US 9839558

US Patent 9,839,558 — Summary

Search results note

Searches of the USPTO/Google Patents records and CAFC 2026 dockets returned no CAFC case involving this patent number. The only litigation found involving assignee 100% Speedlab LLC was a trademark/design-patent default judgment in the Southern District of New York (2023) and a dismissed district-court case (100% Speedlab, LLC v. H&H Sports Protection USA, Inc., 3:15-cv-02620, S.D. Cal., dismissed Dec. 2016) — none of which cite utility patent 9,839,558. No CAFC 2026 docket entry for "9839558" was located; I could not verify any pending or decided appeal. The bibliographic data below is confirmed by the Google Patents record.

Bibliographic data

Abstract

"Roll-off film systems and methods are provided in accordance with one or more embodiments that may be installed on goggle frames or adaptors to goggle frames to provide improved field of vision for users. In particular, film canisters of the roll-off film systems may include a blade section configured to seamlessly contact the goggle frame or the adaptor to the goggle frame. Further, the blade section is configured [to] remove mud or dirt from a used section of clear film when the used section is conveyed into the film canister to prevent excess mud or dirt from entering the film canister. The blade section also is configured to slant away from the lens of the goggle to allow the mud or dirt to fall away from the field of view on the lens to provide better field of view for the user."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The patent has 20 claims; three independent claims (1, 10, 19). All share the same core inventive structure: a film-receiving canister whose front is a continuous, broad U-shaped surface built from an upper triangular surface (on the upper wing), a sloping blade surface (middle), and a lower triangular surface (on the lower wing), with the upper triangular surface curving downward-facing at top and the lower triangular surface curving upward-facing at bottom.

• Claim 1 (roll-off film system): A system with (a) a film dispensing canister that stores and dispenses film, and (b) a film receiving canister that receives the film. The receiving canister has a blade portion that covers the film as it enters, plus upper and lower wing portions flanking the blade. The upper triangular surface of the upper wing, the sloping surface of the blade, and the lower triangular surface of the lower wing form a continuous debris-collecting surface in a broad U-shape: the top of the upper triangular surface curves to face the lower triangular surface, and the bottom of the lower triangular surface curves to face the upper triangular surface.

• Claim 10 (goggle assembly): The same canister structure recited in claim 1, in the context of a full assembly comprising a lens, a lens frame receiving the lens, and the roll-off film system attached to the lens — with the dispensing canister dispensing film across the lens front in a conveying direction and the receiving canister receiving it.

• Claim 19 (method): A method of conveying film from the dispensing canister across the lens to the receiving canister, and collecting debris at the same continuous U-shaped surface (upper triangular + sloping blade + lower triangular surfaces) before the film enters the receiving canister, with the same curvature limitations.

Notable dependent claims (brief)

• Claims 2, 11: blade sloping surface forms an obtuse angle with the lens surface to collect debris.
• Claims 3, 12: upper/lower wing portions extend further upstream than the blade portion.
• Claims 5, 13: upper wing extends over a downstream end of the lens mud flap.
• Claims 7, 14: a frame-contacting surface on the upper wing follows the contour of the lens frame/adaptor.
• Claims 9, 16: the blade edge is slanted so the upper portion protrudes further upstream than the lower portion, directing debris away from the field of view.
• Claim 17: lens frame is disposed in a front portion of a goggle frame; Claim 18: lens frame is an adaptor attachable to a goggle frame.
• Claim 20: directing collected debris away from the field of view via the slanting blade edge.

Uncertainty disclosures

• No CAFC 2026 docket activity for this patent could be verified; searches returned no CAFC appeal citing patent 9,839,558.
• The "current assignee" (100% Speedlab LLC) is as listed on Google Patents; I did not independently verify subsequent ownership changes.
• Adjusted expiration (~2035-11-06) is Google Patents' calculated figure, not an official USPTO statement.

The initial searches did not surface any case directly naming patent 9,839,558. Let me dig deeper into the known 100% Speedlab cases and check PTAB/IPR and docket databases for this specific patent number.

Based on the searches I was able to complete, here is my assessment of known litigation involving US Patent 9,839,558 ("Roll-off film system," 100% Speedlab LLC).

Direct litigation involving US 9,839,558

None found / none verified.

I could not locate any federal district-court case, ITC investigation, CAFC appeal, or PTAB/IPR proceeding in which US Patent 9,839,558 is identified as a patent-in-suit. Searches for the literal strings "9,839,558" and "9839558" combined with litigation terms (docket, court, lawsuit, IPR, PTAB) returned no case asserting this patent. I also did not find the patent listed among asserted patents in any complaint, and no IPR petitions against it surfaced.

Related 100% Speedlab LLC matters (not involving '558 — listed for completeness)

Several cases involving the assignee exist, but none that I could verify assert utility patent 9,839,558:

Cautions and limitations

• I reached the tool-call limit before I could query PACER, the USPTO Patent Center, Unified Patents' litigation portal, or DocketNavigator directly. Those sources are the definitive way to rule out litigation, and my search coverage here was not exhaustive.
• The earlier patent-summary workup (done before this task) likewise found no CAFC 2026 docket activity for 9,839,558 and noted that the S.D. Cal. H&H case was dismissed in Dec. 2016 — consistent with the above.
• The 2022 and 2026 Schedule A cases are reported (by Chinese IP-service blogs and TRO-tracker sites) to assert trademarks and design patents; none of those sources list utility patent 9,839,558.

Bottom line: As of today (April 26, 2026), I have no verifiable record of litigation involving US Patent 9,839,558. If you need a definitive statement, the next step would be a PACER/USPTO Patent Center and Unified Patents portal lookup by patent number, plus an ITC docket search (the patent is not mentioned in any ITC matter I found either).

Proceedings overview

The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) API ingest that is canonical for this analysis lists zero AIA trial proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) for US Patent 9,839,558 — no active trials, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no institution denials — and independent web searches (including patent-number searches against PTAB/CAFC databases) surfaced no proceeding number for this patent. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore the simplest one available: there is no PTAB estoppel against any defendant, every prior-art ground remains available, and any "the patent has been narrowed at the PTAB" narrative is false — the patent stands exactly as issued with all 20 claims (claims 1, 10, 19 independent) intact and unchallenged in any AIA trial.

Proceedings

No proceedings to report. I will not invent proceeding numbers or case names. The structured PTAB data block provided with this prompt states: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." That is consistent with the web searches run today (2026-09-01), which returned no PTAB docket, no Final Written Decision, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal citing patent 9,839,558.

Search coverage and caveats:

• Searches run: "9,839,558" OR "9839558" IPR PTAB, "US9839558" PTAB, "9839558" "inter partes review" / "post grant review" / "covered business method", and "100% Speedlab" IPR / "roll-off film" PTAB. All returned only bibliographic/patent-text results — no trial dockets.
• I could not directly query PTAB E2E, USPTO Patent Center, or the ODP trial-search UI in this session, so the "zero" finding rests on the ODP ingest block plus the searches above. If you need a definitive statement for a filing, confirm by searching the PTAB proceeding number at https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api (proceeding type "IPR"/"PGR"/"CBM", filter on patent number 9839558).
• Related-family utility patents (US 10,123,907 B2 "Mud visor for roll-off film system"; US 10,342,704 B2 "Sport goggles and adaptors for sport goggles"; US 11,337,859 B2 "Goggle mud shield") may have their own PTAB histories, but I have not verified any PTAB activity on those either and make no representation about them.

Strategic summary

Claims status — all untested. All 20 claims of US 9,839,558 are exactly as issued: claims 1, 10, and 19 are the independent claims (roll-off film system, goggle assembly, and method), and claims 2–9, 11–18, and 20 are dependent. None has been canceled, narrowed, or even subjected to an institution decision. The patent is active, with maintenance fees paid through the 8th year (2025-06-12 event) and an adjusted expiration around 2035-11-06 — meaning the claims have roughly another nine years of life and the absence of PTAB challenge is not a "zombie patent about to die" situation.

Estoppel landscape — completely open. Because no IPR/PGR has been filed, let alone instituted, no petitioner has ever been estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2). For a defendant receiving a demand letter or facing suit today, every § 102/§ 103 ground that could be raised remains available. The only timing constraint is § 315(b): an IPR petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent. If litigation is filed, that one-year clock starts immediately, so the petition strategy (and prior-art search) should be teed up before or right after service. The prior art of record in the patent itself (US 4,428,081; US 4,528,701; US 6,073,296; US 6,415,452 B1; US 6,416,177 B1; GB 2,378,412 A; US 2012/0023647 A1; GB 2,495,984 A; US 2013/0104299 A1; US 2014/0157496 A1) is a useful starting point but is only the examiner-considered subset — a fresh search should also target roll-off/tear-off goggle systems from the motorsport and MX aftermarket, plus Scott, Smith, Oakley, and 100%'s own prior products.

Pattern signals — none. No repeat petitioner exists (no proceedings at all). No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) appears in any chain for this patent. The patent owner (100% Speedlab LLC) has shown willingness to litigate in other venues — design-patent/trademark Schedule A enforcement in S.D.N.Y. (2022, 2026) and a dismissed utility/design case in S.D. Cal. (100% Speedlab, LLC v. H&H Sports Protection USA, Inc., 3:15-cv-02620, dismissed 2016) — but none of those matters asserted utility patent 9,839,558, and none generated PTAB follow-on activity. The absence of IPRs ~8.7 years after issuance is itself the meaningful signal: this patent has apparently not been the subject of a sustained, high-value assertion campaign, or challengers have thus far resolved matters in district court/negotiation rather than at the PTAB.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat the PTAB record as a blank slate — verify it before relying on it. Before filing anything, run the authoritative checks: (a) USPTO PTAB API/ODP trial search filtered by patent number 9839558; (b) PTAB E2E proceeding search by party "100% Speedlab"; (c) a PACER/Unified Patents litigation search by patent number to confirm no district-court case has triggered a § 315(b) clock against you. I found no such case, but my coverage was not exhaustive.
2. If you are currently being sued or threatened: start the § 315(b) clock now. Identify the service date of any complaint; an IPR petition must be filed within one year of that service. Because no IPR has ever been instituted against this patent, you face no estoppel and can run the strongest § 102/§ 103 combination available — including grounds the examiner never saw.
3. If no suit is pending but you are evaluating risk: note the claims are completely un-narrowed, so infringement analysis must address all elements of claims 1, 10, and 19 in full — including the distinctive "continuous broad U-shaped surface" limitation (upper triangular surface + sloping blade surface + lower triangular surface with the specific curvature recitations) that carried the patent through examination and would be the natural focus of any claim-construction dispute.
4. Do not cite any FWD — there is none. If opposing counsel or a co-defendant claims this patent "lost claims at the PTAB," that is demonstrably false on the current record: all 20 claims remain in force, and the only narrowing events in this patent's history were ordinary examiner amendments during prosecution, not AIA trial outcomes.

Inventors

All three named inventors are San Diego–area principals/employees of the assignee 100% Speedlab LLC, and all appear as inventors on multiple other 100% Speedlab patent filings (per the patents-review.com assignee profile):

Pattern note: No "inventors departed within 12 months" pattern. Boinnard was still CEO in 2021 (Cycle News/Enduro21 joint settlement release), and Blanchard and Sigismondo continue to appear on later 100% Speedlab applications (e.g., "Goggle systems and methods," "Goggle mud shield" families). This is an in-house inventor team, not a departing-inventor prelude to a portfolio sale.

Original assignee

• Entity: 100% Speedlab LLC, San Diego, California (privately held; brand "100%" dates to 1982; LLC organized ~2012; brand acquired by Saule, LLC in 2010 per industry/TRO-tracker reporting — Saule appears as co-plaintiff with Speedlab in the S.D.N.Y. Schedule A enforcement actions).
• Line of business: Premium motocross / action-sports eyewear and protective gear — goggles, roll-off film systems, helmets, sunglasses, gloves, apparel.
• Shipped product embodying the claims? Yes. The "SVS" roll-off film system (retail listings e.g. "100% Speedlab SVS System pro ACCURI — incl. lens, 2 canisters, film, mud-flap") practices the claimed dispensing canister / receiving canister / blade / wing architecture; the patent family continues commercially with "Goggle mud shield" (US 11,337,859 B2) and "Goggle systems and methods" (US 11,399,982 B2).
• Current status: Operating. Maintenance fees paid through the 8th year (2025-06-12 event); ongoing product lines; related entities active in 2022 and 2026 S.D.N.Y. trademark/design-patent enforcement.

Assignment timeline

I searched the USPTO Assignment Center indexes (via Google Patents legal-event data and web-indexed assignment records) for patent 9,839,558. Exactly one assignment is recorded — the standard pre-issuance inventor-to-company assignment. No post-issuance assignment, security agreement, license, merger, or change-of-name conveyance appears on the Google Patents legal-events table (which shows only: 2015 assignment, 2017 grant, 2021 and 2025 maintenance-fee events).

• 2015-04-16 to 2015-04-22 (executed) / recorded 2015-05-01 — Reel 035544 / Frame 0605
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (per Google Patents: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Marc Guy Blanchard; Ludovic Francis Boinnard; Kevin Michael Sigismondo (the three inventors)
  • Assignee: 100% Speedlab, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not verifiable from the sources accessible in this session — the Google Patents legal-event entry records reel/frame 035544/0605 but does not publish the correspondent of record. I will not guess an attorney name; confirm via the USPTO Assignment Center lookup (search patent 9839558). Flag: with only one recording on file, a "repeat correspondent" analysis is moot until the Assignment Center page is pulled.
  • Context: Ordinary pre-grant assignment from the inventors to their employer, recorded ~9 months before issue (grant 2017-12-12) — the standard operating-company ownership step, not a transfer-to-assertion-vehicle.

Bottom line: the Assignment Center record for this patent is a single original assignment. The absence of post-issuance assignments is itself a finding — the original assignee (100% Speedlab LLC, an operating company) almost certainly still owns the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9839558
    2014 : Provisional application filed
    2015 : Utility application filed
         : Inventors assign to 100% Speedlab
    2017 : Patent issued
    2021 : Maintenance fee paid
    2025 : Maintenance fee paid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No transfer to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings" LLC exists; the sole recorded conveyance (Reel 035544/0605, recorded 2015-05-01) runs from the inventors to the operating company, which ships the SVS roll-off product line.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither 100% Speedlab LLC nor parent Saule, LLC appears on any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, etc.); they are an operating brand company with retail distribution and enforcement via trademark/design-patent TRO actions (S.D.N.Y. 22-cv-7204, 26-cv-5566), not utility-patent assertion vehicles.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not assessable. Only one recorded conveyance exists, so there is no chain in which a correspondent could recur; the correspondent of record for 035544/0605 was not published in the sources I could access. This is the one item to verify directly in the Assignment Center before relying on this analysis.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Zero consecutive assignments; no chained LLCs; no <24-month transfer sequence.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The only assignment (recorded 2015-05-01) predates grant by 2.5 years and predates any conceivable suit; earlier sections of this analysis found no litigation naming '558 (the H&H S.D. Cal. case, 3:15-cv-02620, was dismissed 2016 and its asserted patents were never confirmed to include '558).
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No bankruptcy of 100% Speedlab; maintenance fees paid on schedule (2021, 2025).
7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company-to-NPE transfer exists; the patent never left the operating company.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN — it terminates at the original operating assignee.

Verdict

Insufficient data — per the rubric's own definition ("no records, or only the original assignment"), with the important caveat that every piece of available evidence affirmatively points away from NPE status.

The sole recorded conveyance (Reel 035544/0605, recorded 2015-05-01) is the inventors-to-employer assignment into an operating company that sells the SVS roll-off film system embodying the claims; there are no post-issuance transfers, no shell entities, no known asserter, no bankruptcy, and no pre-litigation conveyance, and no litigation naming this patent has been verified. The only reason this is not "Operating-company assertion" is that no suit on this specific patent could be confirmed — if that is ever verified, the classification would flip to operating-company assertion. Recommended verification: pull the Assignment Center page for patent 9839558 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search "9839558") to confirm the correspondent of record on reel 035544/0605 and to double-check for any unindexed later conveyance.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 9,839,558 B2 ("Roll-off film system")

1. Patent-number verification

I searched for the literal string 9839558 (and its formatted variants "US9839558," "9,839,558") in the USPTO/Google Patents records. The only hit is US 9,839,558 B2 — "Roll-off film system," inventors Marc Guy Blanchard / Ludovic Francis Boinnard / Kevin Michael Sigismondo, assignee 100% Speedlab LLC, application US 14/701,420 filed April 30, 2015, issued December 12, 2017. No similar-numbered patent (e.g., 9,839,5xx in other classes) was captured. This analysis covers the twelve (12) references cited on the face of the patent (the "U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS" and "FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS" lists reproduced in the Google Patents record).

2. Statutory framework applied (AIA § 102)

The application was filed April 30, 2015, so AIA § 102 governs (application effective after March 16, 2013). The claimed invention's effective filing date is May 16, 2014 (provisional 61/994,665), assuming the provisional supports the claims.

• § 102(a)(1) (publicly available before May 16, 2014): 11 of the 12 cited references qualify.
• § 102(a)(2) (US patent/application publication with effective filing date earlier than May 16, 2014): US 2014/0157496 A1 (Oakley) qualifies even though it published June 12, 2014 — after the '558 priority date — because Oakley's application was filed December 11, 2012 (before '558's effective filing date) and was published before the '558 utility filing. This is the one timing subtlety worth flagging for any invalidity chart.

3. Claim-element anchor (why the U-shape matters)

All three independent claims (1 – system, 10 – goggle assembly, 19 – method) require, in the film-receiving canister, a continuous, broad U-shaped debris-collecting surface made of:

1. an upper triangular surface (bottom side of the upper wing portion), curved at its upper portion to face toward the lower triangular surface;
2. a sloping surface of the blade portion (middle);
3. a lower triangular surface (top side of the lower wing portion), curved at its lower portion to face toward the upper triangular surface.

No cited reference discloses that exact continuous U-shaped surface. Consequently, no single cited reference fully anticipates any independent claim; the references are best understood as anticipating elements or as § 103 combination fodder. Below, each reference is mapped to the claims it comes closest to reading on, with the missing elements identified.

4. Per-reference analysis (all 12 citations)

(1) US 4,428,081 A — "Goggle with a renewable protective surface"

• Inventor/Assignee: Robert E. Smith (Ketchum, ID)
• Filed: July 14, 1982 · Published/granted: January 31, 1984
• Description: The foundational roll-off goggle. Supply magazine on one side of the lens holds a roll of transparent film; a take-up magazine on the opposite side receives spent film; a pull-cord actuator advances the film across the lens. Includes a C-shaped transparent channel restraining the upper film edge and an upstanding rib acting as a liquid barrier along the lower edge.
• § 102 assessment: Discloses claim-1 elements (a) film dispensing canister, (b) film receiving canister, film conveyed across the lens — i.e., the skeleton of claims 1, 10, and 19. Missing: the blade portion and the entire continuous U-shaped triangular-wing surface. No full anticipation of any claim. Best used in § 103 with a later blade/wing reference.

(2) US 4,528,701 A — "Goggle with a renewable protective surface" ⭐ closest single reference

• Inventor/Assignee: Robert E. Smith; CIP of '081 (US 06/411,852 filed August 26, 1982; priority July 14, 1982)
• Published/granted: July 16, 1985
• Description: Adds to the '081 system a scraper at the take-up magazine's film entrance opening — both sides of the entrance have edges that scrape foreign material off the film as it is drawn into the magazine, with the edges "positioned in a substantially vertical arrangement to the side of said lens so as to prevent said foreign material from blocking said lens as said foreign material is scraped from said film and falls away." Claim 2 of Smith adds a plate-like element with a lip mounted between the lens and the take-up magazine. This is functionally the blade-portion/debris-collection concept of '558.
• § 102 assessment: Closest to claims 2, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, and 20 (blade covering the film; edge sliding on/scraping the film; debris collected and directed away from the lens/field of view). Missing / teaching-away: (i) no upper/lower wing portions, (ii) no triangular surfaces, (iii) no continuous U-shaped surface, and (iv) Smith's scraper edges are vertical, whereas '558 claims 9/16 require the upper portion of the edge to protrude further upstream than the lower portion (a slant). Smith therefore does not anticipate claims 9 or 16; it is the strongest § 103 anchor for the debris-collection function.

(3) US 4,748,697 A — "Face mask with interchangeable lenses"

• Inventor: Jack L. Hodnett · Filed: March 26, 1987 · Published: June 7, 1988
• Description: A face mask with interchangeable lenses (lens-mounting structure), not a roll-off film system. Cited likely for the lens/frame-interface or interchangeable-lens concept.
• § 102 assessment: No roll-off canisters, no film, no blade/wing structure. No anticipation of any claim. Marginal § 103 relevance to the lens-frame/adaptor context of claims 7, 14, 17, and 18. (Full text not retrieved this session; description per title and classification only.)

(4) US 6,073,296 A — "Optical protective screen with improved visibility"

• Inventor: Maxime Bouguerfa · Filed: September 13, 1996 · Published: June 13, 2000
• Description: An optical protective screen (renewable film-type screen) for protective eyewear with improved visibility — a film-conveyance screen system for goggles/visors.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the general film-across-lens concept (elements of claims 1, 10, 19) but no blade/wing/U-shape disclosure verifiable. No anticipation. (Full text not retrieved this session; assessment provisional.)

(5) US 6,415,452 B1 — "Goggle and lens film advance system" ⭐

• Assignee: Scott USA, Inc. (Watanabe; Wright) · Filed: August 2, 2000 · Published: July 9, 2002
• Description: Motorcycle goggle with supply magazine and take-up magazine mounted to opposite sides of the frame/lens; film advances across the lens via a pull-cord/ratchet or electric drive. The distinctive feature is a matrix of transparent ink-dot projections printed on the lens to lift the film off the lens surface and prevent sticking. The '558 specification discusses this family (moisture/surface-tension problem) and the specification's own background cites Smith '081 as incorporated art.
• § 102 assessment: Discloses dispensing canister + receiving canister + film advance (claims 1, 10, 19 elements). Missing: blade portion, wing portions, triangular U-shaped continuous surface. No anticipation. Good § 103 secondary reference.

(6) US 6,416,177 B1 — "Transparent film assembly for a protective goggle with a renewable viewing surface"

• Assignee: Smith Sport Optics, Inc. (Gibson) · Filed: February 16, 2001 · Published: July 9, 2002
• Description: Supply/take-up spool assembly with interchangeable spool-end configurations so one film cartridge fits multiple goggle models; incorporates and describes the Smith '081/'701 roll-off goggle as background art.
• § 102 assessment: No blade/wing/U-shape. Relevant only to canister/spool storage (claims 1, 10 elements). No anticipation.

(7) GB 2,378,412 A — "Easy fitting irregular surface films for use with roller mechanism goggles"

• Inventor: Lester Martin Harding · Filed: August 10, 2001 · Published: February 12, 2003
• Description: Transparent films adapted to fit irregular/curved goggle lens surfaces in roller-mechanism (roll-off) goggles.
• § 102 assessment: Film-conveyance concept on curved lenses; no blade/wing/U-shape. No anticipation. (Full text not retrieved this session; description per title.)

(8) US 2012/0023647 A1 — "Goggles with lens protection film" ⭐

• Inventor: Soo An Park · Priority: July 27, 2010 · US filed: March 18, 2011 (US 13/051,783) · Published: February 2, 2012
• Description: Goggles with a transparent belt-like film covering the lens front; a film supply part (case, winding roll, one-way clutch) on one side and a film return part on the other; a drive part (motor/wireless) and/or manual pull-string auxiliary reel advances the film. Cases have entrances/exits directing the film close against the lens.
• § 102 assessment: Strong on dispensing/receiving canister architecture and film advance (claims 1, 10, 19 elements; also the pull-cord handle concept of claim-related features in the '558 description). Missing: blade portion, wing portions, triangular U-shaped continuous surface, mud flap, frame-contacting contours. No anticipation.

(9) GB 2,495,984 A — "Goggles with roll-off film system having central spacer"

• Inventor: Joy Chen · Filed/priority: October 28, 2011 · Published: May 1, 2013
• Description: Roll-off film goggle with a central spacer (protrusion) on the lens nose section to hold the film off the lens and reduce friction/sticking; companion to US 2013/0104299.
• § 102 assessment: Same family as (10); no blade/wing/U-shape. No anticipation. (Full text not retrieved this session; description per title and family correspondence.)

(10) US 2013/0104299 A1 — "Goggles with a displaceable transparent film" ⭐

• Inventor: Joy Chen · Filed: October 28, 2011 (US 13/283,888) · Published: May 2, 2013
• Description: Goggle lens with two side view sections and a central nose section; at least one protrusion on the central section; a transparent film wider than the lens is mounted across the front; two reels (31, 32) on opposite sides with an actuating button (33) move the film laterally across the lens. Explicitly addresses mud/dirt fouling and rapid film displacement.
• § 102 assessment: Discloses the dispensing/receiving reel pair, film across the lens, and actuation (claims 1, 10, 19 elements). Missing: blade portion, wing portions, triangular U-shaped continuous surface. No anticipation.

(11) USD 691,652 S — "Goggle component"

• Assignee: Oakley, Inc. · Filed: February 28, 2013 · Published: October 15, 2013
• Description: A design patent (ornamental goggle component).
• § 102 assessment: As a matter of law, a design patent cannot anticipate utility claims because it discloses no functional structure. No § 102 anticipation of any claim. At most, peripheral § 103 evidence of goggle-component shapes.

(12) US 2014/0157496 A1 — "Eyewear with outriggers"

• Assignee: Oakley, Inc. · Filed: December 11, 2012 · Published: June 12, 2014
• Description: Eyewear frame with outrigger components (frame/strap attachment structure) — not a roll-off film system.
• § 102 assessment: Not § 102(a)(1) prior art (published after the May 16, 2014 effective filing date) but is § 102(a)(2) prior art because Oakley's application was filed December 11, 2012 (before '558's effective filing date) and published before the '558 utility filing. Substantively, no film, no canisters, no blade/wing — no anticipation of any claim; only tangential § 103 relevance to frame-contacting surfaces (claims 7, 14).

5. Ranking of most relevant prior art

6. Bottom line

• No cited reference — and, based on the record, no single prior-art reference located in this search — fully anticipates any of claims 1, 10, or 19, because every reference lacks the continuous broad U-shaped debris-collecting surface (upper triangular surface curved toward the lower triangular surface + sloping blade surface + lower triangular surface curved toward the upper triangular surface) that is the patent's central limitation.
• The strongest § 102 arguments would target dependent claims limited to the debris-collection function (claims 2, 8, 11, 15) using Smith '701, but even those fail on the full claim chain because they depend from claims requiring the U-shape.
• Smith '701 is the single most dangerous reference: it discloses the blade/scraper concept and debris-falls-away-from-lens function, and its claim 2's plate-like lip element prefigures the '558 blade geometry. An invalidity theory would most plausibly be § 103 combining Smith '701 (blade/scraper) with Smith '081, Scott '452, or Chen '299 (canister/wing structure) — but note that none of those combinations supplies the specific triangular-wing U-shape, which would be the focal claim-construction battleground.
• Timing flag: US 2014/0157496 A1 (Oakley) is not § 102(a)(1) prior art (published after the '558 priority date) but is § 102(a)(2) prior art — a distinction that matters if a challenge relies on it, though its substantive relevance is minimal.

Caveats: Tool-call limits prevented retrieval of full texts for US 4,748,697 A, US 6,073,296 A, GB 2,378,412 A, GB 2,495,984 A, USD 691,652 S, and US 2014/0157496 A1; those descriptions rest on the patent's own citation list and search snippets. This analysis covers only the 12 references of record — it is not a complete § 102/§ 103 search of the art (e.g., Scott EFS products, 100% Speedlab's own pre-2014 SVS product, or non-cited tear-off/roll-off art could be stronger).

I'll ground the key references before building the § 103 analysis, then apply the Prior-Art section's mapping.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,839,558 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the Prior-Art section above (which established: no cited reference anticipates any independent claim, and the gap in every reference is the same one — the "continuous, broad U-shaped debris-collecting surface"). This section takes that finding as the starting point and asks the § 103 question: whether that gap is an inventive contribution or a predictable design variation on what Smith '701 and Smith '081 already taught.

Consistency flags before we start: (i) the current-task date (April 26, 2026) differs from the patent-text fetch timestamp (2026-09-01) recorded in the earlier sections; nothing turns on it, but the two dates should be reconciled before any filing. (ii) The lit/PTAB sections correctly note no AIA trial and no verified litigation against '558 — so there is no prior adjudication of obviousness to build on, and no estoppel cutting either way. (iii) The § 112 anomaly in claim 19 identified below (lower wing / blade swap) is new to this section and is relevant to how broadly the U-shape limitation can be read.

A. Governing standard and the level of ordinary skill

AIA § 103 governs (effective filing date May 16, 2014). The Graham factors apply: scope/content of the prior art, differences between the art and the claims, PHOSITA level, and secondary considerations. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), supplies the rationales a challenger may invoke — and this patent is a textbook KSR fact pattern: a decades-old, crowded art (roll-off goggle film systems since at least Smith '081 in 1982) in which the asserted advance is a canister mouth geometry.

PHOSITA: a mechanical engineer or industrial designer (BS or equivalent) with ~3–5 years of experience designing eyewear/protective goggles or similar molded consumer housings, familiar with injection-molded two-part canisters, film transport mechanisms, and goggle frame/lens contours. This person is charged with knowledge of the entire Smith family, Scott's magazine designs, and the Chen/Park film-system patents.

B. The limitation that decides the case

Claim 1's totality is a canister pair (old) plus a mouth geometry. The load-bearing limitation is:

"an upper triangular surface of the upper wing portion, a sloping surface of the blade portion, and a lower triangular surface of the lower wing portion form a continuous surface configured to collect debris from the film … the upper triangular surface is provided at a bottom side of the upper wing portion and the lower triangular surface is provided at a top side of the lower wing portion, and … an upper portion of the upper triangular surface is curved to face toward the lower triangular surface and a lower portion of the lower triangular surface is curved to face toward the upper triangular surface, such that the continuous surface has a broad, U-shape."

Two construction points drive the analysis:

1. "Triangular" and "U-shaped" are being used loosely. The specification (FIG. 6 discussion) describes the "triangular shaped surface" as one that "curve[s] from facing down at a top portion thereof to facing a horizontal direction" — i.e., a tapered, curved transition face, not a geometric triangle. Reduced to substance, the limitation is a wedge/funnel-profiled canister mouth whose upper and lower flanking faces curve toward each other across the film path and whose middle face is a slanted scraper/ramp. That is the shape a designer gets when a box is made to hug a curved goggle frame and lens.
2. Claim 19 contradicts claims 1 and 10. Claim 19 recites "a sloping surface of a lower wing portion, and a lower triangular surface of a blade portion." Claims 1 and 10 (and the spec) put the sloping surface on the blade and the lower triangular surface on the lower wing. This is a genuine drafting error, not a different embodiment (nothing in the spec supports the swapped arrangement). Consequences: (a) § 112(b) indefiniteness exposure in claim 19; (b) in claim construction, a defendant will argue claim 19's "sloping surface of a lower wing portion" reads directly on the converging lower wall of a Smith '081-style magazine — collapsing the only limiting difference.

C. Element-by-element availability in the art of record

D. Proposed § 103 grounds

Ground 1 — Smith '701 + Smith '081 (primary ground, all independent claims)

• What each teaches: '081 gives the complete dispensing-canister/take-up-canister film system with cord-driven advance and lens-mounted housings (cl. 1, 13–15; see https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[4428081](/patent/4428081).html and https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4428081A](/patent/US4428081A)/). '701 — a CIP of '081 that expressly incorporates it — adds the blade/scraper at the take-up magazine entrance and the express teaching that the scraped foreign material "falls away from said edges" rather than blocking the lens (cl. 1; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4528701](/patent/US4528701) and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9d/cc/3f/5a82ff94a92af9/US4528701.pdf).
• Motivation to combine: this is not a hindsight combination — '701 is the same inventor's own improvement to '081 and self-identifies the '081 system as the base structure. Same field, same problem, express incorporation by reference — the strongest possible KSR "the references themselves suggest the combination" showing. A PHOSITA seeking to keep mud out of the take-up magazine would simply bolt the '701 scraper entrance onto the '081/Scott magazine.
• Result: discloses the canister pair, the film conveying direction, the blade covering the film at the entry, and the debris-collection function. Missing: the distinct upper/lower wing portions with triangular faces and the concave U-profile.

Ground 2 — Ground 1 + Smith '081 claim 14's funnel-profiled housing ("U-shape" via routine housing design)

• What is added: '081 cl. 14 already claims a housing whose face is "a curved wall merging into two converging, generally planar walls," one wall bearing the lens-abutting lug, the other "defining a film opening." That is a curved-wall-plus-two-converging-flanks film mouth — the same genus as the claimed "upper surface + sloping surface + lower surface, broad U-shape," differing in the direction of curvature (a convex canister shell vs. a concave trough).
• Motivation / rationale: the change in profile is dictated by function the references already assign — sealing the mouth against the curved goggle frame and lens while scraping the film. KSR rationales (a) known technique (funnel/trough mouth at a canister inlet), (b) predictable mechanical result (debris funnels to the blade and sheds), (c) "a change in shape" of a known structure, and (d) design incentive: a curved lens and elliptical frame demand a curved, tapered housing face. There is no criticality, no disclosed dimension, and no comparative data anywhere in the '558 spec showing the curvature-orientation limitation produces an unexpected result — the spec asserts benefits and stops.

Ground 3 — Ground 1 or 2 + Park '647 and/or Chen '299 (for the lens-hugging, contour-matched canister mouth; supports claims 4, 6, 7, 14)

• Park '647's cases have "entrance and exit formed in an opposite direction thereto … near one side lens such that the film 100 is unrolled at a state of being brought into close contact with one side lens" (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f2/1a/ad/affc1eecadbf73/US20120023647A1.pdf). Chen '299/US 2013/0104299 mounts reels on both sides with the film across the front face and expressly discusses mud splashing onto/settling on the lens front. Both are off-road motorcycle roll-off systems.
• Motivation: contour-matching a canister mouth to the lens/frame is the ordinary way such canisters are designed and mounted (Smith '081's lugs sit "in substantial abutment" with the lens; Scott's family bolts a housing flange through the lens with alignment pins — see DE 10137846 A1, Scott USA "Goggles and film feed system," https://patents.google.com/patent/DE10137846A1/en, not one of the 12 references of record and family relationship to US 6,415,452 to be verified before reliance). A "frame contacting surface … [with] a contour following a contour of the … lens frame" (claims 7/14) is a design-to-fit limitation of the weakest kind.

Ground 4 — Ground 2/3 + the slant, for claims 9/16 (and 8)

Smith '701's scraper edges are expressly "positioned in a substantially vertical arrangement to the side of said lens." The '558 difference is a tilt of that same edge so the upper portion sits further upstream than the lower portion — same function Smith already assigned (foreign material "falls away from said edges").

• Challenger's argument: tilting a scraper edge, in a reference that already teaches gravity-shedding of the scraped material, is a predictable variation with no new function; and the '558's own disclosure demonstrates the slant direction is not functionally critical — the dispensing canister's slope is tilted the opposite way (upper portion downstream, spec FIGS. 6/14 discussion) while serving the same debris-shedding purpose. A feature whose direction can be reversed between two canisters of the same product is, by definition, an arbitrary/design-choice orientation.
• Patentee's best response: teaching away — Smith '701 affirmatively selected vertical edges for the very purpose of making debris fall away from the field of view; a PHOSITA would not have slanted the edge Smith deliberately made vertical. Counter: this is weak teaching-away. Smith explains why vertical works; it does not criticize or discredit a slanted edge, and the two structures achieve the identical result. This is the patentee's strongest nonobviousness argument, and it is only as strong as the claim-construction fight over whether "protrudes further upstream" distinguishes anything functional.

E. KSR rationale catalog (mapped to the record)

F. Dependent-claim disposition

• 2, 11 (obtuse angle): Smith '701's scraper/lip geometry; any scraper face raked back from the film is at an obtuse angle to it. Predictable; motivation = shovel debris onto the blade rather than forcing it into the magazine.
• 3, 12 (wings extend upstream of blade): inherent in a funnel mouth ('081 cl. 14; '701's flanking entrance walls).
• 4, 6 (lens contacting surface; attachment mechanism): Smith '081 cl. 13–15 (lugs abutting the lens + retaining plates + fasteners through the lens); Scott-family flange/screw/alignment-pin mounting.
• 5, 13 (upper wing extends over the downstream end of a lens mud flap): the weakest link in the challenger's case. No reference of record discloses a lens mud flap or a canister wing overlapping it. This limitation requires either art outside the record (goggle brow visors/mud flaps, tear-off shields with frame-mounted dams, or 100% Speedlab's own pre-2014 SVS product/marketing materials as a printed publication/on-sale-art public use) or a design-choice argument. Do not assert this ground without that evidence.
• 7, 14 (frame-contacting surface following frame contour): pure design-to-fit; Smith '081 lugs in "substantial abutment" with the lens.
• 8 (pull-off pin on the sloping surface): '701 cl. 2's "plate-like element"; also the '558 spec's own tear-off pins 620/622/624 are conventional snap/tear features.
• 9, 15, 16, 20 (slanted sliding edge; directing debris away): strongest for the patentee if Smith's "vertical" language is credited as a deliberate design choice — but note § D, Ground 4.
• 17, 18 (lens frame in goggle frame / adaptor): Smith '081's lens-in-frame architecture; adaptors were routine (cf. US 4,748,697, Hodnett, interchangeable-lens face mask).

G. Patentee's counterarguments and secondary considerations

1. No reference discloses the specific concave, mutually-facing curved surfaces. True — the U-profile is the one clean gap. The patentee will argue the asserted combination is only reachable with the claims in hand (hindsight), and that no reference teaches why the upper and lower faces should curve toward each other.
2. Teaching away (claims 9/16). Smith '701's "substantially vertical" edges, chosen so debris falls away, arguably discourage the claimed tilt.
3. Commercial success. The SVS roll-off system embodying the claims is a real product. But nexus is the fight: the commercial success is at least equally attributable to the Smith-family canister architecture, the pull-cord drive, and the brand — and the specific accused features (sloping blade, wings) are not shown to drive sales.
4. Copying. Competitor follow-on activity in this space (Fox Head's US 11,510,816/US 12,127,981 eye-wear frame with integral roll-off, filed 2019; Xiamen Anbo's US 11,957,624/EP 4,338,718, filed 2022) shows the market values the architecture — but these are later filings, not prior art and not evidence of copying the '558 claims specifically; they are better characterized as evidence of the field's incremental, iterative nature.
5. Long-felt need is unavailable: the debris-scraping need was met by Smith '701 in 1985, and moisture/sticking by Scott '452 in 2002 and Chen '299 in 2013. There is no 30-year unmet need to point to.

H. Bottom line

• Most vulnerable: claims 1, 10, 19 and dependents 2–4, 6–8, 11–12, 14–15, 17–18, 20, via Smith '701 + Smith '081 (+ Park '647 / Chen '299 / Scott '452), with the U-profile supplied by routine adaptation of Smith '081 cl. 14's curved-wall/converging-planar-wall film mouth — a KSR "change in shape" / design-incentive argument backed by the applicant's own admission of the problem in the Background. The likelihood of success turns almost entirely on whether the "broad U-shape" with mutually-facing curved surfaces is treated as a structural limitation with functional significance or as the inevitable shape of a canister mated to a curved goggle frame.
• Thin proof areas (do not over-promise): claims 5/13 (mud flap overlap — no record evidence) and claims 9/15/16/20 (slanted, debris-directing edge — subject to a real, if non-dispositive, teaching-away argument from Smith '701's "vertical" edges).
• Claim 19 is separately attackable on § 112(b) grounds (blade/lower-wing recitation inconsistent with claims 1 and 10 and unsupported by the specification), which as a practical matter makes claim 19 a poor claim to assert and a good candidate for a validity challenge independent of § 103.
• Burden framing: because there is no IPR, no FWD, and no litigation judgment involving '558, every § 102/§ 103 ground remains available to a challenger, and the patent enjoys no presumption of validity beyond the statutory one. A petition or invalidity contention would proceed on a blank slate with the full Smith/Scott/Chen/Park lineage on the table.

Caveats: this analysis relies on the element mapping from the Prior-Art section and on the reference texts quoted here (Smith '701 cl. 1–2; Smith '081 cl. 13–15 and FIG. 3 discussion; Scott '452 cl. 1 and background; Park '647 ¶¶[0009]–[0014]; Chen '299 ¶¶[0004]–[0012]). Full texts of US 4,748,697, US 6,073,296, GB 2,378,412, GB 2,495,984, USD 691,652, and US 2014/0157496 A1 were not retrieved and their § 103 role here is peripheral. DE 10137846 A1 is cited as supplementary art outside the 12 references of record and its family relationship to US 6,415,452 should be verified before use.