Invalidity dossier
US 6843194
Sail with reinforcement stitching and method for making
Current assignee: Individual
Added 9/23/2026, 3:25:51 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6843194 B1
Title: Sail with reinforcement stitching and method for making
Patent number: US 6843194 B1
Application number: US10/680,450
Inventor: Jean-Pierre Baudet
Assignee: Individual (original and current assignee listed as Individual)
Priority/filing date: 2003-10-07
Publication (grant) date: 2005-01-18
Legal status (as listed): Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2023-10-07
Classification: B63H 9/06, B63H 9/067, B63H 9/0671 (moulded sails), B63H 9/0678 (laminated sails)
Purpose and plain-language scope
The patent addresses sails of the type having expected load lines. Instead of relying only on seaming separate sailcloth panels, the invention applies reinforcement stitching — thread stitched along the expected load lines within a seamless region of the sail body — to reinforce the fabric in the directions of anticipated sail load. The reinforcement stitching is expressly distinguished from traditional seam stitching: its purpose is not to seam or assemble panels together, but to add stretch resistance following the load directions. This permits variation in stitch density per sail area, giving a variation in stretch resistance across the sail body.
The sail body has a circumferential edge and at least one seamless region; at least half the reinforcement stitching may extend along at least half the lengths of the expected load lines. Stitching may combine stretch-resistant and controlled-stretch styles, in sequence (one followed by or preceded by the other).
The sail body may be molded into a three-dimensional form; molding may occur before or after the stitching step. The disclosed advantages include reduced sail weight (because sail body material weight can be reduced) and potentially improved performance over a wider wind range.
The excerpt lists figures 1–7, including one-piece sail body material, reinforcement stitching along load lines, corner patches, and various stitching styles (straight continuous, straight discontinuous, laterally-offset discontinuous).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6843194/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claim text, the complete written description, the exact embodiments, or the specific limitations that define the enforceable scope. It also does not establish the accuracy of the listed assignee/legal status, nor any litigation, ownership transfer, validity, or prior-art conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:51:37 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 6843194. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.