Invalidity dossier
US 5728058
Elastic knee wrap
Current assignee: Wyeth LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 8:12:38 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 — US5728058A, "Elastic knee wrap"
Bibliographic data (from supplied text): Application US08/496,565; filed 1995-06-29; priority date 1995-06-29; granted/publication date 1998-03-17; status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2015-06-29). Original assignee: Procter and Gamble Co.; later reassigned to WYETH (2008-10-07, per listed reassignment record); current assignee listed as Wyeth LLC. Inventors: William R. Ouellette, Timothy A. Burkett, Leane K. Davis, Elizabeth M. Harvey, Kurt E. Holstein, and Carl A. Noble.
Purpose: Per the supplied text, the invention relates to knee wraps with thermal sources for pain relief, applying heating or cooling to specific areas of the knee, and more particularly to elastic knee wraps having alignment features that position and secure the thermal pattern while still enabling knee flexure. The background notes that heating pads and ice packs relieve knee pain, elastic bandages provide compression/stabilization, and existing devices typically provide only one function, not both.
Plain-language scope (based on the furnished description and claims material): An elastic knee wrap is a substantially rectangular flexible web with first and second ends and an elastic portion stretchable along a longitudinal axis, long enough to encircle the knee with overlapping ends. The first end has a reclosable fastening system (e.g., hook members engaging loop fibers on the web's outer surface) to hold the wrap when stretched. An aperture in the web aligns with the user's patella as a locating point, with means (such as at least one slit) for extending the web transverse to the longitudinal axis at the aperture to accommodate knee bending. A plurality of thermal elements is embedded in the web in a pattern applying thermal energy to the sides and top of the knee. Additional features include a layer of material centered on the aperture with transverse elasticity and a V-shaped cutout to reduce wrinkling, a grip tab/release paper arrangement, an optional longitudinal slit creating independently fastenable ends, and friction-increasing means (foamed polymer strip and/or high-tack polymer stripe) on the body-facing side.
Not established by the excerpt: full claim text, complete specification, drawings, detailed materials/chemistry, exact claim count, and the substance of any prosecution, validity, or prior-art analysis. Ownership and assignee entries here are only as listed in the supplied source.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5728058](/patent/US5728058)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:30 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.