US 6092896

I'll verify the patent details and check for any recent litigation or docket activity.

Now let me check for the reexamination certificates and any recent Federal Circuit activity.

Let me verify the reexamination certificate history and confirm there's no 2026 appeals activity.

Verification of the Identifier

I searched for the literal string 6092896 / US 6,092,896. All hits confirmed a single, distinct patent — no similar-but-different numbers were returned, and no conflicting bibliographic data appeared across sources.

Caveat on method: I could not query USPTO PatentCenter/PACER or the CAFC docket directly. The verification below relies on Google Patents (which mirrors USPTO bibliographic data and aggregates litigation data from Unified Patents and Darts-IP), the USPTO-published reexamination certificate text, and Federal Circuit 2026 opinion listings. Treat the litigation/docket portions as secondary-source-derived.

1. Bibliographic Data

Continuity: The application is a continuation of Ser. No. 08/963,299 (filed Nov. 3, 1997, now US 6,012,811), which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 08/766,327 (filed Dec. 13, 1996, now US 5,737,054), Ser. No. 08/847,711 (filed Apr. 28, 1997, now US 6,109,747), and Ser. No. 08/865,379 (filed May 29, 1997, now US 5,786,880). A child continuation, Ser. No. 09/624,755, issued as US 6,367,926 B1. The 1996-12-13 priority date is the earliest in this family and is the one Google Patents lists.

Term: A terminal disclaimer was filed February 22, 2000 by assignee Contour Optik, Inc., providing that the term "shall not extend beyond the expiration date of Pat. No. 5,737,054." Google Patents lists anticipated expiration as December 13, 2016. The front page carries the "[*] Notice: This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer."

Literal-reading note: The printed cross-reference paragraph reads "a continuation of Ser. No. 08/963,299 filed Nov. 3, 1997 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,811." Per your instruction I am not auto-correcting this; every other source in the family (Google Patents, Justia, and the reexamination certificate) identifies the parent as 6,012,811. The "5,012,811" string appears to be a typographic/OCR artifact in the granted text, but it is what the document literally says.

2. Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"A first frame of an eyeglass device includes a bridge with a magnetic member, and two retaining mechanisms for supporting a pair of lenses. The retaining mechanisms defines a frontal plane. The bridge ties the two retaining mechanism together, with the magnetic member magnetically coupling to another magnetic member at the bridge of a second frame. In one embodiment the coupling occurs at a coupling surface on the second frame that is substantially perpendicular to the frontal plane. The magnetic member at the bridge of the first frame can be a permanent magnet or a magnetizable member. The second frame can be a primary frame, and the first frame can be an auxiliary frame."

3. Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has 22 claims, with seven independent claims: 1, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, and 19. They fall into three conceptual families.

Family A — Bridge magnetic coupling + cavity/protrusion + anti-drop (claims 1, 4, 8, 11)

• Claim 1 — An eyeglass device with a first frame having (a) two lens-supporting "retaining mechanisms" that define a frontal plane, (b) a bridge joining them, and (c) a magnetic member at the bridge for coupling to another magnetic member at the bridge of a second frame. Two added requirements: the first frame's bridge has a cavity that receives a protrusion on the second frame's bridge (extra mechanical security), and when the frames are secured, one frame cannot move downward relative to the other because of where the magnets sit. (In practice, both the cavity/protrusion and the downward-restriction features recite the parent application's disclosure.)
• Claim 4 — The same subject matter, but drafted around the bridge subassembly ("a bridge configured to connect two retaining methods…") rather than the whole frame. Same cavity/protrusion and anti-drop limitations.
• Claim 8 — Claims the two-frame combination: an auxiliary frame and a primary frame, each with retaining mechanisms, a bridge, and a magnetic member at the bridge, magnetically coupled; again with cavity/protrusion and the auxiliary frame restricted from moving downward relative to the primary frame.
• Claim 11 — Views the same combination from the primary-frame side: a primary frame whose bridge carries a first magnetic member and includes a cavity to receive a protrusion on the auxiliary frame's bridge, such that the auxiliary frame cannot move downward relative to the primary frame.

Family B — Hidden magnet + non-frontal-plane coupling (claims 13, 15)

• Claim 13 — A bridge for connecting two lens-retaining mechanisms of a first frame (frontal plane defined), with a magnetic member at the bridge for coupling to at least a part of a second frame's bridge. Two requirements: the magnetic member is enclosed by the bridge at least from the front so it is not visible from the front when worn, and when the frames are secured the magnetic member couples to the second frame's bridge at a surface that is not parallel to the frontal plane.
• Claim 15 — Identical scope expressed as a full first frame (retaining mechanisms + bridge + magnetic member) rather than just the bridge.

Family C — Non-frontal-plane coupling + anti-drop (claim 19)

• Claim 19 — A first frame with two lens-retaining mechanisms defining a frontal plane, a bridge, and a magnetic member at the bridge for coupling to at least a portion of a second frame's bridge. When secured: coupling is at a surface not parallel to the frontal plane, and because of the magnet's location relative to the second frame's bridge, one frame cannot move downward relative to the other.

Dependents (brief): 2 and 5 (magnet sits in the cavity; the second frame's magnet is at least part of the protrusion); 3 and 6 (first/auxiliary frame's magnet is a permanent magnet coupling to a magnetizable member on the primary frame); 7 and 12 (the auxiliary frame's bridge adds a vertical flange so the primary frame's bridge is sandwiched between the frontal plane and the extension); 9 (auxiliary frame's magnet is a permanent magnet); 10 (vertical flange); 14 (horizontal coupling); 16 and 20 (both bridges carry magnets; the two magnets couple horizontally); 17 and 21 (first frame = auxiliary); 18 and 22 (first frame = primary).

Drafting observation: Several dependents introduce "auxiliary frame"/"primary frame" without strict antecedent basis in the parent claim (e.g., claims 3, 6, 7, 10, 12). This is a facial antecedent-basis looseness in the granted text; it was not the subject of the reexamination.

4. Post-Grant Proceedings

• Ex parte reexamination Control No. 90/011,115, request filed July 26, 2010.
• Certificate US 6,092,896 C1 issued November 15, 2011: "No amendments have been made to the patent" and "the patentability of claims 1–22 is confirmed."
• The reexamination certificate relabels the title as "EYE-WEAR WITH MAGNET AT THE BRIDGE."
• Uncertainty flag: A patent-images PDF also renders a second header, "EX PARTE REEXAMINATION CERTIFICATE (9663rd)…", immediately after the C1 text. I could not confirm from the retrieved text whether that is a second certificate for this same patent or an adjacent certificate for a different patent concatenated into the same PDF. I am therefore not asserting that a C2 certificate exists for US 6,092,896.

Google Patents also records a 2007-08-13 assignment to CONTOUR OPTIK, INC. from assignors Chao, David Y. and Chao, Richard.

5. Litigation and CAFC Activity

Enforcement history (2002–2013), per Unified Patents/Darts-IP data surfaced on Google Patents and secondary case reports:

• S.D.N.Y. 7:02-cv-06195 — original Aspex/Contour suit against Altair Eyewear.
• Fed. Cir. 2007-1380 and 2007-1407 — Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc. The court affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement as to the '811 and '896 patents, holding that "retaining mechanism" was a means-plus-function limitation whose only disclosed structure was rims; rimless magnetic clip-ons did not infringe. It reversed only as to the '054 patent's "frame" construction.
• D. Mass. 1:10-cv-12202 — Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc. follow-on.
• S.D. Fla. 1:02-cv-20609; 0:09-cv-60488; 0:09-cv-61467; 0:09-cv-61468 — additional district court cases in the family's litigation portfolio.
• Fed. Cir. 2012-1318 (with related 2012-1102 and 2012-1137) — Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Zenni Optical LLC (Fed. Cir. Apr. 19, 2013): affirmed that Contour/Aspex were collaterally estopped from relitigating infringement of the '054, '811, and '896 patents, because every asserted claim contained the same "retaining mechanism" limitation construed in Altair and the accused Zenni products were materially indistinguishable from Altair's.
• U.S. Supreme Court No. 12-1120 — a filing (consistent with a petition for certiorari in this chain), listed in Google Patents' litigation data. I did not retrieve a disposition and will not characterize the outcome.

CAFC 2026 check — result: nothing found. I searched Federal Circuit 2026 dockets, opinion listings, and 2026 CAFC reporting for any appeal or docket entry involving US 6,092,896 (or application 09/369,026). No 2026 Federal Circuit activity referencing this patent was found. This is consistent with the patent's status: it expired December 13, 2016 (terminal disclaimer measured against US 5,737,054), and the last appellate activity I can identify ended in 2013. I cannot rule out a sealed or as-yet-unindexed filing, but there is no public record of one.

6. Explicit Uncertainty Statements

1. No CAFC 2026 docket entry exists in any source I could reach for US 6,092,896. Because I could not query PACER/CAFC's docket system directly, treat "none found" as no public record located, not as an affirmative negative.
2. Whether a second (C2) reexamination certificate issued for this patent is unresolved on the evidence I retrieved.
3. The terminal disclaimer's exact text (Feb. 22, 2000, per the Official Gazette notice reproduced in the patent's PDF) is quoted from that reproduction; I did not view the assignment/disclaimer record directly through USPTO Assignment.
4. The cross-reference paragraph's "5,012,811" is reported literally as printed, with the discrepancy from the family's 6,012,811 flagged above.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6092896A/en · https://patents.justia.com/patent/6092896 · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/49/c7/85/6a2a0647c501f5/US6092896.pdf · https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Eye-wear-with-magnets/6092896.html

I'll start by verifying the canonical "no proceedings" signal against public sources, then dig for any IPR/PGR/CBM activity and related appeals.

No IPR hits yet. Let me probe PTAB E2E directly and check the related appellate history.

No PTAB hits so far. Let me confirm across additional angles (reexam, sibling patents, and the appellate record).

PTAB / AIA Trial Activity — US 6,092,896 ("Eye-wear with magnets")

Assignee of record: Contour Optik, Inc. (TW) · Inventors: David Chao, Richard Chao · Priority: 1996-12-13 · Granted: 2000-07-25 · Anticipated expiration: 2016-12-13 · Status: Expired – Lifetime

Proceedings overview

Zero. There are no AIA trial proceedings on US 6,092,896 — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM — giving a breakdown of 0 active / 0 claims invalidated at the PTAB / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, and therefore no PTAB Final Written Decision exists to hang a defense on; the patent's real defensive value for a defendant today comes not from the Board but from (a) its 2016-12-13 expiration, and (b) Federal Circuit claim construction and issue-preclusion rulings holding the asserted '896 claims not infringed as to rimless magnetic clip-on eyewear.

Canonical source check: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and that block lists only district court, CAFC, and Supreme Court entries (Florida S.D. 0:09-cv-61467 / 0:09-cv-61468 / 0:09-cv-60488 / 1:02-cv-20609; S.D.N.Y. 7:02-cv-06195; D. Mass. 1:10-cv-12202; CAFC 07-1380, 07-1407, 12-1102, 12-1137, 12-1318; SCOTUS 12-1120). That is a second, independent confirmation that the ODP has no trial numbers indexed for this patent.

Do not be misled by two look‑alikes I found in searching:

• "Contour" in the GoPro IPRs is not your patent owner. GoPro, Inc. v. Contour IP Holding LLC, IPR2015-01078 and related (U.S. Pat. 8,896,694 and 7,765,482) — GoPro catalog / trade-show § 102(b) printed-publication fight, CAFC 17-1894. That is Contour IP Holding (action-sports cameras). Different entity, different patents. It shares only a word.
• "Unified Patents" in the Google Patents litigation links is a data vendor, not a party. The litigation entries are sourced from "Unified Patents Litigation Data"; that attribution does not mean Unified Patents filed anything against the '896. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain for this patent.

Per-proceeding detail

There are no proceedings to list. Rather than stretch the template, here is the equivalent-format record for the non-PTAB challenges that actually shaped this patent — labeled accurately so nothing is mistaken for an AIA trial.

(No proceedings) — USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial on file (ODP ingest, corroborated by search 2026-09-18)
• Judge panel: none assigned
• Petition grounds: none
• Institution decision: none
• Final Written Decision: none
• Settlement / termination: none
• Appeal: no FWD → no § 319 appeal; the CAFC docket entries in the structured block are district court appeals, not PTAB appeals
• Defensive value: There is no FWD to quote and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone. That cuts both ways: you cannot ride someone else's win, but every § 102/§ 103 ground is still open to you (subject to the ordinary limits of a now-expired patent).

Litigation record that does the work (NOT PTAB proceedings)

Aspex Eyewear, Inc. & Contour Optik, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc. — S.D.N.Y. No. 02-cv-6195 (Judge Stephen C. Robinson); asserted claims included claims 13-22 of the '896 patent (alongside '054 claim 1 and '811 claims). CAFC Nos. 2007-1380, -1407, decided 2008-08-01, reported at 288 F. App'x 704.

• The District Court construed "two retaining mechanisms for supporting a pair of lenses" in the '811/'896 claims as a means-plus-function limitation under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6, limited to structure that keeps lenses in place using rims.
• The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement as to the '811 and '896 patents (all accused sunglasses were rimless; pins were not equivalents of rims), and reversed only the "frame" construction for the sibling '054 patent. Opinion copy: https://www.finnegan.com/files/Publication/a4e78d1c-6a7f-4768-ba83-39afa6c83cd0/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/e51152e9-1268-4c59-a145-3a62b110cb2e/07-1380%2008-01-2008.pdf

On remand (the '054, not the '896) — the district court held the asserted '054 claim (claim 1 only) invalid for obviousness; CAFC affirmed, 484 F. App'x 565 (Fed. Cir. 2012).

Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Zenni Optical, Inc., 713 F.3d 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2013) — the CAFC affirmed that collateral estoppel barred Aspex/Contour from suing on the '811 and '896 patents because Zenni's accused rimless magnetic clip-ons were "materially indistinguishable" from the Altair products already held non-infringing. Opinion copy: https://www.ptabwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/630/2016/11/case772132236454122261.pdf

Supreme Court — Aspex Eyewear, Inc., et al. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., No. 12-1120: cert petition filed 2013-03-13 (question presented: whether the Federal Circuit eliminated KSR by substituting a "common sense" standard), denied 2013-04-15. This concerned the '054 obviousness holding, not the '896. Docket: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/supreme-court/[8000254](/patent/8000254)-aspex-eyewear-inc-et-al-petitioners-v-altair-eyewear

Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. No claim of the '896 was canceled — not by the Board (there was no trial) and not by a court. But the practical map is claim-by-claim and matters more than the nominal "all 22 claims issued and none were canceled" story:

• Claims 13–22 (UNTESTED at the PTAB; ADJUDICATED and lost on infringement). These are the asserted claims in the Altair litigation. They were held not infringed under the rims-based means-plus-function construction, and that determination was given preclusive effect against the patent owner in Zenni (713 F.3d 1377). For a rimless accused product these claims are effectively unusable by this patent owner.
• Claims 1–12 (UNTESTED — no PTAB, and I found no assertion of them). These are the cavity-and-protrusion bridge claims (claim 1 requires "a cavity to receive a protrusion at the bridge of the second frame"; claim 2 puts the magnet in the cavity). Whether the rims construction would even reach them, and whether they'd survive the art, has never been adjudicated anywhere. If a demand letter cites claims 1–12, there is no judicial or PTAB determination backing the patent owner — and the 713 F.3d 1377 non-infringement estoppel, which was tied to the '811/'896 retaining-mechanism construction, may or may not extend to claim sets that were never construed in that posture.
• Sibling caution: the family's '054 patent (claim 1) is invalid for obviousness (Fed. Cir. 2012), and '811 shares the rims construction. If the assertion is framed around the "bridge magnet" family generally, the '054 kill is directly relevant.
• Terminal caveat: the patent expired 2016-12-13 (20 years from the 1996-12-13 priority). Every claim lapsed nearly a decade ago.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR was ever instituted on the '896, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone — no petitioner, no privy, no real party in interest. Practically:

• All § 102 / § 103 grounds remain available to a challenger, including art that was before the examiner (IPR estoppel's "reasonably could have raised" bar simply never activated). The prosecution file shows a crowded prior-art field — Tesauro (US 2,737,847; US 2,770,168), Gitlin (US 3,565,517), Waldrop (US 4,196,981), Townsend (US 5,181,051), Sadler (US 5,416,537), the Stemme German family (DE 3,905,041 / 3,929,879 / 3,921,987), Sunreeve (US 5,642,177, EP 0,743,545), and FR 1,037,755 — so a § 103 attack on a bridge-magnet auxiliary frame has a deep well to draw from.
• The flip side of no IPR: you also get no FWD to cite, and no IPR-driven stay leverage. Your defensive posture is a § 282 invalidity case in district court plus the Federal Circuit's own non-infringement holdings.
• Note the lapse of inter partes reexamination: the '896 issued from an application filed 1999-08-04, i.e., before the 1999-11-29 effective date for inter partes reexamination, so that vehicle was never available against it (ex parte reexamination was, and I found no evidence one was ever filed — flagged as "no evidence found," not as a verified negative).

Pattern signals. No petitioner filed multiple IPRs here — no petitioner filed any IPR here. The patent owner (Contour Optik, with licensee Aspex Eyewear) was a serial district court plaintiff across roughly two decades of eyewear litigation, litigating as plaintiff in essentially every case, and it never had to defend a PTAB trial. It did pursue appeals aggressively — CAFC 2007-1380/-1407, 12-1102, 12-1137, 12-1318, plus the cert petition at 12-1120 — but those are Article III appeals, not § 319 appeals from a Board decision. The absence of any IPR is itself a signal: a patent asserted that broadly for that long normally attracts at least one petition, and the most likely reason none came is that the accused products were rimless, so defendants won on construction and preclusion far more cheaply than an IPR would have cost — and by the time the AIA trial regime matured (2012-09-16 onward) the patent had only ~4 years of term left.

Recommended next steps

1. Start by saying plainly: there is no PTAB activity on US 6,092,896. No proceeding number exists, so any assertion that the patent "survived IPRs" or was "invalidated in IPR" is wrong in both directions. If opposing counsel or a demand letter implies otherwise, ask for the trial number and check PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ and the ODP/PatentCenter record at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6092896/en.

2. Lead with expiration. The patent lapsed on 2016-12-13. There is no injunctive threat and the § 286 damages window is long closed. A demand letter citing the '896 against conduct after that date has no statutory hook.

3. If claims 13–22 are asserted, quote the dispositive holdings. The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement of the '896 in 288 F. App'x 704 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (CAFC 2007-1380/-1407, https://www.finnegan.com/files/Publication/a4e78d1c-6a7f-4768-ba83-39afa6c83cd0/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/e51152e9-1268-4c59-a145-3a62b110cb2e/07-1380%2008-01-2008.pdf), and held the patent owner collaterally estopped from re-asserting the '811/'896 against materially indistinguishable rimless products in 713 F.3d 1377 (https://www.ptabwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/630/2016/11/case772132236454122261.pdf). The operative construction — "retaining mechanisms" = rims or their equivalents, § 112 ¶ 6 — is the hinge. Build the non-infringement argument on it.

4. If claims 1–12 are asserted, treat them as an open field. No court and no Board has construed or tested the cavity/protrusion claims, and the '896's own claim 1 is what the Altair/Zenni preclusion did not reach. Your options are a § 282 invalidity case on the bridge-magnet art set (above) and a fresh look at whether the means-plus-function construction migrates to claim 1's "two retaining mechanisms" recitation — worth an early Markman on that term, since the same limitation appears verbatim in claims 1, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, and 19.

5. Milestones: not applicable. With no instituted trial there is no 1‑year § 316(a)(11) FWD deadline, no institution-decision deadline, and no oral hearing to calendar. If you want to build your defense on public record, use the CAFC opinions above and CourtListener (search "Aspex Eyewear Altair Eyewear": https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Aspex%20Eyewear%20Altair%20Eyewear) rather than the PTAB docket.

Confidence and limits. The zero-proceeding finding rests on the canonical ODP block plus corroborating search, and I state it as such. I did not locate any IPR/PGR/CBM number mentioning 6,092,896, and my searches for a reexamination were inconclusive — I am reporting "no evidence found" on reexamination, not a verified negative. Claim-level details above (claims 13–22 asserted in Altair; the rims construction; the preclusion holding) come from the retrieved S.D.N.Y., CAFC, and Zenni materials cited; where I have only a secondary characterization — e.g., the Altair III citation 288 F. App'x 704 as reported in the Zenni opinion — I have said so rather than over-claiming.

I'll research this patent's assignment record, litigation history, and the original assignee's status.

Let me dig into the assignment record specifics and related enforcement history.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,092,896 ("Eye-wear with magnets")

Data-availability caveat up front: the Google Patents legal-events feed for this patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6092896A](/patent/US6092896A)/en) exposes only one post-issuance ownership event, and it does not display the reel/frame, correspondent, or recording date fields. I was unable to open the Assignment Center record itself in this session, so no reel/frame number is asserted below — inventing one would be fabrication. Every reel/frame and correspondent field below is marked as unavailable rather than guessed. Verify at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html by searching 6092896 (also 6012811 and 6367926, the two sibling patents in the same family).

Inventors

Pattern note: No "inventors depart within 12 months of filing" signal. The opposite is true — the inventors are the principals of the assignee, and the same two names recur across the whole Contour Optik magnetic-eyewear portfolio. The one genuinely unusual inventor-side event is that Richard Chao licensed the family to Chic Optic, Inc. before the assignment to Contour, which is what produced years of standing litigation (see Miracle Optics, above).

Original assignee

Contour Optik, Inc., 6 Industrial Fifth Road, Tou Chiau Industrial Park, Chiayi 621, Taiwan (also rendered "Contour Optik, Inc., Chiayi (TW)" on the 2011 reexamination certificate).

• Line of business: eyewear — design/manufacture of spectacle frames and magnetically attachable auxiliary (clip-on / flip-up) sunglass frames. This is not a patent-holding vehicle: the same corporate name is the named assignee on later, unrelated filings by David Chao (e.g., cranial electrotherapy stimulation devices, filed 2014-12-24, issued 2016–2017), and it remained the "Current Assignee" in Google Patents as of the 2026-09-17 fetch.
• Product embodying the claims: the family was commercially exploited through an exclusive U.S. make/use/sell license granted to Chic Optic, Inc. (Canada), sublicensed to Aspex Eyewear, Inc. (Delaware), both owned by the Ifergan Trust. The licensing structure — including Contour's option to fund up to 50% of infringement litigation in exchange for a pro-rata share of any award — is recited in Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Miracle Optics, Inc., 434 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2006). I could not independently verify in this session a specific Contour-branded SKU sold in the U.S. under this patent number, so treat "ships products" as strongly supported by the license-and-enforce conduct rather than by a verified product catalog.
• Current status: operating. No bankruptcy, no dissolution, and no change-of-name record surfaced. The patent itself is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2016-12-13 per Google Patents legal events).

Assignment timeline

Only one recorded assignment exists in the sources retrieved. There are no security agreements, mergers, change-of-name filings, or license recordings in the USPTO assignment feed for this patent number.

• 2007-08-13 (date as carried on the Google Patents legal-events record; executed vs. recorded not distinguished in that feed) — Reel not surfaced / not asserted
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: David Y. Chao and Richard Chao (the named inventors)
  • Assignee: CONTOUR OPTIK, INC.
  • Correspondent: not available — the assignment-correspondent field is not exposed in any source I could reach. For completeness, the attorney/agent of record on the face of the patent (a different field) is Fliesler, Dubb, Meyer & Lovejoy LLP.
  • Context: confirmatory / title-cleanup assignment perfecting record title in the original assignee. Timing is conspicuous: it falls ~3 months after the S.D.N.Y. entry of judgment and the notice of appeal in Aspex Eyewear v. Altair Eyewear (Fed. Cir. Nos. 2007-1380, -1407), where standing to sue was expressly left open by the court ("material issues of fact remain as to whether Aspex has standing to sue as an exclusive licensee"). This reads as chain-of-title hardening during enforcement, not as a transfer to any third party.

No record of any assignment away from Contour Optik. The ownership chain is: inventors → Contour Optik (original assignee at issuance, recorded formally in 2007) → still Contour Optik. Per the task framing, the absence of post-issuance transfers is itself the finding.

Related prosecution-side events that are not assignments but affect the record:

• 2000-02-22 — terminal disclaimer filed by the assignee Contour Optik, Inc. (per the Official Gazette notice republished with the reexamination certificate): the term "shall not extend beyond the expiration date of Pat. No. 5,737,054."
• 2010-07-26 — Ex parte reexamination request 90/011,115 filed (requester not identified in the sources retrieved).
• 2011-11-15 — Reexamination certificate US 6,092,896 C1 issued; no amendments, claims 1–22 confirmed; title amended to "Eye-wear with magnet at the bridge."

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6092896
    1996 : Priority application filed
    1999 : Application filed Aug 4
    2000 : Patent issued to Contour Optik
         : Terminal disclaimer filed
    2002 : Altair infringement suit filed
    2007 : Assignment recorded to Contour Optik
    2010 : Ex parte reexamination requested
    2011 : Reexamination certificate issued
    2016 : Patent term expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present.
The only recorded transfer runs to the original operating assignee, from its own inventors. No assignee in the chain carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix; no registered-agent address; no single-member Delaware or Texas LLC. The 2007-08-13 entry is inventor→Contour Optik, the opposite of a shell spin-out.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
No assignee in the chain matches the named NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid-Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities). Contour Optik, Inc. and Aspex Eyewear, Inc. are not on those lists — indeed the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for this very patent (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[6092896](/patent/6092896)) categorizes the asserting plaintiff as a "Product company," not an NPE. Caveat: the licensee layer (Chic Optic / Aspex Eyewear, Ifergan Trust) is a high-frequency litigant across magnetic-eyewear patents — but it held a license, not title, and title never left Contour.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (not citable).
There is only one recorded assignment in the chain and I could not retrieve its correspondent field, so recurrence cannot be shown either way. Do not treat this as a finding. Two adjacent, non-assignment data points for a follow-up analyst: the patent's prosecution firm of record is Fliesler, Dubb, Meyer & Lovejoy LLP, and the appellants' litigation counsel across the enforcement campaign were Greenberg Traurig LLP and Collen IP Intellectual Property Law, P.C. Neither is an assignment correspondent and neither is evidence of an NPE recording pattern.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
No chained LLC-to-LLC assignments, and no post-2011 ownership activity at all in the sources reachable. A single assignment across a 16-year term is the antithesis of a cascading-transfer pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present; the recorded transfer is post-litigation.
Cases naming the '896 patent reach back to 1:00-cv-02389 (S.D.N.Y., Aspex Eyewear v. Cheuk Ho Optical) and to August 2002 (Aspex/Contour v. Altair, S.D.N.Y. 02-cv-6195, the Google Patents "New York Southern District Court 7:02-cv-06195" entry). The recorded assignment is 2007-08-13, i.e. roughly five years after first assertion. It is a reactive title-cleanup tied to the 2007 Federal Circuit standing appeal, not a venue/standing-staging transfer made within six months before suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
No Chapter 7/11 record surfaced for Contour Optik, Inc. or for any family assignee, and there is no assignment-to-purchaser entry consistent with a bankruptcy sale (contrast Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid).

7. Privateering — unclear.
The substance is close to the pattern without matching it: an operating company (Contour) obtained enforcement from a licensee group (Chic Optic → Aspex Eyewear, both Ifergan Trust) that litigated broadly, while Contour co-plaintiffed and held an option to fund 50% of litigation costs for a pro-rata share of awards (per Miracle Optics, 434 F.3d at 1336). But privateering as defined requires a transfer of the patent to the NPE; here title never moved — Miracle Optics confirmed Contour remained the effective owner precisely because the license had a hard termination date (no later than 2006-03-16). So the ownership fact cuts against the signal. Flagging as unclear rather than present.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present.
The chain terminates at Contour Optik, Inc., an operating eyewear company. No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN participation appears anywhere in the record.

Extra observation (not one of the eight): the patent was asserted, then narrowed into irrelevance — the Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement of the '896 patent in Aspex Eyewear v. Altair (Fed. Cir. 2008), the Supreme Court cert petition (No. 12-1120, docketed 2013-03-15) targeted that Altair outcome, and the Federal Circuit then applied collateral estoppel against re-assertion against Zenni Optical (No. 2012-1318). The 2010–2011 reexamination confirmed claims 1–22 but the claim-construction loss had already gutted the rimless-clip-on theory of infringement.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The ownership chain never leaves the original operating assignee: Contour Optik, Inc. was the assignee of record at issuance (2000-07-25), the sole recorded assignment is the 2007-08-13 confirmatory inventor→Contour Optik entry, and there are zero downstream transfers, shell entities, or security/merger records. Enforcement was run through the company and its exclusive licensee layer (Chic Optic → Aspex Eyewear, Ifergan Trust) against actual eyewear competitors — Altair, Clariti, Zenni, E'Lite Optik, Miracle Optics, Viva Optique, Cadore Moda, Cheuk Ho Optical — and the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies the asserter here as a Product company, not an NPE. The one genuinely opportunistic feature is a post-filing title-cleanup (2007) timed to a standing challenge on appeal, which makes this litigious but not an NPE chain.

Verification links:

• Assignment Center (search 6092896): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6092896A/en
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database, this patent: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6092896
• Family litigation (Fed. Cir. Nos. 2007-1380, -1407): Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., 485 F. Supp. 2d 310 (S.D.N.Y. 2007), aff'd in relevant part, 2008 WL 2917173 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 1, 2008)

Open items a follow-up should close (I could not, within this session): (a) the reel/frame and recording date on the 2007-08-13 assignment, plus its correspondent of record and the executed-vs-recorded date split; (b) the identity of the ex parte reexamination requester in 90/011,115; (c) whether any unrecorded license grants (e.g., the Chao→Chic Optic license described in Miracle Optics) exist that could cloud the record chain.

I'll research this. Let me start with searches to ground the analysis.

Let me gather more detail on the key cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,092,896 ("Eye-wear with magnets")

1. Verification of the patent (literal ID check)

I treated the number 6092896 literally. The USPTO record corresponding to that publication number is:

Continuity (per the printed front page): continuation of 08/963,299 (now US 6,012,811, "Eyeglass frames with magnets at bridges for attachment"), which is a CIP of 08/766,327 (US 5,737,054), 08/847,711 (US 6,109,747), and 08/865,379 (US 5,786,880). Child: 09/624,755 → US 6,367,926.

Sources consulted (this environment does not expose the USPTO Patent Public Search API directly; I used the authoritative USPTO-rendered patent text plus public mirrors of the US record):

• https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6092896A](/patent/US6092896A)/en (authoritative full text supplied in‑prompt)
• https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/49/c7/85/6a2a0647c501f5/US6092896.pdf (official PDF incl. reexam certificate)
• https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Eye-wear-with-magnets/6092896.html
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation (litigation docket listing for the '896 family)

Two important record facts that bear on any §102 analysis:

1. The '896 patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer linking its term to US 5,737,054, and its specification states the '054/'811/'880 applications are incorporated by reference — so the parent disclosures form part of the intrinsic record rather than ordinary third-party prior art.
2. The patent survived an ex parte reexamination (request 90/011,115, filed 2010‑07‑26) with all 22 claims confirmed and no amendments. That is strong evidence that none of the references below was found to anticipate any claim. The litigation (e.g., Aspex Eyewear v. Altair Eyewear, No. 02 Civ. 6195 (S.D.N.Y. 2005)) also construed, rather than invalidated, the '896 claims.

2. Critical-date framework (what counts as §102 art)

Because claim 1 etc. recite a cavity/protrusion and claims 13–22 recite coupling "at a surface not parallel to the frontal plane" with the magnet enclosed at least from the front, the effective date can differ claim-by-claim:

• Subject matter carried over from 08/766,327 (filed 1996‑12‑13) gets the earliest date.
• New matter first added in the CIP parents (08/847,711, filed 1997‑04‑28; 08/865,379, filed 1997‑05‑29) or in the '811/'896 chain (1997‑11‑03 / 1999‑08‑04) gets a later date.

References published before 1996‑12‑13 are unambiguously prior art. References published 1996–1999 may be §102(a)/§102(e) art depending on the claim date asserted.

3. The complete patent-citation set (54 entries) with dates

Grouped by relevance. "Desc." is the reference's own stated subject matter; where I have not verified the interior disclosure I say so rather than guess.

Group A — Magnetic attachment of an auxiliary/second lens frame (core field)

Group B — Cited but clearly outside the field (apparent citation/classification noise)

These appear in the citation list but their titles are unrelated to eyewear magnetics; they are not §102 art against any '896 claim:

Note: US 3,489,701 appears under "Family Cites Families," not the prior-art citation list proper, and EP 1,061,253 is post-dating (2000) and off-topic — both are almost certainly record-keeping artifacts rather than substantive art.

Group C — Other cited items (unverified interior content)

FR 915421, FR 1037755, GB 846425, GB 855268, FR 1266652, US 3,565,517, US 3,498,701, US 3,531,188, US 3,582,192, US 3,838,914, CH 572,222 A5, JP S54‑111841, JP S54‑111842, JP S55‑50217, JP S56‑29209, JP S61‑2621 — I have verified their bibliographic data and titles but have not inspected each specification; I therefore do not assign specific claim anticipation to them. On the record, none of them discloses the bridge cavity/protrusion required by claims 1, 4, 8, 11 (the reexam confirmation of all 22 claims corroborates this).

Non-patent literature cited (important)

• "Documents describing Twincome in a Patent Opposition Proceeding in Germany initiated by Pentax, on or around Apr. 30, 1997." This is the only cited NPL that could be sweepingly relevant (a real commercial magnetic clip-on product). It is a third-party product/opposition document, not a printed publication with a verified date here; I cannot confirm its content beyond the title.
• English abstracts of the FR/DE/JP/CN/TW/RU/CH publications above.
• K.H.J. Buschow et al., "Crystal-Field Anisotropy of Sm³⁺ in SmCo₅," Solid State Communications, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 903–906 (1974) — magnet-material science, relevant only to magnet selection/strength (§103 support), not to structure.

4. Claim-by-claim anticipation assessment (35 U.S.C. §102)

I map each reference only where a single reference discloses every element of the claim. On the record, no cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–22 — consistent with the ex parte reexamination certificate confirming claims 1–22 without amendment.

5. Bottom line

1. Confirmed patent: publication number 6092896 = US 6,092,896 ("Eye-wear with magnets," Chao et al., Contour Optik), 22 claims, priority 1996‑12‑13, expired 2016‑12‑13 after terminal disclaimer to '054, and all 22 claims confirmed in ex parte reexamination.
2. Most relevant cited prior art, in order:

• WO 90/09611 A1 / DE 3,905,041 A1 (Stemme) — bridge-mounted magnets on both eyeglasses and a templeless auxiliary; the closest concept to the '896 bridge coupling (targets claims 13 and 19, potentially 15).
• US 4,070,103 (Meeker) — a magnetically held attachable rim with a magnetic strip (targets the broad "couples to at least a part of the second frame" language of claims 13/15).
• US 5,416,537 (Sadler) and US 5,642,177 (Nishioka/Sunreeve, with EP 0743545) — magnetic auxiliary-spectacle attachment and one-hand/bridge-hinge concepts, but magnets at the temples, not the bridge.
• DE 1,797,366 (Wiedemann), DE 8806898 (Zen), DE 4,316,698 (Karp), FR 915421, FR 1037755 — earliest magnetic-spectacle art forming the general §102/§103 backdrop.
• US 5,737,054 / US 6,012,811 (Chao) — applicant's own parent family (incorporated by reference), conceptually relevant to the claim-1 "protrusion" but not proper §102 art.

1. No single cited reference anticipates any claim. The claims that survive most easily are the cavity/protrusion claims (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11); the claims most exposed (to §103 obviousness, not §102 anticipation) are the bridge-coupling claims 13, 15, 19 in view of Stemme's WO 90/09611/DE 3,905,041 and Meeker's US 4,070,103.
2. Several citation entries (Bosch DE 3,933,331; Sony JP H02‑109325; Toshiba JP S57‑184910; Hitachi JP S61‑2621; Fujitsu Ten JP H05‑40493; Siemens EP 1,061,253) are unrelated to eyewear and should be disregarded as prior art.

Caveats: (a) I could not open the USPTO Patent Public Search UI directly in this environment; the bibliographic and reexamination data above are taken from the official USPTO patent PDF/page rendered by Google Patents and public mirrors, which should be re-verified in Patent Center. (b) For the references in Groups B and C I have verified bibliographic data but not the interior disclosures; I have deliberately not assigned §102 anticipation to them beyond what the record supports. (c) "Potentially anticipates" above means arguably touches the elements of, not a legal conclusion of invalidity — the reexamination certificate confirming claims 1–22 is the controlling evidence that no citation in this list was held anticipatory.

I'll ground this analysis by checking a few of the cited references before writing it up.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,092,896 ("Eye-wear with magnets")

Prepared: April 26, 2026 | Patent: US6092896A, Contour Optik Inc., inventors David Chao & Richard Chao, app. US09/369,026 filed 1999‑08‑04, granted 2000‑07‑25, priority (assumed) 1996‑12‑13, expired 2016‑12‑13.

1. Framework and threshold matters

Governing law. This application was filed 1999‑08‑04 with a §119/§120 chain to 1996‑12‑13 (US08/766,327 → US5737054A), 1997‑04‑28 (US08/847,711 → US6109747A), 1997‑05‑29 (US08/865,379 → US5786880A) and 1997‑11‑03 (US08/963,299 → US6012811A). It is therefore governed by pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a). The obviousness inquiry follows Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966) and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 551 U.S. 398 (2007), as implemented in MPEP 2141–2144.

Critical date and statutory availability of the cited art. If the claims are entitled to the 1996‑12‑13 date, the §102(b) critical date is 1995‑12‑13. On that footing, the following cited references are comfortably §102(b) art (published more than one year before the critical date):

EP0743545A1 (1996‑11‑20), CN1117593A (1996‑02‑28) and TW274588B (1996‑04‑21) fall inside the §102(b) grace year but are still available as prior art under pre‑AIA §102(a) (publication before the 1996‑12‑13 invention/priority date). Note that their U.S. counterparts (e.g., US5642177A, issued 1997‑06‑24) are not §102(b) art; the foreign publications are the operative references.

Two important caveats on this record:

1. US5737054A (Chao, "Auxiliary lenses for eyeglasses") appears in the page's citation list and is the priority parent of the 6,092,896 family. It issued 1998‑04‑07, after the priority date, and its disclosure is by the same family. It therefore is not available as §103 art against claims entitled to 1996‑12‑13. Its practical value here is the opposite direction: where the 6,092,896 specification is a bare continuation of US08/963,299, any claim whose subject matter is not supported by US08/766,327 (or the 1997 CIPs) would be entitled only to 1997‑11‑03, at which point US5737054A becomes available as pre‑AIA §102(e) art as of its 1996‑12‑13 filing date (inventive entity differs: Chao Richard alone vs. Chao David & Richard). This is the single highest‑leverage validity issue in the file and should be run down in the file wrapper/priority‑support analysis.
2. Many of the 51 cited references are only available to me as titles/English abstracts, and several appear to be citation‑data noise with no eyewear relevance (e.g., DE3933331A1 – Bosch electromagnetic fuel injection valve; JPH02109325A – Sony "Manufacture of semiconductor device"; JPS57184910A – Toshiba "inspecting device for perforating position"; JPH0540493A – Fujitsu Ten "reverberation adding device"; EP1061253A2 – Siemens "Poppet valve for metering liquids"; US3489701A – Hooker Chemical "Flexible phenolic resins"). Statements below about references I could not verify in full text are flagged [unverified]; they are title/abstract‑level inferences only and must be confirmed against the originals before being relied on.

2. What the claims actually add over the art

Stripping the 22 claims to their technical content produces five distinct concepts:

• (A) Magnet at the bridge of a frame, coupling to a magnet at the bridge of a second frame. Claims 1, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, 19.
• (B) Non‑planar coupling — coupling surface not in / not parallel to the frontal plane; "coupled … horizontally"; bridge angle 45–135°. Claims 13–16, 19–22 (and the §112‑level description at Fig. 4/Fig. 15).
• (C) A cavity at the first frame's bridge receiving a protrusion at the second frame's bridge, for added securement. Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11.
• (D) The magnet is enclosed by the bridge so as not to be visible from the front. Claims 13, 15.
• (E) Downward restraint ("restricted from moving downwards relative to the other frame") attributable to magnet location. Claims 1, 4, 8, 11, 19.

Concepts (A) and (E) are the genus; (B), (C), (D) are the specific refinements. Notably, the 6,092,896 claims appear to have been carved out as a continuation set following issuance of US6012811A on 2000‑01‑11 — i.e., the '896 claims are largely fallback claims whose added limitations (cavity/protrusion, enclosure, coupling angle) are exactly the class of mechanical refinements most vulnerable under §103.

3. The cited prior art, mapped to those concepts

What I was able to verify:

• US5416537A (Sadler) — "First magnetic members attached to the temporal portions of the frames; second magnetic members attached to the temporal portions of the auxiliary lenses" (claim 1); magnets "embedded in the frames" with the "upper surface … level with the frames" (claims 3–4); "at least one of the first and second magnetic members must be made of a permanent magnetic material… Preferably, both." Critically, Sadler expressly teaches the downward‑restraint rationale: if the magnets are positioned so the auxiliary lenses "would be supported from the top. Thus, a more secure bond is achieved. Moreover, because the fit would presumably be tighter between the top of the auxiliary lenses and the top of the frames, less sunlight would be allowed between the auxiliary lenses and the primary lenses." → Concepts E, D (embedded/flush), and the magnet‑pairing of claim 3. [https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[5416537](/patent/5416537).html]
• US5642177A / EP0743545A1 (Nishioka, Sunreeve) — templeless auxiliary sunglasses; "small round magnet 3 … attached to each end of the frame"; magnets "embedded … without protruding substantially from the surface" (US claims 1); "if the frame 5a of the eyeglasses is made of a material which has a property attracted by magnetic force, the frame is not required to have magnets" — an express teaching of the permanent‑magnet/magnetizable‑element alternative of claims 3/6; and an express disclosure of a bridge hinge to fold the auxiliary frame (US claim 2). [https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0743545A1/en]
• EP0469699A1 (Seelex) — secondary spectacles whose bridge is shaped to be received and retained within the gap defined by the primary's bridge, brace bar and lenses; "two parallel reentrant grooves … adapted to snap onto the brace bar and the bridge"; the brace bar and bridge "pinch the connecting bridge… to hold it in place." This is bridge‑to‑bridge, recess‑receives‑complementary‑element engagement — i.e., the mechanical substance of concept (C), just without magnets. [https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0469699A1/en]
• Search‑report X references cited against EP0743545 (indicating the examiner there regarded them as the most material magnetic‑attachment art): WO9009611A1 / DE3905041A1 (Stemme, "Fastening arrangement"), DE8806898U1 (Zen), DE1797366A1 (Wiedemann), DE4316698A1 (Karp, "Magnetic fastening of supplementary parts on spectacle frames"), with US4196981A, US5181051A, US3838914A cited as category A. [http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP0743545A1]
• US5181051A (Townsend) — magnetic removable display for eyeglasses; US4070103A (Meeker) — magnetic material on the frame periphery co‑acting with a magnetic strip on a slide‑on rim cover; US2737847A / US2770168A (Tesauro) — magnetic bifocal/lens holders.
• External corroboration (not on this page's list — flagged as such): In Singapore High Court litigation over the family's bridge‑magnet counterpart, the court held: "Because the magnets in the Miki design are found in the bridges, the shifting of the magnets from the temple … to the bridges … is obvious. However I find that the use of a magnet and magnetizable substance pair is an inventive step." [https://www.commonlii.org/sg/cases/SGHC/2002/238.pdf] This is a foreign decision under a different statutory test and is not binding, but it is direct third‑party evidence that a tribunal, on a full evidentiary record, regarded the bridge location itself as obvious and the magnet/magnetizable pairing as the non‑obvious element — the inverse of the U.S. claim hierarchy here (where claims 1/4/8/11/19 cover the bridge location without requiring the pairing).

[Unverified] — title/abstract only, disclosure inferred from title: JPH05157997A (Mizutani, "Spectacles with magnet"); JPH07128620A / CN1117593A / TW274588B (San Riibu/Sunreeve‑family magnetic sunglasses); DE3919489A1, DE3920879A1, DE3921987A1, DE39333310 and DE3905041A1 (Stemme "Magnetic accessory attachment aid for spectacles" / "Fastening arrangement"); DE9216919U1 ("Clip-on glasses holder"); FR2483632A1 (Ayache, "socket coupling"); FR2657436A1; GB846425A; GB855268A; CH572222A5; US5321442A; US5243366A; US5389981A; US5410763A; US4547909A; US4988181A; US3498701A; US3531188A; US3565517A; US3582192A; US3838914A; JPS54111841A/42A; JPS5550217A; JPS5629209A; JPH01136114A; JP4415392; DE8507761U1; FR1266652A; FR915421A; RU220885A.

4. Proposed §103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination 1 — Claim 1 (and claims 2, 4, 5, 8, 11), primary attack

EP0469699A1 (Seelex) in view of at least one of US5416537A (Sadler), US5642177A/EP0743545A1 (Nishioka), DE1797366A1 (Wiedemann), DE4316698A1 (Karp) or DE8806898U1 (Zen).

• Seelex supplies: two frames, each with two lens‑retaining rims and a bridge; the auxiliary bridge received in the gap at the primary bridge (a recess receiving the primary frame's bridge/brace bar — the "cavity to receive a protrusion at the bridge of the second frame"); and the geometry in which the primary's bridge sits behind/within the auxiliary bridge, so that the auxiliary is captured and gravity acts to hold it (the claim‑1 "restricted from moving downwards").
• The magnetic references supply the magnetic member at the bridge and the coupling to a second frame's magnetic member.
• Motivation (KSR rationales A, C, D, F): both references address the identical problem — detachable auxiliary eyewear that must not shift or drop off. Seelex's snap‑fit at the bridge was designed for securement but requires the user to push/warp the assembly (a defect the 6,092,896 background itself recites: "one typically have to push down at its bridge and warp the frames outward on both sides of the lenses. It is not uncommon for such actions to permanently deform the auxiliary frame"); Sadler and Nishioka were expressly designed for one‑hand, tool‑free, magnet‑only attachment. A POSITA seeking to keep Seelex's positive mechanical capture while eliminating the warping requirement would predictably retain the bridge‑fit geometry and add magnetic retention at the very same location — the two references are directed to the same structure (the bridge) doing the same work (removable securement). Result: the whole of claim 1; with an embedded/flush magnet and a magnet‑plus‑magnetizable‑element pairing (Sadler claims 3–4; Nishioka's express teaching), claims 2, 3, 5 and 6.

Combination 2 — Claims 1–12, alternative primary attack centred on the bridge location

JPH05157997A, JPH07128620A/CN1117593A/TW274588B or EP0743545A1 (Sunreeve) [, all magnetic‑attachment art] combined with EP0469699A1, DE9216919U1 or FR2483632A1 (mechanical bridge/rim engagement).

• The magnetic references place the securement magnets at the frame front and teach the auxiliary frame being mounted frontally and folded at a bridge hinge; Seelex/DE9216919/FR2483632 show that the bridge is a conventional location for a mechanical interlock or socket coupling.
• Motivation: the 6,092,896 specification, and its family's own US5737054A background, articulate the design pressures verbatim: with plural magnets "the user have to align two pairs of magnet members"; magnets must be small for stylistic reasons; alignment of remote magnets is difficult because frames are "artistically curved"; and fewer magnets reduce manufacturing cost. Seelex supplies the teaching that the bridge is a structurally suitable and aesthetically discreet location for a positive interlock. Combining a known magnetic attachment with a known bridge interlock to obtain redundant (magnetic + mechanical) securement is the classic "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way," with a predictable result. Claims 7/10/12 (vertical flange with the primary bridge disposed between the frontal plane and the extension) then read onto the Seelex geometry directly — the auxiliary element wrapping behind the primary bridge is precisely what "the bridge of the primary frame is disposed between frontal plane and at least a portion of the extension" describes.

Combination 3 — Claims 13–18 (concealed magnet; non‑frontal coupling)

EP0743545A1/US5642177A (Nishioka) and US5416537A (Sadler) and US5181051A (Townsend) in further view of JPH05157997A (Mizutani) or JPH07128620A.

• Nishioka and Sadler both teach embedding the magnet in the frame "without protruding substantially from the surface" (Nishioka, US claim 1) and with the magnet's upper surface "level with the frames" (Sadler, claim 4). Placing such an embedded magnet at the bridge and enclosing it "at least from the front" by the bridge wall is a difference of location and housing geometry only.
• Motivation (KSR rationales A, B, E; "obvious design choice" — MPEP 2144.04): the patent's own background concedes the motivation: magnets on the plane of the lenses "have to be carefully designed so that they can blend into the general style of the frame, without being too conspicuous." That is an express recitation of a known aesthetic problem in the field, and the cited art shows the two known solutions — make the magnets small (Sadler, Nishioka) or embed them flush (Sadler, Nishioka, Townsend). Once the magnet is embedded in a bridge that has depth and thickness, the magnet's accessible coupling face is a lateral, rear or top surface — i.e., a surface not parallel to the frontal plane — as a mechanical consequence, not an inventive insight. Where the coupling is closed top‑down (the arrangement the 6,092,896 draws in Fig. 4 and describes as "the magnet at the bridge of the auxiliary frame sits on the magnet at the primary frame"), the coupling is "horizontal" within the meaning of claims 14, 16, 20 and 21. A change in the geometric orientation of a coupling surface that produces no unexpected result and merely follows from where the magnet must be housed is an obvious design choice.

Combination 4 — Claims 15, 17, 18, 21, 22 (primary/auxiliary role designation)

Combination 1 or 2, with the roles of 'first frame' and 'second frame' reversed. Selection of which frame carries the permanent magnet and which carries the magnetizable element, or which is "primary" and which is "auxiliary," is a pure recitation of intended use; see Nishioka's express alternative teaching that the magnets may be on either frame with the other frame made of magnetizable material, and Sadler's teaching that at least one member be a permanent magnet (preferably both). In re Schreiber / In re Stencel-type reasoning applies to claims distinguished only by the identity of the workpiece they are configured to receive.

Combination 5 — Claims 19–22 (non‑parallel coupling + downward restraint, without the enclosure limitation)

The broadest of the remaining claims. In addition to Combination 3, note the priority‑support escape hatch discussed in §1: if claims 13–22 are not supported by US08/766,327, then US5737054A — which discloses a first magnetic member in the middle bridge portion, an auxiliary bridge "having a projection extended therefrom for extending over and for engaging with said middle bridge portion," a second magnetic member secured to that projection, and attachment "with only one hand by a user" — is available as §102(e) art, and claims 19–22 would be obvious over (and largely anticipated by) it alone. Its disclosed geometry (auxiliary projection extending over the primary bridge) necessarily places the magnetic coupling at the bridge in a top‑down, non‑frontal orientation.

Claim chart (summary)

5. Secondary considerations and likely rebuttal

• Long‑felt need / failure of others: well documented in the field and in the patent's own background — clips obscure vision, scratch lenses, require two hands and warp the auxiliary frame; magnetic designs with remote magnet pairs were hard to align. This favors the patentee, but the need was met by the family's bridge‑magnet genus (US6012811A / US5737054A), not necessarily by the narrower '896 limitations (cavity/protrusion, front concealment, coupling angle).
• Copying/industry adoption: the page records extensive litigation (S.D. Fla. 0:09‑cv‑60488/61467/61468, 1:02‑cv‑20609; D. Mass. 1:10‑cv‑12202; S.D.N.Y. 7:02‑cv‑06195; Fed. Cir. 07‑1380, 07‑1407, 12‑1102, 12‑1137, 12‑1318; a U.S. Supreme Court filing, 12‑1120). Wide copying is probative only with nexus — and the nexus here must be to the specific '896 limitations, not to magnetic eyewear generally or to the '811 genus.
• Commercial success: likely substantial, but the accused/competing products typically embody bridge magnets generally; nexus to the cavity/protrusion and front‑concealment features in particular is the weakest link in any secondary‑considerations case on this patent, and the analysis should not credit success attributable to features claimed in the already‑issued sibling patents.
• Teaching away: the only candidate is the prior art's preference for spacing magnet pairs far apart (temples) for alignment. That is a preference, not a teaching away; Sadler expressly teaches the opposite direction (top support ⇒ "more secure bond" and reduced light leakage), Seelex teaches the bridge as the interlock location, and the KSR "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" rationale defeats an "obvious to try" framing.
• Litigation context, flagged as unverified: the Singapore judgment excerpt shows the defendants also pleaded misrepresentation concerning priority/"corresponding application" representations, and shows the court's split finding on obviousness of the bridge concept (obvious) versus the magnet/magnetizable pairing (inventive). The disposition of the misrepresentation issue is not visible in the retrieved excerpt; I do not know it and will not speculate.

6. Bottom line

1. Claims 1, 4, 8 and 11 (bridge magnet + bridge cavity/protrusion + downward restraint) are the most vulnerable. Neither the bridge location nor recess‑receives‑protrusion engagement is novel in this field: EP0469699A1 discloses bridge‑to‑bridge, groove‑onto‑bridge capture, and Sadler/Nishioka/Wiedemann/Karp/Zen disclose magnetic attachment of auxiliary frames with embedded magnets and magnet/magnetizable pairing. Combining them is supported by the patent's own recitation of the design pressures (conspicuousness, alignment difficulty, cost, two‑hand operation, frame warping).
2. Claims 13–18 (concealed magnet, non‑parallel coupling) are vulnerable as an obvious design choice: the patent itself states the motivation (magnets must "blend into the general style of the frame"), and the art shows the solution (embed, don't protrude). Once embedded in a bridge of finite depth, a non‑frontal coupling face follows mechanically.
3. Claims 19–22 collapse entirely if US5737054A is available as art (i.e., if these claims lack §120 support in US08/766,327). Verify priority support claim‑by‑claim before anything else.
4. The strongest validity position for the patentee lies in the dependent features arguably not expressly shown — the specific cavity/protrusion combined with magnetic coupling at the bridge (claims 1–2), and the enumerated bridge/extension angle ranges (present in the specification and in sibling claims rather than in the '896 claims). The independent claims as issued, however, do not require the pairing that a foreign tribunal found to be the non‑obvious element.

Verification required before reliance: full texts (not abstracts) of the Japanese, German, French, Swiss, Taiwanese and Chinese references marked [unverified] above, in certified translation; the US08/963,299 and US08/766,327 specifications for §120 priority support of each '896 claim; and confirmation from the file wrapper which references were actually applied by the examiner versus merely cited (the flattened page text does not reliably distinguish examiner‑cited from third‑party‑cited documents).