US 11098907

I'll verify current status via search while grounding the summary in the authoritative patent text provided.

US Patent 11,098,907 — Analyst Summary

Verification note up front: I ran targeted searches for this exact number. Public web results confirm the patent's existence and basic bibliographic data (Justia's assignee page for Grease Catcher Systems, LLC lists "US11098907B1, 2019-05-17, 2021-08-24"). However, I found no CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, IPR, or district court litigation referencing U.S. Patent 11,098,907. I do not have direct authenticated access to USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB or CAFC PACER; my search was web-based. So the statement "no litigation found" reflects a negative search result, not a certified clearance.

Also per your instruction, I did not auto-correct anything: the number rendered is literally 11098907 (US 11,098,907 B1), consistent with the authoritative full text supplied.

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Bibliographic Data

Ownership trail note: Two separate assignment records both dated 2019-09-18 to Grease Catcher Systems, LLC — one from KELLY OTTO, one from GORDON BRUNER. That is a per-inventor assignment pattern, not a correction or re-assignment.

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Abstract (verbatim)

"A containment apparatus, kit and method for containing liquid waste when cleaning a kitchen ventilation system wherein the containment apparatus includes a funnel that is removably attachable to an attachment device on a kitchen ventilation hood."

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Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

The patent covers a three-part system for catching the grease-and-water runoff generated when a commercial kitchen exhaust hood and its ductwork are power-washed. The core architecture is permanent mount + disposable/reusable funnel + drain hose.

Claim 1 — Containment apparatus

A device with three required elements:

1. An attachment device permanently attached to the ventilation hood — and critically, this attachment device must comprise a plurality of panels, each panel having at least one hook extending out from it (i.e., the plurality of hooks is a claim limitation, not merely an optional embodiment).
2. A funnel with a funnel base, removably attached to that attachment device.
3. A drain line attached to the funnel base.

Note: "Permanently" is expressly defined in the specification (and incorporated by the claims) as long-term attachment measured in months or years, not literal irreversibility — screws, bolts, or permanent adhesives qualify. So "permanently attached" ≠ welded/machined on.

Claim 6 — Kit

The same three components supplied as an unassembled kit:

• (a) an attachment device for permanent attachment to a hood, again required to comprise a plurality of panels each with at least one hook (again, the hook/panel structure is a positive limitation);
• (b) a funnel for attachment to the device, having a funnel base where liquid waste flows;
• (c) a drain line for attachment to the funnel base.
  The difference from Claim 1 is the state of assembly — a kit rather than an installed apparatus.

Claim 11 — Method

A four-step cleaning method:

1. Attaching an attachment device permanently to a ventilation hood — again limited to a device comprising a plurality of panels each with at least one hook;
2. Attaching a funnel temporarily to the attachment device, the funnel having a funnel base and being removably attached;
3. Attaching a drain line to the funnel;
4. Washing the internal components of the ventilation system, with the liquid waste passing through the funnel then through the drain line to a disposal point.

Key practical takeaway — the hook/panel limitation is baked into all three independent claims. The specification's alternative fastener (hook-and-loop strips, described as "a less preferred embodiment") and the alternative of attaching the drain line directly to the funnel base without a coupling pipe appear only in dependent claims 2–5, 7–10. That means the hook-and-loop and direct-connect variants are not covered at the independent-claim level.

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Dependent Claim Highlights

• Claims 2, 7: Funnel apertures along the upper edge, spaced to match the hook spacing (specification: nominally ~12 in / ~30 cm), with the funnel hung by hook-into-aperture insertion. Apertures are preferably reinforced with metal rings and the upper edges reinforced.
• Claims 3, 8: Funnel formed of four triangular sides, each with its own upper edge carrying apertures (two smaller, two larger triangles per the spec; ~6 mil medium-density polyethylene, hot-seam welded).
• Claims 4, 9: A coupling pipe (spec: ~1.5 in threaded PVC welded to the funnel base) plus a hose with a threaded end.
• Claims 5, 10: The hook-and-loop alternative to hooks/apertures.

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Context: Prosecution & Prior Art

Twelve references were cited during prosecution (13 in the granted listing, including a sibling Halton publication). Notably, none of the cited references is a kitchen-hood cleaning-containment patent — the closest art is from adjacent fields:

• US 9,259,769 B1 (Kane, 2016) and US 10,144,628 B1 (Crossford International, 2018) — apparatus/method for collecting cleaning wastewater and debris from air conditioners and other sources;
• US 10,982,915 B2 (Clean Coil Products LLC, 2021) — collecting fluid from wall-mounted appliances;
• US 10,890,354 B1 (Crossford, 2021) — mini-split air handling unit cleaning;
• US 8,915,982 B2 (BSH Bosch und Siemens) — extractor with grease collection channel;
• US 2016/0114360 A1 (McMenamin) — steam cleaner for baffle grease filters;
• Non-patent citation: the Teinnova Tegras grease-ductwork cleaning system.

The examiner's reliance on the AC-coil-cleaning capture line (Crossford/Kane) and the drain-pan art suggests the allowance turned on the hood-mounted panel-with-hooks attachment plus the removably-hung triangular funnel, rather than on the concept of capturing wash water generally.

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Uncertainty Flags

1. No litigation found. Absent a confirmed PACER/PTAB check, I cannot represent that U.S. 11,098,907 has never been asserted. My searches surfaced nothing.
2. Claim language consistency. The heading of Claim 1 states the attachment device is "permanently attached," while dependent Claim 1(b) and Claim 11 refer to the funnel being "removably attached"/"temporarily attached." That is internally coherent (permanent mount, temporary funnel), but note the specification's own definition of "permanently" expressly applies to the claims and softens the term to a months/years duration.
3. "Expires 2039-12-19." This is Google Patents' adjusted expiration estimate (filing date plus term, with PTA), not an official USPTO determination, and the source itself labels legal status as an assumption.
4. Claim 6 lettering. The published claim set numbers the kit elements (e), (f), (g) and method steps (i)–(l) — an artifact of the original drafting, not a numbering error to be corrected.

Primary source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11098907/en (full text supplied, treated as authoritative). Corroborating: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/grease-catcher-systems-llc

I'll research litigation involving US patent 11098907 across litigation-tracking sources.

Initial searches were noisy. Let me target the patent's assignee and litigation databases directly.

Let me try more targeted searches on litigation portals and the patent owner.

Summary of Findings

I could not find any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,098,907 in the sources I was able to search.

What I searched

I ran targeted queries on the specific patent number and on the patent owner across general web indexes that surface litigation records (court dockets, CourtListener/Recap, PTAB materials, and litigation-aggregator content). Queries included:

• US patent 11098907 litigation / "11098907" patent lawsuit defendant / "11098907" patent case docket courtlistener
• "Grease Catcher Systems" patent lawsuit infringement / "Grease Catcher Systems LLC" v. defendant
• patent 11098907 "kitchen ventilation" infringement complaint

Results

• No district court case, ITC investigation, CAFC appeal, or PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceeding naming U.S. 11,098,907 was returned.
• The one superficially "grease-related" litigation hit was unrelated to this patent: Shenzhen Huajing Intl Trade Co. Ltd. v. Grease Box LLC, No. 2:25-cv-01300 (W.D. Wash.), a declaratory-judgment action concerning a different patent, U.S. 11,812,895 ("Grease containment systems") — not the '907 patent, a different owner (Grease Box LLC), and a different technology (outdoor-grill grease buckets). I am excluding it per your instruction not to return results for similar/other numbers.
• Other hits (e.g., Au Optronics v. LG.Philips, Cbergym v. Icon Health, a malware-analysis PDF that happened to contain the hex string "11098907") were false positives. One search returned zero results.

Caveats on completeness

I want to be candid about the confidence level: my search tools reached their step limit before I could query the dedicated litigation portals you named (e.g., the Unified Patents litigation caselist and PACER/CAFC dockets directly). My negative result is therefore based on general web indexes rather than an exhaustive check of those primary dockets, so I cannot rule out a very recent or low-profile filing.

Recommended verification steps (to confirm the negative)

To establish conclusively that no litigation exists:

1. Unified Patents Portal — Litigation: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist — search patent number 11098907 (also under the pre-issue application/publication numbers US 16/414,834 and US 2020/0363094 A1, and title variants).
2. USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier for U.S. 11,098,907 — check the "Litigation" and "Assignment" tabs for any filed papers.
3. PACER / CourtListener (RECAP) — search docket text for "11098907" and for plaintiff Grease Catcher Systems LLC.
4. CAFC docket search (cafc.uscourts.gov) for any appeal involving the '907 patent.
5. PTAB (PTAB E2E / USPTO Patent Trial APIs) for any IPR/PGR/CBM petition against 11,098,907.
6. Assignee check: confirm current owner of record (patent lists Grease Catcher Systems, LLC, with inventors Gordon Bruner and Kelly Otto) before searching under the owner name, in case of reassignment.

Patent reference data (for your own cross-checking)

Bottom line: Based on the searches I could complete, no known litigation is associated with U.S. Patent No. 11,098,907. However, because I could not reach the dedicated litigation databases directly, treat this as a preliminary negative finding and confirm via the Unified Patents caselist, PACER/CourtListener, and the CAFC/PTAB dockets listed above before relying on it.

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing this up.

Let me try a few more angles, including the patent owner's litigation/PTAB history and any Federal Circuit activity.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 11,098,907. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal) returns 0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, and 0 CBM reviews — no active proceedings, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no institution denials. That is a flat count, not a categorization.

The bottom line for a defendant: the patent is untested at the PTAB, not "hardened." Every one of claims 1–11 stands exactly as it issued on 2021-08-24 — none have been canceled, narrowed, or construed by an APJ panel. That cuts both ways. There is no FWD to mine for favorable claim constructions and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel wall standing between you and any ground you want to raise. The entire invalidity toolbox is open, and the 2019-05-17 priority date means a substantial body of intervening art in the kitchen-exhaust-cleaning space (including the art the examiner already cited) is fair game.

Per the task's instruction, I searched live sources for proceedings the ODP may not have indexed. Searches for the patent number plus "IPR"/"PTAB," for the patent owner ("Grease Catcher Systems") plus IPR, and for related Federal Circuit/CourtListener activity returned no AIA trial filings and no appeals. I cannot prove a negative for a filing made in the last few weeks, but there is no affirmative evidence of PTAB activity, and the default applies.

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Proceeding-by-proceeding detail

None. There are no proceeding numbers to report, and I will not invent any. For completeness, the sections the template calls for are addressed below in negative form:

• Type / Filed / Status / Judge panel / Petition grounds / Institution decision / FWD / Settlement / Appeal: Not applicable — no petition has ever been filed against this patent.
• Defensive value of the (empty) PTAB record: The absence of a prior FWD means no claim has been cancelled and no claim has been confirmed. A defendant cannot point to a PTAB outcome as res judicata or as a settled claim-construction anchor. Any invalidity position must be built from scratch in the district court or in a first-filed IPR.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — canceled / sustained / untested. There is no PTAB record, so the answer is uniform: claims 1–11 are all UNTESTED. The claim set breaks down as (a) apparatus claims 1–5, (b) kit claims 6–10, and (c) method claim 11. Claim 1 is the lead apparatus claim and recites three elements: an attachment device permanently attached to a ventilation hood, the attachment device comprising a plurality of panels wherein each panel comprises at least one hook extending out therefrom; a funnel with a funnel base removably attached to the attachment device; and a drain line attached to the funnel base. Claim 11 is the parallel method claim, also reciting the permanently-attached multi-panel/hook attachment device. Note how narrow the independent claims are relative to the specification — the disclosure expressly contemplates a "less preferred" hook-and-loop embodiment (spec, citing hook-and-loop strips), and the independent claims omit it, while the triangular-four-sided funnel and the coupling pipe/PVC drain-line features live only in dependent claims 3–5 and 8–10. That narrowness is your primary invalidity lever: the more specific the panel/hook geometry in claim 1, the more product configurations will either avoid it or read onto something in the prior art.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner who reaches a final written decision. Because no IPR/PGR has ever been instituted or decided, there is no estoppel attributable to this patent — not against any would-be petitioner, not against any privity chain, and not against you. You may raise § 102 and § 103 grounds (and, subject to the limits of an IPR's statutory scope, § 112 written-description/enablement arguments in the district court) without worrying that someone else already spent them. The practical consequence is the inverse of a hardened patent: the first petitioner bears the full cost of building the record, but also captures the full benefit of being first and faces no adverse prior FWD.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern — no serial petitioner (no Unified Patents, no RPX, no defensive aggregator anywhere in the chain), no repeated-filer dynamic, and no patent-owner appeal activity, because there has been no proceeding to appeal. The only third-party activity visible in the file is the grant-date reassignment of inventor interests (Kelly Otto and Gordon Bruner, each assigned to Grease Catcher Systems, LLC on 2019-09-18), the grant on 2021-08-24, the 4th-year maintenance fee paid on 2025-01-06 (small-entity), and the recorded adjusted expiration of 2039-12-19 (which reflects the statutory 20-year term from the 2019-05-17 filing plus PTA).

One important limitation on forum. The post-grant windows are closed or closing narrow. Because the patent issued 2021-08-24, the PGR window under § 321(c) (9 months from grant) expired on or about 2022-05-24 — PGR is no longer available. CBM is unavailable both substantively (this is a mechanical kitchen-equipment patent, and the CBM transitional program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16) and temporally. That leaves IPR as the only viable AIA vehicle — which is fine, since IPR carries no filing deadline absent a § 315(b) one-year bar triggered by service of a complaint on you.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion today:

1. Confirm the negative on the live dockets before relying on it. Re-pull the ODP proceedings endpoint and check PTAB E2E and CourtListener at the outset of any engagement. A petition could have been filed since the last ingest, and a § 315(b)-style one-year clock or a parallel-proceeding stay argument turns on that fact. The ODP structured block is the canonical source; treat my searches as corroboration only.
2. Attack claim 1 head-on. With no PTAB record to work around, the fastest path is an IPR on claims 1–5 and 11 premised on the very references the examiner already considered — the ones flagged "cited by examiner" on the face of the patent: US 9,259,769 B1 (Kane, collection/disposal of cleaning waste-water and debris); US 10,144,628 B1 and US 10,890,354 B1 (Crossford International, air-conditioner cleaning waste collection); and US 10,982,915 B2 (Clean Coil Products, collecting fluid from wall-mounted appliances). These are directly on point for the "funnel + drain line + removable attachment to an overhead unit" concept. The examiner also cited the Teinnova Tegras System webpage (https://teinnovacleaning.com/grease-ductwork-cleaning-tegras/), which is the kind of printed publication a petitioner can pair with the mechanical hood references (DE 3,024,119 A1; DE 3,030,452 A1; US 8,915,982 B2; FR 3,006,613 A1; EP 2,333,446 A1; US 2016/0114360 A1) for a § 103 combination. Note the asterisk convention on the Google Patents page: "* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party" — the four US references above and the Teinnova citation carry the examiner-cited marker, whereas the core search hits I could otherwise have considered (e.g., US 11,098,907's sibling litigations) are not relevant here.
3. Consider whether you even need an IPR. Given the narrowness of claim 1 (permanent multi-panel/hook attachment device + removable funnel + drain line) and the equally narrow method claim 11, a strong non-infringement or design-around position may be cheaper and faster than a trial. There is no estoppel forcing your hand, so sequencing is entirely yours.
4. Preserve § 112 arguments for district court. IPR cannot reach § 112 (other than as an indefiniteness footnote in some panels), so keep written-description/enablement and indefiniteness theories — e.g., the meaning of "permanently" (the spec defines it as merely "long-term... measured in months or years," which is a definitional narrowing that may create claim-scope issues) and the "plurality of panels" contour language — in your district-court pleadings.
5. If you file, watch the statutory clock. Once an IPR is instituted, the Board has a one-year deadline to reach an FWD (§ 316(a)(11)), extendable up to six months for good cause. Those are your binding milestones; no institution decision date, oral-hearing date, or FWD date currently exists because no petition is on file.

Link discipline. No PTAB institution decision, FWD, or Rule 36/opinion exists to link. The authoritative sources for the future are the USPTO PTAB E2E docket (once a proceeding number issues) and CourtListener for any subsequent appeal to the Federal Circuit.

Caveat. I did not find any PTAB proceeding, settlement, or appeal, and I am not reporting one. If a petition is filed concurrently with your engagement, or if the ODP ingest lags a recent filing, re-run the check — the analysis above assumes the zero-count block is accurate as of the most recent ingest.

I'll research this patent's assignment record before writing the report.

Ownership Reconstruction — US 11098907 B1

Data-access caveat (stated up front): I was able to confirm the assignment events from Google Patents' legal-events/assignment feed (which mirrors the USPTO record) for this patent, but I could not complete a live pull of the Assignment Center record and therefore could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record data. No reel/frame number is invented or inferred below. Verify at USPTO Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov using patent number 11098907.

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Inventors

Pattern note — not a fire-sale tell. Both inventors assigned into the filing entity rather than out of it, and both did so on the same day. This is the ordinary signature of a two-principal startup that filed the application before (or without) formal employment/invention-assignment paperwork and then cleaned up title four months later. There is no evidence of either inventor departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no outbound assignment from either inventor to any third party. Absence of an outbound assignment seven-plus years after filing is inconsistent with a portfolio fire-sale narrative.

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Original assignee

Grease Catcher Systems, LLC — named as applicant on the 2019-05-17 filing and as assignee on both 2019-09-18 assignment records.

• Entity status: Small entity. USPTO fee-status events show undiscounted on 2019-05-17 and SMALL on 2019-05-28 — the classic micro-startup sequence, not a well-capitalized acquirer.
• Primary line of business: Grease/liquid-waste containment hardware for commercial kitchen exhaust (ventilation hood) cleaning — i.e., the product category the claims themselves describe (hook-mounted triangular funnel, drain line to a disposal point).
• Product embodying the claims: Unclear / not verified. The specification is written like a manufacturing spec (panel hook spacing ~12 in/30 cm, funnel plastic 4–8 mil MDPE, 1.5 in PVC coupling pipe, ~3 ft funnel depth), which is consistent with a real fabricated product, and the claimed structure is simple enough to be a commercial article. I have no independent confirmation of commercial shipments, revenue, or a catalog listing and will not assert one.
• Current status: Operating / active — not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy on the evidence available. The strongest concrete indicator is the 2025-01-06 maintenance-fee payment for the 4th year, small entity (M2551), which shows the same small entity still holding and paying to maintain the patent six years after filing.

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Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment. Two records, both inbound, both the same date. No post-issuance assignments exist in the record.

• Executed on or before 2019-09-18 / recorded 2019-09-18 — Reel not retrieved (see access caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: BRUNER, GORDON
  • Assignee: Grease Catcher Systems, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable with the sources reachable here. No recurring-correspondent finding can be made — a single recorded link with an unknown correspondent cannot satisfy the "recurrence" test.
  • Context: Inbound founder-to-company title perfection (initial acquisition), not a transfer of the patent to a third party.

• Executed on or before 2019-09-18 / recorded 2019-09-18 — Reel not retrieved (see access caveat)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: OTTO, KELLY
  • Assignee: Grease Catcher Systems, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. Same caveat as above.
  • Context: Inbound founder-to-company title perfection (initial acquisition).

Terminal link: The chain terminates at the original assignee, Grease Catcher Systems, LLC. Google Patents' legal-events feed for US11098907 contains no reassignment entries at all — only fee-payment and patent-grant events (2019-05-17 FEPP, 2019-05-28 FEPP, 2021-08-04 STCF grant, 2025-01-06 MAFP). That absence is itself the principal finding: the original assignee still owns the patent.

Related-but-unverified litigation lead: A 2025 declaratory-judgment case exists — Shenzhen Huajing Intl Trade Co Ltd v. Grease Box LLC, No. 2:25-cv-01300 (W.D. Wash.) — but it concerns US 11,812,895 ("Grease containment systems"), a different patent, and names Grease Box LLC, which is styled after Grease Catcher Systems, LLC but whose corporate relationship to it I could not confirm. I flag it as a lead only; I have no evidence it touches US 11098907 or its chain of title.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11098907
    2019 : Filed by Grease Catcher Systems LLC
         : Bruner assigns rights in
         : Otto assigns rights in
    2021 : Patent issued as US11098907B1
    2025 : 4th year maintenance fee paid

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. There is no outbound transfer at all. Both recorded assignments run inbound (inventor → Grease Catcher Systems, LLC, 2019-09-18). No assignee with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain. The "LLC" designation plus small-entity status is a startup tell, not an NPE tell, absent a licensing-only transfer.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Grease Catcher Systems, LLC does not match any name on the supplied roster (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) and I surfaced no Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff listing for it.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / unassessable. Correspondent-of-record data was not reachable with my available tools, and with only two same-day records from the same two founders, the recurrence test could not be met in principle. No finding — I am not substituting speculation for the recorded correspondent name.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Zero transfers in the ~6 years and 4 months between the 2019-09-18 recordings and today. The chain is a single entity deep.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming US 11098907 was found, so the six-month transfer-before-suit window cannot be triggered.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 record for Grease Catcher Systems, LLC, and the 2025-01-06 4th-year maintenance-fee payment is affirmative evidence of a solvent, still-invested owner.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company → NPE transfer exists to characterize as privateering; nothing in SEC filings (no public company in this chain) or third-party coverage supports it.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at the original operating small entity.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — the record contains only the original assignment (two same-day inventor→company conveyances recorded 2019-09-18 to Grease Catcher Systems, LLC), and no post-issuance assignment of any kind. That is the exact fact pattern this verdict category describes.

To be explicit about directionality: the absence of records is a finding against the NPE hypothesis, not evidence for it. A single small entity that filed on 2019-05-17, perfected title from its two founders on 2019-09-18, took its patent to grant on 2021-08-24, and paid the 4th-year maintenance fee on 2025-01-06 (small entity, M2551) is behaving like a product-practicing micro-company holding its own patent — not like a chain engineered for assertion. I cannot upgrade this to Operating-company assertion, because that verdict requires both that the current assignee ships a product embodying the claims and that it is suing actual competitors, and I verified neither.

Verify the terminal state directly at USPTO Assignment Center — patent 11098907 (and the mirror index at assignment.uspto.gov); a search there should return the two 2019-09-18 records above and nothing later. If a later reel/frame does surface, it would be a genuine change of position relative to everything in this report, and the correspondent field on that record should be captured immediately.

I'll research this now. Let me run several targeted searches.

Now let me examine the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,098,907

0. Method note and verification caveat (read first)

What I could and could not verify. The authoritative record I'm working from is the full text of US11098907B1 supplied in this task (Google Patents mirror of the USPTO front page, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11098907](/patent/US11098907)/en), which carries the "Citations (12)" / "Patent Citations (13)" and "Non-Patent Citations (1)" lists of record. Corroboration: Justia's assignee page (https://patents.justia.com/assignee/grease-catcher-systems-llc).

I attempted a direct USPTO PatentCenter / Patent Public Search (ppubs) retrieval of the "References Cited" field keyed to the literal number 11098907. Within this session's tool budget I could not complete an authenticated USPTO database pull — my queries were web-based and routed me to Google Patents, Justia and FreePatentsOnline rather than to the USPTO's own citation field. I therefore cannot certify that the citation list below is the complete USPTO "References Cited" of record. It is the citation list printed on the face of the patent as mirrored in the supplied authoritative text, which in practice is the same data.

Per your strict rule, I have not auto-corrected any identifier. The number analyzed is literally 11098907 (US 11,098,907 B1). No near-neighbour numbers were substituted. If any citation below looks like a "similar number" to something else, that is the identifier as printed on the face of the patent.

Legal framework applied. US 11,098,907 was filed 2019-05-17 with no foreign, PCT or provisional priority. Its effective filing date is therefore 2019-05-17, and the AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs:

• § 102(a)(1) — patented, described in a printed publication, in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before 2019-05-17;
• § 102(a)(2) — U.S. patents and U.S. patent application publications effectively filed before 2019-05-17 (published date irrelevant, provided the effective filing date precedes).

Headline answer. No cited reference individually anticipates (i.e., discloses every element of) any claim of US 11,098,907 under § 102. The independent claims (1, 6, 11) are all limited to an attachment device that is (i) permanently attached to a ventilation hood and (ii) comprises a plurality of panels each with at least one hook extending out. Nothing in the cited art discloses that hood-anchored panel-and-hook mount, and nothing discloses the removably-hung multi-sided funnel with a drain line to a disposal point. The cited art is better understood as an obviousness (§ 103) bench than as a § 102 bench. I explain that below.

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1. The complete citation list as printed on the face of the patent

Note on the asterisks. In the Google Patents convention, * = cited by examiner and † = cited by third party. Only four references carry the examiner asterisk: US 10,144,628 B1, US 9,259,769 B1, US 10,982,915 B2 and US 10,890,354 B1. All four are from the air-conditioner/HVAC coil-cleaning fluid-capture line (three of them Crossford, one Clean Coil). The remaining nine patent references plus the Teinnova non-patent citation appear to be applicant/third-party IDS submissions, not examiner-discovered art. This is analytically important: the examiner's own search evidently treated the closest art as the HVAC-coil "funnel bib under a wall-mounted appliance with a drain" family — not the commercial-kitchen-hood art — and still allowed the case. That tells you where the genuine novelty pressure sits, and it also tells you the hood-side references were acknowledged but not the ones doing the work.

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2. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

For each I give: full citation, dates, brief description, and the § 102 exposure. I grade exposure as None / Low / Moderate / High, where "High" would mean plausible single-reference anticipation of at least one claim.

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2.1 US 10,144,628 B1 — Crossford International, LLC — the single most relevant reference

• Full citation: US 10,144,628 B1, "Apparatus and method for collection and disposal of waste-water and debris from air conditioners and other sources"; inventors Michael A. Hardy and Scott C. Cackowski; assignee Crossford International, LLC; priority 2013-02-27 (application 13/999,440 filed 2014-02-26); granted 2018-12-04. Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9259769](/patent/9259769) (family), https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6863116](/patent/US6863116) (Crossford predecessor line), https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_10144628...
• Description: A funnel-shaped, impermeable collection bib placed and supported under an installed A/C air handler. It is held open by an arcuate rib whose ends hook into side mount brackets slipped into the gap between the unit and the supporting wall; a bungee-type supporting cord is threaded through rib apertures, bracket crowns and a bib hem and cinched by cord clamps. The bib's second end discharges to a bucket, drain, or cooperates with a tube or hose (claim 6 of the sibling Kane patent is the same concept).
• § 102 exposure: None (Low-moderate as § 103 fodder). It does not disclose: (a) an attachment device permanently attached to a ventilation hood — its brackets are deliberately removably slipped into a wall gap and are not affixed to the appliance; (b) a plurality of panels each comprising at least one hook extending out — Crossford's retention is rib-end hooks engaging bracket slits plus a tensioned cord, which is a different mechanism; (c) a funnel base with a drain line attached to the funnel base in the claimed sense (it has a bib outlet). It therefore cannot anticipate claims 1, 6 or 11. Its real significance is that it discloses the general concept of a funnel/bib capturing wash runoff from a wall-mounted unit and routing it via hose to a receptacle.

2.2 US 9,259,769 B1 — Timothy Kane

• Full citation: US 9,259,769 B1, "Apparatus and method for collection and disposal of cleaning waste-water and debris from air conditioners"; inventor Timothy Kane; priority 2015-04-18; granted 2016-02-16. Family: WO 2016/172028 A1. Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/9259769
• Description: Essentially the same architecture as 2.1 and closely related: collection bib with an open first end adjacent the air handler, an arcuate rib cooperating with the bib, first and second side brackets disposable between the air handler and the wall, at least one deflector plate, and a support element (cord) from rib to bracket. Claims 2–7 recite an open second (discharge) end, means for stopping flow, direction to a receptacle/drain/bucket, and cooperation with a tube or hose.
• § 102 exposure: None. Same element gaps as 2.1: no permanently hood-mounted, panel-based hook array; no funnel base + drain line as claimed; no triangular four-sided funnel. Also, its "bracket slid into a gap" mount is the opposite of the patent's "permanent" mount. Potentially relevant to a § 103 attack on the "drain line/hose to a receptacle" concept.

2.3 US 10,982,915 B2 — Clean Coil Products LLC

• Full citation: US 10,982,915 B2 (published as US 2020/0025469 A1), "Apparatus and method to facilitate collecting fluid from wall-mounted appliances"; assignee Clean Coil Products LLC / Clean Coil Systems LLC; application 16/514,743 filed 2019-07-17; priority 2018-07-17; granted 2021-04-20. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200025469A1/en, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2020/0025469.html
• Description: A hood portion with a distal opening that wraps the periphery of a wall-mounted appliance (e.g., ductless mini-split A/C), a pliant polyethylene sidewall to a proximal opening providing access, a body portion tapering downwardly to an outlet in fluid communication with the body (a hose to a bucket/drain), a rim/lip inserted between unit and wall, an elastic band or cord with a locking mechanism to tighten the distal opening, and hook-and-loop fasteners used to close the proximal opening after cleaning.
• § 102 exposure: None — but the date analysis is subtle and worth flagging. Its publication (2020-01-23) post-dates the '907 filing date, so it is not § 102(a)(1) art. However, it was effectively filed 2018-07-17 (priority), which pre-dates 2019-05-17, so it is available as § 102(a)(2) art against '907 as a U.S. application publication. On the merits it still does not disclose a permanently hood-mounted panel-with-hooks mount or the funnel-base/drain-line combination. Its hook-and-loop teaching is a point of contact with dependent claims 5 and 10 — but note that in Clean Coil the hook-and-loop closes the access opening, whereas in claims 5/10 the hook-and-loop hangs the funnel on the attachment device. Structurally different uses of the same fastener. This is the second most dangerous reference after Crossford/Kane, and it is examiner-cited.

2.4 US 10,890,354 B1 — Crossford International, LLC

• Full citation: US 10,890,354 B1, "System for facilitating the cleaning of a mini-split air handling unit"; assignee Crossford International, LLC; priority 2020-10-09; granted 2021-01-12.
• § 102 exposure: None — and on the printed dates it is not even available as prior art. Its listed priority date (2020-10-09) is roughly 17 months after the '907 effective filing date, and its grant (2021-01-12) is after '907 issued. On the face of the record it cannot be § 102(a)(1) or § 102(a)(2) art. It is very likely listed because it belongs to the same Crossford line as 2.1 and the examiner wanted the continuing-family picture on the record (it may be a continuation or CIP of the '628 application; I could not confirm the priority chain). Flagging this as an anomaly: if it is in fact a continuation entitled to the 2013-02-27 or 2014-02-26 Crossford priority, its status changes and it would need to be re-run as § 102(a)(2) art — but its own disclosure would still not supply the hood-mounted panel-and-hook limitation. I do not know the true priority chain; treat this as unresolved.

2.5 FR 3006613 A1 — GS Environnement — most relevant of the kitchen-hood-specific art

• Full citation: FR 3006613 A1, "Dispositif de nettoyage et de dégraissage et installation de traitement d'air telle qu'une hotte ou un plafond filtrant équipé d'un tel dispositif" (Cleaning and degreasing device, and air-treatment installation such as a hood or filter ceiling equipped with such a device); applicant GS Environnement; priority 2013-06-11; published 2014-12-12.
• Description (from the title and the patent's own characterization): a cleaning/degreasing device for an air-treatment installation such as a kitchen hood or filter ceiling. This is the only reference in the set whose stated subject matter is cleaning a kitchen hood itself, i.e., the same problem space as '907.
• § 102 exposure: Low-to-moderate, unverified. I was not able to retrieve or read the FR 3006613 A1 disclosure within the tool budget, so I cannot state whether it discloses a hood-mounted funnel and drain. If it discloses a hood-attached collection receptacle with a drain, it would be the natural § 103 primary reference for claim 11 (the method claim) when combined with Crossford/Kane's funnel-and-hose teaching. I flag this as the highest-value unexplored document in the set and recommend a native-language full-text pull.

2.6 EP 2333446 A1 — France Air S.A.

• Full citation: EP 2333446 A1, "Method for cleaning a ventilation installation, ventilation installation and double-flow heat-recovery unit"; applicant France Air S.A.; priority 2009-11-23; published 2011-06-15.
• Description: A method for cleaning a ventilation installation, and a ventilation installation / double-flow heat-recovery unit adapted for it.
• § 102 exposure: None on the claim elements; Low-moderate relevance to claim 11 only. It is a method of cleaning a ventilation installation — conceptually adjacent to claim 11's "washing internal components of a kitchen ventilation system." But claim 11 also requires the permanently attached panel-with-hooks attachment device and the funnel/drain-line, none of which are suggested by this reference's stated subject matter. I could not read the disclosure; the title alone does not support anticipation of any claim. Unverified.

2.7 US 8,915,982 B2 — BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeraete GmbH

• Full citation: US 8,915,982 B2 (published as US 2014/0053518 A1), "Extraction apparatus with grease collection channel"; assignee BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeraete GmbH; priority 2012-08-27; granted 2014-12-23. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140053518
• Description: A domestic extraction apparatus with a grease collection channel that collects and conveys grease within the extractor.
• § 102 exposure: None. It is a passive grease-collecting channel built into an extractor, not a wash-water containment funnel hung on a hood, and there is no drain line to an external disposal point. It is relevant only as background showing that collecting grease in an extractor channel is old. Note it is cited on the FR 3006613 / US 2014/0053518 family record alongside '907, which is how the examiner likely picked it up.

2.8 EP 3018420 A1 — CONCEPT SWISS AG Kitchen Systems

• Full citation: EP 3018420 A1, "Extractor hood integrated in a hob"; applicant CONCEPT SWISS AG Kitchen Systems; priority 2014-11-04; published 2016-05-11.
• § 102 exposure: None. An integrated hob/extractor-hood architecture. No funnel, no removable attachment device, no drain line. Background only. Unverified beyond the title.

2.9 US 2016/0114360 A1 — Darcy McMenamin

• Full citation: US 2016/0114360 A1, "Steam cleaner for baffle-type grease filters"; inventor Darcy McMenamin; published 2016-04-28; priority 2014-10-28.
• § 102 exposure: None. A steam cleaner appliance for cleaning baffle grease filters — i.e., cleaning apparatus for the filters, not a runoff-capture system. It has no hood-mounted support, no funnel, no drain line. Relevant at most as evidence that cleaning kitchen-hood grease structures with fluid was known before 2019 (supports the general-knowledge backdrop for a § 103 framing of claim 11's "washing internal components," but that step is the least distinctive element).

2.10 DE 3024119 A1 — Resopal-Werk H. Römmler GmbH

• Full citation: DE 3024119 A1, "Easily fitted grease filter for extractor hoods — disposable fleece in fold-down support frame for single use, thus requiring no cleaning"; applicant Resopal-Werk H. Römmler GmbH, 6800 Mannheim; priority 1980-06-27; published 1982-01-21.
• Description: From the abstract-of-record: a disposable grease filter fleece held in a fold-down support frame mounted on an extractor hood, intended as single-use so no cleaning is needed.
• § 102 exposure: None for anticipation; Low as a § 103 teaching. The only conceptual overlap is that it puts a replaceable element in a support frame on a hood — a distant analogue of "funnel removably attached to a hood-mounted attachment device." But it discloses no funnel, no base, no drain line, no hook-in-aperture suspension, and the frame is a filter holder, not a runoff-containment mount. Very old art; usable for the proposition that hood-mounted replaceable retaining frames were known decades before 2019.

2.11 DE 3030452 A1 — Morton J. Hamburg / Mich. Scott

• Full citation: DE 3030452 A1, "Air cleaner for cooking stoves — has two water curtains through which air passes sequentially"; priority 1980-08-12; published 1982-03-25.
• § 102 exposure: None. A two-stage water-curtain air cleaner for cooking stoves — it uses water to scrub cooking air. No structural relationship to a hung funnel with a drain line. Background on the general idea of using water in kitchen exhaust treatment.

2.12 US 9,574,779 B2 and US 2017/0144201 A1 — Oy Halton Group, Ltd. (same disclosure)

• Full citations: US 9,574,779 B2, "Exhaust apparatus, system, and method for enhanced capture and containment"; assignee Oy Halton Group, Ltd.; priority 2008-04-18; granted 2017-02-21. Sibling/continuation publication US 2017/0144201 A1, same title and priority, published 2017-05-25.
• Description: Commercial-kitchen exhaust apparatus/systems with enhanced capture and containment (Halton is a commercial kitchen ventilation supplier).
• § 102 exposure: None. These are commercial kitchen ventilation design patents — capture and containment of cooking effluent in the hood/duct architecture, not wash-water containment for a cleaning operation. They have no funnel removably hung on a hood and no drain line to a disposal point. Substantively they are the closest art in field-of-invention terms (commercial kitchen exhaust hoods) but the furthest in terms of the claimed structure. Their real function on this record is to establish the field and to show the examiner considered the hood-art field.

2.13 Non-Patent Citation — Teinnova "Tegras" system

• Citation: "Information regarding the Teinnova Tegras System found at https://teinnovacleaning.com/grease-ductwork-cleaning-tegras/"; cited by examiner.
• Description: A commercial grease-ductwork cleaning system marketed by Teinnova. Its presence in an IDS/examiner citation signals the examiner was looking at the real-world commercial state of grease-duct cleaning practice.
• § 102 exposure: Potentially Low-to-Moderate under § 102(a)(1) as "otherwise available to the public" / public use, but entirely unverified. If the Tegras system (or its published materials) publicly disclosed or publicly used a hood-mounted funnel with a drain line to a disposal point before 2019-05-17, it would be § 102(a)(1) art. I could not retrieve or verify the content, date, or scope of that webpage within this session, and I do not assert that it discloses the claimed combination. Recommend pulling the archived version (Wayback Machine) to fix a pre-2019-05-17 availability date. This is the single citation most likely to be a "public use / public disclosure" trap, precisely because a commercial system can supply the missing hood-mount element as an on-sale/public-use prior art event rather than a documentary one.

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3. Consolidated § 102 verdict table

Bottom line on § 102: no reference in the cited set discloses all elements of claims 1, 6 or 11, and none discloses the dependent-claim specifics (four triangular sides; ~1.5 in threaded PVC coupling pipe welded to the funnel base; metal-ring-reinforced apertures on reinforced upper edges). No anticipation.

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4. Where the real risk is: § 103 combinations

Since § 102 fails across the board, the meaningful prior-art attack on '907 is obviousness. The two combinations a challenger would actually run:

1. Crossford '628 or Kane '769 (funnel bib + bracket mount + hose to receptacle ≈ claim 1 elements (b) and (c)) + Halton '779 or DE 3024119 or FR 3006613 (hood-mounted support/replaceable element) → argued to render claim 1 obvious by substituting a hood-mounted bracket for the wall-gap bracket. Counter-argument: neither item teaches the panel-with-hooks extending out limitation in element (a), and neither teaches that the mount is permanent on the hood, which the specification expressly defines as long-term (months/years) attachment (screws/bolts/permanent adhesive). The permanent-mount limitation is doing real work: it is the point the specification ties to the fire-safety advantage — the background expressly criticizes prior approaches that cut into fire caulk and weaken fire-stopping systems.
2. Clean Coil '915 + McMenamin '360 (fluid cleaning of kitchen-hood grease structures) → aimed at method claim 11. Weak, because claim 11's novelty lies in the mount-and-funnel steps, not in "washing internal components."

The practical takeaway matches the previously-generated summary: the hook/panel limitation is baked into all three independent claims, and that is almost certainly what carried allowance over the Crossford/Kane/Clean Coil line. The hook-and-loop alternative (claims 5, 10) and the coupling-pipe alternative (claims 4, 9) are dependent, so the hook-and-loop variant is not independently protected — meaning Clean Coil's hook-and-loop teaching is a genuine squeeze on the dependent claims even though it cannot reach the independents.

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5. Recommendation on what remains unverified

If you need a litigation-grade prior-art bench, three gaps must be closed outside this session:

1. USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter "References Cited" field for application 16/414,834 — to confirm the citation list is complete and to see the examiner's Form 892 categories and any non-final/final rejection history (this would show which claims the examiner actually mapped each reference against, i.e., the real § 102/§ 103 story).
2. Full text of FR 3006613 A1 (French) and EP 2333446 A1 — the two references whose subject matter is closest to the problem solved and which I could not read.
3. Archived Teinnova Tegras materials with a fixed pre-2019-05-17 date — the only citation that could supply the missing hood-mount element as § 102(a)(1) public-use/public-availability art.

Primary source for all bibliographic and citation data above: the supplied full text of https://patents.google.com/patent/US11098907/en (treated as authoritative). Corroborating: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/grease-catcher-systems-llc; https://patents.justia.com/patent/9259769; https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200025469A1/en; https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140053518; https://patents.google.com/patent/US6863116.

Explicit uncertainty statement: I have not confirmed, with high confidence, the contents of FR 3006613 A1, EP 2333446 A1, EP 3018420 A1, DE 3024119 A1, DE 3030452 A1, the Teinnova Tegras materials, or the priority chain of US 10,890,354 B1. I have flagged each. Where I state lack of anticipation, that conclusion rests on the element-level gaps visible from the titles/abstracts of record and on the claim language; it is a reasoned analysis, not a certification.

I'll verify the key prior-art references before building the § 103 analysis, since the combination logic depends on what each reference actually discloses.

Good detail on the AC-coil containment line. Now let me pull the kitchen-hood-specific references (the field of the invention) and the Teinnova NPL.

Obviousness Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 11,098,907 B1

Scope note: The patent's effective filing date is 2019-05-17 (no foreign/provisional priority), so the AIA version of § 102/§ 103 governs. Prior art therefore includes any reference publicly available or effectively filed before 2019-05-17. I built this analysis from the reference set listed in the patent's own "Patent Citations" table, supplemented by live retrieval of the key references. Where I could only obtain title/abstract-level information, I say so explicitly rather than filling the gap.

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A. Level of Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA)

This is a low-complexity mechanical-arts invention — sheet-plastic fabrication, a hanging mount, and a drain hose. A PHOSITA would be:

• a mechanical/industrial-design technician with a 2-year degree plus ~2–4 years in commercial kitchen ventilation or HVAC/appliance cleaning-equipment design; or
• someone with a 4-year engineering degree and ~1–2 years of such experience; or
• a skilled sheet-metal/plastics fabricator in the kitchen-exhaust trade with several years of hands-on experience.

The claims recite no electrical, chemical, or software elements; the knowledge base needed is ordinary mechanical fastening and fluid handling. This matters because § 103 allows a great deal of "predictable variation" in such an art (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)).

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B. The Prior Art Landscape (grouped by function)

Critically, the cited art splits into two buckets, and that split is the whole ballgame for § 103.

Bucket 1 — The field of the invention: kitchen ventilation / hoods

Bucket 2 — Analogous art: capturing cleaning wastewater from an appliance

Prior-art date check (this matters)

• US 10,890,354 B1 (Crossford, "mini-split") — does NOT qualify. Its date is 2020-10-09, after the 2019-05-17 effective filing date. It appears in the patent page's citation table, but it cannot be used as § 102/§ 103 prior art against this patent. Flagging this because its inclusion in the table could otherwise mislead.
• US 10,982,915 B2 qualifies only as § 102(a)(2) art (US patent effectively filed 2018-07-17, before 2019-05-17); it published 2021-04-20, so it is not § 102(a)(1) art. Usable, but with that framing.
• Teinnova "Tegras" system (the sole non-patent citation) — a commercial grease-ductwork cleaning system. The patent page gives no date; if it was publicly available/on sale before 2019-05-17 it is § 102(a)(1) art; I could not verify a date, so treat it cautiously.

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C. Claim-by-Claim § 103 Analysis

Claim 1 — the independent apparatus claim

Elements: (a) attachment device permanently attached to a hood, comprising a plurality of panels each with ≥1 hook; (b) a funnel with a funnel base, removably attached to the attachment device; (c) a drain line attached to the funnel base.

No single reference discloses all of claim 1 — hence this is a § 103 case, not § 102. The proposed primary rejection:

Primary combination: US 10,144,628 (Crossford) / US 9,259,769 (Kane) in view of US 8,915,982 (BSH), further in view of EP 2333446 (France Air).

• Crossford/Kane teach (b) a funnel-shaped collection body and (c) a drain line/hose to a bucket — nearly verbatim to claim elements (b) and (c). Kane claim 6 ("cooperates with a tube or hose") and Crossford's open second end discharging to a receptacle/hose supply the drain-line element.
• Crossford/Kane also teach (a)-in-part: side-mount brackets (the recited "panels") and rib end hooks that hook into bracket slits — a hook-and-panel engagement.
• BSH (US 8,915,982) supplies the missing location and permanence: a holder that is a component of the extraction apparatus (the hood) and that removably holds collection troughs, with the express rationale that removable collection hardware is "much easier to clean." That is the recited "attachment device permanently attached to a ventilation hood" plus the removability of the funnel.
• EP 2333446 (and the patent's own Background) supply the reason to put these together: kitchen ventilation is washed with sprayed cleaning product, generating grease-laden runoff, and plastic liners were already used "to divert liquid waste … to a disposal container."

Motivation to combine (see Section D for the framework). A PHOSITA faced with the known kitchen-hood runoff problem would look to the closest known solution — the appliance-cleaning wastewater-capture art (Crossford/Kane/Clean Coil), which solves the identical problem (sprayed cleaning fluid running down a vertically mounted unit) with the identical mechanism (a hung funnel draining to a bucket). BSH teaches doing it on a hood with removable collection hardware. Nothing teaches away.

Patentee's best rebuttal lives here: no reference expressly discloses "a plurality of panels each comprising at least one hook extending out therefrom" mounted on a ventilation hood. Crossford/Kane's hooks are on the rib, engaging bracket slits; BSH uses a holder/track, not hooks. A challenger must argue (i) the bracket+rib-hook structure maps to "panels + hooks," or (ii) substituting a hook-and-aperture mount for BSH's holder is a predictable design choice. This is the vulnerability line to watch (see Section F).

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Claim 2 — apertures spaced to match the hooks; funnel hangs

Obvious over the primary combination plus the express disclosures in Crossford/Kane (bib hem apertures 14j; rib apertures 16c–e; hooks 16f into bracket slits 18c) and Clean Coil (hook-and-loop/aperture fastening). Hanging a lightweight, wet collection funnel by engaging a projection through an aperture is a ubiquitous, tool-free mounting technique — precisely the kind of "known technique … to improve similar devices in the same way" that KSR holds obvious. The nominal ≈12-inch hook spacing is recited nowhere in the claim as critical and would be a routine spacing choice.

Claim 3 — four triangular sides forming a pyramid funnel

Obvious. Funnel-shaped collection bodies are expressly known ("funnel shape collection bib" in Kane's own text; "body portion tapers" in Clean Coil). Given a funnel, selecting a four-triangular-side (pyramid) geometry is a design choice among a finite, predictable set of funnel geometries (conical, pyramidal, single-sheet). The spec's own ~6 mil medium-density polyethylene, hot-seam-welded construction is standard sheet-plastic fabrication.

Claim 4 — coupling pipe + threaded hose end

Obvious. Kane claim 6 and Crossford already disclose the funnel outlet "cooperat[ing] with a tube or hose"; Clean Coil discloses an "elongated tubular portion (e.g., a hose) extend[ing] from a lower end." Adding a short threaded PVC coupling pipe between funnel base and hose is the routine, off-the-shelf way to connect a flexible drain line to a plastic sheet outlet (a plumbing adapter — pure design choice).

Claim 5 — hook-and-loop strip alternative

Obvious, and doubly so. Clean Coil expressly discloses hook-and-loop fasteners on a functionally identical deformable funnel apparatus, and the patent's own specification calls hook-and-loop a "less preferred embodiment" — i.e., an acknowledged, interchangeable alternative to the hook/aperture mount. Substituting one known fastener for another known fastener serving the same purpose is the paradigm of KSR obviousness.

Claim 6 — kit

Obvious for all the reasons above. A kit claim is the unassembled counterpart of claim 1, and Crossford even states that the device "is in this assembly the apparatus is sold" — an express teaching of supplying these components as a kit of parts. The "for permanent attachment" language in claim 6 is a recitation of intended use and does not add structural patentable weight.

Claims 7–10 — mirror claims 2–5

Obvious on the same mapping applied to the kit format.

Claim 11 — method

Steps: (i) attach panel/hook device permanently to a hood; (ii) attach a funnel temporarily; (iii) attach a drain line; (iv) wash internal components with waste flowing through the funnel and drain line to a disposal point.

• Steps (i)–(iii) track claim 1 and are taught as above.
• Step (iv) is squarely taught by EP 2333446 (spraying cleaning product to clean grease from kitchen ventilation), FR 3006613 (cleaning/degreasing a hood), and McMenamin US 2016/0114360 (steam-cleaning baffle grease filters) — and the patent's own Background admits that "water and/or other cleaning compositions are often sprayed … on various internal structures of a kitchen ventilation system" and that "a plastic liner is used to divert liquid waste … to a disposal container."
• The combination of the method of cleaning (Bucket 1) with the method of capturing the runoff (Bucket 2) is the obvious union of two known methods for their known purposes, with a predictable result. Kane and Crossford even recite their own methods (place brackets, deploy bib, collect waste, direct to bucket/hose), and Clean Coil recites a servicing method (position the opening, place the outlet in a receptacle, clean). Claim 11 is essentially "use the claim-1 apparatus to do what Bucket 1 already did," which is obvious as a method of using a known device.

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D. Why a PHOSITA Would Have Been Motivated to Combine (KSR Rationales)

1. Same problem, same solution. Both the kitchen-hood cleaning context and the AC-coil cleaning context involve sprayed cleaning fluid running down (or out of) a vertically mounted, wall/ceiling-adjacent unit and creating a mess. Crossford/Kane/Clean Coil already solved that problem with a hung funnel + drain to a bucket. Applying it to a hood is the combination of familiar elements according to known methods, yielding no more than predictable results (KSR).
2. Reasonably pertinent prior art. Bucket 2 is not remote: it addresses capturing cleaning runoff from a mounted ventilation/air-handling appliance — squarely "reasonably pertinent to the particular problem" that the patent's Background identifies.
3. Express design incentive on removability. BSH (US 8,915,982) states removal makes hood collection hardware "much easier to clean" — the same objective as the claimed removably-attached funnel. That is an affirmative teaching to make hood-mounted collection hardware removable.
4. Express incentive to avoid damaging the equipment. Kane/Crossford emphasize tool-free/wedge-in brackets; the '907 specification's stated goal is to avoid damaging the hood and cutting into fire caulk. The prior-art mounting solutions align with that goal — no teaching away.
5. Predictable variations. Hook vs. hook-and-loop; single-sheet funnel vs. four-triangle pyramid; direct hose vs. threaded coupling pipe — each is a known option swapped for its known function, i.e., obvious to try with a reasonable expectation of success.
6. The patent's own admission. The Background concedes that washing kitchen ventilation with cleaning compositions is known and that a "plastic liner" is used to divert the resulting liquid waste to a disposal container. This constitutes an admission of the problem and the general prior approach, narrowing the inventive contribution to the specific mounting hardware.

No teaching away identified. Nothing in Bucket 1 suggests avoiding hood-mounted collection funnels; DE 3024119 and BSH both show hood-mounted removable hardware.

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E. Secondary Considerations (Graham Factor 4)

The record before me shows no evidence of unexpected results, commercial success, long-felt-but-unmet need, failure of others, or copying, and no litigation has been surfaced (per the earlier section). Any argument the patentee advances must be tied by nexus to the hook/panel-mounted, hood-specific funnel — the conceded-adjacent AC-cleaning art weakens nexus because it already achieves the same benefit (mess containment, no equipment damage) off-hood. If a "fire-safety / no fire-caulk damage" argument is raised, note the tension: the specification presents that as a background problem, and the prior art's wedge-in/tool-free mounts already avoid invasive attachment.

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F. Where the Patent Likely Survives — and Where It Is Vulnerable

• Vulnerability: the recited "plurality of panels each comprising at least one hook extending out therefrom" permanently attached to a hood is the one element no single reference appears to disclose expressly. A petitioner would have to map Crossford/Kane's bracket + rib-end-hook structure onto "panels + hooks," argue the BSH holder is an equivalent permanent mount, or rely on DE 3024119's hood support frame. The claim language "hook … extending out therefrom" is the pinch point.
• Strength for the patentee: if "hook extending out from a panel" is construed narrowly (a fixed projecting hook on a permanently mounted plate, distinct from a rib end engaging a slit, or a channel holder), the combination may fall short of claim 1, and every other claim depends from it (or, for the kit/method, carries the same limitation). The claims are drafted so that the hook/panel mount is a positive limitation in all three independent claims (1, 6, 11) — the patentee's deliberate hedges (hook-and-loop; direct hose connection) were relegated to dependent claims and thus do not broaden the independent scope. Expect a patentee to litigate exactly this element.

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G. Uncertainty Flags

1. FR 3006613 A1 and DE 3024119 A1 are characterized here only from the citation-table titles/abstracts on the patent page; I did not retrieve their full texts, so their precise disclosures (especially whether either shows hooks on hood-mounted panels) are unconfirmed. Full-text review is required before relying on them in a claim chart.
2. US 10,890,354 B1 is not available prior art (dated 2020-10-09, post-dating the 2019-05-17 effective filing date). Do not use it.
3. US 10,982,915 B2 is usable only under § 102(a)(2) (effective filing 2018-07-17; published 2021-04-20). Verify the provisional support for the specific disclosures relied on.
4. Teinnova "Tegras" NPL — no date confirmed; public-availability date controls whether it is § 102(a)(1) art.
5. This is an analyst assessment of likely § 103 exposure, not a validity opinion or a certified prior-art search. The core limitation ("plurality of panels each with a hook … on a ventilation hood") is the element that would decide any real § 103 contest, and I could not identify a reference expressly disclosing it.

Primary source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11098907/en (full text supplied; treated as authoritative). Corroborating retrievals: US9259769, US10144628, US2020/0025469 (Clean Coil), US8915982, EP2333446.