US 6439360

I'll verify current status with a couple of targeted searches, then summarize.

US 6,439,360 B1 — Verification & Summary

Search note: I ran searches for the exact identifier 6439360 and for CAFC/litigation activity. I found no litigation, PTAB, or CAFC docket records for this patent — no results returned for the docket query, and the USPTO-derived records show only prosecution, assignment, and maintenance-fee events. I cannot authoritatively confirm the absence of 2026 Federal Circuit activity from these searches; treat "no litigation found" as a negative search result rather than a certified clearance.

Also note the record contains internal inconsistencies I am not correcting: the specification text says the plug is on "receptacle cord 152" in one sentence and "receptacle cord 150 with plug 152" elsewhere, and Claim 2 references a "retainer portion" and "raised side member" that are not antecedently introduced in that claim. These are quoted as-is.

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Bibliographic Data (from the patent record)

Abstract (verbatim)

"An extension cord reel assembly having a housing which has a spool portion and a mounting portion is provided. A spool member having at least one flange member that is continuously welded to a surface upon which the extension cord is to be stored is positioned within the spool portion of the housing. The mounting portion of the housing of the reel assembly is positioned adjacent an outer perimeter of the spool member and is adapted to attach to a suspension member from which the reel assembly can be suspended above the ground."

Key Cited Prior Art

12 references cited (examiner-cited), including US 5,645,147 to Kovacik et al. (Alert Lite Safety Products), which the specification identifies as the closest prior art and criticizes for (a) mounting its U-bracket at the housing center of mass, producing instability/torque about the suspension point, and (b) using a metal second flange attached by clips that rust, break, or bind the spool.

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Claim 1 — Plain-Language Overview

An extension cord reel assembly with four cooperating parts:

1. Housing — defines a cavity split into a spool portion and a mounting portion, with the mounting portion located at the outer perimeter of the spool portion; an access opening sits adjacent the spool portion.
2. Suspension assembly coupled to the housing at the mounting portion, comprising:
   • a suspension member extending outward from the housing edge so it can be mounted on an exposed surface, allowing the housing to pivot relative to that surface in two directions;
   • a U-shaped bracket with two side members and an interconnecting member, the side members attached to the housing at the mounting portion;
   • the suspension member attached to the interconnecting member so the housing can hang above the ground;
   • mounted so the spool portion sits below the bracket–housing connection point (i.e., attachment offset from the center of mass — the stated stability improvement over Kovacik); and
   • one or more reinforcing members extending between the two side members of the U-bracket within the mounting portion (the load-spreading steel inserts).
3. Spool member in the spool portion, holding an electrical cord that exits through the access opening.
4. Circuit breaker with a push button, mounted in a cutout formed in one of the U-bracket side members so the button is at least partially protected by that side member (recessing to resist inadvertent tripping).

Claim 2 — Plain-Language Overview

A broader/second variant of the same assembly, distinguished mainly by the spool construction and the suspension geometry:

1. Housing defining an outer perimeter and a cavity, with the access opening in the outer perimeter.
2. Suspension assembly attached to the outer perimeter, adapted to let the housing be suspended from an elevated protrusion and retained there, comprising:
   • a U-shaped bracket (two side members + interconnecting member) connected at the mounting portion;
   • a suspension member on the interconnecting member;
   • mounted so the spool portion is below the bracket connection point; and
   • reinforcing members extending between the two side members in the "retainer portion" of the housing.
3. Spool member in the spool portion, specifically: a cylindrical member with first and second ends defining a cylindrical surface; a fixed flange integrally formed at the first end; a detached flange member mounted at the second end and extending outward from the cylindrical surface, attached to that surface by a weld at the interface (the specification describes this as an ultrasonic plastic weld replacing clips — the core durability claim).
4. An electrical cord on the cylindrical surface, retained by the detached flange, with a portion extending out through the access opening.
5. Circuit breaker with a push button in a cutout in one of the U-bracket side members, at least partially protected by the "raised" side member.

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Practical Takeaways

• Claim differentiation: Claim 1 claims the housing/suspension/circuit-breaker combination broadly; the weld-attached flange is not in Claim 1. Claim 2 adds the weld-bonded detached flange and the integrally formed fixed flange. If asserting infringement, Claim 2 requires proof of the welded (preferably ultrasonic) flange joint; Claim 1 does not.
• Enforceability window closed: With the 8-year fee paid (2010) and lapse on 2014-08-27, the patent was not in force for its full term. Even absent the lapse, the 20-year term from the 2000-01-13 filing would have run to 2020-01-13. No term extension or reissue appears in the record.
• Forward citations of note: US 7,984,798 (John Ernest Hall, "Electric cord reel") expressly cites 6,439,360 as prior art, and design patent US D1,071,704 cites it as well — evidence of the patent's continued citation as prior art in the cord-reel art through 2025.
• Uncertainty flag: I could not verify any 2026 CAFC or district court activity from the available search results; the "Expired – Fee Related" status and absence of litigation entries are consistent with, but not proof of, a patent that was never litigated.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6439360 across litigation-tracking sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Summary Finding

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,439,360 was found. Based on searches of litigation-tracking sources and general web indices, I could not identify any district court action, Federal Circuit appeal, ITC proceeding, or post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) in which US 6,439,360 was asserted or challenged.

Because you asked for specifics, here is exactly what I checked and what I found — including the caveats.

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1. What the patent is (for context)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6439360/en

The prosecution citation list (Kovacik US 5,645,147, etc.) and the "Cited By" lists reflect patent citations only — these are prior-art/patentability citations, not litigation. I want to flag that explicitly because those tables are frequently mistaken for litigation evidence.

2. Sources searched and results

• General web searches for "6439360 patent litigation," "6439360 patent lawsuit defendants," and "US6439360 ... district court" — returned no relevant hits. Results were dominated by unrelated coincidence of the number string (e.g., a Lithuanian business-registry notice no. 6439360; an Australian drill-hole collar coordinate "6439360"; US patent 6,438,180 in Carnegie Mellon v. Marvell, a different number that I did not treat as the patent at issue).
• Unified Patents Portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com) — I could not retrieve a caselist entry for patent 6439360. A search referencing Unified's portal surfaced only guidance pages and an unrelated IPR exhibit (IPR2019-00453, concerning US 7,020,252), not the '360 patent.
• CAFC / CourtListener / Justia-style results — no hit for 6,439,360.
• Google Patents literature — the only references to 6,439,360 I found outside the patent itself are later design patents citing it as prior art (e.g., USD 948,995 "Watering hose reel," citing "6439360 | August 27, 2002 | Miller"). A citation is not litigation.

3. Why "no litigation" is plausible here

Consistent with the record: the patent was a short-lived consumer/tool-product patent (extension-cord reel) owned by an operating company (Tasco/TMC), not a litigious NPE; it lapsed in 2014 for non-payment of maintenance fees and reached its 20-year term in 2020. There is no Orange Book listing, no ITC Section 337 posture, and no indication of an IPR. Nothing in the record supports an inference of asserted litigation.

4. Explicit caveats

• I could not fully verify via a direct, filtered query to the Unified Patents litigation caselist or a PACER docket search, because those tools require interactive filters/authentication that weren't available in my searches. My conclusion rests on the aggregated public indices reachable by search, which are strong but not exhaustive (DTSA/sealed complaints and pre-2000 dockets are particularly weak spots).
• Absence of evidence is not a certification of zero litigation. If you need a defensive, court-admissible clear-search opinion, this should be confirmed via a paid Docket Navigator / Lex Machina / PACER Docket Report pull on patent 6,439,360 and its assignees (Tasco Industries; TMC Enterprises; any successor), plus a Federal Circuit docket check.
• I did not auto-correct any identifiers. Where searches surfaced near-miss numbers (e.g., 6,438,180 in CMU v. Marvell), I treated them as distinct and did not attribute that litigation to US 6,439,360.

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Bottom line

Plaintiff(s): none identified
Defendant(s): none identified
Jurisdiction / Case number / Filing date: N/A — no case located
Outcome / Status: N/A

No known litigation involving US 6,439,360. If you'd like, I can draft the language for a formal clearance opinion reflecting this negative search, or specify the exact PACER/Docket Navigator queries to run for independent confirmation.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" finding with targeted searches before writing the deliverable.

Let me run two more targeted checks (PTAB E2E-style and a docket aggregator) to be thorough before concluding.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 6,439,360 B1

Verification note: I re-ran targeted searches (patent number + IPR/PGR/CBM, petitioner-side phrasing, and Docket Alarm/PTAB index queries) against the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list supplied in the structured block. Both agree: no AIA trial proceedings are on file for this patent. The only web hits referencing "6439360" are prior-art citations inside later patents — US 7,984,798 (Hall, "Electric cord reel"), USD 948,995 ("Watering hose reel"), USD 1,071,704 ("Extension cord reel"), and WO 2011/059709 A1 (Graco, hose reel mounting) — plus the Google Patents page itself. Those are citations, not proceedings, and I have not treated them as anything else.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings: 0 — no Inter Partes Reviews, no Post-Grant Reviews, and no Covered Business Method reviews were ever filed against US 6,439,360; the status breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, which means the patent's two claims (1 and 2) are UNTESTED at the PTAB, and the dispositive defensive fact for anyone receiving a demand letter today is not the PTAB record at all but the "Expired – Fee Related" legal status (maintenance-fee lapse effective 2014-08-27; term would have ended 2020-01-13 anyway) recorded in the bibliographic section above.

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Per-proceeding detail

There are no proceedings to detail. Rather than leave an empty table, here is exactly what the absence means and where I looked.

Sources consulted for the negative finding:

• The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) — returns no AIA trial proceedings.
• USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board information portal: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ (no case for patent 6,439,360).
• Google Patents, US6439360B1: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6439360/en (prosecution, assignment, and maintenance-fee events only; no PTAB events).
• CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/ (no PTAB or CAFC entry tied to this patent number).

Caveats on the negative finding (stated plainly, not buried): I could not execute an authenticated, filter-based PTAB E2E case search or a PACER docket pull in this environment; my conclusion rests on the canonical ODP block plus public indices. There is also a structural reason the absence is unsurprising and not an artifact of weak searching: the patent lapsed in 2014 and its term ran out in 2020, and it was held by an operating consumer-products company (Tasco/TMC) rather than a litigious NPE — see the litigation section above. As noted there, absence of proceedings is a negative search result, not a certified clear record; a paid Docket Navigator / Lex Machina pull on patent 6,439,360 for independent confirmation would be the belt-and-suspenders step.

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Strategic summary

Which claims are canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. Neither of the patent's two claims has been adjudicated anywhere. Claim 1 (housing + suspension assembly with U-bracket, reinforcing members, and the circuit-breaker-in-cutout feature) and Claim 2 (the same assembly plus the integrally formed fixed flange and the weld-attached detached flange — the core durability limitation described in the specification as an ultrasonic plastic weld) both remain UNTESTED. There is no FWD cancelling a claim, no certificate of cancellation, and no narrowing amendment from any AIA trial. The only record-based narrowing is the natural one: because the specification's own Summary describes the weld as the point of novelty for the flange durability aspect, Claim 2's weld-at-the-interface limitation is the hardest limitation to design around, and there is no PTAB construction of "weld" or "continuously attached" to fall back on. Nothing in the PTAB record helps or hurts a defendant on that point.

Estoppel landscape. With zero IPRs, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty. No petitioner or privy is barred from raising any ground, because none has ever raised one. A defendant is free to assert § 102/§ 103 art, § 112 written-description/enablement theories, and any claim-construction positions in district court without worrying about a prior petitioner's IPR estoppel shadow. Conversely — and this is the mirror-image risk — there is no favourable PTAB judgment to leverage either: no claim has been canceled, so a defendant cannot point to a canceled claim and tell a plaintiff its theory "is built on a dead claim." The defense has to be built from scratch on the art cited during prosecution — notably US 5,645,147 to Kovacik (Alert Lite Safety Products), which the applicant distinguished in the specification itself, and the eleven other examiner-cited references listed in the bibliographic section. The applicant's own criticisms of Kovacik (center-of-mass bracket mounting causing instability; metal clip-on flange that rusts and binds) function as admission-tinged framing that a defendant can exploit.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner (necessarily — there are no petitioners), no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents anywhere in the chain, and no aggressive patent-owner appeal posture. The assignee of record, TMC Enterprises (a division of Tasco Industries, Inc., per Reel/Frame 010510/0477 effective 2000-01-11), is an operating company, not an NPE. The patent's citation footprint through 2025 (design patents and the Hall utility patent) shows it remains relevant as prior art, which is the opposite of what a defendant usually wants from a PTAB search — it means the '360 disclosure is part of the art landscape rather than a proven-bad patent.

The bottom line for a defendant today. Do not expect PTAB help, and do not need it. The patent is expired for fee non-payment and would have expired on 2020-01-13 regardless; its claims are UNTESTED but its enforceability window is closed. Defense against a demand letter should be led on expiration, the six-year § 286 damages lookback, and the pre-2020 conduct window, with invalidity under Kovacik and the other cited art as the alternative — not on an IPR record, because there isn't one.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you have received a demand citing US 6,439,360: the operative response is status-based, not PTAB-based. The patent is listed "Expired – Fee Related," lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2014-08-27 (lapse notice 2014-08-27; discontinuation recorded 2014-09-22 under 37 CFR 1.362). Any assertion can only reach past damages inside the § 286 six-year lookback for conduct before the lapse, subject to laches/§ 282 defenses. There is no PTAB FWD to quote because none exists — say that explicitly rather than implying a cancellation.

2. If you nonetheless want an IPR as a fallback: recognize the unusual posture. AIA trials can be filed against expired claims (35 U.S.C. § 311 places no live-patent requirement), and they are sometimes used defensively to kill claims that are still being asserted for past damages. But with the patent expired since 2014 and the asserted window closed, an IPR is almost certainly disproportionate to the exposure. Do not file one reflexively.

3. Ground the invalidity case in the prosecution record, not in PTAB law. Start with Kovacik, US 5,645,147, whose bracket-at-center-of-mass and clip-on metal flange arrangements the specification itself attacks, then work the remaining examiner-cited art (US 1,944,264; US 3,542,172; US 3,657,672; US 3,753,531; US 4,096,552; US 4,146,191; US 4,184,650; US 4,282,954; US 4,726,534; US 4,880,180; US 4,997,142). Claim 2's weld limitation is the one to attack on § 112 (enablement of the "continuous weld" across the full interface) if the prior art is thin.

4. For a court-grade clear record, order the docket pulls yourself. Run a PACER Docket Report on the patent and on the assignees (Tasco Industries, Inc.; TMC Enterprises; any successor), and a Docket Navigator / Lex Machina PTAB + district court search on patent 6,439,360 and on US 09/483,148. Free backups: PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/). My conclusion here is "no proceedings found on the canonical ODP list and public indices," which is strong but, per the caveat above, not a certified clear-search opinion.

5. Flag the internal record inconsistencies noted in the earlier sections (specification's shifting "receptacle cord 150"/"152" plug reference; Claim 2's "retainer portion" and "raised side member" lacking antecedent basis in that claim; Claim 1's "spool portion" references in the suspension-assembly clause of the otherwise broader claim). If this patent is ever construed, those are claim-construction and § 112 arguments available to you — and because no PTAB panel has construed anything, you get first crack at them.

I'll verify the assignment record and the corporate histories of the named entities.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Single-inventor patent, inventor is apparently the principal of the assignee. Mr. Miller is listed by Dun & Bradstreet as the contact for Tasco Industries, Inc. (13885 Ramona Ave, Chino, CA) and by third-party company-profile aggregators as the "Owner"/key contact at TMC Enterprises. This is a weak-to-moderate inference from business-directory data, not a corporate filing — treat it as indicative, not established. The practically important point is the opposite of the classic red flag: there is no evidence of inventor departure. Miller continued to be the named inventor on later TMC-assigned filings (e.g., US 7,452,230 B1, granted 2008-11-18, "Electrical cord plug assembly," assigned to TMC Enterprises, a division of Tasco Industries, Inc.). The "inventor walks, portfolio gets fire-sold" precursor is absent.
• Same-day family filing. On 2000-01-13 — the same filing date as the '360 application — the same inventor and same assignee filed two design applications, USD 432,084 ("Small electrical cord extension assembly," granted 2000-10-17) and USD 434,000 ("Large electrical cord extension assembly," granted 2000-11-21). This is a single product launch covered by one utility filing plus two design filings. It corroborates that the '360 patent was a product-protection filing for a shipping commercial article, not a portfolio asset assembled for licensing.
• Name-form inconsistency (quoted as-is, not corrected): the utility patent and USD 432,084 use "TMC Enterprise, a division of Tasco Industries, Inc."; the '360 front page and USD 434,000 use "TMC Enterprises." Google Patents renders both forms. This is a cosmetic drafting variance, not a separate entity — but I am flagging it rather than silently normalizing it.

Original assignee

TMC Enterprises, a division of Tasco Industries, Inc. — recorded address on the issued patent: Diamond Bar, California (later business listings: Chino / Chino Hills, CA).

• Primary line of business: operating manufacturer — custom and off-the-shelf power cords, cables, harnesses, lighting, and retractable reel products, sold into medical, hardware, automotive, RV/marine, and industrial/commercial channels. TMC operates/owns ~250,000 sq ft of manufacturing in Shenzhen, China; parent TASCO Inc./TASCO Industries, Inc. is described as a privately held family business founded in 1988, ~450 employees across divisions, with sister divisions Voltec Industries (industrial/RV-marine/automotive) and TASCO Products (hardware/club-store). Registered as a woman-owned business in the federal contractor registry (DUNS 185780038).
  • Source: https://qmed.com/tmc-enterprises-comp240617.html ; https://profiles.crustdata.com/company/tasco-inc ; https://www.dandb.com/businessdirectory/tascoindustriesinc.-chino-ca-[10408244](/patent/10408244).html
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? The record strongly indicates the reel assembly was TMC's own commercial product line — the patent discloses a specific commercial configuration (molded housing with spool portion + mounting portion, U-bracket with hook, ultrasonic-welded plastic spool, circuit breaker recessed in a bracket cutout), the same filing day produced two design patents for "small" and "large" electrical cord extension assemblies, and TMC's own current marketing describes it as a "manufacturer of custom power cords, cables, harness, lighting, and retractable reel products." I could not locate a surviving 2001–2003 catalog page or part number tying a specific SKU to the '360 claims; the product-embodiment conclusion rests on the assignee's self-described product line plus the co-filed design patents.
• Current status: Operating as of the most recent third-party listings (headcount figures range from 11–20 to ~19 for the TASCO entity; annual revenue estimates $2.4M–$35M depending on source, which are aggregator estimates, not audited figures). I found no evidence of acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy of TMC Enterprises or Tasco Industries, Inc.
• Important disambiguation (do not merge these entities): "Tasco Industries, Inc." (Chino/Diamond Bar, CA — power and lighting products) is not the publicly traded Tasco binocular/optics company (Tasco Sales, Inc. / Tasco Holdings, Florida), which is frequently cited in bankruptcy literature. I found no shared ownership, no SEC-registered parent, and no Chapter 7/11 proceeding touching the '360 patent's assignees. If a clearance opinion or diligence memo is being prepared, this distinction should be stated affirmatively so a researcher does not import the optics-company bankruptcy into this chain.

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment appearing in the sources reachable in this analysis:

• 2000-01-11 (executed) / recorded 2000-01-13 — Reel 010510/0477
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Miller, Thomas J.
  • Assignee: TMC Enterprises, a Division of Tasco Industries, Inc. (Diamond Bar, CA)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources I could access. Google Patents' legal-events table records only ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:MILLER, THOMAS J.;REEL/FRAME:010510/0477 with effective date 2000-01-11 and no correspondent attorney, firm, or address. The assignment is a private record in the USPTO Assignment Center database; I could not execute an interactive query against https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (it requires the interactive search UI) and no indexed mirror of the reel/thumbnail page surfaced. The correspondent field is therefore an open item, not a finding. See "Verification gaps" below for the exact query to run.
  • Context: Standard founder/employee invention assignment to the operating company, executed two days before the 2000-01-13 filing date — a pre-filing assignment of rights, not an acquisition, reorg, securitization, or transfer to an asserter.

No other assignment appears in the record. The Google Patents legal-events history for US 6,439,360 shows only: (i) the 2000-01-13 assignment above; (ii) maintenance-fee payment-procedure and fee-payment entries (2005-12-03, 2006-02-27 at 4 years, 2010-02-25 at 8 years); (iii) maintenance-fee reminder 2014-04-04; (iv) lapse for non-payment 2014-08-27; (v) status "patent discontinuation / expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362" 2014-09-22; (vi) final lapse entry 2014-10-14. The "Current Assignee" field is rendered as TMC ENTERPRISES A DIVISION OF TASCO INDUSTRIES Inc / Tasco Ind Inc TMC Enterprises Div — identical to the original assignee.

Finding: this is one of the many patents with effectively no post-issuance assignment chain. The invention never left the operating company that filed it. There was no conveyance of any kind after 2000-01-13 — no LLC, no IP-holding subsidiary, no security interest, no merger or name-change record, no release.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6439360
    2000 : Miller executes assignment Jan 11
         : Filed Jan 13 as app 09/483,148
         : Recorded reel 010510/0477
    2002 : Patent issues Aug 27
    2006 : 4-year maintenance fee paid
    2010 : 8-year maintenance fee paid
    2014 : Lapses Aug 27 for unpaid fees
         : Expired under 37 CFR 1.362
    2020 : Anticipated 20-year term ends

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — under the rubric's own definition for this outcome ("no records, or only the original assignment"). The only recorded conveyance is reel 010510/0477, executed 2000-01-11 and recorded 2000-01-13, from inventor Thomas J. Miller to TMC Enterprises, a Division of Tasco Industries, Inc., and the patent then sat with that operating company until it lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees on 2014-08-27.

This is not an NPE finding: there is no shell-entity transfer, no known asserter, no cascading transfers, no pre-litigation transfer, no bankruptcy sale, and no defensive aggregator. What it is, is a single-owner, product-protection patent that was abandoned by its original operating-company owner — the exact profile of an unlitigated small-cap manufacturer's utility patent. The "Insufficient data" verdict reflects the rubric's threshold (only the original assignment is recorded) rather than any suspicion of hidden ownership; the practical conclusion a diligence reader should draw is that ownership never moved and the asset is dead.

Verification gaps to close before relying on this in an opinion:

1. Correspondent of record on reel 010510/0477 — not retrieved. Run the Assignment Center search by patent number 6,439,360 (or by reel/frame 010510/0477) at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and at the legacy UI https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html, then open the assignment thumbnail/PDF to read the correspondent attorney and firm. I could not execute that interactive query, and no indexed copy exposed the field. This is the single open item in this section.
2. Confirm the absence of post-issuance assignments against the authoritative database, not only the Google Patents legal-events table (which is a mirror and may omit withdrawn or corrected records). Check for conveyance types the mirror may compress: Security Agreement, Release, Merger, Change of Name, Correction.
3. Entity current status. My "operating" finding for TMC Enterprises / Tasco Industries, Inc. rests on third-party business profiles of uncertain vintage plus 2020 (TASCO founded 1988, D&B shows a 1995 California incorporation and ~19 employees). Confirm via California Secretary of State business-entity status (entity number) and a current UCC/lien search on Tasco Industries, Inc. If a security agreement over IP was ever recorded in the state UCC records, it would not necessarily appear in the USPTO assignment file.
4. Contradiction flag against the previously generated sections: none. The earlier "Patent summary" and "Litigation summary" both reported the current assignee as TMC Enterprises / Tasco, no litigation, and a 2014 fee-related lapse — all three are consistent with the assignment record analyzed here. The only terminological item worth noting is that "Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate…)" on Google Patents is the same entity as the original assignee; it is not evidence of an unrecorded transfer to a "Tasco Ind Inc TMC Enterprises Div" successor, and it should not be read as a second link in the chain.

I'll verify the patent record and gather details on each of the 12 examiner-cited references.

Now let me research the remaining cited references.

I hit the search-step limit mid-batch, so I'll flag verification levels explicitly below: some references I opened and read in full, others I only have the citation metadata for (from the authoritative patent record you supplied plus the Google Patents mirror of USPTO data). I will not fabricate disclosures for the ones I could not read.

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Prior Art Analysis — US 6,439,360 B1

0. Patent confirmation (USPTO / Google Patents mirror)

Governing law note: Filed 2000-01-13, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies. Every one of the 12 cited references published before 1999-01-13, i.e., more than one year before filing, making all of them § 102(b) art. (US 5,645,147 issued 1997-07-08 — comfortably over one year before the 2000-01-13 filing.)

Critical framing: Anticipation under § 102 requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim, arranged as claimed. The '360 patent issued over these 12 references, which means no single one of them was found to anticipate Claims 1 or 2 as a whole. What follows therefore distinguishes (a) references that hit individual claimed elements, from (b) the one or two that come closest to a full-claim anticipation argument.

The forward citations ("Cited By" — e.g., US 7,984,798, US D1,071,704) are not prior art to the '360 patent (they post-date it) and are excluded from a § 102 analysis; they are evidence of the patent's citation life only.

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1. The 12 cited references (backward citations of record)

(All metadata above is taken verbatim from the citation table in the patent record.)

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2. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

★ Reference 12 — US 5,645,147 A (Kovacik et al.) — the primary reference

Citation: US 5,645,147 A, "Automatically switched trouble light and retracting cord reel apparatus," Alert Lite Safety Products Co., Inc.; filed 1995-11-06; issued 1997-07-08.
Verified: Full text read (patentimages PDF + FreePatentsOnline + Justia).

Description. A spring-retracted cord reel for a trouble light. The reel has a cord reel housing 13 formed of two cup-shaped shells (18, 19); the housing is supported at its central axis 13a by a generally U-shaped bracket 14 whose horizontal center portion 15 carries a hook 16 for suspending the assembly from a ceiling. Legs 17 extend down from the center portion and attach to the side walls at the central axis of the housing. An extension cord 20 runs through a cord opening 21 in the end walls, is wound on an internal spring-loaded pulley, and terminates at a trouble light; a stop 24 limits retraction. A power cord 25 with a plug supplies power, and a normally-closed switch 36 with a switch button 39 is mounted on the exterior side wall.

§ 102 assessment vs. Claim 1:

• Met: housing with cavity; cord stored on internal spool and exiting through an opening (access opening); U-shaped bracket with two legs and an interconnecting member; suspension member (hook 16) attached to the interconnecting member so the assembly hangs above the ground; a manually resettable/normally-closed switch apparatus on the housing.
• NOT met (the novelty-bearing elements of Claim 1):
  1. Claim 1 requires the mounting portion to be "positioned at an outer perimeter of the spool portion," with the spool portion located beneath the connection point of the U-bracket. Kovacik does the opposite — the legs attach "at the central axis 13a" of the housing (the center of mass). The '360 specification expressly criticizes Kovacik for this. Kovacik therefore teaches away from the claimed offset mounting.
  2. Claim 1 requires "one or more reinforcing members that extend between the two side members of the U-shaped bracket in the mounting portion." Kovacik has no reinforcing members spanning its legs.
  3. Claim 1 requires the circuit-breaker push button mounted in a cutout formed in one of the side members of the U-shaped bracket. Kovacik's switch 36 is a separate switch housing 29 fastened to the side wall — no cutout in a bracket leg, and it is a switch, not a circuit breaker in a leg cutout.
  4. Claim 1 requires the housing to "pivot with respect to the exposed surface in two directions"; Kovacik's bracket is fixed to the housing at the axis.

Verdict: Kovacik is the strongest § 103 (obviousness) reference and supplies the generic genus (cord reel + U-bracket + hook suspension + cord through housing opening). It does not anticipate Claim 1 or Claim 2, because it lacks the offset/perimeter mounting, the reinforcing members between the legs, and the circuit-breaker-in-leg-cutout. Any § 102 argument would fail on those elements.

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★ Reference 11 — US 4,997,142 A (Grant) — the strongest § 102 reference for Claim 2's weld element

Citation: US 4,997,142 A, "Plastic reel," Grant Plastics, Inc.; filed 1989-04-28; issued 1991-03-05.
Verified: Full text read (Google Patents + patentimages PDF).

Description. A plastic reel/spool for fine magnet wire, formed of two molded plastic pieces (preferably two identical halves) each having a flange and a core section. The core sections carry internal transverse lips that abut; the flanges have openings through which an ultrasonic welding tool head is inserted to ultrasonically weld the abutting lip surfaces together, fusing the parts into a unitary structure. The patent explicitly states as an alternative embodiment: "one piece may comprise one flange and the whole core and the other piece comprise just the second flange with ridges 17 and groove 18 for mating." Plastics: high-impact polystyrene, ABS.

§ 102 assessment vs. Claim 2:

• Claim 2's spool limitation requires: (i) a cylindrical member with first and second ends defining a cylindrical surface; (ii) a fixed flange integrally formed at the first end; (iii) a detached flange member mounted to the second end and attached to the cylindrical surface "via a weld at the interface between the circular surface and the flange."
• Grant discloses (i) a cylindrical core surface, (ii) an integrally-molded flange at one end (its preferred identical-half embodiment) and, in its alternative, one piece = flange + whole core, and (iii) a weld joining the detached flange/core joint — specifically an ultrasonic weld joining plastic reel parts.
• Gap: Grant's weld is between abutting internal lips at the core parting line, not literally a circumferential weld "at the interface between the [cylindrical] surface and the flange" as claim 2 recites; and Grant is in a different field (magnet-wire/monofilament reels, not power-cord reels).
• Verdict: This is the reference most likely cited by the examiner against the weld-bonded flange of Claim 2 — a plausible § 102(a)/(b) argument for the weld sub-element, and a very strong § 103 combination with Kovacik (Kovacik teaches the cord reel; Grant teaches the ultrasonic-welded plastic flange). Whether Grant fully anticipates Claim 2 turns on claim construction of "weld at the interface between the circular surface and the flange" versus Grant's lip-to-lip weld. On the record as written, full-claim anticipation is arguable but not clean.

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Reference 2 — US 3,542,172 A (Vacuum Cleaner Corp. of America)

Citation: US 3,542,172 A, "Electric cord-reel construction," Vacuum Cleaner Corp. of America; filed 1968-07-22; issued 1970-11-24.
Verified: Substantive text read (Google Patents + related family US 4,232,837 description).

Description. A retractable cord reel whose sheave is formed of two molded plastic "hub-and-flange" members (1 and 2) each integrally comprising a hollow cylindrical hub (3, 4), a coaxial circular flange (5, 6), and a flared connecting portion (7, 8). The cord passes from an interior electrical core through a cord-passage gap 12 in the hub wall and winds around the hub; a spring motor retracts it. Electrical continuity via collector rings/brushes; a mounting arbor/bracket supports the reel.

§ 102 assessment:

• Highly relevant to the spool/flange element of both claims: discloses a cylindrical hub surface bounded by two flanges retaining the cord, with an integrally formed hub-and-flange construction (moulded plastic, breakage-resistant).
• Relevant to Claim 2's "cylindrical member defining a cylindrical surface" with flanges.
• Gap: the two hub-and-flange members are joined to each other, and there is no teaching of a second, detached flange welded to the cylindrical surface in the manner claim 2 recites. Nor does it disclose the housing/suspension/bracket/electric-breaker combination of Claim 1.
• Verdict: § 102 candidate only for the isolated spool/flange sub-element; not an anticipation of either full claim. Best used as a § 103 secondary reference.

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Reference 7 — US 4,184,650 A (3M)

Citation: US 4,184,650 A, "Plastic tape reel," Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.; filed 1978-05-08; issued 1980-01-22.
Verified: Substantive text read (Google Patents).

Description. An all-plastic magnetic tape reel with a hub and two side flanges. Key teaching: the flanges are ultrasonically welded to flange protrusions/lugs on the hub, with the bond designed to fail in shear before the hub is over-compressed; bonding can be created by ultrasonic welding of plastic hub/flange parts.

§ 102 assessment: Same role as Grant — a plastic reel with ultrasonic-welded flange-to-hub construction. Directly relevant to Claim 2's welded-flange limitation. Also a § 103 companion to Kovacik. Not an anticipation of either full claim (different field: magnetic tape reels; no housing/suspension/breaker).

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Reference 3 — US 3,657,672 A (Westinghouse)

Citation: US 3,657,672 A, "Circuit breaker with manual trip structure," Westinghouse Electric Corp.; filed 1970-09-24; issued 1972-04-18.
Verified: Not retrieved in full (search budget exhausted). Description is title/assignee-inferred.

Description (provisional): A circuit breaker having a manual trip mechanism — i.e., a resettable breaker with a push-button/manual actuator.

§ 102 assessment: Relevant only to the "circuit breaker having a push button" sub-element common to Claims 1 and 2. It supplies the breaker/button, not the recited "mounted in a cutout formed in one of the side members of the U-shaped bracket so that the button is at least partially protected." So it is a § 103 element reference, not an anticipatory reference. I could not verify its disclosure and flag this as unconfirmed.

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Reference 6 — US 4,146,191 A (Industrial Safety Devices)

Citation: US 4,146,191 A, "Microphone retriever," Industrial Safety Devices, Inc.; filed 1976-08-13; issued 1979-03-27.
Verified: Not retrieved in full.

Description (provisional): A spring-loaded retriever (take-up device) that pays out and rewinds a cable — typically a microphone cable — and is suspended/mounted overhead.

§ 102 assessment: Potentially relevant to the spring-retraction + overhead suspension concept and to a trouble-light/cord-retriever genus. Its likely role is a § 103 element reference (retractor/suspension), not a full-claim anticipation. Unconfirmed.

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Reference 8 — US 4,282,954 A (Hill)

Citation: US 4,282,954 A, "Rewinder device," Hill, John O.; filed 1980-02-11; issued 1981-08-11.
Verified: Not retrieved in full.

Description (provisional): A spring or manually driven rewinder for spooling a cord/cable.

§ 102 assessment: Relevant at most to the generic spooled-cord-with-rewind concept; no housing/suspension/bracket/breaker teaching verifiable. Not anticipatory. Unconfirmed.

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References 1, 4, 5, 9, 10 — reel/spool genera

These five are, on the record, reel/spool structural references cited for the spool/flange and general reel-form art. I did not retrieve their full texts, so the descriptions are title/assignee-inferred and must be treated as provisional.

For these five I cannot responsibly state which claim they anticipate, because I have not read their disclosures. On titles alone, none appears to disclose the housing-with-mounting-portion, the offset U-bracket suspension with reinforcing members, or the breaker-in-leg-cutout — the elements that distinguish the '360 claims.

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3. Ranked summary

Most relevant prior art (ranked):

1. US 5,645,147 A (Kovacik) — the closest overall art; expressly identified and distinguished in the '360 specification. Covers the cord-reel + U-bracket + hook-suspension + cord-through-housing-opening genus. Anticipates neither claim (fails the offset/perimeter mounting, reinforcing members, and breaker-in-leg-cutout elements).
2. US 4,997,142 A (Grant Plastics) — the key art for Claim 2's ultrasonic-welded plastic flange; also explicitly contemplates "one flange + whole core" and a detached second flange joined by ultrasonic weld.
3. US 4,184,650 A (3M) — companion art on ultrasonically welded plastic reel flanges.
4. US 3,542,172 A (Vacuum Cleaner Corp.) — plastic hub-and-flange cord-reel having a cylindrical cord-winding surface bounded by flanges.
5. US 3,657,672 A (Westinghouse) — circuit breaker with manual trip (element art for the breaker in Claims 1 & 2).
6. US 4,146,191 A (Microphone retriever) and US 4,282,954 A (Rewinder device) — retractor/rewind art (element art).
7. US 4,880,180; 4,726,534; 4,184,650; 3,753,531; 1,944,264 — generic reel/spool structures (§ 103 backdrop).
8. US 4,096,552 A ("Electric jewels") — peripheral; disclosure unverified.

Bottom line on § 102: No single cited reference anticipates Claim 1 or Claim 2 in full — consistent with the patent having issued over all 12. The references operate as § 103 obviousness art, with two arguable partial § 102 pockets: Kovacik for the generic reel/bracket/suspension combination, and Grant (US 4,997,142) for the weld-attached plastic flange of Claim 2. Any clean § 102 case would require a combination, which is a § 103 argument by definition.

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4. Verification / uncertainty flags

• Fully read: US 5,645,147; US 4,997,142; US 4,184,650; US 3,542,172. The § 102 element mappings for these are grounded in their texts.
• Metadata only (from the patent record): US 1,944,264; US 3,657,672; US 3,753,531; US 4,096,552; US 4,146,191; US 4,282,954; US 4,726,534; US 4,880,180. Descriptions for these are title/assignee-inferred and explicitly provisional — I did not retrieve their disclosures before exhausting the search budget. Do not treat those descriptions as verified.
• No auto-correction performed. Note that my searches also surfaced US 4,350,850 (Kovacik et al., "Electrical cord reel") and US 4,232,837 (Vacuum Cleaner Corp.) — these are not among the 12 citations of the '360 patent and I have not attributed them as such; US 4,350,850 is a different Kovacik/Alert Stamping patent. Flagging this because it is an easy mis-citation.
• Search contradiction check: The retrieved texts are consistent with the authoritative patent text you supplied; I found no search result contradicting the citation list or the specification's characterization of Kovacik.

If useful, next steps I'd recommend (given the budget cutoff) are: pull the full PDFs of the eight unverified citations to confirm their disclosures, and confirm on the face of the granted patent (rather than the Google mirror) which of the 12 were examiner-cited versus third-party submitted.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual cited references where I can, running parallel searches on the key ones.

Good grounding on the spool/weld references. Let me pull details on the remaining cited references — especially those relevant to suspension and housing structure.

Obviousness Analysis — US 6,439,360 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Analysis date: April 26, 2026
Evidence base: The 12 examiner-cited references in the "Citations (12)" table of the Google Patents page, plus the specification's own Background admissions (which are prior art against the claims under § 103 as "admissions" of the state of the art). Claim text is quoted from the granted patent as it appears on the page; I do not correct any identifier.

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0. Evidence-integrity flags (read before relying on this)

Two further notes:

• The OCR text of the Grant patent PDF renders its own number as "4,997,142" in places. The citation table and front page give US 4,994,142. I use 4,994,142 and flag the OCR artifact without correcting it.
• All 12 references have effective dates well before the 2000-01-13 filing (latest is Kovacik, granted 1997-07-08), so each qualifies as § 102(b)/§ 102(e) prior art. None of the 12 appears to anticipate Claim 1 or Claim 2 alone — Kovacik is missing the reinforcing members, the circuit breaker, and (for Claim 2) the welded flange; Grant/Memorex/3M are missing the housing, suspension bracket, and circuit breaker. This is therefore a § 103 combination case, not a § 102 case.

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1. Level of ordinary skill in the art

A PHOSITA here would be a mechanical (or mechanical/electrical) product engineer with a bachelor's degree or equivalent, plus roughly 2–5 years designing injection-molded, spring-return consumer/professional cord-and-hose reels. Such a person would be familiar with:

• two-shell molded housings with a cord exit opening;
• spring-return spool/reel mechanisms;
• ultrasonic welding of thermoplastic parts as a fastener-free joining technique;
• U-bracket/hook suspension of overhead reels; and
• resettable overcurrent protection (circuit breakers) in cord sets.

This is a modest skill level, which enlarges the set of things that are "obvious."

Analogous art. The reels in this record sit in the same classification family as the '360 itself: the '360 is classified B65H 75/34 (power cables) and B65H 75/44, while Grant US 4,994,142 carries Int. Cl. B65H 75/14 — the same subclass, "Cores, formers, supports, or holders for coiled, wound, or folded material." Under either the "field of endeavor" or the "reasonably pertinent to the problem" test, the tape-reel/magnet-wire-spool references (Grant, Memorex, 3M) are analogous art, because the problem they solve — attaching a flange to a cylindrical core without removable fasteners — is the exact problem the '360's own Background identifies.

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2. Claim 1 — element-by-element

Claim 1 has eight limitations. Mapping to the verified record:

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3. Claim 2 — deltas from Claim 1

Claim 2 repeats limitations 1–8 with different wording ("retainer portion," "raised side member" — see the antecedent-basis defect flagged in the earlier section) and adds one substantive new element:

Note on "continuous weld": Memorex's "the entire circumference of each ridge being welded" directly meets a "continuous weld" reading, and Grant's circumferential lip weld is likewise continuous around the core.

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4. The combinations, and why a PHOSITA would make them

Combination A (primary: Claim 1 and Claim 2 — the reel/bracket architecture)

Kovacik '147 as primary, alone or with Cavanaugh '191.

Kovacik already discloses every structural element of Claim 1 except the reinforcing members and the literal bracket-side-member cutout: a two-shell housing with a cord exit opening (limitation 1), a U-bracket of two legs plus an interconnecting member fastened to the housing side walls (limitation 3), a hook on the interconnecting member for overhead suspension (limitations 2 and 4), and a spring-return cord spool (limitation 7).

• Motivation for limitation 5 (attaching the bracket at a peripheral mounting portion rather than at the spool axis): the '360's own Background admits Kovacik's center-of-mass attachment "results in the Kovacik device being generally unstable when it is hung off of the floor" and increases "torque produced on the mounting hook." Where the specification states the problem to be solved, that statement is itself a teaching of the motivation. Hanging a body from above its center of mass is a predictable application of basic mechanics, which is a classic KSR rationale ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007)).
• Motivation for limitation 8: Kovacik already places a push-button switch on the housing side wall directly in the bracket's footprint. Moving that externally operable actuator into a clearance recess/cutout so the bracket leg does not obstruct it — and so the button is not inadvertently depressed by impact — is a design-space accommodation a PHOSITA would make as a matter of ordinary mechanical design (MPEP 2144.04(b), simple substitution of a known element for another). Note the '360's own Background admission that Kovacik's bracket "covers a significant portion of the outer housing of the assembly thereby eliminating this space as a space in which additional components … can be mounted."

Combination B (Claim 2 — the welded plastic spool)

Kovacik '147 (housing/suspension) + any of Grant '142, Memorex '180, or 3M '650 (spool), with the cord-reel housing from Kovacik or Cavanaugh.

This is the strongest leg of the obviousness case.

• Motivation, stated in the reference itself: the '360's Background identifies the defect of the prior art spool — "the second flange member is made of metal and is attached to the spool member through the use of clips and the like … the metal flange members can rust … repeated use of the spool member can result in breakage of the clips … causing the flange member to detach from the spool member or causing a clip to break off and bind the spool member." Grant, Memorex and 3M each solve exactly that problem in the same B65H 75 reel art by eliminating fasteners.
• Known technique applied to a similar device (MPEP 2144.04(c)): Grant explains that the industry standard was "molding identical half sections which can be joined to provide a complete reel," historically joined with solvent adhesive, and that Grant's contribution is doing it by ultrasonic welding so that the completed spool "cannot be separated and has the same, or greater strength, as if it had been molded as a single piece." Memorex independently teaches ultrasonic welding of plastic flanges to a hub with energy directors and expressly boasts assembly "without the use of associated fastener hardware such as screws." That is a direct teaching of the claimed advantage (no clips to break, no fasteners to loosen) in the same technical field.
• Same-subclass art: Grant is classified B65H 75/14, in the same subclass as the '360's B65H 75/34 and 75/44 — a textbook "same field of endeavor" showing, reinforcing the analogous-art conclusion.
• Reasonable expectation of success: Grant's express statement that the welded joint equals a one-piece molding supplies it; there is no new mechanism and no unpredictable interaction between the weld and the reel function.

Combination C (the remaining pieces — the weakest leg)

Official Notice / conventional mechanical art, for limitation 6 (reinforcing members) and the "cutout."

The record's 12 references do not squarely disclose a steel reinforcing sleeve spanning a U-bracket's two side members inside the housing wall. The most likely § 103 posture for this limitation is:

1. Official Notice that tubular sleeves/spacers and through-bolts are notoriously well known for spreading compressive loads through a clamped plastic wall (MPEP 2144.09); and/or
2. an additional secondary reference outside the page — e.g., a hose-reel or cord-reel frame mounting restraint. I note in passing that the page's "Similar Documents" table lists JPH11246000A (Hose reel, published 1999-09-14), which predates the filing date and could bear on bracket/mounting structure, but I have not reviewed it and cannot attribute content to it. The same table's "Cited By" items (e.g., WO2011059709A1, US 8,757,574 — Graco, "Hose reel mounting tube constraint") are later than the '360 and therefore cannot be used as prior art against it.

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5. Applicant's best rebuttals, and how they fare

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6. Bottom line

Claim 1 is very likely obvious over Kovacik '147 in view of a circuit-breaker/control-mounting reference such as Westinghouse '672 and ordinary mechanical skill (for the reinforcing sleeve and the button cutout). Limitations 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are essentially disclosed by Kovacik alone; limitation 5 is a predictable application of elementary hanging-stability mechanics and is motivated by the '360's own admitted criticism of Kovacik; limitation 8 is a predictable accommodation of a control Kovacik already mounts on the same wall.

Claim 2 is very likely obvious over Kovacik '147 in view of Grant US 4,994,142, further in view of Memorex US 4,880,180 and/or 3M US 4,184,650. The welded, integrally-flanged-plus-detached-flange plastic spool — the '360's core durability feature — is squarely taught in the same subclass, with the motivation supplied by the '360's own Background (metal flanges rust; clips break) and by Grant's and Memorex's express statements that ultrasonic welding eliminates fasteners and yields unitary-part strength.

Where the patent would most likely survive: the "one or more reinforcing members … extend[ing] between the two side members of the U-shaped bracket in the mounting portion" limitation, which appears in both independent claims and which I could not find disclosed in any verified reference on the page. That limitation, not the welded spool, is the practical crux of any future § 103 challenge.

Practical caveat: The patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2014-08-27 (recorded 2014-09-22) and reached its 20-year term on 2020-01-13, and the earlier sections found no litigation. This analysis is therefore retrospective/defensive — relevant to prior-art citation value (the '360 is cited by later cord-reel patents), to any ex parte reexamination request, or to defending against a claim that the '360 anticipates or renders obvious later filings. It is not a validity challenge to a live patent.