Invalidity dossier
US 9878238
Controller for video game console
Current assignee: Ironburg Inventions Ltd
Added 9/23/2026, 4:53:04 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 9,878,238 B2
Title: Controller for video game console
Patent number / application: US 9,878,238 B2 (application US 14/754,793; published as US 2015/0297994 A1)
Inventors: Simon Burgess; Duncan Ironmonger
Assignee: Ironburg Inventions Ltd (original and current assignee per the source)
Key dates: Priority date 2011-06-17; filing date 2015-06-30; granted/publication date 2018-01-30; anticipated expiration 2031-06-17. Legal status listed as Active.
Purpose (from the supplied text): Conventional controllers place buttons and direction pads on the front, so a user must remove a thumb from a thumb stick to operate them, causing delay and loss of control, especially in games where the right thumb stick is used for aiming. The invention addresses this by adding controls on the back of the controller.
Plain-language scope (from the supplied text): The controller has a hard outer case, controls on the front and top edge, and one or more additional controls on the back positioned for the user's other fingers (e.g., middle fingers). Each additional control is an elongate member that is inherently resilient and flexible and is displaced by the user to activate a control function. Each elongate member sits within a recess in the case, with its outermost surface close to the controller's outermost surface so a finger may be received in the recess; it is preferably less than 10 mm thick, more preferably less than 5 mm, and most desirably 1–3 mm. The elongate members converge toward the front end of the controller. Each is in registry with a switch mechanism inside the controller, disposed between the elongate members and an outer surface of the controller. The additional controls may be paddle levers that replicate front/top controls or provide new functions, and may be formed integrally with, or separately from, the outer case.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9878238/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It is expressly excerpted; the full claims, complete description, and all figures are omitted. It does not establish the exact claim language or claim count, the full list of cited prior art, or the specific reasons for allowance.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:44:05 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 9878238. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.