PTAB

IPR2017-01404

Luxshare Precision Industry Co., Ltd. v. Bing Xu Precision Co. Ltd.

Log In

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Electrical Connector Assembly
  • Brief Description: The ’071 patent relates to an electrical connector assembly compliant with the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) standard. The invention purports to improve upon prior art connectors by integrating a flexible flat cable (FFC) and a printed circuit board (PCB) to eliminate separate components like spacers and brackets, thereby reducing manufacturing costs and complexity.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1 and 3 are anticipated by Wu

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wu (Patent 7,563,108).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Wu, which describes a SATA connector assembly, discloses every element of independent claim 1. Wu teaches an insulating housing with grooves (slots 1224), a PCB with soldering holes, and distinct power and data terminals fastened within the grooves. Petitioner contended that Wu’s cable (3) qualifies as the claimed FFC because it is a flexible, flat, unitary cable containing both power and data conductors connected to the PCB. For dependent claim 3, Petitioner asserted that Wu’s cover (4) and PCB (2) inherently fasten a bending portion of the cable, satisfying the claim’s strain relief feature.
    • Key Aspects: This ground asserted that the claimed invention was not novel, as Wu provided a complete blueprint for the connector assembly described in claims 1 and 3.

Ground 2: Claims 2, 8, 9, and 13 are obvious over Wu in view of the Area Array Interconnection Handbook

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wu (Patent 7,563,108) and The Area Array Interconnection Handbook (2001) (“Handbook”).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the disclosures of Wu. For claims 2, 9, and 13, which require the pitch between contacts to be less than the pitch between soldering holes, Petitioner argued this was an obvious design feature. The Handbook was cited to teach "fan-out" routing designs on a PCB, a well-known technique used to connect components with different pitches. For claim 8, which replaces "soldering holes" with "soldering portions" and requires a "bending tail," the Handbook was cited to show that using surface-mount soldering with bent (gull-wing) leads was a common and interchangeable alternative to through-hole soldering.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSA) designing a SATA connector like Wu's would be motivated to consult a standard reference like the Handbook to solve common design challenges. To connect the standardized SATA interface to a narrower-pitch FFC, a POSA would naturally apply the Handbook's fan-out routing. Similarly, a POSA would recognize that using bent-tail leads for surface mounting was a known, predictable alternative to through-hole soldering for attaching terminals to a PCB.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was argued to be predictable, as it involved applying a known technique (fan-out routing or surface-mount soldering) to a known device (a SATA connector) to achieve a predictable result (pitch translation or an alternative soldering method).

Ground 3: Claims 4, 5, 16, and 18 are obvious over Wu in view of Tang

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wu (Patent 7,563,108) and Tang (Patent 6,152,765).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims related to mechanically securing the PCB to the housing. Wu secures its PCB using a sliding cover. Claims 4 and 16 require a "latch" and "pin" on the housing that engage a "pin hole" on the PCB. Petitioner argued Tang disclosed this exact mechanism, teaching a connector with positioning posts (pins) that fit into mounting holes on a PCB and a "board lock" (latch) that fastens the PCB to the housing. Claims 5 and 18 add a "stopper" and "block" for positioning. Petitioner mapped Wu's "stopper member 122" to the claimed stopper and Tang's "spaced standoffs 15" to the claimed block.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSA would have been motivated to improve the simple sliding cover mechanism in Wu with a more robust and precise fastening method. Tang provided a known, predictable, and finite design choice for achieving this using a pin-and-latch system. This combination represented the use of a known technique to improve a similar device, a common design practice in the field of connectors.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSA would have a high expectation of success in replacing Wu's cover with Tang's well-understood pin-and-latch mechanism, as both are standard methods for securing a PCB to a connector housing, and the result would be a predictably more secure assembly.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that various claims were obvious over Wu alone (Ground 2); claim 14 was obvious over Wu, Green (Patent 5,501,612), and De Lollis (a 1965 IEEE article) for adding an adhesive injection hole; claim 17 was obvious over Wu and Brennan (Patent 5,941,725) for using a buckling-and-hook fastening mechanism; and claims covering specific soldering ratios (e.g., two-to-one) were obvious over Wu, the SATA Standard, and Su (Patent 7,803,009) to meet power delivery requirements.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "FFC (flexible flat cable)": Petitioner proposed this term means a flexible flat cable with a consolidated/unitary construction for housing both power and data conductors in one cable. This construction was argued to be consistent with the ’071 patent’s stated purpose of reducing manufacturing cost by eliminating the management of separate wires and was used to argue that the cable in Wu met this limitation.
  • "Latch": Petitioner proposed this term means a general "fastening mechanism." This broad construction was intended to prevent limiting the claim to the specific latch shape depicted in the ’071 patent's figures and was used to argue that the "board lock" taught in the Tang reference satisfied this claim element.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-20 of the ’071 patent as unpatentable.