US 9892250

I'll search for authoritative information on US 9,892,250 and any 2026 CAFC activity.

I have claim text partially. Let me get the full independent claims and check for 2026 litigation.

Let me pin down the full independent claim text and any litigation/enforcement involving this specific patent.

US 9,892,250 B2 — "Secure element as a digital pocket"

Sourcing note: I rely on the full patent text supplied (fetched from Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en), cross-checked against Justia Patents (https://patents.justia.com/patent/9892250) and the family/timeline on Google Patents. I did not have direct USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR access in this session, and I found no CAFC docket tying this specific patent number to a 2026 appeal (see §Litigation below). Identifiers are reported literally as found.

Bibliographic data

Minor discrepancy to flag: Google Patents and the specification give the priority date as May 10, 2013, while some aggregators (e.g., Unified Patents' page for US-20140337920-A1) display 2013-05-09. The specification's own cross-reference and the provisional number (61/822,057, filed May 10, 2013) support May 10, 2013; the off-by-one is most likely a timezone/database artifact.

Abstract (verbatim)

The disclosure includes a system and method in which one or more virtual resources are presented to a secure element; and the one or more virtual resources are mapped to available resources based on a model architecture for the secure element in order to provide hardware abstraction, the available physical resources varying based on the model architecture and an associated host device, the virtual resources allowing consistent interaction with the virtual resources regardless of variation in the physical resources available and their location. The hardware abstraction increases the versatility of the secure element and may contribute to the secure element's functionality. The secure element providing functionality to replace most items carried in an individual's pockets, e.g., logical and physical keys, a thumb drive, identification, credit and debit cards, etc.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — System (independent). Two-part system:

• a secure element that wirelessly communicates with an associated host device. The secure element carries a set of consistent virtual resources used to map a set of available resources according to a model architecture. The available resources can vary based on the model architecture and/or on resources associated with the host device. The key point: the virtual resources let software interact with them consistently, regardless of (a) which physical resources vary, and (b) whether a given resource physically sits at the secure element, at the host device, or both; and
• the host device includes a link module that cooperates with the secure element so as to make a first resource available to the secure element.

In plain terms: the portable secure element (e.g., a key-fob-like token with secure memory) abstracts away where hardware lives, so the same software stack works whether a sensor/radio lives on the token, on the PC/phone it talks to, or is split across both. Claim 1 is drafted to the "resource sharing/availability" concept rather than to the wireless-mounting feature emphasized in the Summary.

Claim 4 — Method (independent). A method that begins with presenting, to a secure element, a set of consistent virtual resources, then (per the claim as published) mapping those virtual resources to available resources based on the secure element's model architecture, providing hardware abstraction. ⚠️ Uncertainty: the public claim listing I retrieved was truncated mid-claim-4 (the ... cut off the mapping clause). I can confirm claim 4 is the sole independent method claim and that its dependents (5–19) recite the mapping/hardware-abstraction elements, but I cannot quote the full closing language of claim 4 with high confidence.

Dependent-claim highlights (context for the independent claims)

• 2–3 (system): biometric sensor plus an identification module on the secure element that authenticates the user as owner; claim 3 specifies the biometric sensor is the "first resource," residing on the host device but exposed to the secure element as a virtual biometric sensor via an abstraction layer.
• 5: available resources are physical resources and hardware abstraction is provided.
• 6–8: proxy-model architecture — mapping a virtual resource to a host-device resource so the secure element treats it as local; the secure element performing functionality (e.g., authentication, financial transaction) on behalf of a physically separate host device.
• 9–14: proximity-based gating — permitting host-device access when the secure element is proximate; access contingent on biometric authentication; managing access to multiple, and different types of, host devices.
• 15–16: the wireless-thumb-drive feature — proximity-triggered wireless mounting of secure-element memory at the host device so it appears as a physically connected storage device; mounting governed by user-configurable proximity and/or dwell time.
• 17–19: stand-alone model (virtual resources mapped to secure-element resources); virtual model (secure element is a virtual SE running on the host device but appearing to other devices as a separate device); platform-agnostic operation.

Claim count: the listing I retrieved ran at least to claim 19 (possibly 20), with two independent claims (1 and 4). I flag the tail as uncertain because the source truncated.

Litigation / CAFC 2026 check

• No evidence found that US 9,892,250 itself is on a 2026 CAFC docket. Google Patents flags "Family has litigation" (a Darts-IP link, family 51865840), which speaks to the patent family, not this number.
• Proxense's Federal Circuit dockets I located involve other patents: 25-2168 Proxense v. Apple (filed Sept. 30, 2025; originating IPRs 2024-00846, 2024-01334, 2024-00233) and consolidated 25-2130/25-2131 Proxense v. Microsoft (filed Sept. 22, 2025). Per ip fray's 2026 coverage, Proxense's recent appellate briefing concerns US 8,886,954 ("Biometric personal data key (PDK) authentication") arising from IPR2024-00573/01398 and a parallel ex parte reexamination. A PTAB notice of appeal dated Oct. 6, 2025 in IPR2024-00573 references US 8,646,042.
• Proxense's district-court campaign (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Intel, LG, Cisco, Hyundai/Kia/Genesis) asserts a different set of patent numbers (e.g., the 960, 332, 129, 672, 043, 152, 979, 730, 905, 989, 289 patents referenced in the complaints surfaced). The '250's continuation 12,373,538 and the '250's own family are the closest relatives I could confirm.

Bottom line on the CAFC question: based on the sources available to me, there is no 2026 Federal Circuit activity specific to 9,892,250; if a docket exists, it is not visible in the searches I ran, and I did not verify via PACER directly.

Items I could not verify with high confidence

• The complete text of claim 4 beyond its opening "presenting…" clause, and the final claim number (19 vs. 20).
• Whether 9,892,250 specifically (as opposed to sibling/continuation patents such as 12,373,538) is asserted in any currently pending Proxense district-court case — the complaints I saw assert other numbers.
• Current USPTO fee/maintenance or post-grant (IPR/PGR) status of this exact patent; I saw no IPR petition number naming 9,892,250.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9892250. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search for which specific cases asserted this patent.

Bottom line

Based on my searches, I found no litigation in which U.S. Patent No. 9,892,250 ("Secure element as a digital pocket," Proxense LLC) is identified as an asserted patent. I could not locate a complaint, docket, or IPR petition naming 9,892,250 as a patent-in-suit.

I must be transparent about two limitations: (1) I reached my tool-call limit before I could exhaustively query the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, Darts-IP, or CourtListener for this specific number; and (2) none of the search results I retrieved identified 9,892,250 by number in any suit. So the correct answer at this stage is "no litigation known to me for this specific patent," with the caveat that a definitive negative requires the paywalled docket databases.

Important disambiguation — do not conflate these numbers

A critical trap here: the Proxense litigations I found repeatedly assert a "'989 patent," but that refers to U.S. Patent No. 10,698,989, not to 9,892,250.

• In Proxense, LLC v. Apple, Inc., No. 6:24-cv-00143-ADA, Proxense's Preliminary Infringement Contentions expressly list "U.S. Patent No. 10,698,989 (the '989 Patent)."
• The Samsung-family Markman transcript's reference to "the '989 patent" likewise maps to Proxense's 10,698,989.

US 9,892,250 = application 15/195,889, issued Feb. 13, 2018, filed June 28, 2016 (continuation of 14/274,711). US 10,698,989 is a different patent in the same general Proxense portfolio. Per the operating rule to interpret numbers literally and not auto-correct, I am treating these as distinct — and no source connected 9,892,250 to any case.

Also note the Google Patents page carries a "Family has litigation / First worldwide family litigation filed" indicator (Darts-IP family 51865840). That flag attaches to the patent family, not proof that 9,892,250 itself was asserted. I did not find evidence tying that family-litigation flag to 9,892,250.

Related Proxense portfolio litigation (context only — none asserts 9,892,250)

For context on the assignee's enforcement activity, these are the cases I located. None lists 9,892,250 among its asserted patents, so treat the table as background, not as litigation "involving 9,892,250."

Related PTAB proceedings in the same portfolio (again, none on 9,892,250 in the results I saw): IPR2024-00234 (Google v. Proxense — terminated, adverse judgment), IPR2024-00782, IPR2024-00407 (Microsoft v. Proxense), IPR2025-00074 (Apple, on 9,679,289), and various Samsung IPRs (IPR2021-01438/-01439, IPR2021-01447).

Recommendation / caveat

For a legally defensible "no litigation" conclusion on 9,892,250 specifically, I would verify directly in:

• Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation) — filter by patent number 9,892,250;
• Darts-IP family 51865840 (the "family has litigation" link on the Google Patents page) to see which family member(s), if any, are in suit;
• PACER / CourtListener docket text search for "9,892,250" (run as a literal string); and
• USPTO Patent Center / PTAB for any IPR, PGR, or reexam on this number.

I did not complete those specific queries before running out of search steps, so I cannot yet call the negative conclusive — but nothing in the evidence I did retrieve identifies U.S. Patent No. 9,892,250 as a litigated patent.

I'll start by checking the web for any PTAB activity on this patent, since the structured ODP block reports none.

PTAB proceedings on US 9,892,250 ("Secure element as a digital pocket")

Bottom line up front: there are no AIA trial proceedings on this patent. I could not find a single IPR, PGR, or CBM naming U.S. Patent No. 9,892,250 as the challenged patent, and the structured USPTO ODP block in this prompt (the canonical source) returns none. The per-proceeding template below is therefore inapplicable — I've marked it as such rather than filling it with the extensive (but wrong-patent) Proxense PTAB activity that dominates search results for "Proxense" + "989."

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file against US 9,892,250: 0. Breakdown — active: 0; claims invalidated: 0; claims sustained: 0; settled: 0; institution denied: 0. Defensive posture for a defendant today: the patent is completely untested at the PTAB, and its claims enjoy the full statutory presumption of validity. There is no FWD, no adverse judgment, no estoppel, and no claim cancellation to hand you. That cuts both ways: you cannot point to a Board ruling that kills any claim, but you also face no SAS//Fintiv baggage — the entire prior-art landscape (including art that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Intel developed in parallel campaigns against sibling Proxense patents) is untouched by § 315(e)(2) estoppel as to this patent.

I want to be explicit about the limits of that finding: ODP ingest lags, and a very recently filed petition may not yet appear in the Open Data Portal, Docket Alarm, or the search indices I checked. The absence below is "no activity found," not a certification that a paper filed last week doesn't exist. Reinforcing evidence for the negative finding: the Google Patents family page for US 9,892,250 lists litigation family data but no PTAB/IPR proceedings (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en), and the patent does not appear in the asserted-patent lists of any Proxense district court campaign I could locate (see below).

⚠️ The "989" trap — read this before you cite anything

Searching for PTAB activity on "the '989 patent" in this family will hand you the wrong patent. Throughout the W.D. Tex. litigation and the PTAB briefing, "'989" is the shorthand for U.S. Patent No. 10,698,989 B2 ("Biometric personal data key (PDK) authentication"), not U.S. Patent No. 9,892,250. For example, Samsung's opening claim construction brief captions claim citations as "989:1–2, 4–8" and "989:1, 5" while the accompanying text and the LG complaint both identify the "989 Patent" as issuing 2020-06-30 — i.e., the 10,698,989 patent. Using 9,892,250's claim numbers against those PTAB records would be a substantive error.

Related Proxense PTAB activity (NOT proceedings on this patent — context only)

I'm listing this because it is the closest thing to a defensible cross-proceeding read, and because it tells you what art has already been workshopped. None of these proceedings challenged U.S. 9,892,250.

Non-AIA context that matters: ex parte reexaminations 90/015,052 ('730), 90/015,053 ('905), and 90/015,054 (10,698,989), all filed 2022-06-08 by Samsung. These are not AIA trials and do not appear in the ODP AIA-trial list — but note that the '730 reexam is what ultimately drove Proxense to concede unpatentability of all 17 claims of the '730 patent. No reexamination of 9,892,250 appears in any record I found.

Asserted-patent check: the Proxense campaigns identify the patents-in-suit as the '730, '954, '905, '042, '188, '700, and 10,698,989 patents (plus, in the LG action, '332, '456, '979, '152; and vs. Walmart, '672). US 9,892,250 appears in none of those lists.

Strategic summary

Claim status: nothing canceled, nothing sustained, nothing tested. Claims 1–19 of US 9,892,250 are all live and unadjudicated. Claim 1 is a system claim reciting "a set of consistent virtual resources used to map a set of available resources based on a model architecture… independent of whether a resource… is located at the secure element, at the host device, or both," plus a host-side "link module" that "cooperat[es] with the secure element to make a first resource available to the secure element." Claim 4 is the method counterpart; claims 15–16 cover the wireless-mounting-of-SE-memory- as-a-drive feature; claims 17/18 recite the stand-alone and virtual model architectures; claim 19 recites platform agnosticism (claim text per https://patents.justia.com/patent/9892250). The two most charge-ready features — proximity-triggered access to a host device (claims 9–14) and over-the-air mounting of SE memory as a local drive (claims 15–16) — have never been construed or invalidated by any tribunal.

Estoppel landscape: wide open. Because no petitioner has ever been party to an AIA trial on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one with respect to 9,892,250, and there is no § 325(d) prosecution-history overlay from prior IPR art. A defendant here can raise § 102/§ 103 grounds free of estoppel, including art that has already been deployed against sibling Proxense patents (Scott WO 1999/056429, Lapsley, Burger/Pocket Vault, Berardi/Shreve/Kinoshita, Giobbi-157 + Giobbi-139, Broadcom EP 1 536 306, Dua, Ludtke, Baird). Caveat: reuse of art that a privy already lost on is not a § 315(e)(2) bar against you, but the Board's General Plastic/§ 314(a) and "settled expectations" practice will color institution. Note the irony that the absence of prior AIA trials on a 2018-issued patent helps you on estoppel but hurts you on institution — Acting Director Stewart's 2025 discretionary-denial practice expressly favors denial for patents of this vintage on "settled expectations" grounds (the Intel v. Proxense denial, IPR2025-00327, and the iRhythm/Dabico line). US 9,892,250 issued 2018-02-13; by the current six-year heuristic its expectations are settled. Petitioners have been told the most reliable workaround is the "material error" theory from Advanced Bionics — review the reasons for allowance in the parent 14/274,711 prosecution and in the siblings US 10,909,229 / 11,914,695 / 12,373,538 for elements the examiner said were missing from the art.

Pattern signals. The same petitioners (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Intel) have filed serially and jointly across the Proxense portfolio; there is no defensive aggregator visible in the chain (I found no Unified Patents filing against this patent — Unified's portal renders as an analytics page here, not a filer). The patent owner litigates aggressively and, notably, abandoned claims by adverse judgment rather than defend them in IPR2024-00232, -00234, and -00775. That is a real signal about Proxense's willingness to concede claims it cannot defend — but Proxense has equally shown it will not narrow absent pressure, as its 2025 response to Microsoft's Rule 12(b)(1) motion demonstrated (insisting on dismissing only asserted claims of the fully canceled '730 patent).

Recommended next steps

1. Do not plead or argue that 9,892,250 has been invalidated. Nothing has been. If an opposing brief or a search summary asserts that "claims 1–5 of the '989 patent were canceled," verify the patent number first — that summary almost certainly concerns U.S. 10,698,989 (Google IPR2024-00234, adverse judgment 2024-11-01) or U.S. 8,352,730 (IPR2024-00775, adverse judgment 2025-04-28), not this patent.
2. Independently re-confirm the negative before relying on it. Pull the PTAB E2E/PTAB Center docket for the patent (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and re-check the Open Data Portal at filing time; ODP ingest lag is the only plausible failure mode in my finding.
3. If you are the defendant and the demand letter cites this patent: check which of the ~30-member Giobbi continuation family is actually asserted. Google Patents shows 9,892,250 sharing a specification with US 10,909,229 B2, US 11,914,695 B2, US 12,373,538 B2, and US 2025/0348570 A1 (continuations filed 2018-01-03, 2021-02-01, 2024-01-10, and 2025-07-17 respectively). Asserting the 2018 patent while holding unasserted later continuations is a lever for a § 101/§ 112 and Fintiv story, and the continuations may carry narrower, more vulnerable claims.
4. If you want to file: the deadline math is clean because no statutory bar exists yet. Once instituted, the Board's § 316(a)(11) clock gives you a 1-year-from-institution FWD date, with an institution decision due at ~6 months from the petition's filing date. Prepare for a discretionary-denial fight as your first hurdle, not the merits.
5. Prior art to mine: the art that worked elsewhere in this family (§ 103 over Broadcom EP 1 536 306, and over Giobbi-157 + Giobbi-139 + Dua) maps onto claims 17–19 (stand-alone/virtual architectures, platform agnosticism) reasonably well. But claims 1/4's "consistent virtual resources… independent of whether a resource… is located at the secure element, at the host device, or both" language is a hardware-abstraction limitation that the '042/'960/'289 hybrid-device art does not squarely address — that is likely your weakest ground and the patent owner's strongest redoubt.

Primary sources: USPTO Open Data Portal (structured block, no AIA trials); PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/; Proxense v. Microsoft, No. 6:23-cv-00319 (W.D. Tex.) docket via CourtListener — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67312721/proxense-llc-v-microsoft-corporation/; PTAB FWD in IPR2024-00573 ('042 patent), 2025-08-04 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00573/Microsoft_Corporation_v._Proxense_LLC/; IPR2024-00234 docket — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00234/Google_LLC_v._Proxense_LLC/; USPTO PTAB hearing schedules (Aug. 2025) — https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/081425-ptab-aug25.pdf.

Confidence note: high confidence that no AIA trial has named US 9,892,250 in any indexed record as of 2026-09-27; moderate confidence that the patent has never been asserted in the Proxense district court campaigns, based on the asserted-patent lists visible in the complaints, infringement contentions, and invalidity contentions I reviewed. I did not have access to a fee-based docket (Darts-IP, Lex Machina) that would make the second point airtight.

I'll research this patent's ownership chain across the specified sources.

Let me dig deeper on the assignment record and litigation history.

I hit the research-step limit, so here is the analysis based on what I was able to retrieve. Where a data point (notably the reel/frame) was not in the retrieved records, I say so rather than filling it in.

Inventors

• Giobbi is the founder/principal of Proxense and is the named inventor across essentially the entire Proxense portfolio (the PDK / biometric-authentication family), so this is a founder-inventor pattern rather than an employee-inventor pattern.
• No unusual departure pattern detected. The assignment is to the inventor's own company, and Giobbi continued to be listed as inventor on later Proxense continuations (e.g., US 12,373,538 and US 2025/0348570, both claiming priority to this same 2013-05-10 family). There is no evidence of inventors exiting the original assignee within 12 months of filing — the opposite: the inventorship stayed put for a decade.
• Inventorship of sibling continuations swelled (e.g., Brown, Hirt, Kelly, Gallivan, Yundt on other Proxense patents), which is typical of a company building a continuation thicket around one core disclosure.

Original assignee

• Proxense, LLC, Bend, Oregon (address of record in a contemporaneous Proxense assignment: 689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701).
• Business: developer of the "Personal Digital Key" (PDK) — a portable wireless device carrying biometric and identity credentials, used for proximity-based authentication, access control and payment. Proxense was originally an operating technology developer in the RF/biometric access-control space.
• Product embodying the claims: No evidence that Proxense currently ships a commercial product embodying these claims. Proxense's current activity is patent licensing/enforcement. ip fray characterizes Proxense as a "former operating company" now enforcing biometric-authentication and wireless-communications patents against major technology companies (https://ipfray.com/staging1/google-follows-samsung-in-settling-patent-dispute-with-biometrics-firm-proxense-in-western-district-of-texas-apple-microsoft-intel-lg-cases-still-pending/).
• Current status: Operating as a licensing/assertion entity, not dissolved and (per the retrieved record) not in bankruptcy. It is a serial plaintiff: Proxense v. Samsung (6:21-cv-00210), v. Google (6:23-cv-00320), v. Microsoft (6:23-cv-00319), v. Apple (6:24-cv-00143), v. LG (6:24-cv-00302), plus a case against Hyundai/Kia/Genesis. Samsung settled in 2023; Google stipulated to dismissal with prejudice in January 2025 (a license, per ip fray).

Assignment timeline

Important limitation: I was able to confirm that an assignment was recorded for this application, but the reel/frame number for that entry was not returned in any source I retrieved, and I will not infer it. I am also reporting the execution date as recorded/derived, not verified from the recorded instrument itself.

• Execution date not verified in retrieved records / recorded 2016-10-07 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: GIOBBI, JOHN JOSEPH (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: PROXENSE, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. Caveat: the prosecution correspondent of record for Proxense filings in this period is Patent Law Works LLP, 165 South Main St., Suite 2, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 (it appears as "Attorney, Agent, or Firm" on the face of the sibling patent US 9,298,905 and on the filing receipt for related Proxense applications). That is the prosecution firm, not the assignment-recording correspondent — do not equate the two.
  • Context: Founder-to-company assignment — the inventor conveying the application to his own startup, Proxense, LLC. This is a normal original-owner assignment, not a transfer to an asserter.

Source for the event: Google Patents legal events for US 9,892,250 record a 2016-10-07 reassignment "Assigned to PROXENSE, LLC … Assignors: GIOBBI, JOHN JOSEPH" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en).

No other post-issuance assignment to US 9,892,250 was found. The chain from issuance (2018-02-13) to today appears to terminate at Proxense, LLC. That is itself a finding: the original assignee still owns the patent, and there is no shell-entity or aggregator transfer to trace.

For cross-reference, the analogous Proxense assignment for the sibling application 14/521,982 (US 9,298,905) was Reel 034843/0145, executed and recorded 2015-01-29, assignor GIOBBI, JOHN J. → assignee PROXENSE, LLC, Bend, Oregon (surfaced via a PTAB exhibit). This confirms the pattern of Giobbi-to-Proxense assignments in this portfolio, but it is a different patent, not this one.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9892250
    2013 : Priority date established
    2014 : Parent application filed
    2016 : Continuation application filed
         : Giobbi assigns to Proxense LLC
    2018 : Patent issued as US 9892250
    2021 : Proxense enforcement campaign opens
    2023 : Samsung settles with Proxense
    2025 : Google settles with Proxense

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded assignment is inventor → Proxense, LLC, filed 2016-10-07. Proxense is the original applicant and original assignee; there is no transfer to a "…IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" vehicle, and the address of record (689 NW Stonepine Drive, Bend, OR) is not a registered-agent service. A name that merely sounds like a holding company is not a finding, and here the chain has only one link.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present (moderate, by conduct not by list). Proxense, LLC does not match any of the enumerated NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). However, it is a high-frequency patent plaintiff by objective litigation count: Samsung (6:21-cv-00210, 2021-03-05), Google (6:23-cv-00320), Microsoft (6:23-cv-00319), Apple (6:24-cv-00143, 2024-03-18 — the first suit over Apple Vision Pro), LG (6:24-cv-00302), Hyundai/Kia/Genesis, plus Intel's DJ action (6:24-cv-00283). Two defendants have taken licenses on dismissal with prejudice (Samsung 2023; Google 2025-01-13). ip fray labels Proxense a "former operating company" enforcing patents. That is a concrete, dated pattern of assertion-and-settlement, not a naming inference.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not assessable. There is only one recorded assignment link, so a recurrence test cannot be run on the assignment chain. Separately, there is a strong repeat-player in the litigation (not assignment) record: David L. Hecht / Hecht Partners LLP, Proxense's lead enforcement counsel across Samsung, Google, Apple, and the Intel/IPR matters, with Susman Godfrey co-counsel on some cases and Patent Law Works LLP handling prosecution. Litigation-counsel recurrence is a real pattern, but the prompt's signal is about the recording correspondent on the assignment links — which I could not retrieve.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. A single recorded assignment, executed/recorded 2016-10-07 (approximately five years after the 2013 priority date), with no chained LLCs and no shared-correspondent addresses to compare.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only assignment (2016-10-07) predates the first Proxense suit (2021-03-05) by roughly four and a half years, and it predates issuance (2018-02-13). It was not a venue- or standing-motivated transfer into a litigation vehicle.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No bankruptcy proceeding or §363 sale involving Proxense was found.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no operating-company-to-NPE transfer here at all: Proxense is the original owner and the asserter. There is no third-party operating company using Proxense as a proxy.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain ends at Proxense, LLC, an active plaintiff, not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The opposite of neutralization: the family is being actively asserted, and the '730 sibling survived an ex parte reexamination.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The recorded ownership chain is thin — a single assignment, Giobbi → Proxense, LLC, recorded 2016-10-07 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en) — so the classic chain-based NPE tells (shell-entity transfer, cascading LLCs, pre-litigation assignment) are all absent. The moderate-confidence call rests on the conduct evidence instead: the current assignee, Proxense, LLC, is described by ip fray as a "former operating company" that has run a multi-defendant enforcement-and-licensing campaign against Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Apple, LG, Intel and Hyundai/Kia/Genesis, resolving Samsung (2023) and Google (2025-01-13) by dismissal with prejudice consistent with licenses rather than product competition. That is one strong signal (signal 2), which the rubric maps to moderate confidence.

Two caveats for your file: (a) I could not verify the reel/frame of the 2016-10-07 assignment, nor its recording correspondent, from the sources available in this session — re-pull it directly at the Assignment Center search page (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) before citing; and (b) I found no evidence that US 9,892,250 itself was asserted — the litigated Proxense patents in the retrieved records are US 8,352,730, 9,049,188, 9,235,700, 9,298,905, 10,698,989, and 8,646,042, so treat this patent as part of the asserted family/portfolio rather than a proven cause of action.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9892250; cross-indexed at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html)

I'll research US patent 9892250 and its prior art citations.

Let me look at the specific citation lists for this patent on Justia and Google Patents.

Let me gather details on the key cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,892,250 B2

1. The patent under review (identified literally as 9892250)

The claimed subject matter is, in substance, (a) a "secure element" (SE) that presents a set of consistent virtual resources and maps them to available physical resources according to a "model architecture" to provide hardware abstraction; and (b) the cooperating host device whose link module makes a resource available to the SE. Dependent claims add proximity detection, proximity-based access, wireless mounting of SE memory as a host storage drive, biometric authentication, and stand-alone/proxy/virtual architectures.

2. Important caveat before the reference-by-reference analysis

Two points must be stated plainly rather than glossed over:

1. "Cited" ≠ "anticipates." The references below are the examiner's References Cited list (they appear as such in the '250 file). The patent issued over all of them, which means none was applied as a successful § 102 anticipation rejection as issued. Whether the examiner used any of them in an intermediate § 102 or § 103 rejection cannot be confirmed without the file wrapper (PTO PatentCenter/Global Dossier), which I was unable to retrieve in full.
2. Prior-art dates matter. Because the effective priority date is 2013-05-10, a reference dated after that date is not § 102(a)(1) prior art; it can qualify only as a § 102(a)(2) reference (U.S. patent/application effectively filed before 2013-05-10 but published/granted later). I flag these.
3. The claim-mapping below is my analytical assessment of which claims each reference is relevant to, not a quotation of an examiner's rejection. Where I am not confident of a reference's specific disclosure, I say so.

Source for the citation list: Justia patent page for US 9,892,250 (Referenced Cited table), https://patents.justia.com/patent/9892250 ; Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250 ; family page https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160306956 .

3. U.S. patent documents cited in US 9,892,250

A. Biometric/identity-card and transaction-verification references

B. Access-control / biometric-security and proximity references

C. Applicant's own / same-family reference (not § 102 prior art)

D. Cited U.S. patent application publications

(Where I have not verified a reference's specific passages, I have said so rather than fabricate disclosure. These should be checked against the actual documents before being asserted as § 102 art.)

4. Assessment: which references are the strongest § 102 candidates

Ranked by apparent closeness to the independent claims (1 and 4):

1. US 8,494,576 B1 (Bye et al.) — closest to the "proximity → access to a host device" concept of claims 9, 13, 17, 20. Its 2013-07-23 issue date means it is only § 102(a)(2) art if it was effectively filed before 2013-05-10 — verify its priority date.
2. US 5,623,552 (Lane) — strongest candidate against the biometric subclaims (2, 3, 11, 12, 20): a self-authenticating card with an on-board fingerprint sensor, stored biometric and independent authentication is squarely within claim 2/12 subject matter. Lane's 1997 date is unquestionably prior art.
3. US 6,879,966 / 7,565,329 (Lapsley) and US 7,231,068 / 7,349,557 (Tibor) — relevant to the transaction/authentication claims (8, 10), but not to the distinguishing hardware-abstraction concept.
4. US 8,424,079 (Adams) and US 7,272,723 (Abbott) — proximity/access-control art relevant to claims 9, 13, 20.

None of the 23 references, on the face of the record, appears to disclose the central innovation of independent claims 1 and 4 — the set of consistent virtual resources mapped to available resources based on a model architecture, with consistency "independent of whether a resource … is located at the secure element, at the host device, or both." That abstraction-over-multiple-architectures feature is why the claims issued despite a large cited-art list.

5. What I could not confirm

• The actual examiner rejections and which specific claims were rejected over which reference (file-wrapper/PTO PatentCenter data not retrieved). Absent that, the specific claim-to-reference mappings in § 3–4 are analytical and should be verified.
• The precise disclosures of the references I flagged (Abbott, Porras, Lemke, Ivanov, Park, Michaelis, Arvidson, Koh). I did not verify their text and have not fabricated it.
• I did not return results for similar-but-different numbers; everything above is tied to US 9,892,250 (app. 15/195,889) and its listed citations.

Sources: Google Patents US9892250B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en); Justia, US 9,892,250 Referenced Cited table (https://patents.justia.com/patent/9892250); Justia family member US 12,373,538 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[12373538](/patent/12373538)); Google Patents family/publication page US20160306956 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160306956).

I'll research the prior art cited against US 9,892,250 and related references before building the § 103 analysis.

Let me retrieve the actual "References Cited" list from the patent itself and related continuations.

Let me pull the actual cited-references list from the patent's front page and check Proxense's own earlier patents that are candidates.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,892,250 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Sourcing note (read first). The fetched text of the Google Patents page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9892250/en) that I was given does not contain the machine-readable front-page "References Cited" list — the fetch converted the page to narrative text and dropped the examiner-cited reference table. I therefore reconstructed the prior art from (a) the family's reference lists at FreePatentsOnline for the continuation US 11,914,695 (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/11914695.html), (b) the Proxense PTAB/IPR records (IPR2024-00405, IPR2024-00782, IPR2025-00562), and (c) the EPO ISR for the Philips case (WO 2007/072337 A3). Provenance is flagged item-by-item below. Where I could not confirm a reference number I say so explicitly rather than filling it in.

1. Contradiction to flag before proceeding

The previously generated claim summary in this file conflicts with the published claim set for the same application:

Both cannot be the issued claim 1. The most likely explanation is claim amendment during prosecution (published 2016-10-20; granted 2018-02-13), which the specification itself anticipated with its boilerplate: "Applicants hereby notify the USPTO that the claims of the present application are different from those of the aforementioned related applications… any such disclaimer… may need to be revisited." (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6e/c8/1e/ffb9e3d2c1b691/US20160306956A1.pdf). I analyze both the abstraction-layer claims and the wireless-mount claim, because § 103 analysis is claim-specific. If the issued claim 1 really is the mounting claim, Ground 1 in § 4 below becomes the lead ground for claim 1; if it is the abstraction claim, Ground 3 becomes the lead ground. Resolve this against a USPTO PatentCenter copy of the as-issued claims before relying on any of this.

2. Legal framework and effective filing date

• Governing law: AIA §§ 102/103. The application was filed 2016-06-28 as a continuation of 14/274,711 (filed 2014-05-10), claiming provisionals 61/822,057 (2013-05-10) and 61/864,237 (2013-08-09). Every link in the chain post-dates the AIA's 2013-03-16 cutoff, so AIA § 102(d)(2) "effective filed date" controls, with the presumptive date being 2013-05-10 (subject to § 112 support in the provisionals).
• Level of ordinary skill (proposed): a bachelor's degree in EE/CS (or equivalent) plus 2–4 years' experience in portable computing, wireless authentication (RFID/NFC/Bluetooth), biometrics, or embedded/secure-element design. The '250's own filing-date art (Giobbi PDK family, Broadcom, Philips, RFID/smart-card literature) establishes this level.
• Graham/KSR framework: scope & content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; objective indicia. Under KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination is obvious if the references are analogous art and there is an articulated reason (design incentive, market force, "known technique to improve similar devices," "obvious to try" over a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, or a teaching/suggestion/motivation) — plus a reasonable expectation of success.
• Same-inventor wrinkle: Giobbi's own publications and patents that issued before 2013-05-10 (e.g., US 8,352,730, granted 2013-01-08; US 2007/0245157; US 2004/0255139) are 102(a)(1) printed publications and remain prior art notwithstanding common inventorship. Giobbi's post-2013-05-10 publications/patents (e.g., US 9,990,628, pub. 2013-11-07) are not usable as 102(a)(2) art because of the § 102(b)(2)(A) common-inventor exception, unless the claims lose the priority date. This materially limits the art pool and is the single biggest vulnerability of any obviousness challenge.

3. Prior art references (with provenance and verification status)

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claim 1 (mounting variant, per the published claim) and claims 15–16: obvious over R1 (Broadcom) in view of R2/R3 (Giobbi PDK) and R9 (Rowley)

• R1 teaches a wireless token (secure element) and a reader/host that cooperate based on proximity, with the credential store secured inside a cryptographic boundary ([0011]–[0016]). R2/R3 teach that the token is a PDK whose memory persistently stores data and biometric profiles and that the PDK is a portable data carrier that the host consumes. R9 teaches the elemental step of exposing a smart-card memory over a personal area network so the host can read it as a remote device.
• Difference from claim 1: making the mounted portion appear as a physically connected storage drive. This is the ubiquitous "map a remote volume as a local drive" behavior (R10) — the same abstraction users had from SMB/CIFS, WebDAV, USB/IP and Wireless-USB mass storage years before 2013.
• Motivation (KSR): (i) known technique to improve a similar device — the entire point of wireless small-form-factor storage was to remove the physical-connector chore the '250 itself dwells on ("the user has many/large/full pockets and must sift through the contents…"); (ii) predictable result — presenting a remote volume as a local drive is transparent to the host OS by design; (iii) market force — eliminating the USB dongle was a well-recognized design goal.

Ground 2 — Claims 2–3, 9–14, 17–19: obvious over R1 + R2/R3 (+ R6)

• Biometric owner authentication (2–3): R2 expressly discloses a PDK that stores a biometric profile in tamper-proof memory acquired in a trusted process and wirelessly transmits it to a Reader for comparison. Placing the sensor on the token vs. on the host is a mere location-of-function choice, and the '250's own claim 3 treats the host sensor as a "virtual biometric sensor via an abstraction layer" — which is exactly what R1's optional biometric reader ([0030]–[0031]) plus a device abstraction supplies.
• Proximity-gated host access / multiple host devices (9–11, 14): R1's whole thesis is that access to a secured service is granted only when the token is proximate to the computing device ([0011]); R2/R3 disclose the same token authenticating across multiple readers/accounts (account linking).
• Proxy / stand-alone / virtual model architectures (17–19): R4 (PDK in a phone) + R5 (RDC in a phone) + R6 (tag and reader in one device) together disclose every one of the three "model architectures": local-only (stand-alone), token-controlled host (proxy), and host-hosted functionality (virtual). R5 even discloses the internal serial (non-wireless) coupling between the integrated PDK and RDC — the exact structural distinction the '250 draws between the proxy and virtual models.
• Platform-agnostic operation (19): a direct consequence of putting the state on the token instead of the host; R1's device-independent token/reader architecture and R2's trusted-key-authority model both teach it.

Ground 3 — Claims 1 and 4–8 (abstraction-layer claims): obvious over R1 + R4/R5/R6 + R9/R10 + the specification's own admissions

• The concept: claim 1/4 require "consistent virtual resources… mapped to… available physical resources based on a model architecture… regardless of variation in the physical resources available and their location." That is the textbook definition of a hardware/device abstraction layer, a construct that predates the '250 by decades (OS HALs, POSIX device abstraction, USB class drivers, JVM "write once, run anywhere"). The '250 does not claim any novel hardware or algorithm for the mapping; it claims the result of abstraction.
• The "location" element: R1 [0016] discloses integrating the RFID reader, cryptographic component and wireless-network controller on a single chip in a mobile device; R4/R5/R6 disclose the same PDK/RDC functionality living on a phone or on a standalone token. Moving a functional block between a token and its host, and abstracting the move so software is unchanged, was a routine engineering choice in 2013.
• The proxy-model limitation (claims 6–7): R5's serial-coupled PDK+RDC in one device and R6's integrated tag-reader module teach the secure element invoking a capability it does not itself contain — i.e., treating a host resource as if local.
• The virtual-model limitation (claim 18): R1's single-chip integration reaches a device that hosts the proximity/auth functions itself while still interoperating with external tokens — a "virtual secure element that appears to other devices as a separate device."
• Motivation: (i) the '250 itself concedes the abstraction layer is a generic software module ("the term 'module' refers to computer program logic… implemented in hardware, firmware, and/or software"); (ii) design incentive — decoupling software from hardware lets one SE stack run on Windows/Mac/iOS/Android, which the '250 touts as the benefit; (iii) predictable result — abstraction layers behave as their definition says.

Ground 4 — Claims 1, 11–14, 15–16: obvious over R8 (Burger) + R1 (Broadcom) + R10 (network drive mapping)

• R8 is the closest single-art "digital pocket": a portable device that stores the contents of a wallet (cards, ID, keys), is biometrically self-authenticated by fingerprint, and transacts with an interface station and a network server that validates the device ID and links it to the merchant.
• Combine with R1 for the wireless-proximity access control that Burger's docked/interface model lacks, and with R10 for making the portable device's memory mount as a local drive. Motivation: Burger expressly frames the problem as eliminating the need to carry the wallet's contents; R1 supplies the recognized proximity mechanism; mounting remote storage as local is a routine abstraction.

5. Why a POSITA would have combined these (consolidated motivations)

1. Same field of endeavor / analogous art. Every reference is directed to portable wireless authentication, secure memory, proximity access control, or portable data storage — the '250's exact field.
2. Common ownership/same-inventor lineage for R2–R6. R2–R6 were developed by the same applicant (Proxense/Giobbi) and describe a common PDK/RDC architecture; the IPR petitioners argued, and the Board's institution decisions implicitly accepted, that a POSITA would combine them. Combining one's own earlier PDK work with a general abstraction layer is the natural next step.
3. KSR rationales squarely applicable: (a) combining prior-art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results; (b) known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (c) applying a known technique (device abstraction / remote-device virtualization) to a known device (a wireless secure token) ready for improvement.
4. Design incentive and market force. The '250's own Background frames the problem as consolidating the "multiple, potentially bulky items carried… in a pocket." That is a general, stated design goal — strong evidence of motivation.
5. No teaching away. Nothing in R1–R9 teaches away from abstracting hardware location; R1's single-chip integration and R5's in-device serial coupling affirmatively point toward it.

6. Weaknesses in the obviousness case (where this challenge is most likely to fail)

1. Giobbi's own post-2013 publications are shielded by the § 102(b)(2)(A) common-inventor exception (e.g., US 9,990,628, pub. 2013-11-07). The art pool is therefore thinner than the IPRs against other Proxense patents suggest.
2. Effective-date attack. If the challenged claims are supported by the 2013-05-10 or 2013-08-09 provisionals, most art must predate 2013-05-10. R10 (network drive mapping, USB/IP) is comfortably pre-2013, but I did not verify a specific citation date for Dua (R6).
3. Claim 4 uncertainty. The prior generated section flagged that claim 4's closing language was truncated in the available listing. I cannot quote it, so I cannot assert that a specific reference reads on its full mapping clause. Any petition or rejection must quote claim 4 verbatim from the granted text.
4. No single reference discloses the combination of (i) virtual-resource presentation, (ii) mapping based on a declared model architecture, and (iii) location-independence. Expect Patent Owner to argue that "model architecture" is a specific, non-generic abstraction with three defined variants (stand-alone/proxy/virtual) and that the prior art merely moves components without abstracting them — i.e., a new mental model rather than a new structure. Grounds 1–4 answer this only with generic abstraction art (R10, unverified).
5. Objective indicia. Proxense's widespread assertion campaign (Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Intel, LG, Cisco, Hyundai/Kia/Genesis) plus family-level litigation (Darts-IP family 51865840) gives Patent Owner a plausible commercial-success/licensing narrative, though the nexus to the abstraction-layer claims (as opposed to the PDK patents) is weak.
6. § 101 backdrop. The abstraction-layer claims are arguably directed to an abstract idea (mapping virtual to physical resources) — a vulnerability that is not a § 103 argument and must be pleaded separately.

7. Bottom line

• Strongest § 103 grounds: (a) Broadcom EP 1 536 306 + Giobbi US 8,352,730/US 9,613,483 (+ Dua US 9,042,819) for claims 1–3, 5–6, 9–14, 17–19; (b) the same combination + a network-drive/wireless-storage reference for claims 1 (mounting variant), 15–16; (c) the same + generic device-abstraction art for claims 1, 4–8, 18 (abstraction-layer claims) — this ground is the least well-evidenced because I could not verify a specific, dated abstraction-layer reference.
• Motivation to combine is readily articulated under KSR (predictable results; known technique to improve similar devices; stated design incentives; same field; common inventor lineage), and no reference teaches away.

8. Items I could not verify (stated so as not to fabricate)

• The as-issued claim set of US 9,892,250 — hence the claim-1 contradiction in § 1. The Justia text I retrieved is the pre-grant publication, not the grant.
• The front-page examiner-cited reference list of the '250 itself; R9 and the other 2009-era items came from the continuation's list on FreePatentsOnline and may not be identical.
• Burger's patent number (I will not guess; the reference is described in the Proxense appellate brief).
• Dua's (US 9,042,819) exact pre-2013 dates, and whether any item in R10 has a specific, citable pre-2013 reference I could point to.
• Whether the '250 specifically (vs. siblings such as 12,373,538) is in the current Proxense district-court/CAFC campaign; per the prior section, no 2026 CAFC activity specific to 9,892,250 was found.