US 1650000

Summary — U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000 (US1650000A)

I searched the USPTO/Google Patents records and the CAFC docket space for the exact number 1650000 (not similar numbers). Findings below.

Bibliographic data (confirmed against USPTO/Google Patents record)

• Title: Shoe
• Patent number: US1650000A
• Inventor: Grace G. Young, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (sole inventor)
• Assignee: "Individual" (per Google Patents metadata — i.e., no corporate assignee is recorded; the assignment record lists "Individual" as both original and current assignee)
• Filing date: December 31, 1925 (application serial no. 78,520 / US78520A)
• Issue (grant/publication) date: November 22, 1927
• Legal status: Expired — Lifetime (anticipated expiration shown as November 22, 1944, i.e., 17 years from grant)
• Abstract: The Google Patents record for this pre-abstract-era patent does not contain a formal USPTO abstract. Based on the specification, the invention is summarized below.

What the invention is (plain language)

The patent relates to low shoes of the "pump" or "slipper" type. The stated problem is that the sides of the upper, in the instep region, gape or flare away from one or both sides of the foot, making the shoe look unattractive. The solution is an invisible, internal elastic-tape harness arranged inside the shoe. Elastic strips are anchored near the top edge of the instep portion of the upper and run forwardly/downwardly (some diagonally crossing to the opposite side) to attachment points near the bottom/inner sole. When the foot is inserted, the strips are stretched and placed under tension, pulling the instep edges of the upper snugly against the foot. Several embodiments are shown: (1) two same-side strips joined through a central connector (Figs. 1–2); (2) two permanently stitched, diagonally crossing tapes (Fig. 3); (3) a Y-shaped, one-side-correcting variant (Fig. 4); and (4) a sliding, non-permanent cross-connection via an open rectangular member (Fig. 6). The ends carry detachable hooks (Fig. 5), so the device can be transferred between shoes. The specification states the fasteners and connectors do not cause wearer discomfort.

Independent claims (plain-language overview)

The claims are short device claims directed to the elastic-strap "device of the character described" rather than to the shoe itself. The OCR of the record is partly garbled, so claim boundaries/verbatim text carry some uncertainty:

• Claim 1: An elastic strip connected at one end to one side of the instep portion of a low shoe's upper near the top edge, extending downwardly, forwardly, and transversely across the shoe, and connected at its other end to the opposite side of the instep portion of the upper adjacent the bottom edge.
• Claim 2: A plurality of elastic strips, each connected at one end to the instep portion of the upper near its top edge and each extending forwardly and downwardly to a connection adjacent the bottom of the shoe; the strips are tensioned by the presence of the foot so as to pull the top edges of the instep portion of the upper toward the foot.
• Claim 3: A plurality of elastic strips extending in cross-wise relation to each other; one end of each strip connects to the instep portion of the upper near its upper edge and extends forwardly from that point, and the opposite end of each strip connects to the opposite side of the shoe at the bottom thereof.
• Claim 4: (Text is significantly garbled in the record — the claim is for a device with a plurality of elastic strips "having connection with each other," with connection points located adjacent the bottom of the shoe; exact limitations cannot be reliably reconstructed.)
• Claim 5: A plurality of elastic strips extending in cross-wise relation and permanently connected together at intermediate points of their lengths; one end of each strip connects to one side of the instep portion of the upper (connection points on opposite sides of the upper near its upper edge), and the opposite ends connect to opposite sides of the shoe at points near the bottom.

CAFC 2026 docket check

• Searches for CAFC/2026 docket activity tied to patent 1650000 returned no results (queries including "1650000" + Federal Circuit/2026/appeal and "US1650000A" variants all came back empty). I found no indication of any pending appeal, IPR, or litigation involving this patent at the Federal Circuit in 2026.
• Note: 1,650,000 is a 1927-era patent that expired in 1944; it would normally appear only as prior art (e.g., it is cited in later footwear patents such as US2963800A and FR2814918A1) — not as the subject of modern enforcement.

Uncertainty flags

• No formal abstract exists; the summary above is drawn from the specification.
• Claim 4's wording is corrupted in the OCR and is described only approximately.
• "Assignee: Individual" is Google Patents metadata, not an assignment document; I did not verify the USPTO assignment database independently.

I'll search for litigation records involving U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000 across multiple sources.

The first result is unrelated (a 2026 pharmaceutical case citing 28 U.S.C. § 1659, not patent 1,650,000). Let me continue with more targeted searches of litigation databases.

Based on my searches of litigation-oriented sources (including queries designed to surface Unified Patents, district-court, and Federal Circuit records), I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000 (US1650000A).

Findings

Searches performed (April 26, 2026):

• "US1650000" litigation patent case → returned only an unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit pharmaceutical dispute (Ascendis Pharma A/S v. Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc., No. 26-1026) that concerns 28 U.S.C. § 1659 — i.e., a statutory citation, not this patent. No other results.
• "1,650,000" OR "1650000" patent lawsuit Grace Young shoe → no results.
• "1650000" Unified Patents litigation → no results.
• "Patent 1,650,000" OR "patent no. 1650000" case → no results.
• "US1650000A" lawsuit OR infringement OR "district court" → no results.
• "1650000" patent shoe 1927 Grace Young litigation → no results.

Conclusion

No litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000. There are no identified plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, case numbers, filing dates, or outcomes tied to this patent.

Context supporting this conclusion

• This is a 1927-era patent (inventor: Grace G. Young; filed Dec. 31, 1925; granted Nov. 22, 1927) that expired in 1944 (17 years from grant, per its "Expired – Lifetime" status). It would have no modern enforcement value.
• The patent appears in modern records only as prior art — it is cited in later footwear patents such as US2963800A (arch cradle shoe construction) and US6792702B2 (inner tightening mechanism for footwear), and appears in similar-document lists for other footwear patents.

Candid caveat

Modern electronic litigation databases (PACER, Unified Patents, DocketNavigator, etc.) generally do not contain comprehensive records of district-court litigation from the 1920s–1940s; pre-electronic case files would reside only in the National Archives. Absence from these databases therefore does not conclusively prove that no suit was ever filed during the patent's active life (1927–1944). However, based on all available electronic sources, no litigation is known, and there is no indication of any pending or modern proceeding of any kind involving US1650000.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings exist for U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) block supplied for this patent lists no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings — no active trials, no instituted reviews, no final written decisions, no settlements, no denials. Independent web searches for the patent number in combination with "inter partes review," "PTAB," "Patent Trial and Appeal Board," "Final Written Decision," and proceeding-number patterns (IPR2014–IPR2017, etc.) returned no hits tied to this patent. The bottom line for a defendant: there is nothing to defend against — no proceeding exists, no claims have been canceled by the Board, and the patent expired in 1944, meaning it is not enforceable today under any reading of the record.

No per-proceeding sections follow, because the canonical PTAB data block contains no proceedings and web research surfaced none. Per the operating rules, I will not invent proceeding numbers, panel names, grounds, or decisions.

Strategic summary

Claim status: CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED

Every claim of US1650000A — Claims 1–5 as best reconstructable from the OCR-garbled record — is UNTESTED in any AIA trial. No petition was ever filed, so no claim was instituted upon, held patentable, or canceled by the PTAB. This must not be confused with claim vitality: the patent expired by operation of law on 1944-11-22 (17 years from grant on 1927-11-22, per the "Expired – Lifetime" legal status in the USPTO/Google Patents record). An expired patent confers no right to exclude, and its claims cannot be revived through PTAB practice. Claims of an expired pre-AIA patent also could not be amended in an AIA trial even had one been instituted, which is among the reasons the Board has historically declined to exercise its discretion over long-expired patents.

Why there is no PTAB activity — and what the absence means

This is not an enforcement gap; it is a structural inevitability. The AIA trial regime did not exist until 2012-09-16, and this patent's entire enforceable life (1927–1944) ended 68 years before the first IPR petition could lawfully have been filed. A defendant facing assertion of US1650000A today cannot exist, because the patent is dead: no damages accrue post-expiration, no injunction can issue, and any demand letter predicated on it would be sanction-bait under any reasonable reading of Rule 11. The absence of PTAB history is therefore not a signal that the patent "survived" scrutiny or is "hardened" — it is simply the artifact of a patent that predates the entire AIA framework. Likewise, the § 315(e)(2) estoppel analysis is moot: estoppel only binds a petitioner (and privies) after a final written decision, and no such decision exists. No prior-art ground has been foreclosed against anyone by PTAB estoppel, and equally, no PTAB holding exists that a defendant could invoke offensively for collateral-estoppel effect in a district court.

Pattern signals

There are none to report: no repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain, no aggressive patent-owner PTAB strategy, and no Federal Circuit appeal history. The only modern footprints of this patent are as cited prior art in later-granted footwear patents (US2963800A, US6792702B2, US9713359B2) — i.e., it is a museum-piece reference, not a litigation asset.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: There is no FWD to link and no disposition to quote, because no proceeding was ever instituted. If you have nonetheless received a demand letter citing US1650000A, the correct response is a verification check on the letter's fundamentals — the patent expired on 1944-11-22, it cannot be enforced, and any infringement theory built on it has no statutory damages remedy (35 U.S.C. § 271 is limited to acts occurring during the patent's term; no remedy survives expiration absent a timely filed, still-pending action from the 1927–1944 window, of which there is no record). Treat the letter as either a data error or a bad-faith demand and respond accordingly.
• No active proceedings are pending, so there are no institution-decision deadlines, oral-hearing dates, or statutory one-year trial deadlines to calendar.
• The only residual diligence worth doing is archival, not docket-based: if you want certainty that no 1930s–1940s district-court action ever asserted this patent, pre-electronic case files would reside at the National Archives (Records of District Courts of the United States, RG 21). No modern database — PACER, Unified Patents, DocketNavigator, or the USPTO ODP — contains comprehensive coverage of 1920s–1940s litigation, so the absence of a court record is not conclusive proof that none ever existed. That said, the patent's expiration in 1944 makes that historical question irrelevant to any present-day exposure.

Inventors

• Grace G. Young — sole named inventor, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (per the patent front page). She is the only inventor on US1650000A. No employer at the time of filing is determinable from the record: the patent names no corporate assignee, and no contemporaneous employment record is available in any electronic source. Unusual-pattern flags (e.g., inventor departures preceding a portfolio sale) are not applicable because there is only one inventor and no corporate employer ever held the patent.

Original assignee

• "Individual" — the entity named on the issued patent is the inventor herself; Google Patents' assignment metadata records "Individual" as both Original Assignee and Current Assignee. In substance, Grace G. Young never assigned the patent to any corporate entity.
• Product / line of business: Not applicable — an individual inventor, not a company. The patent claims an internal elastic-tape harness for pump/slipper shoes; there is no evidence Young ever manufactured or shipped a shoe embodying the claims, and the patent's own specification describes the device as detachable and transferable between shoes rather than as a product line.
• Current status: The patent expired by operation of law on 1944-11-22 (17 years from the 1927-11-22 grant). The inventor's individual status is historical only; no entity exists that could assert this patent today.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center has no records for US1650000A. Searches by patent number (1650000 / US1650000A) and by application number (US78520A) returned no recorded conveyances — no assignments, security agreements, mergers, name changes, licenses, releases, or corrections. This is itself the core finding: there is no post-issuance chain of title to reconstruct.

Two structural reasons make the empty record unsurprising:

1. Database coverage window. The USPTO's searchable patent-assignment system contains conveyances recorded from August 1980 to the present (per USPTO guidance surfaced in the search results). US1650000 issued in 1927 and expired in 1944 — any pre-1944 assignment (had one existed) would never have been digitized into the Assignment Center.
2. No recorded transfer ever appears to have occurred. Google Patents' legal-event and assignment metadata likewise lists "Individual" as the current assignee with no conveyance events, and targeted web searches for reel/frame records tied to this patent returned nothing.

Accordingly, the evidence indicates the original owner (inventor Grace G. Young) retained ownership for the life of the patent — the default state for an individual-inventor patent that was never commercialized or monetized through transfer. The section below thus ends here; there are no reel/frame entries to cite because none exist in the Assignment Center.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 1650000
    1925 : Filed by Grace G Young
    1927 : Patent issued to Young
    1944 : Patent expired no transfer

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Assessment basis: no assignments are recorded, the patent expired in 1944, and no entity other than the individual inventor has ever appeared in the ownership record. Every signal below is therefore evaluated against an empty chain.

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfer to any LLC, "IP Holdings," or licensing entity exists in the record. There is no reel/frame to cite because no conveyance was recorded.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee of any kind exists in the chain; the patent never touched Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, or any entity on the Unified Patents / RPX asserter lists.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. With zero recorded conveyances, there is no correspondent attorney of record on any Assignment Center entry. No attorney can be tied to this patent through the assignment system.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLC assignments exist; the ownership record is a flat line from inventor to expiry.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignment was recorded within six months of any suit — indeed, no suit is known (see prior litigation section) and no transfer exists at all.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. The owner was an individual, not a corporate debtor; there is no bankruptcy proceeding record involving this patent.
7. Privateering — not present. No operating company ever held the patent, so no operating-company-to-NPE privateering arrangement is possible.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at expiry in 1944.

Verdict

Insufficient data — but for a reason that resolves the inquiry: the USPTO Assignment Center contains zero recorded conveyances for US1650000A, and the patent's entire enforceable life (1927–1944) predates the Assignment Center's August-1980 coverage window. Every NPE signal is necessarily not present because no assignee LLC, no correspondent attorney, and no transfer event exists in any electronic record. The correct characterization of this patent is not "clean operating-company asset" and not "NPE vehicle" — it is a long-expired individual-inventor patent that was never assigned, never litigated, and never monetized; it survives today only as cited prior art in later footwear patents (US2963800A, US6792702B2, US9713359B2). No NPE / troll pattern can be present where there is no chain to exploit.

For verification, query the USPTO Patent Assignment Search at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or the legacy index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) using patent number 1650000 or application number 78520 — the result set will be empty, matching this report. Caveat for completeness: any pre-1980 paper assignment, had one been executed, would reside only in USPTO paper files or the National Archives and is not searchable electronically; however, Google Patents' independent legal-event metadata corroborates that no transfer was ever recorded against this patent.

USPTO record check for patent 1650000

Searching the USPTO/Google Patents record for the exact number 1650000 returns a single patent — US1650000A ("Shoe," Grace G. Young, filed Dec. 31, 1925, issued Nov. 22, 1927). No similarly numbered but different patent was retrieved, and I treated the identifier literally (not "1,650,001" or any other variant).

Key finding on citations: The USPTO/Google Patents record for US1650000A contains no "References Cited" section. This is expected for a 1927 patent — the USPTO did not require examiner-cited prior art to be printed on the face of issued patents in that era, and the record simply has no field listing references considered during prosecution. Consequently, there is no examiner-generated prior-art list to enumerate from the USPTO record itself.

The only patent "citations" associated with US1650000A in the database record are the three "Cited By" entries — i.e., later patents that themselves cite US1650000A as background/prior art. I analyze all three below (Section A), then identify the genuinely relevant pre-1925-12-31 prior art locatable through the record's similar-document classifications and related-field searching (Section B).

Section A — The three patent citations listed "for" 1650000 (all are later references, none is § 102 prior art)

1. US2963800A — "Arch cradle shoe construction"

• Full citation: Morton Hack (inventor/assignee), U.S. Patent No. 2,963,800 A, "Arch cradle shoe construction," priority/filing Nov. 27, 1959, published Dec. 13, 1960.
• Brief description: A shoe incorporating an internal arch-cradle structure. This is a later construction patent that cites US1650000A as prior background art concerning footwear fit.
• § 102 analysis: Cannot anticipate any claim of US1650000A. It issued ~33 years after US1650000A (1960 vs. 1927). Under any version of § 102 (a)/(b)/(e), a reference must predate the claimed invention or the filing date to anticipate; a 1960 patent is not prior art to a 1925 application. It is a "cited-by" reference only.

2. US6792702B2 — "Inner tightening mechanism for footwear and footwear incorporating such tightening mechanism"

• Full citation: Salomon S.A. (assignee), U.S. Patent No. 6,792,702 B2, priority/filing Oct. 10, 2000, published Sep. 21, 2004.
• Brief description: Footwear with an internal tightening mechanism (a later-era, often lace/cable-based inner fit system). It lists US1650000A among its cited prior art.
• § 102 analysis: Cannot anticipate any claim. Issued ~77 years after US1650000A (2004 vs. 1927). Not prior art; postdates by decades.

3. US9713359B2 — "Shoe body with arch suspended support"

• Full citation: Yu Hsieh Industrial Co., Ltd. (assignee), U.S. Patent No. 9,713,359 B2, filed May 6, 2015, published Jul. 25, 2017.
• Brief description: A shoe body with an arch-suspended support structure; cites US1650000A as earlier art in the footwear-fit field.
• § 102 analysis: Cannot anticipate any claim. Issued ~90 years after US1650000A (2017 vs. 1927). Not prior art.

Bottom line for Section A: All three "citations" associated with US1650000A in the database run forward in time from the patent (1960, 2004, 2017). A § 102 anticipation analysis requires a single prior reference disclosing every claimed element; a later-dated reference cannot do so. None potentially anticipates Claims 1–5.

Section B — Closest true prior art (predates the Dec. 31, 1925 filing date)

Because the 1927 patent carries no examiner citation list, the closest locatable prior art comes from (i) the Google Patents "similar documents" cluster that predates the filing date and (ii) field research on pre-1925 elastic/strap retention devices for low shoes, pumps, and slippers. The three references below are the most relevant of those locatable; all were publicly available before Dec. 31, 1925.

1. US1489735A — "Support for foot covering" (closest identified art)

• Full citation: Grace E. Briggs, U.S. Patent No. 1,489,735 A, "Support for foot covering," filed Apr. 11, 1921, published Apr. 8, 1924.
• Brief description: A support specifically for low-quarter shoes, pumps, slippers, and the like — the identical shoe class addressed by US1650000A. It applies to the rear/heel portion of the shoe to hold the shoe in place on the heel, uses body/strap members that "may be elastic or inelastic as preferred," and is detachable/transferable between shoes (the same transferability objective as Young's Fig. 5 hook fasteners). Its focus is heel slippage rather than instep-edge gaping/flaring.
• § 102 analysis: This is the strongest § 102(b) candidate of the located set (patented Apr. 8, 1924 — well over one year before Young's Dec. 31, 1925 filing). As to Claim 2 (plurality of elastic strips connected near the top edge of the instep portion and extending forwardly/downwardly to bottom connections, tensioned by the foot to pull the upper toward the foot): Briggs discloses elastic straps and the tension-by-foot concept but directed to the heel/counter region, so it likely does not disclose the "instep portion" anchoring or the "pull the top edges of the instep portion toward the foot" function. As to Claims 1, 3, and 5 (transverse/cross-wise diagonal strips connecting the instep region to the opposite side of the shoe): Briggs' straps do not extend forwardly-downwardly across the instep from one upper side to the opposite lower side, so anticipation is unlikely on the full record. Claim 4 cannot be reliably mapped due to OCR corruption of the claim text. Net: relevant and combinable, but a genuine anticipation case is doubtful — more likely an obviousness-type reference.

2. US905432A — "Folding slipper"

• Full citation: Edwin A. Jennings, U.S. Patent No. 905,432 A, "Folding slipper," filed Mar. 9, 1908, published Dec. 1, 1908.
• Brief description: A slipper that folds flat, with split stiffening counter sections at each side of the heel that press against the sides of the heel to hold the upper in place and prevent the slipper from working off the foot. It is an internal, largely invisible retention structure in a slipper — conceptually adjacent to Young's invisible internal tape harness — but it is a rigid/flexible counter, not elastic strips, and acts at the heel, not the instep.
• § 102 analysis: Strong § 102(b) timing (1908, more than one year before filing). But for Claims 1, 2, 3, and 5, the missing elements are substantial: no elastic material, no instep-portion anchoring at the upper top edge, no forwardly/downwardly extending strips, and no tension-to-pull-instep-edges mechanism. It does not anticipate; it is background art showing internal retention structures in slippers were known.

3. US536345A — "Athletic shoe construction" (date-of-record only)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 536,345 A, dated Mar. 26, 1895 (inventor/assignee text not cleanly recovered; the Google Patents record prints the old lithographer imprint "He [sic] norris peters co," which is not a substantive assignee).
• Brief description: Appears in the record's similar-document cluster with an 1895 publication date. Full specification text was not retrievable in the searches performed (caution: a separately surfaced document, US558345 — J. W. Bowen, "Boot or shoe," filed May 9, 1895 — is a different number and concerns a cushioned heel-plate; I am not conflating it with 536,345).
• § 102 analysis: Because I could not retrieve the specification, I cannot responsibly opine on which claims it might anticipate. Flagged as a pre-1925 similar-classification reference only. Do not treat as an anticipation finding without reading the full text.

Honest uncertainty flags

1. No examiner "References Cited" list exists for US1650000A in any electronic record I could access; Section B is therefore a best-effort reconstruction of closest art, not the patent's official citation list.
2. Claims 1–5 text is partly OCR-garbled in the record (notably Claim 4), so claim-by-claim anticipation mapping carries real uncertainty; I mapped only to the plain-language claim summaries previously reconstructed.
3. US536345A could not be fully read; its anticipation potential is unassessed.
4. Pre-electronic USPTO examination files (the original 1925 file wrapper) would reside at the National Archives and could contain the examiner's actual search references; no modern database reproduces them.

Summary answer

• The USPTO database record for 1650000 contains no cited references from prosecution.
• The three patents that "cite" US1650000A (US2963800A, US6792702B2, US9713359B2) are all subsequent patents and cannot anticipate any claim under § 102.
• The closest genuine prior art locatable (pre-Dec. 31, 1925) is US1489735A (Briggs, 1924) — same shoe class, detachable elastic-strap retention concept, but heel-oriented rather than instep-oriented — followed by US905432A (Jennings, 1908) and US536345A (1895); none cleanly anticipates Claims 1, 2, 3, or 5 on the available text, and none can be assessed against Claim 4's corrupted text.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 1,650,000 (Young, "Shoe," filed Dec. 31, 1925; issued Nov. 22, 1927)

Analytical frame. I assess validity as if the reconstructed Claims 1–5 were examined under 35 U.S.C. § 103 on the § 102(e)/(b) art available before December 31, 1925, applying the Graham factors and the KSR motivation-to-combine framework. Two threshold caveats carry through the whole analysis: (1) the claim text is OCR-corrupted in places (Claim 4 especially), so claim-element mapping is approximate; and (2) this is a pre-1952-Act patent whose 17-year term ended November 22, 1944 — § 103 as codified did not exist at issuance — so the analysis is a retrospective, modern-standard exercise, not a statement of what the examiner in 1925 would have done.

I. The relevant prior-art universe (all pre-1925-12-31)

A. US1489735A — Briggs, "Support for foot covering" (filed Apr. 11, 1921; patented Apr. 8, 1924)

What it teaches. The closest art identified. Briggs is expressly directed to "lowquarter shoes, pumps, slippers and the like" — the identical shoe class as Young. It is an accessory applied at the rear/heel portion to "securely hold such portion thereof in proper position upon the heel of the wearer, preventing slippage." Its stated objectives overlap Young's: improved appearance ("adds to the appearance and attractiveness"), snug fit, and application to an existing shoe. Crucially for § 103:

• The strap/body members "may be elastic or inelastic as preferred" — an express suggestion that elastic tension is an interchangeable design choice for a foot-snugging accessory on low shoes.
• It is detachable and transferable among shoes, with "buttons, clasps, snap fasteners or any other desired or preferred securing elements" — the same transferability objective Young recites and the same fastener-function space as Young's Fig. 5 hooks.
• Parts of the device extend under the counter/shank ("beneath and across the shoe shank"), i.e., anchoring at the bottom region of the shoe.

The gap. Briggs acts at the heel/counter, not the instep, and its body is a counter-conforming shell rather than tapes running from the instep top edge downward to the sole.

B. US905432A — Jennings, "Folding slipper" (filed Mar. 9, 1908; patented Dec. 1, 1908)

What it teaches. A slipper with split stiffening counter sections at each side of the heel that "tend to bend against the sides of the heel of the wearer and to engage the same, so as to prevent slipping." It establishes that internal, largely invisible retention structures inside low/slip-on footwear — acting to hold the upper against the foot — were old and well understood. It uses rigid/flexible counter material, not elastic, and acts at the heel.

C. US536345A — Harris, "Shoe" (filed June 14, 1894; patented Mar. 26, 1895) — content correction to the Prior Art section

The prior-art section could not retrieve this specification and flagged it. It is now retrieved, and it materially changes the landscape:

• Corrected bibliographic content: The specification (patentimages URL .../US536345.pdf) names Elmer S. Harris of Haverhill, Massachusetts, title "Shoe," dated March 26, 1895. (The PDF's OCR heading reads "No. 586,345," and some citation lists carry the title "Athletic shoe construction" — both appear to be OCR/metadata artifacts; the Google Patents record consistently identifies US536345A, dated 1895-03-26, and the body text is unmistakably Harris's vamp shoe with elastic goring. Treating the ID literally as US536345A, this is the same patent.)
• What it teaches. A vamp shoe with quarters whose front ends attach to the vamp, and "an elastic goring connecting the said quarters and extending across the instep, said goring being adapted to hold the quarters closely against the foot," plus an instep-piece that conceals the goring so the shoe "presenting every appearance of a regular lace or button shoe." Operatively: "when the shoe is on the foot the elastic goring piece will be somewhat distended and will exert an inward pull on the sides of the quarter and the adjacent portions of the vamp thus holding said parts closely against the sides of the foot." Harris even identifies the material as "the goring pieces of Congress gaiters, or any other elastic goring."

Why this matters. Harris discloses, in the instep region of a shoe, the exact functional core of Young's claims — an elastic member distended by the presence of the foot that exerts an inward pull drawing the upper's sides against the sides of the foot — plus the identical invisibility objective (concealment so the shoe looks neat). Harris's gaps are: (i) the goring is integral to a vamp shoe's upper rather than a detachable/retrofit device for a pump/slipper, and (ii) the goring spans across the instep at upper level rather than running forwardly-downwardly to anchor adjacent the bottom/inner sole.

D. Later "Cited By" references — excluded

US2963800A (1960), US6792702B2 (2004), and US9713359B2 (2017) all postdate the filing date and are not § 102/§ 103 art. They cannot appear in any obviousness combination.

II. Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A person of ordinary skill in late-1925 ladies' low-shoe/slipper design would be a shoe designer, pattern-cutter, or sample-room supervisor with working knowledge of: (1) pump/slipper upper construction and its known fit defects (instep gaping, heel slippage); (2) elastic webbing and goring as used in Congress gaiters and elsewhere in footwear; (3) counters and internal stiffening; and (4) detachable fasteners (hooks, clasps, snaps) used in shoe accessories. The record (Briggs, Harris, Jennings) shows all four knowledge areas were conventional by 1924. No specialized engineering skill is implicated.

III. Scope and content of the prior art vs. the claimed invention — differences

Reconstructed claim elements (with OCR caveats) and the principal differences from the art:

The true inventive departure from the prior art is narrow: Young moved the known elastic-tension concept (Harris) out of the vamp-shoe upper and into a detachable, internal, low-anchored tape harness acting on the instep edges of pumps/slippers (Briggs's accessory concept, relocated from heel to instep).

IV. Proposed combinations rendering the claims obvious

Combination 1 (primary case): Briggs US1489735A + Harris US536345A → Claims 1–3 and 5

Element-by-element fill:

• Elastic strip material: Briggs ("elastic or inelastic as preferred") + Harris (elastic goring expressly taught). The PHOSITA is told by Briggs himself that elasticity is an available option for a foot-snugging shoe accessory; Harris shows exactly the elastic-in-the-instep arrangement.
• Anchoring at the instep portion of the upper near the top edge: Harris anchors elastic at the sides of the quarters at the instep.
• Extending forwardly and downwardly to the bottom of the shoe: Briggs anchors retention structure under/near the bottom of the shoe (under the counter and across the shank). Rerouting Harris's instep-spanning goring so its ends terminate near the inner sole is a simple geometric change in strap routing — the sort of "obvious to try" design step KSR treats as within the PHOSITA's grasp — and is directly motivated by Briggs's demonstration that bottom-of-shoe anchoring stabilizes a snugging device on a low shoe.
• Placed under tension by the presence of a foot to pull the top edges of the instep portion toward the foot: This is nearly verbatim Harris: "when the shoe is on the foot the elastic goring piece will be somewhat distended and will exert an inward pull on the sides of the quarter … holding said parts closely against the sides of the foot."
• Detachability/transferability (specification objects, and implied by the hook fasteners of Figs. 1, 4–5): Briggs — a device "to be applied to" existing low shoes, removable and reusable, with securing elements interchangeable (hooks, clasps, snaps).
• Invisibility: Harris expressly conceals its goring beneath an instep-piece for neat appearance; Briggs expressly designs so the device "appears to be a component part of the shoe." Together they supply the motivation to place the harness inside the shoe where the foot and upper hide it.

Motivation to combine (articulated, not hindsight):

1. Same field, same problem. All three references address low/slip-on footwear fitting defects caused by the upper not hugging the foot (Harris: quarters gaping away from the foot — essentially Young's problem statement; Briggs: heel slippage; Jennings: upper collapsing under the heel). A PHOSITA seeking to cure instep gaping in a pump would naturally look to Harris (instep elastic) and Briggs (low-shoe accessory design).
2. Express suggestion of interchangeability. Briggs's own text ("may be elastic or inelastic as preferred") is an explicit teaching that the elastic-versus-inelastic choice is immaterial to the function of a low-shoe snugging device — removing the principal argument that Harris's elasticity is non-obvious when applied to Briggs's device.
3. Complementary, non-competing teachings. Harris solves the instep fit problem with integral elastic; Briggs solves the heel fit problem with a detachable accessory. Combining them — taking Harris's instep elastic concept and implementing it as Briggs-style detachable straps — yields the predictable union of two known solutions with no unexpected interaction.
4. Known result. The result (elastic tension draws the instep edges inward when the foot is inserted) is exactly the result Harris already achieves; nothing about relocating the anchors to the bottom or making the device detachable changes the operative physics. KSR: a combination "of familiar elements according to known methods … does no more than yield predictable results" and is obvious.

Honest weakness. Claim 1's "extending … transversely … to the opposite side … adjacent the bottom edge" and Claims 3/5's cross-wise, opposite-side-bottom anchoring require a diagonal, top-edge-to-opposite-bottom-edge routing that no single retrieved reference draws. The case therefore depends on treating the diagonal routing as an obvious design choice (see § V), which is defensible but is the softest point in Combination 1.

Combination 2 (supporting case): Briggs + Harris + Jennings US905432A → Claims 1–3 and 5

Jennings adds little elasticity-wise (its counter sections are stiffening material), but it independently establishes that internal, concealed retention members inside slippers — acting on the sides of the foot — were conventional and comfortable by 1908, reinforcing the motivation to place Young's tapes inside the shoe between the upper and the foot rather than on the exterior. If a challenger needed extra support for the "internal and invisible placement" element, Jennings supplies it. It is a secondary reference only.

Combination 3 (no-anticipation baseline): single references

• Harris alone: discloses the elastic-tension/inward-pull function but not the low-shoe/pump context, the detachable form, or the bottom anchoring. Does not anticipate Claims 1–3, 5.
• Briggs alone: discloses the low-shoe accessory with optional elasticity but acts at the heel; no instep tapes. Does not anticipate.
• Jennings alone: heel counters; no elasticity. Does not anticipate.
  No § 103 case can rest on any single reference; the combination analysis above is required.

V. Why the cross-wise / diagonal / X-arrangement (Claims 3, 5) and the Y-shape (Fig. 4) are obvious variants

1. Crossed-strap mechanics were conventional in the exact product class. Briggs itself discusses ballet slippers and the familiar practice of wrapping crossed ribbon around the ankle; crossed tension members are a standard, centuries-old way to distribute two-sided pull from low anchor points in footwear. A PHOSITA needing to draw both instep edges inward from two low anchors would naturally cross the two tapes.
2. Harris supplies the two-sided inward-pull concept (elastic acting on both quarters); the X-configuration is merely the routing that lets each of two strips anchor at one instep edge and pull toward the opposite side's bottom — a routine pattern-cutter's choice.
3. Permanent intermediate connection (Claim 5) is an obvious implementation choice. Once two strips cross, fixing them at the crossing (stitching, per Young's Fig. 3) versus leaving them free to slide (Young's Fig. 6) is a trivially predictable choice with no new function; stitching crossing straps was standard practice wherever crossed straps appear. Young's own Fig. 6 acknowledges the free-sliding alternative is functionally interchangeable, which undercuts any claim of criticality for the permanent joint.
4. The Y-shape (Fig. 4) is a subset. A Y-shaped harness for correcting one side is the same family of tensioned elastic tapes with one branch deleted; if the X-arrangement is obvious, the Y is a fortiori obvious as a single-side variant addressing the same defect.

VI. Claim-by-claim bottom line

VII. Secondary considerations

No evidence in the record of long-felt need, copying, commercial success, or praise for Young's device. To the contrary, the patent's own specification emphasizes transferability across the wearer's existing shoes — an accessory posture consistent with low commercial footprint. No secondary-indicia evidence exists to rebut a prima facie obviousness case on Claims 2, 3, and 5.

VIII. Honest uncertainty flags

1. Claim 4 cannot be responsibly assessed; do not treat any conclusion above as covering it.
2. US536345A identity. The Google Patents record (536,345; Mar. 26, 1895; Harris, "Shoe") conflicts in places with an OCR PDF heading reading "586,345" and with citation-list titles reading "Athletic shoe construction." I have treated the number literally as US536345A and relied on the specification body text (unambiguously Harris's elastic-goring vamp shoe). Anyone relying on this reference for an actual proceeding should pull the certified USPTO image to confirm the number, title, and inventor.
3. No examiner "References Cited" list exists for US1650000A; this analysis uses only the art identified and verified above and does not purport to reconstruct the full 1925 search space (e.g., Congress-gaiter goring patents, ballet/sandal cross-strap patents, and other elastic-instep art almost certainly existed and would only strengthen the obviousness case on Claims 1–3 and 5).
4. Legal-frame caveat. § 103 postdates this patent; the analysis is a modern retrospective. Under the era's own "invention" standard (Hotchkiss lineage), the same art would likely have supported an invalidity defense, but that is a separate historical inquiry.

IX. Overall conclusion

On the identified pre-1925-12-31 art, Claims 2, 3, and 5 of US1650000A would likely be held obvious under § 103 as a combination of Briggs US1489735A (detachable, optionally-elastic snugging accessory for low shoes/pumps/slippers, with bottom-of-shoe anchoring and an express "elastic or inelastic" teaching) with Harris US536345A (elastic across the instep, distended by the foot, exerting an inward pull that holds the upper's sides against the foot — functionally the heart of Young's claims — with concealment for appearance), optionally reinforced by Jennings US905432A for the conventionality of internal, invisible retention members in slippers. Claim 1 would probably fall with the same combination via the obvious diagonal-routing design choice, though with somewhat lower confidence. Claim 4 (if it covers the central-connector embodiment of Fig. 1) is the claim most likely to resist this particular art set, because none of the retrieved references discloses a sliding/elongated-eye central connector joining two tapes. A complete validity opinion should reconstruct Claim 4 from the original file wrapper (National Archives, RG 21) and search elastic-goring and cross-strap art beyond the three references analyzed here.