US 9167286

I'll search for this specific patent number as requested.

Let me search more specifically.

Let me dig into the CAFC dockets and the IPR patents at issue, plus find the claim text.

Search Scope and Confidence Note

I ran searches against Google Patents/Patents-view, FreePatentsOnline, PTAB/PTACTS, CAFC opinions/orders, the CAFC oral-argument calendar, Justia, and CourtListener for the literal identifier 9167286 (US 9,167,286 B2). Two caveats up front:

• The authoritative full text you supplied is truncated in the DESCRIPTION section — the claim set is not included. My claim descriptions below are therefore reconstructed from the patent's own "Summary of the Invention" and "Detailed Description," which in this document closely track the claims. I flag explicitly where I cannot confirm literal claim language.
• The only 2026 CAFC docket I could locate involving this patent's owner (PPC Broadband) does not involve '286 at all — see the section below. I found no CAFC 2026 docket naming 9,167,286.

Bibliographic Data (US 9,167,286 B2)

Litigation flags on the Google Patents record (unverified by me beyond the listing): D. Del. case Nos. 1:20-cv-01148 and 1:21-cv-00305; plus a "first worldwide family litigation filed" Darts-IP family link. I could not confirm from the sources retrieved whether '286 itself was a patent-in-suit in those Delaware cases — treat that as open.

Abstract (verbatim, as supplied)

"A cable television (CATV) entry adapter interfaces to a CATV network and serves as a hub in an in-home network for passively communicating multimedia content or information from the CATV network and between subscriber devices connected to the ports of the CATV entry adapter, using CATV signals in a CATV frequency band and network signals in a different in-home network band."

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The Summary of the Invention recites three independent aspects, which correspond to the three independent claims (apparatus, system, and method). The text I have does not let me state claim numbers or exact wording with certainty; the substance is as follows:

1. The CATV entry adapter (apparatus claim). A passive, multi-port entry device that sits between the cable drop and the in-home coax. It has:

• a CATV entry port to the operator's network;
• multiple network ports, each for a MoCA-type network interface that serves a subscriber device;
• a signal splitter with an input terminal and two (or more) output terminals, which splits a signal at its input into reduced-power copies at the outputs, and — critically — also passes signals arriving at any one output terminal to the input and to the other output terminal(s) (i.e., port-to-port isolation is imperfect, so it also acts as the in-home network hub); and
• an in-home network frequency band rejection device connected between the entry port and the splitter input, which substantially blocks in-home network signals from reaching the entry port and the CATV network.

The frequency-rejection device is a subsidiary point of novelty: it may be a frequency rejection filter (e.g., element 70) or one or more diplexers (elements 92/94), and it is made of only passive components — it functions without any power source other than the signals themselves.

2. The in-home network (system claim). A network for distributing multimedia content to subscriber devices, where the content comes both from CATV signals on the operator network and from subscriber devices on the in-home network. It comprises:

• the CATV entry adapter with a CATV entry port and multiple network ports;
• multiple in-home network interfaces, each on a different port; and
• a server/client architecture: at least one interface is a server interface that sends/receives CATV signals, delivers that content to its own subscriber device, and relays that content as in-home network signals through the entry adapter to other interfaces; each interface also sends content obtained from its own subscriber device through the entry adapter to another interface. The network signals occupy a frequency band different from the CATV band.

A subsidiary aspect here: the server interface stores information obtained from downstream CATV signals and later supplies it in network signals to a client interface. The stated advantage is that the downstream CATV signal is split only a few times (not once per outlet), so the server interface receives a high-strength downstream signal and re-serves the content over MoCA-band network signals at full strength.

3. The method claim. A method of conducting CATV downstream/upstream information between the CATV network and subscriber premises while conducting in-home network information between subscriber devices, comprising: connecting the entry adapter to the CATV network; connecting network interfaces to each subscriber device to form the in-home network; connecting the entry adapter as a hub in that network to pass network signals between interfaces; confining network signals to a band different from the CATV band; connecting the adapter to at least one interface to pass CATV signals; and preventing the network signals from passing through the adapter onto the CATV network.

A further subsidiary aspect claimed/described: an eMTA port for an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (modem + VoIP phone set), where downstream CATV signals are split into reduced-power copies and one copy is supplied to the eMTA device — preserving "lifeline" telephone service.

Primarily-described embodiments: FIGS. 3/4 (rejection filter + 4-way splitter, with/without eMTA port); FIGS. 5/6 (two diplexers + 2-way or 3-way splitter, with/without eMTA port); FIGS. 7/8 (single diplexer feeding only the "principal" server port with essentially no splitting of the downstream signal to the server interface, plus optional 2-way splitter and eMTA port).

CAFC 2026 Docket Check — Important Negative Result

The only PPC Broadband Federal Circuit matter I found in the 2026 docket is:

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779, on appeal from PTAB Nos. IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, -00721. Argued March 2, 2026 (Panel B); Rule 36 judgment of affirmance entered March 4, 2026 (per curiam: Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham).
  • https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf
  • https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
  • https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/OralArguments/PublicCalendar-March2026.pdf

The patents at issue in those IPRs are U.S. Patent Nos. 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 — these are PPC coaxial cable connector patents, not the CATV entry-adapter family of '286. Source: PTAB/PTACTS filings (e.g., https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549312](/patent/1549312)/download-documents?artifactId=wzFfGIA3Ixn5uJpeJLiqK4_A5VRUn4UE4UyhT-hI3Ehp2FgjmoRnkM4). I also found the earlier PPC v. Corning Optical Communications RF appeal (2017-1347, Rule 36 affirmance Mar. 13, 2018), which concerns connector patents too.

Conclusion: I found no 2026 CAFC docket, briefing, or decision for US 9,167,286. If you have a docket number, I can target it directly.

Explicit Uncertainty List

1. Claim text not verified. The supplied full text stops mid-Description; the numbered claims were not retrieved. My independent-claim overview is derived from the Summary of the Invention and should be confirmed against the granted claims (e.g., via USPTO PatentCenter for App. 13/688,420) before being relied on.
2. Independent claim count/numbers unknown. I assert three independent aspects (adapter, in-home network, method) based on the Summary; the actual number of independent claims is unconfirmed.
3. Delaware litigation linkage unconfirmed for '286 specifically.
4. Assignee history: the record shows John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR ADVISERS LIMITED → PPC Broadband, Inc. (name changes recorded July 30, 2014). "Ppc Broadband, Inc. - A Belden Brand" appearing in a secondary wiki source is not an authoritative USPTO record and I do not adopt it.
5. Priority/expiration figures are Google Patents assumptions (priority 2009-09-21; adjusted expiration 2030-10-09), not a legal conclusion.

If you can give me the exact claim set or a specific docket number, I'll produce a claim-by-claim element chart and docket-level procedural history.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9167286, starting with the litigation links already embedded in the patent record and then expanding via litigation databases.

The patent record itself lists two Delaware litigation entries. Let me investigate those case numbers and related assertions of this specific patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,167,286

Summary

U.S. Patent No. 9,167,286 ("Passive multi-port entry adapter and method for preserving downstream CATV signal strength within in-home network") issued October 20, 2015 to PPC Broadband, Inc. (original assignee John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., now a Belden company). The patent is a continuation of Ser. No. 12/563,719 (filed Sept. 21, 2009), which gives the family a 2009 priority date and a nominal expiration (with adjustment) of October 9, 2030.

The patent record itself flags that the family "has litigation," pointing to two U.S. cases in the District of Delaware. Based on the available sources, the following is what is confirmed versus inferred.

Confirmed litigation

1. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation and Times Fiber Communications, Inc.

Critical confirmation: The Rule 3 Report to the Commissioner of Patents filed in this case (docket entry #3) expressly lists the asserted patents as including U.S. Patent No. 9,167,286, alongside U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,510,782; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; and 9,860,591. This is the strongest direct link between litigation and this specific patent.

• Docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2020cv01148/73087
• Docket Alarm: http://ocr.docketalarm.com/cases/Delaware_District_Court/1--20-cv-01148/PPC_Broadband_Inc._v._Amphenol_Corporation_et_al/

2. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. CommScope, Inc.

This case (referenced as "CommScope, Inc., C.A. No. 21-305-LPS") is the second Delaware case flagged in the patent record, and it is the case number embedded in the patent's Google Patents litigation links.

• Case page: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/ded/1:21-cv-00305/ppc-broadband-inc-v-commscope-inc

Inferred / related (not confirmed for '286 specifically)

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation et al., C.A. No. 21-654-LPS (D. Del.) — cited in a separate Times Fiber complaint as another PPC Delaware patent filing. This appears to be a follow-on to the 2020 Amphenol action, but I have not confirmed that U.S. 9,167,286 was among the patents asserted in it.
• Belden/PPC–CommScope reverse action: CommScope, Inc. of North Carolina v. Belden Inc. and PPC Broadband, Inc., C.A. No. 24-427-RGA (D. Del.) asserts U.S. 9,266,697 — a different patent, not '286.
• Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., C.A. No. 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.) — asserts U.S. Pat. Nos. 10,941,016; 10,988,342; 11,001,471; 10,906,771; and 10,913,632 (cable-reel patents). These are not U.S. 9,167,286 and should not be confused with it.

Caveats on PTAB / agency proceedings

I cannot confirm from the sources retrieved here any inter partes review or other PTAB proceeding whose subject patent is specifically U.S. 9,167,286. I did observe related PTAB activity in the same corporate dispute:

• IPR2022-00946, captioned PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (an exhibit filed therein reproduces the TFC v. PPC 1:21-cv-01823 complaint — again, the cable-reel patents).
• IPR2023-01363, Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., Patent No. 9,008,483 B2 — a different PPC patent.

Because these are tied to different patents, I will not represent them as '286 litigation.

Bottom line

• Two U.S. district-court cases are directly linked to U.S. 9,167,286's litigation family in the patent record:
  1. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. & Times Fiber Communications, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-01148-LPS (D. Del.), filed Aug. 28, 2020, terminated Dec. 16, 2020 — the complaint's Rule 3 report expressly names U.S. 9,167,286.
  2. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. CommScope, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-00305-LPS (D. Del.), filed Feb. 26, 2021, shown closed.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. is the plaintiff/patent owner (patent enforcer) in both; the patent is asserted (not defensive) in this family.
• I was unable to retrieve the exact final disposition orders (dismissal, settlement, or judgment) for either case, and I cannot confirm any additional case asserting '286 with high confidence. If you need the precise outcomes, PACER dockets for D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148-LPS and 1:21-cv-00305-LPS are the authoritative source.

If you want, I can drill into the PACER/CourtListener dockets for the two confirmed case numbers to pin down the specific termination orders and damages/settlement outcomes.

I'll start from the canonical structured list (which reports zero AIA proceedings) and then verify with targeted searches before concluding.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be thorough before concluding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — U.S. Patent No. 9,167,286

Bottom line up front: there are zero AIA trial proceedings on this patent. The canonical source (the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block, drawn from the USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no AIA trial proceedings for U.S. 9,167,286 as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web checks corroborate that result. Per the operating rules, I am reporting the structured datum as authoritative; where I use web search below, it is to (a) test that negative and (b) situate it in the surrounding PPC Broadband PTAB landscape. I am not inventing proceeding numbers to fill the template — there is nothing to enumerate.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,167,286: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs; no institution decisions, no final written decisions, no settlements, no appeals, and therefore no claim cancellations and no claim-level rulings of any kind. As a defensive matter, this is not a "hardened" patent in the sense of having survived PTAB scrutiny, nor is it a "toothless" one in the sense of claims already canceled — it is completely untested at the Board, and every claim remains live and available to the patent owner.

Caveat on completeness. The ODP ingest is the authoritative list, but a "no proceedings" result can also arise from an ingest lag on very recent filings. Nothing in my searches surfaced any '286 petition, and the surrounding PPC docket (below) is well-populated with identifiable proceedings on other patents, which increases my confidence the negative is real rather than an indexing gap. No PTAB E2E docket was retrieved for '286: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/

Context: adjacent PPC Broadband PTAB proceedings — none of which involve '286

These are the proceedings that do exist in the same corporate dispute. I list them only as context and expressly disclaim that any of them involves U.S. 9,167,286 — they cover PPC's coaxial-connector and cable-reel patents, not the CATV entry-adapter family.

IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, -00721 — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (four proceedings, consolidated on appeal).
• Filed: 2022-03-18.
• Patents: U.S. 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; 9,225,083 — coaxial cable connector patents.
• Status: Final Written Decision; claims held unpatentable; PPC appealed.
• Appeal: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, -1777, -1778, -1779 (Fed. Cir.), argued 2026-03-02 (Panel B); Rule 36 summary affirmance entered 2026-03-04 (per curiam: Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham). https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf
• Defensive value for '286: None. Different patents, different claims, different art. No estoppel, no issue preclusion, no claim-cancellation spillover.

IPR2022-00946, -00947, -01087, -01088 — PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (PPC as petitioner — PPC asserting its own prior art, including its own published brochures, against TFC's cable-reel patents).
• Filed: 2022-05-18 through 2022-06-24.
• Patents: U.S. 10,988,342; 11,001,471; 10,941,016; 10,906,771 — cable-reel patents. Related IPR2022-00830 and -00831 were institution-denied after the patent owner canceled all challenged claims.
• Status: Final Written Decisions.
• Defensive value for '286: None directly — but it demonstrates PPC's aggressive offensive use of the PTAB and its willingness to litigate to FWD.

IPR2022-01523 — PerfectVision Manufacturing v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review.
• Filed: 2022-09-14.
• Status: Institution denied.
• Patent: not confirmed to be '286 by any source I retrieved; in my earlier litigation research, PVM/PPC disputes have centered on F-type connector technology. I cannot state which patent was at issue, and I will not assume it is '286.
• Defensive value for '286: Unknown; flagged for follow-up rather than relied on.

IPR2023-01363 — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review.
• Filed: 2023-09-13. Patent: U.S. 9,008,483 B2 — a fiber-enclosure patent. Status: Final Written Decision.
• Defensive value for '286: None.

Historical baseline (for pattern purposes)

• Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — IPR2013-00340, -00342, -00346, -00347, -00440, and related (connector patents). Notably IPR2014-00440 was terminated on PPC's motion because Corning failed to name all real parties-in-interest; that decision was recently designated precedential, restoring strict § 312(a)(2) RPI enforcement.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 734 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (consolidated appeals 15-1361/-1366/-1368/-1369 and 15-1364) — vacated and remanded on BRI/Phillips and secondary-considerations grounds; on remand the Board reversed its obviousness finding (IPR2013-00342, PTAB 2016-10-12). PPC is a sophisticated, successful PTAB defendant.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. Because no petition has ever been filed against U.S. 9,167,286, there are no canceled claims, no surviving-but-narrowed claims, and no claims adjudicated patentable. The three independent aspects described in the patent (the passive entry adapter; the in-home network with server/client interfaces; and the method of hub-connecting a CATV entry adapter while confining network signals off the CATV network), together with all dependents — including the diplexer-based rejection variants (FIGS. 5–8) and the eMTA/lifeline-telephony aspect — stand exactly as issued on 2015-10-20. Nothing is dead; nothing is validated.

Estoppel landscape is unusually clean for a defendant. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtained an institution decision and then lost on the merits. No IPR was ever instituted on '286, so no estoppel exists against anyone. A defendant today faces no § 315(e)(2) bar, no prior-petitioner privy bar, and no adverse FWD to distinguish. The full universe of § 102/§ 103 prior art remains on the table — including the dense MoCA/entry-adapter art (the earlier PPC family around U.S. 8,286,209 and U.S. 8,510,782; the PPC "MOCA entry device" line, e.g. U.S. 10,582,160 and US 2021/0352246; and third-party diplexer/splitter entry-device references) — subject only to the ordinary § 325(d)/§ 315(b) constraints, not to any estoppel. The practical timing gate is § 315(b): one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement of '286.

Pattern signals. PPC Broadband is simultaneously (i) a frequent IPR petitioner against competitors' cable-reel patents and (ii) a frequent IPR respondent, having defended connector patents through the Board and the Federal Circuit — and it has won on remand at least once. The surrounding litigation record is relevant: '286 was asserted by PPC against Amphenol/Times Fiber (D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148, terminated 2020-12-16) and against CommScope (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00305), and — as far as I can confirm — neither Amphenol nor CommScope ever petitioned for IPR of '286, even though Amphenol did file four IPRs against other PPC patents. That is a meaningful negative signal about the perceived return on challenging '286 at the Board, though it is also consistent with short-lived district-court cases and settlement. I found no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) challenge in the chain.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant being asserted on '286: the correct read of the Board docket is "clean slate." There is no FWD to cite and no claim to point to as canceled. Do not represent the Amphenol/Coring/Times Fiber PTAB rulings as touching '286 — the Federal Circuit's 2026-03-04 Rule 36 affirmance in Nos. 2024-1776 et al. concerns connector patents and is not citable as a '286 invalidity event.
• Preserve your § 315(b) window. If you have been served with a '286 complaint, the one-year clock is running; the absence of any prior petition means you are not the second mover and cannot rely on someone else's instituted IPR to ride.
• Anchor your art search in the pre-2009-09-21 priority window. Because the '286 is a continuation of App. 12/563,719 (filed 2009-09-21), the critical date is that priority date, and the most probative art is likely in the MoCA entry-device space circa 2005–2009 (diplexer-plus-splitter entry adapters, MoCA-band rejection, and the server/client content-redistribution concept) — plus the patent owner's own earlier U.S. 8,286,209 / U.S. 8,510,782 disclosures, which are potential § 102(a)/(e) art and are the same-inventor work most likely to bear on the "avoid splitting to the server port" concept of FIGS. 7–8.
• Verify the negative directly before relying on it. Pull the PatentCenter/PTAB E2E "Proceedings" tab for App. 13/688,420 and run the PTAB E2E search at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ on the patent number and on each family member (9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591; 10,154,302, etc.). Sibling-patent IPRs would not appear as '286 proceedings but could yield claim-construction rulings on near-identical language — that is the highest-value follow-up search I would run next.
• Two open items I could not resolve and will not guess at: (1) the patent at issue in IPR2022-01523 (PerfectVision v. PPC, institution denied); and (2) whether any of the 2022–2023 IPR2023-xxxx / IPR2024-xxxx filings I did not retrieve name '286. Both are worth a direct E2E lookup.

Explicit uncertainty statement: I did not obtain a live PTAB E2E docket for '286 (my search budget was exhausted before a final targeted query returned). My "zero proceedings" conclusion rests on (a) the authoritative ODP structured block in this prompt and (b) corroborating web searches of the PPC PTAB docket, which consistently surfaced only connector- and cable-reel-patent proceedings. If a very recent '286 petition exists, it would be the one thing this report could miss — verify at PTAB E2E and PTACTS before filing anything that depends on the absence of prior art proceedings.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 9,167,286. Let me pull the recorded assignment data and corporate history in parallel.

Let me pull the specific USPTO assignment records (reel/frame) and corporate-chain details.

Assignment Chain Analysis — US 9,167,286 B2

Source of record: USPTO Assignment Center / Assignments on the Web, cross-checked against Google Patents legal events for US 9,167,286 and the plain-site USPTO assignment mirror. I was able to confirm one reel/frame literally (48382/907); for the other two recorded events the reel/frame did not surface in the retrieved sources and is flagged as not retrieved. Verify all three at the Assignment Center before relying on them.

Search landing page for verification:
https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search/result?query=9167286
Secondary mirror that exposed reel 48382/907: https://www.plainsite.org/patents/assignment.html?id=[9790842](/patent/9790842)

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No "inventor flight" pattern is present. Both inventors executed an at-filing assignment of their entire interest to the employer (Google Patents legal event, recorded 2012-12-03, assignors "EGAN, JOHN M, JR" and "WELLS, CHAD T"). There is no recorded evidence either inventor left the assignee within 12 months of filing, and neither appears as an assignor anywhere else in this chain. The Colorado residences are notable only because the assignee is a New York–based operating company; nothing in the record ties that to a fire-sale or portfolio-divestiture pattern.

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: PPC Broadband, Inc. (the patent as printed lists the assignee as PPC Broadband, Inc. of East Syracuse, NY, per Justia/Google Patents). The entity named at the time of the inventors' assignment (2012) was John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., which is the same corporate line under two subsequent recorded name changes.

• Primary line of business: Design and manufacture of coaxial connectors, CATV entry adapters / drop amplifiers, splitters, MoCA-compatible devices, filters and traps for the cable/broadband and telecom industry. PPC markets itself as holding more coaxial-connector patents than any competitor.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — the patent describes and claims passive multi-port CATV entry adapters (FIGS. 3–8 embodiments) that are exactly the class of hardware PPC manufactures and sells (the "PPC" / "PPC a Belden brand" product line).
• Current status: Operating. Wholly owned subsidiary of Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC) — confirmed by PPC's own PTAB Mandatory Notice ("PPC Broadband, Inc. is wholly owned by Belden, Inc.") and by Belden's 8-K/10-K. Belden acquired PPC from the Mezzalingua family for $515.7 million, closing December 10, 2012; the historical JMA corporate materials describe the retained wireless division being renamed JMA Wireless. It is not dissolved, in bankruptcy, or a shell.

Assignment timeline

All three recorded events are change-of-name or inventor-assignment events, not asset sales. There is no recorded transfer of this patent to any third party, licensing entity, or asserter.

• 2012-11-29 (executed, approx.) / recorded 2012-12-03 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (inventor → employer)
  • Assignor: Chad T. Wells; John M. Egan, Jr.
  • Assignee: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (East Syracuse, NY)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in the available sources.
  • Context: Standard at-filing employment assignment; executed days before the Belden acquisition closed.

• 2012-09-11 (executed) / recorded 2014-07-30 — Reel 48382/907

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
  • Assignee: Mr Advisers Limited
  • Correspondent: MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP, 1951 Kidwell Drive, Suite 310, Tysons Corner, VA 22182. This is the sole name-brand correspondent captured anywhere in the chain; it appears once on this record (see NPE signal #3 — single appearance, not a recurrence finding).
  • Context: Internal pre-closing corporate reorganization/name change, not a transfer. Note the execution date (Sept. 11, 2012) precedes the Belden closing (Dec. 10, 2012); the recording (July 30, 2014) is a post-closing title-cleanup ~19 months later. The name "Mr Advisers Limited" reads shell-like but the document type is expressly Change of Name, i.e., the same legal entity renamed.

• Recorded 2014-07-30 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: MR Advisers Limited
  • Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (likely MH2 Technology Law Group, but not confirmed — do not attribute without the reel).
  • Context: Second step of the same internal name-change sequence; recorded the same day as the first, completing the chain of title to the operating entity Belden acquired.

Correction/cross-check note vs. the earlier "Patent summary" section: That section listed the assignee history as "John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR ADVISERS LIMITED → PPC Broadband, Inc. (name changes recorded July 30, 2014)." The investigating record confirms that chain and, as a refinement, supplies an execution date of 2012-09-11 and reel 48382/907 for the first leg. No contradiction — this is additional detail. The earlier caveat that "Ppc Broadband, Inc. – A Belden Brand" (wiki.golden.com) is not an authoritative USPTO record stands; the Belden subsidiary relationship is independently confirmed by PTAB filings and Belden SEC filings.

Entity-type ambiguity I could not resolve: Belden's 8-K calls the acquired entity "PPC Broadband, Inc., a Delaware corporation," while a New York corporate-registry aggregator shows a NY entity whose name history runs PPC-One Hundred Clinton Square, Inc. → Mr Advisers Limited → John Mezzalingua Associates → PPC Broadband, Inc. The recorded assignment documents name the same parties, but I could not confirm whether the recorded chain involves a NY→DE conversion or two non-identical entities. This is a naming/registration question only; it does not change the operating-company conclusion.

Absent records (itself a finding): No security agreement, license, merger, release, or correction conveyance is recorded against this patent. No transfer to a licensing-only assignee exists.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9167286
    2009 : Priority application filed by John Mezzalingua
    2012 : Continuation filed 29 Nov
         : Inventors assign to John Mezzalingua
         : Pre-sale name change to Mr Advisers Limited
         : Belden acquires PPC Broadband entity
    2014 : Name change to PPC Broadband Inc recorded
    2015 : US 9167286 B2 issued 20 Oct
    2020 : PPC sues Amphenol and Times Fiber
    2021 : PPC sues CommScope

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The chain never leaves the operating company. Both post-acquisition links are recorded as Change of Name (reel 48382/907, executed 2012-09-11) — the same legal person renamed twice — not a transfer to a new LLC. The assignee address of record (PPC, East Syracuse, NY; Belden, St. Louis, MO) is an operating headquarters, not a registered-agent service. No "IP / Holdings / Ventures" suffix entity appears.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. The current assignee (PPC Broadband, Inc., wholly owned by Belden Inc.) matches none of the public NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). It is a manufacturer asserting patents against direct competitors (Corning Gilbert, Amphenol, Times Fiber, CommScope, PerfectVision, PACE) — the profile of an operating-company enforcer, not an NPE.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (single appearance only). The only correspondent captured is MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP (Tysons Corner, VA) on reel 48382/907. It appears once in this chain, and MH2 is a general-purpose patent prosecution firm, not an NPE-only filer. Per the task's own rule, a single appearance is not a finding; I do not elevate it. The corresponding attorney/firm for the 2012-12-03 inventor assignment and the second 2014-07-30 name change was not retrieved.

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs in <24 months — NOT PRESENT (as an NPE pattern). Two recorded events land on the same recording date (2014-07-30), but they are internal name changes of one entity, not chained shell-to-shell transfers, and there are no shared-principal/shell-LLC tells. Total recorded events across the patent's life = three, spanning ~20 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The last recorded assignment (2014-07-30) predates the first suit naming '286 (D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148, filed 2020-08-28) by roughly six years. No last-minute assignment to time venue or manufacture standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 of the assignee appears in the record; the corporate history is a solvent $515.7M cash acquisition by Belden (closed 2012-12-10), not a distressed sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no assignment to an NPE asserting on the operating company's behalf. PPC/Belden litigates in its own name as the patent owner (asserting entity = owner), which is the opposite of the privateering signature.

8. Defensive aggregator / anti-NPE — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains in operating-company hands and is actively asserted.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The recorded chain is entirely internal to a single manufacturing enterprise: the inventors assigned to John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (recorded 2012-12-03), which was renamed Mr Advisers Limited (reel 48382/907, executed 2012-09-11) and then renamed PPC Broadband, Inc. (recorded 2014-07-30) — all Change of Name documents, no asset sale to any third party. The patent is owned by an operating manufacturer (PPC Broadband, a wholly owned Belden Inc. subsidiary that ships the claimed passive entry-adapter hardware) and is asserted by the owner against actual competitors (Amphenol/Times Fiber, 1:20-cv-01148; CommScope, 1:21-cv-00305), years after the last recorded assignment. None of the eight NPE signals is present; the two strongest anti-NPE facts are the change-of-name-only conveyances at reel 48382/907 and the wholly owned, product-shipping, publicly traded parent (Belden, NYSE: BDC).

Link for verification: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search/result?query=[9167286](/patent/9167286) (and the Assignment Center at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ ). To close the two open items — the reel/frame for the 2012-12-03 inventor assignment and for the 2014-07-30 MR Advisers → PPC Broadband name change — query the patent number there and pull the corresponding reel/frame images.

I'll search for the patent and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the specific cited references list for US 9,167,286 itself.

Let me try to retrieve the citation table from the patent's own record.

Prior Art Analysis — US 9,167,286 B2

Retrieval note (read first)

I ran targeted searches against Google Patents, Justia Patents, FreePatentsOnline, PatBase/Espacenet surfaces, and PTAB filings for the literal identifier 9167286 / US 9,167,286 B2. Two limitations must be stated before the substance:

1. I could not retrieve the "Patent Citations" (§56) table from the US 9,167,286 record itself. Google Patents, Justia and FreePatentsOnline serve the forward citation lists ("Cited By") and the family citation lists readily, but the backward-citation table for '286 did not surface as a discrete retrievable block in this session. The lists below are therefore taken from records for US 9,860,591 and US 10,419,813 — same-family, same-specification continuations whose examiner citations were carried over from the 12/563,719 → 13/688,420 → 13/863,693 chain. Treat the enumeration as "high-confidence family citation set," not as a verified verbatim reproduction of the '286 §56 list.
2. Consistent with the previously generated Patent summary, the supplied full text is truncated before the claims. I therefore map references to claim families (adapter / in-home network / method) rather than asserting specific claim numbers. This is flagged, not silently assumed.

No contradiction with the prior sections was found.

1. The patent at issue (confirmation)

Critical §102 point: the effective critical date is September 21, 2009. Under pre-AIA §102(b) (the statute applicable to a 2009-priority application), any printed publication dated more than one year before that date — i.e., before September 21, 2008 — is §102(b) art. References published between Sept. 21, 2008 and Sept. 21, 2009 are §102(a) art only (and are disqualified if by another who derived from the inventors). This drives the relevance ranking below.

2. The cited prior art — U.S. patents

Retrieved from the family "Referenced Cited" tables (Justia records for US 10,419,813 and US 9,860,591):

(The family tables continue past 6,012,271 with further items that the retrieved excerpts truncated; I will not invent those entries.)

Which of these matter, and for what

[§102(b) art — published before 2008-09-21]

[§102(a)-only art — published in the 2008-09-21 → 2009-09-21 window] — worth noting that most of the "modern" MoCA-adjacent U.S. patent documents in this citation set are application publications, not patents, and several land in this window (see §3). These are §102(a)/102(e) art at best and are more naturally §103 fodder.

3. The cited prior art — U.S. patent application publications

Retrieved from the family tables (Justia records for US 11,076,129 and US 10,341,719):

Which of these matter, and for what

4. The cited prior art — foreign references

From the family tables:

Most relevant foreign art: WO 0024124 A1 (2000-04) and its EP family member EP 1125385 A1, "In-home network using an existing coaxial cable installation" — this is the single foreign reference most directly aimed at the core premise of '286 (an in-home network built on the pre-existing CATV coax plant). It is §102(b) art. WO 0233969 A1 (2002-04) is noted in PPC's own later family materials as background and is likewise §102(b).

5. Non-patent literature and "other references" cited

From the family record:

• Office Action Summary dated 2012-03-06, U.S. Appl. No. 12/563,719 (the '286 parent), pp. 1–13.
• Office Action Summary dated 2012-01-23, U.S. Appl. No. 12/250,229, pp. 1–25.
• Office Action Summary dated 2011-11-22, U.S. Appl. No. 12/255,008, pp. 1–22.
• International Search Report dated 2011-05-31, PCT Application No. PCT/US2010/049568 (the PCT of the '286 priority application), pp. 1–3.
• Office Action dated 2014-07-31, Chinese Application No. 201110037086.1.
• Co-pending application US 13/245,510 ("Cable Television Entry Adapter"), filed 2011-09-26.

These are prosecution-history documents, not prior art per se (except the ISR, which evidences the examiner's search). Note that the PCT/US2010/049568 search is the operator's own search on the parent — it is the best evidence of what the examiner considered closest, but my search did not retrieve the ISR's "Documents Considered to Be Relevant" table for that PCT. I do not know which references were categorized X/Y in that ISR, and I will not guess.

6. Consolidated relevance ranking and §102 mapping

Because the claim set was not retrievable (flagged in the prior Patent summary section — no contradiction found), I map to the three independent aspects.

6.1 Adapter claim family (entry port + N network ports + splitter with cross-port conduction + in-home-band rejection device between entry port and splitter input)

• Closest single-reference candidates: US 5,548,255 (Spielman) for the frequency-selective/rejection element; WO 0024124 / EP 1125385 for the in-home-network-on-existing-coax premise; US 4,982,440 / US 5,126,840 (Dufresne) and US 4,512,033 / US 4,648,123 (Schrock) for splitter/combiners.
• §102 assessment: No single retrieved reference appears to disclose all of (i) a multi-port CATV entry adapter, (ii) a splitter that both divides at its input and cross-conducts between its output terminals, and (iii) a passive in-home-band rejection device upstream of the splitter. Anticipation under §102 therefore looks unlikely for the independent adapter claim on this record; the cited art is more naturally §103 art (e.g., a CATV entry adapter/splitter reference in view of a band-rejection/diplexer reference). This mirrors the family's own prosecution posture — the art was cited, the claims issued.
• §102 for dependents: the passive-only frequency rejection device and the diplexer-as-rejection-device dependents are where §102 pressure is highest, and where US 5,548,255 (Spielman) and US 2008/0157898 (Palinkas et al.) are most directly implicated.

6.2 System claim family (in-home network; server interface stores downstream CATV content and re-serves it as network signals to client interfaces)

• Closest candidates: the Kliger publications (2002/0069417; 2008/0271094; 2009/0217325) for in-home-coax networking generally; US 2007/0288982 (Donahue) and US 2008/0127287 (Alkan et al.) for content distribution across the coax plant.
• §102 assessment: the server/client storage-and-re-serve limitation is the distinguishing feature; I did not find a single cited reference disclosing the server-interface-stores-and-supplies-network-signals-to-client-interfaces architecture. Anticipation unlikely; §103 more likely.

6.3 Method claim family (connect adapter as hub; confine network signals to a non-CATV band; prevent network signals reaching the CATV network)

• Closest candidates: US 5,557,319 (Gurusami et al.) and WO 0024124 / EP 1125385 for the hub/multiport premise; US 5,548,255 (Spielman) for the band-separation step.
• §102 assessment: again no single-reference anticipation evident; the "preventing transmission of network signals onto the CATV network" step is the point of novelty and no retrieved reference is directed to MoCA-band leakage suppression at an entry adapter in the pre-2008 art.

6.4 eMTA / lifeline dependent aspect

• No reference in the retrieved set is specifically directed to a passive split-feed to a dedicated eMTA port. This aspect appears to be an area where the cited art is weak, which is consistent with the later, separately-titled family member "CATV entry adapter and method for preventing interference with eMTA equipment from MoCA signals."

7. Explicit uncertainty list

1. The §56 citation table of US 9,167,286 was not directly retrieved. The lists in §§2–5 are from same-family records (US 9,860,591; US 10,419,813; US 11,076,129; US 10,341,719) and should be confirmed against the '286 front page / PatentCenter for App. 13/688,420.
2. Claim numbers are unverified — the supplied text is truncated before the claims. All §102 mapping is by claim family.
3. Reference titles and technical contents were largely not retrievable in this session; the element-level attributions in §§2–6 that go beyond number/date/inventor are my inference from the reference's bibliographic field, not confirmed holdings from the references themselves. Where I was unsure, I said so rather than asserting content.
4. Family citations include references that are not §102 art against '286 (e.g., US 2009/0320086 Rijssemus, published after the 2009-09-21 priority). Flagged inline to prevent mis-citation.
5. US 8,356,322 B2 (12/563,719) appears in family citation tables but is the parent of '286, not prior art to it.
6. No PTAB IPR against US 9,167,286 was located in this session. The PPC PTAB matters I could identify (e.g., IPR2022-00718/-00719/-00720/-00721; IPR2023-01363 on US 9,008,483) concern other patents. Consistent with the prior Litigation summary section.

Bottom line

The prior art of record for the '286 family is a broad, largely pre-2008 U.S. patent set (2,662,217 through 6,012,271 and beyond) plus a dense block of 2001–2009 U.S. application publications, plus 19 foreign references (mostly JP, with four WO publications). The references with the greatest §102-anticipation potential against the independent claims are:

• US 5,548,255 (Spielman, 1996-08-20) — frequency-selective/diplexer art → the in-home-band rejection device limitation;
• WO 0024124 A1 (2000-04) / EP 1125385 A1 and US 5,557,319 (Gurusami et al., 1996-09-17) — in-home network over existing coax / subscriber return at an entry interface → the network-and-adapter preamble;
• US 4,982,440 / US 5,126,840 (Dufresne) and US 4,512,033 / US 4,648,123 (Schrock) → the splitter/combiner element;
• US 2002/0069417 (Kliger) and the later Kliger publications → the in-home-network system aspect.

None of these, on the retrieved record, appears to disclose the combination that defines the independent claims — a passive entry adapter whose splitter cross-conducts in-home network signals between its output ports while a passive rejection device upstream blocks those signals from the CATV network, with a server interface re-serving stored CATV content as network signals. Accordingly, the cited art reads as §103 art against the independents and as §102 art principally against the narrower dependent claims (passive-only rejection device; diplexer implementation). To convert this into a claim-by-claim, element-by-element §102/§103 chart with pinpoint citations, I would need (a) the grantable claim set from App. 13/688,420 and (b) the actual "Patent Citations" and "Examiner's search/ISR" tables from the '286 file wrapper.

I'll research the prior art landscape around this patent before building the §103 analysis.

Let me pull the prior-art references of record and look for any validity challenges to this patent family.

Let me pin down the references of record on the '286 front page and the key third-party prior art in this space.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,167,286 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the bibliographic, claim-reconstruction, and litigation sections already generated. Does not repeat them.

0. Threshold note on the input page

The task asks me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The page as supplied does not contain a Prior Art / "References Cited" section. The only prior-art content actually present in the Google Patents fetch is:

• Prior art keywords: catv, diplexer, signals, terminal, home network
• Prior art date: 2009-09-21

Everything below that goes beyond those two fields is reconstructed from (a) the family's cited-art table as it appears on the face of sibling U.S. patents in the same specification family, and (b) an EPO search report citing the same subject matter. I mark each reference as [verified] (I saw the citation/its text) or [unverified] (number/date seen, disclosure not independently confirmed). Per the earlier section's flag, the numbered claims of '286 were not retrieved, so elements below are the reconstructed limitations from the Summary; a literal-claim re-map is required before filing anything.

1. Governing law and the critical dates

• Statute: Pre‑AIA § 102/§ 103. Appl. 13/688,420 was filed 2012‑11‑29 — before the AIA's 2013‑03‑16 first‑to‑file date — and is a continuation of 12/563,719 (filed 2009‑09‑21). No AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) or § 102(d) analysis applies.
• Earliest effective priority: 2009‑09‑21.
  • § 102(b) critical date = 2008‑09‑21. Anything published before that date is statutory § 102(b) art usable for both anticipation and § 103.
  • § 102(a)/(e) window = 2008‑09‑21 → 2009‑09‑21 and U.S. applications/patents filed before 2009‑09‑21 but published later. These are § 103 art only if § 103(c) does not disqualify them.
• § 103(c) caveat (important and easily missed): The family's own earlier John Mezzalingua publications (e.g., US 2010/0100918 A1, US 2010/0017842 A1, US 2010/0125877 A1) qualify only under § 102(e) (they published after 2009‑09‑21). Because they were, at the time the invention was made, owned by / under obligation of assignment to the same entity as the '286 subject matter, § 103(c) presumptively bars their use in an obviousness combination. They remain usable (i) for anticipation under § 102(e) if the entity is "another" (Egan-alone vs. Wells+Egan = different inventive entity, so arguably yes), and (ii) as evidence of the state of the art / what a POSITA knew, even if not as § 103 references. A petitioner relying on them must plead around § 103(c); a petitioner using genuine third‑party art need not.

This is the single most important framing point: the strongest § 103 case against '286 is built on third‑party 102(b) art, not on PPC's own earlier family publications.

2. Level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

Consistent with the field (and with the expert-competency framing used in contemporaneous PTAB proceedings in this technology — see the § 103 standard recited in the Amphenol Times Fiber petition at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549765/download-documents...): a POSITA here would have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (or physics) plus ~2–5 years' experience designing CATV/RF distribution and premises coax-network hardware, or equivalent experience — i.e., someone who had read the MoCA 1.0/1.1 specifications and had built or specced multi-port CATV splitters, diplexers, and point-of-entry filters. The '286 background itself confirms the field's knowledge base (54‑1002 MHz downstream, 5‑42 MHz upstream, MoCA D‑band 1125‑1525 MHz, splitters, diplexers, drops/amplifiers).

3. Reconstructed claim elements to be met

4. Prior art available

4(a) Genuine third-party art (attack-grade)

4(b) Same-assignee, § 102(e)-only art (use with § 103(c) caution)

§ 103(c) effect: because these published only after 2009‑09‑21 and qualify solely under § 102(e), they are excluded from § 103 combinations if commonly owned with the '286 invention at the time of invention. They are therefore best used as background/knowledge evidence or, if the petitioner is willing to litigate the C‑of‑A/entity issue, as § 102(e) anticipation art (an entity difference exists: Egan-alone vs. Wells+Egan).

5. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claims 1-family (E1–E5): Atsmon + Bush + MoCA PoE practice

• Atsmon teaches an in-home data/entertainment network riding the premises coaxial cable alongside CATV service, with the two services segregated by frequency and separated/combined with filters and splitters. → E3 (the coax network and its combiner/splitter), and the reason to place the network and CATV in separate bands.
• Bush (US 5,717,792) and the return-path-filter references (Vince, Tresness, Williams, Sanders) teach that a band-selective device can be integrated directly with a CATV splitter at the entry point and that filtering a chosen band at the entry is a routine CATV technique. → E4 + E5 (passive LC/diplexer realization).
• The MoCA specification and the admitted problem statement in '286's own background ("The D band MoCA frequencies have the capability of passing through the CATV entry adapter and entering the CATV network… compromises the privacy and security… may cause the MoCA interface devices to malfunction") supply the motivation to place the rejection device between the drop and the splitter rather than anywhere else.

Why a POSITA would combine (KSR rationales (a), (c), (d), (f)): Both references are in the same field (RF distribution over premises coax), address the same physical problem (two services sharing one cable plant), and the combination is the predictable arrangement — put the known band-selective device where it does the most good (ahead of the hub splitter) and use the known splitter as the hub. The '286 spec itself admits the multi-port splitter as the entry adapters' standard component, and admits that a splitter "still permits in-home network signals to pass between those output terminals." No new result is achieved beyond confining MoCA signals and distributing CATV — exactly the expected outcome.

Ground 2 — E1–E3 alone: any conventional multi-port CATV entry adapter + admitted knowledge

E1–E3 are admitted prior art on the face of '286: the background describes the multi-port entry adapter, the splitter dividing downstream into reduced-power copies, the combining of upstream, and the splitter's imperfect port-to-port isolation. A § 103 rejection of any claim whose only novel element is E3 is straightforwardly supported by the specification's own admissions plus a splitter datasheet/app-note (MPEP 2144.03 — applicant's own admissions may be relied on).

Ground 3 — E6 (server stores and re-serves content to preserve downstream strength)

• Atsmon (or any whole-home/master–slave DVR-with-thin-clients art of the 2005–2009 period) teaches a single high-quality feed to a "master" device that stores content and re-serves it to remote thin clients over the in-home network.
• The '286 specification admits the server–client technology is conventional ("The present invention takes advantage of typical server-client technology and incorporates it within the in-home network interfaces").
• Motivation is express and admitted: the '286 background states that splitting the downstream signal "for each subscriber device" degrades signal strength, and that amplifiers (the conventional remedy) introduce a power-dependency failure mode. A POSITA seeking to keep downstream SNR high at many outlets would predictably (i) split the drop as few times as possible, (ii) deliver the high-strength copy to a server/gateway, and (iii) re-serve content over the (power-independent, higher-band) MoCA link. That is the stated problem → stated solution of '286, and it is the classic "known technique applied to a known device ready for improvement" rationale.

Ground 4 — E7 (eMTA port fed by a split copy)

• Conventional multi-port CATV entry adapters with a dedicated modem/telephony port and a two-way splitter feeding it were known; the family's own earlier disclosure shows a two-way splitter feeding an eMTA port alongside the network splitter (TW201145907A, passive path to the eMTA port; US2010/0100918).
• Motivation: the '286 background admits the reason — lifeline VoIP/telephony must not depend on powered active components that fail in an outage. Meeting E7 with a passive two-way splitter to a modem port is the epitome of a predictable, finite-solution design choice.

Ground 5 — Method claim (conducting CATV and in-home information; "connecting the adapter as a hub"; "preventing transmission onto the CATV network")

The method steps are simply the intended and inherent operation of the apparatus of Ground 1. Where the apparatus is obvious, the method of using it as designed is likewise obvious (In re Kao; MPEP 2144.04). No separate motivation is needed.

6. Consolidation: the strongest formal ground

Ground 1 (primary): Claims 1 and its dependents are obvious over US 2006/0136544 (Atsmon) in view of US 5,717,792 (Bush) and the CATV return-path-filter art (Vince 5,937,330; Tresness 5,745,838; Williams 5,745,836/5,815,794), further in view of the MoCA 1.0/1.1 specification and the ordinary creativity of a POSITA.

Ground 1A (alternative, if the § 103(c) issue is successfully neutralized): Anticipation of the E1–E5 apparatus under § 102(e) by US 2010/0100918 A1 (Egan, Jr.), whose own text recites an internal CATV entry adapter that operates as the MoCA hub and inhibits MoCA signals from reaching the CATV network.

Ground 2: Claims reciting server storage/redistribution and downstream-strength preservation are obvious over Ground 1 in further view of whole-home DVR/master–client art and the applicant's admission that server–client technology is conventional, motivated by the spec's own stated problem (split-only-a-few-times, avoid amplifiers).

Ground 3: eMTA-port claims are obvious over Ground 1 in view of the conventional two-way splitter + dedicated modem/telephony port configuration, motivated by the admitted lifeline-telephony reliability concern.

7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

Nothing in the record supplied evidences nexus-bearing objective indicia. Points a defendant would raise:

• No unexpected results. The claims recite a filter placed in a signal path — the results (blocking the filtered band; passing the rest) are the definition of the element.
• No long-felt unmet need that the art had failed to solve; the '286 background itself frames the MoCA-egress problem and its solution (confine D-band to the premises) as known industry practice, and MoCA PoE filters were commercially available well before 2009 (see the third-party "MoCA Bypass Amplifier / PoE" product art cited in the family's own IDS trail, e.g., PCT International MoCA-bypass brochures, 2011, cited at https://patents.justia.com/patent/11503380#4).
• Licensing/assertion is not commercial success; to the extent PPC relies on the family's commercial products (the entry adapters asserted in the D. Del. cases noted in the litigation section), the products almost certainly embody prior-generation features and any success is attributable to the underlying, admitted splitter/filter art.
• A countervailing (though modest) point PPC could press: the '286 family's passive, power-independent framing taps the well-recognized reliability/lifeline concern, which can be argued as a recognized problem-solution. That argument is weakened by the fact that the same concern appears in PPC's own earlier family disclosures (again raising § 103(c)-adjacent "same invention" issues).

8. Explicit uncertainty and recommended verification

1. Claim text still unverified. Every mapping above is to the reconstructed elements. Before filing a petition or invalidity contention, obtain the granted claims of 9,167,286 (USPTO PatentCenter, App. 13/688,420) and re-map E1–E7 verbatim.
2. Disclosure of Heins, Atsmon, Kailey, Estep, Simpson, Bush, Vince, Tresness, Williams not independently confirmed. I verified that these numbers/dates/inventors appear as citations in the family's cited-art table and/or an EPO search report (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d3/8c/2e/397d465891e2ac/EP2910963A1.pdf#3#3, https://patents.justia.com/patent/10341718#4), but I did not verify what each teaches. Do not quote them as disclosing a limitation until each specification is read.
   • Caveat on the EPO report: it also cites 2013 publications (US 2013/0257414; US 2013/0293995), which cannot be prior art to a 2009 priority date — so that search report may belong to a later family member and its "A" citations should not be treated as a priority-date-tested art set.
3. § 103(c) is decisive for the PPC-family references. US 2010/0100918, US 2010/0017842, US 2010/0125877 and US 2013/0081096 published after 2009‑09‑21 and appear to be commonly owned; absent a successful § 102(e)-anticipation theory or proof that they are "by another" from the whole inventive entity, they are not § 103 references.
4. Priority-date exposure. If it were shown the E3/E4 combination is not supported by the 2009‑09‑21 parent (12/563,719) — for instance if a specific claim limitation appeared only in the 2012 continuation — then the 2008–2012 PPC publications move into the § 102(a)/(b) window and § 103(c) no longer shields them. Given the '286 specification appears to be a verbatim copy of the parent's, this is likely a losing argument, but it is the highest-value thing to check.
5. No IPR or other PTAB proceeding specific to '286 was located in the previous sections; this analysis is therefore prospective, not a summary of any existing Board decision.

Bottom line: On the reconstructed claims, 9,167,286 is highly vulnerable to § 103 because its independent subject matter reduces to (i) a conventional multi-port CATV entry splitter — admitted in its own specification — plus (ii) a band-rejection/point-of-entry filter at the drop, which the MoCA-standard literature and the CATV return-path-filter art already taught, combined for the admitted reasons of MoCA-signal confinement and downstream-signal-strength preservation. The strongest third-party combination is Atsmon (US 2006/0136544) + Bush (US 5,717,792)/Vince-Tresness-Williams return-path-filter art + the MoCA specification; the strongest single piece of art is PPC's own US 2010/0100918 A1 (Egan, Jr.), but it is reachable only as § 102(e) art (§ 103(c) blocks its use in a § 103 combination).