Invalidity dossier
US 5133356
Biomedical electrode having centrally-positioned tab construction
Current assignee: 3M Co
Added 9/23/2026, 5:10:02 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 5,133,356 A
Title: Biomedical electrode having centrally-positioned tab construction
Assignee: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (original assignee); 3M Co listed as current assignee.
Inventors: Kathleen M. Bryan, Steven S. Kantner, Joseph L. Galatowitsch, Terry G. Hargroder, Jerome E. Strand.
Key dates: Priority/filing date April 16, 1991; publication (grant) date July 28, 1992; anticipated expiration April 16, 2011. Legal status listed as expired.
Purpose: The patent addresses flexible, low-profile, skin-adhering biomedical electrodes used in electrocardiography (ECG). Such electrodes must provide an adequate conductive surface, a good conductive interface between subject and instrumentation, and sufficient skin adherence for the evaluation period. The invention aims to provide an inexpensively-made electrode meeting these needs.
Plain-language scope: The electrode has two main parts: (a) a separator construction—a flat sheet with two opposite sides and a perimeter; and (b) a conductor member with a pad portion and a tab portion. The pad portion is coplanar with the separator's second side, and the tab portion has a smaller area than the separator's first side. This arrangement positions the mechanical and electrical connection "centrally" within the electrode's perimeter—meaning the tab does not extend beyond that perimeter. The electrode may also include a field of conductive adhesive contacting the pad portion (optionally also the separator's second side), and means for adhering the conductor member to the separator's first side so the tab is adjacent to, but not directly adhered to, the separator. The conductor member may be a thin flexible polymeric film (e.g., polyester) with a conductive layer such as silver/silver chloride, metal foil/laminate, or conductive-carbon-impregnated non-woven web; some versions are relatively X-ray transparent.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5133356/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The excerpt appears truncated mid-sentence (concerning Engel conductive adhesives). It does not provide the full claim set, the complete written description, prosecution history, or figures, so the precise legal claim scope and any limitations cannot be confirmed from this text alone.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:43:47 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.