Invalidity dossier
US 347710
Automatic apparatus for accumulating and utilizing power
Added 9/23/2026, 1:48:40 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 347,710
Title: Automatic Apparatus for Accumulating and Utilizing Power
Patentee: James Houlehan, of Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio.
Assignee: The Railway Water Hoist Company, of Chicago, Illinois.
Dates: Application filed August 1, 1885 (Serial No. 173,301); patent granted and published August 17, 1886. Google Patents records anticipated expiration August 17, 1903, status "Expired – Lifetime."
Purpose: The specification states that railroad watering-stations of the era relied on windmills, distant steam pumping-stations, or pipe-lines, which were "more or less expensive" and "only partially satisfactory." The stated object is to overcome these drawbacks and economize construction and maintenance by actuating apparatus through the passage of a train of cars over the rails.
Plain-language scope: A car-wheel flange rides over a rounded projection on a horizontal lever, depressing it against spiral springs and driving a ratchet-wheel one tooth per wheel passage via a pawl. Repeated passages raise a heavy weight sliding in guides on an elevated tank. The weight then descends, driving the shaft in reverse and, through chain-and-pulley connections, operating a pump that discharges water into the tank through a pipe. Automatic release and reset are accomplished by a screw-shaft driven from the main shaft through spur-wheels; a threaded sleeve travels along it, striking collars on a rod jointed to a bifurcated lever that engages and disengages a sliding clutch on the ratchet-wheel—releasing the weight at its highest point and re-engaging after full descent. A locking pawl on the bed-plate prevents reverse rotation. Claim 1, as printed in the excerpt, recites the combination of the loose ratchet-wheel, clutch, bifurcated lever, screw-shaft, spur-wheels, sleeve with projection, and collars.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US347710](/patent/US347710)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The provided text is expressly an excerpt; the full claim set, any additional figures or drawing details, and any further specification text are not included. No information is supplied regarding litigation, ownership transfers, validity, or prior art, and none is asserted here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:52:49 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
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.