US 8113849

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number, including USPTO status and any CAFC/litigation activity.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC activity involving this patent, and confirm current legal status.

Let me do one final check on litigation databases and current USPTO status.

US Patent 8,113,849 B2 — Analyst Summary

Verification note: I searched for this exact number and returned only results matching US 8,113,849 ("Docking system for use with a mobile medication cart"). I did not find any USPTO court docket or CAFC 2026 docket entry naming this patent. The closest name-match hits (e.g., Translogic Technology, Inc. v. Hitachi, Ltd., D. Or. 3:99-cv-00407) involve a different, unrelated "Translogic" (a semiconductor company) and do not relate to this patent or assignee. No assertion/litigation activity for '849 was located; I cannot rule out activity not indexed in the sources searched.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as issued)

The docking system includes a wall-mounted assembly having an extending contact portion which includes a set of power contacts for supplying power to a medication cart via a docking port located on the medication cart when the cart is engaged with the wall-mounted assembly. The contact portion includes a depending hook member which engages a spring-biased locking solenoid in the docking port to lock the cart to the wall-mounted assembly when the cart is moved into contact with the wall-mounted assembly. The cart can be unlocked by a signal to the locking solenoid from the cart or manually.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — the base docking system (wall side + cart side + release).
A wall-mounted assembly has a contact portion with power contacts that feed power to the cart when connected. Structurally, that contact portion has (a) a base section attachable to a wall, (b) an extending section holding the power contacts, and (c) a shroud covering the base section that is shaped to mate against the cart's exterior surface. The wall assembly also has a depending (downward-hanging) hook member. On the cart side, a docking port contains receiving contacts that mate with the wall's power contacts to take in power, plus a spring-biased locking solenoid that engages the hook to lock the cart to the wall assembly. Finally, some unlocking system lets a user move the cart away. (In other words: hang-and-latch mechanical dock that also electrically connects for charging.)

Claim 8 — the manual-release variant.
Covers the same wall-assembly/power-contacts/hook plus cart docking port/receiving contacts/spring-biased solenoid combination as claim 1 (without the base-section/shroud limitation), but requires that the unlocking system be a manual mechanical system operated by the user, specifically a lever assembly that a user operates to press the solenoid downward, compressing its spring enough that the hook disengages and the cart can be pulled away. (A mechanical backup to the powered release.)

Claim 9 — the self-latching geometry variant.
Again covers the wall assembly (power contacts + hook) and cart docking port (receiving contacts + spring-biased solenoid), with two added structural specifics:

• the hook angles inwardly toward the rear surface of the wall-mounted assembly; and
• the solenoid has a chamfered top edge with a slot behind it in its upper surface.

The claimed function: as the cart is pushed in, the hook first rides against the chamfered edge and cams the solenoid down (compressing its spring); with further cart movement the hook passes the chamfer and drops into the slot behind it, locking the cart to the wall assembly. This is the "push-to-latch, no separate latch step" feature.

Dependent Claims (brief)

• Claim 2 — adds a spring member in the wall contact portion and an extended member in the docking port in registry with it, slightly compressed upon engagement.
• Claim 3 — the extended member is a bolt head.
• Claim 4 — the unlocking system is a signal system in the cart that produces and transmits a signal to the solenoid (the automated/electric release).
• Claim 5 — the unlocking system is a manual mechanical system operated by the user.
• Claim 6 — the manual system is a lever assembly that presses the solenoid down until the hook disengages.
• Claim 7 — recites the angled hook, chamfered solenoid top edge, and rear slot geometry of the latching sequence (companion to claim 9).

Legal Status (important for any freedom-to-operate or enforcement analysis)

Per the Google Patents record and the Legal Events log:

• Maintenance fees were paid at year 4 (2015-07-29) and year 8 (2019-08-02, large entity).
• A maintenance-fee reminder was mailed 2023-10-02; the fee was not paid.
• 2018 event: Notice of lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees, dated 2024-03-18, with expiration effective 2024-02-14; status recorded as "Expired – Fee Related" and "patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362."
• Google Patents lists an adjusted expiration of 2030-12-15 (reflecting the nominal 20-year term from the 2008-06-24 filing plus patent term adjustment had fees been maintained). The recorded actual status is expired as of 2024 for fee non-payment.

Practical read: The patent is recorded as expired for non-payment of maintenance fees as of February/March 2024, i.e., it would no longer be enforceable as of that date, notwithstanding the nominal 2030 adjusted expiration date shown in the patent-term field. Because the record is a USPTO legal-status annotation and not a legal conclusion, confirm current status in USPTO Patent Center (and whether any petition to accept late payment was granted) before relying on it.

Uncertainty / Caveats

• I found no litigation or CAFC 2026 docket activity tied to this patent. Absence of results in the databases searched is not proof that none exists.
• Assignee history note: the pre-grant publication originally listed Sabal Medical, Inc.; rights moved to Translogic Corporation in January 2012, roughly a month before the patent issued (2012-02-14).
• The figures/embodiments described (spring-mounted solenoid with two springs 58/60, bolt head 50 ≈¼-inch, spring compression ⅛–¼ inch, manual cam lock tab/lever assembly) are illustrative of the preferred embodiment; the independent claims are broader than those specifics, except where claim 9 (and dependent claim 7) recite the chamfered-edge-plus-slot geometry.
• The OCR text for one of the sources garbled the spring-travel figures ("7/4–7/4 inch"); the authoritative patent text states ⅛–¼ inch.

Sources: Google Patents, US8113849B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8113849/en); FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/8113849.html); Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20090319094); USPTO assignment records via PlainSite (Reel/Frame 021144/0114 and 027510/0153).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8113849 across litigation-tracking sources.

Initial searches returned mostly patent-office and assignment records, plus noise (unrelated "8113849" strings in technical manuals). Let me search litigation-specific databases.

Let me query litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation search results: US Patent 8,113,849 B2

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving US Patent 8,113,849.

I searched for the specific number (both 8113849 and 8,113,849) across patent-litigation and docket-oriented sources (Google Patents' patent page, Unified Patents portal materials, Docket Alarm, RPX/Insight, CourtListener, and general web). Every hit returned either (a) the patent's own bibliographic/prosecution record, (b) patent assignment records, or (c) unrelated noise — e.g., a locomotive parts manual and a fusion-energy bibliography that contain the bare string "8113849," and an IPR about US 8,964,849 (a different patent) in which "849" appears only as a shorthand. None of these is litigation over US 8,113,849.

What the record does show (non-litigation)

No "Litigation" section, litigation-history table, or PTAB proceeding is listed for this patent on its Google Patents page. The "Cited By" and "Citations" tables are patent-to-patent citations, not lawsuits.

One adjacent item that is not this patent (flagged to avoid confusion)

There is a Delaware case involving Translogic Corporation as a defendant/counterclaimant:

• McKesson (Automation) v. Translogic Corp., D. Del. — Translogic filed counterclaims (non-infringement, declaratory judgment, Delaware unfair competition, and a Sherman Act § 2 "sham litigation" counterclaim) referencing the '110 and '267 patents. See the counterclaim text at CourtListener, gov.uscourts.ded.36016, doc. 169.

This concerns U.S. Patent Nos. '110 and '267 — not US 8,113,849 — so it does not satisfy your instruction to avoid similar/other numbers, and I include it only as context about the patent owner's litigation history. I did not obtain a case number or filing date for it from the search results, so I cannot report those reliably.

Caveats and confidence

• Confidence that no litigation exists on this patent: moderate-to-high, not certain. Public litigation databases are not perfectly complete, and my search was bounded by the available tooling and a step limit; I was unable to open the Unified Patents litigation portal directly or exhaustively query PACER.
• I did not find any district-court complaint, ITC action, CAFC appeal, or PTAB/IPR/PGR/CBM proceeding naming US 8,113,849.
• Per your instruction, I interpreted the identifier literally and did not substitute any related number (e.g., US 8,964,849, US 7,747,347, or the '110/'267 patents) in place of it.

Recommended verification steps

To close the gap with high confidence, the following should be checked directly (I could not complete these): (1) the Unified Patents litigation portal case list filtered to 8113849; (2) PACER / CourtListener RECAP full-text search for 8113849; (3) Docket Alarm and RPX Insight patent pages for US 8,113,849; (4) Westlaw/Lexis KeyCite or CourtLink by patent number. If those return nothing, the conclusion "no known litigation" can be stated with high confidence.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — drawn from the USPTO Open Data Portal, which is the canonical source here — reports: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." My independent web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, CBM, derivation, or PTAB appeal referencing U.S. Patent No. 8,113,849, and no Federal Circuit or district court opinion citing it. Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

The defensive posture this gives a defendant is not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs." It is something quite different, and more favorable: no one has ever tested these claims at the PTAB, and the patent itself has lapsed. According to the structured data, a maintenance-fee lapse was recorded 2024-03-18 ("PATENT EXPIRED FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES," effective 2024-02-14), even though the adjusted expiration date shown is 2030-12-15. That single fact dominates the analysis: for a defendant receiving a demand letter today, the PTAB record is empty and the patent's enforceable life on the face of the record has already ended.

No proceedings to report

There is no proceeding number to list, and I will not invent one. For completeness, here is what was checked and what was checked out:

• ODP / PTAB structured data: no AIA trials (authoritative, per the prompt block).
• Web search for IPR/PGR/CBM + 8113849, "Inter Partes Review of U.S. Patent No. 8,113,849," and the patent owner names (Sabal Medical, Inc.; Translogic Corporation): no petitions, institution decisions, Final Written Decisions, or Board papers found.
• Federal Circuit / CourtListener: no opinion or docket entry found appealing any PTAB decision on this patent (there would be nothing to appeal).
• Adjacent signal, not a proceeding: the Google Patents "Cited By" list on this patent includes Aesynt Incorporated / Omnicell, Inc. medication-transport patents (e.g., US 9,511,945; US 9,150,119; US 10,850,926) and a Spanish family member of an Omnicell "Medicine distribution cart" filing (ES2762175T3). Those are citations in the same clinical-logistics space — they are not evidence of a PTAB challenge to 8113849, and I am not characterizing them as such.

Caveats. I cannot rule out a proceeding that is (a) too recently filed to have been ingested by ODP, or (b) not surfaced by the general web index. Both are unlikely for a patent that appears never to have been litigated. To close the gap definitively, pull the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's E2E docket at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ and search by patent number, and confirm the ODP patent/trials endpoint for the application number 12/145,170. If E2E is clean, the "no PTAB activity" conclusion is safe.

Strategic summary

Claim status of 8113849: all nine claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB, and the patent is expired on the record. Claims 1–9 stand exactly as they issued on 2012-02-14, never narrowed by certificate of correction, reexamination, or IPR. Nothing is canceled; nothing is confirmed by the Board either. Claim 1 (wall-mounted assembly with shroud over the base section + depending hook member; cart-side docking port with mating power contacts and spring-biased locking solenoid) and independent claims 8 and 9 are the operative assertions, but their validity has never been adjudicated by any tribunal in a public record I can locate.

Estoppel landscape: none, and that runs in the defendant's favor. Because no petitioner exists, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binding anyone, no IPR petitioner to ride on, and no prior Board claim constructions limiting the field. Every ground — § 102(a)/(b) art, § 103 combinations, § 112 written description/enablement written description/enablement challenges to the "spring-biased locking solenoid … mates with the depending hook member" lock-up geometry, and indefiniteness of terms like "slightly compressed" — remains fully available in district court or the ITC, unconstrained by § 325(d) or the Board's claim-construction precedent. The cost is that you'd have to prove invalidity to a jury by clear and convincing evidence rather than to the Board by preponderance, which is a real burden shift. That math only makes sense if there is meaningful remaining exposure.

Pattern signals: none of the usual ones. The patent's prosecution and ownership history is short and corporate: filed 2008-06-24 by inventor William C. Park IV; assigned to Sabal Medical, Inc. (recorded 2008-06-24, effective 2008-06-18); then to Translogic Corporation (recorded 2012-01-10, effective 2012-01-03). Translogic is the current assignee of record per the ODP data. There is no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, Unified's SEP/zone programs) in the chain, no serial petitioner, and no PTAB appeal practice by the patent owner. The royalty-4 and royalty-8 maintenance fees were paid (2015-07-29 and 2019-08-02); the 12th-year fee was not, and the patent lapsed 2024-03-18.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with the maintenance-fee lapse, not the PTAB record. A demand letter citing 8113849 today is asserting a patent whose recorded status is "Expired – Fee Related" effective 2024-02-14, with a lapse entry dated 2024-03-18. Verify the lapse in USPTO Patent Center for application 12/145,170 (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) and obtain the fee-transaction history. If the lapse stands, any affirmative infringement exposure is confined to acts during the enforceability window, further cut back by the six-year damages lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 measured from the date a complaint would be filed. Note the one practical wrinkle: lapsed patents can be revived in limited circumstances, so confirm no petition to accept an unintentionally delayed payment (37 C.F.R. § 1.137) has been filed before you rely on this in correspondence.

2. Because there is no PTAB activity, there is no FWD to link. The instruction to quote a disposition cannot be satisfied — no Final Written Decision exists for this patent. Do not accept, and do not generate, any representation to the contrary; a fabricated IPR number or invalidation holding in a litigation position invites Rule 11 exposure. If opposing counsel or a broker asserts a PTAB outcome, demand the proceeding number and pull it on E2E.

3. If (and only if) a live dispute actually exists with real exposure, reassess forum. With zero estoppel attached, you retain the option to file the first IPR against this patent — but weigh that against the fact that an expired, lapsed patent is a poor use of a petition budget, and against the risk that a filed IPR revives interest in an otherwise dormant asset. In almost every realistic scenario involving 8113849 today, the correct posture is a status/standing challenge and a § 286 damages-window argument, not an invalidity trial.

4. Watch for late-sprung activity. Two events would change this analysis: a § 1.137 revival petition, or a new AIA trial petition entered into ODP after the most recent ingest. Re-run the E2E patent-number query at the next litigation milestone rather than relying on this snapshot.

Caveat on the underlying question. The premise of the task template assumes a populated proceedings list; here the list is empty by the prompt's own terms. I have reported that absence as the finding, flagged the edge cases that could make it wrong, and identified the one verifiable record fact (the fee lapse) that matters more to a defendant than any PTAB proceeding would.

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

Acquisition confirmed. Now checking post-Translogic ownership, any assertion activity, and correspondent records.

Found the second-assignment correspondent. Now pulling both assignment records in full and checking for any post-Translogic transfers.

US 8,113,849 B2 — Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction

Patent: US 8,113,849 B2 · "Docking system for use with a mobile medication cart"
App. 12/145,170 · filed/priority 2008-06-24 · pub. US 2009/0319094 A1 (2009-12-24) · granted 2012-02-14
Status: Expired — Fee Related (11.5-yr maintenance fee unpaid; lapse effective 2024-02-14; nominal adjusted expiry 2030-12-15)

Data caveat up front: Google Patents' legal-events table reproduces only two recorded assignments (REEL/FRAME 021144/0114 and 027510/0153) and does not reproduce the correspondent of record field. I retrieved the correspondent for reel 027510/0153 from a secondary mirror of the USPTO assignment abstract (Plainsite, assignment id 5410193); the correspondent for reel 021144/0114 was not retrievable in this session and is reported below as unverified rather than guessed. Correspondent fields should be confirmed directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 8113849).

Inventors

Unusual patterns — checked, none found. This is a single-inventor patent (no team, so no "all inventors departed" cohort to measure). The inventor→company assignment was executed 2008-06-18, six days before the 2008-06-24 filing date — the signature of a routine pre-filing employment/obligation assignment, not a distressed or late-stage transfer. Park remained with the company through the exit ("The team at Sabal is very excited about joining such a great company" — Park, Jan 2011), which is the opposite of the "inventor bails within 12 months" precursor pattern. Note that co-founder David Duranceau (CIO) is not a named inventor here, implying his contribution was on the software side rather than this electromechanical dock.

Original assignee

Sabal Medical, Inc. — a private, VC-backed medical-technology company founded 2006 (relocated to South Carolina in 2006–07 via the SC Launch! "landing party" program).

• Address on the assignment record (reel 021144/0114): 227 Fairchild Street, Charleston, SC 29492. Corporate directories also list 899 Island Park Drive, Suite 201, Daniel Island, SC 29492.
• Primary line of business: automated medication carts / bedside medication administration — the flagship MedCenter™ mobile medication cart, combining electro-mechanical security with barcode-verification software, plus a standalone software product for facilities with existing dispensing systems. Targeted small/rural hospitals (<100 beds).
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? — Yes. By September 2009 the company reported having "crossed out of research and development and started selling into the market," with accounts at two hospitals (Maryland and Florida), ~5 employees, and an $8M growth-equity raise in progress. Published pricing/commercial coverage describes the cart as a "computer-on-wheels" with secure, audited bedside medication access.
• Funding: $5.41M total, from Nexus Medical Partners (lead, Massachusetts) and its German affiliate Medicis Capital GmbH (Munich), South Carolina Research Authority / SC Launch!, Upstate Carolina Angel Network, NMT Capital.
• Current status: Acquired. Swisslog Holding AG announced acquisition of Sabal Medical, Inc. on 2011-01-07, announced publicly 2011-01-10, for a purchase price of US$9,000,000 (CHF 8.7M). Sabal's cart became an integral part of Swisslog's Automated Drug Management Systems (ADMS) portfolio. No bankruptcy, no Chapter 7/11, no assignment for the benefit of creditors — this was a conventional venture exit into a strategic acquirer.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded assignments. Both are corroborated by the REEL/FRAME strings in the Google Patents legal-events table and by the assignment abstracts mirrored on Plainsite.

• 2008-06-18 (executed) / recorded 2008-06-24 — Reel 021144/0114

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: William C. Park, IV (individual)
  • Assignee: Sabal Medical, Inc., 227 Fairchild Street, Charleston, SC 29492
  • Correspondent: (not retrieved — see data caveat; confirm at Assignment Center)
  • Context: Ordinary pre-filing inventor-to-employer assignment, executed six days before the 2008-06-24 filing; includes newly-filed application 12/145,170 (the record was later updated to recite the 2009/0319094 A1 publication and the 2012-02-14 issued patent 8,113,849 B2).

• 2012-01-03 (executed) / recorded 2012-01-10 — Reel 027510/0153

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Sabal Medical, Inc.
  • Assignee: Translogic Corporation (Colorado) — the Swisslog North American operating entity, Broomfield/Denver, CO; now trading as TransLogic Corporation d/b/a Swisslog Healthcare and, since 2022, part of the KUKA Group
  • Correspondent: Marsh Fischmann & Breyfogle, LLP, Denver, CO. This is the only correspondent captured in the chain; a single appearance is not a finding, and a Denver IP boutique acting for a Denver-based assignee has an obvious benign explanation — local counsel for the acquiring entity, not a repeat-player NPE recording agent.
  • Context: Asset transfer / internal reorganization following Swisslog's January 2011 acquisition of Sabal — a post-closing IP recordation into the buyer's US operating subsidiary. The ~12-month lag between deal close (Jan 2011) and recordation (Jan 2012) is unremarkable for post-closing IP housekeeping, and recordation preceded issuance (2012-02-14) because the asset was conveyed while still a pending application.

No further records. The Google Patents legal-events table shows no third assignment, no security agreement, no merger, no change-of-name and no release after 2012-01-10. The only subsequent events are maintenance-fee activity and lapse:

• 2015-07-29 — 3.5-yr maintenance fee paid
• 2019-08-02 — 7.5-yr maintenance fee paid (large entity)
• 2023-10-02 — 11.5-yr maintenance-fee reminder mailed
• 2024-03-18 — lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362, effective 2024-02-14

Finding: the record owner at lapse was Translogic Corporation (Swisslog Healthcare / KUKA Group). The patent is in the public domain — not sold, not abandoned to an aggregator, simply lapsed.

(Related family item: the specification incorporates by reference the assignee's earlier published application Ser. No. 11/535,348. I did not verify that application's separate assignment chain — flagging as an open item, not a finding.)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8113849
    2008 : Park assigns to Sabal Medical
         : Application filed June 24
         : Sabal sells first MedCenter carts
    2009 : Application published as 20090319094
    2011 : Swisslog acquires Sabal Medical for 9M
    2012 : Sabal assigns to Translogic Corporation
         : Patent issued February 14
    2015 : KUKA Group acquires Swisslog
    2024 : Patent lapses for unpaid maintenance fee

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

This is the only listed category whose operative label — non-asserting / neutralized — matches the record, though the neutralization mechanism differs from the category's parenthetical: the patent was not bought by a defensive aggregator, it simply lapsed on 2024-02-14 for failure to pay the 11.5-year maintenance fee, leaving Translogic Corporation (Swisslog Healthcare / KUKA Group) as the last record owner. Affirmatively, every NPE signal tests negative: reel 021144/0114 is a routine six-days-before-filing inventor assignment to the operating company that shipped the MedCenter cart, and reel 027510/0153 is a post-M&A asset transfer from Sabal Medical to Swisslog's US operating subsidiary, executed 2012-01-03 and recorded 2012-01-10 by Marsh Fischmann & Breyfogle, LLP — a single correspondent appearance with a benign local-counsel explanation, not a repeated NPE recording agent. There is no shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading LLC chain, no bankruptcy sale, no privateering evidence and no assertion record. Substantively this is an ordinary venture-backed startup patent that passed to its strategic acquirer and died of fee lapse; the "Insufficient data" category would understate a record that is short but coherent.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "8113849") — confirm the reel 021144/0114 correspondent field, which is the one gap in this reconstruction — and cross-check https://patents.google.com/patent/US8113849/en for the legal-events/fee table.

I'll research each prior-art reference cited on the face of US 8,113,849 to provide accurate citations, dates, descriptions, and §102 analysis.

I'll research the specific prior-art references cited on this patent's page before building the § 103 analysis.

Now let me pull the remaining cited references and the background medication-cart art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,113,849 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on scope. This analysis is built strictly from the prior-art materials appearing in the "Prior Art" section of the US 8,113,849 Google Patents page provided (the Patent Citations list, the background references, and the Cited By list), supplemented by the reference full texts I was able to retrieve. I flag at the outset one threshold correction to a common misreading of that page, and note two references I could not fully retrieve.

1. Threshold: what is actually prior art

The 6 "Patent Citations" are prior art — all pre-date 2008-06-24 and were examiner-cited. The applied date for each is its own publication/issue date, all well before 2008.

⚠️ The "Cited By (18)" references are NOT prior art to this patent. Every entry in that list has a priority date after the '849 filing date — 2011-06-30 (RIM/BlackBerry), 2011-07-11 (Apple), 2011-07-22 (Porsche), 2012-10-12 (Aesynt/Omnicell), 2013-03-15, 2013-10-01 (PharmRight), 2016-02-02, and 2022-10-19. They are later art citing '849 forward, not § 102/§ 103 references against it. Any obviousness theory premised on those references would be legally wrong. I exclude them.

⚠️ One reference is close to the critical date and needs verification. US 2008/0261435 A1 (Ranger All Season) published 2008-10-23 — after the 2008-06-24 filing date. It is therefore not § 102(a)/(b) art on its publication date. It qualifies, if at all, only under pre-AIA § 102(e) as a published application effective as of its earliest U.S. filing date. Its provisional is Ser. No. 60/926,057 (2007-04-23), and its 2008-10-23 publication is exactly 18 months after that provisional — consistent with a non-provisional filed around April 2008, i.e., before 2008-06-24. The reference is examiner-cited, which is strong circumstantial evidence the examiner treated it as prior art. Confirm the actual non-provisional filing date (granted as US 7,661,961 B2) before relying on it — if it was filed after June 24, 2008, it drops out and the primary-reference role must be reassigned.

Two references I could not retrieve in full (search budget exhausted): US 2002/0151192 A1 (Canuto — electric connector for a steering-wheel of a vehicle) and US 7,458,837 B2 (Advantest — connector housing block/interface member for electronic device testing). I treat both below only at the level of their titles/classifications as secondary/background art and expressly do not build a claim-dispositive combination on them.

2. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here would be a mechanical or electromechanical engineer (B.S. or equivalent) with roughly 2–4 years of experience designing (a) mating electrical connector assemblies, guides, and float/alignment mechanisms, and/or (b) mobile equipment latching and docking systems (hospital carts, mobility vehicles, charging docks). This is a predictable, mature mechanical arts field — connector guidance, floating mounts, spring-biased latches, and electromechanical actuators were each long-settled by 2008. That maturity matters: KSR instructs that predictable combinations of known mechanical elements are more likely obvious.

3. The references, and what each discloses

Critical gap to acknowledge honestly: none of the citations discloses a solenoid — electric, signal-actuated, or otherwise — as the latch member. The "spring-biased locking solenoid" limitation (claim 1, and its variants in claims 8 and 9) is not met by any single cited reference or by any express combination of them. Any § 103 case on claim 1 must therefore rest on the spring-biased latch of Ranger plus the POSITA's common knowledge that solenoids are a standard electromechanical means to selectively retract a spring-biased latch (the KSR "simple substitution of one known element for another" and "known technique to improve similar devices" rationales). That is a real but contestable step, and it is the pivot on which this whole analysis turns.

4. Claim-by-claim obviousness

Claim 1 (independent — wall assembly + guide/shroud + hook + cart port + spring-biased solenoid + release)

Proposed combination: Ranger (primary) + Lear or Whitaker (guided, spring-compensated contact interface) + Rosen (connector lock) + the POSITA's knowledge of solenoid-actuated, spring-biased latches + basic medication-cart art (§ 103(a)).

Motivation to combine (KSR-grounded):

1. Same problem, same solution, analogous field. Ranger expressly frames its invention around "electrical connections … between components that separate" where "manual manipulation of separable plug components required additional time and steps, and also required a certain degree of dexterity and strength." The '849 patent states the identical need for medication carts (quick, reliable securing + recharging). A POSITA addressing hospital-cart docking would reasonably consult the docking/charging art, including separatable mobility vehicles — and would apply the identical (predictable) guide-panel + spring-latch architecture.
2. Known technique to improve a similar device. Guide-aperture alignment (Ranger/Whitaker), float-mount spring compensation (Lear/Whitaker), and spring-biased camming latches (Ranger/Rosen) are each known techniques for "blind" docking of a movable unit to a fixed unit. Combining them yields only the predictable result of aligned power contacts plus automatic latching.
3. Simple substitution — the latch actuator. Ranger's manual spring latch → a solenoid-actuated spring latch. Solenoid latches (door strikes, lock/unlock actuators, vending and kiosk locks) were standard electromechanical components; the '849 specification itself describes the solenoid as a conventional spring-action device. Substituting an electrically-released actuator for a manually-released one to enable remote/cart-commanded release is a predictable substitution, especially where (as here) the cart already has a processor/display (background cart art) able to emit the release command (claim 4's signal).
4. Predictable variation / design incentive. Mobility and charging of a hospital cart makes robust, hands-free docking (push-to-latch; align-as-you-push) an evident design goal, motivating adaptation of the Ranger alignment/latch elements.

Claim 8 (independent — manual lever release of a spring-biased solenoid latch)

Claim 8 drops the base/shroud limitations but requires the unlocking system to be a manual lever assembly pressing the solenoid down to compress its spring until the hook disengages. Ranger's T-handle (40)/extension rod (38) is a manual release of a spring-biased latch — the same solution architecture (manual mechanical override of a spring-loaded latch). Motivated for the recognized reason that a manual override is desirable if powered release fails — a rationale the '849 specification states expressly ("In the event that the automated unlocking system fails…"). The remaining delta (pulling a rod vs. pressing a solenoid down) is a predictable mechanical variation of the same lever concept, well within ordinary skill (compare Rosen's and Whitaker's spring-biased plunging members).

Claim 9 (independent — angled hook + chamfered solenoid top edge + rear slot, push-to-latch)

This is the claim most nearly anticipated in substance by Ranger's latch geometry. Ranger discloses a beveled/angled latch edge (36) on a compression-spring-biased latch (34) positioned so that "as the panel is moved into place, the beveled edge of the latch allows the spring-loaded latch to withdraw out of the way" and then spring back to lock. That is the identical functional sequence claimed: a sloped camming surface (chamfer/bevel) on a spring-biased member that is cammed aside by an approaching mating member and then seats behind it to lock. The '849 claim 9 merely (a) inverts which part moves (hook moves into slot vs. latch moves aside) and (b) renames the "beveled edge" a "chamfered top edge" and the locking seat a "slot." Ranger's J-hook (104) supplies the "hook angles inwardly" feature. A POSITA would recognize these as predictable, equivalent camming-latch topologies with a reasonable expectation of success — the essence of the KSR "obvious to try"/predictable-variation rationales. Claims 7 and 9 differ only in claim format.

Dependent claims 2–3 (spring member in wall contact portion + registering "bolt head")

Lear's resilient elements supporting the float-mounted plate and Whitaker's compression spring biasing the connector for axial/spacing compensation supply the "spring member … slightly compressed when engaged." Whitaker explicitly describes compression for "compensating for a range of variations in the … spacing of the two panels." The specific bolt head as the extended member (claim 3) is a bare recitation of a well-known mechanical boss/stud — no patentable weight beyond the spring-registry function, which the combination already renders obvious.

Dependent claims 4–6

• Claim 4 (signal from the cart to the solenoid): Following substitution of a solenoid actuator (above), energizing it by an on-cart signal is the ordinary use of a solenoid; the cart art (with processor/display, and US 5,743,607's note that carts are "locked mechanically or electrically") makes a cart-issued unlock command an evident design choice.
• Claims 5–6 (manual mechanical release via a lever pressing the solenoid down): Ranger's manual latch-retraction lever/T-handle is the direct analog; the lever geometry is a predictable mechanical expedient.

Summary of the strongest combination: Ranger (2008/0261435) as the primary reference for the guided wall/panel-mounted power connector, conforming aperture-guide/"shroud," depending J-hook, and spring-biased camming latch with manual release; Lear (5,752,845) and/or Whitaker (5,516,303) for the float-mounted, spring-compensated, shroud-aligned power-contact interface (claims 1–3); Rosen (6,450,828) for a lock on a projecting power/signal plug that is released to separate; US 5,743,607 / D517,768 / Ser. No. 11/535,348 for the mobile medication cart; and POSITA common knowledge for the solenoid actuator that replaces Ranger's manual latch.

5. Counterarguments and non-obviousness considerations (must be weighed)

1. The examiner allowed the claims over these very references. All six citations were before the examiner, and the patent issued with 9 claims. That is meaningful evidence the examiner did not view the combination as rendering claim 1 obvious — most plausibly because no reference teaches a solenoid and none is a wall-docked medication cart (as opposed to an internal vehicle-to-vehicle connector). Any invalidity theory must squarely meet the solenoid limitation; a conclusion of obviousness that merely waves at "solenoids are well known" without record support for such an actuator in a docking latch context is vulnerable.
2. Field-of-use / analogous-art attack. Ranger and Lear/Whitaker are directed to vehicle/seat electrical interfaces; a patentee would argue they are non-analogous to a stationary wall docking/charging station for a hospital cart, and that the "depending hook → spring-biased solenoid on the cart" architecture is a distinct mechanical arrangement. The rebuttal is that the problem (blind, hands-free, aligned electrical docking of a movable unit to a fixed unit with automatic latching) is the same, making the art reasonably pertinent under KSR's functional test.
3. No secondary considerations located. My searches (per the accompanying litigation and status summaries) found no evidence of commercial success, copying, licensing, or unexpected results tied to '849, and no litigation or PTAB challenge to test the claims. So there is no objective nonobviousness record to weigh against the prima facie case — but absence of such evidence is not itself a § 103 argument and should not be double-counted.
4. The patent is expired. Per the record, maintenance fees lapsed with expiration effective 2024-02-14 (lapse record dated 2024-03-18), notwithstanding the nominal 2030-12-15 adjusted-expiration field. This analysis is therefore of historical/defensive value (e.g., prior-art status of '849 itself, freedom-to-operate in the now-public domain, or validity of the earlier pre-grant publication US 2009/0319094 A1) rather than a live invalidity posture.

6. Bottom line

• Claims 7 and 9 (chamfered/beveled-edge, spring-biased camming latch with hook-in-slot geometry) are the most exposed to § 103: US 2008/0261435 (Ranger) discloses the same camming-spring-latch principle with a beveled edge, compression spring, mating hook (J-hook 104), and automatic latch-on-assembly, differing chiefly in which member moves and in nomenclature. A strong prima facie obviousness case exists for these claims if Ranger's § 102(e) date is confirmed.
• Claims 1 and 8, and dependents 2–6, are moderately exposed but rest on the solenoid substitution, which is not disclosed in any cited reference. The obviousness case is defensible on a KSR common-knowledge/simple-substitution rationale but is the weakest link and should not be overstated.
• The strongest, most defensible combination is Ranger + Lear/Whitaker (guided float-mount interface) + Rosen (connector lock) + medication-cart background art + POSITA knowledge of solenoid latches.
• Do not use the 18 "Cited By" references (all post-2008) as prior art; doing so would be legally erroneous.

Verification still required (could not be completed within search limits): (1) the actual non-provisional filing date of US 2008/0261435 (→ US 7,661,961 B2), to confirm pre-AIA § 102(e) prior-art status as of before 2008-06-24; (2) full text of US 2002/0151192 A1 and US 7,458,837 B2; and (3) the prosecution history of US 12/145,170 (Office Actions) to confirm exactly which references the examiner applied and on what grounds — the record above shows the citations but not the examiner's reasoning.