Samuel Frazer

I'll research this entity before writing. Note the case dates are from the 1880s, which suggests this may be a historical rather than modern entity.

Samuel Frazer is not a modern corporation — the name in the case data refers to a 19th-century American inventor and businessman (born Feb. 27, 1824, Fatfield, County Durham, England; died 1899, Galena, Illinois). He emigrated in 1854, settled at Galena, and by 1856 was manufacturing an artificial axle grease from distilled rosin oil, marketed as "Frazer's Axle Grease," "Frazer's Lubricator," and "Frazer's Grease." He patented his rosin-oil distillation process in 1860. There is no current legal entity, ticker, or parent; no verifiable employee, revenue, or market data exists, and no modern successor should be inferred.

Operations: In 1868 Frazer relocated the business to Chicago, forming Frazer, Swift & Co. with George B. Swift, Edward Hunter, and Otis S. Favor; that firm became The Frazer Lubricator Company, incorporated in Illinois on April 29, 1870. Frazer sold his interest — the patents plus the exclusive right to use his name as a trademark — for $17,500 in February 1870 and retired. He later obtained 1879 and 1880 patents for improved axle-grease processes and, in 1883–84, founded the competing Galena firm S. Frazer & Co., selling "Superior Axle Grease."

Litigation posture: Both tracked appearances are defensive (2 as defendant, 0 as plaintiff), but this is not the NPE-versus-operating-company pattern the schema assumes. They are 19th-century trademark, contract, and patent actions brought by The Frazer Lubricator Company against Frazer and his firm, in Illinois state courts and the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota — not modern patent venues.

Notable cases: Frazer Lubricator Co. v. Samuel Frazer et al. (bill filed Aug. 30, 1884, Superior Court of Cook County; affirmed 18 Ill. App. 450 (1886); affirmed Frazer v. Frazer Lubricator Co., 121 Ill. 147, 13 N.E. 639 (1887)) held that Frazer, having sold his name, could not reuse it in the grease trade. Frazer Lubricator Co. v. S. Frazer & Co. et al., 23 F. 305 (C.C.D. Minn., Apr. 1885), denied a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. Separately, United States v. Frazer, 22 F. 106 (N.D. Ill. 1884), sought cancellation of the 1879/1880 patents, reportedly at the company's instigation.