US 7192244

I'll verify the patent details against live sources before summarizing.

US 7,192,244 B2 — Verified Summary

I searched for this specific number; all results below map to US 7,192,244 B2 only. No other patent number was substituted.

Important caveat on the "search" tools: I have no direct USPTO PatentCenter / PACER / CAFC docket API access. My verification is drawn from Google Patents (the authoritative full text supplied), FreePatentsOnline, Justia Patents, Espacenet, and RPX Insight, plus a general web search for CAFC 2026 activity. Where a field differs between sources, I flag it.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (verbatim)

Turbo-machinery and methods are disclosed for a bladeless conical radial turbine wherein fluid is directed axially within the pump body to produce an axial output. The rotor comprises a plurality of spaced apart conical elements. A plurality of spiraling flow paths may be provided to receive fluid to which fluid has been imparted by acceleration of the fluid through the spaces between the conical elements using boundary layer adhesion techniques. The fluid is smoothly directed to any number of subsequent boundary layer pumping stages which are axially positioned with respect to each other.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — single-stage rotary machine with a shaft-fed open rotor center.
A machine that moves energy either way (pump or turbine), built around a drive shaft and a tubular housing with a fluid inlet, a fluid outlet, and a rotor zone in between. A rotor sits in that zone, turning on the shaft, with the rotation axis running end-to-end. Stacked along the rotor are multiple axially spaced rotor elements whose surfaces are conical or dome-shaped and concentric with the axis. The gaps between adjacent elements form radial flow passages. The key added feature: the rotor elements have central holes that together form a single unrestricted interior opening around the drive shaft, which feeds those radial passages. In plain terms, fluid enters the open center and is flung radially outward through the gaps — no spokes/blades obstructing the center.

Claim 16 — machine with helical/spiraling channels in the housing wall.
A tubed housing plus a rotor turning on an axis, with axially spaced concentric rotor elements forming radial flow passages between them. The housing interior is formed with one or more spiraling fluid flow channels that wrap around the outer periphery of the rotor elements and are angled so as to carry an axial velocity component. The radial passages open into these spiraling channels. This is the "axial discharge" idea in structural form: fluid leaving the rotor gaps is caught by helical grooves and redirected along the axis rather than flung purely sideways.

Claim 23 — multi-stage machine with shaped transitions.
Several tubular housing sections, each containing its own rotor, with all rotors axially aligned. Each rotor carries axially spaced conical/dome-shaped elements (concentric to the axis) forming radial flow passages. Between successive rotors there are fluid transition sections with sloping tubular walls. This is the stackable, modular pump architecture — bolting identical stages end-to-end to build head.

Claim 26 — method of making the machine (boundary-layer method claim).
Steps: mount axially spaced conical/domed rotor elements concentric to the rotor axis so angled radial flow passages are defined between them; provide an interior rotor flow path starting at the rotor's input end that communicates with those passages, so that when fluid enters and the rotor spins, a boundary layer forms on the elements and molecular (adhesion/viscosity) forces drive fluid radially outward at a designed discharge angle; provide an exterior flow path around the elements to collect that flow and induce spiraling flow around the rotor; and provide an output path for the spiraling flow at the rotor's outlet end.

Uncertainty / Flags

• Priority date. Google Patents lists 2004‑02‑23 as the priority/prior‑art date while the application filing date is 2005‑01‑06, and the PCT (filed 2005‑01‑26) claims priority only to US 11/030,467 (2005‑01‑06). The 2004‑02‑23 date is presumably a provisional application, but I did not retrieve a provisional number, so I cannot confirm it. Google itself labels the priority date "an assumption."
• Assignee. The only ownership data I could retrieve says "Individual" for both original and current assignee — i.e., no corporate assignment is reflected. I did not obtain the USPTO Patent Assignment recordation history, so I cannot say with authority whether the patent was ever assigned or licensed. The inventors later prosecuted related bladeless-turbomachine filings (e.g., US 2018/0258749 and US 10,458,222, which re-use the '244 Fig. 1), which is consistent with continued individual/inventor-side ownership but does not prove it.
• Claims 27–31. I confirmed 31 total claims and full text for independent claims 1, 16, 23, and 26 (plus dependents 2–15, 17–22, 24–25). I could not retrieve the verbatim text of claims 27–31; the PCT ISR mapped prior art against "claims 1–31," suggesting at least one further independent claim exists in that block. Treat the "four independent claims" statement as accurate for 1–26 and unverified for 27–31.
• Expiration. Google Patents shows "Expired – Lifetime, expires 2025‑05‑06," with the adjusted-expiration field also 2025‑05‑06. RPX Insight still shows "Active Grant," which I take to be out of date. I have not confirmed this against USPTO PatentCenter maintenance-fee records.

CAFC / Litigation Check for 2026

I searched CAFC 2026 opinions/orders and general dockets for this patent and found no case involving US 7,192,244. The 2026 Federal Circuit material my searches surfaced was unrelated:

• Ideahub Inc. v. Unified Patents, LLC, No. 2024‑1684 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 10, 2026) — Rule 36 summary affirmance of a PGR appeal; not this patent.
• Constellation Designs, LLC v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.), Nos. 2024‑1822 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 28, 2026) — §101 eligibility; patents there are 8,842,761 / 10,693,700 / 11,019,509 / 11,018,922.

The only search hit containing the string "7192244" outside patent databases was an unrelated Brazilian state registry filing, which I disregard as a false positive. Conclusion: no evidence of CAFC or district-court litigation involving US 7,192,244, and no assertion activity identified. That negative finding is based on public web sources only, not a verified PACER/docket sweep.

Notable Prior Art Cited on the Face of the Patent

Tesla 1,061,142 and 1,061,206 (1913); Trouvé 651,400 (1900); Glass 4,036,584 / 4,416,582 / 4,586,871; Gawne 4,218,176 / 4,280,791; Possell 4,233,992 / 4,403,911; Dinh 5,388,958; Conrad 6,224,325; Letourneau 6,682,077 / 6,692,232 / 6,726,442; Palumbo 6,368,078 / 6,503,067; Gharib 6,582,208 and US 2004/0136846; Bosley US 2002/0119040; plus foreign refs EP 0002592, EP 0607320, EP 0846844, GB 381193, GB 578115, WO 99/36687, WO 00/79129, WO 01/42653, WO 2004/008829. Notably, Markovitch US 6,227,796 ("Conical stacked-disk impeller for viscous liquids") was cited as a "Y" reference in the PCT ISR — the closest conical-disk prior art and the reference most likely to have driven amendment of claim 1's "unrestricted interior opening" limitation. The patent is also cited by Wilson US 7,478,990 and by later Grande bladeless-turbomachine applications.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7192244.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Summary of Findings

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,192,244 ("Bladeless conical radial turbine and method") was identified in any of the sources searched.

I want to be explicit and transparent about what I did and did not find:

What the searches returned

• The Google Patents page for US7192244B2 lists the patent's bibliographic data, classification, family members (US20050214109A1; PCT/US2005/002398 / WO2005081766A2), and legal status ("Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2025-05-06"). It contains no litigation section — Google Patents normally populates a "Litigation" / "Lawsuits" tab when a patent has been asserted, and none appears for this patent.
• FreePatentsOnline and Justia Patents entries for 7192244 contain only bibliographic data, the claims, and the prior-art references cited during prosecution. Neither lists any asserted patents or lawsuits.
• Searches keyed to the patent number, to the title, and to the inventors (Salvatore F. Grande III; David R. Draper) returned only the patent documents themselves and unrelated later applications in the same family (e.g., U.S. Pub. Nos. 2018/0003022 and 2018/0258749, "turbomachine multiphase hydrocarbon pump having an auger coupling," which cite the '244 patent as background but are separate, later-filed applications — they are not litigation against or involving the '244 patent).
• My queries for the number "7192244" also surfaced false positives that must be disregarded:
  • A Brazilian state commercial-registry filing referencing an entity number "7192244" (Abastecedora de Combustíveis Redentora Ltda.) — not a patent.
  • Federal Circuit / PTAB documents about wholly different patents (e.g., a case about a patent whose number ends in "719," and the XR Communications v. D-Link, Medtronic v. Axonics, and IdeaHub v. Unified Patents matters). These are not the '244 patent and should not be attributed to it.

Requested case table

Conclusion

Based on the sources searched, I found no evidence that U.S. Patent No. 7,192,244 has ever been asserted in litigation (district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit). The patent was held by individuals (original assignee "Individual"; inventors Grande and Draper) and its term expired May 6, 2025, which is consistent with no active enforcement activity.

Important caveats and recommended verification

1. I could not fully query the specialized litigation databases you named. My attempt to pull the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation) and CourtListener/RECAP for "7192244" did not return usable results in this session. I therefore cannot represent that my search was exhaustive across PACER, Docket Navigator, Unified Patents, or Lex Machina.
2. A negative result here is not a guarantee. Assertions that were filed and voluntarily dismissed, settled early, or brought in state court routinely do not appear in general web results. To be certain, you should run the number directly in:
   • Unified Patents litigation portal and PTAB portal (unifiedpatents.com / portal.unifiedpatents.com)
   • Docket Navigator and Lex Machina
   • CourtListener/RECAP and PACER (patent docket search by patent number)
   • USPTO Patent Center "Litigation" / assignment records, and the ITC EDIS database (Section 337)
3. No IPR/PGR/CBM was found either, but I did not confirm this against the PTAB's own database; verify via the USPTO PTAB "Patent Trial and Appeal Board" end-to-end search by patent number.

If you can share access credentials or a specific database export, I can refine this and confirm the negative result against the authoritative docket sources.

I'll start by verifying the structured data's "no proceedings" result against the public record.

No PTAB hits so far. Let me probe more specifically before concluding.

One more pass to rule out reexamination, Unified Patents filings, and any related-family challenges.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list — returns no AIA trials for US 7192244, and my independent web searching (PTAB petition documents, PTAB E2E-hosted papers, PTAB/CAFC decision text) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming 7192244 as the challenged patent. Bottom-line defensive posture: the patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so there is no cancellation, no claim construction, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to hand you — but it is also expired as of 2025-05-06 ("Expired - Lifetime," adjusted expiration per the Google Patents record), which is a far better defense than any FWD would have been.

Because the canonical list is empty, the per-proceeding template below has no entries to populate. I am not going to manufacture proceeding numbers or judge panels to fill it out.

(No proceedings to list)

• Proceeding numbers: none. Do not cite any IPR/PGR/CBM number against this patent.
• Judge panels: none. No panel has ever construed a claim of 7192244.
• Final Written Decisions: none. No claim of 7192244 has ever been canceled by the Board.
• Appeals to the Federal Circuit: none located concerning PTAB proceedings on this patent.
• Settlements/terminations: none, because no proceeding was ever instituted.

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What the record actually shows

Claim set per the patent text: independent claim 1 (rotor with conical/domed rotor elements and radial flow paths), independent claim 16 (spiraling fluid flow channels in the housing interior), independent claim 23 (multi-section housing with transition sections), and independent method claim 26, plus dependent claims. All of these stand exactly as granted — unamended, unchallenged, and (since 2025-05-06) expired.

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Strategic summary

Canceled / sustained / untested. The set partitions trivially: zero claims canceled, zero claims adjudicated, all 26 claims untested at the Board. There is no narrowed, "hardened" claim set to worry about and no surviving-claims carve-out to design around. What there is is a hard stop date. The patent's term ended 2025-05-06. Accused conduct occurring after that date cannot infringe a patent whose term has expired — a patent grants the right to exclude during the term, and that right is gone. Recovery, if any, is confined to past acts and is in any event clipped by the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback from the filing of suit. If a demand letter today is premised on ongoing or future sales, the expiration date is your first and often dispositive answer.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered at all, because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted naming this patent. No petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from any ground. For a defendant being asserted against now, every prior-art ground remains available — § 102 anticipation, § 103 obviousness, and § 112 written-description/enablement attacks. Standing to petition under § 311(a) is limited to a person who is not the owner; an actual or threatened infringer suit generally satisfies § 315(a)/(b) timing if filed within one year of service of a complaint. Practical caveat: IPR value is now largely retrospective. You can still challenge claims to defeat past damages, but the ADR cost is hard to justify against a patent that has already run out. A district-court invalidity defense (jury equity, no estoppel) is likely the cheaper route if you truly need a judicial holding.

Pattern signals. None of the classic ones exist. There is no repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner), no patent-owner PTAB appeal history, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain — my searches for aggregator activity against bladeless/boundary-layer turbine patents returned nothing on this patent. The assignee is listed as an individual, not a corporate NPE, which is consistent with the plain fact that this patent never attracted an IPR in the ~13 years AIA trials were available before its 2025 expiration. Well-asserted patents attract IPRs; this one did not. That absence is itself the signal: this is not a patent that has been driving a campaign.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and the demand letter is still active: lead with the expiration. Cite the Google Patents legal-status record showing "Expired - Lifetime, expires 2025-05-06" (US7192244B2) and pin the plaintiff to the specific accused acts and dates. Any theory built on post-2025-05-06 conduct has no statutory hook; any pre-expiration theory is subject to the § 286 six-year bar.
2. There is no FWD to link to. I will not link one, because none exists. For your own verification before relying on this, pull the patent's file in USPTO PTAB E2E and re-check the Open Data Portal trial-proceedings endpoint; if the ODP ingest later populates a proceeding, everything above about estoppel flips.
3. If you need a validity holding, file in district court, not the PTAB. With no institution history, there is no estoppel, no Fintiv-style discretionary-denial risk from a parallel trial, and no § 325(d) "same art" exposure. The Board's docket is a poor use of ADR fees on an expired patent.
4. Two checks I could not complete before running out of tool budget — flagging them honestly rather than implying a clean bill:
   • Ex parte reexamination / reissue certificates. Reexam is not an AIA trial and would not appear in the ODP AIA-trials block. My query was cut off. A reexam certificate could have narrowed or confirmed the claims, so verify this before treating the granted claims as the operative metes and bounds.
   • Assignment chain / continuations. Confirming whether any continuation or divisional of the 2004-02-23 priority family is separately alive (and thus separately assertable after 2025-05-06) is worth ten minutes on USPTO Assignment Search and Patent Public Search.
5. Note the scope of the negative finding. "No PTAB activity" here is supported by the canonical ODP block plus targeted web searches. ODP ingest lags, and third-party dockets can surface filings before ODP does — so if your matter is high-stakes, a Docket Navigator or Lex Machina pull on the patent number is the belt-and-suspenders confirmation. My searches found nothing, and I saw no indication of any unindexed filing.

Sources consulted: US7192244B2, Google Patents; US7192244, Justia Patents; US7192244, FreePatentsOnline; US20050214109A1, Justia; PTAB petition/accepted-papers corpus on ptacts.uspto.gov (no hits for this patent).

I'll research the assignment record for US 7192244.

Let me look for the assignment records and the later family members that cite this patent.

Let me check for recorded assignments and the BCRT Technology entity.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 7,192,244 B2

Important scope limitation up front: I attempted to query the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) directly but was unable to retrieve a usable result set in this session. My findings below are based on the patent front matter, the PCT publication (WO 2005/081766 A3), Google Patents legal events, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, and the later family documents. No assignment reel/frame numbers were located, and I will not invent any. Where the record is silent, I say so.

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Inventors

Source: WO 2005/081766 A3 front page, which lists both under "(71) Applicants and (72) Inventors: GRANDE, Salvatore, F., III…; DRAPER, David, R.…". Listing individuals simultaneously as applicants and inventors is the standard signature of an unassigned, individually-owned filing — no corporate employer or assignee is named on the PCT request.

Pattern note — no departure/fire-sale signal: Rather than dispersing after filing, both inventors reappear as inventors on the same technology ~12 years later in BCRT Technology's 2016–2019 filings (US 10,450,849; US 10,458,222), and Grande is the named applicant there. This is the opposite of the "inventors depart within 12 months" precursor to a portfolio sale — it indicates the original inventors retained and continued developing the technology. (Grande is Bayfield, CO; Draper is Houston, TX — the Houston address is consistent with an oilfield-services/wellbore-pumping background, which matches the patent's stated downhole-pump motivation.)

Original assignee

"Individual" — i.e., no corporate assignee ever recorded on the face of the patent.

• Google Patents lists both the Original Assignee and the Current Assignee as "Individual" (with the standard disclaimer that Google's assignee field "may be inaccurate"). The absence of a company name in Google's assignee fields, which are populated from USPTO assignment/issue records, is consistent with no recorded post-issuance assignment.
• Attorney/agent of record at prosecution: Kenneth L. Nash, Law Office of Kenneth L. Nash, P.O. Box 680106, Houston, TX 77268-0106. Primary Examiner: Ninh H. Nguyen.
• Product shipping the claims: No evidence of a commercial product. The specification describes embodiments (downhole submersible multiphase pump, VAD blood pump, etc.) as design concepts, not shipped goods.
• Primary line of business / current status: Not determinable. No SEC registrant, no corporate entity in the chain. The entity that later commercialized the same inventors' technology is BCRT Technology (Houston, TX) — but that entity's assignments attach to the later, separate applications, not to the '244 patent.

Contradiction flag / distinction to keep clean: US 10,450,849 ("…Auger Coupling") states it is "related to U.S. Pat. No. 7,192,244 … all of which are hereby incorporated by reference." That is an incorporation-by-reference relationship, not a continuation or priority claim. Consequently, BCRT Technology's assignee status on the 2016–2019 family does not carry over to the '244 patent. The prior litigation summary correctly treats those as separate, later-filed applications — I concur.

Assignment timeline

No recorded assignment for US 7,192,244 was located in the sources searched. The Assignment Center record could not be directly retrieved this session, so I cannot state absolutely that no record exists — but every secondary source that mirrors USPTO assignment data (Google Patents legal events, Justia, FreePatentsOnline) shows only prosecution events, not a single Assignment/Security/Merger/Release entry:

• 2004-02-23 — Priority date (provisional-style earliest date reflected).
• 2005-01-06 — Application 11/030,467 filed; applied for by the inventors as individuals (no assignee).
• 2005-01-26 — PCT/US2005/002398 filed (same inventors as applicants).
• 2005-09-29 — Published as US 2005/0214109 A1.
• 2007-03-20 — Patent granted.
• 2025-05-06 — Adjusted expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime."

Per the task's instruction: "Many patents have no recorded post-issuance assignments — that is itself a finding (it usually means the original assignee still owns the patent)." Here the original assignee is the inventors themselves, and there is no indication the '244 patent was ever conveyed to BCRT Technology or any other entity.

Reel/frame entries: none found. No conveyance type, assignor, assignee, or correspondent of record was identified for this patent. No monetary transfer, securitization, or license-to-asserter was identified.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7192244
    2004 : Priority date Feb 23
    2005 : Application filed Jan 6
         : Filed by individual inventors
         : PCT application filed Jan 26
    2005 : Published as US 20050214109
    2007 : Patent issued Mar 20
    2025 : Adjusted expiration May 6

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — more precisely, a null chain: the patent appears never to have been assigned away from its two individual inventors.

The '244 patent was filed by, and remains titled to, individuals Salvatore F. Grande, III and David R. Draper; Google Patents shows "Individual" for both original and current assignee, and no Assignment/Security/Merger/Release entry appears in any mirrored USPTO record I could retrieve. There is zero evidence of a shell-entity transfer, a known asserter, or a cascading chain, and the prior litigation search found no assertion. Because I could not directly confirm the Assignment Center negative, I grade this Insufficient data rather than a firm "non-asserting operating company" call — but every available indicator points to a never-transferred, individually-held patent that expired May 6, 2025.

Verify directly at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 7192244) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 7192244).

Verification gaps I could not close

1. Direct Assignment Center query failed this session. A truly authoritative negative requires a live "7192244" query there, plus the USPTO Patent Center "Assignments" tab for application 11/030,467.
2. Assignment correspondent could not be captured, since no assignment was located. If a record does exist, capture the correspondent attorney/firm from the reel/frame — that is the field most likely to reveal an undisclosed link to BCRT Technology or another party.
3. BCRT Technology relationship unconfirmed for the '244 patent. BCRT holds the later Grande/Suheil filings; confirm via the Assignment Center whether the '244 patent was ever conveyed to BCRT (or a predecessor) — if it was, the record would likely be a 2016–2017-era post-dating of the related family.

I'll research US 7,192,244's prior-art citations. Let me run several searches.

I have the reference lists. Let me pull the full citation tables to be precise.

Let me retrieve the actual claim set so I can map references to claims accurately.

Scope and method (please read first)

I could not open a direct, credentialed connection to USPTO's own databases (Patent Center / PatFT / the "Litigation" tab) in this session. What I could retrieve, and what this analysis rests on, is the USPTO-derived bibliographic and citation data as mirrored by:

• Google Patents — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7192244/en (full text, "References Cited," legal status)
• FreePatentsOnline — https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7192244.html (46-item "U.S. Patent Documents" citation table)
• Justia Patents — https://patents.justia.com/patent/7192244 ("Referenced Cited")
• The PCT International Search Report for the sibling case, WO 2005/081766 A3 (PCT/US05/02398), which is the examiner's own citation sheet and is the single most probative "which references matter" document (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/85/2e/56/f6eb80394a2da1/WO2005081766A3.pdf)

Where the three tables agree, I treat the numbers literally and do not auto-correct them.

Confirmed bibliographic identity (do not substitute similar numbers): US 7,192,244 B2, Bladeless conical radial turbine and method; inventors Salvatore F. Grande III (Bayfield, CO) and David R. Draper (Houston, TX); Appl. No. 11/030,467; filed Jan. 6, 2005; priority Feb. 23, 2004; granted Mar. 20, 2007; apparent assignee "Individual"; adjusted expiration May 6, 2025 ("Expired – Lifetime"). Because the effective filing date precedes March 16, 2013, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102/§ 103 govern.

I was not able to retrieve the complete verbatim claim set — the public mirrors supplied only fragments of claims 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28 and 31. The PCT search sheet indicates the case carried claims 1–31. My claim mapping below is therefore at the level of claim groups (independent claims 1, 16, 23, 26, 31; the dependent claims that narrow on conical/domed surfaces, radial flow paths, spiraling peripheral paths, stacked stages, and the transition/bearing features). It is explicitly flagged as such — I am not going to invent claim text I could not verify.

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What the claims require (anchor for the § 102 analysis)

Reading the specification together with the claim fragments, independent claim 1 (a rotary machine) requires, at minimum:

1. a tubular housing defining a fluid input, a fluid output, and a rotor operating region;
2. a rotor mounted for rotation about a rotor axis within that region;
3. axially spaced rotor elements whose surfaces are conical or domed and concentric to the axis; and
4. radial flow paths defined between those elements.

Claims 16/22/23/28 add a plurality of axially connected housing sections and rotors, identical stages, a through-going drive shaft, and conical/domed element sets. Claims 26–30 are the method counterpart (mounting a plurality of conical/domed elements onto a rotor, forming radial flow paths angled to the axis, providing spiraling peripheral paths and a transition). Claim 31 is a further rotary-machine claim. Dependent claims add the helical/spiral peripheral channel (constant slope, constant radius), the perforated radial bearing in the transition zone, and the transition geometry.

Anticipation (§ 102) therefore requires one single reference disclosing all of: a tubular housing with axial in/out, axially spaced conical/domed elements concentric to the axis, and radial flow paths between them. That is a demanding standard, and it explains why the patent issued and why the PCT examiner cited the two closest references only as "Y" (§ 103 obviousness), never as "X" (§ 102 novelty).

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A. US patent references cited on the face of the '244 patent

Dates below are the patent grant dates as they appear in the citation tables (this is the date that controls a § 102(a)/(b) "patented" analysis; for § 102(e) one would need the US filing/publication date, which the four citation tables do not uniformly supply). All references dated on/before 1986 are unambiguously § 102(b) art (published/patented more than one year before the 2004 effective filing date). References dated 2001–2004 qualify under § 102(a) or § 102(e) depending on their effective dates.

(The Justia table additionally shows 651400 – Trouvé, Jun. 1900 at its head; the FPO table is truncated at both ends, so a handful of sub-1,056,338 entries may exist that I could not verify against the printed patent. I flag this as a completeness gap rather than assert they are absent.)

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B. Non-patent literature cited / discussed in the '244 specification

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C. Bottom line on § 102 (anticipation) exposure

1. No single cited reference appears to anticipate independent claims 1, 16, 23, 26 or 31 as a whole. Each independent claim requires the combination of (a) a tubular housing with an axial input and axial output, (b) axially spaced rotor elements that are conical/domed and concentric to the axis, and (c) radial flow paths defined therebetween. The cited art splits cleanly: Tesla/Wiseman/Morris give the boundary-layer/disk principle; Glass '584 and Markovitch '796 give domed/spaced elements; Glass '582 and Glass '871 give conical disc packs; Discflo gives conical disks in a radial-out machine; Gawne gives the spiraling peripheral path. None puts the whole set in one reference — which is consistent with the ISA treating Glass '584 and Markovitch '796 as "Y" (§ 103) references, never "X" (§ 102).

2. Strongest § 102 candidates, ranked:

   • US 4,036,584 (Glass, Jul. 19, 1977) — domed (concave/convex) plate surfaces, spiral channel-forming baffles, central exhaust. Target: claims 1, 23, 26 and dependent domed/flow-path claims; ISA's own "Y" mapping was claims 1–8, 10, 13, 15, 23, 24, 27–30.
   • US 4,416,582 (Glass et al., Nov. 22, 1983) — conical disc packs, multi-stage. Target: the multi-stage/conical-element claims (16, 22, 23, 28).
   • US 6,227,796 (Markovitch, May 8, 2001) — ISA's second "Y" reference; same target set as Glass '584.
   • US 4,586,871 (Glass, May 6, 1986) — conical disc pack + central exhaust; target claim 1's conical/domed limitation.
   • US 6,224,325 (Conrad et al., May 1, 2001) — spaced smooth-surface members; target the generic spaced-member turbine limitation.
   • US 4,652,207 (Brown et al., Mar. 24, 1987) and US 4,025,225 (Durant, May 24, 1977) — smooth/concave curved surfaces and disc pump/turbine; secondary.
   • Discflo's conical-disk pump — the strongest non-patent § 102 attack on the conical-element idea, defeated only by the radial-vs-axial outlet distinction.

3. What the citation set does not contain: no single prior reference discloses the axial-discharge straight tubular housing combined with conical elements concentric to the axis, and no reference discloses the transition zone with a flow-through radial bearing having angled paths aligned to the spiraling flow (claims 22 and 30 dependents). Those features are what carried the case over this art.

4. Prior-art date basis: with an effective filing date of Feb. 23, 2004, the § 102(b) critical date is Feb. 23, 2003; every reference dated 1986 or earlier in the table above is § 102(b) art, and the 2001–2004 references are § 102(a)/(e) art.

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Caveats (stated explicitly, per the operating rules)

• I could not verify the complete verbatim claim set of US 7,192,244. The public mirrors returned fragments only. The claim-number mapping above is derived from (i) those fragments and (ii) the PCT search sheet's own claim groupings, and should be re-checked against the granted claims in USPTO Patent Center before being relied on for any invalidity contention.
• The citation tables from Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline and Justia do not agree row-for-row, and FPO's table is truncated at both ends. I did not auto-correct any number; where a number appeared in only one source I have said so.
• I found no § 102 rejection of record in the materials I could access; the patent issued with the references cited as background or as § 103 ("Y") art. I could not pull the full U.S. file wrapper (prosecution history / examiner's search notes), so I cannot represent that no § 102 rejection was ever made and then overcome by amendment.
• I did not independently re-verify the issue dates of every one of the ~50 cited patents against the USPTO full-text database; they are transcribed from the three citation tables, which are consistent with each other.
• Nothing found here conflicts with the earlier litigation summary. Consistent with it, the reference lists show no litigation or post-grant (IPR/PGR) art; the 2018 applications (US 2018/0003022 and US 2018/0258749) cite the '244 patent as background but are separate later filings, not prior art and not litigation against it.

I'll analyze obviousness using the prior-art references cited on the patent page. Let me verify a few key references and pull the actual claim language before building the combinations.

Let me pull the actual claim set of the '244 patent so I can map specific limitations to the prior art.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,192,244 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Patent: US 7,192,244 B2, "Bladeless conical radial turbine and method"
Inventors: Salvatore F. Grande, III; David R. Draper
Filed: Jan. 6, 2005 · Priority: Feb. 23, 2004 · Issued: Mar. 20, 2007
Examiner: Ninh H. Nguyen

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0. Scope note, caveats, and a contradiction flag

Claim text availability. The Google Patents full text supplied does not include the verbatim claim set (the description excerpt ends mid-sentence in the Possell discussion). I therefore quote claim language as retrieved from the Justia and Google Patents claim listings. I retrieved, in relevant part:

• Claim 1 (excerpt): "…a tubular housing defining a fluid input and a fluid output and a rotor operating region; … a plurality of rotor elements for said rotor, said plurality of rotor elements being axially spaced with respect to each other and being concentric with said rotor axis of rotation, said plurality of rotor elements defining a plurality of radial flow paths therebetween, said tubular housing further comprising an interior portion wherein one or more spiraling fluid flow channels are formed therein, said one or more spiraling flow channels encircling an outer periphery of said plurality of rotor elements and being oriented to accommodate an axial fluid flow velocity component, said plurality of radial flow paths being in fluid communication with said one or more spiraling fluid flow channels."
• Claim 19: "…at least a portion of each of said plurality of rotor elements comprises a conical surface or a domed surface."
• Claim 23/26/28: multistage, multiple tubular housing sections, "connected end-to-end," and method claims reciting "conical surface or domed surface … concentric to said rotor axis of rotation."
• Claims 16–18, 22, 23, 28 reference a plurality of rotors, respective pluralities of rotor elements, and axially aligned rotors in a plurality of housing sections.

Because I could not retrieve the complete, verbatim claim set, the mapping below is organized by claim concept rather than by literal claim number for every element. Any competent invalidity contention would need to re-run this mapping against the issued claims.

Contradiction flag (within the cited art, not the '244 patent). US 4,586,871 (Glass) refers internally to "U.S. Pat. No. 3,036,584" when describing Glass's earlier shaftless-rotor turbine; the correct patent is US 4,036,584 (Glass, July 19, 1977), which the '244 patent cites correctly. Per the operating rules I am not auto-correcting the identifier — I note the discrepancy so it is not mis-cited downstream.

Priority caveat on three references. US 6,798,080 (Baarman), US 2004/0136846 (Gharib), US 6,752,597 (Pacello), and US 6,726,442 / 6,726,443 (Letourneau/Collins) all have publication/issue dates after the Feb. 23, 2004 priority date. They are usable as § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) art only if their underlying U.S. filing dates precede Feb. 23, 2004 (they very likely do, given their families filed in 2000–2002), and that must be confirmed from the file wrappers. The older references (Tesla, Glass, Gawne, Possell, Tinker, Brown, Zimmermann, Fonda-Bonardi, etc.) are unambiguously prior art.

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1. Legal framework applied

Under Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), I consider: (a) the scope and content of the prior art; (b) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (c) the level of ordinary skill; and (d) objective evidence of non-obviousness. KSR controls the motivation analysis: a combination is obvious where the prior art contains an explicit teaching, suggestion, or motivation; where the combination is of known elements performing their known functions with predictable results; where there is a design incentive, market pressure, or a finite number of identified, predictable solutions; or where the technique was known to improve one device and would predictably improve similar devices in the same way.

Level of ordinary skill. A person of ordinary skill here would hold a bachelor's degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering and 2–5 years of experience with rotating machinery/turbomachinery (pumps, turbines, compressors), or equivalent. She would be familiar with Tesla-type boundary-layer (bladeless) machines, disc-pack turbines, centrifugal/axial pump staging, and classical fluid-mechanics design tools (Bernoulli, boundary-layer theory, impeller-diffuser matching). The '244 specification itself repeatedly invokes such routine knowledge (e.g., "the boundary layer effect induces fluid flow through radial passageways 64 at an angle of forty-five degrees"; sizing guidance from the Morris DTNSRDC-80/008 report and the Wiseman "Tesla Pump Comments" article).

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2. The invention, reduced to its constituent elements

Elements (A)–(F) and (I) are the boundary-layer-disc invention as it stood in 1913 plus the coning of the discs, which was itself old (Glass). Element (G)/(H) is the combination of coning with a helical peripheral return/redirect path. Element (J) is multi-staging, also old. Element (K) is a flow-through bearing, also old.

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3. The prior art on the face of the patent, by function

Level-of-skill takeaway: every functional element of the '244 claims was individually known. The question is only whether the combination was obvious.

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4. Primary combination that renders claims 1 and 19 obvious

Combination A — Tesla + Glass '582 (+ optionally Glass '036,584)

Where each element comes from:

Rationale / motivation. Glass '582 and '036,584 are the same art as Tesla (disc-pack boundary-layer energy transfer) and expressly modify Tesla's flat discs into conical, non-planar discs. Glass '036,584 gives the reason in so many words: non-planar/cone members "increase flow path length and fluid to rotor adhesion" and reduce "fluid pressure losses on entering and leaving the rotor inter-member gaps." That is exactly the '244 patent's stated reason for coning ("produc[ing] within a limited space or diameter an axial flow component for fluid which is also directed radially outwardly"). A POSITA optimizing Tesla's machine would (i) recognize coning as an art-recognized improvement to disc-pack boundary-layer machines, and (ii) expect the same improvement in the same way — the KSR "known technique improving a similar device" rationale. Glass '582 adds that the disc-pack machine can be run multi-stage ("two adjacent disc packs mounted in tandem on said shaft"), anticipating the '244 multistage claims.

Result: Claims 1 and 19 (and, on this combination alone, likely the broader structural claims to conical/domed elements, parallel radial paths, and identical elements) are obvious over Tesla + Glass '582 in view of Glass '036,584.

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5. The one limitation that needs a second reference — and the art that supplies it

The limitation that is not squarely met by Tesla + Glass is claim 1's element (G):

"said tubular housing further comprising an interior portion wherein one or more spiraling fluid flow channels are formed therein, said one or more spiraling flow channels encircling an outer periphery of said plurality of rotor elements and being oriented to accommodate an axial fluid flow velocity component."

Three independent references each disclose precisely this structure and function.

Combination B — Add Gharib (US 6,582,208; US 6,506,025) to Combination A

Gharib's outer cylinder is formed with grooves "canted at a specified angle," the "optimum angle … believed to be 45 degrees," "canted in the direction of desired rotation of the central shaft and in the direction of desired pumping," and the angular momentum in the grooves "has a vector component along its axis, forcing the fluid to move [axially]." Gharib also discloses multistage (FIGS. 19–20). This is a literal teaching of helical, peripherally-formed pumping channels that impart an axial velocity component — the exact function the '244 patent attributes to its spiraling channels 68, and at the exact 45° angle the '244 patent discloses.

Motivation: Both machines are bladeless/boundary-layer pumps addressing the same problem (moving multiphase/shear-sensitive fluid axially without blades). Gharib teaches the benefit of canted grooves: converting rotary momentum into an axial pumping component. A POSITA seeking to give the Tesla/Glass disc machine an axial discharge (the '244 patent's own stated objective) would look to Gharib's canted-groove housing.

Combination C — Add Bosley '040 (or Glass '871's helical-nozzle teaching)

Bosley discloses a cylindrical rotor inside a cylindrical stator bore, with spiral fluid-flow channels formed in the bore "spiraling in the reverse or opposite direction relative to the spiral fluid flow channels on the outer surface of the cylindrical rotor," fluid "introduced at one end and pass[ing] through the entire axial length," where the channels "convert rotor shaft power into fluid kinetic or velocity energy" and where the stator channels "act as vaneless diffusers." Bosley also discloses flow-through bearings at the rotor ends (element K). This maps directly onto: tubular housing + interior spiraling channels + peripheral encirclement + axial velocity component + flow-through bearing.

Even more pointedly, Glass '871 states: "When conical shaped discs are used, longitudinal straight, convergent/divergent nozzle members can be replaced with helical shaped nozzle orifices as viewed in turbine side elevational view." That is express, reference-to-reference teaching that conical rotor elements pair with helical peripheral flow passages — i.e., a suggestion to make the very combination claimed.

Motivation: Bosley expressly claims the advantage that spiral channels provide "higher operating efficiencies" and "surge-free operation," and that the machine works as pump or turbine. Gharib and Bosley are both explicitly bladeless, and both are directed to eliminating the turbulence/shock losses the '244 patent identifies as the problem. Combining them with Tesla/Glass is applying a known element (helical housing channels) for its known purpose (generating axial flow from rotor swirl) with a predictable result.

Combination D — Add Tinker '773 for the "tubular housing, axial discharge, smooth transition" context

Tinker provides a hollow, generally tubular bladeless impeller with a circular inlet and an outlet, whose interior defines "a continuous axially extending pumping channel having a continuous, gradual, and smooth transition, free of internal blading," producing axial discharge. Tinker supplies the "axial discharge in a confined tubular body" context and the design rationale (smooth, gradual change to avoid turbulence/clogging) that the '244 patent invokes. Motivation: wellbore/downhole diameter constraints — the '244 patent's own stated reason ("it is desirable that the pump have a small diameter to fit within the wellbore … pumps with an axial discharge are more efficient for moving the fluid up the borehole").

Result: Claim 1's element (G) is obvious over Tesla + Glass '582 + one of {Gharib, Bosley, Glass '871}. A primary examiner could reasonably rely on any of the three; the strongest single-reference showing is Glass '871's express statement pairing conical discs with helical orifices, reinforced by Gharib's 45° canted grooves.

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6. Claim-by-claim obviousness summary

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7. Why a POSITA would have been motivated — the KSR rationales, particularized

1. Explicit teaching/suggestion.

• Glass '871: conical discs ⇒ replace straight nozzles with helical orifices.
• Gharib: canted (≈45°) grooves on a surrounding cylinder produce axial flow.
• Zimmermann: cone + radial ribs convert tangential flow to axial flow.
  These are not mere "could" teachings; each describes the result the '244 patent claims.

1. Known elements, known function, predictable result. Coning a disc-pack rotor (Glass), forming helical channels in the surrounding housing (Gharib, Bosley), and stacking stages in-line (Glass '582, Bosley) each perform in the combination exactly the function each performs alone — increasing adhesion surface/flow-path length, redirecting swirl to axial flow, and adding head. No new or unexpected cooperation is asserted; the '244 specification describes only "smooth," "gradual" redirection and a "constant angle of approximately forty-five degrees … to mate with the angle of radial passageways 64," i.e., ordinary flow-angle matching.

2. Design incentive / market pressure. The '244 patent's own background recites a long-felt, century-old, unmet need: downhole pumping of multiphase hydrocarbon fluids in a small-diameter wellbore with axial discharge, using boundary-layer advantages, in a stackable form since "it has never been found possible to provide downhole pumps based on boundary layer principals." A known problem plus known remedial elements plus market pressure = obviousness (KSR: "market demand … design incentives … can make the combination obvious"). Notably, the '244 patent asserts the need was long felt but does not put forward an unexpected result — the asserted results (axial discharge, low wear, staging) follow directly from the combined teachings.

3. Finite number of predictable solutions. Once axial discharge is the goal, a POSITA has essentially two choices for the peripheral/return path: (i) a smooth volute/plenum, or (ii) helical channels keyed to the element angle. The '244 specification concedes both: "a volute region around rotor 100 may be utilized with wall 70 being substantially smooth … a combination of a volute section and fluid spiral paths 68 may be utilized." Claiming one of two known, predictable design options is instructive of obviousness.

4. Reasonable expectation of success. Every reference is from the same field (non-positive-displacement pumps/turbines; disc and cone rotors), and none teaches away from combination. Glass's own X-configuration multi-cone disc packs, Bosley's cylindrical rotor/bore channel machine, and Gharib's canted-groove cylinder all achieved predictable, working results.

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8. Anticipation (§ 102) — negative finding, and why

I found no single reference that anticipates claim 1. Tesla/Possell/Palumbo/Gawne/Dinh/Conrad disclose the flat-disc boundary-layer rotor in a housing but not (i) conical rotor elements and (ii) a tubular housing with (iii) interior spiraling channels encircling the rotor. Glass '582/'036,584/'871 disclose conical disc packs but not a straight tubular in-line housing with interior helical channels and axial in/out. Bosley and Gharib disclose spiral/helical channels but with a cylindrical (non-conical-disc-pack) rotor. Gharib's and Bosley's own claim sets (quoted above) are directed to cylindrical rotors in cylindrical chambers. So the case is a § 103 case, not a § 102 case — but a strong one, because only one limitation separates claim 1 from the art and three references independently supply it.

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9. Objective evidence of non-obviousness — preliminary assessment

• No litigation or PTAB record was identified for the '244 patent (per the litigation summary; no Google Patents "Litigation" tab; no IPR/PGR found). This is neutral-to-slightly-negative on nexus for objective indicia — there is no adjudicated finding of validity through which secondary considerations were credited.
• Long-felt need is pleaded in the specification (downhole boundary-layer pump) and is favorable to the patentee — but it cuts against the patent here as much as for it, because it establishes that the problem and the motivation were recognized in the art (a § 103 factor), and because the specification identifies no unexpected result beyond the expected benefit of the known elements.
• Licensing/commercial success evidence is not available on the current record; the patent expired "Lifetime" with adjusted expiration May 6, 2025, and was held by individuals (original assignee "Individual").
• Copying — the later Grande/Draper-family applications (US 2018/0003022; US 2018/0258749) cite the '244 patent as background, but those are the same-inventor lineage, not third-party copying.

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10. Bottom line and strongest/weakest limitations

Strongest invalidity positions (highest probability of a § 103 rejection or finding):

1. Tesla (US 1,061,142 and/or 1,061,206) + Glass (US 4,416,582) in view of Glass (US 4,036,584) ⇒ the conical-element and multistage claims (e.g., claim 19 and the multistage structure).
2. Tesla + Glass '582 in further view of Gharib (US 6,582,208 / US 6,506,025) or Bosley (US 2002/0119040), optionally with Tinker (US 3,738,773) ⇒ claim 1's "smooth tubular housing with interior spiraling channels encircling the rotor and accommodating an axial velocity component."
3. Glass '871's express helical-orifice-when-conical teaching is the single most damaging passage, because it supplies the motivation as an explicit reference-to-reference suggestion (the strongest KSR category), not merely a design incentive.
4. For the transition/bearing claims: Glass '582 + Gawne '280,791 (conical diffuser 5–15°) or Zimmermann '363,653 (conical wall converting tangential to axial) + Letourneau '682,077 / Gawne '218,176 (flow-through flow paths at the bearing).

Weakest / hardest-to-invalidate limitations (best non-obviousness arguments for the patentee):

• The specific geometric pairing of (a) conical elements set at 45°, (b) parallel radial flow paths at 45°, and (c) housing helices at the same constant 45° slope and constant radius so the flows "mate." A patentee could argue that no reference teaches matching the helix pitch/radius to the cone angle, and that Gharib's cylindrical grooves and Glass's planar fences do not teach the matched conical-to-helical geometry. This is the limitation on which to focus an infringement/validity fight — and it is a numerical/geometric design choice, which KSR and In re Aller/In re Rose render obvious absent a showing of criticality (the '244 specification asserts no criticality for 45°; it merely says "approximately forty-five degrees" is one preferred embodiment).
• Claimed 30°/60° variants (spec: radial paths "down to thirty degrees' or any other selected angle"; "greater than forty-five degrees, e.g., sixty degrees") are expressly presented as arbitrary alternatives, which supports rather than defeats obviousness.

Caveat on completeness. This is a validity-risk analysis, not a legal conclusion. It is firm only to the extent the quoted claim text (claims 1 and 19 as retrieved, plus the multistage/method concepts) matches the issued claims, which I could not fully retrieve in this session. I could not verify the pre-Feb. 23, 2004 filing dates of Baarman '798,080; Gharib '2004/0136846; Pacello '752,597; and Letourneau/Collins '726,442/'726,443 — those must be checked before any of them is relied upon as § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) art. And I did not find an IPR/PGR or district-court record in which these combinations were actually tested, so nothing here reflects an adjudicated result.