US 6950022

Patent Overview — US6950022B2

Title: Method and arrangement for obtaining and conveying information about occupancy of a vehicle

Patent number / application: US6950022B2; application US10/227,780; publication US20030002690A1

Inventor: David S. Breed

Assignee: Automotive Technologies International Inc (original and current assignee as listed)

Key dates: Priority date 1992-05-05; filing date 2002-08-26; publication date 2005-09-27 (grant). Status: "Expired - Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2012-10-19. (Legal status is described in the source as an assumption, not a legal conclusion.)

Purpose and plain-language scope: The patent concerns obtaining and conveying information about whether — and how — a vehicle's passenger compartment is occupied. Its classifications place it with vehicle occupant protection and detection: electrical circuits for triggering passive safety arrangements (e.g., airbags, belt tighteners) that include means for detecting the presence or position of passengers, passenger seats or child seats; seats with occupancy-detection means; and passenger detection using field-detection presence sensors, including ultrasonic waves. Sensor-related classes cover sensing anthropometric parameters (such as heart rate or body temperature), identifying or categorizing the occupant or object on a seat, distinguishing humans from animals or objects, detecting occupant or body-part position, and detecting occupant motion. The prior-art keywords listed are: passenger compartment, sensor, occupancy, information, vehicle.

Priority lineage (per source): priority is claimed from US08/505,036; US08/640,068; US09/047,703; US09/437,535; and US09/563,556.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6950022](/patent/US6950022)/en

What the excerpt does not establish: It contains no claims, abstract, or description text, so it does not establish the specific claimed subject matter, claim scope, or the actual operation of any embodiment. It does not establish litigation outcomes (only that a family has litigation and links to a third-party dataset), assignment history details beyond the listed reassignment, validity, or the content of any cited prior art. The classification entries and keywords are indexing metadata, not statements of claim scope. Dates and legal status are expressly labeled assumptions in the source.