Invalidity dossier
US 3043947
Light distributing lens system
Current assignee: General Electric Co
Added 9/23/2026, 7:20:11 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 3,043,947
Title: Light distributing lens system
Assignee: General Electric Co. (original assignee and current assignee per the source listing)
Inventor: Harry Albinger, Jr.
Dates: Application/filing and priority date April 8, 1960; granted and published July 10, 1962; anticipated expiration July 10, 1979. Status listed as expired. Related foreign filings noted: GB1255361A and CH413561A, both with April 7, 1961 priority dates.
Purpose: The patent concerns "illuminating means for indicating dials" — specifically an edge-lighted dial with even light distribution across its surface. Light travels through a lens plate by internal reflection and emerges only where it meets an indented reflecting surface or irregularity.
Plain-language scope (from the supplied text): A light-transmitting panel (lens plate) has an integrally formed lamp holder, a central opening through its front and rear faces, and a lamp held in the holder by tape means within an elongated opening. Light rays are transmitted from the lamp through the panel generally parallel to its face surfaces. Semi-spherical depressions in the lens surface intercept light rays and reflect them out to illuminate the dial. These indentations are made deeper or more numerous with increasing distance from the light source — or placed closer together — so each intercepts and reflects a substantially equal amount of light energy; those near the reflecting edge may be made more shallow. A reflecting or diffusing sheet (or a film deposited on the lens) returns light through the lens. In the illustrated embodiment the lamp holder, support member, and lens plate are molded as one integral unit; the lamp holder may be C-shaped with a resilient light-conducting clamp member.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claim set (only one claim fragment appears), the complete specification or drawings, prosecution history, the exact legal status beyond the listed "expired" notation, or any prior-art references and their citations. The excerpt explicitly disclaims that the listed assignees and legal status are assumptions, not legal conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:42:10 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.