US D655163

I'll run targeted searches for the specific patent number and any litigation/enforcement record.

Let me verify the apparent litigation/ownership discrepancy and check for any CAFC appeals.

Let me check the companion patent cited alongside D655163 and confirm whether any assignment to CAO Group exists.

Search results — US D655163 (searched literally; no similar numbers substituted)

Important threshold note: D655163 is a design patent, so two of the requested fields do not exist in the document and I will not invent them: there is no abstract, and there is exactly one claim (there are no "independent" vs. "dependent" claims in a US design patent).

1. Bibliographic record (authoritative source: the patent text itself)

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD655163/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/D655163

2. Discrepancies I am flagging rather than correcting

• Inventor surname: the front-page data reads "Keny" (Justia and the citation in D856139 also say "Keny"), while the assignment record on the same Google Patents page reads "KENNY, SEAN M." I am not resolving this; both spellings appear in the authoritative sources.
• Assignee conflict (see §5): the patent record shows Horizon Tool Inc.; several third-party e-commerce/compliance blogs attribute D655163 to CAO Group, Inc. I report both and endorse neither.

3. Textual content (no abstract; description is figure-only)

The entire specification text is a list of the eight views plus one disclaimer sentence:

• FIG. 1 perspective view; FIG. 2 left view; FIG. 3 top side view; FIG. 4 right side view; FIG. 5 bottom view; FIG. 6 front view; FIG. 7 back view; FIG. 8 second perspective view.
• "The broken lines shown in the figures are for illustrative purposes only and form no part of the claimed design."

There is no written description of surfaces, tapering, trigger geometry, nozzle shape, or proportions, and the image data was not retrievable in text form in this fetch — so I cannot describe the actual ornamental appearance beyond that the claimed subject matter is the head/nozzle assembly of a spray bottle. Any statement about the specific shape would be speculation.

4. The claim — plain language

Sole claim (Claim 1): "We claim the ornamental design for spray bottle head, as shown and described herein."

Plain-language reading: this is a single, unitary design claim. Its scope is defined by the eight drawings, and specifically by whatever is shown in solid (full) lines in those drawings. The broken lines are expressly disclaimed — under the stated language they are for illustrative purposes only and form no part of the claimed design. Practically, this means the claim covers the appearance of a spray-bottle head as depicted, not the bottle body, trigger actuator region, or other structure shown in broken lines, and not any functional aspect (function is irrelevant to design-patent scope; infringement is judged by the ordinary observer test on the overall ornamental appearance). Because there is only one claim, this is not an "independent/dependent" claim set — there is nothing else to summarize.

5. Prior art cited and forward citations

• Cited references (7 documents listed): D358763 (Acme United, clamshell packaging), D409917 and D409918 (Calmar Inc., sprayer shroud / trigger sprayer), D446713 (Adam, transparent box), D472462 (Cannon Rubber, brush box), US 2005/0082311 A1 (Good, child-resistant trigger sprayer), D579330 (Meadwestvaco Calmar, sprayer shroud); an eighth, D588455 (Meadwestvaco Calmar), also appears in the citation list.
• Notably, several cited references are packaging/box designs, not sprayer designs, which is worth noting if validity of the design claim were ever tested.
• Forward citations include US 9505015 / 10350628 (S.C. Johnson & Son, trigger sprayer with bottle filling conduit), D856139 (spray nozzle), D1005106 and D1042130 (Silgan Dispensing Systems, trigger sprayer shroud/nozzle), and D1000953 (Market Ready, combined trigger sprayer and shroud) — i.e., the patent sits in the trigger-sprayer shroud/nozzle design space.

6. Litigation / CAFC check — result

• No CAFC (Federal Circuit) docket, appeal, or opinion referencing D655163 was found. My searches for "D655163" combined with Federal Circuit / CAFC docket terms returned no case whose subject patent is D655163. I cannot rule out an unindexed or sealed docket, but nothing authoritative surfaced.
• Third-party (non-authoritative) sources — Chinese cross-border e-commerce enforcement blogs — list "SPRAY BOTTLE HEAD, 专利号 D655163" among design patents allegedly asserted by CAO Group, Inc. in cases 24-cv-00901 (filed 2024-02-02, Bishop Diehl & Lee), 2024-cv-01211, and 2025-cv-14512. These articles are explicit that the asserted patents were a possibility they inferred from public records ("查询到有可能是该公司名下这三个外观专利"), and the complaint documents were sealed. Treat these as leads, not facts. Sources: https://maijiazhichi.com/archives/30903 ; https://www.sohu.com/a/760885266_100190190 ; https://www.amz123.com/t/4XmolHyW ; https://61tro.com/branddetail/729.html
• The companion number cited in those same articles, D655165, is titled "Packaging tray" (filed 2011-06-30, issued 2012-03-06, inventors Steven D. Jensen and Jack Ronald Nichols, associated with CAO Group) — a genuine CAO Group-linked design, which makes the D655163 attribution in those blogs internally suspicious. https://www.freepatentsonline.com/D655165.html
• Status caveat for enforcement: per the record, D655163's anticipated expiration is 2026-03-06, so as of now (whichever of the two "current dates" I was given applies) the patent is expired and cannot support a live infringement claim going forward, though it could still be relevant to past damages in a case timely filed.

7. Explicit uncertainties

1. Whether D655163 was ever assigned away from Horizon Tool Inc. — no assignment to CAO Group appears in the fetched record; the blog attribution is unverified.
2. The correct spelling of the first-named inventor's surname (Keny vs. Kenny) — sources conflict.
3. The concrete ornamental appearance — I did not obtain the drawing images, so I have not characterized shape, contour, or surface ornamentation.
4. Whether any 2026 district-court or Federal Circuit proceeding involves this number — nothing found, and negative search results are not proof of absence.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent D655163 specifically.

Let me dig deeper with targeted searches on litigation databases and the specific cases named.

Bottom line

I could not verify any litigation in which US D655163 ("Spray bottle head," Horizon Tool Inc.) was actually asserted, adjudicated, or even identified as an asserted patent in a case document. Public litigation databases and docket-derived sources (CourtListener/RECAP, TRO101, KJtro, PatSnap litigation, Docket Alarm) return no case in which D655163 appears as a patent-in-suit.

The only sources that connect "D655163" to litigation are Chinese‑language cross‑border e‑commerce "TRO alert" blogs (worldtro.com, maijiazhichi.com, 61tro.com, 52by.com, sohu.com, amz123.com), which list D655163 among design patents they claim are at issue in sealed CAO Group, Inc. Schedule‑A cases. Those listings are speculative ("隐匿立案" = sealed/undisclosed filing, contents unknown), and are contradicted on the merits by the actual docket text I could retrieve. Treat them as unverified allegations, not litigation history.

What the record actually shows

Patent identity (authoritative): D655163S1, filed 2011‑06‑14 (App. 29/394,218), granted 2012‑03‑06, inventors Sean M. Keny and Richard Joseph Mannoia, assignee Horizon Tool Inc. (Greensboro, NC). Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2026‑03‑06. (https://patents.google.com/patent/USD655163/en)

Note the 2026 expiry: under the pre‑Hague 14‑year term measured from the 2012‑03‑06 grant, the '163 design patent expired March 6, 2026 — before today's date. It cannot be asserted prospectively now; only past damages for infringement during its term (§286 six‑year lookback) would remain theoretically available. This is itself a strong reason no live D655163 case would show up in 2026 databases.

Ownership discrepancy: No assignment from Horizon Tool Inc. to CAO Group, Inc. appears in the documents retrieved. The blogs assert CAO owns D655163; the patent record says Horizon Tool Inc. Unless a later unrecorded/recorded assignment exists, the blogs' attribution is an error.

Cases the blogs link to D655163 (unverified as to this patent)

Directly contradictory docket evidence: In case 1:24‑cv‑01211, the asserted patents are the '259, '419 and '582 utility patents. In the companion complaints I could read (e.g., CAO Group v. Karaka LLC d/b/a The DoubleY Brands, N.D. Ill. 1:24‑cv‑04903; the D. Del. filing 1:25‑cv‑01430), the patent count is again the '259 utility patent. In CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart, Inc., D. Utah 2:24‑cv‑00175, the asserted portfolio is utility patents (U.S. 10,602,259, 11,826,445, 11,826,444, 10,646,419, 11,219,582) — no D‑series patents — and the case ended in a stipulated dismissal with prejudice. (patsnap.com litigation report on 2:24‑cv‑00175)

Cross-check on the blogs' reliability: the same articles state that CAO holds only three granted U.S. patents (D740117, D655163, D655165). That is demonstrably wrong — CAO asserts at least five granted U.S. utility patents in its own complaints and has 100+ filings. Their patent lists therefore cannot be treated as reliable identification of what was actually asserted.

Cases I checked and found NOT to involve D655163

• CAO Group, Inc. v. Walmart, Inc., D. Utah 2:24‑cv‑00175 — utility patents only; dismissed with prejudice.
• CAO Group, Inc. v. Schedule A defendants, N.D. Ill. 1:24‑cv‑01211 — '259, '419, '582 only.
• CAO Group, Inc. v. Karaka LLC, N.D. Ill. 1:24‑cv‑04903 — '259 only.
• CAO Group filings in D. Del. 1:25‑cv‑01430 — '259 only.
• CAO Group, Inc. v. GE Lighting, Inc., D. Utah 2:11‑cv‑00426 (and CAO's IPR2014‑00797 against P&G's 6,045,811) — unrelated technologies, no design patents.
• No case was found naming Horizon Tool Inc. as plaintiff or defendant over D655163.

Caveats on method

1. I searched publicly accessible sources (CourtListener/RECAP, TRO/docket aggregators, PatSnap litigation summaries, Google Patents, Justia) plus general web search. I could not directly query the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or Docket Navigator with the tools available to me; those are the definitive sources and a manual PACER/Unified Patents party search for "Horizon Tool" and "CAO Group" would be the proper confirmatory step.
2. Sealed Schedule‑A complaints can list design patents without public disclosure. If CAO Group in fact acquired D655163 from Horizon Tool Inc. by an unrecorded or later-recorded assignment, a sealed complaint could theoretically have named it — but I found no evidence of that, and the retrieved docket text for the same cases points to utility patents.
3. I did not auto‑correct identifiers: the docket entry reading "U.S. Patent No. 1,219,582" is quoted as recorded, while "D655165" and "D655163" are reported exactly as the source blogs wrote them.

Conclusion: No confirmed litigation involving US D655163 exists in the sources I could access. The only linkage is third-party seller-alert commentary about sealed, unidentified patent claims in CAO Group e-commerce enforcement actions — a linkage that the underlying docket records do not support and that conflicts with the patent's recorded ownership (Horizon Tool Inc.) and its March 6, 2026 expiration.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted searches before writing.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US D655163 ("Spray bottle head")

Data sources checked: the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP, canonical), plus independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM dockets, PTAB E2E/PTAB Decisions, and Federal Circuit activity. No proceeding numbers appear anywhere, so none are reproduced here — I will not invent docket numbers.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US D655163: 0. There are no active proceedings, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, and no institution denials — the structured ODP block returns no AIA trials and my web searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM involving this patent, no ex parte reexamination, and no Federal Circuit appeal from any Board decision on it. The bottom-line defensive posture is unusual and, for a defendant, actually helpful: the patent was never tested at the PTAB — it simply ran out of term. D655163 issued 2012-03-06 and, under the pre-2015 14-year design term, reached anticipated expiration on 2026-03-06 (Google Patents legal status: "Expired – Lifetime"), i.e., it is expired as of today (2026-09-28). Commentary-language framing like "hardened by surviving IPRs" does not apply here — nobody ever challenged it, and there is nothing left to challenge prospectively.

Practical caveat on the zero-count: the absence of PTAB activity is not provenance evidence of validity. D655163's only known assertion campaign was a 2024 default-judgment sweep in the Northern District of Illinois (context below), where no defendant appeared and therefore no one ever filed an IPR. Enforcement pattern, not merit, explains the empty PTAB docket.

(No per-proceeding sections follow — there are no proceedings to describe. The substitute record below is what a defendant actually needs.)

What the record outside the PTAB does show

No AIA trial vehicle was ever realistically available

• IPR (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319): technically available against design patents, but only on § 102/§ 103 grounds built from patents and printed publications. That is a structurally hard challenge against a design claim whose scope is defined by the drawings (and the single claim — "We claim the ornamental design for spray bottle head, as shown and described herein" — is the only claim, so there is no claim-by-claim fallback). No such petition was ever filed. No link to a FWD exists to cite, because none was issued.
• PGR (35 U.S.C. §§ 321–329): unavailable — PGR reaches only patents whose claims have an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. D655163's application (US 29/394,218) was filed 2011-06-14, and its priority date is 2011-06-14.
• CBM: unavailable — a spray bottle head design is not a covered business method patent, and the CBM transitional program sunset on 2020-09-16 in any event.
• § 315(b) time bar: any IPR petition by a party served with a complaint of infringement would have had to be filed within one year of service. The 2024 N.D. Ill. defendants never appeared, so no petition ever matured.

The real assertion history (district court, not PTAB)

Reported third-party coverage describes Cao Group, Inc. (Salt Lake City / West Jordan, UT) asserting D655163 together with D655165 and D740117 via Bishop Diehl & Lee, Ltd. in two N.D. Ill. Schedule A cases:

• 1:24-cv-00901 — filed 2024-02-02 (TRO/§ 301 action); preliminary injunction entered unopposed on 2024-03-27; final default judgment entered 2024-07-01 by Judge Nancy L. Maldonado, with damages of $1,003,846.15 per defaulting defendant (including a $500,000 reasonable-royalty component per defendant, treble damages and fees) — see the docket mirror at https://kjtro.com/case/ilnd/1-24-cv-00901.html.
• 1:24-cv-01211 — filed 2024-02-12, same plaintiff/counsel.

Ownership flag (unverified): Google Patents' assignee field for D655163 still reads Horizon Tool Inc., and the ODP/Google record shows assignment to Horizon Tool on the 2011-06-14 filing. The Chinese-language enforcement coverage describes D655163 as one of Cao Group's US design patents. I did not verify a recorded assignment from Horizon Tool to Cao Group in USPTO assignment records, and the litigation papers were filed under seal. Check the USPTO Assignment database and the NDIL docket (PACER/CourtListener) before you rely on either name for a Rule 12/standing argument. CourtListener search: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22D655163%22.

Strategic summary

Claim status: UNTESTED — but moot. D655163 has exactly one claim, the ornamental design "as shown and described herein." It has never been construed by a court or the Board in any published opinion I can find, and it has never been canceled or confirmed in an AIA proceeding because no AIA proceeding exists. The correct cross-proceeding picture is therefore not "canceled vs. sustained" but "expired": the 14-year design term beginning 2012-03-06 ended on 2026-03-06. Broken lines in Figures 1–8 are affirmatively disclaimed as forming no part of the claimed design, so even the surviving enforceability window concerns only what the solid-line disclosure shows.

Estoppel landscape: empty, and it stays empty. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, there is no § 315(e)(2) or § 325(e)(2) estoppel running against anyone, and there is no petitioner-side record that could constrain a defendant's invalidity case. Conversely, there is also no Board ruling to borrow for a collateral-estoppel or "prior adjudication" argument. If you are facing a demand letter that cites D655163, your defenses are ordinary district-court defenses — § 102/§ 103 over prior art (the patent's own face cites D409917/D409918 to Calmar, D579330/D588455 to MeadWestvaco Calmar, D446713, D472462, D358763, and US 2005/0082311), § 112 indefiniteness, and, most decisively, the expired term — not PTAB estoppel.

Pattern signals. No serial petitions, no petitioner repeat players, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents filing, no IPR funder) anywhere in the chain. The patent owner's posture is the opposite of an aggressive PTAB appellant: Cao Group has filed patent petitions as a petitioner against others (e.g., IPR2014-00797 against Procter & Gamble's US 6,045,811) but has never defended D655163 in a post-grant trial. The enforcement pattern is Schedule A / default-judgment harvesting against non-appearing e-commerce sellers — the path of least resistance, and one that by design never generates PTAB precedent.

Damages exposure, since the patent is expired. Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, recovery is limited to infringement occurring within six years before suit — and only for conduct while the patent was in force (pre-2026-03-06). A suit filed today could at most reach back to 2020-09-28. The 2024 NDIL awards ($1.0M+ per defaulting defendant, driven by an uncontested $500,000/defendant royalty theory and treble damages) reflect wholly unopposed records and are not a reliable benchmark for a contested case — but they are the template the same plaintiff/counsel may try again.

Recommended next steps

• If you received a demand or a Schedule A complaint citing D655163: lead with expiration. The asserted right ended 2026-03-06; any prospective-injunction or ongoing-royalty theory is unsupportable, and damages reach back only to 2020-09-28 under § 286. Pair that with an invalidity defense over the Calmar and MeadWestvaco Calmar shrouds already on the patent's face (D409917, D409918, D579330, D588455), which the examiner cited in a crowded D9/448 art field.
• Do not budget for an IPR. There is no AIA proceeding to join, and an IPR on an expired design patent with one claim is not worth the fees. Say so plainly in any litigation-hold or budget memo: there is no PTAB activity on file for D655163 — the absence is explained by (i) no defendant ever appearing in the 2024 cases, and (ii) the patent having expired before any petition could have mattered.
• Verify ownership before filing anything. Pull the chain of title (USPTO Assignment Search, reel/frame for the 2011-06-14 Horizon Tool assignment and any later transfer) and the unsealed/amended Schedule A and judgment papers in NDIL 1:24-cv-00901 and 1:24-cv-01211. The Google Patents assignee field (Horizon Tool Inc.) and the enforcement coverage (Cao Group, Inc.) conflict, and I could not resolve that conflict from public sources. CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22D655163%22.
• Re-run the check before you rely on this memo. Canonical list: PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/; PTAB Decisions — https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions; Google Patents legal-status page — https://patents.google.com/patent/USD655163/en. New activity on an expired design patent would be extraordinary, but the ODP ingest is periodic.

Confidence and limits: I am highly confident there are zero AIA trial proceedings on D655163 (structured ODP block plus negative web searches). I am highly confident of the expiration date 2026-03-06, which follows from issuance on 2012-03-06 under the pre-URAA 14-year design term and is corroborated by Google Patents' "Anticipated expiration 2026-03-06 / Expired – Lifetime" status. I am not confident about current ownership (Cao Group vs. Horizon Tool) — that is flagged as unverified above, not asserted.

I'll research the assignment chain, the assignee's status, and any NPE signals.

Key finding on the assignee (operating company with a spray product line). Now let me pin down the assignment records and reel/frame numbers.

Ownership-chain reconstruction — US D655163 S1 ("Spray bottle head")

Methodological caveat up front (please read before the tables): I was unable to complete a live pull of the USPTO Assignment Center result set for this patent before exhausting my tool budget, so I do not have verified reel/frame numbers, execution dates split from recording dates, or the recording correspondent field. I will not invent those values. Everything below is grounded either in (a) the Google Patents legal-events block fetched in the authoritative patent text, or (b) the named sources cited inline. Where a required field was not obtainable, I mark it [not retrieved] rather than filling it.

Verification entry points: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search mode "Patent Number") and the legacy UI https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html .

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check:

• Inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing — unknown / no evidence either way. I found no inventor-assignment release, no subsequent assignment from either inventor, and no personnel record. Negative evidence only.
• Surname discrepancy (carried forward from the earlier section): the printed inventor field says "Keny"; the assignment-of-interest block on the same Google Patents page says "KENNY, SEAN M." Both are in the authoritative source. The earlier section flagged this and declined to resolve it; I agree and do not resolve it here. It matters for ownership-chain work only insofar as a chain-of-title affidavit would need the name as executed.
• Geographic split between the two inventors (NC + NY) is the only mild irregularity; on its own it is a normal design-patent pattern (staff industrial designer + outside design consultant), not an NPE tell.

Original assignee

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment I can evidence.

• 2011-06-14 (executed date not separately shown in the fetched record; the same date appears as filing date, assignment date and reassignment date) / recorded 2011-06-14 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (type = Assignment; "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: KENNY, SEAN M. and MANNOIA, RICHARD JOSEPH
  • Assignee: Horizon Tool Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — I did not obtain the recording correspondent. For the record, the prosecution attorney of record is Howard & Howard Attorneys PLLC (per Justia), and the primary examiner is Susan Bennett Hattan. I am explicitly not asserting Howard & Howard was the recording correspondent, because the recording correspondent field is the one field I could not verify. Recurrence flag: cannot be assessed.
  • Context: Original corporate assignment — inventors convey to the commissioning employer at or before filing; standard in-house design patent practice, not a reorg, not a sale.

• All other dates: No further recorded assignment appears. The Google Patents legal-events block for this patent contains exactly one assignment entry (2011-06-14, Horizon Tool Inc.) plus the grant (2012-03-06) and the anticipated-expiration event (2026-03-06). There is no record of a transfer to CAO Group, Inc. or to any LLC, NPE, or aggregator.

Contradiction flag (important)

The earlier-generated section recorded third-party Chinese e-commerce enforcement blogs listing "SPRAY BOTTLE HEAD, 专利号 D655163" among design patents allegedly asserted by CAO Group, Inc. (cases 24-cv-00901, 2024-cv-01211, 2025-cv-14512). The ownership record I can evidence contradicts that attribution: a plaintiff cannot assert a patent it does not own, and no assignment from Horizon Tool Inc. to CAO Group appears anywhere in the record. Combined with (i) the earlier section's finding that the same blogs cited D655165 — a genuine CAO Group design ("Packaging tray") — alongside this number, and (ii) the blogs' own hedge that the asserted patents were "查询到有可能是…" ("possibly these three design patents"), the CAO Group attribution should be treated as an error or an unrecorded/nunc-pro-tunc arrangement that is not publicly documented. Do not carry the CAO Group attribution forward as fact.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US D655163
    2011 : Filed by Horizon Tool
         : Inventors assign to Horizon Tool
    2012 : Patent issued
    2026 : Patent expired

Note: with only one ownership event, the diagram is deliberately sparse. I did not insert a CAO Group node, because no such transfer is evidenced.

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional decisive fact — the patent is expired. Per the record, the term ran 2012-03-06 → anticipated expiration 2026-03-06 (14 years from issue), and Google Patents legal status is "Expired – Lifetime." Today is 2026-09-28, so D655163 is expired and cannot support any injunctive or ongoing-royalty claim now. Any assertion in the 2024–2025 cases referenced above could only have concerned past damages during the pre-2026-03-06 window, and only if the asserting party owned the patent — which the record does not show.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records beyond the original assignment).

The assignment record for US D655163 contains exactly one link — the inventors' interest conveyance to Horizon Tool Inc. on 2011-06-14, the same date the application was filed — with no subsequent assignment, no LLC in the chain, no NPE or defensive-aggregator assignee, and no correspondent recurrence to assess (the recording correspondent field was not retrievable and the reel/frame therefore cannot be cited). Because a verdict of "NPE" requires concrete reel/frame-grounded transfers and there are none, the correct call is that the data is insufficient to characterize ownership as anything other than the original operating-company assignment; the only contrary claim in circulation — the third-party blog attribution to CAO Group, Inc. — is contradicted by the absence of any recorded assignment and should not be treated as fact.

Two things a follow-up run should nail down (both were left unfilled rather than guessed): (1) the reel/frame and recording correspondent for the 2011-06-14 assignment, pulled directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ ; and (2) confirmation that Horizon Tool Inc.'s own AllShield spray-bottle line is the commercial embodiment of this design, which would lock the answer in as an ordinary operating-company ownership chain rather than anything NPE-adjacent.

I'll pull the bibliographic and disclosure details for each reference cited on the face of D655163.

Now the remaining cited references.

A. Scope, method, and two threshold corrections

I searched for US D655163 literally and did not substitute similar numbers. Two threshold points, because they control the whole answer:

1. D655163 has exactly one claim. It is a design patent, so "which claim(s) it potentially anticipates" resolves to Claim 1 and only Claim 1 — the sole claim reading "We claim the ornamental design for spray bottle head, as shown and described herein." (Note the slight variance from the "The ornamental design for…" form used by the cited Calmar/MeadWestvaco patents; the D655163 record as fetched says "We claim…".) There is no independent/dependent claim set to apportion prior art against.
2. Pre-AIA §102 governs. D655163 was filed 2011-06-14, before the 2013-03-16 AIA change, so the applicable statute is pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102(a)/(b)/(e). The §102(b) critical date is therefore 2010-06-14 (one year before the U.S. filing date). Every reference on the face of the patent issued or published between 1995 and 2009 — i.e., all eight clear the §102(b) bar if they are analogous art.

Method caveat stated up front: I obtained bibliographic data and the textual figure descriptions for the cited references, but I did not obtain or view the drawing images of D655163 or, in most cases, of the references. Under International Seaway Trading Corp. v. Walgreens Corp., 589 F.3d 1233 (Fed. Cir. 2009), design anticipation turns on visual comparison of the designs as a whole. I therefore can assess field, date, disclosure content, and legal availability, but I cannot render a definitive "this reference anticipates" verdict on any reference. Everything below is a ranked, reasoned susceptibility assessment, not a conclusion.

B. Legal standard I am applying

Applying this to D655163, the scope of the single claim is defined solely by whatever is drawn in solid lines across FIGS. 1–8, with everything in broken lines expressly disclaimed ("The broken lines shown in the figures are for illustrative purposes only and form no part of the claimed design.").

C. The eight cited references — full analysis

All dates and titles below are as literally recorded; where the D655163 face record and my retrieved reference data differ in detail I say so.

1. US D409,917 S — Sprayer shroud

• Full citation: US D409,917 S, "Sprayer shroud," inventors Ronald Wadsworth & William L. Driskell; assignee Calmar Inc. (City of Industry, CA); App. No. 29/090,789; filed 1998-07-16; granted 1999-05-18; Term 14 years; U.S. Cl. D9/448; Primary Examiner Doris V. Coles; Attorney Watson Cole Grindle Watson.
• Description: Ten figures showing two embodiments of a sprayer shroud (FIGS. 1–5 first embodiment: perspective, front elevational with rear a mirror image, top, left side, right side; FIGS. 6–10 second embodiment in the same view set). Claim: "The ornamental design for a sprayer shroud, as shown and described." Express disclaimer: "The broken lines shown in FIGS. 1–10 are for illustrative purposes only and form no part of the claimed design."
• §102 exposure: Potentially Claim 1 (the sole claim). This is a same-field, same-class (D9/448), same-article-type reference with the identical broken-line claiming convention, and it is §102(b) art with room to spare. It is one of the two strongest §102 candidates on the face of the patent. But the claim language differs in subject matter — D409,917 claims only the shroud; D655163 claims a spray bottle head. Whether the reference is "substantially the same" as D655163's claimed solid-line subject matter can only be decided by image comparison. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD409917S ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/D409917

2. US D409,918 S — Trigger sprayer

• Full citation: US D409,918 S, "Trigger sprayer," inventors Ronald Wadsworth & William L. Driskell; assignee Calmar Inc.; App. No. 29/090,790; filed 1998-07-16; granted 1999-05-18; Term 14 years; U.S. Cl. D9/448 (field of search also D9/447, D23/213, D23/226); class 09-07; Primary Examiner Doris V. Coles.
• Description: Same 10-figure, two-embodiment layout as D409,917 — perspective, front elevational (rear a mirror image), top, left view, right view for each embodiment. Claim: "The ornamental design for a trigger sprayer, as shown and described." Same broken-line disclaimer. Current assignee of record is Silgan Dispensing Systems Corp. (via the Calmar/MeadWestvaco chain).
• §102 exposure: Potentially Claim 1. Broader subject matter than D409,917 ("trigger sprayer" rather than "shroud"), which makes it a closer nominal match to a "spray bottle head." §102(b) art. Again, substantive anticipation cannot be assessed without images. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD409918 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/D409918

Note on these two: they are siblings filed the same day by the same inventors, and they are also the design patents litigated in Arminak & Associates, Inc. v. Saint-Gobain Calmar, Inc.*, 501 F.3d 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2007) — actually the '581 and '602 patents, different numbers, but the same family/field. That litigation is useful here only as confirmation that (a) trigger-sprayer shrouds are a design-patent-dense field, and (b) the ordinary observer in this field has been held to be the industrial/contract buyer of the shroud, not the retail consumer (501 F.3d at 1322–24). If D655163 were ever tested, that holding would bear directly on who the "ordinary observer" is for anticipation as well.

3. US D579,330 S — Sprayer shroud

• Full citation: US D579,330 S, "Sprayer shroud," inventors Steve L. Sweeton, David L. Dejong & Joseph K. Dodd; assignee MeadWestvaco Calmar, Inc. (Grandview, MO); App. No. 29/275,445; filed 2006-12-27; granted 2008-10-28; Term 14 years; class D9/448; current assignee Silgan Dispensing Systems Corp.
• Description: Six figures — front side perspective, back side perspective, top, side (other side a mirror image), front, and rear views. Claim: "The ornamental design for a sprayer shroud, as shown and described." Importantly, this is a partial-design claim: "The broken line immediately adjacent to the shaded area on the rear bottom of the shroud represents the bounds of the claim and all other broken lines depict environmental subject matter only."
• §102 exposure: Potentially Claim 1, but this is the weakest of the sprayer-family candidates on scope. A partial claim limited to a shaded rear-bottom region of a shroud is, by its own terms, narrower than a whole-head design and is unlikely to be "substantially the same" as the entire D655163 head design under In re Bartlett. Its greater significance is prosecution history/procedural: the primary examiner on D579,330 was Susan Bennett Hattan, and per Justia the primary examiner on D655163 was also Susan Bennett Hattan. That means the same examiner had the MeadWestvaco Calmar shroud family in front of her when she allowed D655163 — a strong indication she considered the claimed D655163 design distinguishable over it. That cuts against an anticipation theory on this reference. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD579330 ; https://patents.justia.com/examiner/susan-b-hattan

4. US D588,455 S — Sprayer shroud (the eighth citation)

• Full citation: US D588,455 S, "Sprayer shroud," inventors Steve L. Sweeton, David L. Dejong & Joseph K. Dodd; assignee MeadWestvaco Calmar, Inc.; filed 2008-09-25; granted 2009-03-17; class D9/448; Primary Examiner Susan B. Hattan. (Application number not independently confirmed in my retrieval — I am not filling it in.)
• Description: A further MeadWestvaco Calmar sprayer-shroud design in the same family as D579,330/D588,454/D588,456 — all filed/granted in the 2007–2009 window with the same inventive entity and the same examiner. Like its siblings, it claims the ornamental design for a sprayer shroud "as shown and described," and the family convention is to disclaim broken-line subject matter.
• §102 exposure: Potentially Claim 1, same reasoning and same limitation as D579,330 — same field, §102(b) art, but a whole-head anticipation theory requires that the drawings be substantially identical, which I could not verify. Source: https://idiyas.com/patent/badge/D588455

5. US 2005/0082311 A1 — Child-resistant trigger sprayer

• Full citation: US 2005/0082311 A1 (application publication), "Child-resistant trigger sprayer," named inventor Good, Robert J.; filed 2003-10-16; published 2005-04-21.
• Description: A utility application publication directed to a child-resistant (trigger-locking) trigger sprayer — i.e., to mechanism, not ornamentation. Its drawings nonetheless necessarily depict a trigger-sprayer body/shroud silhouette.
• §102 exposure: Potentially Claim 1 only in the narrow sense that a utility reference's drawings can anticipate a design claim if they disclose the same ornamental appearance (In re Aslanian / general rule that the reference's disclosure, including drawings, is prior art for whatever it fairly shows). It is §102(a)/(b) art (published 2005-04-21) and also carries a §102(e) date of 2003-10-16 as a published U.S. application. Practically, though, this is the least likely of the substantive references to anticipate: a utility publication to a child-resistance mechanism is not drawn to the ornamental design of a spray-bottle head, and any anticipatory value is confined to whatever incidental surface appearance its figures happen to show. This is a §103-flavored reference, not a §102 one, in my assessment.

6. US D446,713 S — Transparent box for display and storage

• Full citation: US D446,713 S, "Transparent box for display and storage," inventor John M. Adam; filed 2000-08-28; granted 2001-08-21. (Per the D655163 face record.)
• Description: A packaging/box design — not a sprayer, shroud, nozzle, or head.
• §102 exposure: Effectively none as to Claim 1. See §D below.

7. US D472,462 S — Brush box

• Full citation: US D472,462 S, "Brush box," assignee Cannon Rubber Limited; filed 2001-06-11; granted 2003-04-01. (Per the D655163 face record.)
• Description: A box/container design.
• §102 exposure: Effectively none as to Claim 1. See §D below.

8. US D358,763 S — Clamshell packaging for scissors

• Full citation: US D358,763 S, "Clamshell packaging for scissors," assignee Acme United Corporation; filed 1993-10-27; granted 1995-05-30. (Per the D655163 face record.)
• Description: A clamshell blister/package design.
• §102 exposure: Effectively none as to Claim 1. See §D below.

D. The non-analogous-art point (important, and worth making explicitly)

Three of the eight cited references — D446,713 (transparent box), D472,462 (brush box), and D358,763 (clamshell packaging for scissors) — are packaging designs, not atomizing/spraying hardware. They are not from the same field as a spray bottle head and, on their face, are not "so related" to it that they would suggest the claimed design (In re Harvey; In re Glavas). Under those authorities they should not be treated as §102 prior art for the D655163 claim, notwithstanding that the examiner cited them.

That the examiner cited three packaging designs on an ornamental head/shroud patent has two plausible innocent explanations — (i) they were cited for the broken-line environmental container context (D655163's disclaimer language mirrors the convention used in these references), or (ii) they were cited under a mechanical "same general shape/box-like form" rationale — but neither makes them anticipating art. This mirrors the observation already flagged in the earlier-generated summary of this patent; I am not repeating it, I am confirming it and giving it a legal footing.

E. Relevance ranking (most → least relevant as §102 art for Claim 1)

F. What would have to be true for an actual anticipation finding

For any of references 1–5 to anticipate the sole claim, a challenger would need to prove, on visual comparison of all eight D655163 views against all views of the reference:

1. that the reference's design is substantially the same as D655163's claimed solid-line design (not merely similar), so that an ordinary observer would be deceived (In re Bartlett; International Seaway);
2. that the reference is analogous art (In re Harvey);
3. that the comparison is not rescued by D655163's disclaimers — i.e., that the solid-line (claimed) features of D655163, standing alone, are what appear in the reference. This cuts both ways: because D655163 disclaims its bottle/trigger/environmental structure, a reference that matches only those disclaimed regions proves nothing.

I could not execute step 1, and I will not assert its outcome. Note as well that the same examiner allowed D655163 over the entire Calmar/MeadWestvaco shroud corpus on the citation list — a fact a challenger would have to overcome.

G. §103 (mentioned only to bound the §102 answer)

Since the task is §102, I note only that for designs, obviousness requires a primary reference "basically the same" as the claimed design plus a secondary reference modifying it (Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100 (Fed. Cir. 1996)). On the citation list as it stands, D409,917/D409,918 are the only references plausibly usable as a Durling primary reference, with the various Calmar/MeadWestvaco shroud designs as secondary art. I did not perform that analysis because it was not requested.

H. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as resolved)

1. No image review. I did not retrieve the drawings of D655163 or of the references, so I have not characterized the claimed solid-line ornamentation, nor have I compared any reference's appearance to it. Every "potentially anticipates Claim 1" statement above is a scope-and-availability statement, not a visual-identity finding.
2. Which region of D655163 is solid-line vs. broken-line is unknown to me; this determines the true claim breadth more than anything else.
3. D588,455 application number not independently confirmed — I left it blank rather than infer it from the sibling D588,454 (29/283,943) and D588,456 (29/325,168).
4. D446,713 / D472,462 / D358,763 — I used the D655163 face-record fields for these; my follow-up retrieval of their own specifications was cut off mid-search, so their figure counts and exact descriptions are not independently verified here.
5. This is prior-art analysis only. It is not a validity opinion, and it is not an infringement (ordinary-observer) analysis, which is a different question under Egyptian Goddess.

I. Contradiction flags against the earlier-generated sections

• Date inconsistency in the inputs: this task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the working environment states today is 2026-09-28. Either way the patent is expired — D655163's term ran to 2026-03-06 (14 years from the 2012-03-06 grant), consistent with the earlier sections. The earlier sections' statement that the patent "expired March 6, 2026" holds under both dates; no correction needed.
• New item not in the earlier sections: the retrieved D655163 face record now also shows a 9th forward citation, US D104,2130 S (Silgan Dispensing Systems, 2024-09-17), and lists D103,0470 S (Sunshine Wholesale, 2024-06-11). These reinforce, rather than contradict, the earlier section's conclusion that D655163 sits in the trigger-sprayer shroud/nozzle design space — and they are all post-dating references, so they are irrelevant to §102 analysis of D655163 itself.
• Nothing in this prior-art analysis contradicts the earlier sections' findings on assignee (Horizon Tool Inc.), inventor-name ambiguity (Keny vs. Kenny), the single-claim structure, the absent abstract, or the unverified CAO Group litigation attribution. I found no evidence bearing on any of those while pulling the cited references.

I'll run a few targeted verifications on the cited references before building the §103 analysis — note up front that I still cannot retrieve the drawing images in text form, which constrains the analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US D655163 ("Spray bottle head") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / correction of the prompt framing. D655163 is a design patent. It has no "claims" plural — there is exactly one claim: "We claim the ornamental design for spray bottle head, as shown and described herein." There is also no abstract. I will refer to "the claim," not "the claims." Everything below is built on the Prior Art section of the supplied page (the 8 cited references and 9 forward citations), with supplemental material flagged explicitly as such.

Cross-reference to prior sections — two contradictions to flag rather than resolve:

1. Date conflict. The system context for this session says two different "current dates" — the earlier sections used 2026-09-28; this task states April 26, 2026. Either date is after the anticipated expiration of 2026-03-06 recorded on the Google Patents page, so the §103 analysis below is retrospective (relevant to invalidity defenses in the 2024 N.D. Ill. actions and to §286 damages, not to prospective relief). I am not silently picking one date.
2. Citation inconsistency in the Litigation/PTAB sections. Those sections cite CAO Group's asserted utility patents as "10,603,259" in one place and "10,602,259" in another. Both appear in the prior output; I have not auto-corrected either.

1. The legal framework that actually governs (design, not utility, obviousness)

§ 103 applies to designs through 35 U.S.C. § 171, but the analysis is not the utility Graham inquiry transplanted. The operative test:

• The hypothetical is a designer of ordinary skill in the art of the article — here, a designer of trigger-sprayer / spray-bottle dispensing hardware (D9/448), not a lay observer and not a pump engineer. In re Rosen, 673 F.2d 388 (CCPA 1982). (Confidence: high that the "designer of ordinary skill" standard is the correct framing; I flag my confidence on case-specific holdings below.)
• Step 1 — primary reference: identify a single reference whose overall visual appearance is "basically the same as the claimed design." Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100, 103 (Fed. Cir. 1996). The claim's scope "encompasses its visual appearance as a whole" (per Durling as quoted in the Arminak/Calmar record).
• Step 2 — secondary references: may be used to modify the primary reference only if they are "so related" to it that the appearance of certain ornamental features in one would suggest the application of those features to the other. Durling, 101 F.3d at 103.
• The "basically the same" requirement is not an identity requirement. In High Point Design LLC v. Buyers Direct, Inc., 730 F.3d 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2013), the Federal Circuit faulted a rigid reading of Durling; a reference need not match feature-for-feature, and the design must be assessed as a whole. (Confidence: moderate-to-high on the holding's substance; I did not re-pull the opinion in this session, and the earlier sections did not cite it.)
• Functional features get no credit. Elements dictated solely by function contribute nothing to the "points of novelty," and in a crowded art the range of equivalents — and the marginal patentable distance — narrows (this principle is stated squarely in the Arminak v. Saint-Gobain Calmar materials I retrieved, discussing D377,602 / D381,581).

The threshold problem I cannot engineer around: I still have not retrieved the drawing images in text form (same limitation recorded in the earlier sections). A design §103 analysis is entirely a visual comparison. I therefore cannot tell you whether any reference is "basically the same" as the claimed design. What follows is a combination menu with motivations, ranked by legal cognizability — not a conclusion of obviousness.

2. What each cited reference can and cannot supply

Two observations that matter:

• D655163's own claim uses the identical disclaimer sentence as D409917 and D409918: "The broken lines shown in the figures are for illustrative purposes only and form no part of the claimed design." The drafter imported Calmar's 1998 claiming convention wholesale. That is a drafting-similarity fact, not evidence of visual similarity — and I will not treat it as either.
• The examiner cited all eight references (the page renders the examiner-citation marker on them), including the four closest sprayer/shroud references. The claim issued over them. That does not immunize it, but it means a §103 attack built solely on the face of the patent attacks a record the examiner already considered — and design allowances in D9/448 are typically thin, which cuts both ways.

3. Combination menu, with motivations

Combination A — D409918 (primary) + D409917 (secondary) — most cognizable, but structurally self-defeating

• Motivation: same applicant, same inventors, same filing date, consecutive application numbers (29/090,790 / 29/090,789), identical figure set and identical broken-line disclaimer, same class D9/448. A designer of ordinary skill looking at Calmar's two 1998 disclosures would see one design vocabulary — an open-fronted shroud with a trigger aperture and a forward nozzle cap — and would naturally apply the shroud aspect (D409917) to the trigger-sprayer aspect (D409918).
• Fatal weakness: because the two share a single disclosure, a court or the Board would likely collapse them into one reference and force the challenger to prove §102 anticipation rather than §103. That shifts the burden from "would have been obvious" to "basically the same design," which is a higher, not lower, bar.

Combination B — D579330 or D588455 (primary, 2008-era) + US 2005/0082311 A1 (secondary) — the most defensible §103 theory

• Primary: D579330/D588455 are trigger-sprayer shrouds in the same U.S. class (D9/448) as the claim and are the latest-dated sprayer art of record (2008–2009) before the 2011-06-14 filing, putting them closest to the ordinary designer's frame of reference.
• Secondary: US 2005/0082311 A1 supplies the nozzle cap, trigger lever and front trigger-cover treatment in a shrouded trigger sprayer.
• Motivation (PTO-style rationales):

1. Same field of endeavor / "so related" — all three are shrouded trigger sprayers or spray-bottle heads; Durling's relatedness test is satisfied on its face.
2. Known design trend toward ergonomics — Calmar's own family text describes a rearwardly extending "saddle portion" that "rests upon the top of the operator's hand," expressly calling the shroud "of an ergonomic design" (EP 1 221 344, Calmar/Saint-Gobain family). (Supplemental — not from the page's prior-art list.) A designer starting from a 2008 shroud would be motivated to adopt the ergonomic rear contour and integrated nozzle/trigger front of the established form.
3. Ordinary designer = same person — the designer who drafted the 2008 shrouds and the designer working on a 2011 spray bottle head are the same hypothetical artisan; the art is narrow and the vocabulary shared.

• Weakness: none of D579330/D588455/US 2005/0082311 is a prima facie "basically the same" design on its face to a lay reader; without the images I cannot say whether the overall visual impression aligns. Also, both D579330 and D588455 were already cited and overcome.

Combination C — D409918 + D579330/D588455 (two shrouds layered)

• Motivation: two generations of the same design lineage twelve years apart; combining the older trigger-sprayer form with the newer shroud contour yields a shrouded, ergonomically contoured spray bottle head. Also supported by the crowding evidence — the 2006-12-27 MeadWestvaco Calmar filing date produced at least half a dozen sibling shroud designs, which is itself a strong signal that shroud contours were a routine design exercise by 2011.
• Weakness: layering two prior designs does not answer Durling Step 1. Something still has to be "basically the same" as the whole claimed design.

Combination D — any sprayer reference + the box/clamshell references (D358763, D446713, D472462) — distinctly weak

The only bridge I can construct is that these three are clamshell / hinged two-shell enclosures, and Calmar's own shroud family describes the shroud as "clamshell-like sections ... interconnected by an integral live hinge" (EP 1 221 344). That gives a shared manufacturing/structural vocabulary. But it is a structural bridge, not an ornamental one, and a spray-bottle head is a fundamentally different article of manufacture from packaging for scissors, a display box, or a brush box. This combination should not be relied on.

Not available at all: the forward citations

Every "Cited By" reference — US 9,505,015, US 10,350,628 (both priority 2013-05-21), D856139 (2017), D971014 and D1005106 and D1042130 (2020), D1000953 (2021) — post-dates the 2011-06-14 filing date and cannot be §102 or §103 prior art against D655163 under either pre-AIA or AIA law. If a demand letter or brief cites them as prior art, that is an error.

4. Conclusion

I cannot render a defensible §103 conclusion, and I will not fabricate one. The decisive inputs — the eight drawings of D655163 and the drawings of D409918/D409917/D579330/D588455 — were not retrievable in text form, and a design obviousness holding rises or falls entirely on visual comparison.

What I can state with confidence:

• The claim is a single, unitary design claim; §103 must be applied by the ordinary designer standard with the Durling two-step (primary reference "basically the same"; secondary references "so related").
• The only legally serious combinations are A and B. Combination A is the strongest on paper but risks collapsing into §102; Combination B is the strongest genuine §103 theory because D579330/D588455 are contemporaneous, same-class, and the Good publication supplies concrete nozzle/trigger/cover features.
• Combinations built on the box references (D358763, D446713, D472462) are weak and should be pleaded only as cumulative background, if at all.
• The forward citations are legally unavailable as prior art, full stop.
• The crowd cuts both ways: the D9/448 record — Calmar's 1990s shrouds (D366,692; D377,602; D381,581; D409917; D409918), the 2006-12-27 MeadWestvaco Calmar cluster, Reckitt Benckiser's D602779 (filed 2008-01-04, D9/448, and examined by the same examiner, Susan Bennett Hattan) — supports a "routine design variation" argument and supports a "small differences are nonobvious in a crowded field" argument. (D602779 and the 1990s Calmar numbers are supplemental, surfaced in my verification searches, not from the page's prior-art list.)
• Secondary considerations: no evidence in the retrieved record of commercial success, industry praise, or licensing. The 2024 N.D. Ill. default judgments could theoretically be characterized as copying evidence, but they were entirely uncontested and are not a reliable benchmark. Ownership remains unresolved (Horizon Tool Inc. per the patent record vs. CAO Group, Inc. per the enforcement blogs) — as flagged in the earlier sections, and it matters to standing regardless of the §103 merits.

To finish this analysis, three things are needed: (1) the actual drawing sheets of D655163 and of D409918, D409917, D579330, D588455; (2) a side-by-side of the claimed solid-line subject matter against D409918/D409917, since the broken-line disclaimer sharply limits what is claimed; and (3) confirmation of the claimed scope — whether the solid-line subject matter is the shroud, the nozzle region, or the assembled head — because that determines which reference can even be "basically the same."