US 7785053

I'll verify the identifiers against live sources before summarizing.

Let me pull the granted claim set and check for any litigation record.

Let me try to retrieve the complete granted claim set.

US 7,785,053 B2 — Verification Summary

Caveat up front: The full patent text you supplied is authoritative and I've relied on it. Two of your requested items required external verification, with the following results:

• USPTO record: confirmed (bibliographic data matched across Google Patents, Justia, and the USPTO-hosted PDF).
• CAFC 2026 docket: No 2026 Federal Circuit docket naming US 7,785,053 was found. Searches returned only unrelated Boeing matters (e.g., The Boeing Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. No. 23-1018, a Cost Accounting Standards contract case, decided 10/04/2024). I therefore cannot confirm any litigation or appeal involving this patent — treat "no known CAFC 2026 activity" as a null result, not an affirmative clearance.

Bibliographic Data (as issued)

Related applications: CIP of 11/278,293; related to 11/278,298 (both filed Mar. 31, 2006, incorporated by reference). A later continuation, App. 12/813,156, published as US 2010/0301164 A1. Google Patents also lists US 8,128,326 B2 as claiming priority from the 11/278,293 family.

Prior art cited on the face: US 3,282,229 (Elsner); 3,605,637 (Prete); 4,213,593 (Weik); 4,396,175 (Long et al.); 4,493,470 (Engel); 4,771,969 (Dowd); 5,337,979 (Bates et al.); 6,299,230 B1 (Oettl); 6,626,623 B2 (DeLay); 6,918,722 B1 (Girardin); plus DE 2556000 and DE 202004015211.

Abstract (verbatim)

"Apparatus and methods for removably securing payloads are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes coupling the payload to a body of a locking assembly, engaging an insertion portion of the body into the channel, translating the insertion portion of the body along the channel from a first position to a second position, the body being substantially constrained from movement away from the channel in the second position, and actuating at least one engagement member from an unsecured position to a secured position, a portion of the channel being engaged by the at least one engagement member and the insertion portion of the body when the at least one engagement member is positioned in the secured position such that the body is substantially constrained from movement along the channel by the at least one engagement member."

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has two independent claims: claim 1 and claim 10, both method claims. Claims 2–9 depend from claim 1; claims 11–13 depend from claim 10.

Claim 1 — Method of securing a payload to a channel

1. Couple the payload to a body of a locking assembly.
2. Rotatably couple a lever to the body with a first shaft.
3. Place a spring between the body and a saddle member, so the saddle member and lever are biased away from the body.
4. Rotatably couple the saddle member to the lever with a second shaft, and let that second shaft slide/move relative to the saddle member.
5. Insert an insertion portion of the body into the channel.
6. Translate the insertion portion within the channel from a first position to a second position — at the second position the body can't be pulled/lifted out of the channel.
7. Translate the assembly along the channel until self-alignment portion(s) abut corresponding portions of the channel.
8. Actuate at least one engagement member from unsecured to secured; in the secured position the channel is gripped by both the engagement member and the insertion portion, locking the body against movement along the channel.

In short: a two-stage, tool-less seat-fitting method — drop in, slide until self-aligned, then throw a lever to clamp-and-lock.

Claim 10 — Method of securing a payload to a track having a channel

1. Couple the payload to a body of a locking assembly that includes a lever rotatably coupled to the body.
2. Rotatably couple the lever to the body by a first shaft.
3. (Intermediate limitations confirmed to include the first-shaft recitation; the source snippet truncated a portion of this claim's middle text — see uncertainty note below.)
4. Engage an insertion portion of the body into the channel of the track.
5. Translate the insertion portion along the track from a first position to a second position, the body being constrained from moving away from the track at the second position.
6. Actuate an actuation member movably coupled to the body from an unsecured to a secured position. The actuation member is coupled to at least one engagement member: unsecured = engagement member withdrawn from the channel; secured = engagement member engages the channel, constraining the body from moving along the track.

Dependent claims at a glance:

• 2–3: actuation member is a lever rotatably coupled to the body; engagement via a plunger clampably engaged with the channel.
• 4: actuating against a biasing force that urges the engagement member to the unsecured position.
• 5: channel has an alternating pattern of clearance openings and inwardly projecting flanges; the channel is clampably engaged between the engagement member and the insertion portion seated against a pair of flanges.
• 6–8: automatic locking device locks the assembly in the secured position, implemented as a spring-biased locking pin engaging a locking aperture.
• 9: payload is a leg of a passenger seat assembly in an aircraft.
• 11–13: counterpart dependents for claim 10 (biasing force into unsecured position; translating from first to second position; claim 13's text was not fully retrieved — treat as unverified).

Prosecution Note (analytically useful)

The published application US 2007/0232101 A1 claim 1 was materially broader than granted claim 1 — it recited only the couple/engage/translate/actuate sequence, without the lever, spring, saddle-member, first-shaft, and second-shaft limitations. The granted claim 1 added that lever/spring/saddle architecture plus the self-alignment translating step, so the enforceable scope is narrower than the pre-grant publication. Of note, the added limitations track the FIG. 12–15 and FIG. 35–36 embodiments (locking assembly 400 / 1000) rather than the FIG. 1–4 embodiment (apparatus 10). Anyone relying on the published-application text for scope or for prior-art/§ 102/§ 103 comparisons would be working with a broader claim than the one that actually issued.

Stated Uncertainties

1. Claim 10 and claim 13 text: My best retrieval of the granted claims was partially truncated mid-claim for claim 10 (the middle recitations between the first shaft and the "engaging an insertion portion" step) and for claim 13. Independent claim 1's text is verified verbatim from the USPTO-hosted PDF. I would not rely on my paraphrase of claim 10's middle section or claim 13 without pulling the printed claim column directly.
2. CAFC / litigation: No docket found; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. A PACER/Docket Navigator check on "7,785,053" and on the 11/278,293 family would be needed for a definitive litigation history.
3. Legal status: "Expired – Fee Related" and the 2028-07-07 adjusted expiration are Google Patents' own disclaimered assumptions, not legal conclusions; I have not verified maintenance-fee payments against USPTO PatentCenter.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7785053 across litigation databases and court sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try more specific litigation-focused searches.

Answer: No litigation identified for US 7,785,053

Bottom line: Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no litigation — no district court action, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding — involving U.S. Patent No. 7,785,053 ("Single tough locking seat fittings and methods"), nor could I find any party that has asserted it. I therefore cannot provide plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome, because I have no verified case to report. I am explicitly declining to fill those fields with guesses.

What I searched

• Google Patents page for US7785053B2 — the "litigation"/case-law content on that page is empty; the only metadata is prosecution/assignment history and status.
• Justia Patents entry for 7,785,053 (US7785053) — patent text and claims only; no "Litigation" or "Court Cases" section populated.
• General web searches for "7785053" / "7,785,053" combined with litigation, infringement, complaint, defendant, lawsuit, PACER, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, and Unified Patents portal references.
• I also attempted targeted queries against the Unified Patents litigation caselist, Docket Alarm, and Justia litigation pages, but my tool access terminated before those specific portal queries returned results. This is a material limitation — I did not successfully execute an ID-specific query against the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or CourtListener RECAP.

What actually matched the number (all false positives or non-litigation citations — not litigation)

1. The patent itself: US7785053B2, application US11/548,815, filed 2006‑10‑12, priority 2006‑03‑31 (CIP of US11/278,293), granted 2010‑08‑31; current assignee Boeing Co; status "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2028‑07‑07. Also published as US20070232101A1.
2. A prior-art citation, not a suit: WO2014008070A1 lists "US 7785053 B2, 31/08/2010" in its search-report patent citations. That is a citation of the patent as prior art — no litigation.
3. Unrelated number collisions (excluded): a Brazilian municipal decree "Ato n.º 7785053" (2025), a University of Delhi exam roll number, a Turkish document barcode number, and a Chinese utility-model document number 7785053. None are the US patent.

Caveats you should weigh before relying on "no litigation"

• Absence of search hits is not affirmative proof that no suit exists. Patent litigation is sometimes only discoverable through district-court dockets, and my searches were web-index based rather than direct API/docket queries.
• This patent is a Boeing asset covering aircraft seat/payload track fittings. Several related patents in the same space are asserted by NPE-type plaintiffs (e.g., the seat-track fastener art generally), so it is plausible the patent could surface in litigation under a different owner if reassigned — but I found no evidence of any assignment-away, and current assignee still lists as Boeing Co.
• Family members you may also want to check separately: US8128326B2, US20100301164A1 (from continuation US12/813,156), and US20070232101A1.

Recommended verification steps (to close the gap I could not close)

1. Query the Unified Patents Litigation portal and PTAB caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) filtered to patent number 7785053.
2. Run a CourtListener RECAP and PACER docket search on "7,785,053."
3. Check Lex Machina / Docket Navigator / Westlaw Litigation Analytics for the patent and for all family members listed above.
4. Check USPTO Patent Center / Assignment and PTAB (PTAB API, Patent Trial Appeal Board) for any post-grant proceedings, since these would not appear as litigation hits.

If you'd like, I can re-run the specific portal queries once more tool access is available, or you can tell me which docket system you want prioritized and I'll frame the exact query string.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" result against live sources before drafting.

Searches so far return nothing on-point. Let me probe the litigation/family angle and PTAB dockets more specifically.

Let me check litigation databases and the CAFC docket angle before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 7,785,053. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) "PTAB proceedings on file" feed returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and targeted live web searching (PTAB petition/decision text, CourtListener, litigation reporting) likewise surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming the '053 patent. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore neither of the two narratives in the template: this is not "a patent that survived two IPRs and is hardened," nor is it "claims 1-5 canceled." It is an untested but lapsed patent — Boeing's own fitting patent that appears to have expired for failure to pay maintenance fees, with no third party ever having bothered to challenge it at the Board. The practical read for a defendant is that the PTAB is a wide-open, unused option; the more immediate defenses are the patent's own status and term.

Itemized proceedings

None to itemize. Per the operating rules, I will not manufacture proceeding numbers, panels, or claim dispositions to fill this section. There are no FWDs to link and no claim-level outcomes to quote.

Rather than leave the assertion unverified, here is the audit trail:

Absence-of-activity verification

• Canonical source (authoritative for this task): USPTO ODP structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this prompt — returns no AIA trial proceedings as of the provider's most recent ingest. This is the controlling result.
• Independent web checks performed 2026-09-24:
  • Searches for "7785053" IPR / PTAB / inter partes review — returned unrelated proceedings documents (other patents' petitions and FWDs) and third-party hits on the number string (municipal gazettes, university exam rolls). No petition text, no FWD, no PTAB docket for the '053 patent.
  • Searches pairing the patent with its title, inventor (Timothy C. Hudson), and assignee (The Boeing Company) — no PTAB or litigation hits.
  • Searches for "7,785,053" OR "7785053" litigation/CAFC/CourtListener — no district court complaint, ITC action, PTAB appeal, or Federal Circuit opinion referencing this patent surfaced.
• Caveat I am obliged to flag: ODP and PTAB E2E indexes can lag on very recent filings, and my web sweep is not a substitute for a docketed search. The number "7785053" is also collision-prone in free-text search (it appears in unrelated municipal and academic documents), so a search that stopped at a string match could theoretically have buried a real filing. Before relying on the absence, confirm directly at PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions database, and run the patent's full family (see below) through CourtListener.

What is on file for this patent (non-PTAB context, from the patent record)

• Patent: US 7,785,053 B2, "Single tough locking seat fittings and methods." Inventor: Timothy C. Hudson (Edmonds, WA). Assignee: The Boeing Company. Filed 2006-10-12; granted 2010-08-31. Source: Google Patents, Justia.
• Family: continuation-in-part of US App. Ser. No. 11/278,293 (filed 2006-03-31, which published as US 20100301164 A1 via its own continuation 12/813,156) and related to App. Ser. No. 11/278,298, both filed 2006-03-31. The '293 parent line issued as US 8,128,326 B2. These siblings have not been run through the ODP proceedings feed for this report — verify them separately if a family-wide clearance picture matters.
• Claims: method claims. Claim 1 (independent) and claim 10 (independent) are the only independent claims disclosed on the public claim listing; claims 2–9 depend from claim 1 and claims 11–13 depend from claim 10, all of which recite the lever/saddle/spring actuation architecture added in the CIP.
• Status: Google Patents lists "Expired - Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2028-07-07, with a 35 U.S.C. § 154(b) patent term adjustment of 829 days noted on the face of the patent. The "fee related" label is Google's indicator that the patent lapsed for non-payment of a maintenance fee rather than running to its adjusted term date. I could not verify a lapse date from public search and will not invent one — confirm the maintenance-fee history in USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted, no claim of the '053 patent has been canceled, narrowed, disclaimed, or held patentable by the Board. Claims 1–13 stand exactly as issued, entirely untested at the PTAB. There are no surviving claims to list because there are no invalidated claims to distinguish them from — the "claims CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED" axis collapses to a single bucket: untested. Equally important, there is also no reexamination certificate on the record that I could find, so no claim has been amended or canceled through that route either. Any statement that this patent has been "hardened" through PTAB would be false; any statement that specific claims are dead would also be false.

Estoppel landscape. With no petitioner and no instituted trial, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty — there is no petitioner and no privy to it. No ground has been raised or reasonably could have been raised by anyone. That cuts both ways: a defendant today faces no statutory bar on filing an IPR and, subject only to the ordinary § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint and the § 325(d) discretion framework, may bring any § 102/§ 103 art it can find. Conversely, a defendant cannot point to a prior petitioner's work product, expert declarations, or a Board claim construction as free leverage — none exists. The entire invalidity case, if one is needed, must be built from scratch.

Pattern signals. There are none. The "same petitioner filed multiple IPRs" signal is absent; Boeing has not been in the PTAB appealing an adverse FWD on this patent (it never had one); and there is no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) in the chain — which is itself meaningful, since aggregators tend to pick off patents that are being asserted. The absence of any IPR, reexam, litigation, or ITC action over roughly sixteen years from issuance, combined with the apparent fee lapse, is the signature of a commercially dormant patent, not a hardened war chest. This is consistent with the patent's practical context: it is Boeing's own seat-track fitting architecture (a tool-less, lever/pedal-actuated clamp for aircraft seat legs and cargo on floor tracks), likely practiced by Boeing and its suppliers rather than licensed or asserted, and possibly superseded in practice by later Boeing track-fitting filings.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the lapse before doing anything expensive. If the '053 patent truly lapsed for non-payment of a maintenance fee, that is a complete defense to a pre-lapse-accrued damages claim going forward, and it may moot the need for an IPR entirely. Pull the maintenance-fee transaction history and the fee-lapse/revival record from USPTO PatentCenter. Note two cautions: (a) an expired-for-fee patent can in some circumstances be revived by petition with a showing of unintentional (or, within narrower windows, unavoidable) delay, so a lapse is not necessarily permanent; and (b) patents that have expired can still be challenged at the PTAB, but the practical urgency and the value of doing so drop sharply.
2. If your demand letter or complaint cites claims 1–13, do not assume they are weak merely because they were never challenged. The lack of PTAB activity means there is no FWD to quote, no canceled claim to point to, and no Board reasoning to leverage. A Rule 11 / § 285 argument built on "this patent has been invalidated" would be unfounded. Build invalidity from the prior art of record on the patent's face — US 3,282,229 (Elsner), 3,605,637 (Prete), 4,213,593 (Weik), 4,396,175 (Long), 4,493,470 (Engel), 4,771,969 (Dowd), 5,337,979 (Bates), 6,299,230 (Oettl), 6,626,623 (DeLay), 6,918,722 (Girardin), plus DE 2556000 and DE 202004015211 — as a starting point, and supplement with the CIP-added lever/saddle/spring subject matter, which was likely added precisely to distinguish over that art and is the most vulnerable part of the disclosure.
3. Run the family, not just the patent. Because '053 is a CIP of Ser. No. 11/278,293 (issued as US 8,128,326) with sibling Ser. No. 11/278,298, an assertor may be holding a family of continuations covering the same fitting. Check each family member in PTAB E2E and CourtListener — an IPR against a sibling would not appear in the '053 ODP feed and could carry estoppel consequences worth knowing about.
4. Re-check for recent filings before the deadline-driven decision points. ODP ingest lags. If you are served with a complaint asserting the '053 patent, the clock that matters is 35 U.S.C. § 315(b)'s one-year bar from service, followed by the Board's institution decision at ~6 months and the statutory 1-year-from-institution deadline for the FWD under § 316(a)(11). With no competing trial and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against you, an IPR filed promptly after service is procedurally clean on the record as it stands today.

Bottom line: the defensible statement is "no PTAB activity exists on US 7,785,053; the claims are unchallenged and untested, and the patent itself appears to have lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees." Anything stronger — in either direction — is not supported by the record I can verify.

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

Let me check for any litigation or transfers involving this patent and its family.

US 7785053 — Ownership Chain Reconstruction

Method note / caveat up front: I was able to pull the issued patent front matter (US 7,785,053 B2 PDF), Google Patents' legal-events feed, and the public patent aggregators (Justia, FreePatentsOnline) for this patent and its family. I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center interactive database (it is a JavaScript application that does not expose its record table to a plain fetch), and no reel/frame number for this patent appears in any indexed public source I could retrieve. Per the operating rules, I will not invent one. Everything below is grounded in the sources that were retrievable; the reel/frame field is marked not retrieved rather than fabricated.

Inventors

Pattern notes: Single-inventor patent — there is no co-inventor cohort to analyze for a "mass departure" pattern. Hudson appears as the named inventor across the whole Boeing seat-track family (parent 11/278,293 → US 8,128,326; related 11/278,298 → US 8,920,085; and continuation US 2010/0301164). That is an ordinary corporate inventor-continuation pattern, not a fire-sale precursor. No inventor-departure data (employment changes) is available in any source consulted.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL (front page, item [73]; assignment to "BOEING CORPORATION, THE" recorded in Google Patents legal events, 2006-10-12).
• Business: Aerospace prime manufacturer (commercial airplanes, defense, space). Operating company — no question.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, in all likelihood. The patent claims a tool-less locking fitting for securing payloads (specifically aircraft passenger seats) to a floor track, and the specification is explicitly directed at Boeing commercial transports ("737, 747, 757, 767 and 777"). The claimed subject matter is a seat-to-track fitting of the type Boeing specifies for its cabin interiors; the specification states the lock assembly "may be used to secure a leg of a passenger seat in a commercial aircraft." I found no evidence of a product SKU number and cannot independently confirm a specific part number, so this is a specification-grounded inference, not a documented shipment.
• Current status: Operating. Boeing remains the assignee of record per every source consulted; there is no recorded transfer away from Boeing.
• Patent status: Google Patents reports "Expired - Fee Related, expires 2028-07-07." Taken literally, this indicates the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees well before its adjusted expiration (2028-07-07, which reflects the 829-day PTA listed on the front page). I flag this as reported, not independently verified against USPTO fee records.

Assignment timeline

Plain statement: Based on the Google Patents legal-events feed (which mirrors the USPTO assignment recordation data), there is exactly one recorded assignment on US 7,785,053 — the original inventor-to-employer assignment — and no post-issuance assignments.

• 2006-10-12 (recorded; execution date not shown in the retrievable record) — Reel not retrieved / not available in consulted sources (the front matter, Google Patents legal events, Justia, and FPO do not expose a reel/frame for this patent)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (see document for details)
  • Assignor: Timothy C. Hudson
  • Assignee: The Boeing Company ("BOEING CORPORATION, THE")
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the retrievable record. (Note: the prosecution firm of record per the printed front page, item [74], is Lee & Hayes, PLLC — that is the patent attorney firm, not an assignment-recordation correspondent. Do not conflate the two.)
  • Context: Ordinary employee invention assignment to the corporate employer — the first leg of the chain of title, executed at/around application filing (App. Ser. No. 11/548,815, filed 2006-10-12).

No further records. There is no second leg, no security agreement, no merger, no change of name, no license recordation, and no transfer-to-asserter. Boeing's ownership is intact on the public record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7785053
    2006 : CIP application filed Oct 12
    2006 : Hudson assigns rights to Boeing
    2007 : Application published Oct 4
    2010 : Patent issued Aug 31
    2028 : Adjusted expiration date

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically, the benign variant: only the original assignment is on record, so the original assignee still owns the patent.

The sole recorded conveyance is the inventor-to-employer assignment of 2006-10-12 to The Boeing Company, and nothing has moved since; Boeing — an operating aerospace manufacturer whose commercial transports practice the seat-track technology described — is the assignee of record on the face of the patent and in every legal-events feed consulted. With no post-issuance assignments and no assertion activity, none of the eight NPE signals is present, and the rubric's "Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment)" bucket is the correct call rather than an NPE finding. The only open item is procedural: the reel/frame for the 2006 Boeing assignment could not be retrieved from public indexed sources and should be confirmed by a direct Assignment Center query.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 7785053) · legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

I'll verify the patent against live sources and pull details on each cited reference.

Confirmed the patent and its cited-reference list. Now pulling bibliographic details on each reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,785,053 B2

Scope note: I retrieved the granted patent and its face-of-record "References Cited" list from the USPTO-hosted PDF and cross-checked against Google Patents, Justia, and FreePatentsOnline. I ran out of search budget before I could independently verify every one of the eleven U.S. references and both German documents, so I have explicitly separated verified from unverified entries below rather than filling gaps from memory. Do not treat unverified descriptions as authoritative.

1. Target patent — confirmed

This is the exact-number match. No similar numbers were substituted.

2. The cited-reference list as it literally appears on the face

Verified verbatim from the granted patent's (56) field:

U.S. Patent Documents

• US 3,282,229 A — Elsner — 11/1966 (asterisk = cited by examiner)
• US 3,605,637 A — Prete — 9/1971
• US 4,213,593 A — Weik — 7/1980
• US 4,396,175 A — Long et al. — 8/1983
• US 4,493,470 A — Engel — 1/1985
• US 4,771,969 A — Dowd — 9/1988
• US 5,337,979 A — Bates et al. — 8/1994
• US 6,299,230 B1 — Oettl — 10/2001
• US 6,626,623 B2 — DeLay — 9/2003
• US 6,918,722 B1 — Girardin — 7/2005

Foreign Patent Documents

• DE 2556000 — 6/1977
• DE 202004015211 — 1/2005

3. Reference-by-reference analysis

A. Verified references

US 3,605,637 A — Prete — "Anchor fitting for securing loads to a retainer track"

• Filing: Sept. 2, 1970; Granted: Sept. 20, 1971; Assignee: Ancra Corp. (verified via Google Patents and the granted PDF)
• Description (verified from the specification text): A main body with shouldered pads that slide into the track's interior groove, and a vertical post at one end on which a latching plunger slides. The track has notches separated by flanges; the plunger drops into a notch and blocks longitudinal travel, while the pads sit under the flanges to block vertical lift. A third embodiment spring-urges the plunger downward. Operation is: insert pads through notches → slide longitudinally → press plunger down into a notch.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate any claim. It has no lever rotatably coupled to the body by a shaft — the plunger is reciprocated on a post, either by finger pressure or by a spring. Granted claim 1 and claim 10 each require a rotatable lever/first-shaft architecture, and claim 1 additionally requires the spring/saddle-member/second-shaft arrangement. Prete is best characterized as background art on the "insert through opening → translate → engage a member into the opening to block sliding" concept (relevant to claim 10's insertion/translation steps but missing the actuation-member architecture).

US 4,213,593 A — Weik — "Aircraft seat with concealed locking and releasing mechanism"

• Filing: May 25, 1979; Granted: July 22, 1980; Assignee: Koehler-Dayton, Inc. (verified). Sole claim recites the track/cover/seat/lever combination.
• Description (verified from the specification text): A seat-leg locking assembly with a vertically displaceable plunger/stud carrying a button at the bottom; the seat is inserted (button through a vertical opening), then translated longitudinally so a reduced-diameter section rides in the interconnecting slot. A pivotally mounted control lever 46 with camming elements 48 cams the plunger into forced engagement with the track channel interior.
• § 102 assessment: The closest of the verified references, but still not anticipating. This is the strongest candidate to attack claim 10 (the broader independent claim), because Weik discloses a lever pivotally mounted to the assembly that, via cam elements, drives an engagement member to clamp the track, combined with the insert-then-translate installation sequence. It fails on claim 10's "first shaft" coupling recitation if read strictly, and fails entirely on claim 1, which requires a spring disposed between the body and a saddle member biasing both the saddle and the lever away from the body, plus a second shaft rotatably coupling the saddle member to the lever and permitted to move relative to the saddle member. Weik has none of those. Expect Weik to be an obviousness ( § 103) reference, not a § 102 anticipation.

US 4,493,470 A — Engel — "Rapid action clamping for cooperation with slot tracks"

• Filing: Aug. 30, 1982; Granted: Jan. 15, 1985; Assignee: Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke GmbH (verified via Google Patents cross-citation; assignee appears in a related citation table).
• Description: A rapid-action (quick-clamp) device for gripping a slotted seat track — consistent with the toggle/cam-clamp family of seat-rail fittings. I did not retrieve the full specification, so the internal mechanism is unverified.
• § 102 assessment: Cannot be confirmed as anticipating; on the available metadata, unlikely. A "rapid action clamping" device may disclose a manually operable clamp with a lever-like member, which would put it in the same bucket as Weik — potentially probative against claim 10's actuation-member recitation but silent on claim 1's saddle-member/spring/second-shaft limitations. Verification of its lever and spring architecture is needed before any § 102 assertion.

US 4,771,969 A — Dowd — track fitting

• Filing: July 27, 1987; Granted: Sept. 20, 1988; Assignee: Sabre Industries, Inc. (filing/grant dates and assignee verified via Google Patents cross-citation; title not captured).
• Description: Unverified. Appears in the same aircraft-track-fitting citation cluster as the other references.
• § 102 assessment: Indeterminate. Cannot assign claims without the disclosure.

B. References I could not verify in this pass

For the following, I have the citation and face-of-record date only (as printed on US 7,785,053); I did not retrieve their specifications, and I will not fabricate descriptions:

Note on DE 202004015211 — a date discrepancy worth flagging. The patent's own face lists this document as "1/2005." However, a Google Patents citation table for the related Boeing family shows DE 202004015211 U1 with priority 2004-09-28 and publication 2004-12-02, applicant Allsafe Jungfalk GmbH & Co. If the 2004-12-02 publication date is correct, the face-of-record "1/2005" may refer to a different bibliographic event (or be an artifact). Either way it predates the Mar. 31, 2006 priority date and is available as § 102(b)/§ 102(a)-type art — but confirm the exact document and its date on Espacenet/DPMA before relying on it.

4. The threshold problem with any § 102 theory here

Two structural points dominate the analysis, and I want to state them plainly rather than invent anticipation:

1. Every claim is a method claim, and every claim is dependent on claim 1 or claim 10. Both independent claims require a lever rotatably coupled to the body by a first shaft. Claim 1 additionally requires a spring between the body and a saddle member, biasing both the saddle member and the lever away from the body, plus a second shaft rotatably coupling the saddle member to the lever and permitted to move relative to the saddle member, plus a self-alignment translating step. Any reference lacking a rotatable lever-and-shaft linkage cannot anticipate any claim on the face of the granted text. That alone eliminates Prete outright and creates a strong presumption against most of the others.

2. These are examiner-considered references in a patent that issued. The (56) list is the record of what was before the examiner. The claims allowed over this art. So a § 102 anticipation theory built on any single one of these references is, prima facie, an uphill argument — the more natural legal roles for them are § 103 obviousness combinations (e.g., Weik's cam-lever clamp + a spring-biased quick-release mechanism) or background art under the "field of the invention" heading. I have not found any of them to be a clean single-reference anticipation of claims 1 or 10.

Claim-level summary of the strongest (but not confirmed) § 102 candidates:

Caveat on claims 10 and 13: Consistent with the earlier section of this analysis, my retrieval of granted claim 10's middle recitations and claim 13 was truncated. The claim-10 assessment above is therefore provisional — if claim 10 omits the saddle-member/spring architecture (as the granted claim 1 does not), the Weik reference becomes materially more relevant against it, and that question should be resolved by reading the printed claim column directly.

5. Related-art items worth noting separately

• US 11/278,293 (filed Mar. 31, 2006 — parent, incorporated by reference) and US 11/278,298 (filed Mar. 31, 2006 — related, incorporated by reference): these are the applicant's own co-pending applications. They are not "prior art" in the classic sense but are potential § 102(e) / § 102(a)(2) references depending on the effective filing date ultimately accorded to any given claim of the CIP, and should be evaluated separately from the (56) list.
• US 2007/0232101 A1 (the pre-grant publication of this very application) and US 8,128,326 B2 (family member claiming priority from the 11/278,293 family) are not prior art to the patent; they are family members.
• Prosecution relevance: As noted in the earlier section, published claim 1 was materially broader than granted claim 1. That means the prior-art comparison that matters is against the granted text — comparing these references to the published application's claim 1 would overstate the risk (and misstate the claims).

6. Bottom line

• Verified: the patent number, the eleven U.S. references and two German documents on its face, and the full disclosure of Prete (3,605,637) and Weik (4,213,593).
• No cited reference is a confirmed § 102 anticipation of claim 1. Claim 1's lever + spring + saddle member + first/second shaft combination is not disclosed in either reference I was able to read in full.
• The best (unconfirmed) § 102 candidate is US 4,213,593 (Weik) against claim 10, on the strength of its pivotally mounted cam lever that drives a plunger into channel-clamping engagement after insert-then-translate installation — and even there the "first shaft" recitation and the truncated claim-10 text make the conclusion provisional.
• Remaining gaps: US 3,282,229; 4,396,175; 4,771,969; 5,337,979; 6,299,230; 6,626,623; 6,918,722; DE 2556000; and DE 202004015211 were not verified in this pass — their descriptions and any claim-by-claim mapping are unsupported, and I have said so rather than guess.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the actual prior-art references of record rather than relying on memory. Let me pull details on the key cited references.

Let me pull the remaining key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,785,053 B2

"Single tough locking seat fittings and methods" (Hudson; Boeing; filed 2006‑10‑12; priority 2006‑03‑31; issued 2010‑08‑31)

Scope note / contradiction flagged. The previously generated Patent summary section states that granted claim 1 added lever, spring, saddle‑member, first‑shaft and second‑shaft limitations relative to published claim 1, and that claim 1's text was verified verbatim while claim 10's middle section and claim 13 were not. The verbatim SUMMARY text in the patent itself (reproduced in the patent text above) recites only the couple → engage → translate → actuate sequence for the "one embodiment." These two things are in tension. I therefore run the analysis at two levels of scope: (A) the broad method concept as published/ summarized, and (B) the narrower lever/spring/saddle architecture that the earlier section says actually issued. Where a limitation is only in (B), I say so.

1. Legal framework applied

• Graham v. John Deere factors: scope and content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): combination of known elements is obvious where it yields no more than predictable results; "a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way… using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." Also relevant: "obvious to try," design incentives/market forces, and the predictability of mechanical substitution.
• PHOSITA here: a mechanical design engineer with ~3–5 years in aircraft interior/payload‑restraint fittings and commercial seat‑track hardware; familiar with B64D 11/0696 and the standard 1‑inch‑pitch seat track.
• All references of record predate even the filing date (2006‑10‑12), so every reference qualifies as prior art under § 102(a)/(b) and is available for § 103.

2. The prior art of record (what each reference actually discloses)

This table is limited to the citations printed on the face of US 7,785,053 as reported in the earlier Patent summary section, with what I could independently verify from live sources.

Field overlap. Every reference is either aircraft seat track hardware (B64D 11/0696; Weber, Sabre) or cargo/vehicle slot‑track hardware (B60P 7/06; Aeroquip/Elsner, Engel). These are the classic analogous arts — indeed, the '053 specification itself cites the same dual context ("cargo containers, cargo pallets, and other payload articles"), and the cited art is what the examiner used.

3. Grounds of rejection

Below, references are combined per the examiner's own of‑record art, in the combinations the record invites.

Ground 1 — Weik (US 4,213,593) in view of Elsner '229 (US 3,282,229): independent claim 1 (broad scope), claims 4, 6–9, and 10

Weik supplies every step of the method:

• couple payload to a body → seat leg 12 carrying the seat locking assembly;
• engage an insertion portion into the channel → button 16 through vertical opening 30;
• translate from a first position to a second position, constrained from movement away → "the seat is then longitudinally displaced locating the reduced diameter section 28 of the plunger within one of the slots 32," whereupon the larger button 16 underlies the track flange and cannot be withdrawn;
• actuate an engagement member from unsecured to secured → the "pivotally mounted control lever… displaceable from an elevated release position to a lowered locking position."

Elsner '229 supplies the automatic, spring‑biased locking that Weik leaves partly manual — in particular the feature of claims 6–8 that makes the lock self‑actuating upon reaching the aligned position.

Motivation. Weik's own stated object (no hand tools, minimum time) is precisely the problem '053's Background recites; Elsner's spring‑biased latch is a well‑understood expedient for retaining a fitting in a track notch and is proven in the very same field. A PHOSITA seeking to make Weik's lever lock foolproof (prevent the lever drifting out of the locking position) would predictably reach for a spring‑biased detent.

Ground 2 — Weik in view of Engel '470 and Bates '979: claims 1–5, 9, 10

Engel '470 supplies:

• a lever/actuation member coupled to the body, spring‑loaded and biased between two positions;
• clamping — the crown ring "clamps and holds the mushroom shaped posts and the latch element housing… against opposite sides of the slot track" — i.e., the "channel being engaged by the at least one engagement member and the insertion portion" language of claims 1/10;
• the bias into the unsecured position of claim 4 (the handle "hold[s] the cylindrical post against the force of the locking spring in one position, while ensuring locking action of the spring in the other position").

Bates '979 supplies:

• the alternating clearance openings / flange segments geometry of claim 5 and the plunger seated against the flanges;
• the locking mechanism on the actuating arm (parent of claims 6–8), and the express long‑felt‑need narrative that mirrors '053's background.

Motivation. Engel and Bates are each expressly directed at the same problem — Engel says "clamping without utilization of tools"; Bates says "a long felt need exists for track fittings which permit installation and removal of seats much more quickly." Substituting Engel's crown‑ring clamp for Weik's button‑under‑flange grip, and Bates' spring plunger for Weik's lever‑driven plunger, is a predictable mechanical substitution with no new result.

Ground 3 — Engel '470 as primary, in view of Weik and DE 2556000: claims 1, 4, 5, 10

Engel alone is arguably the broadest teaching of a tool‑less, spring‑biased, clamp‑and‑lock slot‑track fitting using spaced inserts whose spacing is an integral multiple of the aperture pitch (which inherently performs the self‑alignment function of claim 1 step (g)). DE 2556000, cited on '053's face and identified by Engel as the pre‑existing clamping element, confirms this was a recognized design lineage, not an inventor's insight. Weik adds the pivoting actuation lever and the drop‑in/slide/lock sequence.

Ground 4 — Weik in view of Dowd '969: claims 1, 5, 9 (and to the extent issued claim 1 recites a saddle member, claim 1)

Dowd supplies the insertion finger + laterally projecting lugs into clearance openings, and — critically — a yoke "configured to straddle the finger and extend into openings in the track," which is the structural analogue of the saddle member with locking arms of the FIG. 12–15/35–36 embodiments. Dowd's head section pivoting about a horizontal axis corresponds to the saddle/lever pivot.

Ground 5 — Alternate: Weik + Engels + Bates as applied to claims 10–13

Claim 10's "actuation member… coupled to at least one engagement member such that in the unsecured position the engagement member is withdrawn from the channel and in the secured position it engages the channel" is met directly by Weik's lever/plunger (withdrawn/lowered) and by Engel's handle/locking post ("hold the cylindrical post against the force of the locking spring in one position" vs. "locking action of the spring in the other").

4. Claim‑by‑claim chart (primary combination: Weik + Engel + Bates + Elsner '229)

5. Motivation to combine (the crux)

1. Identical field and problem. Every reference addresses retaining a fitting in a slotted track of a vehicle floor. '053's own Background ("approximately twenty minutes… several man‑hours… hand tools such as socket wrenches") is a near‑verbatim restatement of US 5,337,979's background ("ten and fifteen minutes for each seat… several manhours") and of Weik's stated object.
2. Express statements of the objective. Weik: no hand tools, "absolute minimum of time." Engel: "without utilization of tools… held and fixed without play." Bates: "long felt need… much more quickly." These are the motivation statements a § 103 analysis wants, and they are of record on the face of '053.
3. Predictable mechanical substitution. A pivoting lever driving a spring‑biased plunger, and a spring detent latching a lock in one of two positions, are the archetypal "familiar elements… arranged as the prior art teaches" (KSR). The combination yields no unexpected result — it does exactly what each reference says it does.
4. Design incentives / market forces. Aircraft "combi" reconfiguration economics (seat‑pitch changes, cargo/passenger conversion) supply a documented market pull toward tool‑less, quick‑change fittings; that pull is recited both in '053 and in the prior art.
5. Common ownership/interchangeability of parts. Weik, Bates and Dowd all use the standard 1‑inch‑pitch seat track; a PHOSITA combining them needs no redesign of the track interface.

Anticipation‑flavored note: Weik alone discloses the method as broadly summarized; once the claim is narrowed by structure (if the earlier section is correct), the structural elements are supplied by Engel/Bates/Dowd, and the combination is still a predictable aggregation of known fittings.

6. Secondary considerations (and why they are weak here)

• Long‑felt need / failure of others: Cuts for the patentee on its face — but the record shows the failure was already being solved: Weik (1980) and Engel (1985) both delivered tool‑less installations decades before '053, so the "need" was met, not unmet.
• Commercial success: No evidence in the record tying any success to the specific lever/spring/saddle/second‑shaft architecture (nexus would be required).
• Unexpected results: None apparent; each claimed function is separately disclosed.
• Copying: None evidenced; and no litigation was identified (see the earlier Litigation summary — a null result only, not affirmative clearance).

7. Where the obviousness case is weaker — candid assessment

1. The specific "saddle member + second shaft movable within it" sub‑assembly. If granted claim 1 truly recites a spring between the body and a saddle member with the second shaft slidable relative to the saddle member, no single reference I verified teaches that exact arrangement. Dowd's yoke and Weik's oblong‑opening shaft mount are close analogues, but a challenger would want US 4,396,175 (Long et al.) and US 6,299,230 / 6,626,623 / 6,918,722 pulled and read, since those are the of‑record references I could not verify.
2. The explicit "self‑alignment portion abutting" step. Engel's integral‑multiple‑pitch spacing and Bates' crescent receptacles perform the function inherently, but they are not described as "self‑alignment" members; a secondary reference or expert declaration would strengthen the mapping.
3. Claim‑text uncertainty. The earlier section expressly flags that claim 10's middle recitations and claim 13 were not fully retrieved. Any charting of claims 10 and 13 above is provisional and must be re‑run against the printed claim columns before being relied upon.
4. Name discrepancy to resolve: the '053 face lists "Bates et al." for US 5,337,979, while secondary sources spell it "Bales." I have not auto‑corrected either; confirm from the printed patent.
5. References not verified (all of record): US 3,605,637 (Prete), US 4,396,175 (Long et al.), US 6,299,230 B1 (Oettl), US 6,626,623 B2 (DeLay), US 6,918,722 B1 (Girardin), and DE 202004015211. Each could either strengthen (if cumulative) or complicate (if one is a better primary) the grounds above.

8. Bottom line

• The broad method concept (couple → drop into channel → slide to seat → actuate a lock) is squarely disclosed by Weik (US 4,213,593), which also supplies the express inability‑of‑tools rationale that '053 itself recites as the problem.
• A strong prima facie § 103 case exists on a combination of Weik + Engel '470 + Bates '979, with Elsner '229 supplying the automatic, spring‑biased "locks only when aligned" feature of claims 6–8, and Dowd '969 supplying the insertion‑finger/lug and yoke (saddle) structure.
• The motivation is documented within the references themselves (no‑tool, minimum‑time objectives in Weik and Engel; long‑felt‑need in Bates), satisfying the KSR "articulated reasoning" requirement without resort to hindsight.
• The residual non‑obviousness risk sits in the narrow structural recitations of the granted independent claim (saddle member + relatively movable second shaft) and in any claim 10/13 limitations not yet verified — those are the pressure points to attack or defend, respectively.