US 10620028

I'll search for litigation and docket information on this specific patent number, while relying on the authoritative patent text provided.

Summary — US 10,620,028 B2

Note on my sourcing: The authoritative full text of US 10,620,028 was supplied to me (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑24), and I relied on it over search results. My searches of the open web for USPTO records and CAFC 2026 dockets returned no reliable hits tied specifically to US 10,620,028. Several results mentioning "the '028 patent" refer to unrelated patents (e.g., US 9,266,028; US 8,688,028; US 10,028,026) — those are not US 10,620,028 and must not be conflated with it. I found no evidence of litigation or Federal Circuit activity involving US 10,620,028. Treat the absence of docket results as "not found," not as proof that none exists.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as granted)

"An agricultural metering system includes a driven shaft having a first engagement feature configured to selectively engage a second engagement feature of a drive shaft mounted within a meter box of the agricultural metering system to non‑rotatably couple the driven shaft to the drive shaft. The agricultural metering system includes a meter roller non‑rotatably coupled to the driven shaft. The meter roller is configured to be selectively disposed within the meter box, and the first engagement feature is configured to engage the second engagement feature while the meter roller is disposed within the meter box to facilitate rotation of the meter roller in response to rotation of the drive shaft."

Independent claim — plain-language overview

Claim 1 (the sole independent claim) covers an agricultural metering system with four cooperating elements:

1. A driven shaft with a first engagement feature that selectively engages a second engagement feature on a drive shaft mounted within the meter box, so the two shafts are non‑rotatably coupled — i.e., a "split" shaft arrangement where the meter‑box shaft and the roller‑side shaft can be joined and separated.
2. A meter roller non‑rotatably coupled to the driven shaft, able to be placed into (and removed from) the meter box, with the engagement features mating while the roller sits in the meter box so that turning the drive shaft turns the roller.
3. A meter roller cartridge whose housing rotatably supports the meter roller and the driven shaft (note: the granted claim text reads "the drivers shaft" — a typographical error I am reproducing literally rather than correcting).
4. A releasable bearing coupler that couples to the driven shaft, engages a recess of the meter roller to attach the roller to the cartridge housing, and lets the roller rotate relative to the housing — wherein a bearing of the coupler contacts the meter roller to enable that rotation.

In short: claim 1 is directed to a quick‑change meter roller assembly in which a removable cartridge/roller combination carries its own half‑shaft, mates blind into the stationary drive shaft inside the meter box, and is retained/rotatably supported at the far end by a twist‑lock bearing coupler.

Dependent claims:

• Claim 2 — the first engagement feature is at least one protrusion and the second is at least one recess (shape‑based interlock).
• Claim 3 — a bearing located on a longitudinal end of the driven shaft.
• Claim 4 — the driven shaft non‑rotatably couples to the drive shaft while the drive shaft remains coupled to the drive unit (i.e., the roller can be swapped without removing the drive).

Useful context from the specification

• The system is described for an air cart metering assembly (meter rollers with flutes/recesses metering seed and/or fertilizer into an air stream).
• FIG. 6–11 describe the cartridge/releasable bearing coupler: a locking segment with interlocking notches/recesses and limiting notches that stop rotation after roughly an eighth turn, plus a grip segment accessible outside the housing.
• FIG. 8 describes a segmented roller with a ring and roller segments for selective metering; an alternative is a fluted portion overmolded onto the driven shaft (mechanically and/or chemically bonded).
• FIG. 12 describes a cartridge‑less variant using one or two releasable bearing couplers and a gate/lid.
• The parent patent (US 9,939,302 B2) presented three independent claim sets (claims 1, 9, 13 in that patent, per the published application US 2016/0120111 A1); this divisional narrows to a single independent claim that expressly recites the cartridge and releasable‑bearing‑coupler features.

Cited prior art worth noting (43 references listed, examiner/third‑party combined)

Selected: US 3,362,143 (Massey Ferguson, automatic shaft coupling); US 4,478,340?—no; specifically US 4,478,016 / US 4,478,030? Let me be precise rather than guess. The listed, verified entries include US 3,362,143, US 4,473,016 (Concord, particulate feeder system), US 4,500,017 (Morris Rod‑Weeder, dispensing wheel/shaft mounting), US 4,605,372 (Deere, automatically engageable/disengageable drive coupler), US 5,845,818 (Deere, removable meter cartridge), US 5,924,370 (Deere, reconfigurable meter roller and blank section), US 6,240,861 B1 (Flexi‑Coil, split meter roller for agricultural air carts), US 7,104,339 B2 (Deere, automatically engaging coupler with flexible shaft), US 2012/0174844 A1 and US 2012/0174842 A1 (Friggstad, quick‑change/sectional control and seed metering cassette), and US 2015/0216109 A1 (One Pass Implements). Non‑patent citations: Valmar 1665 Air Seeder Mount Inoculant Applicator (2013) and John Deere 1910 Air Commodity Cart (2013).

Uncertainty disclosures

• I could not confirm any CAFC 2026 docket, IPR, or district‑court case naming US 10,620,028. The patent's Google Patents page shows no litigation section, and my searches produced only unrelated "‑028" patents. If you need litigation certainty, that requires a PACER/Docket Navigator/PTAB‑API query I cannot perform here.
• Claim‑text quotation is literal from the fetched record; the phrase "the drivers shaft" in claim 1 is preserved as‑is and appears to be a typo in the granted text, but I am not auto‑correcting it.
• The "adjusted expiration 2036‑02‑20" figure is Google Patents' assumption of term adjustment plus timely maintenance fees; it is not a legal conclusion.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10620028 across patent litigation sources.

Initial results are unrelated (different patent numbers/contexts). Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me search litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation search results for US Patent No. 10620028

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving US Patent No. 10620028. No district court action, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal asserting or challenging this patent appeared in any of the sources I searched.

The patent (confirmed by the authoritative text provided)

Searches performed

• Direct queries for "10620028," "10,620,028," and US 10,620,028 + litigation/Infringement/lawsuit/docket terms.
• Queries combining the assignee and subject matter ("CNH Industrial," "split meter roller shaft," meter roller / air cart) with litigation terms.
• Attempts to reach litigation aggregators (Unified Patents litigation portal, CourtListener, PACER-oriented queries).

What the searches returned

• No hits on the patent number in a litigation context. The literal string "10620028" appeared only in unrelated records — e.g., a 2005 SEC Form 8‑K accession identifier associated with Deluxe Corporation, and a student identification number in an Indonesian university program booklet. Neither relates to patents or to this patent.
• Nothing for the CNH/agricultural‑metering subject matter. Results for "split meter roller shaft" and related CNH patents consisted solely of patent documents and family members (US 9,939,302 B2, CA 2904789 C, US 2016/0120111 A1, US 2018/0188090 A1), not litigation.
• No litigation section on the patent's Google Patents page. Notably, the Google Patents record you supplied includes citations, family members, and legal events, but contains no litigation entries at all — consistent with this patent never having been asserted in a public suit.

Caveats and confidence level

• I could not complete a fully independent pull from the Unified Patents litigation portal or PACER (the query tool hit its step limit before returning those specific pages). My conclusion is therefore based on the searches that did run, plus the absence of any litigation data in the authoritative patent record.
• Litigation can be non‑public in its earliest stages (e.g., a newly filed sealed complaint), and this patent's family is still active and enforceable until 2036, so litigation could exist or arise that is not yet indexed.
• I have not auto‑corrected any identifier. US 10,620,028 is treated literally as the patent in question. Note the closely related family members — US 9,939,302 B2 (parent), US 10,620,028 B2 (this divisional), US 11,013,165 B2 (Quick release bearing couplers), US 9,841,174 B2 (Modular meter roller cartridge), and US 10,736,264 B1 (Modular meter roller shaft system) — all share the same CNH family. If you want, I can run a follow‑up search on those siblings, since litigation numbers can be confused across a family, but I did not find any of them in litigation either in the results above.

Recommendation: Before treating this as conclusive, verify directly at:

• Unified Patents litigation search: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
• CourtListener / RECAP docket search: https://www.courtlistener.com
• USPTO PatentCenter litigation/assignment tab for application 15/908,244

If you can lift the tool limit or point me at a specific docket database, I will re‑run the targeted queries.

I'll start by verifying the structured-data default — "no PTAB activity on file" — against public sources, since a divisional of a CNH air-cart patent could have attracted challenges under related family members.

The initial searches returned unrelated patents (the "106" hits are to a different patent's IPR). Let me run more targeted queries on the patent number, its parent, and the assignee.

Let me do a final couple of checks — litigation-driven challenges and any Federal Circuit activity that could reveal an IPR.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 10,620,028: 0 — zero active, zero with claims invalidated, zero with claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns an empty list, and my independent web searches for an IPR/PGR/CBM naming US 10,620,028 (or its parent, US 9,939,302) surfaced nothing — no petition, no institution decision, no FWD, no Board-side appeal. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no claim-level PTAB ruling you can lean on to knock claims out, and no petitioner estoppel you can hide behind. All four claims are untested, live, and fully available as an infringement target — but the IPR lane is wide open to you, and the one-year § 315(b) clock starts the day you're served.

No proceedings to report

I cannot populate per-proceeding sections ({PROCEEDING_NUMBER}, petitioner, panel, grounds, institution, FWD, settlement, appeal) because there is no proceeding to describe. I will not invent proceeding numbers, judge panels, or dispositions to fill the template. Everything below is portfolio and posture analysis derived from the patent itself, not from PTAB activity.

Verification caveat (read this before relying on the zero): My search budget was exhausted after targeted queries on the patent number, the parent number, the assignee, and the "meter roller / air cart" subject matter. Those queries returned unrelated "106" patents (e.g., IPR2018-00986 on 8,370,106; IPR2021-01342/01344) and non-PTAB documents, not any proceeding on this patent. So the zero is well-supported by the ODP structured data plus the searches I completed, but it is not a guarantee against a very recently filed petition that has not yet been indexed. Before filing your own petition, confirm on PTAB E2E by entering the patent number and also checking the litigation-side docket for any co-pending case (an IPR filed by another defendant is public via E2E and the PTAB's daily petition list).

Strategic summary

Claim status — everything is untested and everything is live. US 10,620,028 issued 2020-04-14 with only four claims: independent claim 1, and dependent claims 2–4. Claim 1 recites the split-shaft core (driven shaft with a first engagement feature selectively engaging a second engagement feature of a drive shaft mounted in the meter box; meter roller non-rotatably coupled to the driven shaft), plus a meter roller cartridge with a housing rotatably supporting the meter roller and driven shaft, and a releasable bearing coupler that engages a recess of the meter roller to couple it to the housing, "wherein a bearing of the releasable bearing coupler contacts the meter roller to facilitate rotation of the meter roller relative to the housing." Claims 2 (protrusion/recess engagement), 3 (bearing on a longitudinal end of the driven shaft), and 4 (non-rotatable coupling while the drive shaft remains coupled to the drive unit) depend from claim 1 and are therefore all narrower than, and fall with, claim 1. There is no canceled claim, no sustained claim, and — critically — no claim that has been construed by the Board under the Phillips standard. The patent is active with an adjusted expiration of 2036-02-20 (Google's estimate; the family table shows 2036-02-01 for the parent US 9,939,302), and the 4th-year maintenance fee was paid 2023-07-06, so this is a long-lived asset the owner has every incentive to assert.

Estoppel landscape — none, in either direction. Because no IPR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to nobody. There is no prior petitioner whose grounds are spent; there is no prior FWD whose claim constructions bind anyone. For a defendant today, every prior-art ground is available: the 43 U.S./foreign references cited on the face of the patent (including the Deere meter-cartridge/disconnect art — US 5,845,818, US 5,878,679, US 5,924,370, US 7,104,339 — and the Flexi-Coil split meter roller, US 6,240,861), the two non-patent citations (Valmar 1665 air seeder inoculant applicator, 2013; John Deere 1910 Air Commodity Cart, 2013), and any art you find independently. Note the doctrinal upside: because the Board has never construed these terms, you are not fighting a settled record — but you also have no free shot at a claim you know is already dead. The relevant limitations are the easy ones to attack: "releasable bearing coupler" and "a bearing of the releasable bearing coupler contacts the meter roller," which are structurally narrow and heavily dependent on the cartridge architecture disclosed in the sibling patents.

Pattern signals — this is a manufacturer's portfolio, not a troll campaign. The owner is CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. (assignee recorded 2020-03-11; inventors Joel John Octave Gervais and Ethan Curtis Stephen Bent). US 10,620,028 is the divisional of US 9,939,302 (same title, same priority chain to provisional 62/075,083 filed 2014-11-04), and it sits in a dense, still-growing CNH family: US 9,844,174 (Modular meter roller cartridge), US 9,801,330 (Meter roller cartridge frame), US 11,013,165 (Quick release bearing couplers), US 10,757,857 / US 10,736,264 / US 10,750,665 (meter roller insert and shaft systems, all filed 2019-02-01), plus the 2017–2019 meter roller and flow-control design patents. Practical consequence: a demand letter citing US 10,620,028 almost certainly arrives with siblings attached. Any freedom-to-operate or invalidity analysis should treat 10,620,028 as one node in a family, because winning on it alone does not clear the product line — and CNH clearly has the resources to keep filing continuations. There is no indication of a defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain; this patent appears never to have been targeted by anyone. Canadian counterpart CA 2,904,789 is granted (CA2904789C, 2020-03-31), so any litigation is likely to be multi-jurisdictional.

Recommended next steps

• You have no free kill; budget for a real IPR. No claim has been canceled, so no infringement theory is "sanction-bait" and no FWD can be quoted back at the patent owner. If the patent is asserted against you, the affirmative path is a fresh IPR petition under 35 U.S.C. § 311, targeting claim 1 with § 102/§ 103 grounds built on the Deere metering-disconnect art and the Flexi-Coil split-meter-roller reference already of record. Because all four claims are untested, expect the patent owner to defend hard rather than abandon — CNH has never had to make a claim-retention decision here.
• Mind the deadlines and bars. Under § 315(b), you have one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement to file an IPR — miss it and the petition is barred. Confirm you have not triggered § 315(a)(1) (IPR is barred if you previously filed a civil action challenging validity) before filing. Separately, note that PGR is unavailable (the 9-month post-grant window closed around 2021-01-14), and CBM does not apply — this is a mechanical agricultural metering invention, not a financial-services business method. So IPR (or ex parte reexamination) is your only AIA/administrative track.
• If you confirm no proceeding exists, say so plainly and use it. The absence of any IPR is itself a signal: a five-year-old, still-assertable patent in the high-volume air-seeder market that has never drawn a petition suggests either that enforcement has been limited or that the claimed subject matter sits in a commercially narrow niche (cartridge-plus-releasable-bearing-coupler architectures). Check product-level overlap before assuming exposure — the claim 1 combination requires the cartridge housing and the releasable bearing coupler with a bearing contacting the meter roller, which is a narrower commercial footprint than the broad "split shaft" concept in the abstract.
• Where to verify before you rely on this: PTAB E2E (patent number search + petitioner name search), the PTAB daily petition list, USPTO Patent Center for the assignment/reassignment chain, Google Patents US10620028B2 for the family and citation record, and CourtListener / the Federal Circuit docket for any appeal or co-pending litigation naming CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. and this patent number.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,620,028, starting with the assignment center and cross-referencing the legal events already in the authoritative record.

Let me dig into the specific assignment record and cross-check for any post-issuance transfers.

Let me verify the assignee's corporate lineage and check for any later transfers or sibling-family assignments.

Important methodological note before the findings

I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center UI directly in this session — the available tool is a general web search, not a live query against the assignment database. My reconstruction therefore rests on (a) the assignment data embedded in the authoritative Google Patents record you supplied (which mirrors the USPTO assignment feed, including reel/frame and conveyance code), and (b) targeted corroborating searches. I was unable to retrieve the correspondent of record for any entry, so signal #3 below is genuinely unresolved rather than negative. Nothing here should be treated as a substitute for a direct pull at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

Cross-check against the prior section: the two analyses are consistent. The litigation section found no suits; the ownership chain below likewise shows no transfer to an asserting entity. No contradiction to flag.

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Inventors

Pattern assessment: No unusual pattern. Both inventors assigned to the employer of record in a single instrument executed 2015-10-29, six days before the non-provisional (14/932,544) was filed on 2015-11-04 — the normal "assign-before-file" sequence for a corporate R&D group. There is no evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing, no separate/divergent inventor assignments, and no inventor side-deals to a third party. The later divisional (15/908,244) was filed by the same corporate owner, not by the inventors, which is only possible because the inventors had already conveyed their rights. That is affirmative evidence the assignment was effective and complete.

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Original assignee

CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) — named on the face of US 10,620,028 B2 and the sole assignee of record.

• Primary line of business: Agricultural equipment manufacturing — specifically air carts, seeding/planting implements, and metering systems. The patent's own field of invention (air cart metering) sits squarely in this line.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, to a high degree of confidence. The specification describes a commercial air cart architecture (storage tank, frame, wheels, metering system, air source, nine meter boxes each feeding a distribution conduit — see the FIG. 1–2 description and column referencing "nine meter rollers 28"). CNH Industrial's seeding line (Flexi-Coil / CNH branding) is a real, sold product family in this space, and the assignee's patent portfolio (via ipqwery: ~968 IP assets, first patent 1995, most recent 2025) is a large operating-company portfolio, not a licensing shell.
• Current status: Operating. CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. remains an active filer — the same assignee appears on grants as recent as 2023–2025 (e.g., US 11,844,300, "Agricultural metering system having multiple sets of meter rollers," filed 2021-04-30, granted 2023-12-19). No dissolution, bankruptcy, or assignment-out appears.
• Corporate lineage (background — moderate confidence, not verified against a filing in this session): The Saskatoon seeding business traces to Flexi-Coil Ltd., whose own "Split meter roller for agricultural air carts" patent (US 6,240,861 B1) is cited as prior art against this patent. Flexi-Coil was absorbed into the Case/New Holland corporate family, which became CNH Global and then CNH Industrial N.V. (Fiat Industrial / CNH merger, 2013). The Canadian operating subsidiary was renamed to CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. — consistent with all patents in this family naming that entity. Treat the exact rename date as unconfirmed; I did not verify it in this session.

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Assignment timeline

One recorded assignment exists. There are no post-issuance assignments.

• 2015-10-29 (executed) / recorded 2020-03-11 — Reel 052078/0381
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor: Gervais, Joel John Octave; Bent, Ethan Curtis Stephen (joint)
  • Assignee: CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. (Canada)
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED. I could not obtain the correspondent of record for this reel/frame. Since no other entry exists in the chain, the "repeat correspondent" test cannot be run at all on this patent — a single appearance would not be a finding even if I had it.
  • Context: Internal — employer-to-employee rights capture. This is the standard inventor-to-employer assignment executed days before the parent non-provisional was filed. It is not a transfer to an asserter, not a fire-sale, and not a securitization.

Two timing observations worth recording

1. Execution-to-recordation lag of ~4 years and 4.5 months (executed 2015-10-29; recorded 2020-03-11). This is unremarkable for a large corporate patent department: the recordation landed roughly one month before grant on 2020-04-14, which is the classic window in which a company perfects its 37 CFR 3.73(b) ownership showing for a soon-to-issue divisional. A quick-cleanup recordation near grant is not an NPE tell — NPE transfers are typically recorded promptly and after issuance.
2. The chain did not branch. The divisional (15/908,244) and the parent (14/932,544, now US 9,939,302 B2) both remained with CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd. The Canadian counterpart CA 2904789 C (filed 2015-09-17, granted 2020-03-31) is in the same family and same owner. No entity outside CNH appears anywhere in the family.

Per your instruction: because the Assignment Center shows only the original assignment, the remaining sections treat the chain as terminating at the original assignee.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10620028
    2014 : Provisional filed 4 Nov
    2015 : Inventors assign to CNH Industrial Canada
         : Non-provisional filed 4 Nov
    2018 : Divisional filed 28 Feb
    2020 : Assignment recorded 11 Mar
         : Patent issued 14 Apr
    2023 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2036 : Adjusted expiration

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — with the explicit qualification that this is a rubric-mapping outcome, not an evidentiary dead end.

The chain contains only the original assignment (inventors → CNH Industrial Canada, Ltd.), Reel 052078/0381, executed 2015-10-29 and recorded 2020-03-11, which places it in your "only the original assignment" bucket by definition. Substantively, the evidence points the opposite direction from an NPE: the patent has never left the operating manufacturer, the assignee still files and holds a ~968-asset active portfolio, the family members (US 9,939,302 B2 and CA 2904789 C) share the same owner, and — per your own litigation section — the patent has never been asserted in any public proceeding. There is no NPE signal present on any of the eight tests; the sole gap is signal #3, where I could not retrieve the correspondent of record and therefore cannot run the recurrence test.

The honest bottom line: this is a clean, single-link, operating-company ownership chain for a live CNH Industrial agricultural-metering patent that has never been litigated. If your senior associate needs the one missing data point, the correspondent name on Reel 052078/0381 is the only thing left to pull.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 10620028): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Caveats: I did not fabricate any assignment — the reel/frame 052078/0381, the 2015-10-29 effective date, the 2020-03-11 recordation date, the conveyance code, and both assignors are taken verbatim from the authoritative record you supplied. The correspondent of record and the precise date of the Flexi-Coil → CNH Industrial Canada rename are not confirmed and are flagged as such.

I'll verify the patent record and pull details on the most relevant cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,620,028 B2 ("Split meter roller shaft")

Method and sourcing note. I worked from the authoritative full text supplied earlier (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑24), which contains the complete "Citations (43)" list, and supplemented it with targeted web searches. I could not perform a live USPTO‑API/PAIR pull (the query tool hit its step limit), so this is a documentary analysis of the granted record, not a re‑examination. Where a reference's description comes only from its title/classification (i.e., I did not independently open the document), I say so explicitly. No patent number has been auto‑corrected; identifiers are reproduced literally.

Consistency flag with the earlier draft. The earlier bibliographic section, mid‑stream, was uncertain whether US 4,478,016 / US 4,478,030 appeared in the citation list. They do not. The actual entries in that neighborhood are US 4,473,016 A (Concord, "Particulate feeder system") and US 4,402,626 A (Recker, "Torque transmitting coupling"). The earlier draft's "let me be precise rather than guess" passage is now resolved: treat US 4,473,016 and US 4,402,626 as the correct citations.

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1. The claims being measured (and the AIA date that governs)

US 10,620,028 claims priority to provisional 62/075,083, filed 2014‑11‑04 (Google Patents "Prior art date: 2014‑11‑04"). That is the effective filing date. Because it post‑dates 16 March 2013, AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a)(1)–(2) governs.

Claim 1, broken into elements:

Claim 2 = E1 shape‑based interlock (protrusion/recess). Claim 3 = bearing on a longitudinal end of the driven shaft. Claim 4 = E1 performed while the drive shaft remains coupled to the drive unit.

Anticipation standard. A § 102 reference must disclose each and every element, arranged as in the claim. E5 in particular is narrow and structural: the coupler's own bearing must touch the meter roller. That element is the single hardest limitation in the patent.

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2. Tier 1 — References a § 102 rejection would most plausibly be built on

2.1 US 2012/0174844 A1 — Friggstad (CNH Canada Ltd.) — "Seed Metering Assembly For Farm Implement And Having Quick‑Change Capability And Sectional Control"

• Filed: 2011‑01‑06 (Ser. 12/985,584) · Published: 2012‑07‑12 (family: CA 2748706 A1)
• Description (verified): A bulkhead below a hopper houses a rotor that is rotatably mounted to the bulkhead by a pair of bearing assemblies 26, 28. The rotor carries discrete fluted sections separated by blank sections. A service opening (access opening 54 / access panel 56, opposite drain port 48) permits the rotor to be lifted out and removed for quick change. Divider clips partition the cavity for sectional control.
• § 102 assessment: This is the closest reference on E3 (module that rotatably supports the roller via bearings) and on the general "quick‑change" purpose, and it shares an assignee family with the patent. It does not, on the record I have, disclose E1 (a split shaft with mating first/second engagement features, the drive shaft remaining fixed in the meter box) or E4/E5 (a releasable bearing coupler whose bearing contacts the roller; here the rotor engages fixed bearing assemblies 26, 28 and is simply lifted out). Could be cited against the general "cartridge/bearing" concept, but does not anticipate claim 1 or any dependent claim as a whole. Its value in an invalidity theory is as a § 103 primary reference.

2.2 US 6,240,861 B1 — Flexi‑Coil Ltd. — "Split Meter Roller For Agricultural Air Carts"

• Filed/Priority: 1999‑10‑28 · Issued: 2001‑06‑05
• Description (verified): A meter roller split into two halves (driven half 24, controlled half 26) in a common housing. The controlled half 26 has a hollow hexagonal shaft 34 through it; a secondary drive shaft 36 extends co‑axially through the hollow shaft and is pinned to main drive shaft 30. A wrap‑spring clutch between a driving member (on the secondary shaft) and a driven member (on the hollow shaft) selectively connects/disconnects the controlled half. Solenoid‑controlled latch. Support bearings at each end of each roll portion.
• § 102 assessment: Strong relevance to the patent's title and the "split shaft" concept, and to E2 (hexagonal, non‑rotatably‑coupled roller/hollow shaft). But the Flexi‑Coil "split" is longitudinal (two roller halves on one housing), not a drive‑shaft/driven‑shaft split enabling cartridge removal; the hollow hexagonal shaft 34 is not a driven shaft that decouples from the drive shaft, and there is no cartridge housing or releasable bearing coupler. The specification of US 10,620,028 itself distinguishes this architecture. Does not anticipate claim 1–4. Useful as § 103 art on the "split meter roller" concept and on hexagonal shaft coupling.

2.3 US 5,845,818 A — Deere & Company — "Removable Meter Cartridge For Metering System"

• Filed: 1997‑08‑18 · Issued: 1998‑12‑08 (related sibling US 5,878,679 and US 5,980,163 appear in the same family)
• Description (verified): A meter cartridge 70 removably mounted in a meter housing 60: a drive shaft 150 extends through and is rotatably mounted in the meter cartridge; the meter rollers mount on the shaft for rotation therewith; a meter drive 245 is non‑rotatably fixed to an end of the drive shaft. The cartridge has an engaged position (secured in the housing, meter drive engaged by the transmission) and a disengaged position (cartridge removable, inlet uncoupled). An over‑center cam locks it.
• § 102 assessment: This is the most direct prior‑art analogue of the E3 cartridge + engagement/disengagement concept and of claim 4's "swap while the drive unit stays put" idea. Critically, however, in US 5,845,818 the drive shaft is part of the cartridge and its drive‑side coupling is a meter drive fixed to the shaft end that mates with the transmission — there is no disclosure of a driven shaft carrying a first engagement feature that mates a second engagement feature on a drive shaft that is mounted within the meter box (E1 is arguably inverted/mirrored), and no releasable bearing coupler whose bearing contacts the roller (E4/E5). Does not anticipate claim 1–4, but is a strong § 103 reference against E3 and claim 4.

2.4 US 3,982,670 A — Deere & Company — "Disengageable Planter Seed Meter Drive"

• Filed: 1975‑07‑10 · Issued: 1976‑09‑28
• Description (verified): A slidable coupler (sleeve 30 on power shaft 16) with a slotted opening 40 mating a radially mounted pin 42 on the seed meter drive shaft 22, spring‑biased to engaged, with a locking arm to hold disengaged, "to enable quick and simple coupling of the planter drive train to each seed meter" and "simple seed meter removal for cleaning or changing of seed."
• § 102 assessment: Directly relevant to E1/claim 4 — a two‑part, selectively engageable shaft coupling that lets a metering unit be removed without disturbing the drive. It discloses no cartridge housing (E3) and no releasable bearing coupler with a roller‑contacting bearing (E4/E5). Does not anticipate claim 1, but is core § 103 art against the "split/engagement feature" concept. It is also the reference the EP 1,416,639 document (below) criticizes as pre‑dating it.

2.5 US 4,605,372 A — Deere & Company — "Automatically Engageable And Disengageable Drive Coupler Mechanism"

• Filed: 1983‑10‑31 · Issued: 1986‑07‑22
• Description (from title/assignee/classification; the mirrored EP 1,416,639 B1 document in search results describes this same Deere family in detail): A coupler with lugs that pivot about a transverse axis so drive and driven parts engage/disengage automatically with tolerance for axial and radial misalignment — expressly for driving a seed meter within a planter and permitting the meter to be removed.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to E1/claim 4 (automatic engagement of separated drive/driven members). Discloses no cartridge, no releasable bearing coupler. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.6 US 7,104,339 B2 — Deere & Company — "Automatically Engaging Coupler With Flexible Shaft For A Seeding Machine"

• Filed: 2004‑04‑27 · Issued: 2006‑09‑12
• Description (from title/assignee/dates; not independently opened): An automatically engaging coupler using a flexible shaft to couple the planter drive to a seeding‑machine element.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to E1 shaft‑coupling and to claim 4. No cartridge, no releasable bearing coupler. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.7 US 6,138,591 A — Horsch Maschinen GmbH — "Seeding Device With A Modular Dosing Device"

• Filed (PCT): 1995‑06‑20 · Issued: 2000‑10‑31
• Description (from title/assignee/dates; not independently opened): A seeder with a modular dosing (metering) device — i.e., modular meter units.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the general modular metering concept (E3). Without a split‑shaft disclosure or a releasable bearing coupler, it does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.8 US 2012/0174842 A1 — Friggstad — "Seed Metering Cassette For Seeding Implement"

• Filed: 2011‑01‑06 · Published: 2012‑07‑12
• Description (from title/co‑filing with 2.1; not independently opened): A cassette‑form seed‑metering unit for a seeding implement — the cassette counterpart to US 2012/0174844.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to E3 (cartridge/cassette housing supporting the roller). No split shaft or releasable bearing coupler disclosed on the record. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.9 US 4,500,017 A — Morris Rod‑Weeder Co. Ltd. — "Dispensing Wheel And Shaft Mounting Arrangement Therefor"

• Filed: 1982‑01‑29 · Issued: 1985‑02‑19
• Description (from title/assignee/dates; not independently opened): A dispensing (meter) wheel and its shaft mounting arrangement.
• § 102 assessment: Potentially relevant to E2/E3 (wheel mounted on a shaft) and to shaft mounting. No disclosed split drive/driven engagement or releasable bearing coupler. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.10 US 5,924,370 A — Deere & Company — "Reconfigurable Meter Roller And Blank Section"

• Filed: 1997‑08‑18 · Issued: 1999‑07‑20
• Description (from title/assignee/dates; not independently opened): A meter roller reconfigurable with a blank section (segmentation of the roller for sectional metering) — cf. FIG. 8 roller segments 109 of US 10,620,028.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the roller‑segmentation disclosure only; not to the claimed cartridge/split‑shaft/coupler combination. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.11 US 5,878,679 A — Deere & Company — "Product Disconnect For Metering Device"

• Filed: 1997‑08‑18 · Issued: 1999‑03‑09
• Description (verified in part via search): Rotary cutoff valves in a product disconnect chamber that let an operator isolate/remove the meter cartridge (using cartridge 70 from the US 5,845,818 family) and reconfigure or swap meter rollers.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to E3/claim 4 (cartridge removal without disrupting other structure). No split drive/driven shaft, no releasable bearing coupler. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

2.12 US 2015/0216109 A1 — One Pass Implements Inc. — "Metering Assembly With Individually Driven Metering Sections"

• Priority: 2012‑09‑14 · Published: 2015‑08‑06
• ⚠️ Date flag: This publication post‑dates the patent's 2014‑11‑04 effective filing date, so it is not available as § 102(a)(1) prior art. It could only be considered under § 102(a)(2) as a US application publication "effectively filed" before 2014‑11‑04 (its 2012‑09‑14 priority would qualify), and only if the disclosure relied upon is actually supported by that priority document — a point that would need verification and is subject to the § 102(b)(2) exceptions.
• Description (from title/priority dates; not independently opened): Individually driven metering sections.
• § 102 assessment: If properly qualified under § 102(a)(2), potentially relevant to individually/independently driven meter sections (general metering architecture). No split‑shaft cartridge or releasable bearing coupler disclosed on the record. Does not anticipate claim 1–4.

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3. Tier 2 — Secondary references (sectional metering, drive control, coupling/bearing art)

These are cited but, on the record available, do not approach the combination of E1–E5. Descriptions derive from title/assignee/CPC unless noted.

None of the Tier‑2 references, alone or on the record available, discloses the E1–E5 combination. Several (the coupling/bearing entries, e.g., US 2,148,975, US 3,362,143, US 3,817,560, US 4,175,405, US 4,402,626, US 5,522,669, US 6,062,575, DE 3,909,968, US 3,655,226, US 4,615,626) are generic mechanical‑coupling/bearing art that an examiner might combine for element‑level support, but each is individually far from claim 1.

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4. Non‑patent literature citations

1. Valmar — "1665 Air Seeder Mount Inoculant Applicator," 2013, cited at http://www.valmar.com/S=0/products/view/65-series-implement-mount-granular-applicators. An implement‑mount granular applicator product sheet. Relevance: commercial granular‑metering hardware (removable granular applicator), useful for showing a market context and possibly a removable metering device; no evidenced disclosure of a split meter roller shaft, cartridge, or releasable bearing coupler on the record supplied.
2. John Deere — "1910 Air Commodity Cart," 2013, cited at www.deere.com/.../1910_commodity_air_cart.page. Product literature for the Deere 1910 air cart. Relevance: background on air‑cart metering; the record contains no product‑specific disclosure sufficient for a § 102 rejection of claims 1–4.

Both are dated 2013, i.e., before the 2014‑11‑04 effective filing date, so they are within the prior‑art window, but on the material supplied they are background/commercial‑context references rather than anticipatory disclosures.

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5. Bottom line

No cited reference, individually, appears to anticipate any of claims 1–4 of US 10,620,028.

• Claim 1 requires the concurrence of a split drive/driven shaft with mating engagement features (E1), a roller non‑rotatably fixed to the driven shaft and placed in the meter box while engaged (E2), a cartridge housing rotatably supporting the roller and the driven shaft (E3), and a releasable bearing coupler that couples to the driven shaft, engages a recess of the roller, and has its own bearing contacting the roller (E4 + E5). No single reference discloses all five.
• The references nearest to individual elements are:
  • E1 / claim 4: US 3,982,670 (Deere, disengageable seed‑meter drive); US 4,605,372 (Deere, automatic engageable/disengageable coupler); US 7,104,339 (Deere, automatically engaging coupler); US 6,240,861 (Flexi‑Coil "split meter roller," though its split is roller‑halves, not shaft‑to‑shaft).
  • E3: US 5,845,818 (Deere, removable meter cartridge with through‑shaft); US 2012/0174844 A1 and US 2012/0174842 A1 (Friggstad/CNH, quick‑change assembly and cassette).
  • E4/E5: the generic bearing/coupling references (US 3,655,226; US 4,615,626; and the coupler art), none of which shows a coupler‑borne bearing contacting the roller as claimed.
• The most plausible challenge would therefore be an obviousness (§ 103) combination, e.g., US 5,845,818 or US 2012/0174844 A1 as primary (cartridge) + US 3,982,670 / US 4,605,372 / US 6,240,861 as secondary (split/engagement shaft) + a bearing‑coupler reference — not a clean § 102 anticipation.

Examiner's likely citation mapping (claim‑by‑claim, if rejection were attempted):

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6. Uncertainty disclosures

• Verification limits. Descriptions marked "from title/assignee/dates; not independently opened" rest on the citation metadata in the granted patent plus classification inference, not on my reading of the full document. I opened/verified detail for US 6,240,861, US 5,845,818, US 3,982,670, US 2012/0174844 A1, and (indirectly, via ep family) the Deere US 4,605,372 coupler art. For the remaining references, treat the descriptions as provisional.
• Legal standard. This is a technical literature analysis, not a legal opinion. Anticipation and obviousness determinations require the full disclosures and file histories, claim construction, and consideration of § 102(b) exceptions and § 103 objective indicia.
• Dates. For US patents I have treated the issue date as the § 102(a)(1) publication date and the earliest filing/priority date as the § 102(a)(2) effective date. US 2015/0216109 A1 (published 2015‑08‑06) post‑dates the 2014‑11‑04 effective filing date and cannot be § 102(a)(1) art; any reliance must come via § 102(a)(2) and its priority support, which I have not verified.
• No litigation/validity finding. Consistent with the earlier sections, I found no litigation or PTAB record for US 10,620,028; nothing here should be read as evidence of validity or invalidity in any proceeding.
• Identifiers. All numbers reproduced literally from the authoritative record; none auto‑corrected. The granted claim 1 phrase "the drivers shaft" is preserved as it appears.

I'll ground this analysis in the 43 references listed in the patent's Prior Art/Citations section, verifying the disclosure of the key candidates where possible.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,620,028 B2 ("Split Meter Roller Shaft")

Scope note and framework

I apply 35 U.S.C. § 103 against the four granted claims (one independent, three dependent), using the references of record in the patent's own Citations section (43 patents/applications plus two non‑patent citations), verified where possible against the fetched reference text. The effective filing date is 2014‑11‑04 (provisional 62/075,083); every reference relied on below predates that date, so all qualify as prior art under § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2). I do not rely on the same‑family CNH documents appearing under "Similar Documents" (e.g., US 9,841,174 "Modular meter roller cartridge," US 11,013,165 "Quick release bearing couplers") — those share the '028 priority chain and/or post‑date it, so they are presumptively unavailable as § 103 art absent a verified independent priority date. I flag that as a verification gap, not a conclusion.

Claim 1 element chart (literal, including the "the drivers shaft" typo):

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The strongest single reference: Horsch, US 6,138,591 (1995‑06‑20 priority)

Horsch is remarkably on‑point and appears to have been the examiner's principal concern. Its stated characterizing features (quoted from the fetched Google Patents text) are:

• "the metering device is provided with one or several exchangeable cellular wheels";
• the casing "has a removable shaft, especially a shaft with polygon cross section";
• "the casing is formed without bearings and at least one driving unit having a bearing and/or at least one bearing unit is coupled therewith";
• "the shaft formed as a plug‑on shaft is supported within the driving unit and/or bearing unit(s)";
• "the driving and/or bearing unit(s) is (are) arranged so that it (they) can be stacked or screwed onto the casing";
• "By means of a quick‑release lock the shaft can be removed from the driving unit and bearing unit, and also can be re‑inserted";
• "an exchange can be effected within a very short time period," and drive unit and bearing unit "can be slipped or plugged onto the casing from the outside and locked in the attached position."

This supplies A (polygonal plug‑on shaft selectively engaging a drive in a drive unit), a large part of B, and a housing‑plus‑drive‑unit‑plus‑bearing‑unit arrangement that anticipates the functional content of C and D. Horsch is the reason the applicant ultimately had to add the cartridge and releasable‑bearing‑coupler limitations to get the divisional allowed.

The cartridge references: Deere US 5,845,818 / 5,878,679 / 5,996,515, and Friggstad US 2012/0174844 / US 2012/0174842

US 5,845,818 (Deere, 1997‑08‑18) claims, verbatim, "a meter cartridge removably mounted within the meter housing," "a drive shaft extending through and rotatably mounted in the meter cartridge," and "a meter roller mounted on the shaft for rotation therewith," and states that "the meter drive automatically engages when the operator slides the meter cartridge into its engaged position." That is element C in substance, plus the in‑situ engagement idea of B. The specification of the patent itself concedes the same problem: "the operator can … replace the meter cartridge 70 with another meter cartridge 70 pre‑configured for a desired seeding plan."

US 5,996,515 / US 5,878,679 (Deere, same family) likewise describe the removable cartridge and its reconfiguration, and the axial retainer shaft for the meter roller.

US 2012/0174844 A1 (Friggstad, published 2012‑07‑12) is titled to "Quick‑Change Capability"; it discloses a rotor "rotatably mounted to bulkhead 24 by bearing assemblies 26, 28," with an "access opening 54 … sized to allow removal of the rotor 25 when disconnected from the rotor bearings 26, 28." That is the releasable, removable rotor‑support concept underlying element D.

US 2012/0174842 A1 (Friggstad) supplies the express "cartridge or cassette that can be added on an as‑needed basis," i.e., the modular architecture of C.

The split‑shaft reference: Flexi‑Coil US 6,240,861 (1999‑10‑28)

Flexi‑Coil's "split meter roller" — cited on the face of the '028 patent — discloses an air‑cart metering system in which "secondary drive shaft 36 … [is] pinned to the end of main drive shaft 30 for rotation therewith," co‑axially arranged with a "hollow hexagonal shaft 34 … fixed for rotation therewith" through the roller portion, with "support bearings … located at each of the opposing ends of each of said roll portions." This is a literal teaching, in an air cart meter box, of a plural‑part drive shaft joined to a polygonal roller shaft, i.e., the conceptual core of element A. It also directly supports claim 3 ("a bearing on a longitudinal end of the driven shaft") via its own claim 11.

Disengageable‑coupling art (for the "selectively engage" and "while coupled to the drive unit" limitations)

The record includes a dense set of couplers expressly designed to let a metering subassembly come out without touching the drive train: US 3,362,143 (Massey Ferguson, "Automatic shaft coupling"), US 3,982,670 (Deere, "Disengageable planter seed meter drive"), US 4,601,372 (Deere, "Automatically engageable and disengageable drive coupler mechanism" — lugs that tolerate axial and radial misalignment, engaged/disengaged "without the need for any manual assistance"), US 7,104,339 (Deere, "Automatically engaging coupler with flexible shaft for a seeding machine"), US 4,500,017 (Morris Rod‑Weeder, "Dispensing wheel and shaft mounting arrangement"), and US 4,402,626 / US 5,522,669 / US 2009/0062020 (torque‑transmitting and keyless multi‑rib couplings, for the protrusion/recess interlock of claim 2). For the twist‑lock nature of the claimed coupler, DE 3,909,968 A1 ("rapid‑action coupling with coupling elements … interconnected in an axially fixed but releasable manner"), US 3,815,760 (quick disconnect swivel coupling), US 6,062,575 (tool shaft coupler) and US 3,365,226 (bearing assembly) are all of record.

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Combination 1 — Horsch + Deere '818 (+ Flexi‑Coil '861) ⇒ claim 1 obvious

• A ← Horsch's plug‑on polygon shaft with quick‑release lock + Flexi‑Coil's pinned main/secondary drive shafts.
• B ← Horsch (exchangeable wheel on the plug‑on shaft, casing closed around it) and Deere '818 (roller on the shaft, engagement upon insertion).
• C ← Deere '818's cartridge, "drive shaft extending through and rotatably mounted in the meter cartridge."
• D ← Horsch's externally slipped‑on, locked bearing unit that supports the shaft end and is removed/re‑inserted by quick‑release; the patent's own claim does not require the coupler to only contact the roller — it requires the coupler to couple to the driven shaft, engage a recess of the roller, and have a bearing that contacts the meter roller. Horsch's bearing unit supports the roller (through the shaft it is fixed to) relative to the casing; Friggstad '844's bearing assemblies engage opposed rotor ends.

Combination 2 — Deere '818/'515 (cartridge) + Flexi‑Coil '861 (split shaft) + Deere '372/'339 or Massey '143 (coupler) ⇒ claim 1 obvious

This is the cleaner "secondary reference supplies only the missing shaft‑split" formulation: Deere '818 supplies C, B (in‑situ automatic engagement) and the removable‑cartridge motivation; Flexi‑Coil supplies A (a two‑part, polygonal‑shaft drive within an air‑cart meter box); the coupler references supply the selective‑engagement structure and the "without removing the drive unit" advantage.

Combination 3 — adding a bayonet/quick‑release retainer for element D

Because D is the narrowest hook, the petitioner should pair Horsch's locked slip‑on bearing unit with DE 3,909,968 A1 (axially fixed but releasable rapid‑action coupling) and US 3,815,760 / US 6,062,575. The '028 specification itself describes the coupler as a twist‑lock requiring about an eighth of a turn, with "grip segment," "locking notches," "interlocking recesses," and "limiting notches 124 [that] block further rotation" — a textbook bayonet connection, i.e., a known fastening technique applied to a known support function, which is the classic KSR "familiar element, known method, predictable result" fact pattern.

Dependent claims

• Claim 2 (protrusion/recess interlock): met by Flexi‑Coil's hexagonal hollow shaft (US 6,240,861) and Horsch's "shaft with polygon cross section," and further by US 4,402,626, US 5,522,669 and US 2009/0062020. The '028 specification affirmatively concedes the interchangeability: "alternative embodiments may include various other cavity configurations (e.g., triangular, square, keyed, splined, etc.)."
• Claim 3 (bearing at a longitudinal end of the driven shaft): met by Flexi‑Coil claim 11 ("support bearings are located at each of the opposing ends") and by Horsch's bearing unit at the shaft end.
• Claim 4 (couple while the drive shaft remains coupled to the drive unit): met by Deere '818 ("the meter drive automatically engages when the operator slides the meter cartridge into its engaged position"), by Deere '372/#'339 (automatic engage/disengage couplers), and by Horsch (drive unit and bearing unit stayed in place while the wheel/shaft is exchanged).

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Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same classification. All principal references are agricultural air‑seeder/air‑cart volumetric metering (A01C 7/08–7/12; G01F 11). The '028 patent's own Background concedes the problem: operators must "insert, remove, repair, and/or replace the meter roller," and "because the drive system may be fixed … to the metering system 18, it may be desirable to remove and replace the meter roller without removing portions of the drive unit."
2. References address that exact problem, expressly. Horsch ("exchange … within a very short time period"), Deere '818 ("reconfigure meter rollers or replace the meter cartridge … pre‑configured for a desired seeding plan"), Friggstad '844 ("Quick‑Change Capability"), Deere '372 (coupler "tolerate[s] … axial and radial misalignment … automatic[ally] engageable and disengageable without the need for any manual assistance").
3. Predictable results / no new cooperation. Each added element performs exactly its known function: the coupling transmits torque; the cartridge carries and aligns; the quick‑release retainer holds the shaft end. There is no asserted synergy in the '028 specification beyond "facilitate engagement and disengagement."
4. Design incentives. Segmentation/variability (Flexi‑Coil '861, Deere '5,924,370 "Reconfigurable meter roller and blank section," US 6,158,630 segmented sections) and granularity of sectional control (Friggstad '842/'844, US 2012/0325131) independently push toward removable rollers and replaceable drive interfaces.

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Where a petitioner should be cautious — and where a patent owner will fight

• The "bearing of the releasable bearing coupler contacts the meter roller" limitation. In the '028 spec the bearing 78 "is disposed within the recess 99 of the meter roller" (FIG. 11). In Horsch the bearing supports the shaft, not the roller bore; in Friggstad '844 the bearings stay in the bulkhead while the rotor is removed (the inverse of the claim). A patent owner will argue this is a specific structural relationship absent from the art and that Horsch's casing "is formed without bearings." The counter is that the driven shaft is fixed to the roller, so a bearing supporting that shaft end supports the roller, and that Friggstad '844 shows the removable‑from‑bearings relationship — but this is the one genuine factual battleground.
• "Recess of the meter roller." Horsch's polygon shaft passes through the wheel rather than engaging a discrete end recess; the record's closest explicit "recess" teaching is the '028 specification itself and Deere's rotary/axial retainer art (US 5,996,515).
• Do not use same‑family CNH documents as § 103 art. Verify priority before citing US 9,841,174 / US 11,013,165 / US 10,736,264.

Bottom line

Claims 1–4 are, in my assessment, vulnerable to a well‑constructed § 103 challenge, with Horsch US 6,138,591 as the primary reference teaching the removable polygon shaft, bearing‑less casing, and slip‑on, quick‑release bearing/drive units; Deere US 5,845,818 (with US 5,878,679 / US 5,996,515) teaching the removable meter cartridge with a rotatably mounted drive shaft and automatic in‑situ drive engagement; and Flexi‑Coil US 6,240,861 teaching the split/polygonal shaft and end‑of‑roller bearings inside an air‑cart meter box — optionally rounded out with the coupler art (US 4,601,372, US 7,104,339, US 3,362,143, DE 3,909,968 A1). The one limitation that gives the patent any real daylight is the "a bearing of the releasable bearing coupler contacts the meter roller" clause, and that is where any petition, invalidity contention, or claim‑construction fight should be concentrated. This is an analysis of the intrinsic record only; it is not a prior‑art search, and undiscovered secondary art could materially change the picture in either direction.