US 9516376

I'll research US patent 9516376 across the sources you specified.

Now let me check for CAFC 2026 docket activity and the litigation referenced on the patent record.

Let me verify whether the IPRs at issue in the Federal Circuit appeal involve patent 9516376.

Scope and grounding notes

I searched for the literal number 9516376 as instructed. Two categories of hits were returned that are not the patent and are flagged here only to avoid false matches:

• GB application 9516376.2 (GB 2 304 061 A) — a curtain-coating process. Different document entirely.
• Instances of "9516376" as a tabulated numeric value in unrelated scientific/PCT documents.

The results below match the USPTO/Google Patents record for US 9,516,376 B2, whose full text was supplied to me as the authoritative source.

Bibliographic data — US 9,516,376 B2

Litigation flags on the patent record (Google Patents): US cases filed in Delaware District Court, docket numbers 1:21-cv-00305 and 1:20-cv-01148 (both linked via Unified Patents litigation data). A "family has litigation" / first worldwide family litigation flag is also present.

Abstract (as issued)

"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."

Plain-language overview of the disclosure

The patent addresses a known problem: splitting a downstream CATV signal across many in-home coax outlets degrades signal-to-noise ratio, and the conventional fix — putting an amplifier in the entry adapter — introduces a powered point of failure, which is bad for "lifeline" services (modem/VoIP telephone) and drives service calls.

The disclosed solution is a passive entry adapter (no amplifier, no separate power source) that:

1. Uses a frequency-band rejection device (either a rejection filter, as in FIGS. 3–4, or one or more diplexers, as in FIGS. 5–8) between the CATV entry port and the splitter input, so that in-home-network-frequency signals (e.g., MoCA, ~1125–1525 MHz) cannot pass out to the CATV network.
2. Uses a passive splitter to distribute CATV signals to network ports and to pass in-home network signals between those ports, so the adapter acts as the hub of the in-home network.
3. In several embodiments, routes the DOCSIS/eMTA path (modem + VoIP set) through its own dedicated port so that lifeline telephone service does not depend on the powered in-home network interfaces.
4. In the FIG. 7/8 embodiments, routes CATV signals only to a principal port (server interface) with essentially no splitting, and lets the server interface redistribute the content as network signals to client interfaces — so the four-way split loss applies only to the in-home network signals, which the server interface drives at adequate strength.

Six embodiments are described (10a–10f, FIGS. 3–8), with 10a/10c/10e lacking the dedicated eMTA port and 10b/10d/10f including it.

Independent claims — overview

Caution on precision: the fetched authoritative text of the granted patent was truncated before the claims, so I do not have the verbatim issued claim set for US 9,516,376 B2. What follows is grounded in (a) the patent's own "Summary of the Invention," which describes the independent aspects of the invention, and (b) the claim text visible in the pre-grant publication US 2016/0037210 A1. Claim numbering in the granted patent may differ from the publication, and I am not asserting exact claim wording.

1. Apparatus claim — CATV entry adapter (Summary, first aspect). A CATV entry adapter that carries downstream/upstream CATV signals between a CATV network and subscriber devices, and carries in-home network signals between subscriber devices. It comprises: a CATV entry port; multiple network ports (each for a network interface attached to a subscriber device); a signal splitter having an input terminal and two output terminals, which splits an input signal into reduced-power copies at its outputs and also passes signals from each output to the input and to the other output; and an in-home network frequency band rejection device connected between the CATV entry port and the splitter input, which substantially blocks in-home network signals from reaching the entry port/CATV network.

2. System claim — in-home network (Summary, second aspect). An in-home network for distributing multimedia content obtained from CATV signals and from subscriber devices, comprising a CATV entry adapter with a CATV entry port and multiple network ports, plus multiple in-home network interfaces each connected to a different network port. The interfaces exchange multimedia content with each other via network signals through the adapter; at least one interface sends/receives CATV signals and passes that content to its subscriber device and forwards content derived from the CATV signals as network signals through the adapter to another interface; each interface likewise forwards content from its subscriber device as network signals. The network signals occupy a band different from the CATV band.

3. Method claim (Summary, third aspect). A method of conducting CATV information between a CATV network and subscriber devices and network-signal information between subscriber devices in an in-home network, comprising: connecting the CATV entry adapter to receive/transmit CATV signals; connecting in-home network interfaces to each subscriber device to form the in-home network; connecting the CATV entry adapter as a hub to pass network signals between interfaces; confining the network signals to an in-home network band different from the CATV band; connecting the adapter to at least one network interface to receive/transmit CATV signals; and preventing transmission of the network signals within the adapter onto the CATV network.

4. Independent claim visible in the pre-grant publication (claim 16 of US 2016/0037210 A1). An entry adapter for delivering downstream and upstream signals between a network and one or more subscriber devices, comprising an entry port, one or more network ports, a signal splitter with an input terminal and at least two output terminals, and a frequency band rejection device coupled between the entry port and the splitter input, configured to pass first-band (upstream/downstream) signals through to the subscriber device(s) and to block second-band signals (communications between subscriber devices) from entering the network. Dependent claims in the publication specify diplexer implementations (common terminal to a network port, low-frequency terminal to the entry port, high-frequency terminal to the splitter input), a second splitter feeding a voice/data/video port, all-passive construction, power derived only from the signals, and a rejection band of approximately 1125–1675 MHz while passing approximately 5–1002 MHz.

Subsidiary aspects expressly noted in the Summary include: the frequency rejection device being passive-only / needing no power source beyond the CATV and network signals; and the eMTA embodiment (splitting downstream CATV into reduced-power copies and supplying one copy to an eMTA-compatible device).

CAFC 2026 docket check

My search of Federal Circuit 2026 activity returned PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779, appeals from PTAB Nos. IPR2022-00718, IPR2022-00719, IPR2022-00720, IPR2022-00721.

• Disposition: Rule 36 affirmance (nonprecedential), entered March 4, 2026; panel of Reyna, Hughes, and Cunningham, JJ. Argued March 2, 2026, Courtroom 402. Source: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf

Uncertainty flag: I could not confirm from any retrieved source that US 9,516,376 is one of the patents at issue in IPR2022-00718–00721 or in the resulting CAFC appeals. The appellant (PPC Broadband) and the patent-family identification are consistent with the possibility, but this is not established by the search results. I am deliberately not asserting the linkage. Similarly, I could not retrieve docket contents for the two Delaware cases (1:21-cv-00305, 1:20-cv-01148) to confirm which patents were asserted.

What I am confident of vs. not

Confident (from the authoritative patent text and matching USPTO-record mirrors): title, application number 14/881,686, filing date 2015-10-13, issue date 2016-12-06, inventors, assignee chain, priority date 2009-09-21, continuity chain, abstract, and the technical substance of the independent aspects.

Not confident / flagged: (i) the verbatim issued claim language and claim numbering of US 9,516,376 B2 — the fetched text did not include the claims; (ii) whether the Amphenol CAFC appeals or the Delaware cases involve this specific patent number; (iii) whether the "Active" legal status and 2029-09-21 expiration remain accurate as of today, since those are Google Patents assumptions rather than USPTO legal conclusions.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 9,516,376 using the sources you specified.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and their outcomes.

Let me verify the specific patents asserted in the IPR challenges and find the current status of these cases.

Based on my research across patent litigation aggregators (Unified Patents litigation portal, Justia Dockets, Docket Alarm, UniCourt, Patexia) and the official Google Patents record for US 9,516,376, here is what I can confirm — and what I cannot.

Important caveat up front

I was able to identify the cases in which US 9,516,376 ("Passive multi-port entry adapter and method for preserving downstream CATV signal strength within in-home network," Wells et al., assigned to PPC Broadband, Inc.) was named as an asserted patent, but I could not fully verify final outcomes for every case within my search budget. Where I state an outcome, it is drawn directly from a docket entry I retrieved. Where the record is incomplete, I say so rather than speculate.

Litigation involving US 9,516,376

1. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation et al.

• Plaintiff: PPC Broadband, Inc. (corporate parent Belden Inc.)
• Defendants: Amphenol Corporation; Times Fiber Communications, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Wilmington Division
• Case No.: 1:20-cv-01148-LPS (Presiding Judge Leonard P. Stark)
• Filing date: August 28, 2020
• '376 status: Named in the complaint's Report to the Commissioner of Patents/Trademarks — asserted patents were 8,510,782; 9,167,286; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591. (Justia docket)
• Outcome / status: The docket shows only early procedural activity (pro hac vice motions, a stipulation extending the defendants' response deadline to November 18, 2020). Docket Alarm records the case as terminated December 16, 2020, with flags "CLOSED and PATENT." (Docket Alarm record) The specific dismissal/disposition document was not in the retrieved excerpts.

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

• Plaintiff: PPC Broadband, Inc.
• Defendants: CommScope, Inc.; CommScope, Inc. of North Carolina; CommScope Technologies LLC
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Case No.: 1:21-cv-00305-LPS (Judge Leonard P. Stark)
• Filing date: February 26, 2021
• '376 status: Named among the asserted patents in the complaint's Report to the Commissioner — 8,510,782; 9,167,286; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591. (UniCourt case summary | Patexia docket)
• Outcome / status: The most recent activity I retrieved (through late 2021) shows the case pending, with an answer filed to an amended complaint (Sept. 10, 2021), service of interrogatories/document requests (Dec. 23, 2021), and negotiation of a scheduling order. I could not confirm a final disposition (trial, judgment, or settlement). UniCourt listed it as "Pending – Other Pending" as of its last update.

3. PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation (New York)

• Case No.: 5:21-cv-00504 (N.D.N.Y., Chief Judge Glenn T. Suddaby)
• Filing date: on or about May 12, 2021 (waiver of service sent 5/12/2021)
• Outcome / status: A joint stipulation of dismissal without prejudice was filed, and the court entered a text order on October 4, 2021 dismissing all claims and defenses without prejudice, each party bearing its own fees/costs. (Patexia docket)
• Caveat: This case is clearly part of the PPC–Amphenol dispute, but the docket excerpts I retrieved did not expressly list which patents were asserted, so I cannot confirm the '376 patent itself was among them. Treat this as a probable related case, not a confirmed '376 assertion.

Post-grant proceedings (PTAB)

The Google Patents "litigation" links for the '376 point only to the two Delaware district court cases above; none point to a PTAB proceeding on the '376. I identified an Amphenol-initiated IPR cluster — IPR2022-00718/-00719/-00720/-00721 — but the panel/inventor data I retrieved (e.g., inventors "Mary Krenceski, Roger Mathews, Noah P. Montena" for IPR2022-00721) indicates those challenged connector patents, not the Wells/Egan '376 patent. The related Federal Circuit appeals 2024-1776 through 2024-1779 (PPC Broadband v. Amphenol, decided March 4, 2026, per curiam affirmed under Fed. Cir. R. 36) arise from that IPR cluster and therefore are not '376 appeals. I could not confirm any IPR or PGR specifically challenging US 9,516,376.

Bottom line

• Confirmed '376 assertions: two Delaware district court actions — 1:20-cv-01148 (Amphenol/Times Fiber) and 1:21-cv-00305 (CommScope).
• Known outcome: 1:20-cv-01148 terminated (Dec. 16, 2020); the N.Y. companion case was dismissed without prejudice (Oct. 4, 2021).
• Unverified: the final disposition of the CommScope case (1:21-cv-00305), which appeared still pending as of the last records I could retrieve; and whether any PTAB challenge was specifically directed at the '376 claims.
• Identifiers were taken literally as they appear in the sources; I did not auto-correct any patent or case numbers.

If you need a certified current status, the authoritative next steps would be a PACER pull for 1:21-cv-00305-LPS and the PTAB Patent Trial & Appeal Board End-to-End (PTAB E2E) / USPTO PatentCenter record for the '376 patent.

I'll start by checking the structured data block against live sources, since the "no proceedings" default needs verification.

The generic searches returned noise. Let me target the specific patent and its litigation family.

Found the key assertion: PPC v. CommScope in D. Del. asserting the '376 patent. Now let me check whether CommScope (or anyone) petitioned the PTAB on it.

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — U.S. Patent No. 9,516,376

"Passive multi-port entry adapter and method for preserving downstream CATV signal strength within in-home network"
Patent Owner: PPC Broadband, Inc. (Belden family) · Priority date 2009-09-21 · Anticipated expiration 2029-09-21 · Status: Active

Verification note before you read on. My live-search verification was truncated by a tool call limit mid-way through the third round of queries. Everything below is grounded in what I actually retrieved; the one conclusion I could not fully run to ground is flagged as [UNVERIFIED]. Treat the negative finding as strong but not final until you re-run it against PTAB E2E (see Recommended next steps).

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for U.S. 9,516,376: zero — 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured record returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding for this patent, and my web searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision naming the '376 patent.

Bottom-line defensive posture: there is no PTAB precedent to lean on in either direction. Nobody has canceled a claim of this patent, and nobody has validated one either. This is not a hardened patent (no panel has blessed it) and not a dead one (no claim has been canceled). Every claim is UNTESTED, and the defensive value you get from the PTAB is currently zero — you must build invalidity in district court, or open a fresh IPR yourself within your § 315(b) window.

Proceeding-by-proceeding

There is no proceeding to report. Applying the requested template would require me to invent a proceeding number, which I will not do. Instead, here is the audit trail of the candidates I checked and ruled out.

Candidates checked and ruled OUT (not proceedings on 9,516,376)

Proceeding number for the '376: none exists.

• Type: n/a
• Filed: n/a
• Status: n/a
• Judge panel: n/a
• Petition grounds: n/a
• Institution decision: n/a
• Final Written Decision: n/a — no FWD has ever issued, so there is no claim-level verdict to quote
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: The Federal Circuit appeals PPC Broadband v. Corning Optical Communications, Nos. 15-1361, -1366, -1368, -1369 and 15-1364 (Judges Moore, O'Malley, Wallach) are connector-patent appeals in which the CAFC vacated and remanded the Board's obviousness and claim-construction holdings. They do not involve the '376.
• Defensive value: None extracts from the PTAB. The absence means no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to anyone — a rare and genuinely useful fact.

The parallel litigation that explains the (current) absence of IPRs

The '376 has been asserted, which is why the zero-IPR finding is worth double-checking rather than assuming:

• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. CommScope, Inc., D. Del. 1:21-cv-00305-LPS, filed 2021-02-26, before Judge Leonard P. Stark. PPC's Rule 3 Report to the Commissioner identified five patents-in-suit: 8,510,782; 9,167,286; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591. Docket records show CommScope answered, the parties exchanged infringement contentions and served written discovery through late 2021, and a third-party aggregator lists the case as later Closed (reason not established by me). Source: https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-ppc-broadband-inc-v-commscope-inc-[835718](/patent/835718)
• D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148-LPS — the other Delaware case the '376's Google Patents family record flags as litigation involving this family.
• PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., D. Del. 1:21-cv-00654-LPS — the same campaign, asserting other PPC patents (e.g., '083). Per Amphenol's own IPR2022-00721 filings.

So the '376 was in active litigation for years with a sophisticated, well-represented defendant — and still drew no AIA petition. That is a meaningful data point, though not conclusive: it can mean the claims weren't the valuable ones, that the defendant was working a § 282 invalidity theory in court, or that the case resolved before a petition made sense.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of the '376 is UNTESTED at the PTAB. There is no canceled claim, no substituted claim from a motion to amend, and no surviving-claim list to give you — because no panel has ever construed a single term of this patent in a trial proceeding. (I also note the patent text supplied to me was truncated before the claims, so I did not independently verify the claim count or the independent-claim structure. Do not let anyone in your team assume "claims 1–5 are dead" — nothing is dead here.) The patent runs to 2029-09-21, so a defendant sued today faces roughly three more years of exposure on a completely untested claim set — arguably the worst defensive position short of an already-adverse FWD.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR was ever instituted, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached — not to CommScope, not to Amphenol, not to anyone. A defendant today therefore walks into both forums with the entire prior-art universe intact: printed publications, patents, and (subject to the Board's usual limits) system art and public use. There is no "raised or reasonably could have raised" collar. Two timing traps still matter: (i) § 315(b) bars a petition filed more than one year after service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '376 — if your client was served in the 2020–2021 Delaware wave, assume you are time-barred and plan accordingly; a newly-served defendant has a clean twelve months. (ii) § 315(a)(1) bars a petitioner who previously filed a DJ action of invalidity.

Pattern signals. PPC Broadband/Belden is an operating company, not an NPE — it litigates as a practice, and it is an active PTAB petitioner itself (IPR2022-00946, PPC v. Times Fiber), so it knows the forum well and will defend competently. Its ownership chain ran John Mezzalingua Associates → MR ADVISERS LIMITED → PPC BROADBAND, INC. (change-of-name filings, 2019-12-20). I found no defensive aggregator in the chain — no Unified Patents or RPX petition against the '376. The other IPRs in PPC's portfolio (the 2013 Corning Gilbert connector IPRs, Amphenol's IPR2022-00721) show PPC has been challenged repeatedly on hardware patents and has won on appeal in at least the connector appeals — i.e., this is a patent owner with demonstrated PTAB/CAFC staying power.

One more timing consideration for 2026. '376 carries a 2009 priority date and is 17 years old. Under the USPTO's post-2025 discretionary-denial posture — including the "settled expectations" age-based doctrine that the agency has invoked to deny petitions, and the parallel-litigation stipulation requirements — a fresh IPR petition on a patent this old, already litigated, would face a materially elevated discretionary-denial risk, on top of FY2026 institution rates running around 38%. Those policies are themselves under challenge (Supreme Court petition No. 25-1230). Factor this into cost-benefit before you spend on a petition.

Recommended next steps

1. Re-verify the negative before you rely on it. Run a PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board search on "9,516,376" and on Patent Owner "PPC Broadband" at https://ptab.uspto.gov/, and confirm against USPTO Patent Center: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ — this is the one conclusion my truncated search could not close out [UNVERIFIED].
2. Pull the existing district-court invalidity work product rather than reinventing it. CommScope's contentions and expert reports in 1:21-cv-00305-LPS (D. Del.) are the only developed invalidity record that exists for this patent. That is your starting prior-art set, and it is free.
3. Calendar your § 315(b) one-year date immediately. If you were served on a complaint pleading the '376, the clock is running; if you were served in the 2021 wave, you are likely barred and the case must be won on § 282 grounds in court.
4. Consider ex parte reexamination as the off-ramp. For a 2009-priority patent where IPR institution risk is high and § 315(b) may bar you, EPR carries no § 315(b) bar and no discretionary-denial filter. EPR requests hit an all-time high of 726 in 2025 precisely for this reason (Unified Patents, 2025 in Review). Base the request on the CommScope art plus any pre-2009 MoCA entry-device/system references.
5. Treat the family, not just the patent. The '376 was pleaded alongside 8,510,782 / 9,167,286 / 9,351,051 / 9,860,591, and '591 is a direct continuation of the '376's own chain (via 15/360,620). A defense built on the '376 alone will not end the dispute — build one invalidity theory that reaches the whole chain.
6. Do not underwrite a § 101 or § 112 attack based on the PTAB. With no FWD, there is no panel reasoning to borrow on claim construction — you are the first to get a construction, and you own that risk.

Caveat on sourcing: PTAB and district court docketing retrieved through third-party aggregators (Docket Alarm, UniCourt, Patexia) is a lead, not a record. Confirm every citation above against PTAB E2E and PACER before filing anything that depends on it.

I'll research the assignment record, litigation, and corporate history before reconstructing the chain.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 9,516,376 B2

Patent: Passive Multi-Port Entry Adapter and Method for Preserving Downstream CATV Signal Strength within In-Home Network
App. No.: 14/881,686 · filed 2015-10-13 · granted 2016-12-06
Priority: 2009-09-21 (continuation of 13/688,420 → 12/563,719 → US 8,356,322)
Verification links: Google Patents legal events · USPTO Assignment Center · Assignment Search (legacy UI) · Assignment records mirrored at PlainSite: reel 51347/0037, reel 51397/0815

Data-integrity note up front: I was able to confirm two reel/frame entries and their correspondents from indexed USPTO assignment records. The third record (MR Advisers → PPC Broadband) is confirmed as an event on Google Patents but I could not independently pull its reel/frame or correspondent within this session — that field is marked [not verified] rather than guessed. No assignments have been fabricated.

Inventors

Pattern notes. No unusual inventor pattern is visible. Neither inventor appears in the subsequent name-change records as an assignor, and there is no record evidencing either inventor departing the original assignee within 12 months of the 2009-09-21 priority filing. The inventors assigned to the same operating company that prosecuted and still ultimately owns the patent, and the same two inventors appear on the continuation (15/360,620 → US 9,860,591) that was asserted alongside this patent. This is an ordinary in-house engineering/R&D assignment, not a portfolio spun out of departed founders.

Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. is listed by Google Patents as both original and current assignee. The recorded chain, however, shows the issuance-time owner legal entity was John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. d/b/a PPC — the same operating business, which was renamed twice (see timeline). For practical purposes these are one continuous operating company, not a transfer.

• Business: design and manufacture of coaxial cable connectors, drop amplifiers, entry adapters/splitters, and broadband connectivity hardware for CATV/MDU markets. The patent's own commercial embodiment is the passive multi-port MoCA-compatible entry adapter described in FIGS. 3–8.
• Did they ship product embodying the claims? Yes — PPC is a volume hardware manufacturer, not a licensing vehicle. Corroborating evidence outside this patent: in IPR2022-00946/-01088 PPC's own published product brochure ("Perfect Tote 500 Eco" reel tote bag) and a PPC-assigned patent application publication were used as §102 prior art against Times Fiber — i.e., PPC's marketing collateral and filings are the prior art, which only happens for an operating manufacturer. PPC also holds a long connector-patent litigation history asserting its own products' patents (Corning Gilbert, PCT International, Arcom, Times Fiber, Belden, Amphenol).
• Current status: Operating, and a subsidiary of Belden Inc. The Rule 7.1 corporate disclosure filed 2020-08-28 in D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148 expressly "identif[ies] Corporate Parent Belden Inc. for PPC Broadband, Inc." No bankruptcy, dissolution, or assignment-for-benefit-of-creditors event appears anywhere in the chain. (I did not verify the exact date of the Belden transaction in this session.)

Assignment timeline

Three recorded assignments, all recorded on the same day: 2019-12-20. All three are corroborating/name-change documents filed in a single batch — the signature of a chain-of-title cleanup, not a portfolio sale. Ordering below is by corporate sequence.

2012-09-11 (executed) / recorded 2019-12-20 — Reel 51397/0815

• 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 — confirmed on this record. This is a conventional patent-prosecution firm of record. It recurs across the PPC family's 2019 recordings (see signal 3), but MH2 is a general-practice IP firm serving operating clients, so recurrence here is not an NPE indicator on its own.
• Context: internal corporate reorganization — pure name change within the same corporate family; no consideration, no change in beneficial ownership.

Recorded 2019-12-20 — Reel 51397/0815-adjacent [reel not verified]

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: MR Advisers Limited
• Assignee: PPC Broadband, Inc.
• Correspondent: [not verified] — same batch and same correspondent pattern as the record above (MH2 Technology Law Group).
• Context: internal corporate reorganization — the second half of the two-step rename that lands the patent in the name it is asserted under today.

Recorded 2019-12-20 — Reel 51347/0037 (underlying document executed circa the 2009 filing; execution date not shown in the indexed record)

• Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
• Assignor: Wells, Chad T.; and Egan, John M., Jr.
• Assignee: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
• Correspondent: [not verified] for this specific entry — the indexed excerpt does not expose it; family practice indicates MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP (same Tysons Corner, VA address).
• Context: the original inventor→employer assignment, filed contemporaneously with prosecution and recorded retroactively in 2019 as part of the pre-litigation title cleanup.

Caveat on the "MR Advisers Limited" name. On its face this is a non-US-sounding entity name that could read as a shell intermediate. Per your own constraint, naming alone is not a finding. Here the evidence affirmatively points the other way: (a) the conveyance type is Change of Name, not Assignment; (b) the chain terminates at a Delaware operating manufacturer; (c) that manufacturer's 2020 Rule 7.1 disclosure names Belden Inc. as corporate parent. This is a rename artifact, not a shell-entity transfer.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9516376
    2009 : Priority filing by John Mezzalingua
         : Inventors assign to the company
    2012 : Name change to MR Advisers Limited
    2015 : Continuation application filed
    2016 : Patent granted to PPC Broadband
    2019 : Chain of title recorded at USPTO
         : Name changes recorded in one batch
    2020 : PPC sues Amphenol and Times Fiber
         : Rule 7.1 names Belden as parent
    2021 : PPC sues CommScope in Delaware

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only "unusual" name in the chain, MR Advisers Limited, is reached by a Change of Name conveyance on reel 51397/0815, not by an assignment. The chain settles at PPC Broadband, Inc., a manufacturer whose 2020-08-28 Rule 7.1 disclosure identifies Belden Inc. as corporate parent (D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148). No licensing-only LLC, no registered-agent-service address, and no single-member shell appears at any link. The recorded correspondent address (MH2, Tysons Corner VA) is a law firm office, not a shell's business address.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
No assignee or assignor matches any of the listed asserters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Current owner is a hardware manufacturer. Note the inverse point: PPC/Belden has been the target of NPE-style petitions (e.g., a RPX-defensive figure, Amphenol/Times Fiber IPR2022-00718 through -00721 against PPC); it is on the defending side of the NPE docket, not the asserting side of it.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT IN FACT, NOT PROBATIVE.
MH2 Technology Law Group, LLP, 1951 Kidwell Drive, Suite 310, Tysons Corner, VA 22182 is confirmed as correspondent of record on reel 51397/0815 and appears in the same 2019-12-20 recording batch as the other two entries. So yes, one correspondent handled every link. But your own calibration note applies squarely: recurrence is only a signal when the correspondent is tied to an NPE assertion pattern. MH2 is a general patent-prosecution firm with operating-company clients, and all three recordings here are a single corporate family renaming itself. Recording this as a fact, scored as a non-signal.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Three records in a 24-hour window is superficially cascade-like, but the substance defeats it: two are Change of Name records, and the third is the original inventor→employer assignment being recorded late. There is no chain of distinct, unrelated assignees, no shared registered-agent address among different owners, and no second correspondent.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT on the stated test; adjacent pattern noted.
Chain-of-title recordings: 2019-12-20. First suit naming this patent: 1:20-cv-01148, filed 2020-08-28. Elapsed interval ≈ 8 months, i.e. outside your 6-month threshold. Also note the execution date of the operative name change is 2012-09-11 — the ownership change is seven years pre-suit, so nothing was "arranged to enable assertion." What is worth flagging as a legitimate but different observation: the batch recording of 2019-12-20 was plainly a standing/venue housekeeping step in preparation for the 2020 Delaware campaign. That is normal operating-company litigation hygiene, not NPE conduct.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 record, no trustee sale, no stalking-horse. Corporate parent is Belden Inc., an NYSE-listed operating company.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
The defining feature of privateering is an operating company pushing assertion onto a separate NPE while keeping its own name out of the caption. Here PPC Broadband, Inc. is the named plaintiff in its own name (1:20-cv-01148 v. Amphenol Corp. and Times Fiber Communications; and 1:21-cv-00305 v. CommScope). No assertion entity intervenes.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains in the manufacturer's hands and was actively enforced, the inverse of neutralization.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

US 9,516,376 is owned by PPC Broadband, Inc., a coaxial-connector and broadband-hardware manufacturer that is a subsidiary of Belden Inc. (corporate parent identified in PPC's Rule 7.1 disclosure filed 2020-08-28 in D. Del. 1:20-cv-01148). The entire ownership chain is intra-family: the inventors assigned to John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (reel 51347/0037, recorded 2019-12-20), which changed its name to MR Advisers Limited (reel 51397/0815, executed 2012-09-11, recorded 2019-12-20), which changed its name again to PPC Broadband, Inc. (recorded 2019-12-20) — two name changes, zero transfers, and no asserter, shell, or aggregator anywhere in the sequence. PPC then asserted this patent in its own name against direct competitors Amphenol, Times Fiber, and CommScope. There is no NPE signal in this chain; the only recurring feature (correspondent MH2 Technology Law Group) is an ordinary prosecution firm and should not be scored against the patent.

Search-verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search (search by patent number 9516376): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Reel 51347/0037 (PlainSite mirror): https://www.plainsite.org/patents/assignment.html?id=[10012093](/patent/10012093)
• Reel 51397/0815 (PlainSite mirror): https://www.plainsite.org/patents/assignment.html?id=[10018000](/patent/10018000)
• Assertion docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16645594/ · https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2020cv01148/73087

Open items to close out if you need a court-clean record: (i) the reel/frame and execution date for the MR Advisers → PPC Broadband change-of-name record; (ii) the correspondent of record on reel 51347/0037; (iii) the execution date of the inventor assignment. All three are visible in the Assignment Center's per-record detail view under "Correspondent" / "Execution Date," which I could not open in this session.

I'll search for US Patent 9516376 and its citation records.

Let me find the specific "References Cited" listed on the face of US 9,516,376.

Let me get the actual "References Cited" list from the patent's front page via FreePatentsOnline and other sources.

1. Identification of the target patent (per the authoritative full text)

Identifier caution (per your "do not auto-correct" rule). The bare string "9516376" resolves to more than one document in search results. I did not silently treat them as equivalent, and I note them literally:

• US 9,516,376 — the U.S. patent you asked about (target).
• GB 2 304 061 A — its UK application number is 9516376.2 (a curtain-coating application). Unrelated art; not the U.S. patent.
• WO 95/16376 — a 1995 PCT publication (Novikoff/Carl Hilton context). Unrelated; not the U.S. patent.

Source limitation I must state plainly. I could not pull the verbatim front-page "References Cited" block of US 9,516,376 directly from a USPTO endpoint in this session (I have web-search access, not a USPTO API). The citation list below is reconstructed from the same-specification family patents — US 9,860,591 and US 10,341,718, whose "Referenced Cited" tables contain the identical specification and examiner citation set — cross-checked against Google Patents, Justia and FreePatentsOnline records that mirror the USPTO file. Verify against the actual printed front page of the '376 patent before relying on it in a filing.

2. Cited U.S. patent documents (References Cited — U.S. Patent Documents)

Publication/filing dates are the reference-issuance dates as recorded in the family citation tables. "Relevance" is my analytic assessment, not the examiner's.

(The family table continues with additional U.S. patents and published applications beyond those captured here; the full printed list should be read off the granted front page.)

3. Cited U.S. patent application publications

Publications in the family citation table include (dates as published): 2001/0016950 (Matsuura); 2002/0069417 (Kliger); 2002/0141347 (Harp et al.); 2002/0144292 (Uemura et al.); 2002/0166124 (Gurantz et al.); 2002/0174423 (Fifield et al.); 2003/0084458 (Ljungdahl et al.); 2004/0229561 (Cowley et al.); 2005/0183130 (Sadja et al.); 2005/0210977 (Yan); 2005/0283815 and 2005/0289632 (Brooks et al.); 2006/0015921 (Vaughan); 2006/0041918 (Currivan et al.); 2006/0117371 (Margulis); 2006/0191359 (Tarasinski et al.); 2006/0205442 (Phillips et al.); 2006/0241838 (Mongiardo et al.); 2006/0282871 (Yo); 2007/0024393 (Forse et al.); 2007/0288981 (Mitsuse et al.); 2007/0288982 (Donahue); 2008/0001645 (Kuroki); 2008/0013612 (Miller et al.); 2008/0022344 (Riggsby); 2008/0040764 (Weinstein et al.). These are largely broadband/home-networking publications bearing on MoCA-style in-home traffic and CATV return paths.

4. Family / related documents (NOT § 102 prior art)

Because they share the '376 priority date, these are not prior art against '376 but are the continuation siblings an examiner would cross-check:

• U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,322 (Ser. No. 12/563,719, 2009) — parent
• US 2011/0072472 A1 — publication of the parent
• U.S. Pat. No. 9,167,286 (2015)
• U.S. Pat. No. 9,860,591 (2018)
• WO 2011/035278 A3 — PCT publication of the same application (inventor name misspelled "Mezzlingua" in some records)

5. Most relevant prior art and § 102 analysis (claim-by-claim)

Framing of the claims. The '376 patent's independent claims (as reflected in the 2016/0037210 publication; e.g., published claim 16 and its family equivalents) require, in substance: (a) an entry port to a CATV network; (b) one or more network ports to subscriber devices; (c) a signal splitter having an input and at least two outputs; and (d) a frequency-band rejection device coupled between the entry port and the splitter input that passes upstream/downstream CATV signals in a first band and blocks, from entering the network, in-home-network signals in a second band. Dependent claims narrow to: a diplexer form (common/low/high terminals); a second splitter; an eMTA/voice-data-video port; "only passive electronic components"; power derived from the signals themselves; and a filter rejecting ≈1125–1675 MHz while passing ≈5–1002 MHz.

Anticipation (§ 102) — single-reference test. Anticipation requires one reference disclosing every limitation arranged as claimed. On the record available, no single cited reference appears to anticipate the independent claims, because none combines (i) a passive multi-port entry hub plus (ii) a splitter that also cross-couples in-home signals between output ports plus (iii) a dedicated in-home-band rejection element at the entry port. The nearest § 102 candidates and why they fall short:

• Reichert, Jr., US 4,520,508 — discloses a subscriber terminal that monitors/suppresses RF ingress into the CATV network. Arguably reads on the "block signals in a second band from entering the network" concept, but discloses no in-home-network splitter hub or per-port network signal distribution → does not anticipate the independent claims; relevant to § 103 and to the "preventing transmission onto the CATV network" method claims.
• Dufresne, US 5,126,840 — an upstream filter in a CATV network. Reads on the rejection-filter limitation but lacks the multi-port in-home splitter architecture.
• Gurusami, US 5,557,319 — "Subscriber return system for CATV full service networks": subscriber return over shared coax, with combining/splitting. Reads on the entry-port + splitter + upstream aspects, but does not disclose an in-home-network (MoCA-style) frequency band distinct from the CATV band, nor band-rejection at the entry port.
• Williams, US 5,745,836 / US 5,815,794 and Tresness, US 5,745,838 — coax-based in-home networking with return path. Read on the "network signals between subscriber devices over premises coax" concept, but not on the passive CATV entry adapter with entry-port band rejection and preserved downstream CATV splitting.
• Sanders, US 5,893,024 — frequency-band separation/diplexing in CATV return paths. Reads on the diplexer-form dependent claims (the common/low/high-terminal limitation), but not on the full combination.

Obviousness (§ 103) — the more realistic attack. The cited set is better characterized as a § 103 combination: e.g., Reichert (ingress blocking) or Dufresne (upstream filter) in view of Gurusami (subscriber return splitter) and Williams/Tresness (in-home coax networking), optionally with Sanders (diplexer band separation) to render the "rejection device = diplexer" dependent claims obvious.

Dependent-claim specifics worth flagging:

• The "only passive electronic components / no separate power source" claims are supported across this family's cited art as an inherent property of the splitter/filter topologies — a strong § 103 argument.
• The "frequency rejection filter rejecting ≈1125–1675 MHz, passing ≈5–1002 MHz" claim maps onto the MoCA D-band figures (1125–1525/1675 MHz) discussed in the specification; Sanders and the diplexer art are the closest structural analogues.

6. Bottom line

• Target confirmed: US 9,516,376 B2 (Wells/Egan, PPC Broadband), app. 14/881,686, priority 2009‑09‑21.
• Most relevant prior art among the cited references, for the '376 claims, is: US 4,520,508 (Reichert) — ingress blocking; US 5,126,840 (Dufresne) — upstream filter; US 5,557,319 (Gurusami) — subscriber return over shared coax; US 5,745,836 / 5,815,794 (Williams) and US 5,745,838 (Tresness) — in-home coax networking; and US 5,893,024 (Sanders) — diplexer band separation.
• § 102: No single cited reference appears to anticipate the independent claims as a whole. Any § 102 assertion should be aimed at individual dependent limitations, not the independent claim.
• § 103: These references are most plausibly combined for obviousness.
• Caveat: I could not retrieve the verbatim '376 front-page citation block directly from the USPTO in this session; the list above is reconstructed from the same-specification family (US 9,860,591 / US 10,341,718) and mirror databases. Confirm exact reference dates, any foreign patent documents, and non-patent literature against the printed patent before relying on this analysis.

URLs used: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9516376B2](/patent/US9516376B2)/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/9860591 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10341718](/patent/10341718) ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2011/0072472.html ; https://www.patents-review.com/a/20160037210-... ; https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_9516376_...

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art record rather than relying on memory. Let me run several searches.

Good — I'm getting the citation record. Let me verify the key prior-art references by name and content.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,516,376 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

0. Scope, record, and limitations of this analysis

What I have from the page: US 9,516,376 B2, "Passive multi-port entry adapter and method for preserving downstream CATV signal strength within in-home network"; inventors Chad T. Wells and John M. Egan, Jr.; original assignee PPC Broadband, Inc.; claimed priority 2009-09-21; filed 2015-10-13 as a continuation of Ser. No. 13/688,420, itself a continuation of Ser. No. 12/563,719 (now US 8,356,322). The "Prior Art" field on the page yields keywords only: network, catv, frequency band, signals, frequency. The page's litigation links are Delaware D. Ct. cases 1:20-cv-01148 and 1:21-cv-00305.

Two honest caveats:

1. The fetched page text did not include the "Patent Citations" / "Cited By" tables or the literal claim set. I therefore could not read the face-of-the-patent citation list directly. The closest on-record ground truth I could retrieve is the citation list of the same-family, same-specification patent US 10,341,718 (titled identically) plus cross-citations visible on Google Patents pages of the individual references. I flag each reference below with its provenance. My reading of US 7,127,734 (Amit) is the only one I verified against actual text (including its use as Exhibit 1005 in an IPR docket, IPR2024-00373).
2. Because the claim text was not in the excerpt, the element mapping below is keyed to the aspects recited in the Summary of the Invention (which track the independent claims) and to the disclosed embodiments 10a–10f. Pulling the literal claim set is a prerequisite for finalizing any invalidity position.

Governing law/formulation: Claims enjoy a 2009-09-21 effective date, so pre-AIA § 103 applies (subject to verification that every claim is supported by the '719 parent). The controlling standard is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (predictable variations, design incentives, "known techniques to achieve the same result," and design choice among a finite set of identified solutions are all rationales for obviousness).

Level of ordinary skill: B.S. in electrical engineering (or equivalent) plus 2–5 years' experience designing RF/CATV distribution hardware (splitters, diplexers, filters) and/or in-home coax networking devices. This is a mature, empirical, component-level art.

1. The claimed subject matter, distilled

Critical self-inflicted wound: the specification calls the core components "conventional" — "a conventional four-way splitter 74," "a conventional two-way splitter 80," "two conventional diplexers 92 and 94." The background likewise admits passive splitters, split-induced SNR loss, amplified entry adapters, MoCA D-band operation (1125–1525 MHz, D1–D8), and even that home-network signals leaking to the plant "compromises the privacy and security." A claim assembled from conventional components must therefore rest on the arrangement, and the arrangement is where the prior art bites hardest.

2. Primary references and what they teach

R1 — US 7,127,734 B1 (Amit), "System and methods for home network communications" (Texas Instruments; Oct. 24, 2006). Provenance: on the citation list of same-family US 10,341,718; verified content, and used as IPR Exhibit 1005 (IPR2024-00373).

• Home networking over the pre-existing in-home coax TV wiring, using an RF splitter at the premises.
• A band-reject (notch) filter at the point of entry — "a notch filter should be added … at the flat/single home entrance" (13:31-45) — explicitly located where a CATV entry adapter sits ("the input to the user premises"), and expressly providing that the "splitter at the input to the user premises is replaced by a special splitter device [comprising a filter] … or [alternatively] a filter is connected to the splitter," to "insure[] that the home networking signals in a specific home will not interfere with or be interfered by other home networks."
• Amit even teaches exploiting the filter's reflection to convey in-home signals between nodes ("we can use this reflection as our main signal") and that the notch filter does not prevent its Home Cable Networking Modem from bridging between the cable-modem channel and the home-networking channel ("support[s] the capability to bridge information between [the] cable modem channel to the home-networking channel and vice versa").
• Amit's filter is passive and frequency-selective, with home-band signaling well above the CATV channels (Amit example: 900–960 MHz; the MoCA band relationship is the same band-separation concept recited in the '376).

R2 — US 8,286,209 B2 (Egan, Jr.), "Multi-port entry adapter, hub and method for interfacing a CATV network and a MoCA network" (John Mezzalingua Associates; filed 2008-10-21; issued 2012-10-09). Provenance: same-family citation record (US 10,341,718); the '209 file was itself the subject of an office action dated Nov. 22, 2011 (Ser. No. 12/255,008).

• Same assignee family, same field, and it is a multi-port entry adapter functioning as a MoCA hub — i.e., the '376's central architectural premise. Note the inventor overlap (Egan, Jr. is a '376 co-inventor) is a § 102(a)/(e) wrinkle a challenger must address, but a different inventive entity makes it available under pre-AIA § 102(e)/§ 103.
• Also relevant, same-assignee, different inventive entity: US 8,429,695 B2 (Halik), "CATV entry adapter and method utilizing directional couplers for MoCA signal communication" (filed 2008-10-21) and US 8,510,782 B2 (Wells), "CATV entry adapter and method for preventing interference with eMTA equipment from MoCA signals."

R3 — US 7,283,479 B2 (Ljungdahl), "Cable TV system or other similar communication system." Provenance: cross-referenced with US 9,516,376 on its Google Patents page (citation relationship), and on the same-family citation record. I have not verified its disclosure text and do not rely on it as a primary teaching; on its title and field it is a candidate secondary reference for band-splitting in CATV systems.

R4 — Point-of-entry (PoE) MoCA filters as known art. US 8,125,299 ("Filter circuit") is described in PPC's own later US 10,790,793 (4:3) as "commonly referred to as a point-of-entry or MoCA filter." The family also admits in US 10,154,302 that "[s]eparate IHE frequency rejection filters have been developed for external connection to CATV entry adapters," whose drawbacks were only removal/tampering/installation error. That admission is fatal to the notion that the filtering function was novel; the only argued delta is integration into the adapter.

R5 — Admitted state of the art in the '376 itself: conventional passive multi-way splitters; MoCA D-band in-home networks over existing coax; amplified entry adapters and why they are disfavored (service calls, power dependence). These admissions supply claim elements A1, A2 (bidirectionality and port-to-port passing are what a "conventional" splitter does), and much of A6.

US 10,341,718 claims of record additionally recite the diplexer/MoCA-splitter topology, but that patent is a same-family later continuation and is evidence of the asserted scope, not prior art.

3. The combinations and the motivations

Ground A — R1 (Amit) alone, or R1 + R5

Read R1 onto A1–A4: entry port to the plant; splitter at the premises input; multi-port fan-out to in-home devices; notch/band-reject filter interposed between the plant and the splitter, blocking (and even reflecting) home-band signals so they stay in the home; passive.

• Motivation: identical problem, identical field, identical locus. The '376 itself states the problem as MoCA signals "passing through the CATV entry adapter and entering the CATV network," compromising "the privacy and security of the information" and potentially disrupting neighbors' MoCA networks — verbatim the problem Amit's notch filter solves.
• KSR rationales: (i) a known technique to improve a similar device (Amit's filter at "the input to the user premises" = the entry adapter location); (ii) predictable result; (iii) design choice between two disclosed Amit embodiments (built into a special splitter device or a separate filter tied to the splitter).

Ground B — R1 + R2 (Amit + Egan '209)

R2 supplies the hub-in-the-entry-adapter and multi-port interface architecture; R1 supplies the band-reject-at-the-entry teaching. Combining same-field, same-problem, same-assignee-family references to yield a passive entry adapter/hub is the paradigm of KSR.

• Motivation: the '376's own stated benefit (hub function + CATV interface in one passive device, avoiding amplifiers and the service calls they cause) is a recognized market need already addressed by the '209.

Ground C — R1/R2 + diplexer substitution (filter ⇄ diplexer)

A3/A4 recite the rejection device as a filter or "at least one diplexer which divides frequencies into separate frequency bands." That is a recitation of two known alternatives for one function, which the patent treats as interchangeable ("the frequency rejection device may take the form of a frequency rejection filter, or … at least one diplexer"). Substituting one known band-separating device for another, with a reasonable expectation of success, is obvious (KSR: "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").

• Motivation: diplexers inherently combine/separate high- and low-band signals at a common terminal; using them to keep host-network signals off the plant while passing CATV is their established function. The '376 concedes as much.

Ground D — + eMTA/lifeline limitations (A6; embodiments 10b/10d/10f)

The patent's own background concedes VoIP/lifeline telephone service over CATV and the desirability of a high-strength, power-independent ("passive port") path; US 8,510,782 (Wells) and the family's later US 10,154,302 describe exactly that passive eMTA port architecture.

• Motivation: preserving lifeline service during power loss is an express regulatory/service driver, and delivering one single-split copy to the modem is the straightforward way to maximize SNR at that port. The '376 itself frames 10b's benefit as "the single, two-way split" and its cost as an "extra splitter" for the subscriber ports — i.e., a recognized trade-off between two disclosed positions, which under KSR is design choice, not invention.

Ground E — + server/client store-and-redistribute (A5) — the weakest leg

This is the only feature with genuine architectural weight: a CATV-connected node stores downstream content and re-serves it as high-power network signals so the downstream CATV need not be split many ways.

• R1 supplies a bridge between the cable-modem channel and the home-networking channel, but not content storage/replay. I have not verified a specific pre-2009 reference in the retrieved record that teaches storage at the CATV-connected interface plus redistribution over the in-home network. Generic whole-home DVR/server-client MoCA art is the obvious place to look, and the '376's own rationale (splitting a signal N ways degrades SNR; substituting a regenerated in-home signal preserves it) is a result that a POSITA would predict once the in-home network and splitter loss mechanisms are known.
• Recommendation: this element is where the patent family is most defensible; any § 103 challenge should be built with a verified DVR/server-client-over-MoCA reference rather than on R1–R4 alone.

Ground F — Principal port vs. secondary ports (A7; embodiments 10e/10f)

Confining CATV to the principal (server) port so the client ports see only network signals is a topology choice whose motivation is stated in the patent: protect the scarce downstream signal and the lifeline path, and offload distribution to the in-home band. Given R1/R2 and a diplexer, arriving at 10e with "substantially no reduction in signal strength" at the server port is a predictable design result, and the specification sells it as such ("achieves the highest possible signal strength and quality for a passive CATV entry adapter," "relatively small number of internal components … also reduces the cost").

4. Anticipated counter-arguments and how they play out

• "No motivation to integrate the filter into the adapter." Weak. R1 locates the filter at "the input to the user premises," the family's own later admissions establish external PoE filters as prior practice with only installation/tampering drawbacks, and the commercial entry adapter is the natural single housing at that point.
• "Amit's network is not the CATV network." Amit's devices expressly interface between the regional cable TV network and the in-home network (as the PTAB materials put it, "devices interface between the regional cable TV network and the in-home network"), and its notch filter and splitter sit at the plant-to-premises boundary.
• "Passivity / no separate power source." Met: Amit's filter and ordinary splitters/diplexers are passive; the '376 claims a negative (absence of an amplifier/power supply), which cannot distinguish over passive prior art.
• "Unexpected results." The specification alleges no data; the asserted benefits (fewer splits → higher SNR; no amplifier → fewer service calls) are the expected consequences of the admitted art. No objective indicia (commercial success with nexus, licensing, copying, industry praise) appear in the retrieved record; the Delaware litigations (1:20-cv-01148, 1:21-cv-00305) are not evidence of nonobviousness. KSR/Graham require nexus-backed evidence to rebut a strong prima facie case.
• Prosecution signal: the '376's own application (Ser. No. 14/881,686) received only a six-page non-final office action dated Feb. 26, 2016, and issued Dec. 6, 2016 (as listed in the IDS of US 10,582,160). That suggests no substantial § 103 rejection was overcome on the merits — so the art a challenger needs is art the examiner did not reach for (Amit and the same-family MoCA entry adapter disclosures are the obvious candidates).

5. Bottom line

On the record I can verify, the claims are likely obvious under § 103 in substantial part:

1. Claims limited to A1–A4 — entry port + multi-port splitter + passive in-home band-rejection device between the plant and the splitter input — are strongly obvious over Amit (US 7,127,734) alone or in view of the admitted state of the art, and trivially obvious over Amit in view of the diplexer alternative the patent itself recites.
2. Claims adding the hub/multi-port MoCA entry-adapter architecture (A1–A4 + hub) are strongly obvious over Amit + US 8,286,209 (Egan) (and/or US 8,429,695), with the same-field/same-problem/same-family motivation.
3. Claims adding the eMTA single-split port (A6) are obvious as a design choice among the patent's own disclosed alternatives (10a vs. 10b), reinforced by the lifeline-service driver and US 8,510,782.
4. Claims requiring the server-interface store-and-redistribute feature (A5) are the least vulnerable; they need a verified pre-2009 reference teaching storage at the CATV-connected node with re-serving over the coax in-home network, which I did not locate in the retrieved record.

Action items to complete the analysis: (a) retrieve the literal claim set and the face-of-patent citation tables for US 9,516,376 (the fetched page omitted them); (b) verify US 7,283,479 (Ljungdahl) and US 7,742,777 (Strater) disclosures before relying on them; (c) obtain the May 31, 2011 International Search Report for PCT/US2010/049568 (cited in the family's IDS) to see what the examiner actually considered; and (d) locate a pre-September-2009 MoCA/DVR server-client reference to close the A5 gap.