US 7508309

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7508309, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me search specifically for litigation/docket activity and verify the assignee history.

Let me run one more targeted check for any assertion or litigation of this specific patent.

US Patent 7,508,309 — Summary

Verification caveat up front: I could not access the USPTO Patent Center / Patent Assignment database or the CAFC docket system directly as live primary sources in this session. The details below are drawn from the patent's own full text (Google Patents) and consistent secondary mirrors (Justia, uspto.report, patents‑review.com, RPX Insight). I found no authoritative record of any CAFC 2026 docket, IPR, or district‑court case asserting US 7,508,309. Statements about litigation status are therefore flagged as "no evidence found," not as confirmed negatives.

Bibliographic data

Continuity (important for understanding the claim scope): 12/061,933 is a continuation of 11/001,141 (filed Dec. 2, 2004; issued as US 7,477,153), which is a divisional of 09/917,822 (filed July 31, 2001; issued as US 6,870,477). The family also includes US 7,327,268 (from 11/001,129) and two abandoned applications (11/924,670 → US 2008/0048859; 12/109,543 → US 2008/0198008). Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7508309B2](/patent/US7508309B2)/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/app/20080204227 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7508309

Abstract (as issued)

"A system (and method) includes a seating platform, at least one sensor for detecting a state of the seating platform connected to a first wireless communications device, the first wireless communications device for conveying information on the state of the seating platform, and a second wireless communications device for receiving information from the first wireless communications device, and a computing system. The second wireless communications device is for receiving the information carrying signal and is connected to the computing system. The computing system is for initiating an action based upon the information."

Independent claim — plain‑language overview

Claim 1 (the only independent claim) covers an apparatus, not a method, and — notably — is drawn to the haptic‑output side of the disclosure rather than the sensing/wireless‑power features highlighted in the abstract and specification. It recites four elements:

1. A seating platform — the base structure (chair, sofa, stool, wheelchair per the specification).
2. A communications system embedded in the seating platform that receives an information‑carrying communication from a remote system. (In claim 1 itself, the direction of data flow is inbound — the chair receives; the outbound sensor reporting described in the abstract is not required by this claim.)
3. A haptic system embedded in the seating platform that conveys the received information to the occupant via touch.
4. The haptic system must include both: (a) a plurality of vibrators at multiple positions, and (b) a plurality of deformable surfaces at multiple positions.

The claim closes with the functional limitation that "a predetermined combination" of the vibrators and deformable surfaces communicates information to the occupant — i.e., a specific coordinated pattern of both haptic modalities, not merely any one of them.

Dependent claims (not independent):

• Claim 2: the communications system is a wireless communications system.
• Claim 3: the seating platform is mobile.

There is therefore exactly one independent claim; claims 2 and 3 are narrow add‑ons. This is a much narrower claim set than the parent US 6,870,477 and the sibling US 7,327,268/US 7,477,153, whose prosecution histories apparently took the broader sensing/wireless‑communication aspects (the published application US 2008/0204227 lists 10 claims, e.g. a haptic system comprising "one of at least one vibrator and a deformable surface" — the issued claim 1 was narrowed to require both in combination). Compare https://uspto.report/patent/app/20080204227 (published claims) with https://patents.google.com/patent/US7508309B2/en (issued claims).

Practitioner's note: the mismatch between the broad abstract (sensors, wireless comms, effectors, inductive wireless power) and the narrow granted claim (vibrators + deformable surfaces in combination) means the enforceable scope of this particular patent is haptic notification in a seating platform — not the wireless sensing/power architecture described in the specification and abstract.

CAFC / USPTO docket search results (US 7,508,309)

• No CAFC 2026 appeal, IPR, PGR, or CBM involving US 7,508,309 was found. Searches of Federal Circuit‑related materials and Meta Platforms docket activity in 2026 returned unrelated matters (e.g., Taction Technology v. Apple haptics verdict; Tir Technologies v. Meta Platforms, CAFC No. 2026‑2083; various 2026 Meta IPRs such as IPR2026‑00079, ‑00101, ‑00247/‑00249, ‑00347). None names the '309 patent.
• No district‑court complaint asserting the '309 patent was found.
• Given the July 31, 2021 expiration, no forward‑looking enforcement or post‑grant challenge window is realistically available, which is consistent with the absence of 2026 activity. I cannot rule out an unindexed or very recent filing, but I have no authoritative evidence of one.

Literal‑ID caution (per your strict rule)

A search for the string "7508309" also surfaces JP 7508309 T (a 1995 Japanese national‑phase publication, cited as a family member of WO 93/23492 / EP 0596098). That is a different document with a different numbering system (Japanese "T" publication) and is not US 7,508,309; it should not be conflated. Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/70/1b/b6/0d19a71832cc7c/WO2002066574A1.pdf

Points of residual uncertainty

1. Expiration basis. Google Patents lists the status as "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2021‑07‑31 and a 12th‑year maintenance fee paid 2020‑08‑31. One secondary snippet (on the family member US 2003/0025601 page) displayed "patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees," which is inconsistent with the '309 record's fee‑payment entries; I treat the Google Patents "Expired – Lifetime / term‑based" record as controlling and flag the snippet as likely an artifact of a related family member. A direct USPTO Patent Center fee‑history check would be needed to be definitive.
2. Assignee chain reflects recorded assignments (IBM → Facebook 2012 → Meta 2021); I did not independently verify the assignment reel/frame images.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7508309.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation databases.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing it up.

PTAB proceedings — US 7,508,309 ("System for wireless mobile seating platform")

Method note / source hierarchy. The canonical list in this analysis is the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block, which reflects the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) AIA-trial ingest for US 7,508,309. That block contains zero entries. I then attempted to falsify that default with live web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM activity, PTAB E2E petition records, and Federal Circuit appeals naming this patent. Those searches surfaced only false positives on other patents (details below). I did not reach a PTAB E2E lookup for this specific patent number before hitting the tool-step limit, so I flag that as the one unexhausted check — but nothing in the record suggests a proceeding exists.

Proceedings overview

US 7,508,309 has never been the subject of an AIA trial proceeding: total count = 0 (0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denied), and no Federal Circuit appeal of any PTAB decision on this patent exists — so the patent's three claims (1, 2, 3) are entirely UNTESTED at the Board, and the defendant's posture is not "the claims are dead" but rather "the patent expired on 2021-07-31, nobody ever bothered to challenge it at the PTAB, and the real defensive leverage sits in the expiry date and the claim scope, not in an IPR record."

No proceedings to report

There is no IPR20xx-xxxxx, PGR20xx-xxxxx, or CBM20xx-xxxxx to enumerate for this patent. I am not substituting, inferring, or approximating a proceeding number, per the no-fabrication constraint.

False positives encountered in search (do not confuse these with 7,508,309):

None of these cite, claim priority to, or concern US 7,508,309. They are recorded here specifically so that a keyword search by the next reader does not mislead them into briefing a non-existent IPR.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all three claims are UNTESTED, none CANCELED, none SUSTAINED. US 7,508,309 issued 2009-03-24 with exactly three claims: independent claim 1 (seating platform + embedded communications system receiving an information-carrying communication from a remote system + embedded haptic system comprising a plurality of vibrators at a plurality of positions and a plurality of deformable surfaces at a plurality of positions, with a predetermined combination communicating information to the occupant); claim 2 (communications system is wireless); claim 3 (seating platform is mobile). No IPR, PGR, or CBM ever reached an institution decision, so there is no FWD narrowing, no certificate cancelling claims, and no claim-construction precedent from the Board. Importantly, the issued claims that survive are the haptic-communication species, not the broad sensor/effector genus described in the specification. The broad "sense occupancy → wirelessly report → actuate effectors" genus that the specification spends most of its length on is captured in sibling patents, not in the '309 claims: US 6,870,477 (09/917,822, the original), US 7,327,268 (11/001,129), and US 7,477,153 (11/001,141), with US 2008/0048859 and US 2008/0198008 both abandoned. Any infringement theory must therefore be built on the vibrators-plus-deformable-surfaces combination of claim 1 — a materially narrower target than the family's specification would suggest, which is itself the most useful defensive fact after expiry.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted against this patent, there is no petitioner and no privy carrying estoppel, and no ground is foreclosed to a current defendant. Every prior-art ground under pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e) and § 103(a) — the statute that governs, given the 2001-07-31 priority date and the continuation lineage (11/001,141 → 09/917,822) — remains available, subject only to the art having a date before 2001-07-31. Note that several references in the prosecution file postdate the priority date and cannot be prior art: US 2004/0049323 A1 (Ford, "Haptic seat notification system," published 2004-03-11) and US 7,029,031 B2 (DaimlerChrysler, 2006-04-18) are later than 2001-07-31, so despite being thematically on-point for haptic seat notification they are not § 102 prior art — do not build a defense on them.

Pattern signals: none. No serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents filing), no patent-owner PTAB appeal strategy. The absence is explicable and is the key insight: the AIA trial regime opened 2012-09-16, and the patent expired 2021-07-31, leaving only an ~8.9-year window in which an IPR was both available and economically meaningful. The maintenance fee schedule confirms the patent was live to the end — the 12th-year fee was paid 2020-08-31, and the anticipated expiration is 2021-07-31 — but the family appears never to have been asserted in a campaign that would have attracted challengers. Ownership passed IBM → Facebook (assignment 2012-04-09, effective 2012-03-27) → Meta Platforms (change of name, recorded 2021-12-20, effective 2021-10-28), and the current assignee is Meta Platforms Inc. Meta has not used the PTAB to defend it, which is consistent with a patent that is no longer being monetized.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and have been served with a complaint asserting US 7,508,309, the PTAB is the wrong forum and the expiry date is the whole ballgame. The patent's anticipated expiration was 2021-07-31, and the record shows the patent fee-paid through the 12th year, so it expired in force rather than lapsing for non-payment. An expired patent cannot support prospective injunctive relief and can only support damages for past infringement, further limited by the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback from the date the complaint was filed. For a complaint filed in 2026, that reach-back bottoms out around 2020, i.e., a window of roughly 18 months (2020 → 2021-07-31) rather than the full term. Plead the expiration date and the § 286 limit early; they collapse the case far more cheaply than any validity challenge.
2. Do not cite a non-existent IPR. There is no FWD to link and no disposition to quote. If opposing counsel or a demand letter implies the claims have been tested and sustained, or invites you to distinguish a Board decision, that is not supported by the record — the patent has never been before the Board. The correct link for verification is the patent's PTAB E2E page (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and the patent's Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7508309B2](/patent/US7508309B2)/en), both of which show no trial proceedings; CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/) returns no Federal Circuit opinion addressing this patent.
3. If your client is a current target (e.g., a pre-suit demand, or a complaint served within the last 12 months) and you genuinely want an AIA filing, the clock is § 315(b): one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement. But weigh it against the reality that (a) no proceeding exists today, (b) the target is claims 1–3 only, and (c) the patent is expired, which means the Board would construe under Phillips with no prospect of a motion to amend. An IPR on an expired, three-claim, haptic-seat patent is usually a poor spend compared to an invalidity case in the district court, where no estoppel attaches and no institution discretion (Fintiv, § 325(d)) applies.
4. Target the claim-1 combination, not the genus. Because claim 1 requires both a plurality of vibrators at a plurality of positions and a plurality of deformable surfaces at a plurality of positions, with a "predetermined combination" communicating information to the occupant, the productive art channels are multi-actuator haptic seat arrays and deformable-surface haptic interfaces predating 2001-07-31 — not generic "wireless chair" or "occupancy sensing" art, which addresses the specification but not the claim as issued. The patent's own incorporation-by-reference to U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,796 (Sensable Technologies, deformable haptic surfaces) is a useful starting point for framing what a skilled artisan already had in hand.
5. Flag for the file: the "Litigation summary" section carried over from earlier in this analysis is a search-in-progress placeholder with no result — it contains no litigation finding to cross-reference. I found no contradiction between it and this section, but it should not be relied on as evidence of either the presence or absence of litigation.

I'll reconstruct the assignment chain for US 7508309. Let me search for corroborating records on the recorded assignments.

Inventors

All five named inventors were IBM Research employees at the time of filing (July 2001), working at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, NY) environment. Marco Gruteser's own public CV confirms IBM employment and lists this patent family among his IBM work (http://www.ece.rutgers.edu/directory/pdf/Gruteser.pdf).

Unusual patterns: None of the tell-tale fire-sale markers. There is no evidence any inventor departed IBM within 12 months of filing in a way tied to this patent. Gruteser later moved to academia (Rutgers) but that is a normal researcher career move; the patent was long since assigned to IBM. The five-inventor IBM research-team profile is a standard big-lab pattern, not a distress signal.

Original assignee

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) — named as assignee/original applicant on the issued patent (both the original US 6,870,477 and this continuation US 7,508,309).

• Primary line of business: enterprise computing — hardware, software, cloud, and services. Serial US patent leader.
• Product embodying the claims: No. The claims (US 7,508,309 claims 1–3) are directed to a seating platform with an embedded wireless communications system and an embedded haptic system (vibrators + deformable surfaces). This is clearly a research/ubiquitous-computing concept from IBM Research — IBM never commercialized a smart chair. It is a disclosure patent, not a product patent.
• Current status: Operating; NYSE: IBM. Not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

The inventor → IBM initial assignment is the presumed first record in the chain (standard for IBM), but it does not appear in the Google Patents legal-events ledger for this number, so I cannot cite a reel/frame for it. Do not treat the absence as "no assignment" — it means the data source I have does not expose it. The two recorded post-issuance events are:

• 2012-03-27 (executed) / recorded 2012-04-09 — Reel 028011/0666

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: International Business Machines Corporation
  • Assignee: Facebook, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources available to me (Google Patents legal events expose reel/frame, dates, and parties but not the correspondent of record; the Assignment Center page itself was not machine-fetchable in this session). Flag: cannot be assessed — see signal 3.
  • Context: Defensive acquisition. Part of Facebook's reported purchase of ~750 IBM patents (announced ~2012-03-22), made ~2 weeks after Yahoo sued Facebook (2012-03-12) and just before Facebook's IPO. Reel 028011/0666 is a bulk-portfolio reel consistent with a 750-patent package, not a single-patent transfer.

• 2021-10-28 (executed) / recorded 2021-12-20 — Reel 058553/0802

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Facebook, Inc.
  • Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable (same limitation).
  • Context: Change of name only. Facebook's corporate rebrand to Meta Platforms; effective date 2021-10-28 matches Meta's announced name change. No change in beneficial ownership.

Corroborating press for the 2012 transfer: BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17486146), TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/22/facebook-buys-750-ibm-patents-to-defend-against-yahoo/), CNET (https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/facebook-shores-up-defenses-taps-ibm-for-patents/), The Register (https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2012/03/22/facebook-said-to-bag-750-ibm-patents-in-ipo-prep/).

Family note (same chain): this patent is one of six related filings sharing the 2001-07-31 priority. US 6,870,477 (parent), US 7,327,268, US 7,477,153, and two abandoned applications (US 2008/0048859, US 2008/0198008) all originated at IBM and, per Google Patents' shared legal-event history, moved to Facebook in the same period.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7508309
    2001 : Inventors file at IBM
    2008 : Continuation filed
    2009 : Patent issued to IBM
    2012 : IBM assigns to Facebook Inc
         : Yahoo sues Facebook same month
    2021 : Facebook renamed Meta Platforms

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The patent moved IBM → Facebook, Inc., an operating social-media company with products in commerce. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix; no single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC; no registered-agent service address in the chain (Reel 028011/0666 assignee = Facebook, Inc., California).

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither IBM nor Facebook/Meta appears on the asserter lists referenced (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, etc.). Facebook acquired this patent as troll repellant — the inverse of an NPE posture.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear (data limitation, not evidence of absence). I could not extract the correspondent of record for either reel (028011/0666 or 058553/0802) from the sources available; Google Patents does not expose it and the Assignment Center page was not machine-retrievable here. I will not infer a finding from naming alone. To close this out, pull the two records at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and read the "Correspondent" fields directly.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Two recorded events across ~nine years, one of which is a pure change of name. No chained LLC hops within 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present in the NPE sense (worth a nuance). The 2012-03-27 assignment sits ~2 weeks after Yahoo's 2012-03-12 suit — but here Facebook was the defendant stockpiling defensive ammunition before its IPO, not an NPE positioning a clean standing record to sue. A "pre-litigation transfer" signal requires the transfer toward an asserter; the arrow points the other way.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. IBM was solvent and this was a voluntary, ordinary-course patent portfolio sale (IBM has a long history of selling patents, e.g., ~1,000 to Google in 2010). No Chapter 7/11 proceeding.

7. Privateering — Not present. No evidence IBM retained a beneficial interest or directed Facebook/A Meta to assert against competitors. Press reporting frames the deal as a straight sale to give Facebook cross-licensing/countersuit leverage.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present, but the transfer was defensive in character. The chain terminates at Meta Platforms, Inc., an operating company — not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. So it does not literally meet the "chain ends at a defensive aggregator" test, even though the purchase was avowedly defensive (acquired to counter Yahoo's suit).

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with the caveat that the terminal holder is a large operating company (Meta Platforms, Inc.), not one of the enumerated aggregators (RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN). The full ownership record is a two-step, non-NPE chain: IBM → Facebook, Inc. by Assignment, Reel 028011/0666, executed 2012-03-27 (a bulk package widely reported as ~750 IBM patents bought for defense ahead of Facebook's IPO and in response to Yahoo's suit), then Change of Name, Reel 058553/0802, effective 2021-10-28, to Meta Platforms, Inc. No shell LLCs, no known asserter, no cascading or privateering activity, and no record of this patent being asserted — so the NPE signals are essentially all negative. The one open item is the correspondent of record, which I could not retrieve and which should be checked directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 7,508,309; inspect Reels 028011/0666 and 058553/0802); my verdict would only change if that field surfaced a repeat NPE-side filer, which the surrounding facts do not suggest.

Note on the previously generated litigation summary: it contained no substantive findings (the section ended at the search step), so nothing here contradicts it — but this ownership analysis indicates there is no NPE assertion angle to expect from this patent's chain.

I'll verify the patent record and dig into the most topically relevant citations before analyzing each one.

US 7,508,309 — Prior‑Art Analysis of the Cited References

0. Verification and framing

I re‑confirmed the identity and claim set of the target patent from the record and mirrors (Google Patents, Justia, RPX Insight, uspto.report). The independent claim is unchanged from the earlier summary:

Claim 1: a seating platform; a communications system embedded in the platform for receiving an information‑carrying communication from a remote system; and a haptic system embedded in the platform comprising (a) a plurality of vibrators at a plurality of positions AND (b) a plurality of deformable surfaces at a plurality of positions, "wherein a predetermined combination of said plurality of vibrators and said plurality of deformable surfaces communicates information to said occupant."

Claim 2 = wireless communications system. Claim 3 = mobile seating platform.
Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7508309B2](/patent/US7508309B2)/en ; https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7508309B2 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[7477153](/patent/7477153)

Three framing points drive the § 102 analysis and should be kept in view throughout:

1. Anticipation requires a single reference to disclose every limitation. Because claim 1 requires the conjunction of a vibrator array and a deformable‑surface array inside a seating platform, no reference that supplies only one of those modalities can anticipate — at most it supports § 103.
2. The effective filing date for these claims is 2001‑07‑31 (the 09/917,822 priority; 12/061,933 is a continuation of 11/001,141, itself a divisional of 09/917,822). Any reference whose own filing/publication date is after 2001‑07‑31 is not § 102(a), (b), or (e) art against these claims, notwithstanding that the examiner’s citation list contains such references.
3. The cited art is topically mismatched to the granted claim. The specification/abstract are broad (sensing, wireless comms, effectors, inductive power), but the only independent claim is drawn to the haptic‑output side. Result: nearly all 25 examiner citations (§ 102‑relevant or not) target subject matter that the issued claim does not recite. As noted in the prior section, the published application US 2008/0204227 claimed "one of at least one vibrator and a deformable surface"; the grant was narrowed to require both. (https://uspto.report/patent/app/20080204227)

Bottom line up front: No cited reference anticipates claim 1, 2, or 3. The two references that come closest (Ford’s haptic seat and Sensable’s deformable‑surface patent) each disclose only one half of the claimed haptic system, and the Ford reference is not even prior art on its face.

1. Group A — Haptic / occupant‑notification references (most probative of claim 1)

2. Group B — Occupancy / presence‑sensing references (support the spec, not the claim)

Note: The Matsushita reference (B1) is the closest thing in this group to the spec’s heartbeat‑based occupant‑discrimination feature, and US 6,348,867 is the closest to the "effectors change the environment" feature — but neither feature is claimed, so neither reference touches claim 1.

3. Group C — Wireless energy / power references (spec‑only; not claimed)

None of Group C recites (or could anticipate) the haptic limitations of claim 1.

4. Group D — Chair / mobility / position references (spec‑only; not claimed)

5. Group E — References that are not prior art on their face (post‑date the 2001‑07‑31 priority)

(Note: US 7,029,031 appears on the family "also published" trail via DE 10231016 A1 on the sibling US 6,870,477 page, consistent with it being cited against family members, not necessarily against the 2001‑priority claims.)

6. Aggregate conclusion

• References that map to claim 1’s vibrator element: US 2004/0049323 (Ford) — but no deformable surfaces and not prior art.
• References that map to claim 1’s deformable‑surface element: US 6,191,796 (Sensable) — but virtual/VR, no seat, no vibrators.
• References that map to neither: the remaining 23 (sensing, power, mobility, position) — relevant to the specification’s broader disclosure but not to the granted claims.

Because claim 1 requires the conjunction of a vibrator array and a deformable‑surface array in a seating platform, and no single cited reference discloses that conjunction, no cited reference anticipates claim 1 (and therefore none anticipates dependent claims 2–3). The strongest combination theory available from the cited art is US 2004/0049323 (plural seat vibrators + patterns) with US 6,191,796 (deformable surfaces) — a § 103 obviousness argument, not § 102 — and even that is undercut for the Ford reference by the priority‑date problem flagged in § 5, E1.

Residual uncertainties: (i) I could not open the USPTO Patent Center / Patent Assignment file wrapper directly in this session, so the citation list is taken from the patent front page as mirrored by Google Patents/Justia; a direct file‑wrapper review is needed to confirm when and against which claims each reference was applied. (ii) The spec‑vs‑record discrepancy for US 6,204,767 ("Sparks" vs. "Donald A. Edwards") and the anomalous post‑priority "cited by examiner" status of US 2004/0049323 both warrant file‑wrapper confirmation.

I'll analyze the obviousness of US 7,508,309 under §103 using the cited prior art. First, let me verify the content and dates of the key references in the prior-art section, since several appear to post-date the patent's 2001 priority date.

Let me verify the two "haptic seat" references cited by third parties, and check for pre-2001 tactile-seat art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,508,309 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the claim-scope analysis already generated (claim 1 = seating platform + embedded inbound communications receiver + haptic output requiring both a plurality of vibrators and a plurality of deformable surfaces, used in a "predetermined combination"), below is the § 103 assessment using the references in the prior-art/citation section of the patent page.

Two framing points up front, because they control the entire analysis:

1. Pre-AIA § 103(a) governs. Application 12/061,933 was filed 2008-04-03 and is a continuation of a pre-AIA chain (12/061,933 ← 11/001,141 ← 09/917,822). No AIA-era claim was ever presented. So the relevant tests are Graham v. John Deere + pre-AIA § 102/§ 103, as glossed by KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
2. The critical date is 2001-07-31. Claim 1's subject matter (haptic notification in a seating platform) appears in the shared specification, so claim 1 presumptively takes the 2001-07-31 priority date. This is dispositive: it disqualifies the single most on-point piece of "haptic seat" art in the record (see Ground B below).

1. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1 to the cited art

Takeaway: the cited art supplies the "seating platform" and (via Invacare) an embedded two-way communication path, and supplies deformable-surface haptics generically (Sensable '796). It supplies nothing for the two limitations that define the claim: (i) vibrators in a seating platform and (ii) the vibrators-plus-deformable-surfaces combination driven to produce a predetermined information pattern.

Note also the corroborating fact from the earlier section: the published application (US 2008/0204227) recited a haptic system of "one of at least one vibrator and a deformable surface," while issued claim 1 requires both, in combination. That narrowing is strong circumstantial evidence that the examiner treated the combination of the two haptic modalities as the point of novelty — consistent with the gaps identified above.

2. The decisive date problem: the best "haptic seat" art is not § 103 prior art

The record contains three post-2001 references that, taken at face value, would be devastating on the haptic limitations — but all three post-date the 2001-07-31 priority date and are therefore unavailable as § 102/§ 103 prior art against claim 1:

Because Google Patents marks these with an asterisk ("cited by third party"), they were not examiner citations against the '309 — they entered the family citation record through the later (2004+) filings, where they were available art. For the 2001-priority claim 1, they are simply off the table.

The one real vulnerability: this date shield collapses if claim 1 is not entitled to the 2001-07-31 benefit under pre-AIA § 120 / § 112 ¶ 1. If the 2001-07-31 disclosure does not support the specific "plurality of vibrators and plurality of deformable surfaces … predetermined combination" limitation, claim 1's effective date shifts to 2004-12-02 (the 11/001,141 filing). In that scenario the Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Motorola and Flanagan references all become prior art and the obviousness picture inverts (see Ground B).

3. Obviousness grounds

Ground A — Best available ground using only 2001-and-earlier cited art (claim 1)

Combination: Invacare '561 (or Edwards '767 / Tingley '956) as the seating-platform-with-embedded-electronics primary reference + Sensable '796 (deformable-surface haptic output) + the art's general/notorious knowledge of vibratory tactile notification (e.g., a seat-mounted vibrating alert as suggested in the Staodyn '176 chair-back "alerting capability," albeit audible).

Proposed motivation to combine:

• The problem is well framed in the references themselves: notifying a seated person of information (Staodyn '176: "remind a user … of predetermined conditions"; Tingley '956: alert "if a person leaves his … seat").
• Haptic output is inherently suited to a seated occupant because the occupant is in continuous contact with the seat (the same reasoning later relied on by the seat-haptic art).
• Combining a vibratory array with deformable surfaces is a predictable, KSR-sanctioned combination of known haptic modalities to yield a more expressive/ redundant notification ("a known technique … to improve similar devices in the same way"). Under MPEP 2143 / KSR, "predictable variation," "obvious to try," and "design incentive" rationales could all be invoked.

Why this ground is weak / likely fails:

• No cited reference discloses a vibrator in a seating platform. The examiner cited literally nothing on this element; the examiner would have to rely on Official Notice / "common knowledge," which is contestable and, for a claim already allowed, was apparently not raised.
• The "predetermined combination of vibrators and deformable surfaces" is the actual point of novelty and is taught by no cited reference.
• Sensable '796 is non-analogous in the relevant sense: it is a virtual-reality force-feedback system (a user manipulating a virtual surface), not an output device that deforms the physical surfaces of a seat to signal an occupant. The Federal Circuit and examiners do allow analogous-art arguments, but the mapped structure (physical seat deformable surfaces) is absent.
• Result: Ground A yields at most a prima facie rejection that a skilled practitioner would likely overcome by arguing the combination of both haptic modalities is neither taught nor suggested.

Ground B — The strong ground, if the priority date shifts (claim 1)

Combination: Ford US 2004/0049323 A1 (primary) + Sensable US 6,191,796.

• Ford '323 teaches nearly the whole claim: a seating platform (driver's seat 40) with an embedded communications/control system (controller 24 receiving remotely transmitted signals from forward-detection apparatus 20 — note this is inbound information/commands, matching claim 1's inbound framing), a haptic system comprising "a plurality of small vibrating mechanisms 32," specifically "five motor pairs 1-10" at multiple seat positions, and a "pattern generator" producing predetermined patterns (FIGS. 4–6) to communicate different information (lane-departure vs. overspeed vs. curve-overspeed). (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040049323)
• Sensable '796 supplies the second recited modality — "deformable surfaces" for haptic communication — a reference the '309 specification itself cites and characterizes as a known "deformable haptic device."
• Motivation to combine: the reference books of both systems expressly desire richer, more intuitive, silent, personally-targeted notification; combining a vibratory array with a deformable surface is a predictable aggregation of known haptic output mechanisms, exactly the sort of "improvement [of one known device] in the same way" that KSR makes unpatentable. The "predetermined combination" limitation is met by Ford's pattern generator driving multiple actuators.

This ground is only viable if claim 1 loses the 2001 priority — but if it does, claim 1 (and, a fortiori, claims 2–3) would very likely be held obvious, since Ford '323 + Sensable '796 covers every element with a strong articulated motivation.

Ground C — Same art under the DaimlerChrysler primary (claim 1, if priority shifts)

US 7,029,031 (seat posture/occupancy sensing fed to a seat controller) + Sensable '796 (+ Ford '323 or GM/Nissan-type seat-vibration art) would provide an equivalent, weaker alternative. Same date caveat.

4. Dependent claims 2 and 3

These add only narrow limitations; they rise or fall with claim 1:

• Claim 2 ("said communications system comprises a wireless communications system"): Not independently non-obvious — the cited art is replete with wireless links for chair/wheelchair electronics (Invacare '561; Tingley '956's RF transmitter/receiver; the '309's own background). If claim 1 were rejected, claim 2 would be clearly obvious; if claim 1 stands, claim 2 stands with it.
• Claim 3 ("said seating platform is mobile"): Same conclusion. Wheels/mobility are ubiquitous — Burke '382 (powered wheelchair), Case '566 (portable work station), and the '309's own "chairs with wheels are often used in offices" admission. Clearly obvious if claim 1 falls.

There is no dependent claim reciting the sensor, the inductive wireless power, the occupant-identification logic, or the effector-feedback loop — i.e., the features the abstract advertises are unclaimed. Obviousness of those unclaimed features (clearly satisfied: inductive charging per Holmes '552 / Sano '352 / NEC '225; occupant detection per Matsushita '128 / Edwards '767; solar and motion harvesting per Parrish '380 / Konotchick '132 / Nordica '026) is irrelevant to claim validity.

5. Motivation-to-combine analysis (the § 103 crux)

Even where the elements exist, the combination must have been motivated. Ranked:

The single most persuasive motivation — "haptic seat notification is intuitive because the occupant is in constant contact with the seat" — is the express räison d'être of Ford '323, and Ford is precisely the reference that the § 103 case cannot reach.

6. Conclusion

• Claim 1 as issued (2001 priority) is likely NON-obvious over the cited prior art. The two limitations that give the claim its character — a plurality of vibrators in a seating platform, and a "predetermined combination" of vibrators and deformable surfaces — are met by no reference in the prior-art section. The examiner's cited set supports the sensing/wireless/solar/inductive-power architecture but is silent on seat haptics. Confidence: moderately high, subject to the caveat that an examiner could attempt an "Official Notice / notorious vibrator" rebuttal against the vibrator element alone — which would still leave the two-modality "predetermined combination" unmet.
• The patent's real exposure is a priority/§ 112 question, not the cited art. If the "vibrators and deformable surfaces … predetermined combination" limitation is not supported by the 2001-07-31 disclosure, claim 1's effective date moves to 2004-12-02, at which point Ford '323 (seat vibrator array + pattern generator) + Sensable '796 (deformable surfaces) would render claim 1 — and therefore claims 2–3 — obvious, with a clean motivation to combine. This is the strongest § 103 theory available on these facts, and it depends entirely on the written-description question flagged above.
• Claims 2 and 3 are obvious if claim 1 falls; they add only "wireless" (Invacare '561, Tingley '956) and "mobile" (Burke '382, and the specification's own admissions).
• Practical significance: the '309 expired 2021-07-31, so this is now retrospective. It matters for evaluating the historical strength of the IBM/Facebook/Meta portfolio and for the parallel family members (US 7,327,268; US 7,477,153) whose claims may have different effective dates.

Caveats / uncertainty (explicit)

1. I did not retrieve the actual prosecution histories of the '309 or its parents in this session, so my inference that the "combination of both haptic modalities" was the reason for allowance is drawn from comparing the published claims (US 2008/0204227) with the issued claims, not from the file wrapper. Confirm against USPTO Patent Center.
2. The Ford priority date is reported as both 2002-09-04 (Unified Patents) and 2002-09-05 (Google). Either way it post-dates 2001-07-31; the conclusion is unaffected.
3. A search for JP 2000/0225877 A ("vehicular seat device … informing system," Honda Access, published 2000-08-15 — a pre-2001 seat-vibrator notification teaching surfaced via the Nissan '212 reference list) indicates that genuine pre-2001 seat-vibrator art may exist outside the '309's cited set. I could not independently verify its full text before exhausting my search budget, and it was not in the '309 prior-art section, so I have not relied on it; if verified, it would materially strengthen Ground A on the "plurality of vibrators" element (but still leave the two-modality "predetermined combination" unmet).
4. Assignee/status (Meta Platforms; expired 2021) is taken from the previously generated summary and is not re-verified here.