US 9671319

I'll search for this specific patent and check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Now let me check for any CAFC 2026 litigation or docket activity involving this patent.

Search results — US 9,671,319 B1

Important scope note: I searched for this exact number (9671319 / US 9,671,319 B1 / application 14/817,905). Searches for corresponding CAFC 2026 docket activity and for USPTO litigation (IPR/PGR/district court) returned no hits. I cannot confirm the existence of any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal for this patent, and I will not manufacture one. The substantive data below comes from the authoritative full patent text (Google Patents rendering of the USPTO record), fetched 2026-09-24.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A fats, oils, and grease waste materials water sampling apparatus includes a housing having an inlet, an outlet, a floor to accommodate a sampling jar below the inlet and an open top. The floor in the housing includes a recessed bottom, the recessed bottom extending between the inlet and the outlet to facilitate receipt of a sample jar for fats, oils, and grease waste materials sampling. Systems and methods for the invention are also described."

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — the sampling-port housing (apparatus)
A housing plumbed into the effluent line downstream of a F.O.G. removal device. It has an inlet, an outlet, and an internal chamber through which effluent flows. The floor has a recessed bottom (a lowered sump) running between the inlet and outlet, sized so a sample jar can sit down in it. Attached to the inlet is a flume of smaller diameter than the inlet, which necks down to taper and accelerate the incoming flow; the flume projects into the chamber above the recessed bottom to aim/direct that flow toward the sampling point.

Claim 16 — the below-ground F.O.G. sampling port
Same core idea, framed for burial: a housing configured for below-grade installation (e.g., in a manhole), with a top opening and an inlet feeding a chamber. The floor's recessed bottom sits below the inlet so a jar can be received there. The inlet connects to a flume projecting into the housing that tapers/accelerates the flow. Crucially, the top provides an access path so a sampling jar can be lowered through it, down to the recessed bottom and to the end of the flume, catching effluent that spills off the flume.

Claim 18 — the adjustable sample collector
A separate apparatus for reaching samples remotely: a sampling-jar support made of a resilient material that grips and holds the jar securely; a handle long enough to reach down into a sampling housing; and a multi-positional connector joining support to handle so the jar can be set and held at various angles. A lock prevents the angle from shifting during collection.

Claim 19 — method of taking a F.O.G. sample
Open the housing (inlet connected to the effluent source; flume connected to the inlet that tapers and accelerates flow; outlet piped to a sewage treatment plant). Then place a sampling jar into the recessed bottom of the housing so the jar's open mouth sits at the end of the flume, receiving the tapered, accelerated effluent.

Dependent-claim highlights

• 2 flume length > its diameter; 10 flume has an open top so flow isn't constricted.
• 3 / 17 inlet and outlet generally in line, with side walls splayed outward as they rise.
• 4 inclined floor surface directing flow from the sump to the outlet; 5 in-line ports with no significant height change; 6 offset ports with outlet below inlet.
• 7 jar mouth nests under the flume → waterfall discharge over the flume edge; 9 recessed bottom spaced below the inlet for a vertical jar waterfall; 8 cylindrical recessed bottom cradling a jar horizontally in line with the flume.
• 11 / 13 add the sample collector (13 specifies an adjustable-length handle); 12 access path in the housing top; 14 support with a flattened side; 15 flattened side having two ends that flex apart to grip the jar.
• 20 / 21 method adds putting the jar in the support and adjusting support-to-handle angle.

Context from the specification

The port is intended to sit downstream of a F.O.G. removal device (the patent names Thermaco's BIG DIPPER® and TRAPZILLA®) so regulators can verify effluent quality, and is designed for minimal water retention during non-sampling flow-through. It incorporates by reference US 7,997,156 (Batten et al., "F.O.G. sample port") for extension collars and US 8,002,139 for the copper-ring flume/inlet join. Among the 48 cited references is US 5,413,005 ("Sample collector for fog-containing wastewater"). Two documents cite US 9,671,319: US 10,761,078 B2 (Lincoln Industrial) and US 2022/0364466 A1 (Halliburton).

Uncertainties / caveats

• No litigation or appeal found. My searches surfaced no CAFC 2026 docket entry, IPR, PGR, or district-court case involving US 9,671,319. That may mean none exists, or that it is not indexed in the sources I could reach — treat the "no litigation" statement as unverified rather than affirmatively established.
• The CAFC "2026 docket" coverage available to me appears incomplete, so absence of a hit is weak evidence of absence.
• The record shows a certificate of correction (2017-08-22), but the fetched text does not state what was corrected; claim wording as quoted reflects the post-correction document as presented.
• Note a drafting artifact: claim 13's text reads "an adjustable length adjustable-length handle," and the description contains the dangling "FIGS. 8A is a back view..." item omitted from the brief-description list. I am reporting the identifiers literally and not auto-correcting them.
• I am not providing a legal opinion on validity, infringement, or claim scope.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 9,671,319

Conclusion: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,671,319 was identified. Based on my searches, I found no district court complaint, no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal, no ITC Section 337 investigation, and no PTAB post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) in which U.S. Pat. No. 9,671,319 is the patent-in-suit or a subject patent.

What I checked

• Targeted searches for "9671319" in combination with litigation/patent terms (e.g., "9671319" patent lawsuit Thermaco, "9,671,319" patent infringement complaint).
• Searches for assignee-side enforcement activity by Thermaco, Inc. (current assignee, per the face of the patent and the 2015-10-20 assignment recorded at Reel/Frame 036827/0996).
• Searches for third-party post-grant challenges to the '319 patent.
• An attempt to reach the Unified Patents litigation case list; the search tool returned a step-limit message on that query, so that specific source was not successfully consulted and I cannot confirm coverage from it.

None of these returned a case naming the '319 patent.

Important caveat on "false positives"

My searches did surface several matters involving different patents that share the last four digits "319." These are not U.S. Pat. No. 9,671,319 and are listed here only so you know I did not conflate them (consistent with your instruction not to return results for similar numbers):

• PanOptis / Optis Wireless Technology, LLC & Unwired Planet, LLC v. Tesla, Inc. — involves U.S. Pat. No. 8,320,319 (unrelated telecommunications patents).
• Blevins v. Landmark — declaratory-judgment action concerning U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,319 (unrelated data-processing patent).
• Various Realtime Data / Stratasys / ATL–CosMX matters — unrelated patents referenced incidentally in those documents.

Evidence regarding the patent family (context, not litigation)

• The '319 patent is a patent owned by Thermaco, Inc., issued 2017-06-06 from Application No. 14/817,905, filed 2015-08-04, claiming benefit of provisional No. 62/032,718 filed 2014-08-04 (priority date 2014-08-04). Status: Active, adjusted expiration 2035-09-17; maintenance fees paid (4th yr. 2020-11-06; 8th yr. 2024-09-04). A certificate of correction was recorded 2017-08-22.
• A related earlier Thermaco patent, U.S. Pat. No. 7,997,156 ("F.O.G. sample port"), is cited on the '319 face and is expressly incorporated by reference in the specification. I did not find litigation on that patent either in these searches, but I flag that my search was directed at the '319 number and not a comprehensive enforcement history of Thermaco's portfolio.
• The '319 patent's own "Cited By" list shows only later-issued third-party patents (Lincoln Industrial Corp. US 10,761,078; Halliburton US 2022/0364466 A1 and US 11,970,941 B2). Those are mere citations, not litigation.

Limitations

1. No direct, confirmed query against a docket database (PACER/Docket Navigator/Unified Patents/RPX) was completed; my access was via general web search, and the Unified Patents case-list query hit a tool limit.
2. A patent can be asserted in litigation that is not well-indexed or reported in the open web, especially in recent or low-profile filings. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence.
3. I found no evidence, but I cannot state with certainty that no suit exists.

Recommendation

For a definitive answer, a direct docket search is warranted:

• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search patent "9671319")
• USPTO PTAB: https://ptacts.uspto.gov (search for IPR/PGR on 9,671,319)
• PACER / CourtListener RECAP: search patent number and assignee "Thermaco, Inc."
• ITC EDIS: https://edis.usitc.gov for any Section 337 complaints.

If you'd like, I can run those specific portal searches (one at a time, given the tool step limit) to firm up the "no litigation" conclusion.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB proceedings" block against live sources before finalizing.

Confirming there's no proceeding under variants (Thermaco as patent owner, and the related family patent).

PTAB / AIA Trial Report — US 9,671,319 B1 ("Sample port," Thermaco, Inc.)

Verbatim controls on this report: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt states that the USPTO Open Data Portal API "returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." I treat that block as the canonical proceedings list per my sourcing instructions, and I independently cross-checked it with live web search. The result is the same: zero.

Proceedings overview

Total proceedings on file: 0. Breakdown by status — active: 0; claims invalidated: 0; claims sustained: 0; settled: 0; institution denied: 0. The bottom-line defensive posture is unusual and worth stating precisely: this patent has been neither attacked nor hardened at the PTAB. US 9,671,319 B1 issued 2017-06-06, has been in force for roughly nine years, and has paid its 4th- (2020-11-06) and 8th-year (2024-09-04) maintenance fees — yet no petitioner has ever filed an IPR, PGR, or CBM against it. That is not the same as "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened." It means the claim set is completely untested in an adversarial post-grant forum, and no § 315(e) estoppel has attached to anyone. For a defendant, the claims are a blank slate: whatever art you find, you can raise, and you can raise it at the PTAB rather than only in court.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding sections below are omitted rather than filled with invented docket numbers.

Number-collision warning (read before you research this patent)

Live searching for "319 patent" + PTAB/ITC returns heavy traffic that is not this patent. Confirmed false positives I encountered and screened out:

• US 7,161,319 — The Chamberlain Group garage-door-opener patent litigated in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1016 (Certain Access Control Systems), including a Federal Circuit appeal at Nos. 18-2002, 18-2191 (consolidated). Different patent, different owner, different technology.
• US 9,139,352 and other '319-style shorthand appearing in district-court exhibit lists.
• US 9,771,169 B2 — the patent at issue in Dabico Airport Sols. Inc. v. AXA Power ApS, IPR2025-00408 (discretionary denial).

Any docket entry you find citing a "'319 patent" must be verified against US 9,671,319 B1 / application 14/817,905 before you rely on it.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 21 claims UNTESTED. No claim of US 9,671,319 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed by the PTAB, because no trial was ever instituted. The four independent claims — 1 (sampling-port housing with recessed bottom + smaller-diameter tapering flume), 16 (below-grade F.O.G. sampling port with top access path), 18 (adjustable sample collector with resilient jar support, handle, multi-positional connector, and lock), and 19 (method of taking a F.O.G. sample) — plus all seventeen dependents stand exactly as issued, subject only to the certificate of correction entered 2017-08-22 (the fetched record does not state what was corrected). There is no FWD to quote and no claim-level disposition to report; anything to the contrary would be fabrication.

Estoppel landscape: clean. Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), estoppel binds a petitioner only after a final written decision. With no IPR and no FWD, no estoppel has attached to any party — not to Thermaco, not to any would-be challenger, and not to you. There is also no § 315(a)/(b) baggage to inherit: no prior petitioner's art is "spoken for." Practically, that means the full universe of patents and printed publications is available for a § 102/§ 103 IPR, and you retain the option of raising different grounds in district court.

Pattern signals. There is no General Plastic / serial-petition story here because there is no first petition. Thermaco, Inc. is a small-entity, operating patent owner (Asheboro, NC; BIG DIPPER® / TRAPZILLA® grease separators) that appears to enforce primarily through commercial channels and its own product line rather than through PTAB warfare. No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents, RPX) chain is visible in this record. The absence of any challenge is likely a function of commercial salience — a niche below-grade F.O.G. sampling port tied to municipal sewer-ordinance compliance — rather than the patent's strength.

Recommended next steps

• There is no PTAB activity on this patent, and I am stating that plainly. The "PTAB proceedings on file" block is canonical: 0 proceedings, and my independent searches corroborate it. Do not let opposing counsel or a vendor's docket summary convince you otherwise without producing a proceeding number you can verify at USPTO PTAB E2E.
• Because there is no FWD, there is nothing to link and nothing to quote. Any demand-letter response that asserts "claims 1–5 were canceled" would be false for this patent. Conversely, you cannot point to a PTAB victory either.
• The absence is itself the signal. A nine-year-old, in-force, small-entity patent with no IPR typically means either (a) the patent is not being asserted in a way that justifies a $300k–$500k petition, or (b) no competitor has hit it. Before spending on a challenge, confirm the assertion posture: check for district-court complaints naming Thermaco as plaintiff and for any ITC activity, then check § 315(b) — you must file within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement.
• Scouting the art is cheap here. The 48 references cited on the face of the patent (including US 5,413,005, "Sample collector for fog-containing wastewater") and the four non-patent citations (Palo Alto Sewer Use Ordinance § 16.09.060; FOG management guidance) are already in the file and will draw a § 325(d) Advanced Bionics argument if merely re-packaged. A viable petition likely needs art outside that record. Note the two forward citations — US 10,761,078 B2 (Lincoln Industrial) and US 2022/0366446 A1 / US 11,970,941 B2 (Halliburton) — though neither is a challenge.
• If you do file: PTAB's statutory clock is one year from institution (§ 316(a)(3)); the institution decision is due within six months of the petition's filing date under the current rules, and — per the Director's 2025 institution-policy changes — institution is now decided by the Director with a "summary notice" rather than by the merits panel that will try the case. Budget for a discretionary-denial fight under § 314(a)/§ 325(d), especially given the patent's age (~9 years of settled expectations, a factor recently weighed in Dabico, IPR2025-00408).

Caveat on completeness: I could not query the ODP API directly in this session and the CAFC/PTAB coverage reachable by web search is incomplete. I therefore rest this report on the canonical structured block plus corroborating searches, and I flag the "no proceedings" finding as verified against the ODP-sourced block rather than as a fully exhaustive docket sweep. I am not offering a legal opinion on validity, infringement, or claim scope.

I'll verify the assignment record for this patent before writing up the analysis.

The initial searches returned noise. Let me refine.

Let me check the assignment reel/frame details and any litigation involvement.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 9,671,319 B1 ("Sample port")

Source basis. The authoritative full patent text (Google Patents rendering of the USPTO record, fetched 2026-09-24) contains the USPTO legal-events table. I did not obtain a page-level read of the Assignment Center UI; the direct searches I ran for reel/frame details returned no additional hits. Everything below is grounded in the legal-events entries embedded in the authoritative text. Where a field (notably correspondent of record) is not exposed by that text, I say so rather than fill it in.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — nothing flagged. Both inventors assigned to the original employer after filing (assignment effective 2015-10-15), which is the ordinary employment-assignment pattern. There is no evidence of inventor departure, no inventor-to-third-party assignment, and no inventor-retained rights in the record. The two-inventor team appears to be an internal Thermaco R&D group; Batten in particular recurs as a prolific Thermaco inventor across the F.O.G.-separator portfolio (e.g., US 5,178,754; US 6,413,435; US 7,997,156; US 8,252,188), which is the signature of a career operating-company engineer, not a broker or a shell-entity principal.

(Caveat: employer attribution is inferred from the assignment chain and portfolio context, not from a fetched employment record.)

Original assignee

Thermaco, Inc. — Asheboro, North Carolina (646 Greensboro St., PO Box 2548, Asheboro, NC 27204-2548).

• Entity type / status: Privately held, operating company; founded 1983; not listed on any public exchange; no bankruptcy, dissolution, or M&A event found in my searches. Current status: active.
• Primary line of business: Design and manufacture of F.O.G. (fats, oil, grease) and solids separation equipment for commercial-kitchen wastewater pretreatment. Flagship brands are Big Dipper® (automatic grease removal device) and Trapzilla® (super-capacity grease interceptor / solids separator). Thermaco's own materials describe it as "the leading separation technology company in the highly specialized field of oil and grease extraction from wastewater."
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? — Yes. Thermaco publishes an installation & operation manual for the Trapzilla® Sample Port (MNL-TZSP-1, © 2017 Thermaco, Inc.) describing the below-grade sample port and its ECA-TZ-29 extension collar, which corresponds directly to the claimed housing / recessed bottom / extension-collar subject matter. (Manual PDF) This is product-level evidence that the asserted-family claims are commercialized by the assignee itself.

Assignment timeline

Only one assignment is recorded against this patent in the authoritative record. There are no post-issuance conveyances of any kind (no security interests, no name changes, no mergers, no licensing recordings, no transfers to third parties).

• 2015-10-15 (executed) / recorded 2015-10-20 — Reel 036827 / Frame 0996
  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST)
  • Assignor: BATTEN, WILLIAM C.; KYLES, BRUCE W.
  • Assignee: THERMACO, INC. (North Carolina)
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the fetched record. The USPTO legal-events text exposes only the reel/frame, the assignors, the assignee, and the effective date — it does not reproduce the "correspondent of record" field. I therefore cannot name the recording attorney/firm, and I will not guess it. A single appearance would not be a recurrence finding in any event.
  • Context: Ordinary employment/inventor-to-company assignment of the inventors' rights to their employer, executed ~2.5 months after the 2015-08-04 non-provisional filing and ~14 months after the 2014-08-04 provisional priority date. No acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or asserter-transfer character.

No other records. Per the attached rubric's instruction: because the Assignment Center/legal-events record shows no post-issuance assignment, that is itself the finding — it means the original assignee (Thermaco, Inc.) still owns the patent. The subsequent legal events are all administrative and do not change ownership:

Because there is exactly one recorded assignment, the timeline section terminates here per the "no further records" rule, but I continue to the required remaining sections below.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9671319
    2014 : Provisional filed
    2015 : Non-provisional filed by Thermaco
         : Inventors assign to Thermaco
    2017 : Patent issued
         : Certificate of correction
    2020 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2024 : 8th year maintenance fee paid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Cross-reference notes. Among the 48 references cited on the face of the patent, one is a prior sample-collector patent (US 5,413,005, "Sample collector for fog-containing wastewater") — a citation only, not an ownership link. Two later publications cite this patent (US 10,761,078 B2, Lincoln Industrial; US 2022/0364466 A1, Halliburton); again citations, not assignments. No IPR, PGR, or district-court case involving US 9,671,319 surfaced in my searches.

Verdict

Insufficient data — but affirmatively indicating single-owner operating-company retention, with zero NPE signals.

The rubric defines "Insufficient data" as "no records, or only the original assignment," which is precisely the factual posture here: the only recorded conveyance is reel 036827/0996 (executed 2015-10-15, recorded 2015-10-20), an inventor-to-employer assignment to Thermaco, Inc., with no post-issuance assignment of any kind and no evidence of litigation, bankruptcy, or third-party transfer. Every one of the eight NPE signals is not present on the available evidence (signal 3 is merely not determinable because a single-link chain cannot exhibit recurrence and the correspondent field was unavailable). The current owner is a privately held operating manufacturer that ships a product — the Trapzilla® Sample Port (MNL-TZSP-1) — embodying the claimed subject matter, and it continues to pay maintenance fees on the patent in small-entity status (4th yr 2020-11-06; 8th yr 2024-09-04). Nothing in this chain resembles an NPE, a shell, or a broker arrangement.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — search patent 9671319 (alternate index: assignment.uspto.gov).

Explicit caveats / non-fabrication notes

• I did not obtain the correspondent of record for reel 036827/0996 and have deliberately left it blank rather than name a firm. If you can run the Assignment Center query directly, that field is the one remaining gap.
• My searches for 2026 CAFC docket activity and for any IPR/PGR/district-court case naming this patent returned no hits; treat the "no litigation" statement as unverified rather than established (the CAFC/litigation coverage reachable to me is incomplete).
• The certificate of correction (2017-08-22) is recorded but its substance is not stated in the fetched text; it does not appear to be an ownership instrument.
• I am not offering a legal opinion on validity, infringement, or claim scope, and I have not inferred NPE status from entity naming.

I'll search the USPTO record for US 9,671,319 and verify the prior-art citations, then analyze each reference against the claims.

Now let me examine several more of the key cited references to assess their § 102 relevance.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,671,319 B1 ("Sample port")

Scope discipline: I searched specifically for US 9,671,319 / application 14/817,905 and did not substitute results for other numbers ending in "319" (per the instruction). The bibliographic and citation data below come from the patent's own USPTO/Google Patents record, which lists 48 cited references (plus 4 non-patent citations), of which 7 are flagged as examiner-cited. I verified full text for four of the references via web search before the tool step-limit was reached; the remainder are characterized from their titles, dates, assignees, and the context in which the '319 examiner cited them. I flag verified vs. inferred items explicitly.

1. The patent being tested (for limitation mapping)

US 9,671,319 B1 — Thermaco, Inc.; inventees William C. Batten and Bruce W. Kyles; filed 2015-08-04; issued 2017-06-06; priority 2014-08-04 (prov. 62/032,718). Effective prior-art cutoff for § 102 is therefore on or before 2014-08-04 (AIA patent, post-March 16, 2013) — critical when judging the below references.

The four independent claims that any § 102 reference would have to meet are:

• Claim 1: housing + inlet + outlet + chamber; floor with a recessed bottom extending between the inlet and outlet to receive a jar; and a flume attached to the inlet, smaller diameter than the inlet, tapering and accelerating flow, extending into the chamber above the recessed bottom.
• Claim 16: same core, but configured for below-ground installation, with a top access path for lowering a jar to the recessed bottom at the end of the flume.
• Claim 18: adjustable collector — resilient sampling-jar support, handle, multi-positional connector, lock.
• Claim 19: method — open housing (inlet→flume that tapers/accelerates→outlet to sewage plant); place jar in the recessed bottom with mouth at the flume end.

The recurring novelty relative to the copending/earlier Thermaco art is the combination of (a) a recessed floor bottom and (b) a tapering, flow-accelerating flume attached to the inlet.

2. Most relevant prior art (ranked)

★ 1. US 7,997,156 B1 — "F.O.G. sample port" (verified)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 7,997,156 B1 (filed 2007-05-15; issued 2011-08-16), Thermaco, Inc. (Batten et al.).
• Disclosure: A sample port downstream of a F.O.G. removal device. Housing 10 with head space 12, inlet 14, outlet 16, downwardly sloping floor 18, open top with removable cover, an access path through which a sampling jar is lowered, an extension collar for variable burial depth, and a waterfall-sampling position where the jar sits below the upstream pipe. It uses removable inserts (a plain pipe segment for normal flow; a sampling insert that cradles the jar).
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest single reference and is expressly incorporated by reference in the '319 specification. It discloses substantial portions of claims 1 and 16 — housing, inlet, outlet, chamber, below-ground installation, top access path, jar lowered to a sampling point below the inlet, extension collar, and the waterfall mixing rationale. What it does not appear to disclose is the tapering flume attached to the inlet (it uses a removable insert/valve arrangement). Under § 102 it is therefore a strong candidate against claims 12, 16 (partial), and 17, and the primary § 103 reference against claim 1 when combined with a flume reference. It is the applicant's own earlier patent, so it qualifies as prior art under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) (issued 2011, more than 1 year before the 2014 priority date).

★ 2. US 5,413,005 A — "Sample collector for FOG-containing wastewater" (verified)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,413,005 (filed 1994-01-03; issued 1995-05-09), Gray, assigned to Environmental Monitoring and Technologies, Inc.
• Disclosure: A funnel-shaped collector with a wide mouth and a reduced discharge neck, hangable beneath the cutout of a weir in a FOG-laden wastewater stream. Flow falls into the funnel and is agitated and mixed by the conic shape; a sample port and conduit (to a peristaltic pump) withdraw a homogeneous, representative grab sample.
• § 102 relevance: Directly on point for the problem and the mixing mechanism recited in claims 1/19 ("waterfall … causing turbulence … good mixing"). It anticipates the concept of waterfall-induced mixing in FOG sampling, but it lacks the housing-with-recessed-bottom and the tapering inlet flume. Best characterized as § 103 art against claim 1 / claim 19, and possibly § 102 art against a hypothetical claim directed only to gravity-fall FOG mixing (none of the independent claims is that narrow). It is one of only a few references in the whole list specific to FOG sampling, so the examiner clearly relied on it conceptually.

★ 3. US 5,341,690 A — "Composite wastewater sampler" (verified; examiner-cited)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,341,690 A (filed 1989-10-13; issued 1994-08-30), Dawson & Hartz, assigned to Isco, Inc.
• Disclosure: A flow-through chamber having an inlet port and an outlet port with a path that gradually increases in depth and width then decreases — i.e., the flow drops to a lower level and returns to the wastewater pipe. A sampling nozzle extends into the chamber adjacent the inlet port, within the path of the downwardly flowing wastewater, so falling effluent contacts the nozzle.
• § 102 relevance: The closest structural analogue to claim 1's "recessed bottom … between the inlet and the outlet." A lower chamber floor that receives downwardly-falling flow at the inlet is disclosed here. It does not disclose a jar nested in the recess, nor a tapering flume attached to the inlet (its chamber is wider than the pipe). Strong § 103 art against claim 1; potential § 102 anticipation of a claim limited to a flow-through housing with a lowered floor — but not of claim 1 as written.

★ 4. US 3,719,081 A — "Wastewater sampler" (verified; examiner-cited)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 3,719,081 A (filed 1971-12-16; issued 1973-03-06), Tri Aid Sciences Inc.
• Disclosure: A flow-measurement flume 10 with a probe/transmitter, an electrically operated sampler 28 positioned adjacent the flume, a pump drawing effluent via a fitting, and a solenoid valve diverting flow to a sample receptacle.
• § 102 relevance: It supplies the "flume" terminology and the notion of an automatic sampler operating at a flume — but its flume is a flow-measurement flume, not a tapering jar-feed flume attached to a housing inlet, and it has no recessed-bottom housing. Useful mainly as § 103 art supporting the flume concept, and for claim-differentiation purposes.

★ 5. US 5,974,900 A — "Manually operated stream sampling device and method" (inferred — not verified)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,974,900 A (filed 1998-02-11; issued 1999-11-02), Kalidindi.
• § 102 relevance: By title alone this is the most likely § 102 candidate against claim 18 (the manual adjustable collector with a handle reaching a stream). It would need to disclose the resilient jar support and the multi-positional connector with lock to anticipate claim 18; on title alone I cannot confirm those limitations, so I classify it as a § 103 primary reference for claim 18 pending full-text verification.

★ 6. US 2012/0222500 A1 — "Environmental sampler and methods of using same" (inferred; examiner-cited)

• Citation: U.S. Pub. No. 2012/0222500 A1 (filed 2010-09-07; published 2012-09-06), Mark James Riess.
• § 102 relevance: Published before the 2014 priority date and examiner-cited. Its "environmental sampler" subject matter is the natural § 102/§ 103 counterpart to claims 18–21 (a hand-deployable sampling assembly). Needs full-text review to confirm whether it discloses the resilient support / angle-lock features.

★ 7. US 6,976,398 B2 — "Liquid sample collection system" (inferred)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,976,398 B2 (filed 2003-03-31; issued 2005-12-20), Nalge Nunc International Corp.
• § 102 relevance: Sample-collection hardware; potential § 103 art against the jar/support aspects of claims 11/13/18 and the method claims 19–20.

★ 8. US 6,658,876 B1 — "Method and apparatus for collecting and chilling wastewater and like fluid samples" (inferred; examiner-cited)

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,658,876 B1 (filed 2002-03-11; issued 2003-12-09), Michael J. Richardson.
• § 102 relevance: Wastewater grab-sample collection apparatus; potential § 103 art against the collector claims and the method of taking a sample at a port.

3. Complete cited-reference inventory (all 48)

Dates shown are the patent's own priority/publication fields; ★ marks the eight most relevant. "[E]" = flagged examiner-cited on the face of '319.

4. § 102 anticipation assessment by claim

Bottom line: On the record I could examine, no single cited reference appears to anticipate independent claims 1, 16, 18, or 19 in full. The genuine anticipation risk is concentrated in the dependent claims — especially 3/5/12/17 (met by US 7,997,156) and possibly 4 — while the independent claims are more likely to be attacked under § 103, chiefly as:

• Claim 1 / 19 over US 7,997,156 + US 5,341,690 (or + US 3,719,081 for the flume).
• Claims 18–21 over US 5,974,900 or US 2012/0222500 in view of US 6,976,398.

5. Non-patent prior art cited (also § 102(a)(1)/(b) "printed publications")

1. "5. Fog Sampling," pp. 18–25 of Considerations for Management of the Discharge of FOG to Sanitary Sewer Systems (undated).
2. "Sample Port Detail," Palo Alto Sewer Use Ordinance § 16.09.060 (Oct. 2000) — a municipal ordinance specifying port design, i.e., potentially prior industry-standard art bearing on claims 1/16.
3. "Typical Grease Interceptor & Sample Port Installation," City of Lubbock Water Utilities (undated).
4. "Typical Grease Interceptor Installation," Des Moines Metro Wastewater Reclamation Authority (undated).

Items 2–4 are the most strategically interesting because they describe pre-existing municipal sample-port requirements, which could supply the "access path / below-ground / waterfall" motivations for a § 103 obviousness case, and could be § 102 art if they predate 2014-08-04 and disclose the claimed structure.

6. Caveats and unverified items

• Verification status: I retrieved and read full text for US 5,413,005, US 7,997,156, US 5,341,690, and US 3,719,081. All other characterizations are inferred from the '319 citation table (titles, dates, assignees) and standard field knowledge; treat the "likely relevance" column as directional, not confirmed.
• True anticipation requires element-by-element identity. My § 102 call-outs are candidate identifications, not legal conclusions. I have not performed claim-chart-to-reference text comparisons for the unverified references.
• The patent shows a certificate of correction (2017-08-22); the fetched record does not state what was corrected, so claim text is quoted as-published/post-correction.
• Drafting artifacts reported literally, not auto-corrected: claim 13 reads "an adjustable length adjustable-length handle," and the brief-description list omits "FIGS. 8A" while the detail text references it.
• I did not re-fetch the granting examiner's Form 892/PTO-1449, which would confirm exactly which references the examiner applied and which claims were rejected vs. allowed; if you want, I can try to retrieve the file-wrapper rejection grounds (the '319 face already tags 7 references as examiner-cited, which is consistent with a focused § 102/§ 103 rejection set).
• I am not offering a validity, infringement, or claim-scope opinion.

If you'd like, I can next pull the actual USPTO file-wrapper (PatentCenter) examiner's rejections for 14/817,905 to confirm precisely which of these 48 references were applied against which claims — that would convert the "candidate" designations above into the examiner's operative § 102/§ 103 mapping.

I'll ground the key prior-art references before writing the analysis.

Let me check the prosecution context and whether the "flume" element appears in the cited art.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — U.S. Patent No. 9,671,319 B1 ("Sample Port")

Technical analyst memorandum. This is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal opinion on validity, infringement, or claim scope. Builds on the bibliographic and litigation sections already generated; those are not repeated here.

1. Analytical framework

Under Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, I evaluate (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 indicia. Because nearly every element here is a familiar mechanical element, the case turns on KSR's "combination of familiar elements according to known methods" rationale and on whether an articulated motivation to combine exists.

Level of ordinary skill (assumed): a mechanical/hydraulic engineer or grease-interceptor product designer with ~2–5 years' experience in plumbing effluent handling and open-channel flow, familiar with municipal F.O.G. ordinances.

Threshold point — AIA prior-art status of the closest reference

US 9,671,319 has an effective filing date of 2014-08-04 (provisional 62/032,718), so the AIA § 102/§ 103 regime governs.

US 7,997,156 B1 (Batten et al., F.O.G. sample port, issued 2011-08-16, same assignee Thermaco) is § 102(a)(1) art — it was "patented" more than one year before the '319 effective filing date. Critically, the AIA common-ownership exception (35 U.S.C. § 102(b)(2)(C)) applies only to § 102(a)(2) art, and the grace-period exception of § 102(b)(1)(A) does not reach a disclosure made more than one year before filing. Shared inventorship (Batten) and common ownership by Thermaco therefore do not remove '156 as prior art against the '319 claims. That the '319 specification expressly incorporates '156 by reference does not change its status. Flag: this is a legal conclusion I am flagging, not opining on.

Record limitation (important)

The task instructs me to use the Prior Art section of the page. That section supplies numbers, dates, titles, and assignees only for the 48 citations plus 4 non-patent items. I retrieved full text/claims for only US 7,997,156 and US 5,413,005. All other element mappings below are inferred from titles/classifications and must be verified against full text before reliance. Per the operating rules, where search results conflicted with the page's machine-readable citations, I report both literally rather than auto-correcting (see §7).

2. The key references

3. Primary ground of rejection: Claims 1–10 and 12 (and 16–17)

Combination: US 7,997,156 + US 5,413,005, in view of the regulatory sample-port literature.

Claim-by-claim:

• 2 (flume length > diameter): design choice; open-channel flumes are conventionally longer than their throat width.
• 3 / 17 (in-line ports, side walls splayed outward going up): '156 is expressly an in-line, downstream-of-separator housing; outward flare to guide flow is a known basin geometry (Canplas US 2001/0027954 A1, wastewater separator).
• 4 (floor incline from sump to outlet): '156's downwardly sloping floor 18 already inclines to the outlet; combining with a sump yields exactly the claimed incline.
• 5 / 6 (in-line with no height change or offset with outlet below inlet): alternative design choices dictated by site plumbing; the '319 specification itself calls these mere installation accommodations ("Off-set pipe portions are accommodated with the embodiment of FIG. 1B"). Inlet-above-outlet grease trap configurations are routine (Plumb 5,453,187; Sager 5,505,860, 5,714,069; MDK 5,865,098; Norwood 5,993,646).
• 7 & 9 (jar mouth nests under the flume; waterfall to a vertically placed jar): '156 discloses this nearly verbatim — the jar "is placed below the upstream pipe portion of the housing, so that a waterfall effect from the influent takes place, causing some turbulence of the flow and good mixing of the sample in the sample jar." Note '319's own spec says such mixing is "which some localities require," tying the limitation straight to the cited ordinance art.
• 8 (cylindrical recessed bottom nesting a jar horizontally in line with the flume): routine design of a cylindrical cradle matched to a cylindrical one-liter jar; cf. Nalge Nunc '398.
• 10 (flume open top): predictable anti-restriction variation; Parshall/Venturi flumes are open-channel devices.
• 12 (access path in housing top): '156 discloses the access path, open top, and removable cover outright, expressly for lowering a sampling jar.
• 16 (below-ground sampling port, open inlet/flume into chamber, recessed bottom below the inlet, access path): '156 is expressly "made and configured for installation below ground," "can be installed in a manhole, for example, with a manhole cover," with an extension collar "to compensate for variable depths of placement of the housing below ground." The only additions are the recessed bottom and the tapering flume — supplied as above.

KSR motivation, articulated: Facing the regulatory mandate (Palo Alto Ord. 16.09.060; Lubbock; Des Moines), and facing '156's requirement that a worker swap out inserts to sample, the artisan would (i) seek a permanent structure that samples without insert changes, (ii) place the jar in a low point below the inlet invert to satisfy the mandated vertical-drop / gravity-fall sampling, and (iii) neck the inlet down so the flow arrives at a defined, faster, more turbulent discharge point that reliably enters the jar mouth while scouring solids and minimizing the standing water that ordinances forbid. '005 supplies express teaching that a converging body agitates the sample — the very mixing benefit '319 attributes to its flume.

4. Secondary ground: Claims 11, 13–15, 18, 20, 21 (the sample collector)

Combination: US 5,413,005 + US 5,974,900 (+ US 6,976,398 / US 6,658,876).

• 18 requires: resilient sampling-jar support; a handle; a multi-positional connector allowing various angles; and a lock prohibiting angle adjustment. A resilient, hand-flexible jar holder is a conventional friction-fit; an angle-adjustable joint with a cinching lock is a ubiquitous mechanical expedient (camera monopod, tripod head, articulating pole). The '319 spec concedes the problem was known: "Often devices used to obtain samples do not secure the sampling jar/collector, making the job of gathering the sample difficult without losing the sample, especially when the jar has to be turned or angled." A statement of a known problem in the specification is powerful § 103 evidence.
• 14 / 15 (flattened side; first and second ends that flex apart): resilient spring-clip geometry; the '319 spec itself attributes the function to material choice ("Forming the support 42 of plastic enables the flexibility of side 53").
• 11 / 13 / 20 / 21 (collector added to the apparatus; adjustable-length handle; adjusting the support-to-handle angle): motivated by variable burial depth — corroborated by the assignee's own Trapzilla manual (installation up to 60 inches below grade), and the multiple extension collars described in '156.

KSR "predictable variation" theme: elongation of a handle and substitution of a rigid joint for a lockable pivot are the paradigm cases of obvious mechanical variation.

5. Claim 19 (method)

Combination: '156 + '005. '156 teaches the method steps of opening a housing connected downstream of a F.O.G. remover and positioning a jar to receive falling effluent; '005 teaches receiving flow into a wide-mouth/smaller-discharge converging body. Placing the jar so its mouth sits at the end of the flume is the natural placement dictated by both references. No new or unexpected result is recited.

6. Anticipation check (§ 102) and counter-arguments

• § 102: I do not see a single reference that discloses the flume of smaller diameter than the inlet, tapering/accelerating flow, projecting into the chamber above the recessed bottom, combined with the recessed bottom. '156 is very close on everything else but uses interchangeable inserts and a sloping floor rather than a flume, and I could not confirm whether its sampling insert forms a structural "recessed bottom." No clean anticipation; § 103 is the correct ground.
• Teaching away / contrary arguments to test: (i) Some ordinance language requires the sample port not hold water and have a minimum vertical drop; a converging throat could be argued to promote upstream surcharge or solids/grease accumulation, i.e., a constraint that a skilled artisan might avoid — but claim 10's open top addresses this and the water-retention concern is a design trade-off, not a teaching away from the claimed structure. (ii) The examiner allowed the claims; the cited NPL (Palo Alto / Lubbock / Des Moines / Fog Sampling) shows the examination focused on regulatory sample-port practice — but I could not retrieve the examiner's reasons for allowance from this record, so I cannot assess what specifically was found non-obvious. (iii) '156 and '319 share inventors and owner, so a "second-generation improvement" narrative is available — but under KSR that alone does not rebut a strong combination.
• Objective indicia: No evidence in this record of commercial success, licensing, copying, or long-felt need with a nexus to the claimed flume/recessed-bottom structure. Thermaco's BIG DIPPER®/TRAPZILLA® sales (cited as the upstream context) are not shown to be attributable to the '319 claims. Absent nexus, these carry little weight.

7. Discrepancies and caveats (reported, not corrected)

1. Front-page OCR vs. machine-readable citation list conflict. The PDF front page renders the reference as "4,744,236 A 5/1998 Nikkin" / "Niskin," while the page's citation table lists "US 4,744,256 A 1988-05-17, Niskin Shale J, Airborne water sampler device." Likewise the front page shows "1,200,951 A 10/1916 Kelly Jr." (table: Kelly Separator Company), "2,213,458 A 9/1940 Buckley" (table: J W Swanson), and "4,372,854 A 2/1983 Szereday" (table: Novex Foreign Trade Co.). I am reporting both literally and not auto-correcting; anyone citing these must resolve them against the official copy.
2. The PDF notice confirms PTA of 44 days under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b), consistent with the page's stated adjusted expiration of 2035-09-17 (2035-08-04 + 44 days) — a useful cross-check that the "2035-09-17" figure is a PTA-adjusted date, not a statutory 20-year term.
3. No litigation/PTAB/CAFC activity was identified (per the prior section). Nothing in the prior-art record suggests a validity challenge has ever been adjudicated, so there is no prior judicial construction or PTAB obviousness determination to defer to.
4. Confidence: High that a prima facie § 103 case exists for claims 7, 9, 12 (and 16–17) on '156 alone. Moderate for claim 1 and claims 2–6, 8, 10, dependent on verifying what the cited basin/separator references actually do with recessed sumps and on locating a flume/converging-conduit teaching in the art (in the cited list or otherwise). Moderate for the collector claims 11, 13–15, 18, 20–21. I have not verified the internal disclosures of the 46 references I did not retrieve in full.

Bottom line: The '319 claims read on a combination of the patentee's own earlier US 7,997,156 (housing, below-grade access path, jar below the inlet, waterfall mixing, extension collar) with a converging-flow teaching of the kind in US 5,413,005 and the ordinary open-channel flume art, with the regulatory literature supplying the motivation. The strongest invalidity theory is § 103 over '156 + '005, with the recessed-sump geometry supplied by routine separator-tank design.