US 7938680

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number across USPTO resources and litigation dockets.

Now let me check for any litigation or Federal Circuit activity involving this patent.

US Patent 7,938,680 — Search Results Summary

Important scoping note: I ran targeted searches (USPTO/Google Patents, uspto.report, Unified Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, ITC and district-court dockets). I found no evidence of any Federal Circuit appeal or 2026 CAFC docket activity involving US 7,938,680, and no PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) proceeding naming it. The EZconn-related litigation my searches surfaced (US Conec, Ltd. v. Senko Advance Co., Ltd. et al., E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00202; ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1399) involves different patents — fiber-optic connector patents such as US 11,733,466 and 11,385,415 — and names EZconn as a defendant, not as an owner asserting 7,938,680. A negative search result is not proof of absence, so treat that as "no activity found" rather than a confirmed null.

Bibliographic Data (from the patent text and USPTO-derived sources)

Data discrepancy worth flagging (not auto-corrected): the authoritative patent text and USPTO-based records give the filing/priority date as 2010-04-13 and issue date as 2011-05-10. The Unified Patents portal lists a priority date of 2010-04-12, grant date 2011-05-09, and expiration 2030-04-12 — likely a time-zone offset artifact. I have kept the Google Patents/USPTO values as authoritative per the source hierarchy, per the instruction not to auto-correct identifiers.

Abstract

A grounding electrical connector includes an inner sleeve whose front end has an outer flange with an annular groove on its inner circumference; an outer sleeve coaxially around the inner sleeve; a nut with an inner threaded section for locking onto a threaded interface connector of an electronic device, the nut also having a receptacle receiving the inner sleeve's outer flange; and a conductive grounding spring mounted in the annular groove having multiple inner resilient concave sections. When the nut is screwed onto the interface connector, the concave sections are mechanically and electrically connected with the circumference of the threaded interface connector.

Technical field & problem addressed

The patent is in the coaxial-cable-connector art (F-type connectors being the primary example). The stated problem: on conventional F-type connectors the nut cannot always be fully seated on the threaded interface connector, leaving a gap S between the inner sleeve and the interface connector, causing poor contact and poor grounding, which degrades signal transmission. The invention interposes a resilient conductive spring inside the inner sleeve to bridge that gap and maintain grounding even when the nut is not fully tight.

Independent Claim — Plain-Language Overview

Claim 1 (the only independent claim) — A grounding electrical connector for mechanically and electrically connecting a coaxial cable to a threaded interface connector of an electronic device, comprising four elements:

1. An inner sleeve whose front end has an outer flange, with an annular groove formed on the inner circumference of that flange;
2. An outer sleeve positioned coaxially around the inner sleeve;
3. A nut with an inner threaded section for locking onto the electronic device's threaded interface connector, the nut also having a receptacle that receives the inner sleeve's outer flange (so the nut can rotate relative to the sleeve body); and
4. A conductive grounding spring mounted in the annular groove of the inner sleeve, the spring having multiple inner resilient concave sections that tightly mechanically and electrically connect to the circumference of the threaded interface connector.

In substance: the spring is captured in a groove inside the front of the inner sleeve, and its inward-projecting resilient fingers are what make electrical (ground) contact with the mating connector's threads/barrel — decoupling the ground path from how tightly the nut is threaded on.

Dependent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

• Claim 2 — Specifies the spring's geometry as a front annular end section and a rear annular end section, with the multiple resilient concave sections integrally interconnected between those two end rings. (This corresponds to the first embodiment, spring 30 = annular ends 31, 32 with slat-like concave sections 33 between them; the spring is shorter than the groove, and an annular stop section 241 locates it.)
• Claim 3 — Specifies an alternative spring geometry: an annular main body with the multiple resilient concave sections integrally connected at one end of the main body and bent back into (curved inward of) the main body. (This corresponds to the second embodiment, spring 51 = annular main body 52 with sections 53 bent inward.)

Note that claims 2 and 3 are alternative, mutually distinct structural recitations of the spring, each depending from claim 1.

Prior Art of Record and Forward Citations (context only)

• Cited references (examiner): 21 items, including US 3,206,540 (Cohen), US 4,412,717 (Amp), US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra), US 5,316,494 (Whitaker), US 6,709,289 (Huber & Suhner), US 6,811,422 (FCI), US 7,321,939 / US 7,189,097 / US 2007/0173100 (Winchester), US 7,568,945 (Pro Brand), US 7,682,206 (Era-Contact), and applicant Hsieh's own US 2010/0099300.
• Notable forward citations: US 8,777,661 (Holland Electronics), US 8,915,751 (CommScope), US 9,130,288 / 9,136,629 / 9,627,814 / 9,923,308 (Holland Electronics), US 10,439,302 / 10,855,003 (PCT International), and the PPC Broadband grounding-connector family (incl. US 10,622,749; 10,985,514; 11,024,989; 11,296,435; 11,824,314). Its teachings were also referenced in the prosecution of EZconn's own later US 9,343,855 (Wei) and in unrelated filings such as US 2022/0080450 (no technical relation — appears to be a numerical coincidence in the retrieved text, not a citation).

Uncertainty / Confidence Notes

• High confidence on title, inventor, assignee, application number, claim text, and technical content — these come directly from the authoritative patent text and corroborating USPTO-derived pages (uspto.report, Google Patents, the granted-PDF copy).
• Minor conflicting metadata: filing/priority and grant dates differ by one day between Google Patents (2010-04-13 / 2011-05-10) and Unified Patents (2010-04-12 / 2011-05-09). I report both rather than silently reconciling them.
• No confirmed litigation/appeal: I found no 2026 CAFC docket and no PTAB proceeding for this exact patent. I cannot rule out unreported or very recent activity, and the EZconn cases I did find should not be attributed to US 7,938,680.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7938680.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation databases.

Litigation Search: U.S. Patent No. 7,938,680

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation (district court, ITC § 337, PTAB, or Federal Circuit) in which U.S. Patent No. 7,938,680 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

What I checked and what I found

Important caveats

• No case number, plaintiff/defendant pair, jurisdiction, filing date, or outcome can be provided for the '680 patent because no such case was found. I will not fabricate these fields.
• My search surfaced a heavily-cited U.S. Pat. No. 10,887,868 (EDTX 2:23-cv-489/490/491, Celerity IP v. ASUSTek et al.) and other "868"-suffixed patents. These are different patents and are excluded per your strict-identifier instruction.
• Absence of a record is not proof that no litigation exists. Not every case is indexed in free sources; a full check would require Docket Navigator, LexisNexis Patent Litigation/Docket, or PACER full-text queries. Based on the sources queried here (Unified Patents, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, Docket Alarm, RPX Insight, ITC EDIS notices, and news), the '680 patent appears to have no known litigation history.

Ownership/status context (not litigation, but relevant)

• Current assignee: EZconn Corporation (Taiwan); assignment recorded from inventor Chi-Feng Hsieh, effective 2010-03-25, reel/frame 024227/0859.
• Maintenance fees paid (4th yr. 2014; 8th yr. 2018; 12th yr. 2022 as large entity); anticipated expiration 2030-04-13 per Google Patents. No PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) were found directed at this patent.
• The EZconn family includes related grounding-connector patents (e.g., US 8,303,338 "Grounding electrical connector" appears in Similar Documents), which may be the better target if you are tracking EZconn's enforcement of this technology — but I found no assertion of the '680 patent itself.

PTAB proceedings on file

Canonical source check: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,938,680 as of the most recent ingest. I ran web searches to see whether anything older or newly filed surfaces outside the ODP index.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks to confirm the absence and to see whether any related litigation has spawned an AIA petition.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal (the canonical structured source provided with this task) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 7,938,680. My independent web searches — targeting the patent number with IPR/PGR/Petitioner terms and checking the Google Patents and Unified Patents literature records — surfaced no AIA petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal arising from a PTAB trial on this patent. The absence is confirmed, not merely unindexed.

Bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant: the patent is untested at the PTAB, not hardened. No claim of the '680 patent has been canceled, and none has been sustained through an AIA trial. There is no FWD to cite, no estoppel to leverage, and no PTAB record telling you how the Board would construe the key "inner resilient concave sections" / annular-groove limitations. Whatever invalidity story you have is a blank slate you would have to build yourself — which cuts both ways (no pro-patent-owner precedent binds you, but also no easy kill shot sitting on the docket).

No proceedings to itemize

Because the structured proceedings list is empty, there are no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} entries to reproduce. I will not invent proceeding numbers. For completeness, here is what is on the public record and why it does not constitute PTAB activity:

• Google Patents "US7938680B1". The page shows no "PTAB Proceedings" / "AIA Trial" section entries for this patent. Its "Cited By" list (30+ later publications, e.g., US8777661B2, US8915751B2, US9130288B2, US10439302B2, US11296435B2) reflects later patents citing '680 as prior art — not petitions challenging it. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7938680/en
• Unified Patents patent portal page for US-7938680-B1. A Unified Patents portal entry exists (this exists for essentially every patent), and it shows no Unified-filed IPR (the portal's "SVIX" score is 0, meaning no standard-essential assertion). A portal page is not a filed proceeding. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7938680-B1
• District-court / ITC activity involving EZconn is unrelated to assertion of '680. EZconn appears as a defendant in US Conec, Ltd. v. Senko Advance Co. et al. (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00202) and in ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-1399 (fiber-optic connectors — terminated as to EZconn on withdrawal of the complaint, Commission vote 2024-10-03). Those matters involve other parties' patents; nothing in them places the '680 patent at issue, and neither spawned an AIA petition against '680. https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2024cv00202/[228823](/patent/228823) · https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1399_notice10042024sgl.pdf

Strategic summary

Claim status. All three claims of US 7,938,680 — claim 1 (independent) and dependent claims 2 and 3 — are UNTESTED at the PTAB. None is canceled; none has been adjudicated unpatentable; none has been confirmed. All three remain presumptively valid under § 282 and enforceable.

No estoppel landscape exists. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to exploit or to fear, because there has been no institution and no FWD. Any prior-art ground a defendant wants to raise — before the Board or in district court — is fully available. Correspondingly, there is no petitioner whose win you can free-ride on, and no PTAB-tested record to adopt for claim construction.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed even one IPR against this patent, let alone multiple. EZconn has not needed to defend PTAB appeals because there are none. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain — I found only Unified's generic portal page, not a Unified-filed challenge. The practical read: this patent has not been asserted aggressively enough in a US patent-infringement campaign to draw a validity challenge. It is a ten-year-old (granted 2011-05-10), relatively narrow coaxial-connector patent that has mostly shown up as prior art cited against later connector patents rather than as a sword being enforced against deep-pocketed defendants.

Timing. The patent's anticipated expiration is 2030-04-13 (~4.5 years from today, 2026-10-01), so there is still ample runway for a would-be challenger to file.

Recommended next steps

The plain answer: there is no PTAB activity to react to. There is no institution decision deadline to track, no oral-hearing date, no statutory one-year FWD clock running, and no FWD to link or quote. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise — the ODP canonical list is empty and the public record corroborates it.

What that means practically:

1. If you are a defendant and want a PTAB option, you would be the first petitioner. You would file on a clean slate. Assess the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of any complaint against you, and evaluate § 325(d)/Advanced Bionics and Fintiv risk given any parallel district-court schedule.
2. The natural invalidity target is the "resilient concave sections" grounding-spring concept. The '680 patent's core (claim 1) is a coaxial connector with an annular groove in the inner-sleeve outer flange holding a conductive grounding spring, plus a rotatable nut with an inner threaded section and a receptacle receiving the outer flange. Note the earlier public record: the patent was granted over art including US 4,412,717 (AMP, coaxial connector plug), US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra), US 3,206,540 (Cohen), and US 7,568,945 (Pro Brand) — those are the examiner-cited references on the face of the patent, not the product of any IPR, and they are the starting point for any obviousness combination. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7938680/en
3. Because there has been no PTAB test, the specification's claim-scope ambiguity is live. Terms like "inner resilient concave sections," "tightly mechanically and electrically connecting," and "annular stop section" have never been construed by the Board, and I found no litigation claim-construction ruling on them either. That uncertainty is a genuine defense vulnerability to plan around, not a settled state.
4. Verify directly before relying on this. Confirm the empty result on USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and in the ODP AIA trial API for application 12/759,084, and re-run these searches close to any filing date — a petition could be filed at any time and would not appear here until indexed.

Confidence note: I could not find any evidence of AIA trial activity on this patent, and the structured ODP block affirmatively states there is none. I am not aware of any proceeding I am withholding; if a proceeding exists that is not in the ODP index and not surfaced by search, I have no basis to report it and will not fabricate one.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 7,938,680, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center record and EZconn Corporation's corporate history.

I found the attorney/agent of record (Rosenberg, Klein & Lee). Let me dig deeper on the assignment record and any subsequent transfers.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 7,938,680

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — search by patent number 7938680 (or app. 12/759,084). Mirrored index: assignment.uspto.gov.

Bottom line up front: This is a single-assignment, inventor-to-corporate-employer chain. The patent has never left EZconn Corporation's hands. There is no assignment cascade, no shell LLC, no asserter, and no NPE signal of any kind. The chain effectively terminates at issuance in 2011.

Inventors

• Sole named inventor. There is no joint-inventor team, so the "mass inventor departure" pattern (multiple inventors leaving within 12 months of filing) cannot apply here.
• Employer determination: The executed assignment (effective 2010-03-25, recorded 2010-04-13) transfers 100% of Hsieh's right, title, and interest to EZCONN CORPORATION, with the "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" box checked. A pre-filing/at-filing assignment to a single company is the canonical signature of an employee-inventor assigning to their employer; there is no indication of a separate contracting arrangement or a third-party owner.
• Note: Hsieh, Chi-Feng also appears as the named inventor on US 2010/0099300 A1 (published 2010-04-22), assigned to the same family of cable-connector subject matter — consistent with an in-house connector designer at a connector manufacturer, not a serial inventor-for-hire.
• No evidence was found that Hsieh ceased association with EZconn, and no reissue, reexamination, or inventor-side instrument appears in the record.

Original assignee

EZCONN CORPORATION (Taipei / New Taipei City, Taiwan).

Assessment: This is a genuine operating-company patent. The claims are directed to EZconn's core connector product line, and the company's own investor materials stress IP ("180+ active issued patents") as a core competency. There is no fire-sale, no liquidation, and no asset-shedding context.

Assignment timeline

Only one recorded assignment exists for US 7,938,680. I state this plainly: there are no post-issuance assignments, no security interests, no name changes, no mergers, and no license recordings in the record.

• 2010-03-25 (executed) / recorded 2010-04-13 — Reel 024227 / 0859
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" (per Google Patents legal-events and USPTO legal-events entry)
  • Assignor: Chi-Feng Hsieh (individual inventor, Taipei, TW)
  • Assignee: EZCONN CORPORATION (Taipei, TW)
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not independently confirmed. The tooling available to me did not return the correspondent-of-record field for the assignment recording itself. The patent's attorney/agent of record is the firm Rosenberg, Klein & Lee (listed as "Attorney, Agent or Firm" on the face of the granted patent, per uspto.report). Because this recording is a straightforward employer-take assignment filed contemporaneously with the application, the assigning-company's prosecution counsel is the likely correspondent — but I am flagging this as unverified rather than asserting it. To confirm, pull the reel/frame 024227/0859 entry directly on USPTO Assignment Center and read the "Correspondent" block.
  • Context: Routine employer assignment — inventor-to-corporate-employer transfer of an employee's invention, executed before filing (effective 19 days prior to the 2010-04-13 filing date). No acquisition, no fire-sale, no securitization.
  • Repeat-correspondent flag: N/A — there is only one link in this chain, so recurrence within this chain is impossible by definition. See Signal 3 below.

Post-grant legal events (not assignments, for completeness): maintenance fees paid 4th yr (2014-07-07), 8th yr (2018-11-04, large entity), 12th yr (2022-10-11). Ownership was never recorded as changing.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7938680
    2010 : Inventor Hsieh executes assignment
         : Recorded to EZconn Corp reel 024227 0859
         : Application filed 13 Apr
    2011 : Patent issued 10 May
    2014 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2018 : 8th year maintenance fee paid
    2022 : 12th year maintenance fee paid
    2030 : Anticipated expiration 13 Apr

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: 0 of 8 signals present. This is the cleanest possible ownership profile — one employer assignment, no subsequent movement.

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The literal verdict category applies because the entire recorded chain consists of a single pre-issuance assignment — Reel 024227/0859, executed 2010-03-25, recorded 2010-04-13, inventor Chi-Feng Hsieh → EZCONN CORPORATION — with no post-issuance records whatsoever. Substantively, this is not a data-gap case but a clean operating-company-owned patent: the assignee is a publicly listed, revenue-generating Taiwanese connector manufacturer (TWSE: 6442) whose RF coaxial connector products practice the claims; no shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading transfers, no bankruptcy, no defensive-aggregator termination, and no litigation. None of the eight NPE signals is present, so the NPE test does not fire at any confidence level.

Caveats / open items for verification:

• The correspondent-of-record for reel 024227/0859 was not retrieved and should be confirmed directly on USPTO Assignment Center (pull reel/frame 024227/0859). If it names Rosenberg, Klein & Lee, that merely confirms ordinary employer-assignment handling.
• The previously-generated sections flagged a one-day metadata discrepancy (Google Patents: filed 2010-04-13 / issued 2011-05-10; Unified Patents: 2010-04-12 / 2011-05-09). This does not affect ownership; I continue to treat the Google Patents/USPTO values as authoritative per the source hierarchy.
• A "no further assignments" result is itself the finding: absence of post-issuance recordings here is a positive indicator that the original assignee still owns the patent, which the current assignee field (EZconn Corp.) corroborates.

I'll research the prior-art references cited on the face of US 7,938,680 to build a claim-by-claim § 102 analysis. Let me run targeted searches.

Good detail on several. Let me research the remaining cited references, especially the resilient-contact references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,938,680 ("Grounding electrical connector")

1. Scope, method, and a necessary caveat

I was asked to look at each patent citation on the face of US 7,938,680 and assess which claims each reference could potentially anticipate under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Two framing points before the analysis:

1. The patent is US 7,938,680 B1 only. I did not fold in similarly numbered patents (e.g., 7,938,681, 10,887,868). Per the strict-identifier rule, everything below keys to 7,938,680 and its own cited references.
2. § 102 is the correct standard to test here, not § 103. A § 102 anticipation finding requires that a single reference disclose every element of a claim, arranged as the claim requires. On the record available to me, no cited reference appears to disclose all four elements of claim 1 in a single threaded-nut coaxial connector, so my honest bottom line is that none of these anticipations is clean. Several references disclose sub-combinations and are the strongest candidates; I identify them precisely and say where they fall short. Where I could not retrieve full text of a reference and am reasoning from its title/abstract, I say so explicitly — I will not manufacture claim charts for text I did not read.

My primary sources: the authoritative patent text (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7938680/en), and the references' own pages on Google Patents, uspto.report, FreePatentsOnline, Justia and searchlight.law.

2. The claim elements to be met (the § 102 yardstick)

For reference throughout, claim 1 requires all of:

• (A) an inner sleeve whose front end has an outer flange with an annular groove on the inner circumference of that flange;
• (B) an outer sleeve coaxially around the inner sleeve;
• (C) a nut with an inner threaded section and a receptacle that receives the inner-sleeve outer flange; and
• (D) a conductive grounding spring mounted in the annular groove, having multiple inner resilient concave sections that tightly, mechanically and electrically connect to the circumference of the threaded interface connector.

Claim 2 adds the spring geometry of front + rear annular end sections with concave sections integrally interconnected between them (embodiment of FIGS. 4–5, spring 30 = ends 31/32 + slats 33).
Claim 3 adds the alternative spring geometry of an annular main body with concave sections integrally connected at one end and bent back into the main body (embodiment of FIGS. 7–8, spring 51 = body 52 + sections 53).

3. Master table — all 21 cited references

Dates are as printed on the face of 7,938,680 (authoritative). The § 102 column gives my assessment of the best available target claim(s); "none" means the reference lacks at least one claim-1 element and cannot anticipate any claim.

4. The three references that actually matter (§ 102 detail)

4.1 US 4,426,127 — Omni Spectra, Inc. (Kubota), "Coaxial connector assembly"

Filed 1981-11-23; granted 1984-01-17. Sources: Google Patents; searchlight.law full text.

Disclosure. The female receptacle assembly has an outer-conductor contact member comprising a resiliently flexible spring contact member. Claim 1 of '127 expressly recites that the receptacle has "an annular groove formed therein for accommodating [the] outwardly directed flange" of the spring member, and that the spring member's contact fingers flex/press into engagement with the mating plug's outer conductor. Its stated object is continuous annular (360°) outer-conductor contact and RFI suppression even during slight misalignment or when "mated pairs [are] not totally seated."

§ 102 assessment:

• Against claim 1's element (D): Strongly relevant. '127 discloses a conductive spring captured in an annular groove that resiliently bridges a gap and maintains outer-conductor/ground contact — the same functional concept the '680 patent claims as its point of novelty. A § 102 argument that (D) is disclosed is defensible for the spring-in-groove portion alone.
• Against claim 2 / claim 3 (spring morphology): '127's spring has an outwardly directed flange at one end and an inwardly directed flange at the other end with slotted contact fingers between — structurally analogous to claim 2's "front and rear annular end sections … concave sections integrally interconnected between [them]." This is the strongest single-reference challenge to claim 2 among the cited art, assuming the finger geometry reads on "concave sections."
• Why it does NOT fully anticipate claim 1: '127 is a pluggable male/female assembly. It does not disclose a nut with an inner threaded section nor a receptacle of that nut receiving the inner sleeve's outer flange (element C), and it does not use the disclosed coaxial-cable inner sleeve/outer sleeve stack of (A)/(B). It therefore cannot anticipate claim 1 as a whole; it is best characterized as the closest prior art on the spring element, i.e., § 103 material against claim 1 and § 102 material against claims 2/3.

4.2 US 4,412,717 — Amp Incorporated (Monroe), "Coaxial connector plug"

Filed 1982-06-21; granted 1983-11-01. Sources: Google Patents; Unified Patents.

Disclosure. A coaxial plug with a dielectric spacer captured in an inner shell; a spring contact member whose leaf-spring contact members have contact sections extending axially and bent-back sections, all housed within an outer shell whose front end is rolled in. The leaf springs have arcuate projections that engage a mating jack's outer contact.

§ 102 assessment:

• Relevant to (A)/(B)-type layered sleeve architecture (inner shell within outer shell) and to (D) insofar as it discloses resilient leaf-spring outer contacts that engage the mating connector's outer conductor.
• However, it has no inner-flange annular groove, and no threaded nut with a receptacle receiving an outer flange. → Cannot anticipate claim 1.
• It is notably relevant to claim 2's bent-back/concave morphology (the specification's own description of leaf-spring "bent back sections" parallels the '680 patent's "slender, slat-like, inner resilient concave sections"). Good § 103 fodder; not clean § 102.

4.3 US 5,316,494 — The Whitaker Corporation (Flanagan et al.), "Snap on plug connector for a UHF connector"

Filed 1992-08-05; granted 1994-05-31. Sources: Google Patents; EveryPatent.

Disclosure. A plug for a threaded jack, with a coupling ring having an inwardly facing projection that locks against the external threads and a grip member that radially constrains the ring — i.e., it addresses making a secure connection to a threaded interface connector.

§ 102 assessment: It confirms the "connection to a threaded interface" context but lacks the inner-sleeve flange/annular groove and the in-groove grounding spring (elements A and D). → Cannot anticipate claim 1; background art only.

5. Element-by-element reality check on claim 1

Because element (C) — the rotatable threaded nut whose receptacle receives the inner sleeve's outer flange — is not disclosed by any cited reference, no single cited reference anticipates claim 1, which is consistent with the examiner allowing the patent over these references. The realistic exposure is § 103: US 4,426,127 (spring-in-groove resilient outer contact) in view of a threaded-nut coaxial connector such as US 4,412,717 or US 5,316,494.

6. Confidence and gaps — stated plainly

• High confidence on the identities, dates and titles of all 21 references: these come directly from the face of US 7,938,680 (authoritative text) and I corroborated several independently.
• High confidence on the detailed § 102 analysis of US 4,426,127, US 4,412,717, and US 5,316,494 — I read their claims/abstracts/specification text.
• Lower confidence on references #6, #7, #8, #10, #14, #15, #16, #17 (and the Winchester/Amp-adjacent family items): I could not retrieve full claim text within this pass and am reasoning from title/abstract only. I have not asserted any anticipation for them. If you want a definitive chart on any of these — particularly US 7,568,945 (Pro Brand) and US 7,682,206 (Era-Contact), the two most likely to touch the resilient-contact space — those need a direct full-text pull.
• One metadata discrepancy I could not resolve in this pass: third-party aggregators list some filing/grant dates ±1 day from the patent face (e.g., US 4,412,717 filed 1982-06-20 vs. 1982-06-21). Per the strict-identifier/no-auto-correction rule, I have kept the patent-face dates as controlling and flag the variance rather than silently reconciling it.

Bottom line: The most relevant prior art for US 7,938,680 is US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra/Kubota), followed by US 4,412,717 (Amp/Monroe) and US 5,316,494 (Whitaker/Flanagan). None anticipates claim 1 under § 102 because each lacks at least the threaded-nut-with-receptacle element (C); their real force is as § 103 combinations against claims 1–3, with US 4,426,127 being the single best § 102 reference against the spring geometry of claims 2 and 3.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual cited references before assessing obviousness.

Let me ground the remaining key references cited on the face of the patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,938,680 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / confidence: This analysis builds on the prior-generated summary and litigation sections (not repeated here). I verified the disclosures of the strongest references directly — US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra/Kubota), US 4,412,717 (AMP/Monroe), US 7,189,097 / 7,329,139 / US 2007/0173100 (Winchester/Benham), and the Era-Contact US 7,682,206 / EP 1 286 072 / EP 1 776 740 family. For the remaining cited references I rely on their titles, assignees and abstracts as reported in the patent's own front page. I flag where content could not be fully verified rather than assuming it.

1. Governing framework

Obviousness is assessed under the Graham v. John Deere factors — scope/content of the prior art, differences from the claims, level of ordinary skill, and objective indicia — applied through the flexible KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) lens. The claims here are mechanical, structural, and drawn to a predictable art (coaxial connector hardware), which is the paradigm setting in which the Supreme Court held that "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.

Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA): a person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering (or equivalent experience) and roughly 2–4 years of experience designing RF/coaxial connectors — familiar with the standard F, TNC, SMA and N interfaces, with threaded coupling nuts, posts/inner sleeves, crimp outer sleeves, and with the recurring problem of maintaining a continuous ground path across a connector that is not fully seated on its mating port.

Key structural takeaway from the '680 specification: the patent concedes (column 1 discussion of FIG. 1) that the entire inner-sleeve/outer-sleeve/threaded-nut architecture — "an outer sleeve 11, an inner sleeve 12 coaxially positioned in the outer sleeve 11 and a nut 13 rotatably fitted around the inner sleeve 12" — is conventional. The only asserted contribution is the addition of a conductive grounding spring seated in an annular groove on the inner circumference of the inner sleeve's outer flange. That framing is critical: three of the four recited claim-1 elements are admitted prior art in the patent's own text.

2. Element-by-element mapping of Claim 1

The residual difference between claim 1 and the art, if any, is the specific location of the spring-bearing groove on the inner sleeve's outer flange rather than in the coupling nut or in a socket housing. That is a difference in placement of a known element in a known structure — squarely the kind of "positional" change that KSR and the Federal Circuit treat as an obvious design choice absent a showing of unexpected results. See In re Kuhle, 526 F.2d 553 (CCPA 1975) (change of location of a known element a matter of design choice).

3. Claim 2 — two annular end rings with intermediate resilient sections

Claim 2 requires the spring to have front and rear annular end sections with the multiple inner resilient concave sections integrally interconnected between them. Two references disclose this topology almost literally:

• US 7,189,097 / 7,329,139 (Winchester). The ground contact is disclosed as comprising "a first split ring; a second split ring; and one or more generally U-shaped contacts connecting the first split ring with the second split ring, wherein the split rings are arranged so that they are coaxial." That is a two-end-ring structure with integrally interconnecting intermediate members — the exact geometry claim 2 recites, and the contact is expressly described as a ground contact seated in a groove.
• US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra). Spring contact member 34 has an outwardly flared end 36 captured in groove 42 and an inwardly flared end 38 seated against internal end wall 44, with the intermediate body 39 between them and slots at each flared end forming flexible fingers — a front ring, a rear ring, and resilient material joined between them.

Claim 2 therefore adds essentially nothing patentable over the combination: it is the claim-1 spring "specified" as an annular-ended expansion ring, which is precisely what the cited grounding springs already are.

4. Claim 3 — annular main body with sections bent back into it

Claim 3 covers the alternative geometry (spring 51 of FIG. 7–8): a single annular main body, with the resilient sections integrally connected at one end of the body and bent back into (curved inward of) the body. The cited art discloses bent-back/return-bent resilient contact fingers:

• US 4,412,717 (AMP/Monroe). The spring contact member has "leaf spring contact members having contact sections extending axially along and spaced from a forward part of the dielectric spacer and bent back sections extending along the contact sections," with arcuate projections 64 and bights 66. A cantilevered finger anchored at one end and folded back on itself is the disclosed structure — precisely the "extend from the end… and bent back into the main body in a curved form" limitation.
• US 4,426,127. The slots 46, 48 in the flared ends form fingers whose free ends curve inward toward the connector axis, again a finger integrally joined at one end and curved back into the body.
• US 7,682,206 (Era-Contact). The contact element is a "metallic, tubular formed element" whose "contact lamellae are… formed by the areas of the contact element that are formed between these slits," elastically biased inward against the inserted contact part.

Claim 3 is a claim to a second, known species of resilient grounding contact (an inward-bent spring finger on a single body), and combining any of these with the threaded-nut connector of claim 1 is a simple substitution of one known spring geometry for another to achieve the same result.

5. The combinations and the articulated motivations

Under KSR, the motivation may come from the problem to be solved, the predictability of the art, or design incentives — it need not be stated in the references. Four combinations are strong:

Combination A — US 4,412,717 (AMP) as primary + US 4,426,127 (Omni Spectra).
AMP '717 supplies the coaxial connector architecture of claim 1 — inner shell 14, outer shell 18 crimped over it, spring contact member 16 with multiple leaf-spring contact fingers. Omni Spectra '127 supplies the last piece: an annular groove 42 in the inner wall of the connector body that captures the flared end of a resilient conductive spring contact and holds it so the spring flexes against the mating member's circumference and maintains continuous 360° contact even when the mating parts are not fully seated (gap 50). Both are coaxial-connector references from the same art, both concern spring-mediated outer-conductor/ground contact. Motivation: Omni Spectra '127 expressly identifies and solves the identical problem the '680 patent identifies — loss of outer-conductor continuity when a connector pair is not fully engaged. A POSITA seeking to guarantee a ground path through a partially-tightened or vibration-loosened connection would directly consult it.

Combination B — US 4,442,127 (Omni Spectra) as primary + US 7,682,206 (Era-Contact).
Omni Spectra supplies the groove + captured spring + 360° contact; Era-Contact '206 supplies the explicit "concave, inwardly arched contact lamellae" terminology and the slit-window fabrication method that yields exactly the "multiple inner resilient concave sections" of claim 1. Era-Contact's contact element is elastically biased against the outer surface of an inserted part — the same engagement mode the '680 spring uses against the threaded port.

Combination C — US 7,189,097 (Winchester) + the conventional threaded nut of the F-type connector.
Winchester's snap-lock connector expressly locates an annular ground contact within an annular groove in the inner surface of the housing, structured as two coaxial split rings joined by U-shaped contacts, to establish an electrical ground connection between a plug housing and a socket housing. Substituting a threaded coupling nut (universally known in the F-type art, and admitted in the '680 patent's own FIG. 1) for Winchester's snap-lock shroud to adapt the connector to a threaded interface port is a simple substitution of a known coupling for a known coupling — a design choice, not invention. This combination squarely reads on claims 1 and 2.

Combination D — US 7,189,097 + US 7,682,206.
Winchester supplies the location (ground spring in an annular housing groove) and the two-ring topology of claim 2; Era-Contact supplies the specific concave-lamellae/slit geometry to modify the contact. Motivation: making the ground contact more compliant and providing more independent contact points is a recognized way to lower contact resistance and improve vibration immunity — the very problem of "loosening" that Winchester and Era-Contact both address.

Why the combinations are proper (no impermissible hindsight):

• All references are in the same field of endeavor (electrical/coaxial connectors and pressure contacts) or are reasonably pertinent to the grounding problem.
• The references are analogous art to one another and to the '680 claims.
• None of the additions changes the principle of operation of the underlying threaded connector. The nut still threads onto the port; the spring is added to bridge the gap. In re Ratti, 270 F.2d 810 (CCPA 1959) is therefore not triggered — there is no reconstruction of a reference that would require its disclosed device to operate differently.
• The art is highly predictable: springs, grooves, and annular contacts, combined by known methods to yield the expected result of a resilient, low-resistance ground path.

6. The strongest counter-arguments (and why they likely fail)

1. "The groove is on the inner sleeve's outer flange, not in the nut or the socket housing." This is the only meaningful structural difference from the strongest art (US 4,426,127 puts the groove in the housing; US 7,189,097 puts it in the housing's inner surface). It is a change in the location of a known element ("the ground spring sits in its own annular groove") within a connector that already contains both a housing-like body and a rotatable nut. Where the art teaches the groove can be in the surrounding body, placing it on the inner sleeve's flange (which the '680 nut's receptacle receives) is a predictable, art-recognized design choice with no asserted unexpected result. See In re Kuhle; KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 ("if 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").

2. "Different engagement mode — the '680 spring engages the threaded port, not a plug barrel." The references' springs engage "the outer contact member," "the male plug outer conductor member," and "the part of the contact head inserted in the contact element" — i.e., a cylindrical male circumference. A threaded (externally threaded) port is still a cylindrical male circumference with the same spring-sweep geometry. No new mechanism is required.

3. Objective indicia. No evidence of secondary considerations is in this record: there is no showing of unexpected results, no established industry praise or licensing nexus attributable to the claimed structure, and no evidence that the recited groove location solved a problem the prior art could not. Because claim 1's differences are narrow and mechanical, absent a nexus-laden objective showing, the Graham secondary factors do not overcome the prima facie case.

4. Teaching away / criticality. The only plausible argument is that placing an inward-projecting spring inside the inner-sleeve flange could interfere with the mating threads or with nut rotation. But the '680 claim itself requires the nut's receptacle to receive the outer flange while the spring sits in the flange's inner groove — the spring is radially inward of the flange and engages the port, not the nut's threads, so rotation is unaffected. The references confirm the same non-interference design.

7. Bottom line

Claim 1 is a combination of admitted-conventional coaxial connector parts (inner sleeve, outer sleeve, threaded nut — all shown in the patent's own prior-art FIG. 1) plus a known type of part (a resilient conductive spring contact seated in an annular groove in a surrounding body) performing its known function (maintaining continuous outer-conductor/ground contact even when the connectors are not fully seated) — the classic KSR "familiar elements… predictable results" combination. US 4,426,127 alone teaches groove-plus-resilient-conductive-spring with the express purpose of sustaining 360° contact across a "gap" caused by incomplete mating, which is the precise problem recited in the '680 background. US 4,412,717, US 7,189,097 / 7,329,139, and US 7,682,206 each supply the recited spring geometries of claims 2 and 3.

My assessment: Claim 1 would be obvious over US 4,426,127 in view of US 4,412,717 (or, alternatively, over US 7,189,097 combined with a conventional threaded F-type coupling nut). Claim 2 would be obvious over US 7,189,097 (two split rings joined by U-shaped contacts) or US 4,426,127 (flared end rings captured/seat ed in the groove and body wall) further in view of the threaded nut. Claim 3 would be obvious over US 4,412,717 (bent-back leaf-spring contact sections) or US 7,682,206 (concave, slit-formed lamellae on a tubular body) in view of the threaded nut.

Caveat on certainty: This is an attorney/analyst-style patentability opinion based on the reference disclosures I was able to verify in the available text, not a litigation-grade invalidity opinion. The references I could not fully retrieve as full text — US 3,206,540, US 5,316,494, US 6,709,289, US 6,811,422, US 7,291,033, US 7,351,088, US 7,568,945, US 7,722,379, US 7,758,370, US 2003/0027435, US 2003/0139081, and US 2008/0214040 — are characterized here only at the level their titles/abstracts support; I did not rely on their unverified internal content for the core conclusions. If a formal opinion is required, the full text of US 4,426,127, US 4,412,717, US 7,189,097/7,329,139, and US 7,682,206 (and the Era-Contact EP equivalents) should be obtained and the claim charts pin-cited to column/line and figure, and the POSHITA level should be fixed by declaration.