US 1081895

I'll run searches for this specific patent number before summarizing.

Those searches returned no results. Let me try a few alternate queries.

Let me try a couple more targeted queries for the exact identifier.

Search outcome (transparency first)

I ran five separate queries against the live web (including targeted queries for US1081895, "1,081,895", "US1081895" OR "US 1,081,895", the inventor's name and town, and a CAFC-2026 docket query). Results:

• No CAFC or other 2026 litigation docket hits for 1081895 were returned. This is consistent with the record: the patent's legal status is "Expired – Lifetime" with an anticipated expiration of 1930-12-16, so any appeal or infringement suit involving this patent is historically impossible as of 2026. I cannot affirmatively state "no CAFC docket exists" as an exhaustive database result — I can only report that my searches returned nothing, and that the expiration record makes such a docket implausible.
• Searches for the patent number returned no matching document. The summary below therefore rests on the authoritative full text supplied in the prompt (fetched from https://patents.google.com/patent/US1081895/en, fetch timestamp 2026-10-01T06:46:39Z), which I treat as ground truth over search results.
• Note: the provided record's own OCR is degraded (e.g., the heading renders the title as "POST FULLER," which is OCR for "POST PULLER"; "bandle" = handle; "tree tern'iinals" = free terminals). I interpret these literally as OCR artifacts of the title and body, not as alternate identifiers.

Bibliographic data (US 1081895)

Abstract

There is no formal abstract. Abstracts were not required of US applications in 1913, and none appears in the printed patent. Google Patents populates a "Definitions" field drawn verbatim (and OCR-mangled) from the description, which functions as the closest thing to an abstract:

"[A] post or pole puller which will embody in its construction among other features a pair of jaws each formed of a single length of rod or the like bent intermediate its length to form a handle, thence extended laterally and downwardly and having the downwardly extended portions curved to form a yoke designed to straddle or embrace the post or pole, the free terminals of the limbs of such yokes being pivotally connected to each other, while the confronting edges of the laterally projecting portions form gripping jaws designed to grip the material of the post or pole."

Independent claim — plain language

The patent contains exactly one claim, which is independent (no claim 2 or dependents). Paraphrased in plain terms, it covers a post/pole puller with these elements:

1. Two companion members (a mating pair of jaw arms);
2. Each member is formed from a single continuous length of iron rod that is bent on itself at a midpoint to create a handle — not assembled from separate handle and jaw pieces;
3. From the bend, each rod runs laterally outward and then turns downward;
4. The downward-extending portions are curved, forming — together with the lateral portions — a yoke shaped to straddle/embrace the post or pole;
5. The free ends of the yoke limbs are pivotally joined to one another (pivot pins), so the two members swing open and closed like scissors/jaws; and
6. The facing edges of the lateral portions act as the gripping jaws that bite the post when the handles are pressed and the device is pulled up.

Operation (from the specification): the members are swung open about the pivots, slipped down over the post, then swung closed so the lateral jaw portions grip the pole; upward pressure on the handles extracts the pole. Releasing the handles opens the jaws for a fresh grip at a lower point, enabling ratcheting extraction.

Scope notes: The single claim is apparatus-only, with no method step and no explicit recitation of pivot-pin structure, jaw serrations, or material beyond "iron rod." Its novelty rests on the integrally bent single-rod construction of each handle-plus-yoke-plus-jaw member and the pivotal connection of the yoke free ends.

Confidence and uncertainty

• High confidence in title, inventor, dates, application number, claim text, and single-claim structure — these are directly from the authoritative full text.
• Moderate confidence in assignee: the record says "Individual," but Google Patents states the assignee listing "may be inaccurate"; no assignment document was retrieved. Same caveat for the witness surnames, which are OCR-degraded.
• Low/uncertain: any 2026 CAFC activity (searches returned nothing; the 1930 expiry makes it implausible), and the identity of any prosecuting attorney or intervening assignment, neither of which appears in the record.
• Note a date discrepancy in the tasking: the instructions state a current date of April 26, 2026, whereas the document fetch timestamp is 2026-10-01. This does not affect the patent data above.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 1081895 specifically.

Let me run additional targeted searches.

Let me check litigation databases directly for this specific patent.

Litigation Report — U.S. Patent No. 1,081,895

Bottom Line

No litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 1,081,895. I found no district court cases, appeals, or administrative proceedings (PTAB/IPR, ITC) naming this patent. I also found no evidence of any historical infringement suit from the patent's active life.

The Patent Itself (as grounding)

Per the authoritative patent record (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US1081895/en), the patent is marked "Expired – Lifetime," with the expiration dated December 16, 1930.

Why No Litigation Is Expected or Found

1. The patent expired in 1930. Under the patent term then in force (17 years from grant, R.S. §4884), the term ran from December 16, 1913 to December 16, 1930. Any infringement action would have had to be filed before that date. Infringement liability cannot attach to acts occurring after expiration.

2. Nature of the subject matter. It is a one-claim, hand-operated farm/utility tool (fence-post and pole extraction) issued to an individual inventor with no corporate assignee of record and no recorded assignments in the Google Patents family data (family ID 3150128; no assignee history beyond "Individual").

3. No continuing prosecution family. Only one family application is listed (US 772,889 A). There are no continuations, divisionals, or reissues in the same family that could create a later-expiring right.

4. Narrow forward citation. Google Patents lists only one "Cited By" document — US 2,645,376 A (Helmco Inc., "Container support," 1953). That is a citation in a later patent, not litigation. Being cited by a 1953 patent does not create any legal proceeding.

5. No NPE or assertion activity. The patent has no litigation pedigree, no assignee with litigation history, and is not a candidate for modern assertion given both the subject matter and how long it has been public domain.

What I Searched and What I Found

• Web searches for litigation on "1081895" and "1,081,895" returned no relevant case records.
• Searches of Unified Patents' litigation/PTAB portal references returned only unrelated PAE litigation (MCOM IP, Uniloc, Velos Media, SportBrain), none involving 1,081,895.
• A search for "1081895" patent lawsuit returned zero results.
• One search surfaced EP 1,081,895 A1 — a completely different, unrelated European patent titled "Secure Wireless Local Area Network" (2001). This is a different patent in a different numbering space and must not be conflated with US 1,081,895. Likewise, citations to numbers like "US 2008-0081095 A1" and "IPR2019-00763 ... Patent 10110898" that appeared in results are unrelated documents.

Caveats — Please Read

• I could not complete a fully exhaustive database query. My tool access was capped before I could run case-by-case lookups on CourtListener/RECAP, Docket Alarm, or the Unified Patents portal's case list for this specific patent number. The conclusion above rests on the searches actually performed plus the authoritative patent record. It is a strong negative, but I want to be transparent that it is not a certified null result from every docket.
• Historical suits may not be electronically indexed. If a 1913–1930s suit did exist, it would likely appear only in contemporaneous print sources (Federal Reporter volumes, Federal Supplement, the Commissioner of Patents' decisions) or in archived district court records that predate PACER. I have no evidence such a suit exists, but I cannot affirmatively rule it out using modern electronic dockets alone, which generally do not reach back that far.
• Do not rely on this as a clearance or validity opinion. This is a litigation search report only.

Recommended Next Steps (if a definitive answer is needed)

1. Search CourtListener/RECAP and Docket Alarm directly for the patent number.
2. Query the Unified Patents Portal litigation case list filtered on the patent number.
3. For the historical window (1913–1930), commission a manual check of Federal Reporter digests and Patent Office litigation records.

Conclusion: As of my searches on April 26, 2026, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 1,081,895. The absence is explained by the patent's December 16, 1930 expiration and its character as a single-claim, individually-owned hand tool.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file against US 1081895: zero. The USPTO Open Data Portal PTAB proceeding list for this patent is empty — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM — and independent web searching (Google Patents "Cited By"/family data plus general searches for a PTAB proceeding on this number) surfaced no older or unindexed filings either. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is the strongest one that exists in this dataset, for a reason that has nothing to do with the merits: US 1081895 is a 1913 patent that expired on 1930-12-16 and has been public domain for roughly 96 years. It is a 7-digit pre-1930 grant (Edward Duda, of Edholm, Nebraska, "Post-Puller," filed 1913-06-10, granted 1913-12-16). There is no live claim scope to attack, no petitioner with standing to maintain an AIA trial, and no possibility of a demand letter built on it being anything other than facially baseless.

Proceedings

None. There is nothing to list — no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal exists for US1081895, and I will not invent one.

For completeness, the artifacts that can be mistaken for PTAB activity are not proceedings:

• "Cited By (1)" — US2645376A ("Container support," Helmco Inc., filed 1947-07-30, published 1953-07-14) is a forward citation in the patent literature, not a PTAB or district court action. It is cited by an examiner/third party as prior art against a later patent; it is not a challenge to US1081895.
• "Similar Documents" (US863111 Bolt-clipper, US676599 Fence-post puller, US1708382 Weed-extracting tool, US642437 Stump-puller, etc.) are classification-adjacent references in the same art space — candidate prior art for other patents, not proceedings against this one.
• Family / Priority shows a single US application, US77288913A, with no foreign counterparts and no reissue, reexamination, or continuation activity on file.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% expired, 0% canceled, 0% sustained, 0% tested. US1081895 issued with a single claim (an apparatus claim directed to companion members each formed of a single length of iron rod bent intermediate its ends to form a handle, extended laterally and projected downwardly into a yoke, pivotally connected at the free extremities of the yokes). That claim was never construed by any tribunal, never invalidated, and never affirmed — because under the 17-year term measured from the 1913-12-16 grant it lapsed on 1930-12-16. There is no surviving claim and no narrowed claim set to list. Note also that the AIA trial mechanisms were created by the America Invents Act of 2011 and became available for petitions filed on or after 2012-09-16 — by which point this patent had been expired for over 81 years. Even the older inter partes reexamination and ex parte reexamination routes (35 U.S.C. §§ 302, 311) require a live patent worth contesting; there is none.

Estoppel landscape: no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. Estoppel is generated by a petitioner's own instituted IPR/PGR, and no one has ever petitioned. Conversely — and this is the point worth internalizing — there is no prior-art ground a defendant needs to preserve, because there is no valid claim to invalidate. The defense is not "the art anticipates." It is "the patent expired on 1930-12-16." Post-expiration activity cannot infringe a patent; for an expired patent, infringement liability reaches only acts occurring before expiration (and damages are further limited by the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286). With expiration in 1930, every limitation period has run many times over, and any live dispute over this patent would be moot as a matter of justiciability long before estoppel became relevant.

Pattern signals: none, and none are plausible. No serial petitioner, no repeat filer, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, or otherwise) in the chain — aggregators exist to clear live nuisance patents asserted against operating companies, and a 1930-expired patent has no assertion value to crowdsource away. The patent owner is listed only as "Individual," with no assignee ever recorded, no continuation family, and no Federal Circuit docket. There is no litigation pattern to infer from, and no CAFC opinion at CourtListener or on the Federal Circuit docket naming this patent number.

Recommended next steps

• If you received a demand letter citing "US 1081895" (or "US Patent 1,081,895"): treat it as a red flag on the sender, not a risk to you. The patent expired 1930-12-16 and is unenforceable for any conduct occurring since. Source: Google Patents, US1081895A — legal status line reads "Expired - Lifetime," anticipated expiration 1930-12-16. There is no FWD to link to, because no trial was ever instituted; the USPTO PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions system shows no proceeding for this number.
• Watch for a number-transposition or format trap. "1081895" is a 7-digit pre-1930 grant number. Modern US patents run to 8 digits in the 10,xxx,xxx / 11,xxx,xxx / 12,xxx,xxx range. An assertion letter or claim chart that cites "10,818,954," "10,818,955," or similar can be mis-read as this patent (or vice versa). Confirm the actual number, the grant date, and the assignee on the face of the patent before responding. If the letter genuinely asserts this number, the response is a short, citation-backed letter, not a validity study.
• Do not spend budget on an AIA trial. There is no institution-stage milestone, no one-year statutory trial clock, no oral hearing, and no FWD due date to track, because no petition exists and none can be meaningfully maintained. There is also no basis for a declaratory-judgment invalidity action — the patent is expired, and the correct posture is to decline to engage on the merits.
• One ancillary check worth running: if the sender has marked or advertised goods as "patented" under this number after 1930, that implicates 35 U.S.C. § 292 (false marking), which — depending on the facts and the post-Leahy-Smith "competitive injury" standing requirement — may shift the leverage entirely to your side. That is fact-specific and I would not assert it without the actual marketing materials in hand.

Bottom line: the absence of PTAB activity here is not the usual "sleepy patent that hasn't been worth attacking" signal. It is a 113-year-old, 96-years-expired post-puller patent that no tribunal has ever touched and no defendant has ever needed to. If it appears in a demand, the sender either has the wrong patent number or is not a credible counterparty.

I'll verify the assignment record before writing anything.

Methodology note before the findings

Two things constrain what I can honestly report here. First, the Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) and the legacy Assignment Search (assignment.uspto.gov) are interactive JavaScript applications that I cannot query directly from this session — I can only read what is indexed elsewhere. Second, the authoritative full text of US 1,081,895 supplied for this analysis contains a complete Google Patents legal-events block, and that block shows only four events: application filed 1913-06-10, priority to US 77288913A, application granted 1913-12-16, and anticipated expiration 1930-12-16. There is no assignment, security-interest, merger, change-of-name, license, release, or correction event anywhere in the record. Google Patents also lists both "Current Assignee" and "Original Assignee" as Individual, with no corporate entity.

Independent web searches for an assignment record, reel/frame, or corporate assignee for this patent number returned nothing bearing on ownership. I found no evidence of any recorded transfer, and I am not going to invent reel/frame numbers to fill the template.

Inventors

• Edward Duda — sole named inventor. Residence at filing: Edholm, Butler County, Nebraska (per the specification's "residing at Edholm, in the county of Butler and State of Nebraska"). Employer at the time of filing: not determinable from the record; the patent is signed in his individual capacity with no corporate co-inventor, no employer address, and no shop or laboratory affiliation. Edholm was a small rural settlement in Butler County; the invention (a hand-operated fence-post puller) is consistent with an individual farmer/blacksmith-class inventor, but that is inference, not record evidence.
• Witnesses of record on the executed oath/signature block: Joseph A. Fichacek and M. Stara. These are witnesses to signing only — they are not assignees, correspondents, or attorneys of record, and should not be conflated with an assignment correspondent.
• No attorney or agent of record is named in the patent's front matter as a prosecution correspondent, and no recording correspondent exists because no assignment was ever recorded. This is itself the reason the "repeat correspondent" tell cannot be tested here.
• Departure pattern: not applicable — there was never an employer-assignee for the inventor to depart from. The "all inventors leave within 12 months" fire-sale precursor has no purchase on a patent that was never assigned in the first place.

Original assignee

None. US 1,081,895 issued to Edward Duda as an individual — the Google Patents bibliographic record lists "Individual" for both original and current assignee, and the specification contains no assignment-to-employer language, no "said assignee" phrasing, and no corporate entity anywhere. This is an unassigned, individually owned patent.

• Product embodying the claims: The device is a manually operated, two-piece fence-post/pole puller — companion iron-rod members each bent to form a handle, extending laterally, then downward into a curved yoke; the yoke limbs are pivotally pinned together, and the confronting edges of the lateral portions form self-tightening gripping jaws. It is a simple blacksmith-fabricable tool of the pre-WWI era. I found no evidence of commercial manufacture or sale by any entity — no trademark, no catalogue reference, no successor product. Whether Duda built and sold units locally is unknown and should not be asserted.
• Primary line of business: Individual inventor; no business entity of record.
• Current status: Individual inventor, long deceased. Legal status of the patent per Google Patents: Expired – Lifetime (term ran from the 1913-12-16 grant to 1930-12-16). The patent has been in the public domain for roughly 95 years. There is no operating company, no acquisition, and no bankruptcy to report.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Search / Assignment Center shows no recorded assignments for US 1,081,895. There is no reel/frame to cite, no assignor, no assignee, and no correspondent of record for this patent — the conveyance chain is empty because no conveyance was ever recorded.

Per the output rules, I stop the structured sections here.

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Collapsed final entry (mandated single verdict):

Verdict: Insufficient data — "no records, or only the original assignment."

Justification: The full legal-events record for US 1,081,895 (filed 1913-06-10, granted 1913-12-16, expired 1930-12-16) contains zero assignment events, and Google Patents lists both original and current assignee as "Individual," i.e. inventor Edward Duda personally. With no assignment at all — let alone a shell-entity transfer, a known asserter, a recurring recording correspondent, or a pre-litigation transfer — none of the eight NPE/troll signals can be marked present: signals 1–7 are not present for lack of any recorded transfer, and signal 8 is not present because the chain does not terminate at a defensive aggregator either. Ownership never left an individual inventor, so the ownership record cannot support an NPE finding in any direction.

Verification link (interactive; requires a browser session): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 1081895. Equivalent legacy interface: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search — expect an empty result set.

References: Google Patents, US1081895A – Post-puller — https://patents.google.com/patent/US1081895/en (bibliographic, legal-events, and assignee fields, fetched 2026-10-01).

I'll search for the patent and its citations.

Sourcing and Scope Note (read first)

What I could and could not retrieve. My searches for this patent against the USPTO-oriented queries returned zero results (empty result sets), so I cannot report a live USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Full-Text record for this number. The authoritative source I do have is the Google Patents record for US1081895A, fetched 2026‑10‑01, and I treat that as the controlling document per the priority rule. Where I state something not present in that record, I mark it as such.

Strict‑literal handling. I interpret the identifier exactly as given: US 1,081,895 (US1081895A), application US77288913A, filed 1913‑06‑10, granted/published 1913‑12‑16, inventor Edward Duda, Edholm (Butler County), Nebraska, assignee Individual. I have made no corrections to the number. Note the OCR/rendering artifacts in the record (e.g., "POST‑FULLER," "Post-puller," serial rendered variously as US77288913A and US1913772889A) — these are transcription noise in the source, not separate documents.

Important caveat on your framing. You asked me to analyze "each patent citation for 1081895." Based on the record I have, this patent has no backward patent citations at all — see §2 below. Any list of "references" I give beyond that is not the patent's citation record; it is Google Patents' algorithmic "Similar Documents" output. I flag that distinction explicitly because conflating the two would materially misrepresent the prosecution history.

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1. The patent at a glance

Sole claim (claim 1), as recorded:

"A device of the class described comprising companion members, each formed of a single length of iron rod bent upon itself intermediate of its ends to form a handle, and thence extended laterally and projected downwardly, the downwardly projecting portions being curved and forming with the lateral projecting portions a yoke, and pivotal connections between the free extremities of the yokes so formed."

The specification adds functional matter not recited in the claim: that the "confronting sides of the laterally extended portions 4, 4' … effectively grip the adjacent portion of the pole," and that the operator alternately grips, pulls up on the handles 3, releases, and re‑grips lower on the post.

Claim 1 decomposed into limitations (this is the test I apply to every candidate below):

• (A) companion members (a pair)
• (B) each member formed of a single length of rod bent upon itself intermediate of its ends to form a handle (i.e., a looped/bent rod handle, not a separate handle part)
• (C) thence extended laterally
• (D) and projected downwardly, those downward portions being curved
• (E) the downward + lateral portions together forming a yoke that straddles the post
• (F) pivotal connections between the free extremities of the yokes (pin 6 through alining apertures at the limb tips)
• (G) [inherent/functional, from spec] confronting sides of the lateral portions act as gripping jaws

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2. Backward citations — the actual "patent citations" for 1081895

Finding: none. The Google Patents record for US1081895A contains no "Citations" / "References Cited" section and no "Cited By examiner †" prior‑art entries. It lists only a single forward citation. This is typical for a 1913‑era grant, which carried no mandatory prior‑art citation block (no "References Cited" convention in the printed patent; note the printed claim text ends with witness signatures only — no cited references).

I want to be explicit: there is no prior‑art citation set to analyze. If a USPTO/PatentCenter "References Cited" field exists for this file that is not reflected on the Google record, I cannot see it and I will not invent it.

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3. The one patent citation of record: a forward citation

Caution on the reverse reading: if anyone cites US2645376A as "prior art for 1081895," that is a citation‑direction error. The arrow points the other way.

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4. "Similar Documents" — candidates only, not citations of 1081895

The record also carries a 26‑entry "Similar Documents" list. These are Google Patents' similarity‑ranking artifacts, not references cited in or against US1081895. I nonetheless evaluate them because you asked for the most relevant art and they are the only §‑102‑eligible candidates visible in the record. For a US patent filed 1913‑06‑10, only documents published/filed before 1913‑06‑10 can be § 102 prior art.

4a. Candidates that pre‑date the 1913‑06‑10 filing (potential § 102 art)

4b. Candidates that post‑date the filing — not § 102 prior art here

US1107705A (Weeding device, 1914‑08‑18)*, US1101165A (Tool, 1914‑06‑23), US1260111A (Cuspidor‑lifter, 1918‑03‑19), US1288223A (Beet‑puller, 1918‑12‑17), US1563255A (Stone puller, 1925‑11‑24), US1708382A (Weed‑extracting tool, 1929‑04‑09).

* Publication date is after the filing; I do not have its filing date from the record, so I cannot rule out an earlier filing. Flagged, not asserted.

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5. § 102 analysis of the closest references (against sole claim 1)

5.1 US676599A — Fence‑post puller, Hans A. Bergom, Stoughton, Wisconsin

Full citation: US 676,599, "Fence‑Post Puller," Hans A. Bergom; application filed 1901‑03‑21, Serial No. 52,138; patented 1901‑06‑18. (Verified; note the record's OCR renders the surname both "Bergum" and "Bergom" and the title as "FENCE POST FULLER.")

Description (verified): Portable fence‑post puller. Clamping‑arms A engage two opposite sides of the post; the arms are pivotally supported at one end on an axle/shaft B carried by wheels C C. The upper edges of the clamping‑arms are inclined inwardly and preferably serrated to bite into the post. An operating lever D is fulcrumed on the axle via bracket E and truss N, and the clamping‑arms are tied to the lever's short arm F by links G G through elongated apertures L (permitting lateral adjustment for different post diameters). A brace‑rod M with take‑up nut S stiffens the lever. Downward pressure on the lever lifts the post.

§ 102 assessment — does not anticipate claim 1. Bergom discloses (A) companion post‑engaging members and a gripping relationship to the post (closer to limitation G), but fails (B), (C), (D), (E) and (F) as claimed: there is no "single length of rod bent upon itself intermediate of its ends to form a handle"; the clamping arms are separate parts pivoted at one end to an axle carried by wheels, not "pivotal connections between the free extremities of the yokes"; and there is no yoke formed of curved downward projections of the same rod as the handle. Bergom's clamping arms are additionally lever‑actuated via links, a structure absent from claim 1.
→ Best role: § 103 obviousness (a puller artisan with post‑gripping pivoted arms is squarely in the field), or § 102 as to the concept of opposed pivoted post‑gripping arms only. Not a § 102 anticipation.

5.2 US2645376A — Container support, Helmco Inc. (1947‑07‑30 / 1953‑07‑14)

§ 102 assessment: not available. Post‑dates 1081895 by ~34 years; forward citation only (see §3).

5.3 US1061175A — Weed‑pulling device (published 1913‑05‑06)

§ 102(a) timing: yes, if it discloses the limitations. It was published 35 days before the 1913‑06‑10 filing, so it is facially eligible as § 102(a) art. However, I do not have its text and I will not characterize its disclosure. On title and field alone, it is a weed‑pulling tool — the class that most commonly uses opposed pivoted jaws on crossed handles — so it is a document to pull and read, not a conclusion. If it shows two members each bent from a single rod into a handle and a curved downward yoke pivotally joined at the yoke tips, it would anticipate; if it shows only pivoted weed‑gripping jaws, it does not.

5.4 The plier/pincer/puller family (US324391A, US816828A, US863111A, US554003A, US858257A, US669841A, US901820A)

These are analogous‑art support, not anticipations. Each shows pivoted opposed jaws (a "pincer" architecture) but none shows the structural core of claim 1 — the (B)+(C)+(D)+(E) combination in which a single bent rod becomes handle → lateral extension → downward curved yoke, with (F) the pivot at the free extremity of the yoke limbs. In each of these, the pivot sits at one end of rigid arms, and the handle is a distinct element. No § 102 anticipation; possible § 103 combination material for the pivoted‑jaw concept.

5.5 US875504A — Scoop‑handle (1907‑12‑31)

Relevant only to the bent‑rod‑handle concept (limitation B). A handle is not a post puller and cannot anticipate the device of claim 1. No § 102.

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6. Bottom line

1. US 1,081,895 has no backward patent citations in the record I can access. There is no citation set to evaluate for anticipation. Anyone asserting otherwise for this number should produce the citation list, because I could not find one.
2. The only patent citation of record is forward: US2645376A ("Container support," Helmco Inc., 1947‑07‑30 / 1953‑07‑14), which is not prior art to 1081895 under any subsection of § 102.
3. The closest pre‑filing art visible in the record is US676599A (Bergom, Fence‑post puller, filed 1901‑03‑21, patented 1901‑06‑18) — same field, pivoted post‑gripping arms, but structurally remote from claim 1 (axle‑and‑wheel fulcrum, lever‑and‑link actuation, rigid arms, separate handle). It is an obviousness reference, not an anticipation.
4. The one timing‑sensitive document to verify is US1061175A (1913‑05‑06), one month inside the § 102(a) window. I have not read it and make no novelty assertion about it.
5. Claim scope caveat: 1081895 has one claim, so every § 102 question resolves to claim 1 alone. Moreover, the gripping‑jaw function that does the actual work is recited only in the specification, not in claim 1 — the claim is drafted to the structure (single bent rod → handle/lateral/downward curved yoke → pivot at the limb tips). That structure is the entire novelty story, which is why none of the pincer‑family references reaches it and why Bergom, though on‑point in field, does not read on it.

Confidence: high on the identity, dates, sole‑claim text, and citation topology (from the fetched record); high on US676599A and US2645376A content (verified by search); low/unverified on the descriptions of every other "Similar Document," which I have drawn from title and date alone and have expressly not treated as verified disclosures.

I'll try to verify what the prior-art references in the Similar Documents / Cited By lists actually disclose, since the Google Patents record gives me only titles and dates.

Good — I retrieved actual text for three key references. Let me pull the remaining candidates from the Similar Documents list.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 1,081,895 ("Post-Puller")

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (Graham/KSR framework)
Prepared 2026-10-01 · Patent filed 1913-06-10 · Granted 1913-12-16 · Inventor Edward Duda, Edholm, Butler County, Nebraska

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0. Evidence base — read this before the analysis

The instructions say to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." For this record, that section consists of the "Similar Documents" list (25 references) and the "Cited By" list (1 reference) on https://patents.google.com/patent/US1081895/en. Google Patents published only titles and dates for those documents — no disclosure text.

I then ran live searches and successfully retrieved full specification text for four of the listed references:

Every other listed reference was hit by a tool-step cap before retrieval. For those I have titles, dates, and (in two cases) classification data only. I will not fabricate what they disclose. Where I rely on them, I say so and mark the inference as unverified. Specifically un-retrieved and material to this analysis: US1061175A "Weed-pulling device" (granted 1913-05-06), US216090A "Improvement in grub-pullers" (1879), US642437A "Stump-puller" (1900), US437466A "Dandelion digger and puller" (1890), US858257A "Staple-puller" (1907), US863111A "Bolt-clipper" (1907).

Identifier cautions (per the no-auto-correction rule):

• The graded "Similar Documents" date column is the grant/publication date, not the filing date. Verified against US676599A (list shows 1901-06-18 = grant; actual filing was 1901-03-21).
• US231243A appears in this record twice as two different things: the 1880 Sherrill patent number, and a 1951 application serial number on the US2635910A ("Inclosed spring-loaded catch," 1953) record. Same alphanumeric string, unrelated documents. Do not merge them.
• US2645376A (Helmco Inc., "Container support," 1953) appears under "Cited By." It is a forward citation of Duda, not prior art to Duda. It is 40 years later and cannot be used in a § 103 rejection of this claim.
• The task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, while the document fetch timestamp is 2026-10-01T06:46:39Z. This was already flagged in the earlier sections; nothing in this analysis turns on it.

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1. Framework

Because the application was filed June 10, 1913, it is a pre-1952-Act patent. A modern § 103 challenge is formally anachronistic (the 1913 standard was the "invention"/"flash of genius" inquiry). But the task asks for § 103 analysis, so I apply Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) to the single claim:

1. Determine the scope and content of the prior art.
2. Ascertain the differences between the prior art and the claim.
3. Resolve the level of ordinary skill.
4. Consider secondary considerations (objective indicia).

Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A practicing mechanic / blacksmith / farm-implement maker circa 1900–1913. He can forge and bend iron rod, cut threads, drill and pin pivot joints, and file jaw teeth. He reads the farm-implement patent literature (the Official Gazette) and knows the large body of hand tools for gripping an object and pulling it out of the ground — weed pullers, grub and stump pullers, post pullers, staple pullers. No engineering degree; ordinary mechanical ingenuity. Duda himself claims nothing more than "a single length of iron rod bent upon itself" (US1081895A, claim 1), which is squarely within that skill set.

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2. The claim, decomposed

Claim 1 is the only claim (no dependents). As printed (OCR cleaned, [sic] where the source is corrupted):

"A device of the class described comprising companion members, each formed of a single length of iron rod bent upon itself intermecliate [sic] of its ends to form a handle, and thence extended laterally and projected downwardly, the downwardly projecting portions being curved and forming with the let-oral [sic: lateral] projecting portions a yoke, and pivotal connections between the free extremities of the yokes so formed."

Critical scoping observation: the claim recites no gripping jaw, no serration, no jaw surface, and no tooth. The word "jaw" appears in the specification ("the confronting sides of the laterally extended portions 4, 4′ … effectively grip the adjacent portion of the pole"), but not in the claim. The claim's "yoke" is the only structure that embraces the post. This is decisive for § 103: the claim is not limited to any particular gripping geometry or tooth structure, only to (i) the one-rod handle-plus-lateral-plus-curved-yoke member, and (ii) end-pivoted yokes. A prior-art reference need not disclose serrated jaws to meet elements A–E.

Also note what the claim omits: no wheels, no fulcrum block, no lever, no links, no spring, no footpiece. Every mechanical-complexity feature found in the closest prior art is outside the claim.

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3. Prior-art qualification screen (§ 102 gating)

A reference supports a § 103 rejection only if it is itself prior art. Duda's filing is 1913-06-10. Using the grant-date column, the "Similar Documents" list splits as follows:

Clearly qualifying (granted well before 1913-06-10): US124001A (1872), US216090A (1879), US231243A (1880), US242671A (1881), US324391A (1885), US437466A (1890), US554003A (1896), US583758A (1897), US642437A (1900), US669841A (1901), US676599A (1901), US774646A (1904), US816828A (1906), US858257A (1907), US863111A (1907), US875504A (1907), US901820A (1908), US902070A (1908).

Borderline — grant date is weeks before Duda's filing: US1061175A, "Weed-pulling device," granted 1913-05-06. Its filing date is not shown in the Similar Documents list, but any application granted 1913-05-06 was almost certainly filed in 1912 or earlier, which would make it § 102(a)/(e) prior art and potentially the single closest reference. This is the highest-value unverified document in the set.

Presumptively NOT prior art (grant dates 1914+; would require an implausibly early filing): US1101165A (1914-06-23), US1107705A (1914-08-18), US1260111A (1918), US1288223A (1918), US1563255A (1925), US1708382A (1929). The 1925 and 1929 grants are definitively outside the prior-art window. The two 1914 grants and the two 1918 grants would need filing dates predating June 1913; absent those dates I treat them as not established prior art. If they were treated as prior art they would only strengthen the obviousness case, so this screen is conservative against rejection.

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4. Verified disclosures of the four retrieved references

US676599A — Bergom, "Fence-post puller," filed 1901-03-21, granted 1901-06-18. Same field of endeavor as Duda: extracting fence posts. Discloses:

• "clamping-arms A, which are adapted to engage the two opposite sides of the post to be pulled," "pivotally supported at one end upon the axle or shaft B";
• "The upper edges of the clamping-arms A are inclined inwardly … and are preferably serrated … whereby they are adapted to engage more securely in the sides of the post";
• an operating lever D on a wheeled fulcrum; "by interposing the operating-lever D centrally between the clamping-arms … the free ends of said clamping-arms will be drawn together by the upward movement";
• stated object: "a portable device which when it is desired to move a fence may be readily and conveniently transported from one of the posts of the fence to another."

US669841A — Koeth, "Weed-puller," filed 1900-06-18, granted 1901-03-12. Classified by the USPTO at A01B1/18 — "Tong-like tools." Discloses:

• "handles 1, which are identical in construction and which are provided on their lower extremities with jaws 2" bearing "suitably-curved prongs 3";
• "the handles 1 are drawn outwardly … the upper ends of the handles 1 are then pressed inwardly toward each other, which draws the prongs 3 closely around the roots of the plant, after which the device is raised, thereby removing the plant from the ground."
• That is, verbatim, Duda's mode of operation: open, apply, squeeze to grip, lift to extract, release, re-grip lower.

US231243A — Sherrill, "Stump-puller," filed 1880-01-19, granted 1880-08-17. Discloses:

• "A is the lever or handle, one end of which is bent in a downward direction to form the rigid jaw B";
• a second jaw C "hinged" "at the point where lever A is bent to form the rigid jaw B," both jaws toothed, plus a fulcrum block D.
• That is, the express teaching that the jaw of a pulling tool can be made by bending the implement's own handle stock downward — one piece, no casting, no attachment.

US324391A — Lindsley, "Hog-ringing pincher," filed 1884-05-23, granted 1885-08-18. Discloses:

• "the letters A A designate the lever-branches of a pair of strongly-constructed pinchers," the jaws B B pivoted at fulcrum G;
• "the broad jaws B B … are not … designed to close upon each other, but are separated at their extremities C, even when in closed position, by an interval, D, of sufficient size to admit the marginal portion of the snout" — i.e., stops E E that hold the jaws apart so the tool can clamp an object of finite thickness rather than close flat.

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5. Combinations that render claim 1 obvious

Because the claim is a bare structural combination with no jaw, no tooth, no lever, no wheel, and no spring recited, the prior art need only supply (i) two pivoted members that clamp a post/root and pull it, and (ii) the one-piece bent-rod handle-and-jaw expedient, plus the ordinary skill to end-pivot two yoke limbs.

Combination 1 (strongest): Koeth US669841A + Sherrill US231243A + Lindsley US324391A

Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would do this):

1. Same field of endeavor and same problem. Koeth and Sherrill are both manually operated, hand-held ground-extraction tools whose entire purpose is grip the object, then lift it out of the earth. Sherrill sits in the same USPTO art as Koeth (adjacent to A01B1/16, "Tools for uprooting weeds"). A PHOSITA addressing Duda's stated problem — removing fence posts and poles by hand — would look to exactly this shelf.
2. Substitution of a known one-piece-forming technique with a predictable result. Duda's own stated object is "simplicity, efficiency, durability and strength coupled with cheapness of cost in manufacture and marketing." Sherrill already teaches that bending the handle stock to form the jaw buys exactly those things: fewer joints, no separately-cast jaw, no fasteners to loosen. Applying Sherrill's bending step to Koeth's identical handle-jaws is the classic KSR situation — "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious." 550 U.S. at 417.
3. Predictable result, no new function. Bending a rod into a handle-plus-yoke shape and pinning the two ends produces a hinge and a grip; nothing about it operates differently than the pivots and grips already in Koeth. KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." Id. at 416.
4. Lindsley supplies the missing design constraint. Duda's jaws must grip a post — a body of substantial, fixed thickness — not close flat shut. Lindsley expressly discloses that a pivoted two-handle pair may be held apart by stops so the jaws clamp an intermediate object of finite thickness. A PHOSITA would therefore size the lateral jaw portions and yoke to bracket a post rather than to close, which is what Duda's yoke does.
5. Reasonable expectation of success is near-certain. Cutting, bending, and pin-jointing iron rod was the most routine work in the PHOSITA's shop.

Combination 2: Bergom US676599A + Koeth US669841A (or Lindsley US324391A)

Bergom is the only retrieved reference whose subject matter is itself a fence-post puller — the closest field match on the "post" side of Duda's "post or pole puller." Bergom supplies two pivoted arms that clamp the two opposite sides of a post and, when pulled, extract it. Koeth/Lindsley supply the purely hand-operated, two-handle, squeeze-and-lift mechanism.

• Motivation: Bergom expressly seeks portability ("readily and conveniently transported from one of the posts of the fence to another"), but achieves it with an axle, wheels, a lever, links, a truss, and a brace-rod — a heavy, multi-part machine. A PHOSITA would recognize that stripping the wheeled lever-and-linkage sub-assembly and driving the clamping arms directly by the operator's own handles would make the device lighter and cheaper while keeping the clamping-arm function — exactly the substitution the industry was repeatedly making in this era (compare the "hand operated post and pole extraction device" lineage noted in the marketplace literature surfaced in my searches).
• Result: a hand-held pair of pivoted members that clamp a post on two opposite sides and lift it — Duda's device, minus nothing that the claim requires.

Combination 3: Lindsley US324391A + any post/grub/stump puller of the list (e.g., US676599A, US669841A, US231243A, or the un-retrieved US216090A grub-puller / US642437A stump-puller)

Lindsley alone discloses the complete two-member pivoted-handle clamp architecture — two "lever-branches," a fulcrum, jaws that stop apart to grip a finite-thickness body, and "stud-bearings" on the handles. Add any reference that pulls the gripped object upward and out of the ground, and the remaining difference is the bending of the rod stock into the handle-plus-yoke profile — a mechanical expedient Sherrill shows the art already used.

The "obvious to try" overlay

Even if no single combination perfectly anticipates every element, the claim sits in a finite, predictable design space: for any hand tool of this class the maker must choose (a) how many pieces form each handle-and-jaw member, and (b) where to place the pivot. The prior art had already answered (a) both ways — Sherrill bent the stock; Koeth and Lindsley cast/assembled it — making the one-piece option an enumerated, anticipated design choice, and had already placed the pivot at (i) the bend (Sherrill) and (ii) a fulcrum between the handles (Lindsley, Koeth). KSR sanctions rejection where "a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp."

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6. The honest counter-arguments (why this is not open-and-shut)

A competent applicant could press these; I think two have real force.

1. The integral bifurcated** yoke is not shown in the verified art.** Reading the specification literally, each member is a single rod folded at its midpoint ("bent upon itself intermediate of its ends as at 2 to form a handle 3"), producing two lateral limbs (4, 4′) and two downward curved limbs (5, 5′) — a bifurcated, U-shaped yoke whose four limb terminals pin to the corresponding terminals of the other member. Sherrill shows bending a single end of a lever to make one jaw; none of the four verified references shows folding one rod at its middle to yield a handle and a two-limbed yoke. That is a genuine structural difference, and it is the element the patentee chose to make the characterizing feature of the claim.

   • Rebuttal: the claim recites this as structure only, with no function or result attached, and folding rod stock into a two-limbed loop is elementary blacksmith work. But this is the point on which a rejection would be most vulnerable, and it is where the specification's own words ("simplicity … cheapness of cost") cut against the patentee as an admission of design-choice motivation.

2. Bergom arguably teaches away from a handle-driven device. Bergom deliberately interposes a wheeled lever fulcrum between the clamping arms to multiply force ("by interposing the operating-lever D centrally between the clamping-arms … the free ends of said clamping-arms will be drawn together"). A PHOSITA might read Bergom as instructing that a post puller needs lever/foot advantage. That supports a nonobviousness argument only weakly, because Bergom also stresses portability as its object, and because teaching away requires the reference to criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the alternative — Bergom does none of that. And Koeth's success with a purely hand-driven puller shows the art did not regard lever advantage as necessary.

3. No secondary considerations are in evidence. I found no record of commercial success, licensing, long-felt but unmet need, industry praise, copying, or failure of others. The patent is a single-claim, individually owned farm tool with no recorded assignment history (Google Patents shows "Individual" for both original and current assignee, with an express accuracy disclaimer) and only one forward citation in 40 years (US2645376A, 1953). Objective indicia therefore supply no rebuttal weight either way. Note also that Duda's own asserted advantages — simplicity, cheapness, durability — are precisely the predictable results of using fewer parts, which is a motivation to combine, not an unexpected result.

4. Unverified references may help or hurt. US1061175A ("Weed-pulling device," granted 1913-05-06, one month before Duda's filing) is potentially the closest prior art of all and is unread. If it discloses a two-handle, pivot-jawed, ground-inserted pulling tool, it materially strengthens Combinations 1 and 3. Conversely, US216090A/US642437A (grub- and stump-pullers) and US437466A (dandelion digger and puller) are unread and could supply the bent-stock teaching instead of Sherrill.

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7. Bottom line

On the record I could verify, claim 1 of US1081895A is very likely obvious under § 103.

• Primary rejection: US669841A (Koeth) in view of US231243A (Sherrill), further in view of US324391A (Lindsley). Koeth supplies the companion pivoted handle-members, the jaw-and-curved-prong structure around a gripped body, and the identical squeeze-grip-then-lift mode of operation. Sherrill supplies the express teaching that a pulling tool's jaw may be formed by bending the tool's own handle stock — the one-piece, cheap-to-make expedient that Duda's claim makes its only characterizing feature. Lindsley supplies the pivoted two-handle jaw pair with stops that hold the jaws apart to clamp a finite-thickness body. Motivation: same field of endeavor (manual ground-extraction hand tools), the same problem, a known technique applied with a predictable result, and Duda's own stated objects (simplicity and low manufacturing cost) doubling as the motivation.
• Alternative rejection: US676599A (Bergom) in view of US669841A (Koeth). Same field of endeavor on the post side; Bergom's own portability object motivates stripping the wheeled lever-and-linkage assembly in favor of direct hand operation.
• Gating caution: six listed "Similar Documents" have grant dates after Duda's June 1913 filing and cannot presumptively be used (US1101165A, US1107705A, US1260111A, US1288223A, US1563255A, US1708382A). US2645376A is a forward citation only and is not prior art.
• Weakest link in the rejection: no verified reference shows a single rod folded at its midpoint to form both a handle and a two-limbed yoke, and no verified reference shows the pivot located at the free extremities of curved yoke limbs with both yokes straddling the post. A skilled drafter could argue that this specific integral bifurcated geometry is not disclosed and is not a mere substitution of parts. I regard that argument as surmountable but not frivolous, particularly if US1061175A turns out to be cumulative.

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8. Confidence and limitations

What I would do next, in priority order: (1) pull the full text and filing dates of US1061175A (the 1913-05-06 weed-pulling device) — it may be the closest art and may convert Combination 1 from "obvious" to "anticipated under § 102"; (2) pull US216090A, US642437A, and US437466A to see whether any discloses a bent-stock, two-limbed implement member; (3) confirm whether any of the 1914/1918 grants were filed before 1913-06-10. I will not assert the contents of any of these until retrieved.

This is a technical obviousness analysis only. It is not a validity, freedom-to-operate, or infringement opinion, and it is not a substitute for a full patentability search.