve the Chief AJ's assignment order, so if the exact panel is outcome-relevant, pull Paper 9 and Paper 33 from PTAB E2E directly; (3) I found no PGR, CBM, or second IPR against the '762 in any source I checked, but I could not run the ODP API myself — the absence of additional proceedings is based on the patent page annotation, the four-proceeding CAFC consolidation, and third-party PTAB caselists.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for US 8884762 before drafting. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me verify the corporate history (possible change-of-name or security-interest recordings) and check inventor/assignment records.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 8,884,762 B2

Patent: "Programmable security system and method for protecting merchandise"
App. No. 14/254,244 (filed 2014-04-16; granted 2014-11-11) — a continuation of 13/169,968 → 12/770,321 → 11/639,102 → Prov. 60/753,908
Source of record text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8884762/en
Assignment Center search (verification): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "8884762") / legacy: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Data-integrity note up front. I could not execute a live query against the USPTO Assignment Center from this session (the direct search returned no retrievable records before I hit the tool-step limit). Everything below is grounded in (a) the full patent text, (b) Google Patents legal-events/assignee fields, and (c) court/PTAB and corporate-registry records. I did not retrieve any reel/frame numbers for this patent, and I have not invented any. Where a reel/frame would normally appear, I say so.

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Inventors

Grounding: The five-inventor set is from the Google Patents bibliographic record for US 8,884,762. The addresses for Fawcett, Marsilio and Scott come from the sibling PCT publication in the same family, WO 2007/075738 (PCT/US2006/048515, applicant INVUE SECURITY PRODUCTS, INC., 15015 Lancaster Highway, Charlotte, NC 28277), where those three are the named inventors/agents-applicants for the US.

Pattern observations — no fire-sale precursor found:

• All five are employees/insiders of the original assignee. There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of inventor-side assignment anomalies.
• The inventor roster is a carry-over team from a 2005 priority family into a 2014 continuation — normal for a product company extending a live commercial platform, not a signature of a portfolio being packaged for sale.
• Belden, Fawcett and Scott recur across the sibling patents US 7,737,843 / 7,737,844 / 7,737,845 / 7,737,846 / 7,489,907, all commonly assigned — i.e., a stable, single-employer inventor group.
• One structural note worth flagging neutrally: the family is prolific — Google Patents lists ~15 continuations/continuations-in-part off the 2005-12-23 priority (US 8,890,691; 8,896,447; 9,135,800; 9,171,441; 9,269,247; 9,476,110; 9,576,452; 9,659,472; 9,858,778; 10,013,867; 10,297,139; 11,721,198; 11,763,664; 11,017,656; 12,205,457). That is a "continuation thicket," which is often paired with assertion — but here it is paired with a shipped product (see next section), not with a licensing shell.

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Original assignee

InVue Security Products Inc. — Charlotte, North Carolina.

• State of organization: Ohio (organized 2004-03-12); Florida foreign-profit registration F04000001558, entity status ACTIVE. Florida Sunbiz records a NAME CHANGE AMENDMENT recorded 2015-04-27 with "OLD NAME WAS: ALPHA SECURITY PRODUCTS, INC." (https://search.sunbiz.org — entity F04000001558).
• Primary line of business: precision-engineered connected asset protection and access control for retail — display security/alarm modules, single-key storewide security (OneKEY), display stands (OnePOD/POD), locked-merchandise systems (LIVE Locks), and tablet/mPOS hardware (NE360). This is squarely the field of the patent.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. InVue's own corporate timeline dates the IR Key and the POD alarming display device to 2006 — i.e., the commercial embodiment of this family predates the patent and is not a paper asset — and the OneKEY ecosystem launched 2014, with OneKEY v4 in 2021 and LIVE Locks in 2022 (https://invue.com/about-us).
• Corporate history: roots to Alpha Enterprises (1972, Richard Sankey); InVue formed ~2007 after Alpha sold its S3 product line to Checkpoint Systems (a product-line asset sale, not a bankruptcy); ~260 employees; 2024 sales ≈ USD 165M.
• Current status: OPERATING, then ACQUIRED. On 2025-01-24, ASSA ABLOY AB (STO: ASSA-B) acquired InVue (https://invue.com/resource-center/news/assa-abloy-acquires-invue; ASSA ABLOY press release 24 Jan 2025, https://mb.cision.com/Main/7333/[4095445](/patent/4095445)/[3222140](/patent/3222140).pdf). No bankruptcy, no Chapter 7/11, no dissolution.
• Assignee of record today: Google Patents "Current Assignee" and "Original Assignee" both read InVue Security Products Inc. — i.e., the ownership line is continuous from issuance.

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Assignment timeline

Finding: I found no evidence of any post-issuance recorded assignment for US 8,884,762.

• The Google Patents legal-events block for this patent lists only priority/continuation events (priority to US 11/639,102 in 2006-12; filing 2014-04-16; grant 2014-11-11; internal priorities to the sibling continuations 14/529,516, 14/825,436, 14/931,276, etc.). It shows no Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, or License entries.

• The bibliographic record lists InVue Security Products Inc. as both original and current assignee.

• Consequence: the patent appears to have been held by the original operating assignee continuously from issuance to the present, and any chain-of-title records are confined to the pre-issuance/intra-entity level (inventors → Alpha Security Products, Inc.; and the Alpha → InVue change of name). I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers for those recordings and am deliberately not fabricating them. Treat the following as unverified and confirm at the Assignment Center before relying on it:

  • ~2006 (unverified) — Conveyance: Assignment — Assignor: named inventors — Assignee: Alpha Security Products, Inc. — Correspondent: not retrieved — Context: standard inventor-to-employer assignment at filing of the 2006 parent.
  • ~2007–2015 (unverified) — Conveyance: Change of Name — Assignor: Alpha Security Products, Inc. — Assignee: InVue Security Products Inc. — Correspondent: not retrieved — Context: change of name only, corroborated by Florida Sunbiz (amendment recorded 2015-04-27) and by InVue's corporate timeline (InVue formed 2007). No change in beneficial ownership.
  • 2025 (not a USPTO assignment) — Context: stock/asset acquisition of the assignee entity by ASSA ABLOY; this is an M&A event at the parent level, not a recorded patent assignment, and would not necessarily generate a recordation.

Verification links: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/search-information?query=8884762 · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Per your protocol, the absence of post-issuance assignment records is itself the finding: the original operating assignee still owns the patent. I am continuing to the signal and verdict sections only because the litigation and corporate records — separate from the assignment record — are independently documented and dispositive.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8884762
    2005 : Priority application filed by Alpha
    2006 : Parent application 11/639102 filed
         : Inventors assign to Alpha Security Products
    2007 : Alpha renamed InVue Security Products
    2014 : Continuation filed and patent issued
         : InVue launches OneKEY ecosystem
    2017 : IPR final decision claims held unpatentable
    2019 : Federal Circuit appeal terminated
    2025 : InVue acquired by ASSA ABLOY

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
There is no assignment, at any point in the retrievable record, from the operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC. Original assignee = current assignee = InVue Security Products Inc., a ~260-employee manufacturer with 2024 sales ≈ USD 165M (ASSA ABLOY release, 2025-01-24). No "IP/Holdings/Ventures" successor appears anywhere in the record. No reel/frame exists to cite because no such transfer was recorded.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
InVue does not appear on any of the enumerated NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). To the contrary, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies the asserter in the sole case naming this patent as "8 Product company" — its product-company category, not NPE (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8884762-0, case InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc., 3:17-cv-01356, D. Or.). Unified Patents likewise lists InVue's plaintiff entity type as "Operating Company" (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=96594). Post-acquisition the patent sits inside ASSA ABLOY AB, a publicly listed operating group — an inverse-NPE endpoint.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT ASSESSABLE.
The recurring prosecution agent for this patent family is Joseph A. Sebolt, SAND & SEBOLT, Aegis Tower – Suite 1100, 4940 Munson Street NW, Canton, OH 44718-3615 — the § 371 agent of record named on the sibling PCT WO 2007/075738. That is a prosecution firm, not an assignment-recording correspondent, and it appears once per filing rather than as a chain of recordations. Because no assignment-record correspondents were retrievable for this patent, I cannot run the recurrence test. I am explicitly declining to treat a single Sand & Sebolt appearance as a finding — under your own rule, a single appearance is not evidence.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
No chained LLC-to-LLC transfers in any window, let alone <24 months. The many sibling patents (8,890,691; 8,896,447; 9,135,800; 9,171,441; 9,269,247; 9,476,110; 9,576,452; 9,659,472; 9,858,778; 10,013,867; 10,297,139; 11,721,198; 11,763,664) are continuations of one another, all on the same face showing InVue as assignee — family proliferation, not assignment churn. Do not mistake the two.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The first infringement action naming the '762 patent was InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc., filed 2015-12-15 (W.D.N.C. 3:15-cv-00610, reported patent numbers 9,135,800 and 8,884,762; later transferred to D. Or. 3:17-cv-01356 on 2017-08-30). The patent issued 2014-11-11 to InVue and was asserted by the same entity that owns it, roughly 13 months later — outside the 6-month window and, more importantly, with no intervening transfer. There is no standing-recording artifact to establish.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the chain. The nearest analogue, Alpha's 2007 sale of the S3 product line to Checkpoint Systems, was an ordinary product-line divestiture by a solvent operating company (InVue corporate timeline, https://invue.com/about-us), not a court-supervised patent sale, and does not touch the '762 chain. The 2025 ASSA ABLOY acquisition was a going-concern purchase at a reported ~USD 165M revenue run-rate.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
There is no NPE funded or directed by InVue asserting on its behalf. InVue litigates in its own name, in its own industry, against a direct competitor (Mobile Tech, Inc., d/b/a Mobile Technologies Inc. / MTI). The later D. Ind. and D. Or. actions (e.g., the 1:18-cv-… Indianapolis complaint asserting US 10,083,266, and the Oregon action asserting US 9,830,787 / US 10,055,954) are likewise InVue-as-plaintiff competitor suits. No SEC 8-K or Patent Progress/EFF privateering coverage was found.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates inside a listed operating group.

Flag — do not mislabel the PTAB case. The Google Patents page renders the IPR as:
Petitioner: "Unified Patents PTAB Data" by Unified Patents
That string is a database attribution, not a party. The actual petitioner in IPR2016-00892 was Mobile Tech, Inc., a competitor, and the Patent Owner was InVue Security Products Inc. The Final Written Decision of 2017-09-28 held claims 1–27 unpatentable; the consolidated appeal (Fed. Cir. 2018-1236, with 2018-1304) was terminated 2019-03-07 (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-00892/...; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/2018-1236). This is competitor-vs-competitor validity combat — the opposite of a defensive-aggregator neutralization.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The record shows no assignment whatsoever: InVue Security Products Inc. is both the original and the current assignee of US 8,884,762, there are no recorded post-issuance transfers, and the patent was asserted by that same operating entity against a direct competitor in InVue v. Mobile Tech (W.D.N.C. 3:15-cv-00610, filed 2015-12-15; transferred to D. Or. 3:17-cv-01356). The "NPE" attributes that superficially triggered this review are artifacts: the "Unified Patents" label on Google Patents is a data-provider credit and the real IPR2016-00892 petitioner was Mobile Tech, Inc.; and the Stanford NPE Litigation Database affirmatively classifies InVue as a "Product company" asserter. InVue ships the claimed subject matter (IR Key / POD / OneKEY, per https://invue.com/about-us), has ~260 employees and ~USD 165M of 2024 revenue, and was acquired as a going concern by ASSA ABLOY on 2025-01-24 — so the chain ends at an operating group, not a shell or an aggregator.

One caveat that cuts against over-confidence: entitlement here is only as good as the assignment record, and I was unable to retrieve Assignment Center reel/frame entries in this session. Before treating this as final, run the patent number at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and confirm (i) the inventor → Alpha Security Products, Inc. assignment and (ii) the Alpha → InVue Change of Name recording. If either is missing from the record, that is a chain-of-title defect worth noting — but it would be a standing defect for the operating owner, not evidence of an NPE.

I'll research US patent 8884762 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the specific cited references and the IPR proceedings for this patent.

Let me identify the specific IPR references (Rothbaum, Denison, Ott, Sedon) and the patent's front-page citations.

1. Patent identified (literal identifiers, no auto-correction)

Note: the source page renders the "Prior art date" as 2005-12-23 and the family listing shows the later members (US 9,135,800; 9,266,924/9,269,247; 9,396,631; 9,478,110; 9,576,452; 9,659,472; 10,013,867; 10,062,266; 10,403,122; 10,600,313; 11,721,198; 12,205,457; and US 2025/0166486 A1). These are same-family continuations, not prior art against the '762 patent.

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2. The controlling prior-art finding: IPR2016-00892

The most probative prior-art analysis of US 8,884,762 is Mobile Tech, Inc. v. InVue Security Products Inc., IPR2016-00892 (PTAB). Petition filed April 14, 2016; instituted Oct. 7, 2016; Final Written Decision Sept. 28, 2017 holding that Petitioner proved by a preponderance that claims 1–27 are unpatentable. Affirmed on appeal, InVue Security Products Inc. v. Mobile Tech, Inc., Nos. 2018-1236/-1238/-1239/-1304 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 8, 2019) (nonprecedential, AFFIRMED).

Instituted grounds (verbatim structure from the FWD):

Source: Final Written Decision, Case IPR2016-00892, Paper 33 (Sept. 28, 2017), via Docket Alarm / PTAB.

Only the Belden reference was applied as a § 102 anticipation ground. Every other reference was applied in § 103 combination. This distinction matters for the framing of your question.

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3. IPR references — citation, date, description, claims

3.1 Belden — the primary § 102 reference (the "killer" art)

• Full citation: US 2007/0159328 A1, "Security system and method for protecting merchandise," published July 12, 2007 (Ex. 1002 in IPR2016-00892). This is the pre-grant publication of the application that issued as US 7,737,846 — i.e., a member of the same family as the '762 patent, and named as the related U.S. Pat. No. 7,737,846 in the '762 specification itself.
• Description: Programmable security system with a programming station, programmable key, and alarm module; the station generates a Security Disarm Code (SDC), the key is programmed with it, the key programs the alarm module, and the key disarms/re-arms the module on an SDC match.
• § 102 anticipation: claims 1, 2, 5–9, 11–27 (all found anticipated). Because Belden is the applicant's own earlier-published family member, this was effectively a § 102(b)/§ 102(e)-style self-collision — the broadest claims of the '762 patent were held to lack novelty over the family's own earlier publication.

3.2 Sedon — § 103 secondary reference

• Full citation: US 2005/0073413 A1, published April 7, 2005 (Ex. 1004).
• Description: Applied in combination with Belden for the key-timer/counter-type limitations.
• § 103 obviousness: claims 3, 4.

3.3 "Rothbaum" — § 103 primary reference in Grounds 3–5

• Full citation: Identified in the FWD only by party name ("Rothbaum"); I could not confirm the exact patent number from the sources retrieved. I am flagging this rather than guessing.
• Description (as applied): Combined with Belden for claim 10; and used as the lead reference with Denison for claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27 — meaning the Board also found the broad independent claims obvious over a Rothbaum-based combination independent of Belden.
• § 103 obviousness: claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27 (with Denison); claim 10 (with Belden).

3.4 "Denison" — § 103 secondary reference

• Full citation: Identified only by party name ("Denison"); exact patent number not confirmed in retrieved sources. Flagged as uncertain.
• § 103 obviousness: claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27 (with Rothbaum); claims 2–4, 21, 26 (with Rothbaum and Ott).

3.5 "Ott" — § 103 tertiary reference

• Full citation: Identified only by party name ("Ott"); exact patent number not confirmed. (A separate PCT search report surfaced US 2012/0141439 A1 to Ott Harald C and US 2009/0202977 A1 to Ott Harald et al., but I cannot confirm either is the IPR exhibit. Flagged as uncertain.)
• § 103 obviousness: claims 2–4, 21, 26 (with Rothbaum and Denison).

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4. Front-page "References Cited" (56) U.S. patent documents

These are the citations printed on the face of US 8,884,762; several are the applicant's own family members. None of these was the basis of the IPR outcome above, but they are "each patent citation" for the patent.

Additional references that appear in the family's citation trail (from US 5,170,431 and the WO search reports): US 2008/0220636 A1 / US 7,791,893 B2 (IBM — Arrangement for powering USB keys); US 2011/0128121 A1 (Remote access procedure for electronic locks); WO 2012/134307 A1.

On § 102 anticipation: of the front-page (56) references, none is plausibly a § 102 anticipatory reference against the issued claims in the way Belden was. They are best characterized as general state-of-the-art (§ 102(a)/(b) background) or § 103 fodder. I would not assert a specific § 102 anticipation mapping for these without the full claim charts, which I did not retrieve.

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5. Bottom line

1. The single most relevant prior art is Belden, US 2007/0159328 A1 (pub. July 12, 2007) — the family's own earlier publication. It alone was held to anticipate claims 1, 2, 5–9, 11–27 under § 102.
2. Sedon, US 2005/0073413 A1 (pub. Apr. 7, 2005) supplies the § 103 combination for claims 3, 4.
3. Rothbaum (lead) and Denison (with Ott) form alternative § 103 combinations that reached claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27 (Rothbaum + Denison) and 2–4, 21, 26 (Rothbaum + Denison + Ott) — I could not confirm their exact patent numbers and am flagging that rather than fabricating them.
4. The net result of IPR2016-00892 was that all of claims 1–27 were held unpatentable, affirmed at the Federal Circuit (Mar. 8, 2019).

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6. Caveats and confidence

• High confidence: the patent identity, continuity, the IPR number/dates, the five grounds, and the Belden and Sedon citations and dates — these come directly from the PTAB Final Written Decision text retrieved above.
• Lower confidence / explicitly unresolved: the full citations (patent numbers, dates) for Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott. The retrieved FWD snippet names them but the footnote numbers ("Ex. 1003," etc.) and their document identities were not captured. I have not guessed them.
• Not verified: claim-by-claim § 102 mappings for the front-page (56) references. I searched but did not retrieve a full citation table with examiner relevance annotations for US 8,884,762 specifically (the "X/Y" relevance tables I found belonged to unrelated PCT applications).

If you want, I can run a follow-up pass targeting the IPR2016-00892 exhibit list to pin down the exact Rothbaum/Denison/Ott patent numbers and their § 103 mappings claim-by-claim.

I'll verify the exact identity of the IPR2016-00892 § 103 references before building the obviousness analysis, since the Prior Art section flagged uncertainty about Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott.

Confirmed the reference identities. Let me verify two remaining points: the FWD's ultimate disposition (which contradicts one of the earlier sections) and Denison's full citation.

The search results reveal a material factual conflict between two of the earlier-generated sections regarding the Belden ground. Let me resolve it directly.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,884,762 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the Prior Art section. I re-verified the reference identities and — importantly — resolved a contradiction between two of the earlier-generated sections. That correction changes the shape of the obviousness answer, so I lead with it.

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0. Correction to the Prior Art section (required flag)

Two earlier sections state opposite things about the Belden ground:

The "PTAB challenges" section is correct. The "Prior Art" section is wrong on this point. The Final Written Decision (Paper 33, Sept. 28, 2017), Part II.F–G, is explicit:

"The '762 patent in its priority chain contains a 'continuation-in-part' application filed June 27, 2011 (Application Number 13/169,968 …). Petitioner asserts that the challenged claims of the '762 patent are not supported by … Application Number 11/639,102 (Ex. 1007, 'the '102 Application'), filed December 14, 2006, and which is the application published July 12, 2007 (Ex. 1002; Belden)…"

"…we determine that claims 1, 2, 5–9, and 11–27 of the '762 patent are entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the '102 Application and, therefore, that Belden is not prior art to these claims. Petitioner has not shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1, 2, 5–9, and 11–27 are unpatentable as anticipated by Belden under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)."

And the operative disposition names only two grounds:

"…(1) claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, and 27 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as having been obvious over Rothbaum and Denison; and (2) claims 2–4, 21, and 26 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as having been obvious over Rothbaum, Denison, and Ott." … "ORDERED that claims 1–27 of the '762 patent have been shown to be unpatentable."

So the Belden-based grounds (instituted Grounds 1, 2, 3) did not carry the case. Belden is not prior art to any of claims 1–27 on the Board's (affirmed) priority holding. The Prior Art section's characterization of Belden as the "killer" reference must be reversed.

Second correction (upgrade from "unresolved"): the Prior Art section flagged Rothbaum/Denison/Ott citations as unconfirmed. They are now confirmed from the FWD's own ground list and footnotes:

Governing law: pre-AIA § 103(a) (priority 2005‑12‑23, before 2013‑03‑16), applied through Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex.

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

The Board assessed the level of skill without a materially disputed construction: a POSITA in merchandise security systems — specifically retail theft-deterrent alarm modules and the electronic key/lock art — with working knowledge of wireless (IR/RF) data transfer between a handheld key and a lock, programmable non-volatile key codes, and battery-backed alarm electronics. The Board credited that implementing electronic keys in security devices was "well within the skill level of a person of ordinary skill in the art."

This matters: the § 103 question is not whether a POSITA could design the whole system from scratch, but whether the combined teachings render the claimed arrangement obvious. InVue's own declarants conceded a POSITA "would have been adept at turning design concepts into working products" (Ex. 2001 ¶ 34; Ex. 2013 ¶ 39) — a concession the Board and the Federal Circuit credited.

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2. Claim 1 and claim 25 — the combination that renders them obvious

Primary combination: Rothbaum + Denison.

Claim 1's four elements map as follows (per the FWD's analysis):

The Board's conclusion: "the combination of Rothbaum and Denison teaches all of the limitations of claims 1 and 25," with a reasoned motivation to combine and a reasonable expectation of success.

Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine Rothbaum and Denison

This is the heart of the § 103 case, and the record supplies four independent, articulated rationales:

1. The references solve the same real-world problem. Denison expressly identifies the failure modes of mechanical keys: "difficulties in managing the distribution and usage of the keys," "keys can be lost or copied easily," "stolen or copied keys may then be used by an unauthorized person to access the machines," keys "cannot be partially limited in operation," and mechanical locks "do not have the ability to record access operation attempts" (¶¶ 4–5). Rothbaum's system is a retail merchandise system with "many employees and thus the need for multiple keys, which can get lost or be stolen and then used by unauthorized individuals" (Ex. 1015 ¶ 172) — and Rothbaum itself says "[o]nly authorized personnel should have access to key 40 to prevent the circumvention of the security system" (6:20–22). Same problem, same field.

2. Denison supplies the express benefits. Electronic keys "provide a greater level of key security compared to mechanical keys, as they cannot be copied as easily"; "non-contact wireless data communication between the key and the lock prevents breaches … measuring key cuts, copying keys and picking locks"; encryption prevents code copying; IR gives "close-proximity highly directional communication"; and electronic locks give "significant reduction in the costs associated with managing the distribution of the keys" (¶ 9). A POSITA addressing Rothbaum's key-management exposure would adopt the fix Denison describes.

3. KSR rationales apply directly. (i) Known technique improving a similar device in the same way: "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious." (ii) Predictable combination of familiar elements with no change in their respective functions. (iii) Design incentive / market forces — retail key-control cost and shrinkage. (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417, quoted in the FWD.)

4. Reasonable expectation of success. Ex. 1015 ¶¶ 174–178 (Allison), credited by the Board; electronic keys were commonplace (automobiles, hotel rooms) at the relevant time.

Rebuttals the Board considered and rejected

• "Vending machines (no alarms) are not analogous to retail merchandise systems (with alarms)." Rejected. At oral argument InVue conceded Rothbaum is analogous art, and clarified it was not arguing Denison was non-analogous — only that the rationale to combine was insufficient (Tr. 94–97). Denison's own field statement ("reduce theft and fraud," ¶ 9) places it in the access-control/anti-theft field.
• No "specific design" proposed for the combined system. Rejected under MCM Portfolio LLC v. Hewlett-Packard, 812 F.3d 1284, 1294 (Fed. Cir. 2015) and In re Keller: "the test is what the combined teachings … would have suggested," not bodily incorporation.
• Added complexity. Rejected — Fawcett's testimony (Ex. 2013 ¶ 61) did not rebut Allison's expectation-of-success testimony.
• Denison "dissuades" a single/unique code (InVue's argument against the parallel '800 claim, and echoed for the '762). This is InVue's best § 103 argument, but it failed: Denison ¶ 58 affirmatively describes many keys sharing one key code across many locks, which is the "one code issued by one station, shared across a fleet" architecture of claim 1.

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3. Dependent claims — Rothbaum + Denison (claims 5–20, 22–25, 27)

The claim 19–20 "time-out" limitations — the ones the '762 specification presents as a theft deterrent — are squarely met by Denison's programmable operation limits, requiring no modification beyond ordinary configuration.

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4. Claims 2–4, 21, 26 — adding Ott (US 6,380,855 B1)

• Claims 2–4 (adhesive mounting of the security device to a support): Rothbaum discloses mounting strip 12 near an AC outlet (5:21–25) and already uses "double-backed tape" for other items (5:62–67); Ott expressly fixes holding part 18 to lid 16 "by means of the adhesive pad 28 … a double-sided adhesive tape" (11:43–45). Motivation: adhesives for attaching security-device components were well known and produced a predictable result. (The Board also cited KSR on arranging old elements.)
• Claims 21, 26 (switch actuated on removal from a support): Ott's switching plunger 118 actuating microswitch 126 when holding part 18 is removed (11:45–12:02). Motivation: a POSITA "would have been motivated to include the 'switching plunger' … on the bottom of Rothbaum's 'housing'" so the alarm "would also activate if the entire housing were removed from its supporting structure, thus providing an extra layer of security."
• Analogous art: Ott is "an apparatus for safeguarding a merchandise item against theft" (1:5–6) — same field of endeavor as the '762.

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5. The Belden combinations (instituted Grounds 1–3) — why they do not carry the case

Their ongoing significance is tactical, not substantive for the '762: Grounds 2–3 are exactly what a challenger would need if it could defeat the priority holding — i.e., show the claims are not supported by the '102 application's § 112 written description and therefore fall back to the June 27, 2011 CIP date. Belden (published July 12, 2007) would then be § 102(b) art (critical date June 27, 2010). The Board foreclosed that route for this claim set by finding the '102 application does support "arming the security device upon a matching" and the key's re-arm/re-check flow (FWD II.F–G, citing '102 Fig. 11A).

Forward-looking corollary (consistent with the Strategic summary): later family members whose claims recite subject matter the 2006 application cannot support — inductive power transfer, charging-station deactivation, cabinet-lock power transfer (US 11,721,198; 12,205,457; etc.) — do not get the '102 date as a matter of course, so Belden and much more becomes available against them. That is where the priority holding's protective value runs out.

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6. Secondary considerations

The Board recorded: "Patent Owner does not present any objective evidence of nonobviousness as to any of the challenged claims." No nexus evidence (long-felt need, industry praise, copying, licensing) tied the claimed subject matter to InVue's commercial OneKEY/IR-Key products was presented. InVue's case rested entirely on (a) sufficiency of the motivation to combine and (b) analogous-art framing — both rejected. Commercially, InVue did ship the claimed subject matter (IR Key/POD ≈ 2006; OneKEY 2014), but no nexus showing was made, so the commercial evidence carried no weight in the § 103 calculus.

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7. Bottom line

1. Yes — claims 1–27 of US 8,884,762 are obvious under pre-AIA § 103(a). The dispositive combination is Rothbaum (US 5,543,782) + Denison (US 2004/0201449 A1) for claims 1, 5–20, 22–25, 27, and Rothbaum + Denison + Ott (US 6,380,855 B1) for claims 2–4, 21, 26.
2. Motivation to combine is explicit and record-supported: Denison names the very problems (key loss/copying/theft, key distribution cost, inability to limit or audit key use) that Rothbaum's retail alarm system shares; Rothbaum itself warns that only authorized personnel should hold the key; Denison touts electronic keys' superior security, IR close-proximity communication, and cost reduction. Reasonable expectation of success was established (Ex. 1015 ¶¶ 174–178) and effectively conceded by InVue's own declarants.
3. The Belden-based § 103 grounds are unavailable against this claim set — Belden was held not prior art on a priority/§ 112 holding that the Federal Circuit affirmed (Nos. 2018-1236 et al., Mar. 8, 2019, Rule 36, nonprecedential). The earlier Prior Art section's contrary statement is an error and should be disregarded.
4. Practical consequence: there is no surviving claim to argue obviousness about for the '762 — all 27 claims were held unpatentable and the affirmance is final. The analytical value of the above is (i) the priority-date boundary it establishes for the family, and (ii) the roadmap for the sibling continuations that claim post-2006 subject matter.

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Confidence and caveats

• High confidence: the two operative § 103 grounds, the reference identities (Rothbaum = 5,543,782; Denison = 2004/0201449 A1; Ott = 6,380,855 B1; Belden = 2007/0159328 A1; Sedon = 2005/0073413 A1), the priority holding, and the motivation-to-combine rationales — all taken from the FWD text retrieved this session and from the parallel '247 IPR record.
• Flagged contradiction: Prior Art § 2/§ 3.1 vs. PTAB challenges — resolved in favor of the latter (quoted FWD text).
• Lower confidence: verbatim text of the dependent claims. I have exact language for claims 1, 5, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24 (via the FWD) and for the corresponding '800/'247 sibling claims (15, 20, 24, 26, 27, 30); the remaining dependent-claim descriptions are paraphrases from the FWD's grouped treatment, not verbatim quotes. Claim 25's wording remains a reconstruction (see prior section).
• Not independently verified this session: whether a § 318(b) cancellation certificate has been issued, and the current maintenance-fee status — both remain open items from the prior sections.