US 7004016

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 7004016, including checking USPTO records and any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

I have solid bibliographic data. Let me retrieve the actual independent claim text to summarize accurately.

US Patent 7,004,016 — Analyst Summary

Method note: I searched USPTO‑mirrored databases (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia) and scanned Federal Circuit 2026 opinion/docket material for the identifier "7004016." No CAFC 2026 appeal or docket activity involving this patent was found (the numeric string "7004016" surfaced only unrelated hits — e.g., a Brazilian state‑court appeal no. 7004016‑25.2024.8.22.0008, a Brazilian design registration DI 7004016‑8, an AXA S.A. SEC filing CIK 7004016, and a UNEC course code). Treat "no CAFC 2026 docket found" as a negative search result, not proof of non‑existence.

Bibliographic data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7004016/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7004016.html ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7004016

Abstract (as published)

The invention provides systems, methods and apparatus for processing delicate parts within a process tank such as an ultrasonic tank. Typically, one or more transducers connect to the tank and respond to drive signals from a generator to produce ultrasound within process liquid in the tank. Stated features include: (1) a power up‑sweep ultrasonic system for moving contaminants upward by sweeping drive signals from an upper frequency to a lower frequency without sweeping back up; (2) a multi‑generator system for producing ultrasound at selected different frequencies by switching a common transducer bank to one of the generators via user‑initiated remote relays; (3) a probe sensing system for sensing process conditions including an enclosure housing a sample liquid and one or more sensing transducers in the sample liquid, with a subsystem analyzing the signals in feedback with the generator to modify process conditions; (4) variable‑voltage ultrasonic generator systems for worldwide voltage supplies; (5) a laminar process tank; (6) a quick dump rinse tank with a pressure cavity; (7) an ultrasonic generating unit formed of a PCB and multiple transducers; (8) an AC power system producing an AC voltage at frequency f impressed across a capacitive element; and (9) various transducer configurations, including acid‑safe, double‑compression, and increased‑reliability transducers.

Plain‑language overview of the claims

The specification is broad, but every granted claim is drawn to the "probe system" aspect — i.e., the claims are directed to sensing process conditions inside an ultrasonic process tank, not to the generator/tank/transducer features described in the specification. The claims I could confirm as independent are 1, 6, 11, 13, 19, 20, and 21; dependent claims include 12 (on 11), 14–18 (on 13), 22–24 (on 6), and 25+ (on 1).

Claim 1 — Probe system (base apparatus). A probe system for sensing process conditions in an ultrasonic process tank whose process liquid is sonicated by transducers driven by a generator. The system comprises: (a) an enclosure housing a sample liquid, where the enclosure is adapted to isolate the sample liquid from the process liquid while passing ultrasonic energy from the process liquid into the sample liquid (the sample liquid being responsive to that energy); and (b) one or more sensing transducers within the sample liquid that generate signals indicative of characteristics of the sample liquid. In short: a sealed, ultrasound‑transmissive sample cell with in‑cell sensors.

Claim 6 — Probe system (with analysis). Same general tank environment; comprises (a) an enclosure housing a sample liquid that passes ultrasonic energy from process liquid to the sample liquid; (b) one or more sensing transducers within the sample liquid generating signals indicative of sample‑liquid characteristics; and (c) an analysis subsystem that collects the signals and evaluates them over time. (Dependent claims 22–24 add means for determining total cavitation energy from temperature over time, calculating total energy released from cavitation, and determining cavitation density from conductivity.)

Claim 11 — Probe system (with cavitation‑density determination). Recites the enclosure/transducer elements plus (d) means for determining cavitation density based upon signals indicative of conductivity of the sample liquid. (Claim 12 adds means for determining cavitation density as a function of time.)

Claim 13 — Probe system (with stored calibration constants). Same tank environment and enclosure/transducer/analysis elements, wherein the subsystem includes memory storing at least one of: specific heat (p) of the sample liquid, volume (V) of the sample liquid, mass (m) of the sample liquid, and a functional relationship n = f(C, C₀) between conductivity and the number (n) of cavitation implosions. Dependent claims 14–16 derive cavitation density (n/V = f(C,C₀)/V), energy per implosion (≈ (0.00833)(p)(m)(g(t′))/V / f(C,C₀) / t′), and cavitation density as a function of time (= f(h(t))/V); claims 17–18 add generator control based on the calculations and comparators against stored parameters.

Claim 19 — Probe system with frequency feedback. Same tank environment; the subsystem includes feedback means for controlling generator frequency in response to the signals.

Claim 20 — Probe system with power feedback. Same tank environment; the subsystem includes feedback means for controlling generator power output in response to the signals.

Claim 21 — Probe system with AM feedback. Same tank environment; the subsystem includes feedback means for amplitude modulating the generator signals to control cavitation density as a function of time within the process liquid.

Key claim/specification distinction worth flagging

Although the abstract and specification describe an extensive portfolio of features (power up‑sweep, multi‑generator switching, laminar/QDR tanks, universal‑voltage generators, PCB‑integrated transducer units, double‑compression and acid‑resistant transducers), none of those appear as claimed subject matter in US 7,004,016 — the claims are limited to the probe/process‑condition‑sensing system. Related Puskas filings (e.g., US 6,538,360; US 6,822,372; US 7,211,927; US 7,211,928; US 7,210,354; published applications 2003/0028287 and 2008/0129146) carry the broader apparatus/method subject matter instead.

Uncertainty / caveats

• I could not retrieve the complete verbatim claim set; claim numbering and independence (especially for claims 1, 6, and 11) is reconstructed from partial claim lists on Justia and Google Patents. Verify against the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search image of the printed claims before relying on exact wording.
• The assignee record is internally inconsistent: Google Patents lists "Individual" as original and current assignee, while USPTO assignment records show a 2006 security interest to Fifth Third Bank and a 2013 release to Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC. This likely reflects a corporate restructuring by the inventor's company rather than an outright title transfer, but I cannot confirm the current legal owner from the available sources.
• The patent is recorded as Expired – Lifetime, with the anticipated expiration identified as 2018‑06‑15 (consistent with the 1996 priority date and applicable pre‑URAA term rules).
• No 2026 CAFC appeal or docket referencing US 7,004,016 was located.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7004016.

Let me search patent litigation databases directly.

Let me check the litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 7,004,016

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation (district court, Federal Circuit, ITC, or PTAB proceeding) involving U.S. Patent No. 7,004,016. To the extent this patent has been asserted in court or challenged at the PTAB, I could not confirm it. I am stating this as a negative finding based on the searches below, not as a positive verification that no suit exists — see the caveats at the end.

Patent identification (confirmed, so you can verify you're matching the right asset)

• Patent: U.S. 7,004,016 B1 — "Probe system for ultrasonic processing tank"
• Inventor: William L. Puskas
• Application: 09/370,302, filed Aug. 9, 1999
• Priority: claimed from US 08/718,945, filed Sept. 24, 1996 (that application issued as US 5,834,871)
• Granted: Feb. 28, 2006
• Family: Continuation-in-part/divisional family including US 6,016,821; also related to US 6,181,052 and US 6,433,460 (Sept. 24, 1996 priority chain)
• Assignee history: Originally named as Individual (Puskas); security agreement to Fifth Third Bank recorded Oct. 3, 2006 (assignor Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC); release by secured party recorded Jan. 17, 2013 in favor of Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration June 15, 2018

Cases identified

None. No plaintiff/defendant pairs, jurisdictions, case numbers, filing dates, or outcomes can be reported, because no case records referencing this patent number were located.

What I searched

1. General web searches for "7004016" + litigation/lawsuit/patent infringement (results returned only unrelated hits: a Brazilian state-court docket number 7004016‑25.2024.8.22.0008, a Brazilian design registration DI 7004016‑8, a Kenyan ID number, an SEC filing identifier, an Azerbaijani course code, and catheter part numbers — none involving the U.S. patent).
2. Searches pairing the number with the likely asserting entity — Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC — and with the inventor William Puskas. Results returned the patent's own page (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline) and CTG's patent portfolio (23 patents; most recent 2024), but no infringement suits.
3. Searches targeting PTAB/Unified Patents and CourtListener/Justia-style docket coverage for 7004016 — no docket, complaint, IPR, or PGR referencing this patent appeared.
4. The Google Patents "legal events" record for US 7,004,016 shows only assignments and the expiration event — no litigation or PTAB entries, which is notable because Google Patents surfaces "Litigation" and "PTAB" data where it exists.

Important caveats (as requested, I will not fabricate)

• I could not directly load the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or CourtListener result pages during this session; the searches performed were general web searches, and the litigation-database queries returned no matching records rather than a verified "zero results" screen. A direct query on portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation and PACER Docket Search for US 7,004,016 would be the confirmatory step.
• Consider why litigation is unlikely, which supports the negative finding: the patent expired June 15, 2018, and its priority chain dates to 1996 with only a 1999 filing in this particular application — a short remaining term post-grant (2006–2018). It was one member of a large Puskas/CTG family (the broader family around the 1996 priority filings was subject to third-party prior-art scrutiny, e.g., the JP national-phase search report citing US 6,181,052 as an X-reference against a French applicant — that is an examination citation, not litigation).
• Note the potential for number confusion: the same digits appear in unrelated identifiers (a Brazilian appellate docket, an INPI design registration, an SEC accession, a Kenyan national ID). None of these is U.S. Patent 7,004,016 litigation, and I have not auto-corrected or substituted any of these for the patent.

Recommendation for confirmation

To definitively close this out, run the patent number through:

• Unified Patents Litigation Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (filter by patent 7004016)
• PACER Case Locator / US Party/Case Index
• PTAB API / USPTO Patent Center for any IPR/PGR
• CourtListener RECAP and Justia Patents "litigation" tab for US7004016
• Also check Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC and NM Group Global, LLC (parent) as likely plaintiffs, and William L. Puskas individually, in addition to the patent number itself.

If you'd like, I can attempt those specific portal/database lookups in a follow-up pass.

I'll verify the structured data with web searches before finalizing.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to confirm.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The structured PTAB-proceedings block (sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 7004016 as of the most recent ingest — 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. My independent web searches (Google Patents, PTAB/District-court decisions databases, Unified Patents-style aggregator coverage, and general IPR/PTAB reporting) surfaced no petition ever filed against this patent and no Federal Circuit appeal arising from it.

Bottom line for a defendant: the absence of PTAB activity is not good news in the way a cancellation would be. Because the patent has never been tested at the Board, all claims remain presumptively valid and un-narrowed. The real defensive posture here comes not from any IPR outcome but from expiry: the Google Patents legal-status record shows "Anticipated expiration — 2018-06-15" and status "Expired - Lifetime." A defendant facing an assertion should confirm the lapse date and any post-expiry assertion theory before spending money on prior art.

⚠️ Flag: the ODP list is the canonical source, but it is a snapshot. I could not retrieve a live PTAB E2E docket page for this patent within my search budget, and older/recently-filed proceedings can lag the ODP index. Verify directly on PTAB E2E / PatentCenter and via a 7,004,016-keyed search of PTAB final-written-decision databases before relying on the "no activity" conclusion for a filing or an opinion.

Per-proceeding detail

Not applicable — there are no proceedings to report. No proceeding numbers, petitioners, panels, institution decisions, final written decisions, settlements, or appeals exist for this patent in the structured data or in the public sources I searched. I will not invent any.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. Because no AIA trial was ever instituted, no claim of US 7004016 has been canceled, narrowed, or held unpatentable at the PTAB. Every claim — including the probe/conductivity-monitoring claims that give the patent its title ("Probe system for ultrasonic processing tank") — is untested at the Board and carries the original statutory presumption of validity. There is no narrowed "surviving claim" set to work with, and no FWD to cite. That is the opposite of the "troll has no case" posture: a plaintiff here can plead the full original claim set.

Estoppel landscape. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is irrelevant — it only attaches to a petitioner who filed an IPR that reached a final written decision. With no IPR and no FWD, no party is estopped, and no prior-art ground has been consumed. That cuts both ways: a defendant has the entire universe of § 102/§ 103 art available for a fresh IPR or district-court invalidity case, but so would any future petitioner — and because nothing has been litigated, a defendant cannot free-ride on an earlier challenger's win.

Pattern signals. None. No repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner), no patent-owner PTAB-appeal history, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) appears in the chain. The ownership trail in the structured data is ordinary security/assignment activity — a 2006-10-03 security agreement to Fifth Third Bank (assignor Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC) and a 2013-01-17 release by the secured party back to Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC — plus the original Individual assignee. That is collateralization, not validity-challenge activity.

The controlling fact is the calendar. The patent's priority date is 1996-09-24, it issued 2006-02-28, and the record shows anticipated expiration 2018-06-15 (i.e., it has been expired for roughly eight years as of today). Well-asserted patents in an active market eventually attract IPRs — this one never did, which is consistent with a patent whose commercially relevant life has run out.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm expiration before anything else. Pull the live PatentCenter/Global Dossier fee-and-status history to verify the 2018-06-15 anticipated-expiration date and confirm no term extension, PTA, or post-expiry continuation of assertion. If the patent is expired, the practical defense is a damages/standing and temporal-accrual argument, not an IPR — infringement liability cannot accrue after expiry, and pre-expiry damages are capped by the § 286 six-year look-back (which here would reach back only to mid-2012 at the earliest for a suit filed today).
2. If a live assertion is nonetheless threatened on this patent, verify the docket directly:
   • PTAB E2E: search by application 09/370,302 and patent 7,004,016 — https://ptab.uspto.gov (PTAB E2E) and https://patents.google.com/patent/US7004016/en for legal events.
   • USPTO PatentCenter for the application file: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov
   • CourtListener for any expired-patent enforcement or declaratory-judgment action naming the patent.
3. If you do decide an IPR is worth it (e.g., a plaintiff is asserting it against current products and the pre-expiry damages window is meaningful): there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no prior petition to be barred by, so the field is open — but note the current discretionary-denial regime (Fintiv-style factors, "settled expectations," and Director-controlled institution) makes a petition on a ~30-year-old, expired patent a very hard sell. A district-court invalidity defense or a § 101/§ 112 challenge is likely the more efficient path.

Caveat, stated plainly: I found zero evidence of any AIA trial proceeding on US 7004016, and the ODP block agrees. I could not independently pull a live PTAB E2E docket within my search budget, so treat "no PTAB activity" as the well-supported default rather than a certified docket clearance — confirm on E2E before filing.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent before writing. Let me pull from the assignment databases and related sources.

Let me dig deeper into the Cleaning Technologies Group / Fifth Third Bank records and the inventor's corporate affiliation.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7004016 B1

Patent: Probe system for ultrasonic processing tank — US 7004016 B1
Appl. No.: 09/370,302 · filed 1999-08-09 · granted 2006-02-28 · status Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2018-06-15)

Data limitation (stated up front, per your constraints): The authoritative patent text I was able to retrieve (Google Patents legal-events block) exposes the conveyance type, parties, and event dates but not reel/frame numbers or the recorded correspondent. My attempted reach into USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) did not return record-level cover-sheet data in this session. I therefore do not fabricate reel/frame or correspondent values; where they are unavailable I say so explicitly. Reel/frame and correspondent should be verified directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 7004016).

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• No unusual inventor-departure pattern is observable because there is only a single inventor and no corporate co-assignee named on the face of the patent. The classic "all inventors left the original assignee within 12 months" tell is inapplicable to a one-inventor, individually-owned patent.
• Puskas is a prolific independent inventor in ultrasonic cleaning (family extends from 1977 through at least the 2010s; the related continuation family includes US 5,834,871, US 6,016,821, US 6,982,372, US 7,211,927, US 7,211,928, US 7,331,018, etc.). This is an inventor-owned portfolio pattern, not a corporate-R&D-assignment pattern — relevant because it means there was never an operating-company assignee on the face of this patent to "fire-sale" from.

Original assignee

• Named on the issued patent: Individual — i.e., William L. Puskas personally (the Google Patents "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee" fields both read Individual).
• Product embodying the claims: The claimed subject matter is a process-control probe (conductivity/temperature sensing in a fixed liquid sample) for an ultrasonic processing tank. The related family (generators, transducers, tanks) corresponds to real commercial ultrasonic-cleaning equipment. However, there is no record evidence tying US 7004016's claim set to a specific commercial product, and no corporate assignee appears on the face to attribute product shipment to.
• Primary line of business (of the entity that later encumbered the patent): Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC — an operating ultrasonic/industrial cleaning equipment manufacturer (the assignor appearing on the recorded security agreement below).
• Current status: The patent is expired (anticipated expiration 2018-06-15 per Google Patents legal events); no live enforcement is possible.

Assignment timeline

Two post-issuance records appear in the legal-events chain. Both are security-interest records on an operating company's assets, not transfers to an NPE.

• 2006 (recorded 2006-10-03) / executed date not captured — Reel/Frame not available in retrieved source

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement (collateral pledge — not an ownership transfer)
  • Assignor: CLEANING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP, LLC
  • Assignee: FIFTH THIRD BANK
  • Correspondent: Not captured — correspondent of record unavailable in the data retrieved. ⚠️ Cannot run the repeat-correspondent test.
  • Context: Securitization — CTG pledged its patent assets (including this patent) as collateral to its lender, Fifth Third Bank.

• 2013 (recorded 2013-01-17) / executed date not captured — Reel/Frame not available in retrieved source

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party ("see document for details")
  • Assignor: FIFTH THIRD BANK
  • Assignee: CLEANING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not captured — unavailable in retrieved source.
  • Context: Release of the 2006 security interest — the lien was discharged and the encumbrance cleared; this is a lien-clearing event, not an ownership change.

• 2018-06-15 — Anticipated expiration (legal-status event, not an assignment).

Notable inconsistency to flag: the patent's face and Google's assignee field read "Individual" (Puskas), yet the recorded security agreement shows Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC as assignor (i.e., as record owner/interest-holder of the collateral). This strongly implies Puskas's individual patents came to be held within or pledged by CTG — but no assignment from Puskas → Cleaning Technologies Group appears in the legal-events chain retrieved. The Puskas→CTG link, if it exists, is not confirmed by any reel/frame I could retrieve and is therefore reported as an open item, not a finding.

If Assignment Center shows no further records beyond these two lien events: that itself is the finding — the chain terminates with an operating company (CTG) holding a released lien, and there is no NPE in the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7004016
    1996 : Priority application filed by Puskas
    1999 : Divisional application filed
    2006 : Patent issued to William L Puskas
         : Security agreement with Fifth Third Bank
    2013 : Release of security interest by bank
    2018 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded transactions are a Security Agreement (2006-10-03) and a Release by Secured Party (2013-01-17). Neither involves an "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity; the parties are a commercial equipment maker (Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC) and a commercial bank (Fifth Third Bank). No single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent service address, no licensing-only transferee appears.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Assignees/assignors of record — Puskas (individual), Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC (operating manufacturer), Fifth Third Bank (commercial lender) — match none of the public NPE lists you supplied (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff directory entry surfaced in my searches.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for either the 2006 security agreement or the 2013 release, so the recurrence test cannot be run. (Incidental, non-assignment context: prosecution counsel appearing on family members US 7,211,928 and US 2008/0047575 is Mark G. Lappin / Phillips Lytle LLP — but that is prosecution representation, not an assignment correspondent, and a single firm handling ordinary patent prosecution is not a finding under your stated rule.)

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Two events span ~6.3 years, and they are a pledge and its discharge — not chained LLC-to-LLC transfers, and not within any 24-month window.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was surfaced. The chain terminates in a lien release (2013) followed by expiration (2018); there is no transfer dated within 6 months before any suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present / no evidence. No bankruptcy proceeding (Chapter 7/11) involving Puskas or Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC was surfaced in my searches. The 2013 event is the opposite of a fire-sale: the lender released its lien back to the operating company.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company-to-NPE transfer, and no SEC/EFF/Patent Progress coverage of the type that surfaces privateering, was found.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Inverse signal not met.)

Family/practice context: The expiration date (2018) and the "Expired – Lifetime" status mean the asset has been unassertable for ~8 years. Even for an NPE-minded buyer, the patent was already too late-cycle for a profitable campaign, consistent with the absence of any asserter in the chain.

Verdict

Insufficient data.

The retrieved record shows no NPE signal of any kind: the only post-issuance transactions are a 2006-10-03 Security Agreement (Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC → Fifth Third Bank) and a 2013-01-17 Release by Secured Party (Fifth Third Bank → Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC) — a collateral pledge and its discharge, with the patent expiring 2018-06-15. Because I could not retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the correspondents of record, and because no Puskas→CTG assignment appears in the chain despite CTG appearing as assignor on the security agreement, the complete ownership picture cannot be fully reconstructed from the sources available to me; the accurate call is therefore "insufficient data," not an NPE finding. If confirmed against Assignment Center, this is best characterized as a Puskas individual portfolio encumbered by an operating company's bank lien, released in 2013, now expired — i.e., not an NPE.

Verify directly: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7004016); Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7004016/en.

I'll research the prior art citations for US Patent 7,004,016. Let me search the USPTO and other patent databases.

Let me get the complete cited references list from multiple sources.

I have substantial data. Let me retrieve the complete cited-references list, including foreign references and the examiner-cited references, from the patent's full-text sources.

I've gathered the cited-reference data from three independent full-text sources. One important limitation up front: US 7,004,016 carries an exceptionally large "References Cited" list inherited from its parent family (roughly 130+ U.S. patents plus foreign documents). My searches returned the oldest ~18 and the newest ~25 U.S. entries in full, but not every entry in the middle. I'll give you everything I verified, flag the gap, and concentrate the §102 analysis on the references that are actually close to this patent's claims. I will not invent citations to fill the gap.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,004,016

1. The reference itself (so citations are anchored correctly)

• US 7,004,016 B1, "Probe system for ultrasonic processing tank," inventor William L. Puskas.
• Appl. No. 09/370,302, filed Aug. 9, 1999; granted Feb. 28, 2006.
• Priority chain (per the patent itself and US 2004/0256952 A1): division of 09/097,374 (now US 6,016,821, filed Jun. 15, 1998), which is a continuation of 08/718,945 (now US 5,834,871, filed Sept. 24, 1996); also claims benefit of provisional 60/049,717 (Jun. 16, 1997).
  • Effective-date consequence: Because 09/370,302 is a division (not a CIP), the probe claims are entitled to the Sept. 24, 1996 priority date to the extent supported in 08/718,945. That date controls which cited references are §102(b)/§102(e) art versus merely background.
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7004016/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7004016.html ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7004016

2. The single most important caveat on "which claim it anticipates"

The references below appear in the patent's "References Cited" list. That list mixes (a) art the examiner applied in §102/§103 rejections, and (b) art the applicant submitted in an IDS as background. The patent issued Feb. 28, 2006, which means the examiner was ultimately persuaded that no cited reference anticipated the allowed claims. So a "§102 potential anticipation" is necessarily a hypothetical re-examination/validity mapping, not a record of what the Office actually found. Without the prosecution history (file wrapper), I cannot tell you which specific reference produced which rejection. I flag this explicitly rather than presenting the citation list as a set of anticipatory references.

The claims at issue are the probe claims. From the granted claim text I can verify:

• An independent probe-system claim (with a companion independent at claim 6) reciting an enclosure housing a sample liquid, one or more sensing transducers within the sample liquid generating signals indicative of characteristics of the sample liquid, and a subsystem analyzing those signals, including feedback to the generator (frequency, power output, and AM control — claims 20–22, 32–34).
• Claims reciting conductivity and temperature sensing, and calculations of cavitation density (n/V = f(C,Co)/V), energy per cavitation implosion — e.g., (0.00833)(p)(m)(g(t′))/V / f(C,Co)/t′ — cavitation density vs. time, memory storage of parameters, and comparators (claims 22, 24–31).

The point of novelty is the cavitation-metric computation (conductivity → number of implosions; temperature → energy per implosion). That is also where I find the least anticipating prior art in the cited list.

3. Most relevant cited prior art (detailed)

These are the cited references closest to the probe/monitoring claims.

Bran megasonic family (all cited): US 5,246,994 — no; the Bran set in this list is 5,534,076 (1996), 5,286,657 (Feb. 15, 1994, U.S. Cl. 134/1.3), 5,148,823 (Sep. 22, 1992, 134/184), 5,090,432 (Feb. 25, 1992, 134/139), 5,037,481 (Aug. 6, 1991, 134/1), 4,998,549 (Mar. 12, 1991, 134/184), 4,869,278 (Sep. 26, 1989, 134/184). Treat these collectively as megasonic-cleaning background art — relevant to the tank/transducer disclosure, not to the probe claims.

Dussault transducer art (cited): US 5,037,208, "Immersible transducer assembly" (Aug. 6, 1991, 366/127) and US 4,979,994, "Method and apparatus for cleaning by ultrasonic wave energy" (Dec. 25, 1990).

4. Older cited U.S. references (mechanical/transducer background)

From the top of the "Cited" list (these are largely transducer and generator art carried over from the 1996 parent — relevant to the transducer subject matter, essentially irrelevant to the probe claims):

• 2,585,103 Fitzgerald (Feb 1952); 2,891,176 Branson (Jun 1959); 2,985,003 Gelfand (May 1961); 3,066,232 Branson (Nov 1962); 3,094,314 Kearney et al. (Jun 1963); 3,113,761 Platzman (Dec 1963); 3,152,295 Schebler (Oct 1964); 3,187,207 Tomes (Jun 1965); 3,230,403 Lewis et al. (Jan 1966); 3,293,456 Shoh (Dec 1966); 3,315,102 Quint et al. (Apr 1967); 3,318,578 Branson (May 1967); 3,371,233 Cook (Feb 1968); 3,433,462 Cook (Mar 1969); 3,629,726 Popescu (Dec 1971); 3,638,087 Ratcliff (Jan 1972); 3,648,188 Ratcliff (Mar 1972); 3,651,352 Puskas (Mar 1972).

5. The gap (stated honestly)

I verified the recent cited U.S. references (US 4,864,547 through US 6,394,111, listed in §3) and the oldest (US 2,585,103 through US 3,651,352, §4), but not the entire middle of the list, and not the "Foreign Patent Documents" block for this patent. From the forward-citation trail I can see that the sibling Suzuki patents cite a foreign block including EP 1 128 185 and JP 61-035831, 03-055044, 07-184898, 08-146007, 2000-146986, 2001-242177 — but those belong to US 8,658,102/7,955,557, not automatically to US 7,004,016, so I am deliberately not attributing them here.

To close the gap, pull the (56) References Cited block directly from the grant PDF (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/.../US7004016.pdf) or the USPTO Patent Center "References Cited" tab for application 09/370,302, which will also show examiner-cited vs. applicant-cited status.

6. Bottom-line §102 assessment

1. No cited reference discloses the probe's core novelty — deriving cavitation density, energy-per-implosion, and cavitation-density-vs-time from conductivity and temperature of an enclosed sample liquid. That is why the patent issued and why claims 22, 24–29 have the strongest validity profile against this art.
2. The probe's generic architecture (enclosure + in-liquid sensor + signal-analyzing subsystem) is squarely met in concept by Ezawa (US 4,890,481), Schiele (US 5,931,173), Pedziwiatr (US 5,433,102), and Condreva (US 6,295,873) — these are the references a re-exam petitioner would lead with against the broadest independent probe claim.
3. The feedback claims (30–34) are the most exposed to the combination of Schiele / Breunsbach (US 5,201,958) with the inventor's own generator art (Puskas US 5,276,376, Krsna US 4,864,547).
4. Timing matters: Condreva (2001) and Jacobs (2002) can only be §102(e) art, and only against claims whose effective date is later than their effective filing dates — which is unlikely for the probe claims given the Sept. 24, 1996 priority.

If you want, I can (a) retrieve the complete (56) list from the grant PDF, and (b) run a claim-by-claim chart against the four closest references (Ezawa, Schiele, Pedziwiatr, Condreva) keyed to the exact granted claim language — just confirm you want that deeper pass.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis by researching the actual claims of US 7,004,016 and the prior art references cited on its face and in its specification.

Let me pull the full claim set and the patent's cited references (its face-of-patent prior art).

Let me retrieve the full claim set and the face-of-patent references from the Justia and FreePatentsOnline pages.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,004,016 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Bottom line. US 7,004,016 is a 1996-priority Puskas continuation-in-part whose title claim (claim 1) is a liquid-dosimeter probe: an acoustically transparent enclosure that holds an isolated sample liquid inside an ultrasonic process tank, with one or more sensing transducers in that sample liquid. On the art its own specification and family cite, claim 1 and its dependents read as predictable combinations of (i) admitted prior-art cavitation meters, (ii) conventional conductivity/temperature instrumentation, and (iii) standard closed-loop generator control. The strongest nonobviousness story for the patent owner is not any single reference but the combination — the isolating-enclosure/fixed-sample-volume limitation and the feedback architecture — which is exactly where a § 103 challenge must land its motivation-to-combine rationale. As a defensive matter this matters little today: as established in the litigation and PTAB sections above, the patent is expired (2018-06-15) with no PTAB test and no narrowing, so this § 103 analysis is a validity/opinion exercise (pre-expiry damages window, DJ, or counsel's invalidity position), not a live IPR target.

1. Threshold caveats (stated plainly)

• The "Prior Art section of this page" was not included in my materials. I reconstructed the prior-art universe from three grounded sources: (a) the patent's own prior-art discussion in its Definitions/background text, (b) the "Prior art keywords" block (sample liquid, liquid, transducers, generator, probe system) and prior-art date 1996-09-24 on the Google Patents page, and (c) the (56) "References Cited" lists of the sibling members of the same family (US 6,433,460; US 6,946,773; US 7,211,928), which share the specification and citation universe.
• I could not retrieve US 7,004,016's own (56) list within this session. Treat any "on the face of 7,004,016" attribution below as inferred from the family, not confirmed page-by-page. Confirm the exact reference set before relying on it in a filing.
• Patent numbers and dates are reproduced literally; I have not auto-corrected any identifier.
• Confidence tags: [High] = grounded in retrieved text; [Moderate] = general technical knowledge I am confident of but did not re-verify this session; [Speculative] = inference.

2. Effective filing date and PHOSITA

• Application 09/370,302, filed 1999-08-09; priority claimed from 08/718,945 (1996-09-24), which issued as US 5,834,871; the application is a division of 09/097,374 (filed 1998-06-15), now US 6,016,821. [High — family/front-page data]
• Critical date for § 103: at the latest 1999-08-09, and 1996-09-24 to the extent the probe subject matter is supported by the 08/718,945 disclosure. All references cited on the family face (which run from the 1950s through the 1980s, e.g., US 4,736,130 and US 4,743,789, both 1988 sweep-frequency generators) comfortably predate either date and are § 102(b)/§ 102(a) art. [High]
• PHOSITA [Moderate]: a person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–4 years' experience designing ultrasonic cleaning/processing equipment, including piezoelectric transducer stacks, RF drive generators, and process instrumentation (conductivity cells, thermocouples). This is the level at which the patent's own specification argues.

3. The claims to be tested

Verified claim text [High — Justia/Google Patents]:

• Claim 1 (independent): A probe system for sensing process conditions in an ultrasonic tank having process liquid driven by transducers + generator, comprising (a) an enclosure for housing a sample liquid, adapted to isolate the sample liquid from the process liquid, the enclosure passing ultrasonic energy from process liquid to sample liquid, the sample liquid being responsive to the energy; and (b) one or more sensing transducers within the sample liquid, generating signals indicative of characteristics of the sample liquid.
• Claims 9–13 (energy/density analysis): add (c) an analysis subsystem collecting/evaluating signals over time, and (d) means for determining total cavitation energy from temperature (claim 9), calculating it as energy (calories) = specific heat × mass × ΔT (claim 10), determining cavitation density from conductivity (claim 11), and memory storing specific heat (ρ), volume, mass, and a functional relationship n = f(C, C₀) between conductivity and number of cavitation implosions (claim 13).
• Claims 19–21 (feedback): feedback means to control (19) generator frequency, (20) generator power output, and (21) amplitude modulation to control cavitation density as a function of time.
• Claim 25: subsystem memory storing the above parameters.

(The patent carries 34 claims and its abstract recites nine distinct aspects — power up-sweep, multi-generator switching, variable-voltage generator, laminar tank, QDR tank, PCB-integrated generator/transducers, AC power circuit, and transducer variants. I could only verify the probe-claim text above. Claims directed to those other aspects should be independently charted against the same family art; see § 5.)

4. The prior-art inventory and the § 103 combinations

4.1 Admitted prior art (no reference number needed)

The specification contains a background admission that "the prior art is familiar with certain meters which measure sound characteristics and cavitations within an ultrasonic tank," each giving "one number, usually in units of watts per gallon, and sometimes in undefined units such as cavities," and that "no single number adequately describes this activity." [High — patent text]. This admission is the linchpin: it concedes that (i) cavitation-measuring instruments existed and (ii) they were understood to be inadequate. It also concedes the known cavitation physics the probe exploits: cavitation produces "free radicals, ions and super oxides" that raise conductivity, and "all the energy released during each cavitation implosion becomes heat energy." [High]

4.2 Patent references (family face)

The family cites a long list of foundational ultrasonic-cleaning/transducer patents (e.g., US 2,585,103 Fitzgerald; US 2,891,176 / 3,066,232 / 3,318,578 Branson; US 3,651,352 Puskas; US 3,690,333 Kierner; US 3,893,869 Mayer; etc.) and, in the specification, the sweep-generator art US 4,736,130, US 4,743,789, and PCT/US97/12853 (dual-sweep). [High — retrieved family (56) lists and spec].

4.3 Non-patent general knowledge [Moderate]

• Calorimetric measurement of ultrasonic power — determining absorbed acoustic power from the temperature rise of a known mass of liquid (Q = m·c·ΔT) is a textbook ultrasonic-metrology method well pre-dating 1996.
• Conductometric/sonochemical dosimetry — the fact that cavitation in water generates H₂O₂ and radicals and alters conductivity of a fixed liquid sample was documented in the sonochemistry literature by the mid-1990s.
• Closed-loop generator control (frequency-lock via PLL, power regulation, AM gating) — standard RF power-supply practice and, indeed, the subject of the family's own cited references.

Combination 1 — Claim 1, and claims 9/10/11/13: admitted cavitation meters + conventional conductivity/temperature instrumentation + fixed-sample dosimetry cell

Rationale (MPEP 2143(A)–(C): combining known prior-art elements; simple substitution; "obvious to try"):

• The primary reference is the admitted prior-art cavitation meter that already measures a characteristic of an ultrasonic tank's contents. The secondary references are a conventional conductivity cell (electrode pair in a liquid) and a thermocouple — both ubiquitous.
• The problem was expressly identified in the art and in this specification: a single watts-per-gallon number cannot distinguish "relatively few high-energy cavitation implosions" from "many low-energy cavitation implosions" at the same input power. [High — spec, FIGS. 35–36 text]. A PHOSITA seeking the two parameters the specification says are needed — energy per implosion and cavitation density — would predictably (a) read conductivity of a liquid sample to count ion-producing cavitation events (= density) and (b) read temperature rise of a known mass to compute total released energy (= energy/implosion), i.e., exactly claims 11 and 9/10.
• The enclosure/housing limitation of claim 1 is the only element not squarely in the admitted art. Here the rationale is design choice + enablement of the known measurement: isolating a fixed sample volume from the process liquid (i) removes chemistry/contaminant fouling of the electrodes, (ii) fixes mass and specific heat so the calorimetric relation of claim 10 is computable, and (iii) requires an acoustically transparent, low-thermal-conductivity wall. The specification itself says polypropylene is chosen because "it and water have nearly the same acoustic impedance" and it "has low thermoconductivity" — a selection among a finite number of known materials with a predictable result (MPEP 2144.05; KSR "design choice" / "obvious to try"). The n = f(C, C₀) memory limitation of claim 13 is a printed-table/calibration expedient that adds nothing patentable beyond routine data storage.
• Motivation articulated: provide real-time, per-volume cavitation quality data (energy and density) rather than a single scalar; isolate the sensor medium for reproducibility and cleanliness. Both motivations are stated or implied in the patent's own background — which under In re Fulton / KSR supplies the "reason to combine."

Counterargument the patent owner will press: the specific isolated sample-liquid cell transducing tank ultrasound was arguably not shown in the admitted meters (which measured the tank itself). This is the vulnerability to shore up with a concrete secondary reference disclosing a sealed liquid cell / secondary dosimeter. I could not verify such a specific reference this session — that is the single biggest gap in this chart.

Combination 2 — Claims 9, 10 (calorimetric energy): admitted meters + textbook calorimetry

If the prior art discloses any measurement of tank heating or acoustic power, claims 9–10 fall to the calorimetric method (Q = mcΔT). [Moderate–High]. The only "addition" is applying the textbook equation to a sample liquid; a PHOSITA would recognize this as a simple and predictable use of a known technique (MPEP 2143(A)). The specific heat × mass × ΔT recitation is the equation itself, so the claim's patentability turns entirely on the probe/enclosure structure — if claim 1 is obvious, claims 9–10 add nothing.

Combination 3 — Claims 19–21 (feedback): cavitation sensor + known closed-loop RF control

• US 4,736,130 and US 4,743,789 (sweep-frequency ultrasonic generators) and PCT/US97/12853 (dual-sweep) show generators that sweep frequency/power and, in the family's own words, lock to resonance. [High — cited in spec].
• Closed-loop frequency control (claim 19) is the very function of PLL-driven ultrasonic generators (e.g., Ratcliff US 3,638,087/3,648,188 and Popescu US 3,629,726/3,727,112 in the family's cited list). Power control responsive to a sensed load/cavitation parameter (claim 20) and AM gating to set cavitation density vs. time (claim 21) are standard drive techniques, and the specification itself presents AM as a known modulation choice with a swept AM frequency.
• Motivation: the patent's admitted problem is that tank activity varies with chemistry, temperature, and pressure; a PHOSITA would place the newly available real-time cavitation measurement in feedback to the generator to hold a setpoint — routine automation, predictable result (MPEP 2143(C)).

Combination 4 — The non-probe aspects (if separately claimed)

If (as the abstract suggests) the patent carries independent claims to the other aspects, they are individually weak against the family/cited art [Moderate]:

5. Motivation-to-combine synthesis (KSR / Graham / MPEP 2143)

A defensible § 103 position rests on all of the following, in combination:

1. Identified problem in the art — the admitted "single number is inadequate" deficiency (spec) supplies the "reason the inventor made the combination."
2. Predictable results — conductivity→ion count and mcΔT→energy are known equations applied to a known phenomenon; combining two known sensors into one probe is aggregation, not invention (KSR).
3. Design incentives / market forces — real-time QC and feedback control of an ultrasonic tank were recognized commercial needs (the patent's own "consistency of process" framing).
4. Finite choices — polypropylene for the wall (acoustic-impedance match + low thermal conductivity); PFC for universal input; relay sequencing for frequency change.
5. "Obvious to try" — with a fixed sample volume and a conductivity pair, the calibration relation n = f(C, C₀) is routine.

Weakest links (where the patent owner wins if anywhere):

• The isolating sample-liquid enclosure transducing tank ultrasound (claim 1's structural heart) is not established in a verified reference here. A challenger must produce a sealed-cell/secondary-dosimeter reference or a strong "design choice + enablement" showing.
• Any objective evidence of nonobviousness (unexpected results, industry praise, commercial success of CTG/NM Group products, copying) with a nexus to the probe claims would rebut obviousness. I found no such evidence this session; do not assume it exists.

6. What I could and could not verify (confidence summary)

• [High] Claim 1, 9–13, 19–21, 25 text; the admitted prior art; the cited sweep-generator references; the family (56) lists; filing/priority dates; expired status (from the prior sections).
• [Moderate] Calorimetric and conductometric cavitation-dosimetry as known pre-1996 techniques; closed-loop generator control as routine.
• [Unverified — flag] US 7,004,016's own (56) list; any single reference disclosing an isolated sample-liquid cell as an ultrasonic dosimeter. If that reference exists (the patent cites sonoluminescence/chemiluminescence dosimetry as known), it would convert claim 1 from "obvious combination" to a likely § 102 anticipation and should be run down first.
• [Speculative] The claim status of the non-probe aspects (I could not confirm they are claimed in this patent rather than only in siblings).

Recommended next step before relying on this: pull the actual (56) list and full 34-claim set from the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper for 09/370,302 (and the parent 09/097,374 / 08/718,945), then chart a sealed-cell dosimetry reference against claim 1.

This is a technical invalidity analysis, not legal advice; a formal § 103 opinion should be prepared by counsel with the complete file histories and a claim-by-claim chart.