US 8113873

I'll verify this patent against live sources before summarizing.

Let me run a couple of additional targeted searches to confirm the docket question and check for any litigation.

Identification confirmed

The number resolves literally to US 8,113,873 B1 — no correction needed (the granted publication is US8113873B1, application US 12/564,824). Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8113873B1](/patent/US8113873B1)/en and https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8113873](/patent/8113873).html

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as filed)

A storage device cradle has a housing with a receiving surface sized to receive at least part of a storage device, the receiving surface having a hole through it. An external interface is configured to communicatively couple to a computer, and a storage device connector extends at least partially through the hole. The connector is communicatively coupled to the external interface, configured to couple to the storage device, and rotatable about a pivot axis defined by at least one shaft mounted within the housing.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

There are three independent claims (1, 10, 19) in a 20-claim set.

• Claim 1 — the cradle itself. A cradle for holding a storage device has (a) a housing whose receiving surface has a through-hole, (b) an external interface for talking to a computer, and (c) a storage-device connector poking at least partly through that hole, wired to the external interface. The key limitation is that the connector can rotate relative to the receiving surface, about a pivot axis defined by a shaft mounted inside the housing. In other words, the mating connector floats/pivots rather than being rigidly fixed, so the device can be tilted off the cradle without wrenching the contacts.

• Claim 10 — the assembly method. A method of assembling such a cradle: provide the housing with its receiving surface; provide the storage-device connector; form the hole through the receiving surface; and position the connector so it extends at least partly through the hole, again rotatable relative to the receiving surface about a pivot axis defined by a shaft mounted within the housing. The specification (act 908) notes the connector-plus-shaft can be a unitary part mounted together, or the shaft can be mounted first and the connector coupled to it.

• Claim 19 — the stop-limited variant. Same cradle architecture (housing, receiving surface with hole, external interface, shaft defining a pivot axis, rotatable connector), but the housing also carries first and second stops, where the stops contact the storage-device connector to limit how far it can rotate about the pivot axis. Claim 20 narrows this: the first stop limits rotation in one direction, the second in the opposite direction. This corresponds to the FIG. 6A/6B embodiment, where a spring biases the connector against stop 130a and the connector swings to stop 130b during unloading (specification describes roughly 30° or 45° of travel).

Docket search — nothing found for this patent

I could not find any litigation or Federal Circuit appeal involving 8,113,873.

• My searches did not surface any CAFC 2026 docket naming 8,113,873, and no infringement action asserting it.
• Western Digital is party to a number of 2024–2026 patent matters (e.g., Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 v. Western Digital Technologies, D. Del. 1:24-cv-00342-RGA → N.D. Cal., asserting U.S. 7,884,403; 8,319,263; 11,737,372 and others; and Polaris PowerLED Technologies v. Western Digital, C.D. Cal. 2:24-cv-02864), but none of those patents is 8,113,873.
• Consistent with that, the maintenance-fee lapse in 2024 suggests the patent was not being actively enforced.

Uncertainty note: I do not have direct, authenticated query access to USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB or the Federal Circuit's official docket system — my results come from Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, and secondary litigation/news sources. So I can say confidently that no CAFC 2026 appeal of this patent appeared in my searches, but I cannot rule out a docket that is simply not indexed in those sources. Likewise, the "current assignee" field on Google Patents is a machine-generated guess, not a legal conclusion, and the 2023 JPMorgan collateral-agreement recordings mean the security-interest chain should be checked against the assignment records rather than assumed from the patent page.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8113873.

Let me search more targeted sources.

Search Results: Litigation Involving US Patent 8,113,873

Bottom line: I could not identify any litigation involving US Patent 8,113,873.

Patent identification (verified)

Before reporting, I confirmed the patent number literally matches the record:

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8113873B1](/patent/US8113873B1)/en

Litigation search — no hits for this patent

I ran targeted queries for the patent number in litigation contexts (e.g., "8,113,873", "8113873" patent lawsuit, "pivot assisted storage device unloading mechanism" litigation, and Unified Patents / PTAB portal queries). None returned a case in which US 8,113,873 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

Specifically:

• Google Patents page for US8113873B1 has no litigation field populated and no litigation entries among its "Cited By" records (those are patent-to-patent citations, not court cases).
• Unified Patents portal / PTAB dockets: no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding referencing this patent surfaced.
• No district court complaint, PACER docket, or CAFC appeal referencing 8,113,873 appeared in results.

The Western Digital–related litigation that did surface in my searches involves different patents and should not be attributed to 8,113,873. For example:

• Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1 v. Western Digital Technologies, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-00342-RGA (D. Del., filed 03/15/2024) — asserted U.S. Patents 7,884,403; 8,319,263; and 11,737,372 (transferred to N.D. Cal.). None is 8,113,873.
• Jamil Asafi v. Western Digital Technologies, Inc., No. 8:25-cv-02728 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 2025) — a different patent.
• Various Western Digital trademark/counterfeiting and German copyright-levy matters — unrelated.

Caveats / confidence

• Confidence: moderate-to-high that no litigation exists, given the patent's nature (a narrow mechanical cradle-connector patent from 2009; the patentee is an operating company, not an NPE) and its 2024 lapse for non-payment of maintenance fees, which reduces assertion incentives.
• I could not directly load the Unified Patents litigation case list or PACER/CAFC docket databases within this session (my access returned search summaries rather than live docket records). A negative result from search snippets is not the same as a certified clearance search.
• Recommended verification if you need a definitive answer for a legal purpose: run a docket-level search in Lexis CourtLink / Westlaw Litigation Analytics / Docket Navigator / RPX Insight for "8,113,873", and confirm via USPTO Patent Center and PACER. Per the operating rules, I have not auto-corrected or substituted any patent number; all identifiers above are reported exactly as they appear.

If no litigation is found on those systems either, the correct statement is: there is no known litigation involving US Patent 8,113,873.

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing anything down.

No hits yet. Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Let me do a final pair of checks — ex parte reexam and any district court assertion.

PTAB Proceedings — US 8,113,873 B1 ("Pivot assisted storage device unloading mechanism")

Verification note: I ran independent web searches against PTAB/PTACTS indexed materials, Docket Alarm, and general prior-art/litigation sources looking for any IPR, PGR, or CBM naming US 8,113,873 or application 12/564,824. I found none. The structured ODP block supplied with this task likewise returns no AIA trial proceedings. My searches did not fully exhaust ex parte reexamination records (see caveat in the Strategic Summary), so treat the ex parte channel as "not verified" rather than "verified clean."

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero active, zero with claims invalidated, zero with claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials. There is nothing to attack and nothing to build an IPR-based defense around: all 20 claims of the patent (independents 1, 10, and 19, plus their dependents) stand exactly as issued on 2012-02-14, untested by the Board. The far more consequential fact for a defendant is not the PTAB record at all — it is that the patent lapsed on 2024-03-18 for failure to pay maintenance fees (expiration effective 2024-02-14 per the USPTO legal-events record), with an adjusted expiration of 2029-12-06 now moot. That means the defensive posture is not "the patent is hardened" and not "the claims are canceled" — it is "the patent is expired and unenforceable; any demand letter citing US 8,113,873 is citing a dead patent."

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No proceedings to profile

Because the canonical list is empty, the per-proceeding template has no entries. I am not going to manufacture proceeding numbers, panels, or grounds to fill it — inventing an IPR2020-XXXXX here would be exactly the fabrication this task warns against. The correct header-level answer is:

US 8,113,873 B1 has never been the subject of an AIA trial before the PTAB.

For completeness, here is what that absence means, mapped onto the fields a defendant would otherwise be reading:

• Type: N/A — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM.
• Filed: N/A. Note that neither a PGR nor an IPR was ever available in the classic sense for this patent's early life: it issued 2012-02-14 on an application filed 2009-09-22, making it a pre-AIA patent, so it was never PGR-eligible (PGR is limited to first-inventor-to-file patents). CBM review would have been available from 2012-09-16 until the program sunset on 2020-09-16, and IPR was available at any time. Two full windows — CBM's eight years and IPR's indefinite window — produced zero petitions.
• Status: N/A.
• Judge panel: N/A.
• Petition grounds: N/A.
• Institution decision: N/A.
• Final Written Decision: N/A. No claim of this patent has ever been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the Board.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: N/A. There is no FWD to appeal, hence no CAFC docket to report.
• Defensive value: The absence of any IPR is a substantive signal, not a gap in the record. Western Digital is a manufacturer patent owner, not a non-practicing entity, and the claims are narrow, product-specific hardware claims (a pivoting cradle connector with stops, a spring bias, and a curved unloading surface). There is no assertion campaign against third parties — no troll, no demand letters to my knowledge — and therefore no economic engine pulling petitions into the Board. Well-asserted patents attract IPRs; unasserted ones do not. This one corresponds to the second category.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all 20 claims UNTESTED — but the patent itself is EXPIRED. Independent claim 1 (housing with a receiving surface and hole, external interface, and a storage device connector extending through the hole and rotatable about a pivot axis defined by a shaft mounted in the housing), independent claim 10 (the method of assembling that cradle), and independent claim 19 (the same structure recited with first and second stops limiting rotation) were all granted and have never been narrowed by any post-grant proceeding. There are no canceled claims, hence no "surviving claims" list to give you — the full set 1–20 is intact on paper. The operative fact is different in kind: per the USPTO legal-events record, the 8th-year maintenance fee was not paid, and the patent expired 2024-03-18 (effective 2024-02-14) due to nonpayment under 37 CFR 1.362. Expiration for fee lapse terminates all enforceable rights in the claims. Claims that are theoretically valid but statutorily unenforceable are worth nothing to a plaintiff.

Estoppel landscape: there is no estoppel, because there is no proceeding. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estops a petitioner (and its privies) only after a final written decision in an IPR that it filed or joined. With no IPR ever filed, § 315(e)(2) bars nobody, from nothing. A defendant currently facing assertion has the complete universe of § 102 and § 103 prior-art grounds available, unconstrained by estoppel — plus, critically, grounds the IPR statute does not reach at all: § 101 eligibility and § 112 written-description/enablement challenges, proceedings-history-based indefiniteness, and on-sale/public-use prior art under § 102(a)(1) that cannot be raised in an IPR. The § 315(b) one-year bar is equally inoperative, since that clock is triggered by service of a complaint, and I found no record of any infringement complaint asserting this patent. Practically: you are unconstrained procedurally, but the expiration issue makes most of that moot — the first-line response to any assertion should be a statutory-disclaimer-and-extinguishment argument plus an inequitable-conduct/enforceability review of why a large-entity owner let the patent lapse, not an IPR.

Pattern signals — none of them present. No repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner). No PTAB appeal history by the patent owner (Western Digital has an extensive PTAB footprint generally, as the 77–101 "cited by" entries show, but this patent is not in it). No defensive aggregator in the chain — no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar filing against 8113873. The patent's citation history is all outbound: 9 pre-grant references cited by the examiner (including Ericsson US 6,193,546, HTC's US 7,014,486 "Recoverable connector structure and cradle having the same," and Fujifilm's US 7,253,840), and a long tail of later patents citing it — notably Apple's "compliant connector mount" family (US 8,535,102; US 8,721,356; US 8,986,029; US 9,261,919), which is the closest commercial analog to this disclosure and confirms that the pivoting/floating connector concept was adopted across the industry. That the concept was widely adopted while the patent was never asserted tells you the claims were either narrow or not worth litigating. Note also the Google Patents "cited by" list appears in two inconsistent sizes (77 and 101 entries) across different renderings of the same page — I'd treat the count as unreliable and the substance as reliable.

Caveat on my own verification. The ODP structured block is authoritative and shows zero AIA trials, and my web searches corroborated that. I was not able to complete an ex parte reexamination check before exhausting my search budget, so I cannot affirmatively rule out an ex parte reexam (which is not an AIA trial and would not appear in the ODP AIA-trial dataset). Given the 2024 fee lapse, a reexam result would be academic anyway. If you need that box checked, pull the patent's full USPTO PatentCenter "Transactions" tab directly.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant facing assertion of US 8,113,873: do not spend money on an IPR — there is nothing left to invalidate that matters, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is the wrong forum. Lead with expiration: the USPTO legal-events record shows the patent expired on 2024-03-18 for failure to pay the 8th-year maintenance fee, effective 2024-02-14, citing 37 CFR 1.362. An expired patent cannot be infringed by post-expiration conduct; pre-expiration conduct within the six-year § 286 damages window is at most a back-damages question, and a lapsed patent is a strong signal the owner assigns it no value. Demand a copy of the maintenance-fee receipt and the PatentCenter transaction history before engaging further.
• There is no FWD to link to — I want to be explicit about that, because the task template asks for a link and quoting the disposition. No PTAB Final Written Decision exists for this patent, so there is no opinion at USPTO PTAB Decisions or CourtListener to cite. If opposing counsel claims an IPR result for this patent number, that claim is false and you should demand the proceeding number and the E2E link and check it yourself; you can confirm the empty record via PTAB E2E and the Google Patents file.
• If you are evaluating this patent as an acquisition or licensing target: it is expired as of 2024-02-14 and carries no enforceable term. The remaining asset is the disclosure and its citation lineage (particularly the Apple compliant-mount family that cites it), which may have defensive-publication value but no assertion value.
• If you are a petitioner who was considering filing: you are outside any § 315(b) bar and outside any § 315(e) estoppel, and the claims are untested — but institution on an expired patent is generally a poor use of budget, and the Board has discretion to deny where review would serve no public interest. Verify the fee-lapse status first.
• One thing I could not verify and am flagging honestly: whether an ex parte reexamination was ever filed. It is not an AIA trial and would not appear in the structured ODP AIA-trial block. Pull the PatentCenter transaction history to close that gap.

I'll verify the assignment records against live sources before reconstructing the chain.

Good — I found the correspondent for one reel. Let me pull more detail on the other recorded reels.

I've reached my tool-call limit, so I'll reconstruct from the records already retrieved plus the patent's own legal-events table. One important sourcing caveat up front: I could not query the USPTO Assignment Center with authenticated, page-level access. The reel/frame data below comes from the patent's legal-events record (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8113873B1](/patent/US8113873B1)/en), and the one correspondent I recovered came from ktmine's mirror of the USPTO assignment record for reel 038744/0481. Correspondent data for the other reels did not return in my searches, and I am flagging that rather than guessing.

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Inventors

Pattern check: A sole-inventor, single-assignment filing one day before the filing date is the textbook operating-company case, not a distress pattern. There is no evidence here of the tell-tale "all inventors depart within 12 months" precursor to a portfolio sale — I found no departure record, no subsequent inventor assignments to third parties, and no personnel-related transfers on this patent. I do not have employment-history corroboration beyond the assignment itself, so treat "remained employed" as unverified-but-unsurprising rather than proven.

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Original assignee

Western Digital Technologies, Inc. (Delaware; the WD operating/manufacturing subsidiary then of Western Digital Corp., Irvine, CA).

• Line of business: Design and manufacture of hard disk drives, SSDs, and the external/portable consumer storage drives (My Passport, My Book, Elements) and their docks/desks. The claimed subject matter — a storage-device cradle/dock with a pivot-mounted mating connector — sits squarely in WDT's product space (external-drive desktop docks). I note this as plausible product embodiment; I could not verify a specific commercial cradle against claim 1 without a product manual, so I stop short of asserting it.
• Status: Operating company; no bankruptcy. (Western Digital Corp. completed a corporate separation of its flash business under the SanDisk name in 2025; Western Digital Technologies remains the HDD-side operating entity. I flag this as background context I could not verify to document level in this session.)
• Key finding: Ownership never left WDT. Every counterparty in the recorded chain is a lender's collateral agent or the original assignee itself — there is no operating-company-to-LLC transfer anywhere on this patent.

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Assignment timeline

Every entry below is a recorded USPTO assignment. Critically, entries 2–8 are security interests or releases of security interests, not conveyances of title — they are recorded under 37 CFR Part 3 but convey only a lien. Ownership remains with Western Digital Technologies, Inc. throughout.

1. 2009-09-21 (executed) / recorded 2009-09-22 — Reel 023268/0547

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Mohammad Sarraf (individual)
   • Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc. (California)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session (search did not return the reel).
   • Context: Original employment/invention assignment executed one day pre-filing — standard operating-company capture.

2. 2016-05-12 (executed) / recorded 2016-05-17 — Reel 038744/0481

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignor: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
   • Assignee: [JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Collateral Agent](/asserters/jpmorgan-chase-bank-n-a-as-collateral-agent) (IL1-1145/54/63, P.O. Box 6026, Chicago, IL 60680)
   • Correspondent: Michael Violet, 4400 Easton Commons Way, Suite 125, Columbus, OH 43219. This is a secured-party collateral-group correspondent, not a patent-prosecution or NPE attorney. Single appearance within this chain — not a recurrence finding. It does, however, recur across the same site's ~2,030-patent WDT collateral package (see ktmine profile, below), which confirms it is a blanket-lien filing agent.
   • Context: Securitization / secured financing. Recorded lien on a collateral pool reported as 2,030 US patents — a blanket corporate lien, not a targeted transfer of this patent. Source: https://accounts.ktmine.com/patent/assignmentprofile/38744-481
   • Flag: the correspondent address is a Columbus, Ohio collateral-processing address (Chase's Easton campus), while the assignee address of record is Chicago — worth noting as an artifact of a large institutional lien filer using a centralized recording address.

3. 2016-05-12 (executed) / recorded 2016-05-17 — Reel 038744/0281

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignor: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
   • Assignee: U.S. Bank National Association, as Collateral Agent (California)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Securitization / secured financing — same-day companion lien to entry 2 (parallel collateral agent under the same 2016 credit facility).

4. 2016-05-12 (executed) / recorded 2016-05-17 — Reel 038722/0229

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignor: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
   • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Collateral Agent (Illinois)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Securitization / secured financing — third same-day lien recording in the 2016 financing.

5. 2018-02-27 (executed) / recorded 2018-03-05 — Reel 045501/0714

   • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
   • Assignor: U.S. Bank National Association, as Collateral Agent
   • Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc. (California)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Lien release / internal reorg of collateral — U.S. Bank lien on reel 038744/0281 discharged; title reaffirmed in WDT.

6. 2022-02-03 (executed) / recorded 2022-02-08 — Reel 058982/0556

   • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest (expressly at Reel 038744 Frame 0481)
   • Assignor: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.
   • Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc. (California)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Lien release — the 2016 JPMorgan 038744/0481 lien discharged; title again reaffirmed in WDT.

7. 2023-08-18 (executed) / recorded 2023-08-21 — Reel 064715/0001

   • Conveyance: Patent Collateral Agreement — A&R Loan Agreement (i.e., lien)
   • Assignor: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
   • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (Illinois)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Securitization — successor secured-financing collateral package.

8. 2023-08-18 (executed) / recorded 2023-08-21 — Reel 067045/0156

   • Conveyance: Patent Collateral Agreement — DDTL Loan Agreement (i.e., lien)
   • Assignor: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
   • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (Illinois)
   • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session.
   • Context: Securitization — delayed-draw term-loan companion lien recorded same day as entry 7.

Two integrity flags on this record (I do not paper over these):

• Apparent missing release for reel 038722/0229. I found recorded releases for 038744/0281 and 038744/0481, but no release of record for the third 2016 lien, reel 038722/0229. Either a release was never separately recorded (plausible if the same facility docs covered it), or my source's event list is incomplete. I flag this as a gap, not a finding.
• Reel/frame attribution caution. The Google legal-events table lists the 2016 security agreements twice each with slightly differing owner-name strings (e.g., "JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., AS COLLATERAL AGENT, ILLINOIS" vs. ", IL"). I have treated the three distinct reel/frame numbers (038744/0481, 038744/0281, 038722/0229) as separate recordings, which is the correct reading, but the duplicate-looking rows are an artifact of the source, not three extra assignments.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership and lien record US 8113873
    2009 : Sarraf assigns to Western Digital
         : Application filed
    2012 : Patent issued
    2016 : Security agreement to JPMorgan Chase
         : Security agreement to US Bank
    2018 : US Bank lien released
    2022 : JPMorgan lien released
    2023 : New JPMorgan collateral agreements
    2024 : Lapsed for failure to pay fees

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. No assignee carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix. Every non-WDT counterparty is a chartered bank acting as collateral agent: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (reels 038744/0481, 038722/0229, 064715/0001, 067045/0156) and U.S. Bank National Association (reel 038744/0281). These are lienholders under 37 CFR Part 3, not title owners.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. No assignee or assignor matches the named NPE universe (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). The chain consists of WDT plus two banks. No entity surfaced in RPX/Unified patent-litigation directories.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT (single appearance only). The only correspondent recovered is Michael Violet, 4400 Easton Commons Way, Suite 125, Columbus, OH 43219, on reel 038744/0481. He recurs across the same WDT collateral package (~2,030 patents) but appears once in this patent's chain, and the address is an institutional lien-processing address — this is a secured-party filing agent, not an NPE attorney. Per the task's own rule, a single appearance is not a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. The record shows no chained LLC-to-LLC title transfers in any window, let alone <24 months. The 2016 events are simultaneous liens under one facility; the 2023 events are A&R/DDTL lien refreshes. Ownership stays put.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No transfer of title precedes any suit naming this patent. Consistent with the earlier docket section, no infringement action asserting 8,113,873 was found; the patent lapsed for non-payment effective 2024-02-14 (recorded 2024-03-18), the opposite of an assertion campaign.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 docket exists for Western Digital Technologies. The 2023 collateral recordings are ordinary secured financings (A&R loan + delayed-draw term loan), not workout or liquidation events. Compare reel 064715/0001 (A&R Loan Agreement) and 067045/0156 (DDTL Loan Agreement) — both dated 2023-08-18.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer of assertion rights to a third-party enforcer. WDT retains title and never conveyed enforcement rights on this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. Chain does not terminate at RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN. It terminates at the original operating company, with liens discharged in 2018 and 2022.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting (closest available label — with an explicit caveat below).

Justification: The full recorded chain (reels 023268/0547, 038744/0481, 038744/0281, 038722/0229, 045501/0714, 058982/0556, 064715/0001, 067045/0156) shows title never leaving Western Digital Technologies, Inc.; every other entry is a bank security agreement (2016: 038744/0481, 038744/0281, 038722/0229; 2023: 064715/0001, 067045/0156) or a release returning title cleanly (2018-03-05 reel 045501/0714; 2022-02-08 reel 058982/0556). There are zero NPE signals present. I choose "Defensive / non-asserting" because none of the five verdict categories cleanly fits an operating-company-retained, never-asserted, now-lapsed patent — the category's stated mechanism (termination at a defensive aggregator) is not met, and I flag that mismatch rather than hide it. Readers should treat this as "operating-company retention; non-asserted," which on the available evidence rules out NPE status.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "8113873") and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. I recommend the reviewer pull the correspondents for reels 023268/0547, 038744/0281, 038722/0229, 045501/0714, 058982/0556, 064715/0001, and 067045/0156 directly, since I could only recover one correspondent (Michael Violet, reel 038744/0481) and the correspondent column is the specific datapoint this exercise values most.

I'll verify the cited prior-art references for US 8,113,873 against live sources before building the § 102 mapping.

Now let me verify the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,113,873 B1

0. Identification and scope checks (performed first)

The number 8113873 resolves literally to US 8,113,873 B1, Pivot assisted storage device unloading mechanism, application 12/564,824, filed/priority 2009-09-22, granted 2012-02-14, inventor Mohammad Sarraf, assignee Western Digital Technologies, Inc. — matching the record already established in the prior sections. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8113873B1](/patent/US8113873B1)/en

Two scope cautions before the analysis:

• Do not confuse with neighboring numbers. My searches surfaced similar-but-different grants, notably US 8,183,825 B2 and US 8,113,825-family material, and a PTAB record for a different patent (7,480,138 / 5,535,274 / 5,273 etc., all in Carnevali-family files). None of those is US 8,113,873 B1, and none is cited on its face. I have excluded them.
• Governing statute. Because the application was filed 2009-09-22 — before 16 March 2013 — the operative novelty/obviousness provisions are pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a), (b) and 103(a). Every reference below predates the 2009-09-22 priority date, so all are facially available as prior art. The task asks for § 102 anticipation mapping; I give it, but I flag explicitly where a reference is really a § 103 combination reference rather than a true single-reference anticipator, because anticipation requires that one reference disclose all elements arranged as in the claim.

Indexing caveat (stated plainly): I could not execute a live, authenticated USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR query in this session. The citation roster and bibliographic data below come from (a) the authoritative full text of US 8,113,873 supplied to me (its front-page "References Cited" section), and (b) mirrored/indexed copies at Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline and uspto.report. Where the patent's own text and a search result could conflict, I have preferred the patent text.

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1. The examiner/applicant citation roster for US 8,113,873 B1

The face of the patent lists ten U.S. patent documents (Google's page shows the table twice, once truncated to nine — the tenth is the Sony grant US 7,333,328 B2, which is the issued counterpart of the Sony publication US 2004/0141253 A1). All ten are U.S. documents; there are no foreign patent documents and no non-patent literature on the face.

The Google Patents record also lists prior-art keywords for this document — storage device, device connector, receiving surface, connector, cradle — and CPC H01R13/6315 ("allowing relative movement between coupling parts, e.g. floating connection"), which is the classification that most directly frames the invention. Its "Cited By" set (77 / 101 entries, e.g. Apple's US 9,026,029 and US 8,981,218-type filings; Samsung US 9,509,087; Pioneer Square US 11,855,397) is post-dating art, not prior art for § 102 purposes, and is therefore disregarded here.

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2. Per-reference analysis

Reference 1 — US 6,193,546 B1 (Sadler; Ericsson Inc.)

• Full citation: Sadler, J.T., "Support assembly for personal electronic device and method for using the same," U.S. Patent 6,193,546 B1, granted 27 Feb 2001; appl. 09/268,849, filed 16 Mar 1999. (Continued as US 6,290,534 B1.)
• Brief description: A desk stand for a portable phone/organizer comprising a base and a holder that is removably and adjustably connected to the base. A hinge member — a hinge block rotatably connected to the base — carries an electrical connector that engages the device's connector; the holder is rotatable relative to the base through at least about 50°, and detents on the hinge block selectively adjust and retain the angle. A slot in the holder receives the electrical connector; the contact loop axis is collinear with the holder's rotational axis. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6193546 ; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat6193546.html
• Potential § 102 mapping: This is the closest of the cited art on the "rotatable connector mounted in a housing with structure that sets the rotation" concept, and the examiner starred it.
  • Claim 1 — potentially anticipatory only on a broad construction. It discloses a housing/base with a device-supporting surface, an electrical connector carried on a rotatable hinge block, and rotation of the connector-carrying member relative to the base. What it lacks is express disclosure of (i) a hole defined through the receiving surface with the connector extending through that hole, and (ii) a pivot axis defined by at least one shaft mounted within the housing. Its connector sits in a slot in the holder, on a hinge block. I would treat this as a strong § 103 primary reference, not a clean § 102 anticipator.
  • Claims 3 and 19/20 — the detents (adjust and retain an angle; and, on the alternative tab embodiment, hinge projection + latch) are the closest cited disclosure of structure that limits/positions connector rotation, so this reference is most naturally deployed against the stop claims (3, 19, 20) in a § 103 combination.
  • Claims 4/5 — rotatable "about a horizontal axis" through a defined range is the closest express teaching for the claim 4/5 axis-alignment concepts.

Reference 2 — US 2004/0097127 A1 (Simon Smith)

• Full citation: Smith, S., "Support for a mobile terminal," U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0097127 A1, published 20 May 2004; priority 31 Mar 2000.
• Brief description: A two-part desk support: a generally planar base assembly and a generally planar cradle assembly pivotably mounted to the base by a hinge assembly so it sits in either a stable upright position or a laid-flat position (with a wrist-pad surface). A resilient connector 16 sits on a landing 22 of the cradle and depresses when engaged by the terminal, then springs back on removal; the port is of a "drop-in" type. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040097127
• Potential § 102 mapping:
  • Claim 1 — not anticipatory. Here it is the cradle (holder) that pivots, not the connector; the connector 16 is present on a landing surface but is not disclosed as rotatable about a shaft-mounted pivot axis, and there is no hole through the receiving surface.
  • Claim 2 — closest mapping: the self-restoring, resilient connector 16 is the nearest cited analogue to the claim 2 "spring biases the connector to a position..." limitation. Best used in a § 103 combination with a pivoting-connector reference.
  • No plausible § 102 anticipation of claims 10 or 19.

Reference 3 — US 2004/0141253 A1 (Sony Corporation) and Reference 10 — US 7,333,328 B2 (Sony Corporation)

• Full citations: Sony Corp., "Hard disk system, hard disk unit and conversion unit," U.S. Pub. 2004/0141253 A1, published 22 Jul 2004, filed 8 Jan 2003. / Sony Corp., "Hard disk system having a hard disk unit and a conversion unit for connection to a host device," U.S. Patent 7,333,328 B2, granted 19 Feb 2008, filed 8 Jan 2003. (Same family — the publication and its grant.)
• Brief description: A removable hard-disk unit that seats in a conversion unit (a cradle/dock) which in turn connects to a host device. Relevant here because it is the cited art that frames the "storage device" nomenclature of the '873 claims and the dock-to-host data path.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Supplies the "storage device" and "couple to the storage device" limitations of claim 1 (and the parallel language of claims 10/19) — but neither document discloses a connector that extends through a hole in a receiving surface and rotates about a shaft-defined pivot axis. No anticipation of claims 1, 10 or 19; § 103 support art only for the "storage device" aspect. (I verified these only at the bibliographic/family level from the '873 face; I did not read the Sony disclosures in full in this session — flag for confirmation.)

Reference 4 — US 7,014,486 B1 (High Tech Computer Corp.; Wu & Hsieh) ★ MOST RELEVANT

• Full citation: Wu, C.-L. and Hsieh, F.-C., "Recoverable connector structure and cradle having the same," U.S. Patent 7,014,486 B1, granted 21 Mar 2006; appl. 11/134,745 filed 19 May 2005; TW priority 93219672 (7 Dec 2004); assignee High Tech Computer, Corp. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7014486B1](/patent/US7014486B1)/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7014486
• Brief description: A cradle for a PDA whose male second connector 260 protrudes from the case groove 212 and mates with the PDA's female first connector 20. Crucially, the second connector — carried on the circuit board 240 and support body 270 — is not rigidly fixed: when the PDA is pulled out, "the second connector rotates with the bottom of the support body and the circuit board serving as a pivot point," through a bounded angular range, and a spiral spring (elastic body 254) between the circuit board and the bolt returns the connector to its initial position once the PDA is separated. A base plate 220 has blocks 222 and a third block 223 that the support body's two contact faces 270a/270b and the circuit board's bottom edge bear against, forming the pivot. A USB cable assembly connects the cradle to a computer host. Significantly, the examiner classified it in H01R13/6315 — the same floating-connection subclass as the '873 patent.
• Potential § 102 mapping — the strongest candidate in the set:
  • Claim 1 — potential anticipator on a broad construction. Every functional element is arguably present: a cradle housing, a surface that receives at least part of a portable electronic device, a connector coupled to an external (USB) interface and to the device, and — the point of novelty in the '873 patent — a connector that rotates relative to the receiving surface about a fixed pivot as the device is pulled off, to avoid wrenching the connector. The two genuine gaps are formal: (a) the '873 claim recites the receiving surface having a hole defined therethrough with the connector "extending at least partially through" it — HTC describes the connector protruding from a groove/insertion slot, not a hole through the receiving surface; and (b) the '873 claim requires the pivot axis be "defined by at least one shaft mounted within the housing" — HTC's pivot is a block-and-contact-face bearing, not a shaft. If the examiner/PTAB read "hole" broadly enough to cover the groove, and "shaft" to cover the block pivot, claim 1 could be anticipated; otherwise the correct rejection is § 103 over HTC alone or HTC + a shaft-hinge reference (e.g. the Ericsson hinge block of Reference 1).
  • Claim 2 — potential anticipator. The '486 elastic body (spiral spring) biases the connector/circuit board back to an initial rest position — the nearest cited teaching to claim 2's spring biasing the connector to a rest orientation.
  • Claims 19 and 20 — strongest § 102/§ 103 candidate. Blocks 222 and the third block 223 that the support body/circuit board bear against are the closest thing in the cited art to first and second stops contacting the connector to limit its rotation about the pivot axis, in the two opposite directions. This is the reference I would lead with against the stop claims.
  • Claim 9 — teaches a cable (flat cable / USB cable assembly) between the cradle connector and the external interface.
  • This is also the reference most likely to have been overcome during prosecution by the "shaft" and "hole" limitations rather than by its substance — worth noting for any validity/§ 103 argument.

Reference 5 — US 7,167,372 B2 (Belkin Corporation)

• Full citation: Belkin Corp., "Universal serial bus hub and method of manufacturing same," U.S. Patent 7,167,372 B2, granted 23 Jan 2007; filed 26 Aug 2003.
• Brief description: A USB hub apparatus and an associated method of manufacturing it — the cited art that frames the "external interface configured to communicatively couple to a computer" limitation and, more importantly, the method-of-assembly format of independent claim 10.
• Potential § 102 mapping: No anticipation of claims 1, 10 or 19. It discloses a USB hub and a manufacturing method, but no rotatable device connector, no cradle receiving surface with a hole, and no shaft-defined pivot. It is at most a § 103 secondary reference for claim 7 (USB connector) and for the general proposition that USB-interface dock/hub structures were routine.

Reference 6 — US 7,253,840 B2 (Fujifilm; Kayanuma)

• Full citation: Kayanuma, Y., "Cradle for digital camera," U.S. Patent 7,253,840 B2, granted 7 Aug 2007; appl. 10/166,366 filed 11 Jun 2002; JP priority 2001-175394 (11 Jun 2001); assignee Fujifilm Corp. (Divisional: US 7,719,613 B2.) Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7253840 ; http://ocr.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2018-01754/...Exhibit-1022-...US_Patent_No_7,253,840...
• Brief description: A camera cradle with a camera mounting part 32 and a cradle connector 34 at the bottom of the mounting part that matingly engages the camera; a first communication device with the camera and a second communication device to an external PC (USB/IEEE1394), plus a power supply terminal. Walls of the cradle — including a rotatably supported "movable wall" with an angle-adjustment (free-stop/click-stop) device and an internal mirror — let the user reach the screen, media slot and terminals.
• Potential § 102 mapping:
  • Claim 1 — not anticipatory. The rotating element here is a wall, not the connector. The connector 34 is seated in the mounting part and is not disclosed as pivoting about a shaft-defined axis. No hole-with-connector-through-it.
  • Claims 7 and 9 — good § 103 support: express USB/IEEE1394 external communication and a communication cable between the device and an external interface.
  • Claim 8 — supports the "bottom surface against a supporting surface" idea (tripod screw hole, rubber pads, desk placement).

Reference 7 — US 2008/0142651 A1 (Tomasini et al.; Nokia / Core Wireless)

• Full citation: Tomasini, R., Kettula, J., and Schvetz, Y., "Cradle for Mobile Phones and Ejector Device Thereof," U.S. Pub. 2008/0142651 A1, published 19 Jun 2008; PCT/IB2005/000159 filed 24 Jan 2005 (granted counterpart US 8,744,540 B2). Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080142651 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/wo2006077460.html
• Brief description: A vehicle/desk cradle with a rear bearing surface, side walls and guide rails forming slots that receive a phone, and a bottom part whose connector element mechanically and electrically engages the bottom connector of the phone. A spring-loaded release element (plungers 22 + springs 24, push button 26) disengages the locking and pushes the phone up to assist removal; the connector element may be a USB connector; there is an interface to accessories.
• Potential § 102 mapping:
  • Claim 1 — not anticipatory. The connector element is a fixed locking element; nothing rotates about a shaft-defined pivot axis.
  • Claim 2 — the spring-loaded release mechanism is useful § 103 art for the "spring-biased" limitation, though it biases the ejector, not the connector.
  • Claim 7 — express USB-connector teaching.
  • Claims 19/20 — the locking/release structure is not a pair of stops limiting rotation; no anticipation.

Reference 8 — US 7,414,668 B2 (Fujifilm)

• Full citation: "Digital camera system," U.S. Patent 7,414,668 B2, granted 19 Aug 2008; filed 26 Nov 2002; assignee Fujifilm Corporation.
• Brief description: A digital-camera system in which the camera cooperates with a docking/connection unit for data transfer and/or power — the cited art closest to the general "handheld device + dock + host computer" architecture.
• Potential § 102 mapping: No anticipation of any of claims 1, 10, 19. It discloses no pivoting connector and no stop-limited rotation. (I note I did not read this disclosure in full in this session; it is a same-field system reference, and its treatment here rests on the face-of-patent characterization. Flag for confirmation if a § 102/§ 103 chart is required.)

Reference 9 — US 2008/0304240 A1 (Shigemori)

• Full citation: Shigemori, T., "Received Information Transferring Apparatus, Receiving Apparatus and Received Information Transferring System," U.S. Pub. 2008/0304240 A1, published 11 Dec 2008; filed 9 Sep 2005.
• Brief description: An information-transfer/receiving apparatus arrangement for transferring received information between apparatuses — a data-transfer architecture reference rather than a mechanical-cradle reference.
• Potential § 102 mapping: No anticipation of claims 1, 10, 19, 2–9, or 20 on the face of the citation; it does not address a rotatable cradle connector or its stops. Not verified in full text this session — flagged. Its presence on the face likely reflects the examiner's interest in the "receiving apparatus"/external-interface concept.

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3. Bottom line: relevance ranking and claim-by-claim § 102 assessment

Most relevant prior art (ranked):

1. US 7,014,486 B1 (HTC) — the only cited reference that discloses a cradle connector that pivots and then self-restores as the portable device is pulled off, i.e. the stated purpose of the '873 invention ("pivot assisted ... unloading"). Same CPC (H01R13/6315). Genuine § 102 candidate for claim 1 on a broad construction, and the lead reference for claims 2, 19 and 20.
2. US 6,193,546 B1 (Ericsson) — the only cited reference with an express rotatable connector-carrying hinge + angle-setting detents; the lead § 103 reference for the stop/rotation-limiting concepts of claims 3, 19 and 20, and for the axes concepts of claims 4/5.
3. US 2004/0097127 A1 (Smith) — pivotable cradle + resilient, self-restoring connector; § 103 support for claim 2.
4. US 7,253,840 B2 (Fujifilm) and US 2008/0142651 A1 (Nokia) — dock/connector architectures supplying the USB/external-interface, communication-cable and spring-release limitations (claims 7, 9, 8, 2) in combinations.
5. US 7,333,328 B2 / US 2004/0141253 A1 (Sony) — "storage device + conversion unit + host" framing (the storage device limitation only).
6. US 7,167,372 B2 (Belkin), US 7,414,668 B2 (Fujifilm), US 2008/0304240 A1 (Shigemori) — background/architecture art; no § 102 anticipation of any claim.

Claim-by-claim summary of potential § 102 anticipation:

Most important caveat for the reader: none of the ten cited documents is a "clean" single-reference anticipation of all three independent claims as written. The claim limitations that kept the '873 patent novel over this set are (a) the connector extending through a hole in the receiving surface; (b) the pivot axis defined by at least one shaft mounted within the housing; and (c) the curved area (136) offset along the length axis about which the storage device itself pivots during unloading, with the connector simultaneously rotating to hold the connector-to-connector angle below ~6° (specification). Of these, (c) is not disclosed by any cited reference at all, and (a)/(b) are only approximated by the HTC block-bearing pivot and the HTC groove. Any invalidity theory built on this roster is therefore a § 103 theory (HTC as primary, Ericsson or Smith as secondary), not a § 102 theory — except possibly for claim 1 under an aggressively broad construction of "hole" and "shaft."

If a verified, docket-grade prior-art chart is needed: the next step is to pull the front-page "References Cited" list and the examiner's PTO-892/Notice of Allowance from USPTO PatentCenter for application 12/564,824 (to confirm whether the ten face citations equal the full examiner-cited set, or whether additional art was cited and not printed), and to read US 7,414,668 B2, US 2008/0304240 A1 and the two Sony documents in full — the three items I flagged above as verified only at the bibliographic level in this session.

I'll verify the key prior-art references' disclosures before building the obviousness analysis.

Good detail on the two anchors. Let me check the remaining cited references that matter for the combination rationale.

Let me verify the two remaining references used for the storage-device and USB-interface limitations.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,113,873 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the identification, claim summary, and litigation sections above. This section does not repeat them.

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1. Analytical framework and the correct prior-art universe

Critical date: 2009-09-22 (filing = priority). This application was filed before the AIA first-inventor-to-file provisions took effect, so pre-AIA § 103(a) applies and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) governs the obviousness inquiry.

What counts as prior art here. The page's "Prior Art" block contains two very different sets of documents, and the distinction is dispositive:

Two points worth stating explicitly because they are easy to get wrong:

• The Samsung US9509087B2 reference has a listed priority date of 2009-11-17 — roughly two months after the '873 critical date. It is therefore not § 102(a)/(b) art, and under pre-AIA § 102(e) it is also too late. The same is true of everything else in the Cited By table.
• The '873's own specification is usable as an admission of the problem and of what was conventional. Its Background frames the exact tradeoff the patent claims to solve: "If the fit is too tight, the storage device must be wrenched off of the cradle, and the delicate mating connectors may be damaged. If the fit is too loose, electrical shorts may arise…" That admission of a pre-existing, recognized design problem is the strongest single piece of § 103 evidence on the page.

Person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA): a mechanical or electro-mechanical design engineer with ~2–4 years in consumer-electronics docking/cradle and connector-mount design, acquainted with USB/mini-USB connector families and with the standard mechanical options for accommodating misalignment and removal torque (floating mounts, pivots, springs, hinges, stops). This is the level against which the references must be read.

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2. Claim 1 decomposed into elements

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3. The primary reference: HTC US7014486B1

This is the citation that matters most, and it is far closer than a title-level reading suggests.

What it discloses (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7014486B1](/patent/US7014486B1)/en):

• A cradle 200 comprising a case 210 with a groove 212 into which the electronic device (PDA 10) is plugged, and a second connector 260 that protrudes from the groove and mates with a first connector 20 of the device — elements A, D, F.
• A circuit board 240 with a flat cable "for electrically coupling to other circuit in the cradle" — element E.
• A "recoverable assembly" 250 comprising bolt 252 + elastic body 254, described as a spiral spring, passing through holes 240a in the circuit board and locked to a fixed stand 230.
• The operative teaching: "when an external force is applied on the second connector, the second connector rotates with the bottom of the support body and the circuit board serving as a pivot point." And on removal: "the recoverable assembly allows the second connector and the circuit board to rotate in a certain angle. As the electronic device is separated from the cradle, the second connector can return to its initial position."
• The stated purpose is identical to the '873's: "avoids the connector from fatigued damage due to frequent plugging and unplugging operations to extend the cradle's life" and "makes the process of pulling up the electronic device smooth."

What this does to the claims. HTC '486 discloses G outright, and discloses the substance of dependent claim 2 (spring return to an initial position) and much of claims 3/19 (the support body's two contact faces bearing on first and second blocks bound the rocking). What it does not plainly disclose is:

1. The "hole" of element B — HTC has the connector projecting from a groove, not through an aperture in a planar receiving surface; and
2. Element H's precise wording — HTC's pivot is a rocker/contact-point pivot (the bottom of the support body contacting a third block), not a shaft-defined pivot axis.

There is, however, a defensible secondary reading that narrows even this gap: HTC's bolt 252 is itself "a screw with a fixed length" that passes through oval holes on two sides of the circuit board 240 and locks into the fixed stand 230. A challenger can argue the two bolts are shafts fixed within the housing and that the connector assembly rotates about the axis those bolts define. If the trier of fact accepts that reading, claim 1 is closer to § 102 anticipation than to § 103. Even if that reading is rejected, the gap is one of degree of mechanical formality, which is precisely where § 103 does its work.

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4. The secondary references and what each contributes

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5. Combination 1 — the core § 103 case against claim 1

HTC '486 as primary, in view of Ericsson '546, further in view of Sony '328.

Why a PHOSITA would combine them (the motivation):

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem. HTC '486, Ericsson '546, Smith '127, Tomasini '651 and Sony '328 all concern docking cradles for portable electronic devices whose mating connector is stressed during insertion/removal. The '873's own Background concedes this was a recognized problem with a recognized tradeoff (tight fit → wrenching/damage; loose fit → shorts). Where the references and the applicant address the same known failure mode, the motivation to look to them is strong and does not require hindsight.

2. HTC supplies the complete inventive concept of "let the cradle connector rotate." Once HTC teaches rotation about a pivot point as the cure, the remaining question — how do I define that pivot robustly? — is a garden-variety mechanical engineering question with a small, known set of answers. Ericsson '546 supplies one: mount the connector on a hinge block so it rotates about a defined axis, and (notably) align the connector's contact axis with that rotational axis. Smith '127 supplies another: a hinged cradle assembly with a resilient, spring-back connector. Substituting an axle/hinge-defined pivot axis for HTC's contact-point rocker is the classic KSR case of "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions" to a known problem, with a reasonable expectation of success — the connector still rotates during removal and still returns to its initial position.

3. Sony supplies the "storage device" and "external interface to a computer" framing that HTC (a PDA charger/dock) does not spell out, and independently reinforces the core insight: a connector "loosely supported with some allowance for movement" and biased by a flexible cable improves connection reliability. Sony is therefore not just context — it is a second, independent teaching that the cradle-side connector should be compliantly mounted rather than rigidly fixed, which is the heart of claim 1.

4. Expected result is foreseeable. Each reference reports the same benefit (damage avoidance, smoother removal, improved contact reliability), so the combined arrangement is a predictable use of known elements according to their established functions — the KSR formulation.

Disposing of the "hole" element (B). Once the connector is mounted on a shaft and rotates inside the housing, an aperture in the receiving surface is a structural consequence, not an inventive contribution. The '873 specification itself says the hole's purpose is so "the storage device connector 106 can rotate relatively freely about the pivot axis A within the hole 112." Forming an opening in a support surface so a pivoting connector can project through it — where Sony's second connector already "faces outward from the mounting section" — is routine mechanical design and, at most, an obvious expedient.

Disposing of "storage device" vs. PDA/camera/phone. Sony '7333328 claims, in terms, a hard disk unit mounted to a cradle/conversion unit. Claim 1 uses "storage device" generically, and the '873 specification expressly says the storage device "may comprise an external disk drive having a USB, FireWire or other serial interface." Sony therefore meets the claim term directly, not by analogy.

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6. Combination 2 — claims 19 and 20 (the stop-limited variant)

HTC '486 + Smith '127 (or HTC '486 + Ericsson '546's detents).

• Claim 19 requires first and second stops that contact the connector to limit its rotation about the pivot axis.
• Smith '127 discloses, in haec verba, that "further pivoting said cradle assembly is prevented" when a position is reached — a rotation limit realized by abutment. Ericsson '546 discloses detents "configured to engage" the base to selectively adjust and retain the angle.
• HTC '486 already bounds the swing by geometry: the support-body two contact faces bearing on first and second blocks are what define the rocker and its range.
• Claim 20 ("first stop limits rotation in a first direction… second stop… in the opposite direction") is simply a restatement of what a pair of opposed abutments does. Bounding a pivoting member on both sides is about as close to a per se obvious mechanical expedient as the art offers, and KSR squarely covers it ("the improvement is [no] more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").

The '873 specification confirms this is conventional: the stops are described as "distinct cylindrical obstructions" or even as "formed by the bottom surface of the housing," and the available travel is quantified only as "approximately 30 degrees" or "approximately 45 degrees" — i.e., a range selected empirically, not an inventive range.

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7. Dependent claims — element-by-element outlook

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8. Where the obviousness case is weakest — and an honest uncertainty flag

Claim 6 (the curved unloading area) is the limitation I cannot show is disclosed by any reference actually listed on this page. Claim 6 requires a curved area on the receiving surface, separated from the storage device connector along the first axis, sized and configured so the storage device pivots about the curved area while being unloaded (FIG. 8). None of the ten cited references is shown in the material I retrieved to disclose a curved fulcrum on the cradle's support surface performing that function.

The best available § 103 argument is a design-choice / predictable-result argument: giving a user a rounded lip to lever a device against while tilting it off a cradle is an obvious ergonomic refinement, and the specific curvature would be tuned by routine experimentation. That is a genuine but noticeably weaker line than the element-by-element case against claims 1–5 and 7–20, and it is the element a challenger should expect to defend most carefully. Two related cautions:

• The examiner saw all ten references and still allowed the claims. That is a meaningful datum against any § 103 case. A challenge must explain why the examiner's apparent view was wrong, not merely re-list the art.
• The most plausible non-obviousness position the patentee would advance is a structural one about claim 1's element H: that a shaft-defined pivot axis "mounted within the housing" is qualitatively different from HTC's contact-point rocker, because a real axle decouples the connector's angular position from the device's motion path, allowing the connector to keep its alignment with the device's connector (the '873's stated goal of keeping the inter-connector angle "below six degrees," or below three degrees). That argument has force — but it cuts both ways, because § 103's job is precisely to decide whether that refinement was a predictable improvement. Ericsson's express teaching that the contact axis be collinear with the rotation axis neutralizes much of it.

Secondary considerations: on the record described in the earlier sections, there is no evidence of commercial success, licensing, copying, industry praise, or a long-felt-but-unmet need attributable to this patent — and no nexus evidence could attach, because the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2024-02-14 and no litigation asserting it was identified. There is therefore no secondary-consideration rebuttal available on this record. (As previously flagged: the "current assignee" and status fields are machine-generated and the 2023 JPMorgan collateral recordings should be checked against the assignment records for any legal purpose.)

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9. Bottom line

In short: the cited-art set on the face of US 8,113,873 makes out a strong KSR-style obviousness case against essentially the whole claim set, anchored on HTC US7014486B1 with Ericsson US6193546B1 supplying the shaft/hinge-defined pivot axis and Sony US7333328B2 supplying the storage-device-cradle-and-computer framing. Only claim 6's curved unloading area rests on genuinely thin ground.

Verification caveats, stated plainly: I retrieved and quoted the full text or detailed abstracts for HTC US7014486B1, Ericsson US6193546B1, Smith US20040097127A1, Tomasini US20080142651A1, and Sony US7333328B2/US20040141253A1. I did not retrieve the full text of Belkin US7167372B2, Fujifilm US7253840B2, Fujifilm US7414668B2, or Shigemori US20080304240A1; my characterizations of those are limited to their titles, dates, and known subject matter, and they are treated as cumulative rather than load-bearing. All identifiers are reported exactly as they appear on the page; none has been auto-corrected. Claim constructions are preliminary and based on the granted claim language.