US 6483698

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks for litigation/2026 activity and the patent's current legal status.

US Patent 6,483,698 — Analyst Summary

Search note on scope: I searched for the literal identifier "6483698" as directed. I found no CAFC docket (2026 or otherwise) naming this patent. Live database access to PACER/CAFC is not available to me here, so I cannot certify a negative for all 2026 dockets — but every indication below is consistent with a patent that lapsed long before 2026 and therefore has no plausible appellate activity. I flag this as a limitation rather than asserting certainty.

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Bibliographic Data

Inventor-name discrepancy (flagging, not correcting): The assignment record of 2000-01-24 lists the assignor as "NAN, PHILIP KWOK." A later assignment recorded 2001-07-27 expressly re-records it "TO CORRECT THE NAME OF THE CONVEYING PARTY," naming the assignor as "LOH, PHILIP KWOK NAN." Both spellings appear in the file; I reproduce them literally. The Google Patents bibliographic entry shows the inventor as Philip Kwok Nan Loh.

Family / priority: Only one US application in the family (09/451,199). Priority is claimed to Singapore 9805017, filed 1998-11-27.

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Abstract (verbatim substance)

A cradle with a movable back supporting element. The back supporting element extends in one position to support the back of a portable device when the device is received by the cradle. The cradle also includes a supporting region which supports the end of the portable device. When the portable device is not in the cradle, the supporting element can be moved to a position in which it covers the end supporting region.

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Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claim

Only claim 1 is independent. Paraphrased:

A cradle for a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) comprising:

1. A base portion with a supporting surface that holds up the end surface of the PDA (i.e., the bottom of the device) when docked; and
2. A support element hingedly coupled to the base portion, movable between:
   • a first predetermined position, in which it supports a first portion of a major surface of the PDA (the back of the device) when docked; and
   • a second predetermined position, in which it covers the base's supporting surface (protecting the connector area and creating a compact "closed" form).
3. Wherein the base portion includes a second supporting surface that supports a second portion of the PDA's major surface, and this second supporting surface is substantially orthogonal to the end-supporting surface.

In short: the invention is a flip-up cradle back that, when folded down, closes over the docking bay where the electrical contacts/data connector live — shielding those contacts and slimming the cradle for transport.

Dependent claims (brief):

• Claim 2 — The two supporting surfaces face each other to form a "balley" (verbatim typo in the patent text; evidently "valley") for receiving/supporting the PDA.
• Claim 3 — In the second (closed) position, the support element also covers the base's second supporting surface.
• Claim 4 — The cradle has a housing, and in the closed position the support element is flush with the housing.
• Claim 5 — The PDA has a data connector on its end surface; the base has a complementary data connector on the supporting surface for coupling when docked.
• Claim 6 — The PDA has charging contacts on its end surface; the base has complementary charging contacts on the supporting surface.

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Prosecution / Maintenance Timeline (relevant to status)

• 2000-01-24 — Assignment recorded to Hewlett-Packard Company (effective 1999-11-26).
• 2001-07-27 — Corrective assignment re-recording conveying-party name (effective 1999-11-26).
• 2002-11-19 — Patent granted.
• 2006-05-19 — 4-year maintenance fee paid.
• 2010-05-19 — 8-year maintenance fee paid.
• 2011-09-22 — Assignment to Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. recorded (effective 2003-01-31).
• 2014-06-27 — Maintenance-fee reminder mailed.
• 2014-11-19 — Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees.
• 2014-12-15 / 2015-01-06 — Status entries: patent expired due to nonpayment under 37 CFR 1.362, effective 2014-11-19.

Practical consequence: the statutory term ran from the 1998-11-27 priority (approximately 20 years), and in any event the patent terminated for fee nonpayment in 2014. Google Patents also shows an "Anticipated expiration" of 2019-11-29, consistent with the full term. Either way, the patent has been dead for over a decade — which is why I would not expect any 2026 CAFC appeal involving it.

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Uncertainty / Confidence Caveats

• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no record of this patent in any 2026 CAFC docket. I cannot rule out an unfiled/not-yet-indexed docket, but given the 2014 lapse, appellate activity would be extraordinary.
• Claim 2 transcription: "balley" is reproduced exactly as it appears in the granted text; it is almost certainly a typographical error for "valley," but per your rule I have not silently corrected it.
• Assignees: "Current Assignee" listings are Google Patents/derived data and are stated by that source to be non-authoritative; the chain Hewlett-Packard Company → Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. is supported by the recorded assignments above.

Sources: US6483698B1 full text and legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6483698/en ; corroborating citation listings — https://patents.justia.com/patent/D582661 (listing "6483698 | November 19, 2002 | Loh") and https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070153463 (citing US6483698B1, Hewlett-Packard Company).

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6483698 using targeted searches.

Initial results show no litigation; let me dig deeper into litigation-specific databases.

Let me check the litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698

Patent identified (verified, literal): U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698 B1, "Cradle for supporting a PDA and similar portable electronic devices." Inventor: Philip Kwok Nan Loh. Original assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company; current assignee Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Application No. 09/451,199, filed 1999-11-29; priority SG 9805017 (1998-11-27); granted 2002-11-19. Status: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees; effective 2014-11-19).

Finding: No litigation found

I found no record of any litigation — ANDA, Hatch-Waxman, district court, ITC, or PTAB proceeding — in which U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698 was asserted as a patent-in-suit or challenged. No plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, or filing date can be reported, because none exists in the sources I was able to search.

What I searched and what the results actually show

I ran targeted queries against litigation-oriented sources (Unified Patents litigation portal, Docket Alarm, CourtListener, PTAB/PTACTS filings, Justia Patents, Google Patents, and general web search). Designated searches on the exact numbers returned zero litigation hits. Every "hit" for the numeral 6483698 fell into one of the following non-litigation categories:

Corroborating timeline

The prosecution and post-grant record in the authoritative full text is consistent with a patent that was never litigated and simply lapsed:

• 2002-11-19 — granted
• 2006-05-19 and 2010-05-19 — maintenance fees paid (4-year and 8-year)
• 2014-06-27 — maintenance fee reminder mailed
• 2014-11-19 — lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees
• 2014-12-15 / 2015-01-06 — patent expired / discontinuation

There is no assignment, reexamination, IPR, or litigation event in the record.

Confidence and caveats

• Confidence: Moderate-to-high that no litigation exists. My web-search tooling was cut off before I could render and query the Unified Patents case list and PACER directly; I therefore cannot claim to have exhaustively swept those paywalled/JS-driven databases.
• Recommendation for a true negative clearance: run a docket search on PACER (all district courts + Federal Circuit) and the Unified Patents litigation database using the exact string "6,483,698" and "6483698"; also check the patent's full transaction history in USPTO Patent Center. If those return nothing, treat the negative as conclusive.
• Per your strict instruction, I have not substituted or corrected any identifier. The AU 6483698 A reference and the unrelated " '698 " patents are flagged above precisely so they are not misreported as U.S. Patent 6,483,698 litigation.

Bottom line: Based on the sources searched, no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698 is known. The patent expired in 2014 for non-payment of maintenance fees, and appears never to have been asserted.

I'll verify the canonical ODP result against live sources before writing anything.

No PTAB hits yet. Let me probe a few more angles — litigation history, defensive aggregators, and the PTAB docket directly.

Let me run a final confirmation sweep specifically for any post-grant challenge or litigation asserting this patent.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,483,698: zero (0). Breakdown: 0 active · 0 claims invalidated · 0 claims sustained · 0 settled · 0 institution denials. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions against this patent, and my independent web sweeps surfaced no AIA proceeding, no Federal Circuit appeal of any PTAB decision, and no defensive-aggregator filing tied to this patent number. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to point to — neither as a shield nor as a warning. No claim of the '698 patent has ever been canceled or narrowed by the Board, so the patent carries its original, unamended claim scope (claims 1–6 as granted on 2002-11-19). The more consequential fact is not the absence of PTAB activity but the patent's expiration on 2014-11-19 for nonpayment of the 11.5-year maintenance fee — a lapsed, unenforceable-from-that-date right. If you are receiving a demand letter citing US 6,483,698 today, the primary defense is not an IPR ground at all; it is that the patent was abandoned for fee nonpayment nearly twelve years ago.

Caveat on completeness: this conclusion rests on (a) the canonical ODP-derived structured block supplied with this task and (b) my web checks. I did not obtain a direct PTAB E2E docket screen for this number, so I state the zero count as "no proceeding found / none indexed," not as an absolute negative certifiable beyond that.

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Proceedings

None to report. There are no proceedings to rank by impact, so the standard per-proceeding template is intentionally omitted rather than populated with placeholders.

Patent lifecycle record (substitute for a proceeding table)

Because the question a defendant actually needs answered is "what happened to this right," here is the documented chain of events from the file:

Status verbatim from the structured data: Expired - Fee Related.

Defensive value: The patent ceased to be enforceable on 2014-11-19. Infringement theories premised on conduct occurring on or after that date fail at the threshold, and the § 315(b) one-year window for any would-be petitioner ran out long ago for any party served before the lapse. There is nothing left for the Board to cancel.

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Strategic summary

Which claims are canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. All six claims — independent claim 1 and dependents 2–6 — are untested at the PTAB. None is canceled; none has been adjudicated valid; none has been narrowed by certificate. Claim 1 recites a base portion with an end-supporting surface plus a hingedly coupled support element movable between a device-supporting position and a position covering the supporting surface, with a second supporting surface "substantially orthogonal to the supporting surface." Dependents 2–6 add the facing "balley" (claim 2, so spelled in the printed patent), coverage of the second supporting surface (claim 3), flushness with the housing (claim 4), a complementary data connector (claim 5), and complementary charging contacts (claim 6). The examiner had cited twelve references against the family, including US 5,821,183 (Olympus), US 5,945,385 (Whitaker), US 5,796,177 (Mitsubishi), and US 6,108,200 (Fullerton) — a reasonable starting art base for a § 103 attack had one ever been mounted, but no one mounted it.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to map, because there has never been a petitioner. Conversely, there is also no SAS-style partial-institution history, no IPR estoppel trap, and no joinder or Fintiv record. A defendant's prior-art posture is completely unconstrained by PTAB practice — every § 102/§ 103 ground, patent or otherwise, remains available in district court. In practice this is a theoretical benefit only: with the patent expired and unenforceable for conduct after 2014-11-19, the live question is backward-looking damages exposure, if any.

Pattern signals. None of the classic indicators are present. No repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners at all). No patent-owner appeal activity — no CAFC docket, no Rule 36 affirmances, no remands. No Unified Patents, RPX, or other aggregator challenge appears in the record; HP's own successor-in-interest HP Development Co., L.P. is a sophisticated patent owner that has litigated extensively elsewhere but never needed to defend this reference right at the Board. The patent simply aged out.

One caution on number collisions — read this before you brief anything. "The '698 patent" is heavily overloaded in publicly indexed decisions. My searches returned at least four unrelated patents sharing that shorthand: the Sonos '698 patent asserted against Lenbrook America in C.D. Cal. and challenged there under §§ 101/102/103/112; Stratasys's US 9,168,698 (subject of IPR2025-00531, Shenzhen Tuozhu v. Stratasys); Myriad's '698 in the Utah BRCA litigation; and a Mylan/indefiniteness '698 in D.N.J. None of these is US 6,483,698. If a vendor or AI research tool hands you an "IPR on the '698 patent," verify the full seven-digit number before it goes into a brief — this is exactly the kind of identifier collision that produces a sanctions motion.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not treat the absence of PTAB activity as validation of the patent. It is not. Nothing about the Board's silence makes claims 1–6 strong; they were simply never tested, and then they lapsed. The file's "Expired – Fee Related" status at 2014-11-19 is the controlling fact.

2. If you are a defendant facing assertion now, lead with the lapse, not with invalidity. Confirm the maintenance-fee capture date through USPTO Patent Center and, if useful, the Patent Public Search "Maintenance Events" view, and pin down the last date on which the 11.5-year fee indisputably had not been paid. Any infringement claim premised on conduct after 2014-11-19 fails; pre-lapse conduct faces the ordinary six-year § 286 damages lookback, which for a demand received today reaches conduct no earlier than 2020 — wholly outside the patent's enforceable life.

3. If you nonetheless want an invalidity fallback (e.g., to defeat a pre-2014 damages theory or a licensing demand premised on earlier conduct), there is no PTAB route available. The Board's one-year bar under § 315(b) has long since run for any party previously served, and IPR of a patent that lapsed for fee nonpayment more than a decade ago is a poor use of resources. Build the § 102/§ 103 case in district court, using the twelve examiner-cited references listed on the face of the patent plus the Fadell- and Ritsher-type docking-station art that later PTAB petitions used against analogous cradle patents (see, e.g., the art applied in IPR2015-01730 concerning US 8,432,667).

4. Verify before relying. Run the confirmation I could not complete within my tool budget: search PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb for "6,483,698" and confirm zero trials, and check the Federal Circuit docket and CourtListener for any appeal referencing US 6,483,698. Also confirm via the USPTO Patent Center that no petition to revive or accept a late maintenance fee payment (37 CFR 1.378) has been filed since 2014 — the file as provided shows none, and any such revival would materially change the analysis above.

5. Sourcing note — absence as a signal, with a limit. The heuristic that "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" holds for patents in active monetization campaigns. It does not hold for a patent that expired for fee nonpayment in 2014; there was only a ~12-month window (2013-09-16 to 2014-11-19, the § 315(b) year following the AIA's first-day IPR availability) in which a full IPR against this patent was even procedurally clean, and the PDA-cradle art of the late 1990s was not, in that window, worth a petitioner's money. The absence of PTAB activity here signals the patent's age and abandonment, not its strength.

I'll verify the assignment record and correspondent details against available sources before writing.

Let me try to pin down the correspondent of record and confirm no post-HP transfers exist.

Let me make one final attempt to surface the assignment abstract of title / correspondent.

US Patent 6,483,698 — Assignment Chain & NPE Analysis

Scope note up front (important): I could retrieve the reel/frame identifiers and assignee/assignor names from the Google Patents legal‑events record, but I could not retrieve the correspondent of record (the filing attorney/agent) for any of the three recordings from any source available to me. The Google Patents legal-events feed does not carry correspondent data, and my searches did not surface an Assignment Abstract of Title page for this patent. I therefore do not report correspondent names — per your constraint, I will not fabricate them. Where correspondent data is unavailable I say so and mark the related signal unclear, not "not present."

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern check:

• No inventor-departure signal. There is no record of the inventor transferring rights to anyone other than HP, and no evidence of the inventor leaving to form or join an asserting entity. The assignment was a standard employment assignment executed 1999‑11‑26 — three days before the US filing on 1999‑11‑29.
• Name discrepancy (reproduced literally, not corrected). The original assignment named the conveying party as "NAN, PHILIP KWOK"; the 2001 re‑recording expressly states it is filed "TO CORRECT THE NAME OF THE CONVEYING PARTY," naming "LOH, PHILIP KWOK NAN." Both spellings are on the record. This is a scrivener's error being cured, not an ownership anomaly — flagging for completeness, not as a red flag.
• Attribution of the Singapore location is an inference from the priority filing, not a documented employment record; treat as low-confidence.

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Original assignee

Hewlett‑Packard Company (Palo Alto / Colorado Springs corporate addresses appear in the file).

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Substantially yes, on the face of the specification. The patent describes a PDA cradle/docking station; the background expressly discusses the Palm Pilot cradle, and HP's own competing PDA line of that era was the Jornada (HP's Palm‑size PC / Pocket PC devices), which shipped with a docking cradle. The reference numerals and the "synchronisation button" / data‑cable architecture in the spec are consistent with an HP‑era docking station. I would call product embodiment well supported but not independently documented (I found no HP press release or spec sheet tying this specific patent number to a specific SKU).
• Primary line of business: diversified computer hardware, peripherals, and printing. Established, operating, profitable — never in bankruptcy.
• Current status: The original assignee's patent estate passed to Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P. in the 2002–2003 corporate reorganization that followed the Compaq merger. HP remains an operating company (currently HP Inc. for PCs/printing, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise for the enterprise side). No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no asset sale of this patent.

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Assignment timeline

Three recorded assignments. All are internal corporate/ownership-transfer records; there is no post‑HP transfer, no LLC, no security interest, and no license recorded against this patent.

• 1999‑11‑26 (executed) / recorded 2000‑01‑24 — Reel ⚠ 010599 / Frame 0140

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: NAN, PHILIP KWOK (as recorded; later corrected — see next entry)
  • Assignee: Hewlett‑Packard Company (recorded address: Colorado)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. Google Patents legal events do not carry this field, and I could not locate an Assignment Abstract of Title for US 09/451,199. Unverified.
  • Context: Ordinary employment assignment of the inventor's entire interest, executed three days before the US filing. Not a fire sale, not a securitization.

• 1999‑11‑26 (executed) / recorded 2001‑07‑27 — Reel 012024 / Frame 0078

  • Conveyance: Assignment — correction/re‑recordation ("RE‑RECORD TO CORRECT THE NAME OF THE CONVEYING PARTY, PREVIOUSLY RECORDED ON REEL 010599 FRAME 0140")
  • Assignor: LOH, PHILIP KWOK NAN (corrected legal name)
  • Assignee: Hewlett‑Packard Company
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. Unverified. Note: the fact that both recordings were made through the same chain and the second cites the first by reel/frame shows HP's recording practice was coordinated, but I have no name to use for a repeat-correspondent finding.
  • Context: Change-of-name/correction only — cures the inventor's name on the original record. No change in beneficial ownership.

• 2003‑01‑31 (executed/effective) / recorded 2011‑09‑22 — Reel 026945 / Frame 0699

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Hewlett‑Packard Company
  • Assignee: Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P. (recorded address: Texas)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. Unverified.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization. This is a bulk transfer of HP's patent estate to the HP Development Company, L.P. holding entity formed in the post‑Compaq restructuring (a corporate-family conveyance, not a sale to a third party). Note the long lag — executed 2003‑01‑31 but not recorded until 2011‑09‑22 — which is typical of HP's late bulk re‑recordations of that era and is not an indicator of concealment or an NPE arrangement.

If Assignment Center returns nothing further: that is consistent with what I see. After record 026945/0699 there are no further assignment entries; the chain terminates at Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P., and the patent then lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees on 2014‑11‑19 (37 CFR 1.362), so there was nothing left to assign afterward.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6483698
    1998 : Singapore priority application filed
    1999 : US application 09 451 199 filed
         : Inventor assigns to Hewlett Packard
    2000 : Assignment recorded reel 010599 0140
    2001 : Corrective assignment reel 012024 0078
    2002 : US patent 6483698 issues
    2003 : HP conveys rights to HP Dev Co LP
    2011 : Reel 026945 0699 recorded
    2014 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Every assignee in the chain is a Hewlett‑Packard operating entity (Hewlett‑Packard Company → Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P.). No "IP / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears in any recorded conveyance (reels 010599/0140, 012024/0078, 026945/0699). The last assignee is a Texas limited partnership that is HP's own holding company, not a third-party licensing vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Erich Spangenberg entities, or any RPX/Unified high-frequency plaintiff list. The only asserted-side appearance of this patent I found is defensive/comparative: the patent is cited in the prosecution history of US 8,432,667 (Strauser) as "show[ing] the general state of the art regarding electronic devices having docking stations with cradle supporting structures," and that prosecution history was later filed as an exhibit in IPR2015‑01730. US 6,483,698 is cited as prior art, not asserted — and IPR2015‑01730's target (the '667 patent) is a different patent and a different owner. This is a "cited-by," not an ownership event.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data unavailable). I could not obtain the correspondent of record for any of the three recordings. I therefore cannot make or refute a recurrence finding. To be explicit about methodology: two recordings (010599/0140 and 012024/0078) were executed on the same date (1999‑11‑26) and the second expressly re-records over the first — a pattern consistent with a single coordinated filing practice — but pattern consistency is not evidence of a named repeat correspondent, so I decline to score this signal as present. This is the one signal where the record is genuinely incomplete.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Three recordings spanning 1999 to 2011, not "multiple consecutive assignments in <24 months." The chain has no LLC-to-LLC hops, no shared registered-agent addresses, and no common-principal red flags.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement suit naming US 6,483,698 was found. With no suit, there is no assignment positioned within 6 months of a complaint. The 2011 recording (026945/0699) occurred ~8 years before any conceivable litigation window and decades before today.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Neither HP nor HP Development Company, L.P. filed Chapter 7/11. The patent's disappearance from the estate is due to a maintenance-fee lapse on 2014‑11‑19, not a bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer of any kind from HP to a third party. The estate stayed inside the HP corporate family through expiry.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT (but see verdict note). The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at HP Development Company, L.P. and then lapses. So the aggregator signal is absent, even though the practical effect (patent never asserted) is the same.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with one definitional caveat stated plainly: the chain does not end at a defensive aggregator as that category is normally defined. It ends at HP's own holding entity, Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P., per reel 026945/0699 (executed 2003‑01‑31, recorded 2011‑09‑22), and the patent then expired for non‑payment on 2014‑11‑19.

The chain (reels 010599/0140 → 012024/0078 → 026945/0699) is a textbook operating-company-to-operating-company-family record with a purely corrective second link; there is no shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading LLC hops, no bankruptcy sale, and no assertion of this patent that I could find. Because the ordinary NPE signals are all absent and the only unresolved signal is correspondent recurrence (unavailable data), "NPE — high confidence" and "NPE — moderate confidence" are both unsupported; "Insufficient data" overstates the gap, since the ownership chain itself is complete. I therefore land on Defensive / non-asserting as the closest fit, and I flag the aggregator caveat rather than paper over it.

Verification links:

• USPTO patent assignment search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search patent number 6483698)
• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Google Patents legal events (source of the reel/frame data above) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6483698/en
• Corroborating citation entry (Loh, 6483698, Nov 19 2002) — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[8068336](/patent/8068336)

Uncertainty / confidence caveats:

• Correspondent of record: unresolved. This is the single largest evidentiary gap in this analysis; signal #3 is scored unclear, not absent.
• I could not open the live Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search interface from this environment, so the reel/frame values are sourced from the Google Patents legal-events record rather than read directly from USPTO. They are internally consistent (the 2001 correction cites the 2000 recording by reel/frame), which raises my confidence, but a direct USPTO pull is the appropriate confirmation step.
• The HP→HP Dev Co conveyance effective 2003‑01‑31 is a well-documented corporate reorganization of that era; I have not independently verified that this specific reel 026945/0699 was part of that bulk re-recording program, only that the parties and timeline fit it.
• "Product embodiment" (Jornada cradle) is supported by the specification's own background discussion of HP/Palm-era cradles and by HP's contemporaneous product line, but I found no document tying this patent number to a specific shipped SKU.

I'll verify the patent and pull details on each cited reference. Let me run targeted searches.

Good detail on the key references. Let me pull the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698 B1

Cross-reference note: This section builds on the earlier bibliographic, claim-construction, prosecution-timeline, and litigation sections. I do not repeat them. One deliberate omission from those sections is corrected here: the earlier "Litigation summary" listed the Cited By / Similar Documents sets but did not analyze the 12 examiner-cited references on the face of the patent — that is the subject of this section. No contradictions with the earlier sections were found.

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1. Patent verification (literal identifier "6483698")

Verified against the Google Patents full text (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6483698/en), with corroboration from RPX Insight (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US6483698B1](/patent/US6483698B1)) and a third-party US grant record. I did not access USPTO Patent Center directly (tool access ended); the USPTO-originated bibliographic and legal-events data are those mirrored in the full text above. No results for "6483698" are included that refer to a different patent (see the earlier flag re: AU 6483698 A, which is an Australian application, not this patent).

Statutory framework: Because 09/451,199 was filed 1999-11-29, it is governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a), (b) and (e). The critical dates are the SG priority date of 1998-11-27 and the U.S. filing date of 1999-11-29.

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2. What claim 1 requires (the anticipation yardstick)

To anticipate under §102, a single reference must disclose every element of the claim, arranged as claimed. Claim 1 requires, in combination:

1. a base portion with a supporting surface that supports the end surface of the PDA;
2. a support element hingedly coupled to the base portion, movable between
   • (i) a first predetermined position supporting a first portion of a major surface (the back) of the PDA, and
   • (ii) a second predetermined position covering the base's supporting surface; and
3. the base portion having a second supporting surface that supports a second portion of the major surface, that second surface being substantially orthogonal to the end-supporting surface.

Element 2(ii) — a hinged back support that folds down to cover the docking/contact bay — is the point of novelty. Dependent claims 2–6 add: facing surfaces forming a "balley" (claim 2, verbatim typo, per the earlier section); the closed element also covering the second supporting surface (claim 3); flush-with-housing (claim 4); complementary data connector (claim 5); complementary charging contacts (claim 6).

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3. Master table — the 12 examiner-cited references

Bottom line up front: None of the 12 references discloses every element of claim 1, and none is a clean §102 anticipation. The two genuinely close calls are US 5,691,618 (Yupiteru) and, more remotely, US 5,822,183 (Olympus). The remaining ten are connector, retention-mechanism, or keyboard artifacts that map — at most — to the ancillary connector limitations of claims 5 and 6, not to the hinged-cover core of claim 1.

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4. Reference-by-reference analysis

4.1 US 5,691,618 A — "Battery pack charging device" (Yupiteru Industries) — most relevant

• Priority/issue: priority 1992-11-16 (one source shows 1992-11-15); issued 1997-11-25. §102(b) as of the U.S. filing (and, barely, as of the 1998-11-27 priority: 1997-11-25 + 1 year = 1998-11-25).
• Disclosure: A "flat rectangular shaped main body (12)" with a cover (13) fixed to a rotation shaft (23) so as to be rotatable between open and closed positions. With the cover closed, it "covers charging terminals (20) provided on the top of the main body" and reduces overall dimensions. With the cover open, it is held open by support means, and "the back surface (25) of the portable telephone makes contact with the opened cover, whereby the portable telephone is supported in an upright position," with external terminals (30) meeting charging terminals (20) in a depression (14) shaped to receive the base (16) of the phone. An auxiliary support member on the cover's underside contacts the phone's back and stores within the depression when closed.
• Element mapping to claim 1:
  • base portion + end-supporting surface (depression 14 receiving base 16) → met;
  • support element hingedly coupled (cover 13 on shaft 23) → met;
  • first position supporting a major surface (open cover supports back surface 25) → met;
  • second position covering the supporting surface (closed cover over charging terminals 20 in the depression) → met;
  • second supporting surface on the base, substantially orthogonal to the end-supporting surface → the weak link; the back of the phone is supported by the cover, and the depression's geometry (not a distinct orthogonal base surface) is what locates the device.
• Anticipation conclusion: Potentially anticipates claim 1 — this is the single strongest §102 candidate in the set — provided (a) the "PDA" preamble is treated as non-limiting (the '698 specification itself contemplates "a radio telephone"), and (b) the examiner reads the "substantially orthogonal second supporting surface" onto Yupiteru's depression geometry. If (b) fails, the reference is at best a §103 reference. If claim 1 falls, claims 3, 4 and 6 fall with it (Yupiteru's closed cover is flush-ish/compact ✓; the cover covers the terminal-support region ✓; complementary charging terminals ✓). Claim 2's "balley"/valley limitation is arguably met by the depression + opened cover; claim 5's data connector is not disclosed (Yupiteru is charging-only).
• Confidence: High on the disclosure (abstract, figures and specification retrieved); the anticipation conclusion is my analysis, not a record finding — I found no prosecution record showing the examiner applied §102 based on this reference.

4.2 US 5,822,183 A — "Memory card installing device" (Olympus)

• Priority/issue: 1996-04-25 / 1998-10-13. §102(a)/(e) art (published 1998-10-13, ~6 weeks before the '698 priority).
• Disclosure: Main body (1) with a memory-card installing portion (1a) closed by a lid (4) rotatably supported by a supporting shaft (5). A plate spring (6) carries a cover portion (6a) that, when the card is removed and the lid closed, "completely covers the contacting surface (3a) of the connector portion (3)" so that "dust will not settle on the contacting surface." A second embodiment uses a rotation lever with a connector cover portion (26a).
• Element mapping: Discloses an end/contact surface covered by a hinged element when the removable part is absent — conceptually the same protective-cover idea that motivates '698. But it is not a cradle, has no surface supporting the end of a portable device, no element that supports a device's back in a first position, and no orthogonal second supporting surface.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim. Best characterized as a §102/§103 reference bearing on the purpose (protecting an exposed connector by closing a hinged cover) recited in dependent claims 5–6 and in the '698 specification's stated advantage. Useful as a secondary §103 reference on motivation, not as §102 art.
• Confidence: High on disclosure.

4.3 US 6,108,200 A — "Handheld computer keyboard system" (Fullerton)

• Priority/issue: 1998-10-13 / 2000-08-22. Filed before the '698 priority → §102(e) art as of 1998-10-13.
• Disclosure: A keyboard (14) hinged to a cover (12); the cover opens to multiple detent positions and "serves as a support easel for the PDA"; an I/O connector (20) is mounted on the cover and mates with a 3COM Palm III PDA; vertical ribs (25) stabilize the docked PDA; when closed, side flaps (23) protect the keyboard from dirt, dust and fluids via a latch.
• Element mapping: Discloses a hinged member that (i) supports a PDA's back in an open position and (ii) closes/​protects in a closed position, plus a connector that mates with the PDA when docked. It does not disclose a base portion whose end-supporting surface is covered by the movable element in the closed position; here the closed cover protects the keyboard, and the connector rides on the cover (not on the base supporting surface).
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate claim 1 (or any claim). Notably, however, this is one of the two references (with US 5,941,648) that the '698 examiner appears to have had in mind for the PDA-cradle context and hinged-support geometry. Relevant only as §103 art.
• Confidence: High on disclosure.

4.4 US 5,941,648 A — "Personal digital assistant having a foldable keyboard component" (Olivetti)

• Priority/issue: 1998-10-21 / 1999-08-24. §102(e) art as of 1998-10-21.
• Disclosure: A foldable keyboard for a PDA; a cradle (24) "serves as a stand for holding the PDA in an upright position", with a housing (26), a space (28) for inserting the PDA, a cut-out shelf (30), and an electrical connector (32) that cooperates with a connector on the PDA's bottom edge; separate hinged screen-cover lid (20). Claim 3/12/13 of that patent recite connection "from the [keyboard] halves to a cradle and … from the cradle to the hand held computer."
• Element mapping: Discloses a PDA cradle with an end/docking connector (relevant to dependent claim 5) and a hinged lid elsewhere in the device. It does not disclose a movable back-support element that folds to cover the end-supporting surface.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate claim 1 or any claim. Relevant as §103 art on the general PDA-cradle + hinged-element context (and directly relevant to dependent claim 5's complementary connector concept).
• Confidence: High on disclosure (full text retrieved, including claims and Figure 4/5 description).

4.5 US 5,385,479 A — "Modular jack" (Murata Mfg.)

• Priority/issue: 1992-08-10 / 1995-01-31. §102(b).
• Disclosure (from title/assignee/classification; I did not retrieve the full text): A modular (RJ-type) electrical jack/connector — connector hardware of the type that can include a biased shutter/dust door over the contact opening.
• Element mapping: At most, connector structure potentially relevant to claim 5 (complementary data connector) or claim 6 (contacts). No cradle, no base portion supporting a PDA end, no hinged back-support element.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim of '698.
• Confidence: Medium — description is title/classification-based; flagged as not independently verified.

4.6 US 5,411,405 A — "Miniature electrical communications connectors" (Angia Communications)

• Priority/issue: 1993-11-12 / 1995-05-02. §102(b).
• Disclosure (title-based): Miniature communications connectors (of the small-pitch/PCMCIA-era type) as may be used in portable electronic apparatus.
• Element mapping: Connector-level relevance to claims 5–6 only.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim.
• Confidence: Medium (not independently verified).

4.7 US 5,679,013 A — "Electrical connector and an electronic apparatus using the electrical connector" (IBM)

• Priority/issue: 1994-11-14 / 1997-10-21. §102(b).
• Disclosure (title-based): An electrical connector and a portable electronic apparatus housing that uses it — i.e., a connector mounted in an apparatus body.
• Element mapping: At most, supports the presence of a connector in an apparatus supporting region (claims 5–6).
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim.
• Confidence: Medium (not independently verified).

4.8 US 5,795,177 A — "Mounting mechanism of components, mounting mechanism of unit and method of mounting components" (Mitsubishi Denki)

• Priority/issue: 1995-08-25 / 1998-08-18. §102(b).
• Disclosure (title-based): A mechanical mounting/retention mechanism for units or components in an apparatus.
• Element mapping: Bearing only on generic mechanical mounting, if anything. Does not disclose the claimed hinged back-support/cover combination.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim.
• Confidence: Medium (not independently verified).

4.9 US 6,045,385 A — "Retention guides for processor module" (The Whitaker Corporation)

• Priority/issue: 1998-04-24 / 2000-04-04. Filed before the '698 priority → §102(e).
• Disclosure (title-based): Retention guide structure that receives and holds a processor module (e.g., a slot retention mechanism).
• Element mapping: Possibly analogous to a "bay/valley that guides a module into position" — but for a processor module, not a PDA, and with no hinged cover.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim.
• Confidence: Medium (not independently verified).

4.10 US 2,304,870 A — "Electric coupling" (Warner Electric Brake Mfg Co)

• Priority/issue: 1941-01-02 / 1942-12-15. §102(b).
• Disclosure: I could not verify the disclosure (search budget exhausted before retrieval). The title and 1941 Warner Electric Brake provenance are consistent with an electromagnetic coupling/clutch, but I will not assert that.
• Element mapping: If it is an electromagnetic coupling, it has no relevance to any claim beyond the word "coupling." It was almost certainly cited to show the antiquity/generality of electrical coupling structures.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim. I flag the disclosure description as unverified and expressly decline to characterize it further.
• Confidence: Low on the description; high on the conclusion that it is not §102 art against claim 1 (its subject matter, whatever it is, is a coupling, not a portable-device cradle).

4.11 US 6,127,802 A — "Charger with battery retention door" (Motorola) — timing caveat

• Dates: priority/filing 1999-11-19; issued 2000-10-03 (as listed in the authoritative full text).
• Disclosure (title-based): A battery charger having a door that retains the battery in the charger — a moving door over a charging receptacle.
• §102 timing — this is the analytically important point: The reference's 1999-11-19 date is ten days before the '698 U.S. filing (1999-11-29) but more than ten months after the '698 priority date (1998-11-27). Consequently:
  • it is not §102(a) or §102(b) art;
  • as a U.S. patent it could only be §102(e) art as of its filing date, and even then only if '698 were not entitled to the SG 1998-11-27 priority. Because '698 does claim that priority (SG 9805017), the reference is not prior art on the effective date and would have been traversed by a priority claim or a Rule 131/132 showing.
• Element mapping: Even on the merits, a retention door over a battery receptacle bears at most a superficial resemblance to the closed position of claims 1/3/4; it discloses no first-position back supporting surface.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim, and (per the timing analysis) should not be treated as §102 art at all if the foreign priority is perfected. This is a limit the examiner's citation does not by itself establish was applied.
• Confidence: Medium on disclosure (title-based); high on the date arithmetic (taken directly from the authoritative full text).

4.12 US 6,190,186 B1 — "Signal adaptation plug" (Liao, Sheng-Hsin) — timing caveat

• Dates: priority/filing 1999-08-11; issued 2001-02-20.
• Disclosure (title-based): A signal-adaptation plug/adapter for electrical signal connections.
• §102 timing: Same structure as 4.11 — 1999-08-11 is after the '698 priority date (1998-11-27) and before the '698 U.S. filing (1999-11-29). Not §102(a)/(b); only potentially §102(e), and then only if the SG priority is not perfected.
• Element mapping: Plug/adapter hardware; at most background to connector claims 5–6. No cradle geometry whatsoever.
• Anticipation conclusion: Does not anticipate any claim.
• Confidence: Medium on disclosure; high on the timing analysis.

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5. Ranking of relevance

Ranking caveat: my ordering is based on element-by-element claim-1 mapping, not on any record of how the examiner weighted these references; the prosecution history was not available to me.

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6. Overall §102 conclusions

1. No cited reference anticipates claim 1 as a whole. Each of the 12 lacks at least the claimed combination of (a) a base end-supporting surface, (b) a hinged back-support element movable between a supporting position and a covering position, and (c) an orthogonal second supporting surface on the base — taken as an arrangement.
2. US 5,691,618 (Yupiteru) is the only reference that plausibly reaches claim 1 under §102, and it does so on a portable-telephone embodiment rather than a PDA; its vulnerability is the "second supporting surface substantially orthogonal to the [end] supporting surface" limitation, which is not clearly disclosed.
3. US 5,822,183 (Olympus) is the best "purpose" reference for the protective-cover concept, and US 6,108,200 / US 5,941,648 are the best "PDA-cradle context" references — all three are more naturally §103 than §102 art.
4. US 6,127,802 and US 6,190,186 post-date the '698 priority date and should be excluded from §102 consideration on the effective date if the Singapore priority is perfected. This is a genuine, verifiable timing limit that the citation list alone does not reveal and is worth flagging to anyone relying on the face-of-the-patent citations.
5. Claims 2–6, if claim 1 falls, mostly fall derivatively or on secondary references (claim 5's data connector — e.g., US 5,941,648's cradle connector; claim 6's charging contacts — e.g., US 5,691,618's charging terminals). Claim 2's "balley" limitation should be construed as "valley" per the earlier section (the granted text's typo is not corrected).

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7. Confidence and caveats

• High confidence in the 12 references' identities, titles, assignees, priority/issue dates, and statutory-date arithmetic — these come from the authoritative full text supplied.
• High confidence in the disclosure descriptions and element mappings for US 5,691,618, US 5,822,183, US 6,108,200 and US 5,941,648 (abstracts/specification passages retrieved).
• Medium confidence in the descriptions for US 5,385,479, US 5,411,405, US 5,679,013, US 5,795,177, US 6,045,385, US 6,127,802 and US 6,190,186, which are based on title/assignee/classification because full-text retrieval was cut off by the tool step limit. I have not invented claim-level detail for these.
• Low confidence on the substance of US 2,304,870 ("Electric coupling," 1942); I expressly decline to characterize its disclosure.
• No prosecution-history record (Office actions, examiner's reasons for allowance, or §102/§103 rejections) was available to me, so I cannot state which of these references the examiner actually applied or how. The anticipation findings above are my independent element-by-element analysis, not record findings.
• Rule compliance: all identifiers are reproduced exactly as they appear — including "balley" (claim 2) and the "Philip Kwok Nan Loh" / "NAN, PHILIP KWOK" inventorship discrepancy flagged earlier. No patent number in this section has been auto-corrected or conflated with a similar number.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the cited prior-art references. Let me verify the technical content of the key references.

Let me verify the remaining cited references' technical content so the combination analysis is grounded.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,483,698 B1

35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre-AIA, governing — application filed 1999-11-29, priority 1998-11-27)

Building on the previously generated sections. The bibliographic data, claim reproduction, prosecution/maintenance timeline, and the "no litigation / expired-2014" findings above are treated as authoritative and are not repeated here. Nothing in the prior-art record contradicts them.

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0. Scope note — what counts as "prior art" on this page

The task directs me to the Prior Art section of the Google Patents page. That section comprises the 12 references in "Patent Citations (12)". I use those. I expressly exclude:

One further item deserves emphasis: the '698 specification's own admission (Background, describing Fig. 1) is prior art under §103 via the applicant's own characterization of the state of the art. It is the single most damaging reference in this file, and it is self-inflicted.

Flag on data provenance: Google Patents renders the 12 citations with an asterisk ("cited by examiner"). Google states its listings are not authoritative. Notably, US 6,108,200 (granted 2000-08-22) and US 6,127,802 (granted 2000-10-03) issued after '698's 1999-11-29 filing, so they could only have been before the examiner as §102(e) art keyed to their earlier filing dates (1999-02-17 and 1999-11-19 respectively) — or via an IDS. I treat them as available art on that basis but flag that the "cited by examiner" label should be treated as unverified.

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1. Framework

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the analysis turns on (a) the scope and content of the prior art, (b) the differences between the prior art and the claims, (c) the level of ordinary skill, and (d) objective indicia. KSR instructs that a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is obvious when it yields no more than predictable results, and that a "design need or market pressure" — or the existence of the problem itself — can supply the motivation to combine.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA): a bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering (or equivalent), plus 2–4 years' experience designing enclosures, docking accessories, or connector interfaces for portable consumer electronics. This is a mature, low-complexity, crowded mechanical-arts field.

Claim construction of the terms that drive the analysis:

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2. The primary reference set and why it is analogous art

The four structural references (§§102(b)/(e)) are analogous art: they are from the same field of endeavor (cradles, chargers, stands and enclosures for portable electronic devices) and are reasonably pertinent to the very problem the '698 specification identifies — supporting a portable device upright while protecting its exposed connector/contacts.

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3. Combination A (primary): admitted '698 Fig. 1 cradle + US 5,691,618

This combination renders claim 1 obvious. Element mapping:

Motivation to combine (this is the strongest part of the §103 case, because it is self-supplied):

1. The problem statement is in the patent itself. The Background states: "Typically, the charging contacts and the data connector of a cradle become exposed when the portable electronic device is removed. In this situation, the contacts and the connector are prone to accidental damage which can render the cradle unusable."
2. Yupiteru states the identical problem and the identical solution. Its "Objects" are to be "compact and thin so as to have excellent portability"; to "prevent dust, moisture and the like from accumulating at the charging terminals in order to reduce as much as possible the risk of malfunctions"; and to "reliably support a communication device in an upright position." That is a one-to-one match with the '698 Advantages section (compact configuration → portable → fits in a briefcase; contacts covered → less prone to accidental damage).
3. Same field, same function, same structure. Both are desk-top stands that seat a portable device upright and interface electrically with it. A PHOSITA looking at a fixed-back PDA dock facing the exposed-connector problem would look directly to the hinge-covered charger art.
4. Predictable result / reasonable expectation of success. Hinging a back panel on a molding is conventional; the outcomes (the panel supports the back when up, occludes the bay when down, and lowers the profile) are the expected geometric consequences of the known structure. KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17 ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions"); id. at 421 (market pressure / design need).
5. No teaching away. Yupiteru embraces the dual-function cover; it does not disparage applying such a cover to a non-telephone device.

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4. Alternative and reinforcing combinations

Because claim 1's only real difference over the admitted art is the hinged, dual-purpose back/cover, any reference teaching that structure in the same field completes the prima facie case. Four independent routes exist:

Combination B — US 5,691,618 + US 5,822,183 (Olney/Olympus-type).
Motivation: US 5,822,183 supplies, in express terms, the rationale the '698 specification relies on: closing a hinged lid over a connector's contacting surface protects it from dust. A PHOSITA optimizing a PDA dock for transport would combine the hinged closure with the hinged upright support of Yupiteru with a reasonable expectation of both benefits. Yupiteru already teaches the closure over exposed terminals; Olympus supplies the "protect the data connector" teaching that Yupiteru lacks. Together they cover both claim 5 (data connector) and claim 6 (charging contacts).

Combination C — Admitted prior art + US 5,941,648 (Olivetti) + US 6,108,200 (Fullerton).
Motivation: US 5,941,648 is PDA-specific, and expressly discloses (i) a cradle 24 serving as a stand holding the PDA upright and (ii) a hinged lid capable of alternatively covering the screen or being folded behind the rear surface — i.e., a hinged member with two discrete predetermined positions on a PDA. US 6,108,200 supplies the cover/easel that doubles as the PDA's back support, the detents that hold the cover at predetermined angles, the ribs that stabilize the PDA, the latch/side-flap closed configuration, and an I/O connector specifically configured for the 3Com Palm III PDA — the very device named in '698. Stacking the Olivetti PDA-cradle disclosure with Fullerton's hinged easel/cover onto the admitted '698 dock yields claim 1 with all elements accounted for and a strong articulated motivation (portability + protection of an exposed I/O connector, expressly recited in Fullerton as a problem with the Newton PDA's keyboard: "unprotected from damage during transport, unless it was inserted into a separate carrying case").

Combination D — US 5,691,618 + US 6,127,802 (Motorola) instead of, or in addition to, Yupiteru.
Motivation: US 6,127,802 is the cleanest teaching of the generic idea — a door hinged on a pin that closes to cover an unused charging pocket containing exposed mating contacts, justified by the desire for a "smaller overall shape." Substituting or supplementing Yupiteru with '802 is proper because both teach the same structure for the same reason; where references teach the same thing, the choice among them is not inventive.

Combination E — Second-tier references for the connector elements. US 5,679,013 (IBM, "Electrical connector and an electronic apparatus using the electrical connector"), US 5,385,479 (Murata, "Modular jack"), US 5,411,405 (Angia, "Miniature electrical communications connectors"), US 5,795,177 (Mitsubishi, "Mounting mechanism of components… unit") and US 6,040,585 (Whitaker, "Retention guides for processor module") are not required for claim 1, but they corroborate that guide-wall/retention geometry that aligns a device into a connector seat was a pervasive, well-known expedient — supporting the obviousness of claim 1's orthogonal second supporting surface and of the "bay" of claim 2 (see also US 5,691,618's guide surfaces 22 and support surface 24 formed in the cover's U-shaped cut-away).

A note on US 6,049,192 ("Battery charger having moving door housing for a battery," filed 1999-03-18) appears in US 6,127,802's own citation list, not in the '698 Prior Art section. It is mentioned only as an aside; it is not part of the combination analysis mandated here.

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5. Dependent claims 2–6

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6. Objective indicia (Graham factor 4)

No secondary consideration appears to be available. There is no evidence in the record — no rule, no recorded assignment history, no reexamination, no litigation (per the earlier section) — of unexpected results, long-felt need, failure of others, copying, industry praise, or commercial success with the requisite nexus.

More pointedly, the only advantages the patent asserts are (i) "a more compact configuration … makes the cradle more portable for transporting by a user" and (ii) the connector "is less exposed. Thus the connector is less likely to become damaged." Both are the stated, pre-existing objectives of the very references — Yupiteru ("compact and thin so as to have excellent portability"; "prevent dust, moisture … at the charging terminals"), Motorola '802 ("smaller overall shape"), Olympus '823 ("protected from dust just by closing the lid"), Fullerton (cover "serves to protect the keyboard when closed"). An advantage that was already recognized and sought in the art supplies no probative weight. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.

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7. The counterarguments, and where this case is weaker

I should be candid about the soft spots, because a rigorous §103 conclusion must address them:

1. "The examiner already had these references and allowed." All twelve citations are on the face of '698. If the examiner truly considered US 5,691,618 and US 6,127,802, the allowance implies the examiner did not find the combination. However, this is not a defense for validity purposes: (a) the record shows no substantive discussion of the references; (b) merely listing a reference in an IDS or citation does not establish that its combination was considered; and (c) Google's "cited by examiner" annotation is explicitly non-authoritative (see §0). Still, a challenger would need to show the combination was not previously addressed — the closest thing to a distinguishing argument the patent owner has is that the examiner apparently regarded the hinged-back-covering-the-contacts feature as not taught.
2. The "second supporting surface … substantially orthogonal to the supporting surface" element (claim 1, final clause) is the least cleanly mapped. Yupiteru's cover, not its main body, supports the device's back; the base's depression walls are not described as a discrete "second supporting surface." This element is therefore best met by the admitted prior art itself (surface 45 of base 11 per the '698 specification; the 12/13 valley of Fig. 1) rather than by any single reference. A patent owner would argue that "splitting" the back support between a base ledge and the flap is the inventive insight. The rebuttal is that the patent's own Fig. 1 already shows a two-surface valley in a base molding, and that any dock requires a seat plus a backrest — a predictable mechanical expedient, not an inventive contribution. But this is the clause I would expect to carry the dispute.
3. Field-of-use argument. Yupiteru is a telephone charger; US 6,127,802 is a battery charger; US 5,822,183 is a memory card slot. The patent owner will argue these are not "cradles." The answer is that §103, per KSR and In re Bigio, asks whether the reference is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem — here, "keep the exposed contacts/connector in a device-support bay from being damaged and the unit compact for transport." All four references address that exact problem, and the '698 specification itself equates PDAs and radio telephones.
4. §102(e) timing caveats. US 6,108,200 (filed 1999-02-17) and US 6,127,802 (filed 1999-11-19) qualify as §102(e) art only as of their filing dates, which fall after '698's 1998-11-27 Singapore priority date. Under In re Hilmer, a §119 foreign priority date does not confer benefit for §102(e) purposes, so these references remain available against '698's 1999-11-29 U.S. filing date (subject to a possible Rule 131 swear-behind establishing an earlier invention date). US 5,691,618 (1997-11-25) is free of this problem — it is §102(b) art. This is a practical reason to anchor the primary case on Yupiteru.
5. My verification is document-level, not full-text. I verified the disclosures of US 5,691,618, US 6,127,802, US 5,822,183, US 5,941,648 and US 6,108,200 through substantial excerpts of their specifications/claims/abstracts (sources below). I did not obtain the complete text of US 2,304,870, US 5,385,479, US 5,411,405, US 5,679,013, US 5,795,177 or US 6,040,585, and I therefore treat them only as corroborating the general state of the connector/retention art, not as elements of any required combination.

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8. Conclusion

Claim 1 is likely invalid under §103. The claimed cradle differs from the applicant's own admitted Fig. 1 cradle — which already discloses a base portion, an end-supporting surface, a back-supporting surface on an angled support element, and a data connector in the docking region — only in making that back support hinged so that it can fold down over the docking seat. That precise structure, for that precise purpose, was squarely taught by US 5,691,618 (Yupiteru), which discloses a rotatable cover that supports the device's back surface in the open position and covers the charging terminals in the closed position, and which recites the same two objectives the '698 specification claims as its advantage: portability/compactness and protection of exposed terminals. The motivation to make the substitution is not merely inferable — it is recited verbatim in '698's own Background and in the reference's stated objects.

The strongest, most defensible combination is:

Admitted prior art ('698 Fig. 1) + US 5,691,618, with US 6,127,802 and US 5,822,183 as reinforcing secondary references for, respectively, the door-covers-the-contacts structure and the express "closing the lid protects the connector from dust" teaching, and US 5,941,648 / US 6,108,200 to supply the PDA-specific cradle and the hinged easel/cover with predetermined-angle detents.

Claims 2, 4, 5 and 6 are, in my assessment, weaker than claim 1 — claim 2 (V-valley), claim 5 (data connector) and claim 6 (charging contacts) are essentially the admitted prior art plus Yupiteru, and claim 4 (flush) is expressly met by Yupiteru's "roughly equal to the dimensions of the main body." Claim 3 and the final "substantially orthogonal second supporting surface" clause of claim 1 are the limitations most likely to be contested, and depend on the admitted-art mapping rather than on any single reference.

Caveats: This is a prima facie obviousness assessment based on the references in the patent's own Prior Art section plus the specification's admissions. It is not a validity opinion or an invalidity contention, and it does not account for claim-construction positions, a Rule 131 showing of earlier invention, or objective evidence not in the record. My negative findings on litigation and on post-2014 status (from the earlier sections) are unchanged and are consistent with this analysis — the patent lapsed in 2014, so these combinations would matter only as historical/defensive matter, not in any live 2026 proceeding.

Sources:

• US 6,483,698 B1 full text, claims, citations, legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6483698/en
• US 5,691,618 (Yupiteru) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5691618 ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[5691618](/patent/5691618)-A ; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5691618.html
• US 6,127,802 (Motorola) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6127802 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/14/0a/2d/a0cafdb0af7f94/US6127802.pdf ; https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US6127802
• US 5,822,183 (Olympus) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/04/5c/e8/823a4735805122/US5822183.pdf ; https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US5822183
• US 5,941,648 (Olivetti) — https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5941648](/patent/5941648) ; https://data.epo.org/gpi/EP0996051A2
• US 6,108,200 (Fullerton) — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6108200A](/patent/US6108200A)/en ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2a/c0/4c/6615be00e4bf80/US6108200.pdf ; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat6108200.html