US 9312611

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 9312611, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me verify whether 9,312,611 was among the patents at issue in the 2026 CAFC appeal, rather than assuming.

Let me pull the actual claim set for 9,312,611 and check for any 2026 docket activity specifically naming it.

US 9,312,611 — Summary

I searched for this exact number and did not auto-correct it. Here is what the authoritative record (the full Google Patents text you supplied, plus USPTO PTAB/CAFC documents and secondary databases I retrieved) supports.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim, as printed on the patent)

"A connector having a conductively coated member is provided, wherein the connector comprises a connector body capable of sealing and securing a coaxial cable, and further wherein the conductively coated member, such as an O-ring, physically seals the connector, electrically couples the connector and the coaxial cable, facilitates grounding through the connector, and renders an electromagnetic shield preventing ingress of unwanted environmental noise."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Important caveat: The full text you supplied is truncated before the claims section, and my searches returned the specification (paragraphs [0046]–[0055], the Summary's numbered "general aspects," and the abstract) but not the verbatim claim set. I therefore cannot quote the claims literally. What I can state with confidence:

• The patent is recorded in USPTO prosecution papers as having at least claims 1–32 — a later PPC application (15/431,018) was rejected for nonstatutory double patenting over "claims 1–32 of U.S. Patent No. 9,312,611."
• The Summary lays out eleven numbered "general aspects," which correspond in substance to the claim categories (see below). I do not have verification of which of these are independent claims versus dependent claims, so the mapping below is my reasoned reading, not a citation to claim text.

The invention as claimed falls into two families:

A. Connector (apparatus) claims — a coaxial-cable connector comprising, in substance:

1. A connector body, a coupling member (nut), and an electrically conductive seal that both seals and electrically couples the body to the coupling member.
2. A post (first end inserted under the cable's conductive grounding shield, around the dielectric) plus a connector body on the post and a conductive member near the post's second end that facilitates grounding of the cable.
3. A compressible/sealing connector body with a post, coupling member, and a conductive member near the body's second end that completes an electromagnetic shield against noise ingress.
4. A means-plus-function claim (35 U.S.C. §112 ¶6 style): "means for conductively sealing and electrically coupling the connector body and the coupling member."
5. A connector with a connector body, a post having a mating edge, and a conductively coated member that resides within the coupling member and physically/electrically contacts the post's mating edge, giving grounding through the member and post to the cable when the connector is threaded onto a port.
6. A variant in which the conductively coated member instead contacts an inner surface of the coupling member to establish continuity between the coupling member and the post.
7. A means-plus-function variant directed to "means for conductively sealing and electrically coupling the post and the coupling member," where that means contacts the post's mating edge.

B. Method claims — methods of (i) grounding a coaxial cable through such a connector by attaching the cable and advancing the connector onto an interface port until the port mates with the conductive member; (ii) electrically coupling a cable and connector by attaching the cable and completing the shield by threading the nut onto a conductive port; and (iii) facilitating electrical continuity through the connector where a conductively coated member contacts an inner surface of the coupling member.

The claimed technical core: a conductively coated elastomeric member (an O-ring) — non-conductive silicone rubber bulk core with a thin conductive coating (e.g., silver-based conductive ink thinned with a reactive silicone topcoat) — that simultaneously (a) seals against moisture/contaminants and (b) provides an RF grounding/EMI-shielding path between the post and the coupling member/interface port.

Priority chain (relevant to scope and term)

From the USPTO filing receipt for the related case: 13/448,937 (→ 9,312,611) is a continuation of 13/118,617 (filed May 31, 2011, now US 8,157,589), which is a CIP of 12/418,103 (filed Apr. 3, 2009, now US 8,071,174) and a CIP of 12/941,709 (filed Nov. 8, 2010, now US 7,950,958); 12/941,709 is a continuation of 12/397,087 (filed Mar. 3, 2009, now US 7,828,595), itself a continuation of 10/997,218 (filed Nov. 24, 2004, abandoned).

2026 CAFC docket — direct answer

I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity naming US 9,312,611 itself. I want to be explicit about this, because there is a prominent March 2026 PPC/CAFC decision that could easily be confused with it:

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, -1777, -1778, -1779 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 4, 2026) — a nonprecedential, per curiam Rule 36 affirmance (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham, JJ.) of four PTAB final written decisions. Per the PTAB filings, those four IPRs (IPR2022-00718, -00719, -00720, -00721) challenged US 10,965,063; 10,446,983; 10,038,284; and 9,225,083 — not 9,312,611.
• That said, the connection is genealogical, not coincidental: 9,570,859 (app. 15/094,451) and 10,038,284 (app. 15/431,018) are both continuations of 13/448,937 (i.e., of 9,312,611), and 9,312,611 is expressly the patent over which the child cases took terminal disclaimers. So the validity ruling that the Federal Circuit affirmed in March 2026 hit descendants in the same family, not this patent.
• Google Patents flags "Family has litigation" for this family (Darts-IP family 44647595), and the 9,312,611 file history itself references earlier PPC litigation (PCT International v. John Mezzalingua Associates, D. Del. No. 1:10-cv-00059-LPS; John Mezzalingua v. PCT International, W.D. Tex. No. 5:09-cv-00410-WRF; John Mezzalingua v. Thomas & Betts/Belden, W.D.N.Y. No. 6:11-cv-06327-CJS). I could not confirm from authoritative sources that 9,312,611 itself was an asserted patent in any of those cases.

Uncertainty disclosures

• Claim text is not verbatim. I did not obtain the literal claim set of 9,312,611. Treat the claim overview above as a substance-level summary derived from the patent's own Summary/Detailed Description and the double-patenting record (which establishes claims 1–32 exist). For a filing or validity opinion you must pull the claims from the USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter record.
• Expiration. The Google Patents listing states "Expired – Lifetime" with an adjusted expiration of 2026-01-24. That is a database-stated status; I did not independently verify maintenance-fee payment status against the USPTO maintenance-fee records, which is the controlling check.
• No 2026 CAFC case for this number. Absence of a result in the searches I ran is not proof of absence from all dockets. If you need a definitive negative, run a PACER/CAFC docket query on "9,312,611" and on the family's appellate counsel.

Sources: US 9,312,611 B2 full text (patents.google.com/patent/US9312611); Justia patent record for 9,312,611; USPTO PTACTS filings for applications 15/431,018, 16/050,726 and IPR2022-00718–00721; CAFC Rule 36 judgment, 24-1776 (Mar. 4, 2026), cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf; PPC Broadband v. Amphenol, No. 24-1776 (Fed. Cir. 2026) (law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html).

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9312611. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper into litigation-specific databases.

Bottom line

Based on the searches I was able to run, I could not verify any district court or Federal Circuit case in which U.S. Patent No. 9,312,611 was specifically asserted as a patent-in-suit. I do not have a confirmed case number, plaintiff/defendant pair, or outcome tied to the ’611 patent. I want to state that explicitly rather than manufacture a case list.

Two things are nonetheless relevant and verifiable:

1. The ’611 patent is flagged as belonging to a litigated family. The Google Patents record for US 9,312,611 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9312611/en) carries the banner “Family has litigation — First worldwide family litigation filed,” with a Darts-IP family link (https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=44647595). That flag is at the family level, not proof that the ’611 itself was asserted in any particular suit.
2. Ownership/expiry context matters. The ’611 issued 2016‑04‑12 from application 13/448,937 (filed 2012‑04‑17), claims priority to 2004‑11‑24, is assigned to PPC Broadband, Inc. (originally John Mezzalingua Associates), and shows legal status “Expired – Lifetime,” with adjusted expiration 2026‑01‑24. As of today (April 26, 2026), that expiration date has passed, so any assertion would have been limited to past damages.

What I searched and what came back

I searched for the specific number and for PPC Broadband enforcement activity. The results did not surface a case naming the ’611 as a patent-in-suit. Hits for “9312611” were dominated by false positives (e.g., EP 0739611, DE 9312611 U1, WO 9312611 — unrelated dental- and furnace-art documents), which I excluded as instructed.

Related PPC Broadband litigation I did find (verify before relying on it)

These are PPC/John Mezzalingua connector disputes surfaced in the search. In the records I retrieved, none of these lists 9,312,611 among the asserted patents — I flag each one’s asserted patents where visible:

Related PTAB / USPTO activity touching the ’611

• A USPTO appeal/review record (PTACTS petition 1549312) shows an examiner rejecting another application’s claims 1–18 for nonstatutory double patenting over claims 1–32 of U.S. Patent No. 9,312,611, in a proceeding that also references Amphenol Corp. and lists US‑9312611‑B2 alongside US‑9570859‑B2. This is a prosecution-side citation of the ’611, not a validity challenge to it. Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549312/
• Separately, Corning’s IPRs against PPC (leading to PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Iancu, Fed. Cir.) involved the ’320, ’060, and ’353 patents — not the ’611. Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4513742](/patent/4513742)/ppc-broadband-inc-v-iancu/

Caveats and how I’d close the gap

• The ’611 family is Darts‑IP–flagged as litigated, so litigation very likely exists somewhere in the family tree (the ’611 shares a 2004‑11‑24 priority chain). That does not mean the ’611 itself was pleaded.
• The searches I ran were general-web; I did not get a clean, indexed result from Unified Patents’ litigation caselist, Docket Navigator, Darts‑IP, or PACER/RECAP specifically filtered to the ’611. Result snippets for “9312611” were noisy with unrelated documents.
• Recommended authoritative checks: (a) Unified Patents litigation portal filtered to patent 9312611 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=9312611); (b) Docket Navigator / Lex Machina patent-number search; (c) PACER/RECAP full-text search on “9,312,611”; (d) Darts‑IP family 44647595; (e) PPC Broadband/Belden SEC 10‑K and 10‑Q litigation notes (Belden is PPC’s parent), which often list asserted patents.

If you need a definitive negative, I’d treat the above as “not confirmed” rather than “none exists,” because I could not query PACER directly. I did not fabricate a case, and I did not find one I can cite as asserting US 9,312,611.

I'll verify the structured feed with web searches before drafting, since the ODP block is the canonical source but may lag recently-filed proceedings.

Key lead found: a 2022-era IPR set involving PPC Broadband (patent owner) and Amphenol, where the '611 patent is an exhibit. Let me pin down the proceeding numbers.

The '611 patent appears in the Amphenol/PPC family exhibits. I need to determine whether any IPR challenges the '611 itself — including the 2023 Amphenol filings.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 9,312,611 B2

"Connector having a conductively coated member and method of use thereof" — Krenceski, Mathews & Montena; PPC Broadband, Inc. (orig. John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.)
Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9312611/en

Proceedings overview

Zero (0) AIA trial proceedings have been filed against US 9,312,611. The structured ODP feed reports no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent web search surfaced none — no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming the '611 as the challenged patent. The breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no IPR disposition you can point to and say "claim 1 is dead." But the defensive posture is still unusually strong, for a different reason: (a) the '611's entire downstream family was wiped out in the Amphenol IPRs affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-03-04; (b) the '611 itself appears in the ODP legal-status field as "Expired – Lifetime, expires 2026-01-24" (adjusted expiration) — i.e., expired before today's date of 2026-09-30; and (c) the '611 was cited repeatedly as the double-patenting reference that forced terminal disclaimers in later family members, tying their terms to the '611's. This is not a "hardened patent" — it is an expired, never-tested ancestral patent whose children lost at the PTAB.

Caveat, stated plainly: the ODP/Google legal-status field is expressly "an assumption and is not a legal conclusion." Confirm the expiration date (PTA calculation) in Patent Center before relying on it.

Proceedings on US 9,312,611

NONE ON FILE

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial proceeding on file (USPTO ODP, most recent ingest).
• What I searched to confirm: Google Patents family/litigation links; Law360's PTAB case tracker (https://www.law360.com/ptab_cases/6234f156ce7e340093c21eec); Docket Alarm PTAB (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00721/Amphenol_Corp._v._PPC_Broadband_Inc/); PTAB E2E public petition dockets; general web queries pairing "9,312,611" / "Krenceski" with IPR/PGR/CBM.
• Confidence: High but not absolute. I did not execute a full-text search of every petition ever filed for the string "9,312,611," and PTAB E2E is not name-searchable from this environment. The structural evidence is strong, though: every challenger in this family (Corning Optical RF 2013–2015; Amphenol 2022–2023) targeted the descendant patents, not the '611.
• Note on NPE/troll framing: the '611 is not owned by a troll. It is owned and asserted by PPC Broadband, Inc., a large operating manufacturer (Belden-affiliated), which litigates aggressively against competitors (Corning, Times Fiber, Amphenol, PCT International, Charles Industries).

Family-adjacent AIA proceedings (context — these are NOT proceedings on the '611)

I am listing these separately and clearly labeled so as not to fabricate a proceeding on the '611. They matter because they destroyed the '611's claim-children and because PPC itself put the '611 into the record of one of them.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review (four separate petitions, four separate patents)
• Filed: 2022-03-18 (all four)
• Patents challenged: US 10,965,063 (‑718); US 10,446,983 (‑719); US 10,038,284 (‑720); US 9,225,083 (‑721)
• Status: Final Written Decision / Appealed — all challenged claims held unpatentable as obvious.
• Judge panel (‑721): Bart A. Gerstenblith, Frances L. Ippolito, George R. Hoskins.
• Petition grounds (§ 103, pre-AIA art): Ground 1 — U.S. 6,042,422 (Youtsey) + U.S. 4,929,188 (Lionetto) + U.S. 3,879,102 (Horak). Ground 2 — U.S. 5,083,943 (Tarrant) + U.S. 5,882,226 (Bell). (Source: Supplemental Declaration of Dr. James Dickens, entered 2023-04-18.)
• Challenged claim sets: '063 → claims 1-6, 10-17, 20-21; '983 → claims 1-5, 8-15, 18; '284 → claims 29-33, 36-43, 46; '083 → claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, 52-62.
• Institution: Instituted (scheduling order entered 2022-10-26). PPC argued discretionary denial under § 325(d) (Advanced Bionics / Becton Dickinson), contending the same five references were before the same examiner, Edwin A. Leon, in the priority chain — the Board was not persuaded and instituted.
• Final Written Decision: 2023-10-24 (‑721 terminated 2023-10-24; Law360 reported all four decisions the week of 2023-10-25, headline "PTAB Axes All Challenged Claims In 4 Coaxial Cable Patents"). Disposition: all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious. I have not been able to pull the verbatim FWD text claim-by-claim from PTAB E2E in this environment, so I am not quoting individual claim language — obtain the FWDs at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ before quoting them in a brief.
• Settlement: none; tried to FWD.
• Appeal: Yes. PPC filed a Request for Rehearing (2023-11-22) and a Notice of Appeal (2024-04-29). Federal Circuit Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779; AFFIRMED per curiam (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham) under Fed. Cir. R. 36 on 2026-03-04 — a Rule 36 summary affirmance, i.e., no precedential reasoning. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html
• Where the '611 shows up: PPC's Patent Owner Preliminary Response in IPR2022-00721 listed the '611 as EX2006 ("Krenceski 611"), alongside EX2005 (US 8,157,589), EX2007 (US 9,570,859), EX2011 (US 8,882,538) and EX2020 (US 2012/0202378 A1, the '611's own application publication) — i.e., the '611 is family evidence, not a challenged patent. The '611 also appears as a cited reference on the face of US 10,446,983.
• Defensive value: The closest-in-substance relatives of the '611 — same inventors, same specification lineage, same "conductively coated / grounding member" invention — were all held obvious over 1990s-era coax connector art. A defendant facing assertion of a surviving PPC family patent should read these four FWDs first; the obviousness combinations are family-wide.

IPR2023-01363 — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. (US 9,008,483)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-09-13
• Status: Final Written Decision — claims cancelled (IPR certificate reported issued 2025-05-19 cancelling claims 1, 2, 10-13, the claims PPC had asserted in PPC Broadband v. Charles Industries, 1:22-cv-01517 (D. Del.)).
• Note: Different technology (optical fiber drop interface box), not the coax family. https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2023-01363
• Defensive value: Illustrates that every PPC patent asserted against Amphenol-side competitors in this period drew (and lost) an IPR. Do not confuse this patent with the '611.

IPR2014-00440 / -00441 / -00736 — Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (three petitions)
• Filed: 2014
• Status: Dismissed / terminated — the Board granted PPC's motion to dismiss and vacated the institution decisions because Corning failed to name its parent (Corning Incorporated) and sister (Corning Optical Communications LLC) as real parties-in-interest under § 312(a)(2). Request for rehearing denied 2015-12-09 (Bonilla, APJ).
• Why this matters: On 2025-10-28 the Director *designated Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband, Inc., IPR2014-00440, as precedential*, restoring the strict pre-SharkNinja RPI requirement. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0147572b-c468-47c2-b9ec-ece9e39033ca
• Defensive value: This is now the leading case on RPI dismissal, and PPC is the patent owner that won it. If you file a new IPR against any PPC patent through a subsidiary or JV, expect a PPC RPI motion to dismiss — and a § 315(b) one-year bar that may preclude refiling.

(Earlier Corning Gilbert filings IPR2013-00342 / -00346 / -00347 are referenced in PPC's own mandatory-notice litigation list; I have not verified their individual dispositions and do not rely on them here.)

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of the '611 has been cancelled, sustained, or even tested at the PTAB — the claims are untested, not "hardened." The patent's face shows at least claims 1-32, because later PPC applications (Ser. Nos. 15/431,018 and 16/050,726) were rejected for nonstatutory double patenting over "claims 1-32 of U.S. Patent No. 9,312,611," and PPC filed terminal disclaimers to obviate those rejections. That is important twice over: (i) terminal disclaimers tie those family members' enforceable term to the '611's term, so if the '611 expired 2026-01-24, the disclaimer-bound children expired with it; and (ii) it confirms the '611 is the ancestral Krenceski/Mathews/Montena coax-connector patent, sitting on top of the same specification as the patents the PTAB invalidated. The claims that were actually cancelled — and now finally, after the 2026-03-04 Rule 36 affirmance — are the descendants' claims: '063 claims 1-6, 10-17, 20-21; '983 claims 1-5, 8-15, 18; '284 claims 29-33, 36-43, 46; '083 claims 1-6, 8-19, 21-33, 35-43, 45-50, 52-62. If any demand letter cites those patents, the asserted claims are gone.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is patent-specific. Amphenol's IPRs estop Amphenol and its privies as to the '063, '983, '284 and '083 — patents whose claims are now cancelled, so the estoppel is academic. Amphenol is NOT estopped as to the '611, and conversely no estoppel runs against the '611 from any source, because no IPR ever issued on it. For a defendant currently asserted against the '611, the practical consequence is the reverse of the usual one: the entire prior-art universe remains available under § 282, including Youtsey ('422), Lionetto ('188), Horak ('102), Tarrant ('943) and Bell ('226) — the very combinations that killed the children — because § 315(e)(2) does not attach to a patent that was never petitioned. The offsetting risk is § 325(d): the family's prosecution history is enormous (same examiner, Art Unit 2833, cross-cited references, and a successful inter partes reexamination of family member US 7,833,053 that PPC itself flagged as the basis for Amphenol's family attacks). If you petition on that art, expect PPC to run the same § 325(d) argument it ran in 2022 — though note it lost that argument before the Board, which instituted anyway.

Pattern signals. Amphenol is a repeat petitioner against PPC (four IPRs in March 2022, a fifth in September 2023, plus the Times Fiber-side campaign against Amphenol's own cable-reel patents). PPC is a sophisticated, aggressive patent owner: it won the precedential RPI dismissal against Corning (now the Director's 2025-10-28 RPI-restoration vehicle), opposed a prosecution bar extending to IPRs in PPC Broadband v. Times Fiber (N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-00460) and won that fight, resisted discretionary denial on the merits, requested rehearing of all four FWDs, and appealed to the Federal Circuit with Finnegan on the brief. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) appears anywhere in this chain — every challenge came from a direct competitor with real market exposure. The corollary: the '611 was never attacked because PPC's competitors litigated over the later-issued, longer-lived family members instead — the '611 was nearing expiration and was not the commercially valuable target.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a defense around a non-existent IPR. There is no FWD to link to for the '611. If you need a cancellation exhibit, use the descendants: the four Amphenol FWDs (2023-10-24) plus the 2026-03-04 Rule 36 affirmance at https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html, and pull the verbatim disposition text from PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ before quoting it in any filing.
2. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. Pull the PTACTS/Patent Center term calculation for the '611. If the reported adjusted expiration of 2026-01-24 holds, the patent cannot support prospective injunctive relief and damages are limited to the § 286 six-year look-back window ending on that date — and PPC's terminal disclaimers likely cap the disclaimer-bound family members at the same date. Verify each asserted patent's own file history for its terminal disclaimer before relying on this.
3. If you are within the § 315(b) window and there is live back-damages exposure, an IPR is still available (the Board will review expired claims), and an expired patent owner cannot amend under § 316(d) — a structural advantage. But weigh it against (a) § 325(d) risk from the family's prosecution record, (b) the unavailability of § 112 grounds in an IPR (§ 311(b) limits IPR to § 102/§ 103 on patents and printed publications — and PGR is unavailable here because the '611's effective filing date is 2004-11-24, pre-dating the AIA's 2013-03-16 cut-off), and (c) PPC's demonstrated RPI-based dismissal strategy.
4. Do not assume a challenge is coming from Amphenol. Amphenol's four IPRs are final and affirmed; the family-adjacent claims are cancelled; there is no indication of any further pending petition against this family.
5. Verify before you rely. Two items in this report come from secondary sources rather than the primary PTAB record and should be re-pulled from E2E: the exact FWD language and claim-by-claim dispositions for IPR2022-00718–721, and the '611's expiration date.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9312611 using the primary sources available.

US 9312611 — Ownership & Assignment Analysis

Scope note up front: I was able to confirm that recorded post-issuance assignments do exist for this patent, but I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record fields for them during this session. I hit a tool-call limit and the Assignment Center record fields never surfaced in search results. Everywhere below where I cannot ground a datum, I say so rather than invent a reel/frame. This is a real limitation, not a rhetorical hedge — treat the reel/frame cells as "to be verified."

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — not present. There is no evidence any of the three departed the original assignee within 12 months of the 2012-04-17 filing; Krenceski's and Montena's names recur on later PPC-family grants, and PPC continued filing children claiming priority to this application into 2023 (see below). The absence of inventor attrition is itself a mild negative indicator for a pre-fire-sale scenario.

Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. (Google Patents "Original Assignee"; "Current Assignee" is also listed as PPC Broadband Inc).

• Primary line of business: coaxial cable connectors and broadband access hardware — a true operating manufacturer, not a licensing vehicle. The patent itself is a connector product patent (conductively coated O-ring for grounding/EMI shielding at the port interface).
• Product embodying the claims: Yes — the connector claims are directed to a physical coaxial cable connector (conductively coated mating-edge O-ring; connector-body conductive O-ring), i.e. shippable hardware. PPC's litigation posture confirms it sells into the same market as the defendants it sues.
• Corporate history (New York name records, surfaced via bestbusinessny.com): PPC-One Hundred Clinton Square, Inc. (2002-07-23) → Mr Advisers Limited (2012-09-19) → PPC Broadband, Inc. (2012-12-07). Google Patents' legal events show the USPTO recordings of those same renames landing in Feb 2013 — i.e. a ~5-month lag between the corporate action and the recording.
• Current status: Operating. Public reporting indicates PPC Broadband was acquired by Belden Inc. in 2015, but no assignment to a Belden entity is recorded against this patent — consistent with a stock purchase that left PPC Broadband, Inc. itself as the record owner/subsidiary. I could not verify the Belden acquisition or its structure in this session; treat that as needing confirmation before relying on it.
• Patent status: Google Patents shows legal status "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2026-01-24. Given today's date (2026-09-30), the '611 has already expired. Any residual assertion value is therefore historical.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded post-issuance events are reflected in Google Patents legal events; both are Change of Name, not transfers of ownership to a third party. The recorded order is John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR Advisers Limited, then MR Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Executed 2012-09-19 (name-change date per NY corporate records) / recorded 2013-02-12 — Reel not retrieved (verify at Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (Google Patents: "CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
  • Assignee: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. Do not treat "MR Advisers Limited" as an NPE correspondent lead — see signal 1 and 3 below.
  • Context: Internal corporate renaming only — the operating connector company changed its legal name to MR Advisers Limited as a waypoint before renaming again to PPC Broadband, Inc. This is a stopover in a name chain, not an acquisition by a licensing entity.

• Executed 2012-12-07 (name-change date per NY corporate records) / recorded 2013-02-13 — Reel not retrieved (verify at Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: MR ADVISERS LIMITED
  • Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal corporate renaming only — completion of the same operating company's name chain; the family/portfolio ownership stays inside the same manufacturer. The recorded date lands one day after the prior recording, which is the classic signature of a single agent filing a two-step rename package in one batch.

No other assignments to a third party are recorded. In particular, there is no recorded transfer to Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, or any other entity on the standard NPE lists, and no recorded assignment to RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Cross-reference caveat (important, and a false-positive trap): A Plainsite index hit shows a different patent's record — USPTO Patent Assignment 47520/170, Change Of Name, assignor John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc., assignee Mr Advisers Ltd., executed 2012-09-11, recorded 2018-08-23, correspondent MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP, 1951 Kidwell Drive, Suite 310, Tysons Corner, VA 22182 — covering "System, Method And Device Having Teaching And Commerce Subsystems." That record is not for US 9312611 and I could not confirm it involves the same corporate entity. It is presented here only as a lead to verify, not as a finding: if MH2 Technology Law Group also appears as correspondent on the '611 rename recordings, that would be a same-firm recurrence (but across an in-house rename chain, which is a weak signal anyway). It also illustrates a notable pattern for this assignor: rename paperwork executed in 2012 but not recorded until 2018, i.e. PPC has batched late recordations.

There is no recorded assignment after Feb 2013. That is a finding: it is consistent with the operating company (or its parent, post-acquisition) retaining record ownership throughout.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9312611
    2004 : Priority application filed
    2011 : Parent continuation filed
    2012 : Application 13448937 filed
         : Name change to MR Advisers Limited
    2013 : Name change recorded PPC Broadband Inc
    2016 : Patent granted April 12
    2026 : Patent expired January 24

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present.
The only post-issuance records are two Change of Name conveyances. "MR ADVISERS LIMITED" superficially fits a licensing-vehicle naming heuristic, but the evidence contradicts that reading: (a) the conveyance type recorded is explicitly a name change, not an assignment; (b) the entity immediately renamed again to PPC Broadband, Inc., the operating manufacturer; (c) the same entity chain is documented in NY name records (PPC-One Hundred Clinton Square, Inc. → Mr Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband, Inc.). No licensing-only LLC, no registered-agent service address, and no evidence of a single-purpose vehicle appears. Note reel/frame still unverified.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
No assignee in the recorded chain matches any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). The only litigating party in the chain is PPC Broadband / John Mezzalingua, an operating manufacturer. PPC is an active plaintiff (see signal 5) but it is not an NPE on any directory I can ground here. Records relied on: Google Patents legal events for US 9312611, 2013-02-12 and 2013-02-13.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (evidence not retrieved).
I could not obtain the correspondent-of-record field for either 2013 recording, so I cannot confirm or refute attorney recurrence. The only correspondent name surfaced anywhere in this research is MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP (Tysons Corner, VA) on Plainsite assignment 47520/170 — a different patent's 2018-recorded change of name executed 2012-09-11 for the same assignor name. Not a finding. Verification action: pull both 2013 reel/frame entries at Assignment Center and compare correspondent blocks; also compare against reel 47520/170.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
Two records, one day apart (recorded 2013-02-12 and 2013-02-13), both Change of Name, both terminating at the same operating company. That is a single corporate rename split into two steps for recording convenience, not a chain of unrelated LLCs. No shared-correspondent-address cascade, no <24-month series of assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present on this patent (chain predates assertion, and no transfer accompanies it).
PPC/John Mezzalingua has a long assertion history — John Mezzalingua Assocs. d/b/a PPC v. PCT International (W.D. Tex. 5:09-cv-00410), v. PACE Electronics (D. Minn. 0:10-cv-00064), v. International Communications Manufacturing / Belden (W.D. Wis. 3:11-cv-00424), PPC Broadband v. Corning Gilbert (N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-1310 and 11-cv-00761), plus ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-650 — and Corning Gilbert filed IPR2013-00342/-00346/-00347 against PPC. PPC has also appeared as petitioner against competitors (IPR2021-00831 v. Amphenol; IPR2022-00946/-00947/-01087/-01088 v. Times Fiber). But the 2013 recordings here are renames executed September/December 2012, i.e. housekeeping, not a pre-suit transfer dressed up to fix standing or venue. I have no evidence the '611 itself was asserted, so I mark this not present rather than "unclear."

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
No Chapter 7/11 record, no trustee sale, no accompanying assignment. The patent's own status is "Expired – Lifetime" at 2026-01-24, and PPC continued filing priority children through 2023 (see below), which contradicts a wind-down sale.

7. Privateering — not present.
No operating company → NPE transfer appears in the chain. The portfolio stayed with the operating entity. There is no SEC-filing or Patent Progress/EFF evidence of a proxy assertion arrangement involving this patent in the material I retrieved.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Unified Patents appears only as a prior-art/patent-profile host indexing this patent (portal.unifiedpatents.com shows "Ppc Broadband Inc" as assignee), not as an assignee.

Bonus context pointing to a genuine operating portfolio (not a signal per se, but relevant): The '611 is a continuation of Ser. No. 13/118,617 (filed 2011-05-31), itself a CIP of 12/418,103 (now US 8,071,174) and 12/941,709 (now US 7,950,958), tracing to priority app 10/997,218 filed 2004-11-24 (pub. US20060110977A1). PPC then filed a deep chain of children claiming priority back through this application — 14/329,394 (US 8,876,550), 14/329,435 (US 8,882,538), 14/527,282 (US 9,225,083), 15/094,451 (US 9,570,859), 15/431,018 (US 10,038,284), 16/050,726 (US 10,446,983), 16/653,713 (US 10,965,063), 17/196,508, 17/196,472, 17/196,545 (US 12,009,619), 18/204,316 (US 11,984,687). Sustained internal continuation practice through 2023 is the fingerprint of a manufacturer maintaining a product-line portfolio.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The full recorded chain is two Change of Name conveyances — John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → MR Advisers Limited (recorded 2013-02-12) and MR Advisers Limited → PPC Broadband, Inc. (recorded 2013-02-13) — which terminate at the original operating manufacturer; the Google Patents legal-event entries for those dates explicitly label the conveyance "CHANGE OF NAME," and the same naming sequence is independently corroborated by New York corporate name records. There is no recorded transfer to any listed NPE, no shell-LLC hop, no bankruptcy sale, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. The current record owner, PPC Broadband, Inc., ships the coaxial connectors embodying these claims and has sued actual competitors (John Mezzalingua Assocs. d/b/a PPC v. PCT International, W.D. Tex. 5:09-cv-00410; PPC Broadband v. Corning Gilbert, N.D.N.Y. 5:13-cv-1310), while also defending IPRs brought by Corning Gilbert — the profile of an operating company, not a patent-troll chain. The "MR Advisers Limited" link is a name-change waypoint, not an NPE acquisition — flagging it as a troll signal from naming alone would be a false positive.

Two caveats that limit confidence in the record itself (not in the verdict):

1. Reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record for both 2013 recordings were not verifiable in this session — they must be pulled at Assignment Center before this is treated as a complete chain of title.
2. The Belden Inc. acquisition of PPC Broadband (publicly reported ~2015) would not appear in USPTO records if structured as a stock purchase, and none appears — so the absence of a post-2013 assignment should not be read as "no ownership change occurred."

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 9312611): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (the 2013-02-12 / 2013-02-13 reassignment entries cited above; also flags "Family has litigation" via Darts-IP family 44647595): https://patents.google.com/patent/US9312611/en
• Cross-reference record to check for correspondent recurrence (different patent, same assignor name): https://www.plainsite.org/patents/assignment.html?id=[8647138](/patent/8647138) (reel 47520/170, correspondent MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP)

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

Let me dig deeper into the specific citation list for this patent.

Let me try to retrieve the actual citation lists from a different source.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,312,611 B2

1. Patent identification (verified)

Continuity chain recited on the face of the patent: 13/448,937 is a continuation of 13/118,617 (granted as US 8,157,589), which is a CIP of 12/418,103 (US 8,071,174) and a CIP of 12/941,709 (US 7,950,958), the latter being a continuation of 12/397,087 (US 7,828,595), itself a continuation of 10/997,218 (abandoned). Downstream continuations include US 8,876,550; US 8,882,538; US 9,225,083; US 9,570,859; US 10,038,284; US 10,446,983; US 10,965,063; US 11,984,687; US 12,009,619; and US 2021/0194184–185. A terminal disclaimer was filed in Ser. No. 15/431,018 (2017-09-21) over the term of US 9,312,611.

2. Important caveat on source completeness

I could not retrieve the front-page (56) "References Cited" list for US 9,312,611 itself. The authoritative full text supplied in the prompt is truncated (it ends mid-sentence in paragraph [0051]) and does not include the front page, the claims, or the citation tables. The searches I ran returned the specification and sibling-family material, not the (56) block for this specific patent.

Therefore I cannot honestly present a verified, per-reference list of the citations on the face of US 9,312,611. What follows distinguishes clearly between (a) verified items, (b) reconstructed/related-family items that are highly likely but not confirmed as being on this patent's face, and (c) unrelated numeric collisions that a literal search of "9312611" produces.

3. Unrelated numeric collisions — do NOT treat as this patent

A literal search for the string 9312611 returns several documents that are not US 9,312,611. Per the strict-identifier rule these must not be conflated:

• WO 93/12611 A (Thomson Consumer Electronics, publ. 1993-06-24) — family member US 5,253,067.
• DE 9312611 U1 (Siemens AG, 1994-12-22) — cited in EP 0739611 A3.
• US 9312611 W / US 99791692 — priority documents of EP 0676025 B1 (firebox furnace).
• NSF CISE Research Infrastructure Award Number 9312611 (Edward A. Fox, Virginia Tech) — a grant number, cited in a computer-science bibliography.

None of these are the coaxial-connector patent.

4. Reconstructed reference landscape (confidence-labeled)

4a. Verified non-patent literature cited on US 9,312,611

From the Justia record for patent 9312611 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/9312611), the non-patent references include:

• GB 1087228, October 1967 appears in the Justia foreign-reference table for this patent (the snippet renders as "1087228 | October 1967 | GB"). Treat this as probable but unconfirmed — the retrieved snippet is a fragment.

4b. Sibling-family (56) lists — high probability, NOT verified for this patent

Patent-family siblings in the same PPC Broadband portfolio carry near-identical, very long (56) lists. The retrievable beginnings of those lists (from US 8,398,421 B2, Connector having a dielectric seal, and US 8,647,136 B2, Coaxial cable connector having electrical continuity member) are:

331,169 Thomas (11/1885); 1,371,742 Dringman (3/1921); 1,667,485 MacDonald (4/1928); 1,766,869 Austin (6/1930); 1,801,999 Bowman (4/1931); 1,885,761 Peirce, Jr. (11/1932); 2,102,495 England (12/1937); 2,258,737 Browne (10/1941); 2,325,549 Ryzowitz (7/1943); 2,480,963 Quinn (9/1949); 2,544,654 Brown (3/1951); 2,549,647 Turenne (4/1951); 2,694,187 Nash (11/1954); 2,754,487 Carr et al. (7/1956); 2,755,331 Melcher (7/1956); 2,757,351 Klostermann (7/1956); 2,762,025 Melcher (9/1956); 2,805,399 Leeper (9/1957); 2,870,420 Malek (1/1959); 3,001,169 Blonder (9/1961); 3,015,794 Kishbaugh (1/1962); 3,091,748 Takes et al. (5/1963); 3,094,364 Lingg (6/1963); 3,184,706 Atkins (5/1965); 3,194,292 Borowsky (7/1965); 3,196,382 Morello, Jr. (7/1965); 3,245,027 Ziegler, Jr. (4/1966); 3,275,913 Blanchard et al. (9/1966); 3,278,890 Cooney (10/1966); 3,281,757 Bonhomme (10/1966); 3,292,136 Somerset (12/1966); 3,320,575 Brown et al. (5/1967); 3,321,732 Forney, Jr. (5/1967); 3,336,563 Hyslop (8/1967); 3,348,186 Rosen (10/1967); 3,350,677 Daum (10/1967); 3,355,698 Keller (11/1967); 3,373,243 Janowiak et al. (3/1968); 3,390,374 Forney, Jr. (6/1968); 3,406,373 Forney, Jr. (10/1968) … (list continues).

Foreign documents in the same sibling list include CA 2096710 A1 (11/1994) and CN 201149936 Y (11/2008).

These are the generic coaxial-connector background references. Almost none of them recite a conductively coated elastomeric O-ring that both seals and completes the ground path, so on the record available they read chiefly on the connector-body/post/coupling-member scaffolding rather than on the point of novelty.

4c. Litigation/PTAB-derived prior art (verified as existing, § 102 relevance unconfirmed)

The Darts-IP litigation flag is corroborated by PTAB petition filings (PTACTS petition IDs 1549311, 1549312, 1549313) concerning the "CONNECTOR HAVING A CONDUCTIVELY COATED MEMBER" family. These petitions argue invalidity using:

⚠️ I could not verify the identity, number, or publication date of "Tarrant" or "Bell." I will not supply dates or patent numbers for them, because doing so would be fabrication. If they are the same references used in the Amphenol–PPC inter partes reviews on the sibling continuity-member patents, they are foreign/UK and US patent documents respectively — but that identification must be confirmed against the petition exhibit list.

5. § 102 mapping against the claimed subject matter

Because the granted claims were not retrievable, mapping is done against the eleven "general aspects" recited in the specification, which are the templates for the claims:

Key § 102 vs. § 103 point: the specification repeatedly stresses that the member is coated, not bulk-conductive — "the entire cross-section of the coated mating edge member 70 need not be conductive (i.e. not a bulk conductive member)" — with a non-conductive silicone-rubber core and a sprayed conductive-ink skin. A reference disclosing a homogeneously conductive O-ring (conductive rubber, metal-loaded elastomer) therefore does not anticipate the coated-member claims; it supports § 103 only.

6. Explicit uncertainties and recommended next steps

1. The (56) list for US 9,312,611 is unverified. Obtain the front page via USPTO PatentCenter (application 13/448,937) or the grant PDF to get the definitive U.S., foreign, and NPL citation tables.
2. "Tarrant" and "Bell" are unverified as to number and date. Confirm from PTACTS petition IDs 1549311/1549312/1549313 exhibit lists; also check whether those petitions actually target US 9,312,611 or only its siblings (US 8,157,589 / US 8,323,060 line).
3. GB 1087228 (Oct. 1967) and the two ARRIS/conductive-adhesive NPL items should be confirmed as the actual NPL/foreign entries on this patent rather than a sibling.
4. The granted claims were not retrievable from the sources used; claim-number-specific § 102 conclusions should not be relied on until the claim set is obtained.

I'll first try to pull the actual prior-art references cited on the face of US 9,312,611, since the patent text you supplied is truncated and does not include the "References Cited" / "Prior Art" section.

Useful leads. Let me pin down the specific prior-art references used in the family-wide IPR decisions (Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak, Bell, Tarrant) and try to obtain the actual claim text of 9,312,611.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,312,611 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on inputs and dates. Two housekeeping points before the analysis.

1. The patent text you supplied is truncated at "[0291]…"—the Google Patents page as delivered contains no "References Cited," "Similar Documents," or "Cited By" section. There is therefore no "Prior Art section of this page" to draw on literally. I have substituted the prior-art record of this family (the references actually litigated in the PPC/Amphenol IPRs and in the '053 reexamination), which is the only body of prior art with a documented, citable application to these claims.
2. The task header says April 26, 2026, while the operating rules state today is 2026-09-30. I flag the inconsistency rather than resolve it; the analysis is unaffected.

1. Correction to the previously generated summary (flagging a contradiction)

The earlier section states the claim text was unavailable and reconstructs the independent claims from the Summary's eleven "general aspects," assuming a connector-level claim 1 and "at least claims 1–32." A secondary source I retrieved (RPX Insight, insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US9312611B2) reproduces claim 1 verbatim, and it is not in the form the earlier summary assumed:

1. A conductive shielding member for a cable connector, comprising: a conductively coated component, the conductively coated component configured to reside within the cable connector so as to facilitate grounding of the cable connector through the conductively coated component and to help shield against ingress of unwanted electromagnetic interference; wherein the conductively coated component includes a non-conductive inner core; and an outer conductive coating applied to the non-conductive inner core, the outer conductive coating being flexible so as to flex when a force is applied to conductive shielding member, wherein the outer conductive coating is configured to flex in conjunction with the non-conductive inner core, the flexibility of the outer conductive coating enabling the outer conductive coating to maintain conductivity during the flexing of the non-conductive inner core.

This matters for the § 103 analysis: claim 1 is a component claim ("a conductive shielding member"), not a connector claim, and its point of novelty is coated-core architecture and coating flexibility, not merely "a conductive O-ring." The earlier summary's mapping of "general aspects" onto claims should be treated as superseded for claim 1 and unverified for the remainder. (Caveat: RPX is a secondary database; I could not pull claims 2–32, and the verbatim text of claim 1 should be confirmed against USPTO Patent Public Search before reliance in a filing.)

The practical consequence: the "plain conductive O-ring" prior art (Youtsey/Lionetto/Horak/Bell) defeats the connector and method aspects reflected in the specification and in the sibling patents, but for claim 1 as issued the decisive ground is the coated-elastomer ground set out in § 4 below.

2. Level of ordinary skill and legal framework

A POSA here is a mechanical/electrical engineer (BS + ~2–3 years, or equivalent) in RF connector design, familiar with (a) 75-ohm CATV F-connector architecture (post, nut, body, compression fastener), (b) the dual problem of moisture ingress and RF ingress at the port interface, and (c) elastomeric seals and EMI gaskets. The art is crowded, incremental, and mature — the KSR environment where combination is presumed within the skill of the artisan.

3. Prior art of record

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak (and Bell) → the "conductive sealing/grounding member" subject matter

Rationale: KSR (C) known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (F) design incentive from a known problem.

• Youtsey supplies every structural element of a coaxial connector and the location of sealing members (post/port interface and body/nut interface), but its O-rings are not conductive.
• Lionetto expressly teaches that an electrically conductive elastomeric gasket ring in the same location (post-port interface) ensures a continuous ground shield by "providing continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression."
• Horak teaches the same dual function (weather seal + RFI block) in a compressible conductive O-ring.
• Motivation: moisture and RFI enter through the same crevices; a single member that does both is the obvious design response. Expected result: dual sealing/shielding (predictable). Bell confirms operability "without any particular difficulties."
• This is not merely my projection — the Board so held. In IPR2022-00719 the Board found claim 1 of US 10,446,983 (a continuation of 13/448,937) unobjectionable, holding: "Youtsey anticipates the claimed invention except that its sealing o-ring 84 is not disclosed as being conductive, and Lionetto and Horak together with the knowledge of a person of ordinary skill in the art provide a motivation to modify Youtsey's o-ring 84 to be conductive (i.e., adding a redundant grounding path)." The Board invalidated claims 1–5, 8–15, and 18. The Federal Circuit affirmed on March 4, 2026 (No. 24-1776 et al., Rule 36 judgment).

Consequence for '611: every claim whose novelty is "a conductive/conductively coated O-ring that seals and grounds" (i.e., the connector and method aspects recited in the Summary and implemented as body-member 80 / edge-member 70) is obvious over Ground 1. Because '611 is the parent over which '983 took a terminal disclaimer, and because the Board has already rejected PPC's counter-argument ("prior art placed grounding members in contact with the post, not the body" → "the evidence does not support [that] contention"), an attempt to distinguish '611 on that basis fails on the same record.

Ground 2 — Ground 1 + US 5,769,662 and/or US 6,089,912 → the connector-body/coupler sealing-ring claims

For claims reciting the conductive member located between the connector body and the coupling member (the O-ring 80 embodiment, FIGS. 8A–8B): US 5,769,662 already places an O-ring between the body and the nut to reduce RF degradation, and US 6,089,912 teaches that such O-rings can be made of metal. Making that known body/nut O-ring conductive is a simple substitution of one known element for another (KSR (B)) yielding the predictable benefit of RF continuity across the body-nut junction — exactly the "redundant grounding path" rationale the Board accepted. Motivation is supplied by Lionetto/Horak (dual sealing + shielding) and by the redundancy/robustness incentive.

Ground 3 — Ground 1 + Cloutier US 2006/0180348 (and the general conductive-elastomer gasket art) → claim 1's coated-core architecture

This is the ground that meets claim 1 as issued, and it is the ground most likely to be contested.

Motivation to combine (KSR (A), (B), (D), (G)):

1. Cost/design choice. The '611 specification itself states the rationale: coating rather than bulk-loading means "the entire cross-section … need not be conductive (i.e. not a bulk conductive member)," so an inexpensive non-conductive silicone core can be used. Optimizing material cost by converting a bulk-conductive part to a coated part is a classic predictable design choice / cost-driven variation (KSR). The resulting property — a flexible conductive skin that tracks the substrate — is the expected behavior of a thin film on an elastomer.
2. Known technique. Cloutier and the EMI-gasket corpus establish that applying a conductive layer to an elastomeric seal to obtain simultaneous shielding and weather sealing was a known technique for improving comparable devices in the same way (KSR (C)); the coaxial-connector context supplies the reason to apply it.
3. Manufacturing convenience. Conductive inks and spray application are conventional in the gasket/elastomer industry; the '611 specification describes them as ordinary steps ("spraying and/or spraycoating with an airbrush"; "conductive ink, a silver-based ink"), i.e., an admission that the coating step itself was within the art.
4. Reasonable expectation of success. No evidence of unpredictability; Lionetto/Horak show the dual-function result, and Bell shows a conductive O-ring in a coaxial connector raised no stated difficulty. Conductive ink films on silicone are commercially formulated for repeated flexing.

Counter-arguments PPC would raise, and why they likely fail: (i) Unexpected results — the specification asserts no data; the asserted benefit (coating cheap core rather than bulk-loading) is a cost/manufacturing economy, which is not "unexpected." (ii) Conventional wisdom / teaching away — PPC made exactly this argument in the '983 IPR ("grounding members in contact with the post, not the body") and lost. (iii) Nexus — any commercial-success or copying evidence directed to PPC's commercial connector attaches to a multi-feature product, not to the coated-core limitation; the Board gave PPC's "the inventors' own later claims prove patentability" argument "only very little" weight.

Ground 4 — Means-plus-function aspects

The Summary's fourth and ninth "general aspects" recite "means for conductively sealing and electrically coupling." Under § 112(f), the means correspond to the specification's structure (O-ring 70/80, incl. coated O-ring). They are obvious for the same reasons as Grounds 1–3; a functional "means" recitation does not import patentability where the corresponding structure is a known conductive O-ring or a known coated-elastomer seal.

5. Dependents and method claims (limit of my information)

I could not verify claims 2–32. Based on the specification, dependents almost certainly recite: toroid/O-ring shape; silicone-rubber core; conductive ink / silver-based ink; coating thinned with a reactive silicone topcoat vs. organic solvent; full vs. partial coating; poloidal/toroidal strips, rings, or weave patterns; and the connector environment (post mating edge, coupling member inner surface). Each of these is a predictable variation of Grounds 1–3: rotund shapes are inherent in seal art; silver-filled silicone inks are conventional; strip/pattern coating is disclosed as an alternative in the specification itself and is a routing/masking choice.

The method claims (grounding by advancing until the port mates with the conductive member; electrically coupling by threading the nut onto a conductive port) are obvious as method steps inherent in using the Youtsey/Lionetto/Horak structure — a POSA performing the assembly described in Youtsey necessarily advances the connector onto a port and completes a shield.

6. Confidence and caveats

• High confidence: Ground 1's substance, including the Board's express holding and the Federal Circuit's Rule 36 affirmance (Mar. 4, 2026), and the probative weight of that holding for the family's shared disclosure.
• Moderate confidence: Ground 3 for claim 1 as issued. It is facially strong (KSR design choice/cost + Cloutier), but it depends on a reference (Cloutier) that is a general EMI-gasket reference, not a coaxial-connector reference, and on inherency of the "maintains conductivity during flexing" property. It would be materially strengthened by (a) the actual "References Cited" list on the '611 face, which I could not retrieve, and (b) any coated- or metal-plated-elastomer seal art in H01R 13/6584 or class 428/35.
• Unverified identifiers: the Youtsey and Horak patent numbers are not confirmed; cite them by exhibit/decision rather than number until verified. Lionetto = US 4,929,188 is verified.
• Claim text: claim 1 verbatim comes from a secondary database; claims 2–32 are unverified. Confirm both against USPTO Patent Public Search before any filing.
• Legal status: Google Patents lists this patent "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2026-01-24. I did not independently verify maintenance-fee payment. Status affects remedies, not the § 103 analysis.
• Absence of a '611-specific IPR/CAFC case in my searches is not proof of absence; the activity I found is against descendants (9,570,859; 10,038,284; 10,446,983; 9,225,083; 10,965,063).