US 9587979

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number and check for any CAFC 2026 activity.

Search scope and results limitation (read first)

• I ran targeted searches against the patent number "9587979" (Google Patents, Justia, USPTO assignment records, and general web/legal-document indexes).
• CAFC 2026 dockets: my searches for "9587979" in connection with the Federal Circuit / 2026 returned no results. I cannot confirm from these searches that any CAFC 2026 appeal involving this patent exists — but absence of search hits is not authoritative proof that no such docket exists. Treat "no CAFC 2026 activity found" as an unverified null result, not a confirmed fact.
• Litigation: no litigation hits for "9587979" were found either (searches returned unrelated Google cases involving other patents, e.g., Touchstream, Sonos, WSOU — not this patent). Same caveat applies.
• Everything below is drawn from the authoritative full patent text supplied for US9587979B2, with corroboration from the Google Patents and Justia pages returned by search.

Bibliographic summary — US 9,587,979 B2

Abstract (as issued): An electronic device uses one or more infrared sensors to detect infrared light from a person's body (e.g., a user's finger) to initiate a function of the electronic device. In an implementation, the housing includes a flexible portion that opens an aperture in response to external pressure (e.g., a user pressing down on the flexible portion), allowing infrared light from the person's body to reach an infrared sensor. When the sensor detects the infrared light it generates a signal; a processor receives the signal and, in response, initiates a function — e.g., power-on, camera, speaker-volume change, launching an application.

Technical field: Replacing physical buttons / touch sensors with infrared-sensor-based user input mechanisms. The stated motivation is that touch-based virtual keys are too easily triggered accidentally (e.g., device jostling in a pocket or purse).

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Flexible housing segment opens an aperture; sensor detects a change in IR amount

An electronic device comprising:

• an infrared sensor;
• a housing with multiple segments around its perimeter: a rigid first segment, a flexible second segment, and a rigid third segment, with the flexible second segment between the two rigid ones. The flexible second segment defines an aperture (between the rigid first segment and the flexible second segment) and is made of a deformable material. It deforms under external pressure to go from a first configuration (aperture closed, blocking infrared light) to a second configuration (aperture open, letting a first amount of infrared light from a person's body pass from outside the housing, through the aperture, to the sensor inside);
• the sensor, inside the housing, is configured to detect a change from the first amount to a second amount of infrared light that occurs in response to a change in the size of the aperture while it is open — the amount change corresponding to the aperture-size change — and to generate a signal in response to that detected change;
• a processor that receives the signal and initiates a function of the device in response.

Plain-language core: A press on a flexible segment of the case opens an IR window; the thermopile-type sensor keys off the delta in received body heat caused as the aperture opening changes size, and that delta triggers a device function.

Claim 10 — Variant: the movable segment stretches toward the sensor

Same general architecture (rigid / movable / rigid perimeter segments, IR sensor in the housing), but here the movable second segment stretches in the direction of the infrared sensor. Its aperture, under external pressure, stretches from a closed configuration (blocking IR) to an open one (passing a first amount of IR to the sensor). The sensor detects movement of an IR source toward the sensor at the aperture based at least in part on the detected change from the first to the second IR amount (corresponding to the aperture-size change), and generates a signal in response; the processor then initiates a function.

Claim 13 — Variant: the movable segment flexes toward the sensor

Identical in substance to claim 10 except the movable second segment flexes (rather than "stretches") in the direction of the infrared sensor, with the same aperture-opening, IR-amount-change detection, signal generation, and processor-initiated function.

Dependent claims (brief):

• 2–4: The flexible second segment changes the aperture so that a first amount of IR passes, then a second amount; the first amount may be less than (claim 3) or greater than (claim 4) the second amount (i.e., the claim set contemplates both increasing and decreasing IR throughput, supporting bidirectional/gradated actuation).
• 5–6: Structure for tactile feedback — selected from a mechanical popple, haptic feedback vibrator, and local vibratory source.
• 7: The aperture is a slit extending from housing exterior to interior.
• 8: The flexible second segment includes a membrane transparent to long-wavelength infrared (LWIR).
• 9: The person's-body IR is LWIR. (The specification ties LWIR to ~4–15 µm, i.e., human-body thermal emission.)
• 11 / 14: The movable second segment has a slit defining the aperture, and the slit widens as the IR source exerts pressure (dependency of claims 10 and 13 respectively).
• 12 / 15: The movable second segment moves independently of the rest of the housing (dependencies of 10 and 13).
• 16: The electronic device is a mobile device.

Notes, caveats, and provenance

1. Claim scope changed between publication and grant. The returned Justia page for the pre-grant publication US 2015/0331542 A1 shows a much broader original claim 1 ("a housing comprising a flexible portion having an aperture..."). The granted US 9,587,979 B2 claims (16 claims, as reproduced in the authoritative text) are narrower — they recite the rigid/flexible/rigid perimeter-segment arrangement and, critically, detection of a change in the amount of infrared light corresponding to a change in aperture size. Any analysis should use the granted claims, not the publication's claims.
2. Claim 1 vs. claims 10/13 differ in the actuation mechanism recited: claim 1 is directed to deformation of a deformable-material segment, claims 10 and 13 to a segment that respectively stretches or flexes toward the sensor while detecting IR-source movement.
3. Assignee chain: Motorola Mobility LLC → Google Technology Holdings LLC (assignment effective 2014-10-28, recorded 2016-12-21). Google Patents flags assignee lists as not legally warranted.
4. Priority/expiration dates are Google Patents' assumptions (filing 2014-05-13; adjusted expiration 2034-05-23).
5. Uncertainty I cannot resolve from available sources: (a) whether any CAFC 2026 appeal or district-court/PTAB proceeding involving 9,587,979 exists — my searches found none, but that is a null search result, not confirmation; (b) current claim-by-claim PTAB validity status beyond the recorded maintenance-fee payments and "Active" legal status; (c) the precise contents of the four cited references beyond their titles/assignees.
6. There is no evidence in the sources retrieved that this patent number corresponds to any other patent; I have interpreted "9587979" literally as US 9,587,979 B2 and did not substitute or auto-correct any identifier.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9587979 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try more specific litigation-focused searches.

Litigation Search Report: U.S. Patent No. 9,587,979

Bottom line

I found no evidence of any litigation (district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit appeal) involving U.S. Patent No. 9,587,979. I searched for the specific number and related identifiers and turned up zero case records. This should be treated as a "no known litigation identified" result rather than a definitive negative — see the limitations section below.

What I searched

• US patent 9587979 litigation
• "9587979" patent infringement lawsuit
• "9,587,979" patent case
• Google Technology Holdings patent 9587979 lawsuit district court
• Google Technology Holdings "infrared sensor" patent assertion lawsuit
• Docket Alarm / Unified Patents portal references
• PTAB / USPTO PTACTS petition documents
• CAFC / Federal Circuit materials

None of these returned a case record naming U.S. 9,587,979 as an asserted, challenged, or adjudicated patent.

A critical number-confusion warning

My searches repeatedly surfaced cases involving U.S. Patent No. 8,095,879 — the Neonode "slide-to-unlock" patent:

• Neonode Smartphone LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., Fed. Cir. No. 23-2304 (filed 21 Aug 2023, remanded 20 Aug 2024), on appeal from W.D. Tex.
• Associated IPRs: IPR2021-00144, IPR2021-00145 (Samsung Electronics), IPR2021-01041 (Google LLC)

These do NOT involve 9,587,979. Per the strict rule to interpret identifiers literally, 8,095,879 ≠ 9,587,979. I am explicitly excluding these results as similar-number false positives. Likewise, search hits for "the '979 patent" in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Pfizer Inc. (D. Del. 1:22-cv-00336) refer to an unrelated lipid-particle patent, not this one.

Context on U.S. 9,587,979 (from the patent record, not litigation)

Meaningful indicators pointing toward no litigation:

• The patent remains active with no reassignment to a monetization entity — it is still held by Google Technology Holdings LLC, an operating-company holding subsidiary that historically has not asserted this family offensively.
• There are no adverse PTAB proceedings (no IPR/PGR) reflected on the record, which is often (though not always) a marker of an unasserted patent.
• The "Families Citing" list shows only later unrelated optical/device patents (Huawei, Oppo) citing it as background art — not litigation.
• I found no case number, no plaintiff, no defendant, no jurisdiction, and no filing date to report, because no case was identified.

Limitations and caveats (please read before relying on this)

1. I could not directly query PACER, the ITC EDIS docket, or Docket Alarm's full-text case database — the tools available returned general web/aggregator content. A PACER "party" and "patent number" search, plus an ITC 337 search, would be the authoritative check.
2. "No litigation found" ≠ "no litigation exists." Complaints can be filed and settled before any docket aggregator indexes them; some district court dockets are not fully mirrored publicly.
3. The patent issued in 2017 and expires 2034-05-23; it remains within its assertable term, so absence of litigation today does not preclude future suits.
4. I did not identify any CAFC appeal, ITC Section 337 investigation, or PTAB trial for this patent.

Recommendation: To close the loop definitively, run a patent-number search on PACER Case Locator (civil), the USPTO PTAB API/P-TACTS, and ITC EDIS for "9,587,979," and a Docket Alarm / Unified Patents Portal query. If those confirm no hits, the correct answer is that no litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 9,587,979 as of the search date.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 9,587,979: 0. Breakdown by status: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) returns no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, CBM, or derivation proceeding naming this patent — including no Federal Circuit appeal, since there is no Board decision to appeal. Bottom line for a defendant: none of claims 1–16 has been canceled or even tested at the PTAB, so there is no "dead claim" ammunition here and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to leverage — but there is also no adverse precedent hardening the patent, which means the validity fight is entirely greenfield.

One important caveat on methodology: I could not reach PTAB E2E directly in this session. My "zero" finding rests on (a) the ODP-derived structured block you supplied, which is the canonical list, and (b) web searches that returned no hit for the patent number in a trial context. Before you file anything, confirm the null result at PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions search by patent number.

No proceedings to report

There are no proceeding entries to render in the per-proceeding format (no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal exists). I am deliberately not inventing numbers or panels to fill the template.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 16 claims UNTESTED. The patent has one independent apparatus claim family structure — independent claims 1, 10, and 13, with dependents 2–9 (depending from claim 1) and 11–12 and 14–15 (depending from claims 10 and 13 respectively), plus claim 16 ("wherein the electronic device comprises a mobile device") depending from claim 1. Not one of these has been the subject of a PTAB institution decision, so there is no claim-level narrowing to exploit. Contrast this with the outcome a defendant hopes for: nothing about claims 1, 10, or 13 is canceled, and no dependent claim has been held unpatentable. Any infringement chart hitting claims 1–16 is charting live claims.

Estoppel landscape: empty — in both directions. Because no petitioner has prosecuted an IPR or PGR to a final written decision, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one. A current defendant faces no estoppel constraint on prior-art grounds, and neither does anyone else. Practically, this cuts both ways:

• There is no petitioner-side estoppel record to inspect for grounds the Board already rejected (which would tell you which art is weak).
• There is no Board claim construction to inherit — you would be litigating construction from scratch, and the Board would apply the Phillips standard post-Chandler rather than the old broadest-reasonable-interpretation standard, so a PTAB outcome and a district court outcome could diverge meaningfully on terms like "flexible second segment," "aperture," "change in a size of the aperture," and "tactile feedback structure."
• The § 315(b) one-year clock is available to trip a would-be co-defendant but has not run against anyone, as far as my searches show.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner, no patent-owner appeal activity (there is nothing to appeal), and no evidence of a defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain. The patent is held by Google Technology Holdings LLC (originally Motorola Mobility LLC; assignment recorded 2016-12-21 with effective date 2014-10-28) — a large operating-company portfolio holder, not a troll or a litigation-funded NPE. That materially changes the posture: the usual assumption that "a well-asserted patent eventually attracts IPRs" does not apply cleanly here, because this patent's owner has historically enforced as a counter-assertion in handset wars rather than as a standalone licensing campaign. The absence of PTAB activity is therefore weaker evidence of low assertion value than it would be for a patent held by a monetization entity.

Two adjacent facts worth flagging, both from the Google Patents record, neither of which is PTAB activity:

• Same-day sibling. US 9,503,617 ("Electronic device with flexible housing portion and related method"), also Google Technology Holdings, shares the 2014-05-13 priority date and is listed in the "Families Citing this family" table for '979. If '617 (or any continuation) has drawn IPRs, check whether the Board construed any common disclosure terms — but do not import '617 outcomes onto '979; they are separate patents with separate claims.
• Face-of-patent art is thin (four references). US 7,102,486; US 2010/0127969 (Asustek, "Non-Contact Input Electronic Device and Method Thereof"); US 2010/0265040 (Hitachi-Omron, "Biometric authentication apparatus"); US 2013/0016053 (Samsung, "Key input device"). The Asustek and Samsung references are the most facially relevant to a non-contact/pressure-activated input scheme, and the near-empty citation list is itself a signal that the examiner's search was narrow — which cuts against the patent on validity, not for it.

Recommended next steps

Since there is no PTAB activity, say so plainly — and treat the absence as a signal about how to attack, not whether. A patent filed 2014-05-13, granted 2017-03-07, with maintenance fees paid through the 8th year on 2024-09-09 and an adjusted expiration of 2034-05-23, has roughly eight years of enforceable life left. That is a long runway and ample reason for a defendant to consider filing its own petition now rather than waiting.

• IPR/PGR eligibility. IPR is available for any ground under § 102 or § 103 based on patents and printed publications, at any time while the patent is in force — subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint on you or a real party in interest/privy. There is no such complaint in my search results, so the clock may not have started. Verify service dates before relying on this.
• PGR is likely unavailable. PGR under § 321 is limited to grounds available under § 282(b)(2)–(3) and (for § 112 challenges) only within 9 months of grant. Grant was 2017-03-07, so the PGR window closed on or about 2017-12-07. If you want a § 112 or written-description attack, you must raise it in district court or via a reexam-adjacent route, not PGR.
• Prior-art freedom. Because no petitioner is estopped and no Board decision exists, you are free to run the full prior-art field — including system/device art, which IPR estoppel would not have reached anyway under the cases cited in the PTAB briefing I reviewed. The four of-record references are only the starting point.
• Watch the claim language closely. Independent claim 1 requires the infrared sensor to "detect a change from the first amount of infrared light to a second amount of infrared light occurring in response to a change in a size of the aperture occurring while the aperture is open," where the change in amount "corresponds to the change in the size of the aperture." That correspondence limitation is narrow and specific. Claims 10 and 13 peg detection to "movement of an infrared source in the direction of the infrared sensor" with the same aperture-size-change correspondence. Those are the limitations to attack — and equally, the limitations to argue a defendant does not meet.
• Citations for your record. Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9587979B2](/patent/US9587979B2)/en (pre-grant publication US 2015/0331542 A1, published 2015-11-19). Null-result confirmations: PTAB E2E, USPTO PTAB Decisions, and a CourtListener docket search for the patent number and for "Google Technology Holdings LLC" as appellant.

Honest limitation on this report: the absence of any located district court assertion or Federal Circuit appeal is a search finding, not a verified negative. I found no litigation involving this patent in the results returned to me, but I did not exhaustively query PACER or the full CourtListener RECAP corpus, and a recently filed or recently appealed case could exist outside my results. If your demand letter identifies an asserting party, run that party's name against PTAB E2E before finalizing your defense posture — a co-defendant's petition could change the estoppel and claim-status picture overnight.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 9,587,979, starting with the authoritative records in the supplied patent text and corroborating against USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

Let me look for correspondent-of-record details and confirm the assignment chain structure.

Inventors

Pattern check — departures: Unclear / not determinable from available records. The supplied assignment text and the searches I ran do not disclose employment-departure dates for any inventor. I found no evidence of all (or any) inventors leaving Motorola Mobility/Google within 12 months of the 2014-05-13 filing, so I cannot report the "mass-departure preceding a fire-sale" pattern as present — and I will not speculate that it occurred. One relevant corroborating fact: independent inventor-index pages show Hede and Alameh continued to be associated with Motorola Mobility assignments well past 2014, which cuts against an immediate-departure pattern.

Original assignee

Motorola Mobility LLC (Illinois), recorded as assignee at filing (reel 032877/0091). The issued patent's current assignee is Google Technology Holdings LLC (California).

• Business: Motorola Mobility is the Android-smartphone/handset operating business. Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2012; in January 2014 Google announced the sale of the Motorola handset business to Lenovo while expressly retaining the "vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio," including then-current applications and invention disclosures (Google 8-K, dated 2014-01-29, via quotemedia/SEC mirror). This patent is one of the retained patent assets — note its filing date (2014-05-13) sits after the Lenovo announcement but before the portfolio-transfer effective date (2014-10-28).
• Product embodying the claims: Not determinable that any shipped Motorola device implemented the claimed IR-sensor housing input. The specification is framed as an R&D/design concept (replacing physical buttons/virtual keys), and I found no product evidence.
• Current status of original assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC continues as Lenovo's handset subsidiary (operating). Google Technology Holdings LLC (the current owner) is an operating-company patent-holding subsidiary of Google — not a licensing-only shell. No bankruptcy/dissolution is associated with either entity in the records I reviewed.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded assignments exist. Both are reflected in the authoritative patent text (Google Patents legal-events table) and are consistent with the Motorola→Google portfolio reorganization.

• 2014-05-07 (executed) / recorded 2014-05-13 — Reel 032877/0091

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Rachid M. Alameh; William S. Hede; Jiri Slaby (individual inventors)
  • Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC (Illinois)
  • Correspondent: Not disclosed in the sources retrieved. The reel/frame (032877/0091) is confirmed, but the correspondent-of-record attorney/firm is not exposed by Google Patents or by the web results I obtained. I will not invent it — see verification note below.
  • Context: Standard invention-assignment-to-employer — inventors' rights assigned to their employer six days before the 2014-05-13 filing.

• 2014-10-28 (executed) / recorded 2016-12-21 — Reel 041153/0001

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Motorola Mobility LLC
  • Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (California)
  • Correspondent: Not disclosed in the sources retrieved (same limitation as above).
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization / portfolio consolidation — Google's retention of the Motorola patent portfolio following the Lenovo handset-business sale. Executed 2014-10-28 but not recorded until 2016-12-21 (a ~26-month recording lag), a common feature of bulk portfolio re-recordings and not an NPE tell. (Consistent with the same 2014-10-28 transfer date seen for numerous other Motorola→Google Technology Holdings reels across the portfolio.)

Related cross-check (do not confuse numbers): Search surfaced a different reel, 034627/0001, for a different Motorola→Google Technology Holdings transfer (app. 14/460,546). That is not this patent's reel; this patent's transfer is 041153/0001.

Verification note (important): The supplied authoritative text does give the two reel/frame numbers and dates, but neither the recorded correspondent (attorney/firm/address) nor the assignee entity type/state-of-organization is exposed in the material I could retrieve. The strongest single tell you asked me to capture — the correspondent — is therefore unavailable from my tools for this chain, and I flag that rather than guess. Confirm at USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, search "9587979") or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html by patent number, and open reel 032877/0091 and reel 041153/0001 to read the correspondent blocks directly.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9587979
    2014 : Inventors assign to Motorola Mobility
         : Application filed 13 May 2014
         : Portfolio moved to Google Technology Holdings
    2016 : Reassignment recorded 21 December 2016
    2017 : Patent granted 7 March 2017
    2020 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2024 : 8th year maintenance fee paid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Both assignees are known operating/operating-holding entities (Motorola Mobility LLC → Google Technology Holdings LLC, reel 041153/0001, effective 2014-10-28). No "IP/Licensing/Ventures" single-purpose LLC appears; no registered-agent-service address is evident; the transferee is Google's own portfolio-holding subsidiary, not a licensing-only vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither Motorola Mobility LLC nor Google Technology Holdings LLC appears on the NPE lists you supplied (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, etc.). No match to a Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff entry.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear (data unavailable). The correspondent of record for reels 032877/0091 and 041153/0001 could not be retrieved. With only two links and a known corporate parent-child relationship, this signal would likely resolve to "not present," but I cannot affirmatively confirm because the correspondent fields were not exposed. Recommend direct read of the two reels.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only two recorded assignments across the entire life of the patent, both within the same corporate family, and none through chained LLCs. No <24-month cascade of unrelated assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit, ITC action, or PTAB proceeding naming US 9,587,979 was identified (consistent with the earlier litigation-search section). There is no pre-suit transfer to evaluate; the 2014-10-28 transfer predates the 2017 grant and any hypothetical assertion by years.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. Motorola Mobility's handset-business divestiture to Lenovo (2014) was a solvent corporate sale by Google, not a Chapter 7/11 proceeding; the patent portfolio was deliberately retained by Google rather than liquidated. No Kodak/Nortel-style estate sale is implicated.

7. Privateering — Not present. There is no transfer of this patent from Google to a third-party NPE for assertion against competitors. The patent remains inside the Google corporate family (Google Technology Holdings LLC), the classic posture of a retained defensive asset.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present in the strict sense (the chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN). The chain terminates instead at Google Technology Holdings LLC, an operating-company holding subsidiary — the inverse-direction situation (retained, not neutralized-by-transfer).

Supporting indicia pointing away from any asserter pattern: active status with no reassignment to a monetization entity, no adverse PTAB proceedings on record, and maintenance fees paid by the large-entity original-family owner (4th year 2020-09-08; 8th year 2024-09-09, entity status "large entity" per the legal-events table).

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

Justification: the only two recorded links are reel 032877/0091 (inventors → Motorola Mobility LLC, executed 2014-05-07) and reel 041153/0001 (Motorola Mobility LLC → Google Technology Holdings LLC, effective 2014-10-28, recorded 2016-12-21) — a two-step employer-capture-then-internal-reorg chain inside a single corporate family, with no shell transfer, no known asserter, no cascading LLC chain, and no litigation. Definitional caveat: "Defensive / non-asserting" is defined in your framework as a chain terminating at a defensive aggregator; here it instead terminates at Google Technology Holdings LLC, an operating-company holding subsidiary that acquired the asset as part of Google's retained Motorola portfolio — so the patent is non-asserted and neutralized in practice, but by retention rather than by aggregator transfer. The one material gap is the unavailable correspondent-of-record for both reels; that does not change the verdict but should be closed before final reliance. Verify at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent-number search "9587979"; open reels 032877/0091 and 041153/0001).

I'll verify the USPTO record for 9587979 and research each of the four cited references in detail.

Let me research the remaining three references.

Let me research the Samsung reference and try to confirm the USPTO record directly.

Prior-Art Analysis for U.S. Patent No. 9,587,979 — Electronic device with infrared sensor-based user input controls

0. Target-patent confirmation (literal-ID discipline)

Per the strict rule to interpret identifiers literally:

• The target is US 9,587,979 B2, application 14/276,098, "Electronic device with infrared sensor-based user input controls," filed/priority 2014-05-13, granted 2017-03-07, current assignee Google Technology Holdings LLC, inventors Alameh, Hede, Slaby. Pre-grant publication: US 2015/0331542 A1.
• Similar-number false positive explicitly excluded: U.S. 8,095,879 (Neonode "slide-to-unlock") is not this patent and is not treated here. The "9587979" string maps to only one record — US 9,587,979 B2 — and I did not auto-correct or substitute any identifier.
• US 7,102,486 (below) is a cited reference, not the target patent; it is kept distinct.

On the USPTO-database instruction: My direct Patent Center / P-TACTS query step did not return the record within the available tool budget (the retriever returned "maximum number of steps"). The bibliographic and citation data below therefore come from the authoritative full patent text supplied for this analysis, corroborated by the Google Patents and Justia records returned by search. The four references are those the record itself lists under "Patent Citations" (Google Patents marks each with "* Cited by examiner"), i.e., the examiner-cited art of record. No non-patent literature is listed in the citation record.

1. The four cited references — full citations and dates

§ 102 date status (AIA): The application was filed 2014-05-13, after the AIA's 2013-03-16 cutover, so AIA § 102 governs. Each reference published/issued before the 2014-05-13 effective filing date and each is a "patent" or "printed publication," so all four qualify as prior art under § 102(a)(1) (and the patent, R1, also under § 102(a)(2) as of its issue).

2. Reference-by-reference description and claim mapping

R1 — US 7,102,486 B2 (Unirec) — "Locking apparatus"

Description. A door-lock with a fingerprint reader (23), a verifier and a power circuit. A chamber (19) houses the reader; a spring-biased lid (25) covers the chamber opening (21) and, when pushed by a user's finger, opens downward (pivoting about a shaft with a torque spring 31) so the finger can enter and be read; a switch (41) interlocks with the lid to power the circuit. The lid may be conductive/grounded (ESD protection).

Element overlap with '979. Push-actuated cover → aperture opens to expose an internal sensor = conceptually the "shutter"/"flexible portion" aspect (FIGS. 5A–5B). But: the internal sensor is a fingerprint reader, not an infrared thermopile; nothing opens a perimeter housing aperture between a rigid/flexible/rigid segment set; and there is no detection of a change in the amount of infrared light corresponding to a change in aperture size.

§ 102 analysis. Does not anticipate claim 1, 10, or 13 (each missing the infrared-sensor generating a signal from an IR-amount change tied to aperture-size change, and the deformable perimeter-segment architecture). Because no independent claim is met, no dependent claim is anticipated either (a dependent claim requires all limitations of its base claim). Best characterization: a § 103-type reference for the "press-to-open aperture over an internal sensor" concept.

R2 — US 2010/0127969 A1 (Asustek) — "Non-Contact Input Electronic Device and Method Thereof"

Description. A handheld device (phone/PDA) with a display module and multiple sensors (101–104) disposed around the display, which may be light sensors OR infrared sensors — the spec states IR sensors "may sense non-contact input motion according to the change of the heat" from the human body. A control module (20) determines a moving order of the user's non-contact gesture and generates/executes a corresponding input command (zoom, volume, page up/down, rotate, etc.).

Element overlap with '979. This is the closest art to the core "human-body infrared → input command → processor initiates function" idea, and it expressly contemplates IR sensing of body heat. But it is a non-contact, gesture-order system: there is no housing aperture, no flexible/deformable segment or shutter, no aperture opening/closing under external pressure, and critically no detection of a change from a first amount to a second amount of IR that corresponds to a change in aperture size.

§ 102 analysis. Does not anticipate claim 1, 10, or 13 — it lacks the housing/perimeter-segment and aperture-size-change limitations that distinguish the granted claims. Its real force is § 103, e.g., combined with R1 or R3 to supply "IR sensing of a person's body heat → input."

R3 — US 2010/0265040 A1 (Hitachi-Omron) — "Biometric authentication apparatus"

Description. A finger-vein authentication unit. Guides form a finger space blocking side light; a door assembly closes when no finger is present and opens downward by the pushing force of the finger, blocking overhead light; a light source on the door irradiates the finger; a filter/reflective surface and an imaging unit (101) beneath capture vein images. Several embodiments vary door spacing/gap (FIGS. 4–7 show doors pushed down with different finger widths).

Element overlap with '979. Strong structural analogue to the press-actuated door that opens an aperture for an internal sensor, including variable door displacement/gap depending on finger width (compare the '979 "gradated" aperture and FIGS. 4A–4D / 6A–6D). But: the sensor is an imager for vein authentication, driven by an active light source, not an infrared detector generating a signal from human-body IR amount; there is no perimeter rigid/flexible/rigid segment arrangement and no aperture-size-change → IR-amount-change detection.

§ 102 analysis. Does not anticipate claim 1, 10, or 13. Useful § 103 reference for the "finger-push opens a variable aperture to an internal sensor" concept.

R4 — US 2013/0016053 A1 (Samsung) — "Key input device"

Description. A key input device with a pressure key (215) or touch key, a pressure sensor (212), a flexible member (214) on a side portion of the key, a vibration actuator (213) (piezo/electroactive polymer, thin-film) attached to the flexible member, and a controller (230) that drives the actuator according to detected pressure/touch to give localized haptic feedback. Notably, it addresses a power-key context where the main processor is off.

Element overlap with '979. This is the art of record most directly aimed at the tactile/haptic feedback dependent claims — claims 5–6 (a structure providing tactile feedback selected from a mechanical popple, haptic feedback vibrator, and local vibratory source) and the FIG. 6D vibrating element 606 embodiment. The flexible-member-on-a-key structure is also superficially analogous to the '979 flexible housing segment. But it has no infrared sensor, no housing aperture, and no IR-amount/aperture-size detection.

§ 102 analysis. Does not anticipate claim 1, 10, or 13, and therefore does not anticipate dependent claims 5–6 (which incorporate all base-claim limitations). Its evidentiary role is § 103 against the haptic/tactile-feedback limitations (claims 5–6) when combined with an IR/aperture reference.

3. Anticipation (§ 102) conclusion — claim by claim

Net: On the face of the record, none of the four cited references anticipates any claim of US 9,587,979 under § 102, because each fails at least the same core independent-claim limitations — (i) the rigid/flexible(rigid-neighbored) perimeter-segment housing architecture, and (ii) the sensor detecting a change from a first to a second amount of infrared light that corresponds to a change in aperture size while the aperture is open. The four references read as § 103 obviousness art arranged around the invention's periphery (push-to-open aperture: R1, R3; IR body-heat sensing: R2; haptic feedback: R4) rather than as anticipatory references.

This is consistent with the earlier-noted observation that the granted claims are narrower than the published application US 2015/0331542 A1 — the broad publication claim 1 ("a housing comprising a flexible portion having an aperture…") would have been far more exposed to R1/R3, whereas the granted independent claims added the aperture-size-change/IR-amount-change detection that the cited art does not show.

4. Forward citations (not prior art — flagged to avoid confusion)

The record's "Families Citing this family" lists later documents that cite '979 as background — these post-date the 2014 filing and are not § 102 art:

• US 9,503,617 B2 — "Electronic device with flexible housing portion and related method" (Google Technology Holdings; same 2014-05-13 priority) — a same-priority sibling, not prior art.
• CN 106918905 B — Huawei, "Optical components and smart terminals" (priority 2017-02-24).
• CN 109510885 B — Oppo (Guangdong Mobile Communications), "electronic device" (priority 2018-11-19).

5. Caveats

1. Element-level relevance judgments for R1–R4 are based on the abstracts/specification text retrieved in search plus the record's own citation listing. I did not obtain the full claim sets and every drawing of each reference, so the anticipation conclusion is a careful face-of-the-document analysis, not a substitute for a full-text § 102 chart against each reference's complete disclosure.
2. Direct USPTO (Patent Center/P-TACTS) retrieval did not complete within the available steps; the citation set (4 references, all examiner-cited, no NPL) is taken from the authoritative patent text and corroborated by Google Patents/Justia. A live P-TACTS "References Cited" pull is recommended to confirm the list is exhaustive and does not include non-patent literature.
3. Dating: R2's publication is given as 2010-05-26 by one aggregator and 2010-05-27 by Google Patents; either date is comfortably pre-2014 and the discrepancy does not affect § 102 status.
4. No auto-correction applied. US 8,095,879 (Neonode) is excluded as a similar-number false positive; US 7,102,486 is a cited reference, not the target.

I'll gather details on the prior-art references cited on the patent page before building the § 103 analysis.

Let me check the remaining cited reference and one closely-related document.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,587,979 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analysis date: 2026-04-26 (per task prompt)
Basis: The four references listed in the "Citations / Patent Citations" (prior-art) section of the US9587979B2 page, plus the granted claims reproduced in the authoritative patent text.
Cross-check against prior sections: I found no contradiction with the previously generated summary/litigation sections. Consistent with those sections, I analyze the granted claims (16 claims; independents 1, 10, 13), not the broader pre-grant publication claims of US 2015/0331542 A1.

AIA note: The application was filed 2014-05-13, after the 2013-03-16 AIA date, so AIA § 102/§ 103 govern. All four cited references published well before 2014-05-13 and therefore qualify as prior art under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2).

1. The four references in the prior-art section, and what they actually disclose

I pulled the text/abstracts for each. Below is only what I could verify from retrieved content, with URLs.

Sources:

• Asustek: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100127969 ; PDF https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/05/ac/80/09fd251dc6143f/US20100127969A1.pdf ; https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20100127969
• Hitachi-Omron: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100265040A1/en ; PDF https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/38/7c/c0/d910a640e6ec36/US20100265040A1.pdf
• Unirec: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7102486 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[7102486](/patent/7102486).html
• Samsung: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130016053A1 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0016053.html

Explicitly excluded as prior art (do not use): US 9,503,617 B2 / US 2015/0334274 A1 ("Electronic device with flexible housing portion and related method") shares the same inventors, the same 2014-05-13 priority/filing date, and common ownership (Motorola Mobility → Google Technology Holdings). A same-day, commonly-owned sibling is not "before" the claimed invention under AIA § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(b)(2)(C) and cannot be combined. It is nevertheless useful as evidence of the ordinary engineer's design space (it claims rigid/flexible housing segments and light-path alteration on flex), but not as § 103 art. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150334274A1/en

2. Where the novelty actually lies (limitation clusters)

Stripping the claims to their inventive weight:

3. Proposed combinations

Combination A (primary, directed at claims 1, 10, 13 and 16): Asustek '969 + Hitachi-Omron '040 + Unirec '486

Mapping:

• IR sensor + "change in heat from a human body → control module generates an input command" → Asustek '969 claim 1 + claim 3, [0023].
• Aperture that is closed to block ambient light when no finger is present, and that opens under the finger's own pushing force → Hitachi-Omron '040 Summary + FIGS. 4–7; also Unirec '486 (spring-biased lid 25, torque spring 31, opens when pushed).
• Using the aperture/lid position change as the trigger to energize a device function (power on/off) instead of running the detector continuously → Unirec '486 expressly: a switch interlocked with the lid "to turn on and off the power supply circuit in response to the opening and closing of the lid," with the stated advantages of improving operability, avoiding a continuously-running arrangement, reducing cost, and eliminating the need for a timer.
• Processor receives signal and initiates function → Asustek '969 claim 1 ("control module … generating an input command … and executing the input command"); Unirec '486 (power supply switched on by lid opening).

Motivation to combine (articulated three ways, since motivation must be grounded, not assumed):

1. From the references themselves (TSM-style). Hitachi-Omron states its objective is keeping "the influence of light virtually constant," and it does so with a door that closes when no finger is in place. Asustek wants to derive commands from heat changes but describes no mechanism to keep the sensing region clean when the user is not deliberately interacting. Substituting Hitachi-Omron's normally-closed, finger-actuated door in front of Asustek's IR sensor is a direct, one-step improvement responsive to each reference's own stated concern.
2. From the patent's own admitted problem. The '979 Background concedes the motivation: virtual keys via touch sensors are "very easy for them to be pressed accidentally, even when the user's hand is nowhere near the device… as a result of the device bouncing around in the user's pocket or purse." A normally-closed aperture that opens only under a deliberate press is the obvious answer, and Asustek's non-contact sensing plus A2/A3's press-actuated aperture together supply exactly that answer. Under KSR, where the patent's stated problem drives the combination, that is sufficient motivation.
3. Design incentives / predictable results. All three references are in the same field (user-input devices for electronic equipment, three of them portable or kiosk-sized). A thermopile/heat sensor is a known off-the-shelf component (Asustek), a spring-biased or pivot-mounted door is a known off-the-shelf mechanism (Unirec, Hitachi-Omron), and simply placing one behind the other is a predictable aggregation of known functions with no change in their individual operating principles. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).

Result: Combination A discloses or renders obvious every element of claim 1 except the "rigid 1st / flexible 2nd / rigid 3rd perimeter segment" recitation and the aperture-size-correlated change-of-amount language (C4) — addressed below and in § 6.

Claims 10 / 13 (movable segment stretches / flexes toward the sensor, and IR sensor detects movement of the IR source toward the sensor at the aperture):

• Asustek '969 claim 3 already detects movement of a heat-emitting body via "the change of the heat" and even derives a direction ("moving order," [0024], [0029]) — including directions that imply motion toward a sensor position (bottom-to-top, top-to-bottom).
• Hitachi-Omron '040 FIGS. 4–5 and Unirec '486 both teach the movable element being displaced toward the sensor/reader space by the finger's own pushing force (the door "opens downward by a pushing force"; the lid is "supported… so that the lid may open when pushed into the chamber").
• "Stretches" vs. "flexes" (the only difference between claims 10 and 13) is a recitation of two species of the same known elastic deformation behavior; the '979 spec itself treats deformation and flexing interchangeably ("flexes or stretches to accommodate the movement"). Where a claim recites alternatives that differ only in nomenclature for a known property, § 103 is met. In re Skoner, 517 F.2d 947 (CCPA 1975) (two or more equivalents in a single claim).

Combination B (directed at claims 5 and 6 — tactile feedback): Combination A + Samsung '053

Samsung '053 is a near-perfect anticipatory-style hit for C6:

• It discloses a flexible member formed on a side portion of the key (the '979's "flexible … segment"), a vibration actuator attached to the flexible member, formed of piezoelectric material or electroactive polymer, with the controller controlling the vibration according to detected pressure ([0031]–[0034]).
• Claim 6 of the '979 recites the structure "selected from the group consisting of a mechanical popple, a haptic feedback vibrator, and a local vibratory source." Samsung's thin-film piezo/EAP actuator on a local flexible member is a local vibratory source / haptic feedback vibrator; and its stated goal — "vibration feedback to a key input can be intensively transferred to a finger operating the pressure key" ([0035]) — is the identical purpose of the '979's popple/vibrator. See In re Petering, 301 F.2d 676 (CCPA 1962) (a limited class, one of which is disclosed, renders the genus obvious).
• The mechanical popple alternative in claim 6 is also taught in substance by Unirec's spring/pusher ("a pusher configured to push the lid toward a position where the lid closes the opening"; torque spring 31), which supplies the resettable, sprung tactile "break" that a popple provides.

Motivation: Samsung expressly identifies the deficiency of whole-device vibration (feedback lost to the holding hand) and solves it with a local actuator on the key's flexible side member. Combining that with Combination A's press-actuated aperture gives the user a felt confirmation that the deliberate press was registered — reinforcing the anti-accidental-actuation purpose that underlies the whole combination.

Combination C (directed at claims 2–4, 7–9, 11, 12, 14, 15): Combination A/B + routine design choices and Asustek's directional mapping

• Claims 2–4 (first amount → second amount; first less than OR greater than the second): Asustek teaches that the quantity/direction of the detected heat change is discriminated and mapped to different commands (claims 5–10: different "moving orders" → different commands, including volume up vs. volume down). Samsung teaches converting pressure magnitude into a correspondingly graded output ([0034]: "change strength and a pattern of vibration… according to the magnitude of pressure"). Aperture size is a direct function of press depth; taking a graded signal from a progressively opened aperture is the predictable mechanical result. Note the breadth of claims 3 and 4 — the claim set covers both increasing and decreasing IR throughput — which means no specific "gradient direction" can supply non-obviousness.
• Claim 7 (aperture is a slit): The '979 specification itself says "each aperture is a slit." Hitachi-Omron's opposed doors define a variable-width gap between two members — structurally a slit that changes size. Selecting a slit geometry over, e.g., a round hole is an unpatentable routine design choice. In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669 (CCPA 1960).
• Claim 8 (LWIR-transparent membrane): Hitachi-Omron places a filter at the bottom of the finger space in front of the imaging unit — i.e., a window interposed between the sensed region and the detector. Substituting a material selected for LWIR transmission is a routine materials choice; the '979 offers no data showing unexpected results for any particular membrane material.
• Claim 9 (LWIR): Asustek '969 claim 3 recites infrared sensors sensing "the change of heat," and [0023] attributes the heat to the human body. Human-body thermal emission is LWIR; the '979 spec admits as much ("LWIR… having a wavelength of about 4 micrometers to about 15 micrometers, which is the kind of infrared light emitted by the human body"). Applicant's own specification admission can establish this as known. This is at most an inherency point.
• Claims 11 / 14 (slit widens as the IR source exerts pressure): Hitachi-Omron's FIGS. 4–7 show the doors opened further with a wider/firmer finger, and the whole reference is about finger-width-dependent opening. Widening under pressure is disclosed.
• Claims 12 / 15 (movable segment moves independently of the rest of the housing): Unirec's lid 25 is "supported by the housing 7 through the shaft 29 and is turnable around the shaft 29" — i.e., it moves independently of the surrounding housing. Hitachi-Omron's doors likewise pivot independently of the guides.
• Claim 16 (mobile device): Asustek [0026]: the device "may be a handheld phone or a personal digital assistant."

4. Claim-by-claim § 103 conclusions

5. The strongest non-obviousness argument the patentee will make, and the rebuttal

Patentee's best argument. Element C4 is the only limitation no reference expressly discloses. None of the four references states that (i) the size of the aperture changes while the aperture is open, (ii) the IR sensor detects the resulting first-to-second amount change, and (iii) that change corresponds to the aperture-size change. Unirec's switch is binary (open/closed); Hitachi-Omron's output is an image, not an IR-flux delta; Asustek detects source motion, not aperture geometry. A patentee will argue the claims are directed to reading mechanical aperture modulation as the signal, which is different in kind from reading the presence or motion of a warm body.

There is also a real secondary argument: the '979 patent's asserted advance is to make the aperture itself the transducer — i.e., the user's press depth is encoded in the flux, giving graded control from a single IR sensor with no additional switch. That is more than the sum of A1 + A2 + A3, and a patentee will characterize it as an unexpected/unclaimed-elsewhere result.

Rebuttal:

1. Predictability / inherency of the physics. At a fixed source temperature, the radiative power reaching a detector behind an opening scales with the opening's projected area. Any progressively opening aperture (Unirec's pivoting lid, Hitachi-Omron's pushed-down doors) necessarily presents a varying aperture size during actuation, and the first/second amounts follow as a matter of the blackbody/flux relation. Placing Asustek's heat-change detector behind such an aperture yields the recited detection without change in the principle of operation of any element.
2. Motivation supplied by Samsung '053. Samsung expressly teaches converting magnitude of pressure into a graded output ("change strength and a pattern of vibration… according to the magnitude of pressure"). Once graded pressure response is in the combination, using the graded aperture opening as the graded input is the natural, motivated design.
3. Claim breadth defeats a "special configuration" story. Claims 3 and 4 claim both firstsecond; the claim set therefore does not require any particular aperture geometry, any particular rate or direction of change, nor any particular calibration. There is no recited structure (no calibrated iris, no encoder, no feedback loop) that would distinguish the claim over a lid that simply swings open.
4. No nexus / no secondary considerations on the record. The prior sections of this analysis found no litigation, no PTAB challenges, and no commercial-success or licensing evidence tied to this family. Without a nexus between any objective indicia and the claimed subject matter, secondary considerations cannot carry the claim. In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573 (Fed. Cir. 1995).
5. Claim-drafting caution. As noted in the earlier section, the '979 specification describes "detect[ing] a change in the amount of LWIR it detects" and a "gradated" aperture as alternative embodiments of the same single-sensor scheme; the granted claim language is close to a claim to that admitted capability, which weakens any argument that the claim captured an unrecognized discovery.

6. Candid weaknesses, and what would change the conclusion

Reporting these deliberately, because the "no express disclosure of C4" gap is real:

1. I could not verify the full text of US 2010/0265040 A1 and US 7,102,486 B2 beyond the abstracts/summaries and figure descriptions quoted above. Full-text review of A2's door geometry and A3's switch interlock should be done before any formal invalidity contention, because the precise disclosure of how the movable member is supported and how it interacts with the detector is dispositive for claims 10–15.
2. The examiner's rejection history is unknown from the page. The reference list is marked "*Cited by examiner," but the page does not show whether any of the four was applied under § 102, § 103, or merely listed. If A2 or A3 was applied as a § 102 reference against a broader pre-grant claim, that is useful context; the file history (and any appeal or after-final record) should be pulled.
3. Additional references worth pulling (not in the cited list, but flagged for completeness):
   • WO 2013/106147 A1, "Touch screen device with surface switch" (2013-07-18) — published before the 2014-05-13 priority date and therefore potentially citable; listed among the "similar documents" on the patent page, but I hold no verified content for it, so I make no claim about what it discloses. https://patents.google.com/patent/US9587979B2/en
   • US 10,871,830 B2, "Proximity detection for an input mechanism of an electronic device" and HK1235881B — after the priority date, so prior art only if a § 102(a)(2) chain can be established; likely of no use as § 103 art.
   • US 8,588,478 B2 / US 2011/0129128 A1 (Hitachi-Omron, "Biometric authentication apparatus and method") appeared in my searches as related Hitachi-Omron biometric art (pressing-degree sensor → controller decides whether acquisition is appropriate). Not on the patent page's citation list; verify before relying on it.
4. My earlier findings stand unchanged: no litigation, no PTAB proceeding, and no verified CAFC 2026 activity involving US 9,587,979. Those were null search results, not confirmations. Nothing in this § 103 analysis depends on them.

7. Bottom line

• Claims 2–9 and 11–16 (the dependent claims and the stretch/flex independents 10 and 13) are, on the four cited references, more likely than not obvious under § 103, principally via Asustek '969 (IR heat-change sensing → input command) + Hitachi-Omron '040 or Unirec '486 (normally-closed, finger-push-actuated aperture that blocks ambient light until a deliberate press) + Samsung '053 (pressure-responsive local haptic feedback, and magnitude-graded output).
• The motivation to combine is well documented and unusually strong here, because it comes (i) from each reference's own stated objective (Hitachi-Omron: constant optical influence; Unirec: no continuous switching, lower cost; Samsung: feedback localized to the finger), and (ii) from the '979 patent's own admitted problem — accidental actuation of touch-based virtual keys.
• Claim 1 is the closest call. Its only substantial delta over the combination is the aperture-size-correlated change-of-amount limitation; § 103 there rests on predictability/inherency of radiative flux through a progressively opening aperture plus Samsung's graded-pressure teaching, rather than on an express disclosure. If any contention is to be pressed on this patent, it should be organized around this limitation and supported with a declaration from a POSITA on the flux/aperture-area relationship — and it should be prepared for the patentee's inherency-based rebuttal (Honeywell Int'l v. ITC, 341 F.3d 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2003); In re Robertson, 169 F.3d 743 (Fed. Cir. 1999)) if the "corresponds to" language is construed as requiring a measured, calibrated correspondence rather than an incidental one.