Invalidity dossier
US 6004334
Added 9/23/2026, 12:51:10 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 6004334 A
Title: Tongue cleaning apparatus
Patent number / application: US 6004334 A; application US09/083,333
Inventor: Daniel Richard Mythen
Assignee: Individual (original and current assignee listed as "Individual")
Dates: Priority/filing date 1998-05-21; granted and published 1999-12-21; anticipated expiration 2018-05-21. Legal status listed as "Expired – Lifetime."
Purpose: Oral malodor (bad breath/halitosis) is common, and even in individuals with healthy periodontal tissues and good oral hygiene, the back of the tongue is a significant source of oral malodor due to volatile sulfur compounds. Existing options cited include U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,197 (a toothbrush-like tongue hygiene device with a wider head, short bristles and a scraper) and a surgical-stainless-steel tongue scraper marketed in Sky Mall Magazine. The invention is directed to an easy-to-use device to help fight oral malodor.
Plain-language scope: A lozenge-shaped candy that dissolves in the mouth while scraping the tongue. It has two opposing sides bonded by an edible adhesive: a soft, pliable, dissolvable gelatinous side (e.g., GUMMI-BEAR/GUMMI-WORM-type confection) with a central circular depression (~1/2 inch diameter by ~1/8 inch deep) so it can be removably adhered by suction to the roof of the mouth, and a hard, dissolvable side (e.g., hard peppermint candy) bearing a cleaning pattern — preferably raised ridges/fins, illustrated as a sixteen-point star with ridges ~1/16 inch high — for abrading the tongue. Dimensions stated: diameter ~7/8 to 1 inch, thickness ~3/8 inch. A freshening agent such as retsyn may be included. In use, the candy can be repeatedly removed and re-adhered to new spots in the mouth until fully dissolved.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6004334/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The supplied text contains no claims, no figures (only figure captions), no examiner citations or prior-art search details beyond the two background references, no prosecution history, no claim construction, and no information about validity, enforceability, litigation, or ownership transfers. Classifications (A23G3/50, A61B17/244, A63F2009/0064) are search/classification data, not claim scope. Assignee listings are expressly stated by the source to be assumptions, not legal conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:53:27 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 6004334. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
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
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
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.