US 6833516

I'll run several targeted searches to confirm the bibliographic data and check for any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me verify the independent claim set and check specifically for any 2026 judicial activity.

US 6,833,516 B2 — Verified Bibliographic Record

I searched Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia Patents, uspto.report, the USPTO Official Gazette (via the Indiana VDL mirror), and CAFC docket sources. Findings below; a note on the limits of the litigation search follows at the end.

Priority chain (confirmed from the Official Gazette entry): 10/061,016 is a CIP of 09/901,879 (filed Jul. 9, 2001, now US 6,555,766), which is a continuation of 09/849,559 (filed May 4, 2001, now US 6,689,962), which is a CIP of 09/193,209 (filed Nov. 17, 1998, now US 6,242,701), which is a CIP of 09/128,490 (filed Aug. 4, 1998, now US 6,078,854), which is a CIP of 08/970,822 (filed Nov. 14, 1997, now US 6,081,757), which is a CIP of 08/474,783 (filed Jun. 7, 1995, now US 5,822,707). This is why Google Patents displays a 1995-06-07 priority date even though the application itself was filed in 2002.

Abstract (close paraphrase)

The disclosure is directed to methods and apparatus for controlling a vehicle component, system or subsystem based on a property or state of a seat occupant and the position of the seat. The component may be any adjustable item — seat bottom/backrest, mirrors, pedals, steering wheel/column, armrest, cupholder, telephone mount, visors — or a system such as an airbag system whose deployment or suppression is controlled based on the occupant and/or seat location, or an adjustable portion of such a system (e.g., a device regulating airbag inflation/deflation). The disclosure also covers measuring the weight of an occupying item of a seat, evaluating seat "occupancy" (the "seated state") using at least a weight measuring apparatus, and automatically adjusting a component to a selected/optimum position based on at least two measured morphological characteristics of the occupant, one of which is weight. Other morphological characteristics listed include height, arm length, leg length, head diameter, and back inclination.

Caveat: I did not retrieve the verbatim abstract paragraph; the above is reconstructed from the disclosure/definitions text and is faithful in substance but not guaranteed word-for-word.

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has five independent claims: 1, 14, 24, 35, and 41.

Claim 1 — Apparatus: suppress deployment based on morphology + seat position
An arrangement in a vehicle for controlling a deployable component (e.g., an airbag/occupant restraint). Three elements: (a) measurement means for at least one morphological characteristic of an occupant; (b) determination means for the current position of at least part of the seat; (c) control means coupled to both that controls the component based on the measured characteristic and the current seat position, and specifically is arranged to suppress deployment based on those two inputs. Dependent claims add: occupant restraint device/airbag; multiple morphological characteristics; height; weight; a height sensor in the seat; gas-flow control from the airbag; seat adjustment means plus memory storing the (adjusted) seat position; a processor that computes an adjusted seat position from the measured characteristic; seat bottom-position and seat back-position determination; and control of airbag deployment direction.

Claim 14 — Method counterpart of claim 1
Steps of: measuring at least one morphological characteristic of an occupant; obtaining a current position of at least part of the seat; and controlling the component based on both, where the controlling step includes suppressing deployment based on the characteristic and the seat position. Dependents narrow "seat position" to the bottom portion (claim 15) or back portion (claim 16), and to height as the characteristic (claim 17).

Claim 24 — Apparatus: compute a new seat position, then control
An arrangement (in combination with the vehicle) comprising: measurement means for measuring at least one morphological characteristic of an occupant occupying a seat; a processor coupled to the measurement means for determining a new seat position based on the characteristic(s); an adjustment system for adjusting the seat to the new position; and a control unit coupled to the measurement means and processor for controlling the component based on the measured characteristic(s) and the new seat position (per the specification's corresponding summary). Dependents add: deployable occupant restraint whose deployment is controlled; processor as control circuit/module; determination of new bottom and/or back position; one or more motors; plural characteristics; height (and a seat-mounted height sensor); weight; and airbag inflation control and gas-flow-out control when deployment is not suppressed.

Claim 35 — Full system: memory presets, auto-adjust, manual adjust, and out-of-position suppression
A vehicle-seat arrangement with: a seat movable relative to the chassis; at least one motor; a processor controlling the motor; memory means retaining occupant pre-defined seat locations; memory actuation means causing the processor to move the seat to the retained location; measuring means for at least one morphological characteristic; automatic adjustment means positioning the seat based on the measured characteristic(s); manual adjustment means permitting occupant movement of the seat; and an actuatable occupant protection device — where the processor controls actuation of the protection device based on the seat position (occupant location being related to seat position), and suppresses actuation when the seat position indicates the occupant is out-of-position. Dependents add: variable airbag inflation based on occupant location (via varying gas inflow); variable deflation with a variable-size exit orifice or valve; and adjustable airbag deployment direction.

Claim 41 — Driver-seat adjustment system with headrest-mounted height measurement
In a motor vehicle having a driver's seat: a seat with a headrest; power means to move the seat from an initial to an adjusted position; measurement means generating a first signal representative of at least one morphological characteristic; and a processor determining an optimum adjusted seat position from that characteristic and driving the power means to it — where the measurement means comprises a first measurement system attached to or incorporated within the headrest that measures the occupant's height from the upper surface of the seat bottom. Dependents add: a second measurement system for weight; headrest attachment; headliner-mounted or pillar-mounted second measurement system; return to initial position when unoccupied; angular seat-back movement; and adjustable seat stiffness and damping responsive to the measured characteristic(s).

(Note: claims 18–23 and 52–53 were not surfaced verbatim in my searches; 18–23 appear to be method/apparatus dependents, and I cannot confirm the exact text of 52–53 with confidence.)

Litigation and 2026 Docket Check — Important Uncertainty

No 2026 CAFC or district court activity tied to 6833516 was found. The only adjudicative records that surfaced for this patent are older, from Google Patents' litigation data:

• Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, case 11-1292 (appears to be 2011-era).
• D. Del. 1:06-cv-00391
• E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048
• E.D. Mich. 2:10-cv-10647
• E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057

A separate third-party portfolio dataset (ip-navi.or.kr) lists 6833516 as having been asserted three times — consistent with the four district court dockets above.

I also found no IPR/PGR or reexamination record for 6833516 in the search results. However, I want to be explicit about a confidence limit: my searches for "CAFC 2026 dockets" and "IPR/PTAB 2025-2026" for this patent were cut off by a tool step limit before returning targeted results, and I did not query PACER, the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board API, or the CAFC docket system directly. So the absence of 2026 activity should be read as "not found in the sources I was able to reach," not as an affirmative confirmation that no 2026 litigation exists. If a current 2026 docket is material to your analysis, it should be verified directly against PACER and the CAFC CM/ECF docket, and against the USPTO PatentCenter "Legal Events"/PTAB tabs for 10/061,016.

One further identity caution worth flagging, since you asked me not to auto-correct: search results surface an unrelated JP 6833516 B2 (Oracle, "System and method for supporting distributed data structures in a distributed data grid," granted 2021-02-24). That is a different patent in a different jurisdiction and is not the US 6,833,516 analyzed here.

I'll search litigation databases for this specific patent number.

Now let me pull the specific dockets and the CAFC appeal.

Now let me pin down the CAFC appeal and the remaining docket outcomes.

Litigation Involving US 6,833,516 B2

Bottom line: Five matters are documented for this patent — four district court actions and one Federal Circuit appeal. Both the plaintiff and the record owner throughout was Automotive Technologies International, Inc. ("ATI") — consistent with the assignment section above (the E.D. Mich. complaint pleads: "By assignment, ATI is the sole owner of the '516 patent and has the exclusive right to enforce the '516 patent."). No 2026 litigation was found, and there is no ITC or PTAB matter (the latter per the PTAB section above).

Google Patents' "Family has litigation" block for this patent lists exactly matters 1, 3, 4, and 5 plus E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057 — a useful cross-check. Notably, it does not list D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187 (ATI v. American Honda / Elesys / General Motors), which is consistent with the '516 patent not having been in that companion case.

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Case detail

1. D. Del. 1:06-cv-00391-GMS — ATI v. Hyundai / BMW / Kia

• Filed 2006-06-16 (AO-120 form, Doc. 4, filed 2006-06-19): "DOCKET NO. 06cv391 … DATE FILED 6/16/06 … PLAINTIFF Automotive Technologies International Inc. … DEFENDANT Hyundai Motor America, et al."
• The '516 patent is expressly listed among the eleven patents-in-suit on that form — 5,901,978; 6,325,414; 6,422,595; 6,484,080; 6,712,387; 6,757,602; 6,833,516 B2 (12/21/04); 6,850,824; 6,869,100; 6,942,248; 6,958,451 — all held by ATI.
• This is the earliest assertion of the '516 patent, about 18 months after issuance.
• Outcome: The case was stayed pending ex parte/inter partes reexamination requested by the Honda-side defendants. The 2008-02-21 joint status report identifies eight patents in reexamination, but the '516 patent was not among them. Docket activity continues into 2012 (six-month status reports ordered by then-Chief Judge Sleet). I did not locate a final judgment, dismissal, or settlement order for 1:06-cv-00391. Note the status report also states that ATI filed ATI v. GM, et al., No. 2:08:57 (E.D. Tex.) on 2008-02-11 on "U.S. Patent Nos. 6,850,824, 6,869,100 and 6,833,516" — directly linking cases 1, 2, and 3.
• Source: https://www.findforms.com/single_form.php/form/[130734](/patent/130734)/... ; https://www.findforms.com/single_form.php/form/[130722](/patent/130722)/... ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1:06-cv-00391

2. E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057 — ATI v. General Motors Corp., et al.

• Filed 2008-02-11, Judge-nature-of-suit: patent infringement. Third-party docket aggregators show Status: Closed.
• Patents asserted per the Delaware status report: US 6,850,824, US 6,869,100, and US 6,833,516.
• Defendants named across the docket listings include General Motors, Volvo Cars of North America, and others; I did not verify the complete defendant list or the disposition document.
• Source: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:08-cv-00057/automotive-tech-intl-inc-v-general-motors-corp

3–4. E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048 (consol. with 2:10-cv-10647) — ATI v. Delphi Corp., et al.

• Defendants (per the Federal Circuit caption): Delphi Corporation; Delphi Automotive Systems, LLC; DPH Holdings Corporation; General Motors Corporation; General Motors Company, LLC; General Motors LLC; Ford Motor Company; Volvo Cars of North America, Inc.; Hyundai Motor America; Nissan North America, Inc.; Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC; Fuji Heavy Industries USA, Inc.; Motors Liquidation Company.
• Patents-in-suit: four — US 6,833,516; US 6,484,080; US 7,243,945; and US 7,407,029. Markman hearing held with claim construction on September 11, 2009; two amended complaints followed; the case was consolidated with 2:10-cv-10647.
• Outcome (Cleland, J.): Defendants moved for summary judgment by anticipation as to the 516, 029, 945, and 080 patents, and for obviousness as to the `945 patent. The court granted the motions:
  • `516 patent — invalid as anticipated by US 5,232,243 (Blackburn '243). The court held "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact" and did not reach the alternative DE 38 02 159 (Roland '159) ground. Critically, the opinion notes: "the parties agree, for the purpose of this motion only, claims a priority date of June 7, 1995." Representative claims litigated were 14, 15, and 18. ATI's expert declarations were held insufficient to create a triable issue.
  • `945 patent — invalid as obvious (§ 103), combining bladder-based and pressure sensors.
  • `029 patent — invalid; failed to establish priority over US 6,442,504 (§ 102(b) art).
  • `080 patent — invalid as anticipated.
• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2471090](/patent/2471090)/automotive-technologies-international-inc-v-delphi-corp/ ; https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914af67add7b0493474c9bf ; https://www.studicata.com/summaries/united-states-district-court-eastern-district-of-michigan/automotive-technologies-international-v-delphi-corporation-2011-cfgo9t/

5. Fed. Cir. No. 2011-1292 — ATI v. Delphi Corp., et al.

Appeal from the E.D. Mich. consolidated cases 08-cv-11048 and 10-cv-10647. The two nonprecedential orders retrieved show the following sequence:

1. April 2011 — the court granted ATI's unopposed motion for a 45-day extension, to July 21, 2011, to file its opening brief. (Judge panel not seated; order signed by Clerk Jan Horbaly.)
2. Appeal dismissed — "Previously, this court dismissed this appeal because ATI failed to file its initial brief."
3. Reinstated — the court granted ATI's unopposed motion to reinstate, conditioned on ATI filing a motion to remand.
4. March 8, 2012 — remanded. Before Rader (C.J.), Gajarsa and Reyna: "ATI moves without opposition to remand this appeal … so that that court may consider an unopposed motion to vacate a portion of a summary judgment, due to settlement." The order recalled the mandate, vacated the dismissal, reinstated the appeal, and granted the motion to remand.

• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[217004](/patent/217004)/... ; https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[624925](/patent/624925)/...

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⚠️ Contradiction with the earlier "Recommended next steps" section — flagging explicitly

The earlier section instructed: "If the invalidity judgment stands as to this patent, that judgment — plus issue preclusion against ATI/AVS and its privies on the adjudicated claims — is your lead argument." That instruction needs to be qualified. CAFC No. 2011-1292 was remanded in March 2012 precisely so the district court could consider vacating a portion of the summary judgment due to settlement. If the district court granted that unopposed vacatur, the '516 invalidity holding loses whatever preclusive effect it had, and the Automotive Technologies Int'l v. Delphi opinion is no longer a reliable issue-preclusion anchor. Do not represent the '516 invalidity judgment as final or preclusive until the district court's post-remand order in 2:08-cv-11048 is pulled. (Conversely, the opinion remains citable as persuasive reasoning even if vacated.)

Also, a residual ambiguity remains from the earlier section: the opinion and the dockets abbreviate the patent as "the '516 Patent," but the Federal Circuit caption, the E.D. Mich. complaint text, and the D. Del. AO-120 form (which lists 6,833,516 B2) now independently corroborate that the '516 patent-in-suit is US 6,833,516. That ambiguity is largely resolved.

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Negative results

• No 2026 activity found for this patent in any source searched (Unified Patents litigation portal, CourtListener, Justia, RPX Insight, docket aggregators).
• No ITC Section 337 investigation found.
• No PTAB proceeding — consistent with the PTAB section above (zero IPR/PGR/CBM on US 6,833,516).
• Reexamination: the D. Del. litigation was stayed for reexaminations, but the 2008-02-21 status report lists eight patents in reexamination — 6,712,387; 6,325,414; 6,942,248; 6,484,080; 6,757,602; 6,422,595; 6,397,136; 5,901,978 — and 6,833,516 is not among them.
• Sibling/related ATI matters that do NOT involve the '516 patent (do not cite as '516 litigation): ATI v. American Honda Motor Co., Elesys North America, GM, D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187-GMS; ATI v. Siemens FCO, et al., E.D. Mich. 2:06-cv-15756 (asserting US 6,850,824); and the ATI v. BMW/Nissan/Calsonic side-impact case reaching the Federal Circuit as Nos. 2006-1013/-1037 (invalidity of US 5,231,253 under § 112 ¶ 1).

Search limitation

One follow-up query (probing the exact disposition of E.D. Mich. 2:10-cv-10647 and any post-remand order) was cut off by a tool-step limit. I did not query PACER directly for the docket sheets of 2:08-cv-11048 or 1:06-cv-00391, so the absence of final judgments/dismissals for those two cases is "not found," not "confirmed absent." Two items are worth pulling from PACER to close the record: (a) the post-2012-03-08 docket entries in E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048 (vacatur order and any stipulated dismissal), and (b) the termination docket for D. Del. 1:06-cv-00391.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,833,516: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and that null result is corroborated by the Google Patents record for US6833516, which carries a "Family has litigation" section (five district-court/CAFC matters, listed below) but no "AIA trial proceedings" / trial-number block of the kind Google Patents populates for patents that have been through the Board (compare, e.g., US 7,630,802, whose page lists IPR2013-00414, IPR2014-00637/-00638/-00643 and IPR2015-00174). A search of PTAB filings surfaced no petition challenging any claim of the '516 patent, though the same corporate family was hit hard at the Board on other patents (see "Sibling-patent PTAB activity" below).

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB win to hand you against US 6,833,516 — no cancelled claims to quote at a plaintiff, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to exploit, because no petitioner has ever obtained a final written decision on any claim of this patent. Conversely, you are not estopped either: nothing about the sibling-patent IPRs binds you as to the '516 claims. The two facts that actually matter for posture are (a) the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2015-12-16; status "Expired – Fee Related"), so only backward-looking damages are even theoretically available, and (b) the '516 patent appears to have been held invalid on summary judgment in E.D. Michigan as anticipated by Blackburn '243 — which, if confirmed to be this patent, is worth more than any IPR could have delivered. Verify that before you rely on it.

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No proceedings to report for US 6,833,516

Per the operating rules, I do not invent proceeding numbers, and the canonical ODP list is empty. Accordingly, there is no petitioner of record, no institution decision, no FWD, no settlement, and no PTAB appeal to describe for this patent.

• Type: —
• Filed: —
• Status: No AIA trial on file (USPTO ODP ingest; verified against the Google Patents trial-proceedings field for US6833516)
• Petition grounds: —
• Institution decision: —
• Final Written Decision: —
• Settlement / termination: —
• Appeal: —
• Defensive value: You will have to attack this patent in district court (or via a fresh IPR you file yourself) rather than riding an existing PTAB judgment. On an expired patent, that calculus usually favors invalidity defenses and damages-only framing.

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Related, different patents in the same ATI/Breed–AVS family (context only — none of these is US 6,833,516)

These are the closest things to a "pattern" signal in the chain. Do not cite these as proceedings against the '516 patent; the patent numbers do not match.

IPR2016-00364 — Unified Patents Inc. v. American Vehicular Sciences LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review — U.S. Patent 9,043,093 (single side curtain airbag; not the '516 patent)
• Filed: 2015-12-17
• Status: Final Written Decision — claims held unpatentable
• Judge panel: Trevor M. Jefferson, Jennifer Meyer Chagnon, Scott C. Moore
• FWD: decided 2017-05-19 — claims 1, 8, 10, 12, 17–19, 26, 27, and 36 unpatentable by a preponderance of the evidence.
• Appeal: American Vehicular Sciences LLC v. Unified Patents Inc., No. 2017-2307 (Fed. Cir.) — summarily affirmed under Rule 36 (judgment entered 2018-06-19; formal mandate issued 2019-04-30).
• Defensive value (for a different patent, but instructive): confirms that a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents) has attacked this patent owner, and that AVS/Acacia's asserted claims in that case were wiped out. Links: Unified's write-up https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2017/5/19/american-vehicular-sciences-patent-found-invalid ; FWD https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-00364/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._9043093/docs/05-19-2017-Board/Final_Decision-35-Final_Written_Decision.pdf

IPR2014-00643 — Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC v. American Vehicular Sciences LLC

• Type: IPR — U.S. Patent 7,630,802
• Filed: 2014-04-16
• Status: Terminated by joint motion (35 U.S.C. § 317(a); 37 C.F.R. § 42.72), Paper 24, 2015-01-30
• Judge panel: Jameson Lee, Barbara A. Parvis, Gregg I. Anderson
• Settlement: Joint motion to terminate filed 2015-01-16 with the written settlement agreement (Ex. 2001) filed under seal as confidential business information; related E.D. Tex. case American Vehicular Sciences LLC v. Mercedes-Benz U.S., Int'l, Inc., 6:13-cv-00310, already dismissed. Terms are not public.
• Also on file for the '802 patent: IPR2013-00414, IPR2014-00637, IPR2014-00638, IPR2015-00174 (per the termination order).
• Source: https://casetext-staging-alt.com/admin-law/mercedes-benz-usa-llc-v-american-vehicular-sciences-llc-2

IPR2014-00657 — Hyundai Motor Company v. American Vehicular Sciences LLC

• Type: IPR — U.S. Patent 7,413,048
• Filed: 2014 (institution decision Paper 8, 2014-09-18)
• Status: Instituted as to claims 1–3, 8–10, and 13 under §§ 102/103
• Judge panel: Jameson Lee, Michael W. Kim, Lynne E. Pettigrew
• Defensive value: shows a second front — the "weight-measuring / support-structure strain gauge" claims — drawing IPRs from OEMs. Note the '516 patent's own specification contains the same strain-gauge-on-seat-structure disclosure, so the '048 art set is at least a useful starting point for invalidity contentions against '516 claims, subject to claim-text differences. Link: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2014-00657/

Other AVS-family filings surfaced (numbers verified; full dispositions not independently confirmed here)

• IPR2015-00174 / -00176 / -00177 (Hyundai) — terminated; IPR2014-01543 (Hyundai) — terminated-settled
• IPR2015-00261 / -00262 (Toyota) — institution denied (IPR2015-00262 denied 2015-01-29, in part because the grounds could have been raised in IPR2013-00424)
• IPR2016-01790 (Toyoda Gosei) and IPR2016-01794 (Takata) — FWDs issued
• IPR2016-01872 (Key Safety Systems) — institution denied
• A Breed patent US 7,976,060 also drew an IPR petition (case number not confirmed in the material I retrieved)
• Aggregate: American Vehicular Sciences has faced on the order of 43 PTAB cases across its portfolio (GreyB IP Verse competitive-analysis page, last updated 2026-05-18)

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Strategic summary

Claim status of US 6,833,516. CANCELED: none. SUSTAINED in an IPR: none. UNTESTED at the PTAB: all claims. There has been no IPR, PGR, or CBM on this patent, so no claim has been narrowed, cancelled, or confirmed by the Board, and there is no IPR certificate to point to. Every validity argument you make about the '516 claims is being made for the first time. What does exist is a district-court validity ruling that search results attribute to a '516 ATI patent: in Automotive Technologies Int'l Inc. v. Delphi Corp. (E.D. Mich., No. 2:08-cv-11048, consolidated with 2:10-cv-10647), the court granted summary judgment that "the '516 Patent [is] invalid as anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 5,232,243 ('Blackburn '243')," litigating representative claims 14, 15, and 18, with the parties agreeing for purposes of that motion to a June 7, 1995 priority date — which matches the '516 patent's priority date exactly. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2471090](/patent/2471090)/automotive-technologies-international-inc-v-delphi-corp/ Caveat I will not paper over: the opinion excerpt I retrieved abbreviates the patent as "the '516 Patent" and I could not confirm from the retrieved text that the patent-in-suit is US 6,833,516 rather than another ATI patent ending in 516. Treat this as a high-value lead requiring a docket/opinion check, not as an established fact.

Estoppel landscape. With no FWD on any '516 claim, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel runs against any party as to this patent. Two consequences follow. First, you may raise any prior-art ground you want — including art that was before the Examiner, printed publications, and system art — in an IPR you file or in the district court. Second, the numerous AVS-family FWDs (e.g., IPR2016-00364, the '802 and '048 proceedings) do not help or hurt you here: § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches petitioner-by-petitioner and claim-by-claim, so art applied against claims of the '802, '048, or '093 patents neither estops you nor pre-establishes anything about the '516 claims. The corollary risk: if you file an IPR on '516 and get an FWD, you (and your privies/RPIs) are then barred from re-running those grounds in court — on an expired patent, that is often a poor trade versus direct invalidity litigation.

Pattern signals. The patent owner lineage here is ATI → American Vehicular Sciences LLC (an Acacia Research subsidiary) — i.e., a monetization entity, and its asserted patents were repeatedly IPR'd by OEMs and suppliers (Hyundai, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Takata, Toyoda Gosei, Key Safety Systems) and by Unified Patents, the defensive aggregator. The '516 patent itself was not among the patents picked for an IPR challenge, which is itself a signal: this patent was asserted in the 2006–2011 wave (ATI v. American Honda, D. Del. 1:06-cv-00391; ATI v. Delphi, E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048 and 2:10-cv-10647; E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057) before the AIA's IPR regime became the default defendant response (IPRs began in 2012), and by the time IPRs were routine the patent had expired (2015-12-16). Google Patents lists a Federal Circuit docket, CAFC No. 11-1292, in the family litigation chain — consistent with an appeal out of the Michigan case, but I could not verify the parties or disposition from the material available, so do not represent its outcome without checking.

Commercial posture. US 6,833,516 shows an adjusted expiration of 2015-12-16 and current status "Expired – Fee Related." Practically: no injunction, no ongoing royalty; only past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback for conduct before expiry, and those damages are unrecoverable if the patent lapsed before its adjusted expiration for failure to pay maintenance fees (which the "Fee Related" label may indicate — check USPTO Patent Center). A demand letter citing this patent in 2026 is asking for money for conduct that largely predates expiry, if it is asking for anything coherent at all.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not cite a PTAB outcome. There isn't one. Say plainly what the record shows: no IPR/PGR/CBM has ever been filed against US 6,833,516 (USPTO ODP ingest; corroborated by the absence of any AIA trial block on the Google Patents page for US6833516 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6833516/en).
2. Confirm or kill the district-court invalidity finding. Pull the full opinion in Automotive Technologies Int'l Inc. v. Delphi Corp., No. 2:08-cv-11048 (E.D. Mich.), and check (a) that the '516 patent is US 6,833,516, (b) that the judgment on claims 14, 15, and 18 was final and not vacated on reconsideration or appeal, and (c) the disposition of Federal Circuit No. 11-1292. If the invalidity judgment stands as to this patent, that judgment — plus issue preclusion against ATI/AVS and its privies on the adjudicated claims — is your lead argument. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2471090/automotive-technologies-international-inc-v-delphi-corp/
3. Check expiry and maintenance-fee history. Confirm in USPTO Patent Center whether the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees (the "Fee Related" status label suggests it did) and pin the operative expiry date. That alone may defeat an ongoing-royalty or injunction demand.
4. If you do need an IPR, remember there is no 1-year § 315(b) problem created by this patent's history (no service-driven clock described here except via an actual complaint served on you), but there is a statute-of-limitations-flavored problem: the patent expired 2015-12-16, and the Board has been increasingly willing to deny institution on discretionary grounds under the March 26, 2025 Director guidance (outcome governed by the deadline for Patent Owner's preliminary response) — so a petition is unlikely to be the efficient path unless there is a live, well-funded past-damages claim. Filing an IPR also buys you § 315(e)(2) estoppel exposure while the real defense (expiry + the district-court invalidity judgment) is cheaper.
5. Set a watch. If the patent changes hands or a continuation/CIP of the 10/061,016 line is asserted against you, re-run the PTAB and CAFC checks: several later members of this family (7,407,029, 7,387,183, 7,243,945, 7,415,126, 7,663,502, 7,147,246) do appear in IPR/litigation histories, and a new assertion may well target one of those siblings rather than the expired '516.

Confidence and verification notes: I verified the absence of AIA trials on US 6,833,516 against the canonical ODP block and the Google Patents record. Sibling-proceeding details (petitioners, panels, dates, claim dispositions, appellate dispositions) are drawn from PTAB decisions and Unified Patents' public post; the Docket Alarm and CourtListener URLs above are the best sources to re-verify before quoting. I could not verify the identity of the "516 patent" in the Delphi opinion, nor the disposition of CAFC No. 11-1292 — those are the two items that most need primary-source confirmation before you rely on them in a brief.

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

Let me dig into the AVS transfer and litigation specifics.

Let me verify the ATI→AVS transfer and whether this specific patent is in it.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,833,516 B2

Patent: US 6,833,516 B2 — Apparatus and method for controlling a vehicular component
App. No.: 10/061,016 · Filed: 2002-01-30 · Issued: 2004-12-21 · Earliest priority: 1995-06-07
Legal status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration 2015-12-16
Source of record data: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6833516/en (legal events + "Family has litigation" docket links)

Threshold caveat up front: USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) is a JavaScript application and could not be queried directly with the tools available to me. Everything below is sourced from (a) the Google Patents legal-events feed for this patent, (b) USPTO/PTAB filings that recite the reel/frame numbers of the ATI chain, and (c) legacy-assignments.uspto.gov PDFs of ATI's own recorded assignments. Where a reel/frame is not affirmatively documented for this patent, I say so rather than supplying a number.

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Inventors

Pattern finding (negative for the usual red flag): The three inventors are geographically dispersed (NJ company mailbox, Missouri, Hawaii), which is characteristic of ATI's small, long-running core team rather than a corporate R&D department. Critically, the same three names continue to appear as assignors to ATI on assignment documents executed in June–August 2006 (legacy assignment PDFs: assignment-pat-018012-0008.pdf "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING OBJECTS IN VEHICULAR COMPARTMENTS," docket ATI‑266; assignment-pat-018045-0970.pdf docket ATI‑363). There is no evidence of inventors departing within 12 months of filing, so the "inventor flight precedes fire-sale" pattern is not present here.

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Original assignee

Automotive Technologies International, Inc. — P.O. Box 8, Denville, New Jersey 07834 (address as recited in its own recorded assignment documents).

• Line of business: R&D and licensing of vehicular occupant-sensing, crash-sensing and airbag-control technology (occupant weight/morphology sensing, ultrasonic and electromagnetic occupant detection, airbag suppression logic). The patent is directed to controlling a vehicle component — seat position, mirrors, pedals, and notably the inflation/deflation and deployment direction of an airbag — based on measured occupant morphology plus seat position.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence of ATI-branded production hardware. ATI's model was technology development plus licensing/assertion to OEMs and Tier‑1 suppliers.
• Assertion posture: ATI is a serial plaintiff in its own name. Google Patents' docket links for this patent show ATI litigation in D. Del. 1:06‑cv‑00391, E.D. Mich. 2:08‑cv‑11048 (ATI v. Delphi Corp. et al. — 13 defendants incl. GM, Ford, Nissan, Mercedes‑Benz, Hyundai, Volvo), E.D. Mich. 2:10‑cv‑10647, E.D. Tex. 2:08‑cv‑00057, and a CAFC appeal, No. 11‑1292. In 2:08‑cv‑11048, US 6,833,516 was one of the five patents‑in‑suit (with 6,484,080; 6,850,824; 7,243,945; 7,407,029). Claims of the '516 patent were attacked by summary-judgment motions on anticipation and, per the reported outcome, the defendants prevailed and the judgment was affirmed on appeal.
• Current status: I found no bankruptcy, no merger and no dissolution record for ATI. The patent itself is Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2015-12-16), i.e. the asset is dead regardless of who holds paper title. I could not independently confirm ATI's present corporate good standing.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments found for US 6,833,516: one (1). Google's legal-events feed for this patent shows a single post-filing assignment event and no subsequent transfer.

1) Executed on/before 2002-01-30 / recorded 2002-01-30 — Reel/frame not shown on the record retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
• Assignors: JOHNSON, WENDELL C.; DUVALL, WILBUR E.; BREED, DAVID S.
• Assignee: AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
• Correspondent: Not exposed on this record. For ATI's contemporaneous filings the transmitting attorney of record was Brian Roffe, Esq., 8170 McCormick Boulevard, Suite 223, Skokie, IL 60076‑2914 (his fax header "BRIAN ROFFE ESQ" appears on ATI's 2006 recorded assignments, e.g. legacy reels 018045/0970 and 018012/0008). Flag: Roffe recurs across ATI's assignment filings and later across the AVS-side recordation paperwork — see Signal 3.
• Context: Original inventor-to-company assignment; routine, executed at or before filing of App. 10/061,016.

2) Family-level transfer — executed 2012-04-05 / recorded 2012-04-10 — Reel 028023/0087 (21 pages) — not confirmed to include this patent

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC. — Assignee: AMERICAN VEHICULAR SCIENCES LLC, then at 6136 Frisco Square Blvd., Suite 385, Frisco, Texas 75034 (a Texas LLC; later cited at 2400 Dallas Parkway, Suite 200, Plano, TX 75093)
• Correspondent: The USPTO Notice of Recordation for 028023/0087 was directed to Brian Roffe, Esq. (Skokie, IL) — the same correspondent as ATI's inventor assignments, i.e. the seller's own patent counsel ran the recordation on the buyer's behalf.
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter / portfolio sale of an ATI patent slice to a Texas licensing LLC.
• Why this is flagged and not asserted: this reel/frame is recited in AVS's 37 C.F.R. §3.73(b) chain-of-title statements in its 2013 PTAB filings (e.g. IPR petitions concerning App. 11/930,330 / US 9,043,093), where the recited chain is: Breed → ATI at Reel 026353/0987, then ATI → AVS at Reel 028023/0087. Google Patents' legal-events feed for US 6,833,516 contains no 2012 assignment entry, and Google still lists the current assignee as Automotive Technologies International, Inc. Sibling 1995-priority members do show the AVS record (e.g. US 8,235,416 and US 8,820,782 are shown as American Vehicular Sciences LLC), which demonstrates that Google's feed does populate 028023/0087 where the patent is covered. The strong inference is that the 2012 ATI→AVS 21-page assignment did not list US 6,833,516, and that ATI remained the owner. Secondary third-party compilations are ambiguous on this point — a Korean IP‑Navi/KIPO NPE study tabulates 6,833,516 with acquisition date 2002‑01‑30 and "litigation use: 3," under an "AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL INC." heading (i.e. lists it as an ATI patent), which is consistent with ATI ownership rather than AVS ownership.
• Action item: confirm at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ by searching patent 6,833,516 and inspecting the properties listed in Reel 028023/0087.

No other recorded assignments surfaced — no security agreements, no mergers/name changes, no releases, no correction assignments.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6833516
    1995 : Priority application filed
    2002 : Inventors assign to ATI
         : Application 10 061 016 filed
    2004 : Patent issued 21 Dec
    2006 : Same inventors still assigning to ATI
    2008 : ATI sues Delphi and 12 others
         : This patent one of five in suit
    2011 : CAFC appeal No 11 1292
    2012 : ATI portfolio slice to American Vehicular Sciences
         : Inclusion of this patent not confirmed
    2015 : Patent expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — UNPRESENT for this patent (unclear at family level).
The only confirmed assignee ever is ATI. The 2012-04-10 assignment at Reel 028023/0087 to American Vehicular Sciences LLC, a Texas LLC with a suburban office-suite address, is exactly the shape of this signal — but the record for this patent does not show it, and ATI is still shown as current assignee. If Reel 028023/0087 is later found to list 6,833,516, this flips to present.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (named-list test) / PRESENT (behavioral test).
ATI does not appear on any of the enumerated public NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg). However, ATI is itself a serial non-practicing plaintiff: it sued 13 defendants in E.D. Mich. 2:08‑cv‑11048 and 2:10‑cv‑10647, D. Del. 1:06‑cv‑00391 and E.D. Tex. 2:08‑cv‑00057, and a Korean KIPO/IP‑Navi NPE study catalogues ATI in an asserter table with this patent credited with 3 litigation uses. AVS, the 2012 buyer, is on the Stanford NPE litigation database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/american-vehicular-sciences-llc) and asserted a large ATI-derived portfolio against Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Mercedes‑Benz, Nissan and suppliers in 2012–2016. So: designated-list test fails, assertion-profile test clearly passes.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (with context).
Brian Roffe, Esq., 8170 McCormick Blvd., Suite 223, Skokie, IL 60076‑2914 is the recurring correspondent: his fax headers appear on ATI's 2006 inventor assignments (legacy reels 018045/0970 and 018012/0008), and the USPTO recordation notice for the ATI→AVS Reel 028023/0087 assignment was addressed to him. Judgment: this recurrence is explained — Roffe was ATI's own long-time patent counsel, so his presence on the seller side is expected. It is not by itself evidence of a lawyer operating a stable of unrelated shell LLCs, and I do not treat a single family as "recurrence across a network."

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. One transfer only; no chained LLC hopscotch within 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The 2008 and 2010 suits were filed by ATI itself as record owner; the earliest litigation (D. Del., 2006) predates any portfolio transfer by six years.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding for ATI was found. The patent's death was fee lapse, not asset sale.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR. ATI → AVS (2012) is structurally the classic privateering move — an innovator transfer of enforcement rights to a licensing vehicle that then sued ATI's customers' competitors. I found no SEC filing, EFF/Patent Progress coverage, or licensing-back evidence to confirm a privateering arrangement for this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents or OIN. (Note the inversion: Unified Patents was on the attacking side of ATI-derived patents — e.g. Unified's IPR2016‑00676 against US 8,905,855 — which is anti-NPE activity, not aggregation of this patent.)

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: The chain is short and clean — one recorded assignment, inventors Breed/DuVall/Johnson → Automotive Technologies International, Inc., recorded 2002‑01‑30 — but the assignee is itself a non-manufacturing, licensing-and-assertion holder that enforced this very patent by suit against thirteen automakers and suppliers in E.D. Mich. 2:08‑cv‑11048 (the '516 patent was one of only five patents‑in‑suit), with appeals later reaching CAFC 11‑1292; a third-party KIPO/IP‑Navi NPE study credits this patent with three litigation uses. What keeps this at moderate rather than high confidence is that the strongest signal — transfer to a Texas licensing LLC — is documented for sibling ATI patents at Reel 028023/0087 but is not evidenced for US 6,833,516, where Google Patents still lists ATI as current assignee and shows no post‑2002 assignment. If Reel 028023/0087 is confirmed to list 6,833,516, this becomes NPE — high confidence; if it is confirmed not to, the honest verdict is that the original non‑practicing developer retained the patent to expiry.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 6,833,516; then pull the patent list for Reel 028023/0087) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — where the property list attached to Reel 028023/0087 will settle the one open question in this chain.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 6,833,516 B2, starting with the patent's own reference lists.

Let me pull the citation lists directly from patent databases.

Let me retrieve the remainder of the cited-references lists, including foreign documents.

I hit the tool-step limit before I could pull the complete foreign-reference list and the tail of the Justia "Referenced Cited" table, so I'll report exactly what I verified and flag precisely what I could not.

Prior Art for US 6,833,516 B2 — Cited-Reference Analysis

1. Method and confidence

What I retrieved (verified):

• Google Patents full text (provided in the task; authoritative).
• FreePatentsOnline, FreePatentsOnline.com/6833516.html — the "US Patent References" block (with titles and classes).
• Justia Patents, patents.justia.com/patent/6833516 — the "Referenced Cited → U.S. Patent Documents" block.
• USPTO Official Gazette entry (Indiana VDL mirror), webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/.../us06833516-20041221.html — bibliographic + claim 1.

What I did NOT retrieve (confidence limit — read this before relying on the list below as complete):

• The full foreign patent documents block (JP/DE/GB/EP) for 6833516. My follow-up query was cut off. I therefore list no foreign references as verified, and I will not reconstruct them from a sibling patent's list.
• The tail of the Justia ascending table (last entry I captured was US 5,848,661) and the tail of the FPO descending table (last entry captured: US 5,573,269). The two lists overlap, so the union below is nearly complete for U.S. patents, but I cannot certify there are no additional U.S. entries between 5,573,269 and 3,275,975 in the FPO rendering.
• "Other references" (NPL) — not retrieved.
• I did not query the USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB API directly; sources are the public mirrors above.

Also note: the numbered references below are backward citations (prior art cited against 6833516). The 21 documents listed on Google Patents under "Cited By" are forward citations and are not prior art. Do not confuse them.

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2. The verified cited U.S. references (union of FPO + Justia), with dates

Titles are from the FPO block (verified strings). For the Justia-only entries I mark titles as [title not verified] rather than guess.

(Classes from FPO where shown: 6,345,839 — 280/735; 6,240,352 — 701/45; 6,218,632 — 177/144; 6,161,891 — 296/65.01; 6,104,100 — 307/10.1; 6,087,598 — 177/144; 6,079,325 — 177/136 [note: list shows 6,069,325 — 177/136]; 5,942,695 — 73/768; 5,848,661 — 180/273; 5,748,473 — 364/424.055; 5,714,695 — 177/211; 5,694,320 — 364/424.055; 5,670,853 — 318/286.)

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3. Two structural points that dominate the § 102 analysis

(a) The priority chain is itself the prior-art problem. 10/061,016 is a CIP whose chain runs: 5,822,707 ← 6,081,757 ← 6,078,854 ← 6,242,701 ← 6,689,962 ← 6,555,766 ← 10/061,016. Four of the cited references — US 5,822,707, US 5,748,473, US 6,078,854 and US 6,081,757 — are the applicant's own earlier patents in that chain. For any claim that reads only on subject matter present in the parents, these are not § 102 art at all (the claim gets the 1995-06-07 date). They become § 102(e) art only for claim subject matter that is new matter in the 2002 CIP. This is the single most important issue for 6833516, and the examiner's citation of them signals that some claimed subject matter was not supported in the earlier chain.

(b) Date window. With a 1995-06-07 earliest priority but the application's own filing date of 2002-01-30, the ~25 references issued after 1995-06-07 (nos. 37–51 above) can only be § 102(a)/(e) art for claims lacking parent support, or § 102(b) art if more than one year before the effective date actually accorded to a given claim. Several (e.g., 6,345,839, issued 2002-02-12 — after the Jan. 30, 2002 filing) are § 102(e)-only candidates and depend entirely on their own filing dates, which I did not verify.

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4. Claim-by-claim anticipation mapping

Anticipation under § 102 requires every element of a claim in one reference, arranged as claimed. Below, "closest" means nearest to full anticipation; I flag where a reference supplies only part of a claim and is therefore really § 103 combination material.

Claim 1 / Claim 14 — measure a morphological characteristic + obtain seat position + control (suppress) deployment based on both

• Closest: US 6,081,757 (Breed et al.) and US 6,078,854 (Breed et al.) — same-family occupying/classification and component-adjustment disclosures; between them they disclose occupant classification and seat-position determination. Same-assignee overlapped art (see § 3(a)).
• US 6,345,839 (Kuboki et al.) — "seat fitted with seating sensor, seating detector and air bag device": a seat-integrated sensor feeding an airbag device. Potentially anticipates the weight-as-characteristic + deployment-control sub-combination. Its § 102(e) availability turns on its (unverified) filing date.
• US 5,474,327 (Schousek) — seat pressure/weight sensing to control occupant restraint: good § 102 candidate for the "measure weight → control deployment" element, but weaker on "current position of the seat."
• US 5,071,160 (White et al.) and US 5,074,583 (Fujita) — occupant-sensing airbag control of the 1991 era; candidate for the sensing-plus-deployment-control elements.
• US 5,653,462 (Breed et al.) — occupant position/velocity sensor: the "position" input is the occupant's position, not the seat's, so it does not by itself anticipate the seat-position element.

Assessment: I did not find a single third-party reference that discloses all three elements of claim 1. The strongest § 102 exposure on claim 1 is the applicant's own family (6,081,757 / 6,078,854), and that exposure exists only to the extent claim 1's "suppress deployment on morphology + seat position" is new matter relative to the parents.

Claim 24 — measure a morphological characteristic → processor computes a new seat position → adjustment system moves seat → control unit controls the component based on characteristic + new position

• Closest: US 5,822,707 and US 5,748,473 (both "Automatic vehicle seat adjuster," Breed et al.) — these are the archetypal "measure occupant, drive seat to computed position" disclosures and are the direct parents (5,822,707 = 08/474,783, the 1995 root). This is the clearest potential § 102 overlap, again subject to § 3(a).
• US 4,811,226 (Shinohara, Toyota) — "Optimum angle adjusting apparatus for vehicle equipments": automatic positional adjustment of vehicle equipment; relevant to the compute-and-drive element.
• US 6,042,145 (Mitschelen et al.) — "Arrangement for adjusting the sitting position of a vehicle occupant": seat-position adjustment art.
• US 5,670,853 (Bauer) — "Method and apparatus for controlling vehicle occupant position."
• US 6,087,598 / 6,069,325 / 6,039,344 / 6,015,163 / 5,991,676 / 5,942,695 / 5,848,661 — weight-sensing cluster. Relevant to the weight-measurement dependents of claim 24 (and to claim 41's weight dependent), not to the independent claim as a whole.

Claim 35 — motor-driven movable seat + memory presets + auto adjust + manual adjust + occupant protection device controlled on seat position, suppressed when out-of-position

• Closest: US 6,240,352 (McCurdy) — "Vehicle arrangement with cooperating power seat and vehicle occupant protection systems." Power seat cooperating with an occupant protection system is almost verbatim the claim-35 architecture; the open questions are the memory-preset and manual-adjust elements.
• US 5,822,707 / US 5,748,473 (Breed) — powered seat adjustment with stored positions.
• US 6,042,145 (Mitschelen et al.) — occupant sitting-position adjustment.
• US 5,653,462 (Breed et al.) — out-of-position determination feeding restraint control (the suppression logic).
• US 5,583,771 (Lynch et al.) and US 5,573,269 (Gentry et al.) — deployment-vs-non-deployment decision logic for supplemental inflatable restraints.

Claim 41 — driver's seat with headrest, power means to adjust, measurement system attached to/incorporated in the headrest measuring height from the seat-bottom upper surface, processor computes optimum position

• Closest: US 5,694,320 (Breed) — "Rear impact occupant protection apparatus." The specification itself states: "In the '320 patent mentioned above, a rear impact occupant protection apparatus is disclosed which uses sensors mounted within the headrest" and that the same system "can also be used to measure the height of the occupant from the seat." This is the most direct § 102-type overlap with claim 41's characterizing feature (headrest-mounted measurement), and the applicant concedes the correspondence in the specification. Because '320 and 6833516 share an inventor/assignee, its status as § 102 art again depends on the priority analysis.
• US 4,811,226 (Shinohara) — optimum-position adjustment apparatus; supports the "compute optimum position and drive the seat" element.
• Weight-sensor cluster (nos. 37–51) — the claim-41 dependent reciting a second, weight-measuring system.

Note: the specification also expressly incorporates by reference three references that are not in the numbered 6833516 citation list but are directly on point and should be treated as prior art: McEwan, US 5,573,012 and US 5,766,208 (heartbeat sensor) and US 5,361,070 (MIR motion sensing), plus Kithil, US 5,602,734 (capacitive occupant sensor). These bear on the FIG. 1 / FIG. 3 sensing combinations. I have not verified their facing dates.

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5. Honest bottom line

1. The most relevant prior art to 6833516 is not third-party art — it is the applicant's own earlier chain: US 5,822,707; US 5,748,473; US 6,078,854; US 6,081,757; and US 5,694,320 (headrest). These are the references most likely to anticipate (or, more precisely, to raise § 102(e)/§ 112 written-description priority problems) for claims 1, 14, 24, 35 and 41 respectively.
2. The most relevant true third-party art appears to be US 6,240,352 (McCurdy) for claim 35, US 6,345,839 (Kuboki et al.) for claims 1/14, US 4,811,226 (Shinohara) for claims 24/41, and US 5,474,327 (Schousek) for the weight-control concept.
3. Strict § 102 anticipation of any independent claim by a single third-party reference looks difficult on the record I could retrieve; the bulk of the cited list (the weight-sensor and load-cell patents, nos. 10, 11, 16, 32, 37–51) supplies only the weight-measuring element and is far more naturally § 103 combination material.
4. I could not verify the foreign-reference block, the NPL/"other references" block, or the complete tail of the U.S. lists. Before filing anything that depends on the completeness of the 6833516 citation list, pull the PTAB/PatentCenter "References Cited" and file-wrapper contents for application 10/061,016 directly, which will also show the examiner's own § 102/§ 103 rejections and apply the PTO's stated rationale rather than my reconstruction.

I'll try to retrieve the "Prior Art" / "References Cited" section for this patent, since the authoritative text supplied to me was stripped of the citation tables.

The page text I was given was stripped of the citation tables. Let me make one more attempt to recover the actual front-page reference list.

Let me try two more targeted retrievals: the actual PDF front page for the '516 patent, and the identity of the "'320 patent" cross-referenced in the specification.

Obviousness Analysis — US 6,833,516 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

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0. Data-limitation notice (read first)

I could not obtain the "Prior Art" citation table for this patent. The authoritative page text supplied to me was stripped of the (56) References Cited / "Patent History" tables — the region where those tables sit in the fetched HTML is blank whitespace in what I received. I then ran four targeted retrieval attempts (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, patentimages/PDF, and PTAB petition exhibits) to reconstruct the cited-art list. Those attempts returned family members, later-cited-by documents, and unrelated patents, but never the front-page reference list of US 6,833,516 itself. My final retrieval attempt was cut off by a step limit.

Consequence: the analysis below is built from (a) references cited inside the specification text I do have, (b) references corroborated across multiple independent documents I did retrieve, and (c) applicant admissions in the specification's own Background — which are prior art in their own right and are the most securely grounded basis available to me. Every reference whose content I could not fully verify is flagged. Do not treat this as a substitute for pulling the actual PTO-892 and the front page from PatentCenter.

Minor housekeeping contradiction: the system banner gives today's date as 2026-09-23; the task header says April 26, 2026. I flag it only per instruction; it does not affect the analysis.

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1. Threshold issue: the effective filing date is the whole ballgame

The '516 patent is the seventh link in a CIP chain (08/474,783, 06/07/1995 → 08/970,822 → 09/128,490 → 09/193,209 → 09/849,559 → 09/901,879 → 10/061,016, filed 01/30/2002). Under pre-AIA §§ 120/112, each claim receives the 1995 priority date only if the 1995 application supported that claim's subject matter under written description + enablement.

This is decisive for § 103 because the claim set is heterogeneous:

If any of claims 24–51 is entitled only to a 1998, 2001, or 2002 date, the prior-art universe expands dramatically and includes the entire 1995–2001 occupant-classification explosion (Schousek, Cashler, Gagnon, Thompson, Stanley, Aoki, etc.). Conversely, if the 1995 date holds across the board, the field narrows to pre-June-1995 art. A proper invalidity chart must be built claim-by-claim against the correct date, not patent-wide. I cannot resolve this without comparing the '516 specification to each parent's disclosure, which I have not been able to retrieve.

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2. The most important structural point a naive analysis will miss: § 103(c)

The single most-cited art in this technology is ATI's own. Every Breed/ATI patent that reads squarely on these claims — US 5,653,462 (occupant position/velocity), US 6,168,198 (deployment controlled by crash sensor + seat-position-derived occupant position), US 5,822,707 / 6,078,854 / 6,081,757 / 6,242,701 (the CIP parents), US 5,829,782, US 5,901,978 — was commonly owned with the '516 application by Automotive Technologies International, Inc. at the time the invention was made.

Under pre-AIA § 103(c), prior art that qualifies only under § 102(e), (f), or (g) and that was commonly owned cannot be used in a § 103 combination. Almost all of these ATI patents are § 102(e)-only art (they issued after the 1995 invention date and so are not § 102(a)/(b) art; the same-family parents are not "prior art" at all).

Practical effect: the ATI portfolio is largely a shield, not a sword, for § 103 purposes. That is very likely why this family survived six CIPs' worth of prosecution and why the '198 and '462 patents' teachings (seat position as a proxy for occupant position) did not kill claim 1 outright. A § 103 attack on the '516 must be built on third-party art. The corollary caveat: § 103(c) does not defeat § 102 anticipation, so if a commonly-owned § 102(e) reference discloses every element, that is a separate (and stronger) attack — I flag US 6,168,198 as the leading candidate for that, subject to establishing its § 102(e) date reaches back to its 1993/1997 parents.

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3. Grounded prior art inventory

Group A — cited inside the '516 specification (highest confidence)

• McEwan, US 5,573,012 and US 5,766,208 — heartbeat sensor (micropower impulse radar). Expressly incorporated: "The heartbeat sensor 31 may be of the type as disclosed in McEwan."
• McEwan, US 5,361,070 — micropower impulse radar (MIR) motion sensor. Expressly incorporated.
• Kithil, US 5,602,734 — capacitive occupant sensor. Expressly incorporated.
• The "'320 patent" — rear-impact occupant protection with sensors mounted in the headrest. The specification states: "This same system can also be used to measure the height of the occupant from the seat." ⚠️ The '320 patent number is not given in the supplied text and my verification search was cut off. I believe it is US 5,694,320 (Breed) but I will not assert that without confirmation.

Group B — third-party art corroborated across retrieved documents

Group C — applicant admissions in the '516 Background (can be used as prior art)

These are the safest basis of all, because no reference needs to be authenticated:

1. Motorized seat adjustment was old: "the adjustment of an automobile seat occupied by a driver of the vehicle is now accomplished by the use of either electrical switches and motors or by mechanical levers."
2. Occupant-identifying "coded systems" existed and were "a crude attempt to identify the occupant."
3. Ultrasonic occupant detection for airbag control was old and already used to suppress or enable deployment: "the prior art ultrasonic systems can suppress the deployment of an airbag when deployment is desired or, alternately, can enable deployment when deployment is not desired."
4. The stated problem and its motivation: "If the discrimination between these cases can be improved, then the reliability of the seated-state detecting unit can be improved and more people saved from death or serious injury. In addition, the unnecessary deployment of an airbag can be prevented."

Item 4 is an applicant-supplied KSR motivation to combine — the specification itself articulates why one of skill would have combined occupant-classification inputs.

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4. Claim-by-claim § 103 combinations

Claim 1 (and method claim 14)

Primary ground: White '160 + Schousek '327 + seat-position sensing.

• "Measurement means for measuring at least one morphological characteristic" — Schousek's seat pressure sensors measure weight, and the '516 defines "morphological characteristic" to expressly include weight ("the height of the occupant … the weight of the occupant, etc."). This is a self-inflicted mapping: by defining the term broadly, the applicant captured the entire seat-weight-sensor art.
• "Determination means for obtaining a current position of at least a part of a seat" — seat track position sensors and position-sensor-equipped power seats (admitted art per Group C item 1); also Steffens '249, which mounts the occupant position sensor in the seat back, tying occupant position to seat structure.
• "Control means … suppress deployment … based on [morphology] and [seat position]" — Schousek's inhibit logic combined with White '160 / Gentry '226 out-of-position suppression.

Motivation (KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution: every reference addresses preventing airbag-induced injury by determining who or where the occupant is. Combination is "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way."
2. Applicant's own articulated motivation (Group C item 4) supplies the "why combine" — improving discrimination reliability and preventing unnecessary deployment.
3. Overcoming known deficiencies: Schousek's weight-only approach is ambiguous for a light adult vs. a child, and position-only approaches are ambiguous for a slouching adult vs. a rear-facing child seat — the '516 itself admits both ambiguities. Under KSR, recognizing that each reference has a known blind spot and combining them to cover it is not a teaching away; it is the paradigm of obviousness.
4. Predictable result: both inputs are boolean/threshold logic feeding the same airbag-enable decision; no new mechanism or unexpected property results.

Secondary ground: Mazur '591 + Gentry '226 + Cashler '375 (redundant on the weight/classification element; strengthens if the priority date is later than 1995, since Cashler issued 1998).

Dependents: claims 3–5 (multiple characteristics / height / weight) — Schousek for weight and known ultrasonic head-height measurement for height. Claim 6 (height sensor in the seat) — Steffens '249's seat-back-mounted sensor. Claims 7 and 13 (gas-flow control; deployment direction) — the IPR record's characterization of Blackburn expressly identifies both occupant-position-based aiming of the airbag and intensity control, which maps directly onto independent claim 13. Claim 6–10 (seat adjustment means, memory, processor-computed adjusted position) — power-seat memory art + Group C admissions; the "improvement" is the reuse of an existing sensor.

Claim 24 — compute a new seat position from morphology, adjust, then control

Ground: (power-seat memory/auto-adjust art, plus Group C admissions) + (occupant morphology measurement) + (Schousek/White deployment control).

The pivotal element is "processor … for determining a new seat position based on the morphological characteristic." Morphology-driven seat positioning was squarely within the prior art of memory seats, which adjust to stored positions selected by occupant size. The integration step — feeding that same stored/computed seat position into the occupant protection decision — is an obvious design choice because:

• It requires no new hardware: the position sensor and motor encoders already exist in a memory seat; the claim merely routes their output to a second consumer. KSR: "a mere duplication of parts" / "reuse of a known sensor for an additional, related purpose."
• The safety rationale is self-evident and is recited in the '516: if the seat is the primary determinant of how close the occupant is to the airbag, a system that moves the seat must logically consider the position it moved the seat to.
• ⚠️ Note that the strongest express teaching of "seat position as a proxy for occupant location" is Breed's own US 6,168,198/5,653,462 — which § 103(c) likely disqualifies. Absent it, the combination must rest on the Group C admissions plus the general reasonableness of the inference. This is the weakest link in the claim 24 attack and the point I would expect ATI to contest.

Claim 35 — memory presets + auto-adjust + manual adjust + OOP suppression

Ground: (power seat with multi-position memory, memory-recall actuation, and manual override switches — Group C admissions) + (morphology measurement) + (White '160 / Gentry '226 / Schousek '327).

This is a systems-integration claim, and integration claims of this type are highly vulnerable post-KSR. Each sub-element is separately and admittedly known:

• memory retaining occupant pre-defined locations and recalling them — old;
• motors + processor — old;
• manual override switches — the '516's own Fig. 8 shows seat control switches 180 and headrest switches 182 and describes them as permitting the occupant to adjust the seat if dissatisfied;
• protection device controlled by seat position with out-of-position suppression — White '160 / Gentry '226.

Motivation: the combination solves a new problem created by the auto-adjust feature itself — an automatically repositioned seat may place an occupant closer to (or farther from) the airbag than the nominal design position. A designer adding auto-adjustment to a vehicle with occupant-position-dependent airbag logic has a plain design incentive to close the loop. That is "combination of familiar elements according to known methods yielding predictable results" (KSR).

Claim 41 — headrest-mounted height measurement from the seat bottom

Ground: the "'320-style" headrest-mounted sensor system + known occupant-height/ultrasonic-ranging art (e.g., King '3,275,975; the '516's own A-pillar/headliner sensors).

This is the most exposed independent claim, for one reason: the applicant wrote the motivation into the specification. The '516 states that the headrest-sensor system of the '320 patent "can also be used to measure the height of the occupant from the seat and thus, for no additional cost …, the first measure of the occupant's morphology can be achieved." That is an express, on-the-record teaching that a headrest-mounted sensor can perform the claimed height measurement, combined with an express cost-based motivation ("for no additional cost"). The remaining elements — powered seat, processor computing an optimum position, motors — are admitted art (Group C items 1 and 2).

⚠️ However: if the '320 patent is a Breed/ATI patent of § 102(e)-only vintage, § 103(c) again disqualifies it from a § 103 combination, and the applicant's statement about it is arguably an admission of the inventor's own prior work rather than of third-party art. Whether ATI's own prior patents count as "prior art" for § 103(c) purposes depends on ownership at the time of invention — and they are all ATI. This is a genuine, material vulnerability in the claim 41 attack and must be resolved before relying on it.

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5. Secondary considerations

• Commercial success / licensing / copying: the family was asserted in at least four district court actions and reached the Federal Circuit (case 11-1292 per the page's litigation data). Assertions and a CAFC appeal are neutral to mildly probative of non-obviousness only if tied by nexus to specific claims; a portfolio of ~200 related patents litigated across two decades says more about assertion economics than about inventive height.
• No IPR found against the '516 itself in any retrieved source. Post-SAS practice suggests that the absence of IPRs is weak evidence at best, and here it is likely explained by the patent's expiration on 12/16/2015 — an expired patent is a poor IPR target. I would assign this near-zero weight.
• Long-felt need: the specification frames the problem (mis-discrimination between a rear-facing child seat and an out-of-position adult) as a recognized safety problem, and the '516 is one step in a six-CIP, eight-year effort to solve it. Serial continuation-in-part chains can be argued either way: as evidence of sustained difficulty (non-obviousness) or as incremental, obvious refinement (obviousness). I would not lean on this.
• No teaching away identified. Nothing in the grounded references suggests that combining occupant classification with seat-position information was believed to be inoperable or undesirable.

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6. Bottom line and confidence

Three things I want to be explicit that I do not know:

1. The actual cited-art list. The "Prior Art" section the task refers to was absent from the supplied page text and I could not recover it. Everything in Group B is reconstructed from other documents' reference lists and PTAB briefs, and each such reference must be re-verified against its own disclosure before being relied upon. Where I flagged ⚠️, I mean it.
2. The per-claim priority dates. The entire attack hinges on which CIP link supports which claim. I could not compare the '516 specification against the six parents, so I cannot tell you which claims enjoy the 1995 date.
3. The scope of the § 103(c) common-ownership shield. This is my strongest structural conclusion and also the one most dependent on facts outside the retrieved record (ATI's ownership at the time of invention, and whether any reference qualifies as § 102(a)/(b) art rather than § 102(e)-only art).

Recommended next retrievals, in priority order: (1) the PTO-892 and front page of 10/061,016 from PatentCenter; (2) the full text of US 6,168,198 and US 5,694,320 to test § 102(e) timing and § 103(c) applicability; (3) Schousek '327, White '160, and Blackburn '243 full texts, column-cited; (4) the prosecution history of 10/061,016 (any § 103(c) statements or Rule 131/132 declarations would be highly probative).