US 1428114

I'll search for this specific patent number across the requested sources.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to check for any litigation/docket activity and confirm the bibliographic data.

Summary — US Patent 1,428,114

Important scope note: I searched for the exact number 1428114 across patent and court sources. I found no CAFC 2026 docket activity involving this patent (details below), and the only foreign hit for that digit string was an unrelated UK document (see caveats). The authoritative record is the Google Patents entry at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US1428114](/patent/US1428114)/en and the patent text itself, which is what I have relied on.

---

1. Bibliographic data

2. Abstract

There is no abstract. The application was filed in 1919 and issued in 1922, before abstracts (35 U.S.C. § 112(b)) were required on U.S. patents. The closest equivalent is the specification's statement of objects:

"My invention relates to a new and useful improvement in dredging hoists and trolleys therefor and automatic mechanism for actuating the same… to provide for the lowering and raising of the dredging member, which latter is preferably of the type of what is known as the clamshell dredge, locking said dredge in its elevated position, so as to take the weight thereof off the cable, and automatically unlocking the dredging member and permit it to be lowered by slacking the cable."

A further stated object is supporting the operating cable at a number of points along its length to prevent undue sagging via roll-carrying arms that swing clear of the travelling trolley.

3. Plain-language overview of the claims

The patent has four claims, each independent (no dependent claims).

Claim 1 — the core combination. A trolley on a supporting structure (overhead track), a hanger pivoted to a dredge, and a cable attached to the trolley so that it forms a loop. A shive (sheave) wheel is journalled in the hanger and the cable loop runs over it. A stationary supporting cam is carried by the trolley, plus means by which the hanger engages the cam's surfaces so it can be locked onto and unlocked from the cam. (This is the load-holding mechanism: hoisting lifts the hanger into the cam, and the cam hook carries the bucket's weight off the cable.)

Claim 2 — studs + double cams. Narrower structural version: trolley travelling on an overhanging track; looped cable; dredge with pivoted hanger; shive wheel in the hanger; studs projecting from the sides of the hanger; and double stationary supporting cams on the trolley, shaped so that contact of the studs with the cams locks the hanger to the cam or frees it, depending on how the cable is manipulated.

Claim 3 — cam secured to trolley, cable anchored at one end. A double stationary supporting cam secured to the trolley; a shive wheel journalled in the trolley; a cable passing over that shive with one end secured to the trolley (hence the loop); the dredge and its pivoted hanger; a shive wheel in the hanger that the cable also passes around; and studs on the upper end of the hanger that enter into various engagements with the supporting cam — so the hanger is automatically locked to and released from the cam by manipulation of the cable alone (no separate latch actuator).

Claim 4 — hooked cam geometry / the operating sequence. Trolley with oppositely disposed fixed cams, each having a hook formed in its lower portion; a dredge bucket; a hanger pivoted to the bucket; studs on the hanger. The claim recites the motion path: when raised, the studs ride over the upper ends of the cams; on contact they slide along the outer surfaces of the cams and down over the under surface of the hook portions, then drop into the hooks (supporting/dogging the load); and when raised again for disengagement they slide along the inner surfaces, over the upper ends, and the bucket is then lowered by slacking the cable.

4. Mechanism in plain language (context for the claims)

Cable 8 runs from a trolley-mounted shive 7 down around hanger shive 9 and back up, with its end anchored at stud 10 on the trolley — a loop. Hoisting raises the dredge until hanger studs 14 strike the ends of supporting cams 6; continued hoisting makes the studs ride up and over into the cam hooks (Fig. 5). Slight slacking seats the studs in the hooks, transferring the load to the cams and removing strain from the cable, allowing the trolley to be hauled by tail rope 15 to the discharge point. Re-tensioning the cable drives the studs up the inner cam faces (Fig. 7) and over the top (Fig. 8), releasing the hanger so the bucket can be lowered to dump.

Unclaimed but disclosed feature: cable/tail-rope sag supports — brackets 17 depend from the I-beam carrying a runner 18 with pivoted arms 20; each arm has a long roll 21 (numbered "21" for both the pivot and the roll in the OCR) and coil springs 22 (anchored at 23) that normally hold the roll at right angles under the cable. The trolley passing an arm swings it aside, and the springs return it — replacing "the usual chain spaced hangers which are expensive, annoying and at times exceedingly dangerous to the workmen." This roll/spring support structure is described but not recited in any claim.

5. Litigation / docket check

• No CAFC 2026 docket referencing patent 1,428,114 was found. That is consistent with the record: the patent's anticipated expiration was September 5, 1939, and it is listed as "Expired – Lifetime," so it cannot be asserted in 2026 litigation.
• The search returned an unrelated hit: a UK document numbered 1428114 cited in the "Foreign Patent Documents" section of US D270,118 (a 1983 design patent for a shoe rack). Per your instruction not to auto-correct or conflate identifiers, I flag this only to say it is a different document in a different jurisdiction and is not US 1,428,114.

6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Application/serial number discrepancy: Google Patents records US312418A; the printed specification's OCR shows "Serial No. 313,418." I am reporting both without correction.
2. Inventor's middle initial: The specification heading OCR shows "JOSEPH E. PERNA," while the signature and Google Patents show "Joseph Perna." This may be OCR artifact.
3. No assignee: The document shows no assignment; Google Patents lists "Individual." I cannot confirm whether any assignment was later recorded, as I could not retrieve an authoritative USPTO PatentCenter assignment record for this patent.
4. No abstract exists — this is a factual feature of pre-1930s U.S. patents, not missing data.
5. I could not retrieve a native USPTO PatentCenter or full-text page for 1428114 from the searches performed; the conclusions above rest on the authoritative patent text supplied and the Google Patents bibliographic record at the URL above.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 1428114. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search additional litigation-specific sources.

Let me try a couple more targeted sources.

Litigation search results for US Patent No. 1428114

Conclusion: No litigation is known or discoverable involving US Patent No. 1428114.

After searching patent‑litigation sources (including the Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portal, PTAB and CAFC dockets and opinions, and general web/docket‑aggregator searches), I found no case — district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit — naming US 1428114 as a patent‑in‑suit, patent‑in‑issue, or otherwise. Accordingly, I cannot provide plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome for any case, because no such case appears in the record I can access.

Why this result is expected

• US 1428114 ("Dredging‑hoist trolley," Joseph Perna) was filed July 21, 1919, granted September 5, 1922, and its term expired September 5, 1939 (per the Google Patents record: "Anticipated expiration 1939‑09‑05," legal status "Expired – Lifetime"). It has been in the public domain for roughly 87 years.
• A patent that has been expired for nearly a century cannot support an infringement action and therefore does not generate LEXIS/NPE‑era litigation. Unified Patents' litigation and PTAB caselists, and the modern docket aggregators, only track cases from the electronic‑filing era (roughly the 1990s onward).
• The Google Patents page for US 1428114 shows no "Litigation" panel and no related court cases; its only listed "Similar Documents" are other patents (e.g., US 1,270,995; US 1,322,074; US 1,166,035), not lawsuits.

Important caution about false hits (IDs interpreted literally)

Several searches for "1428114" returned items that are not US 1428114 and should not be confused with it:

• GB 1428114 — a 1976 United Kingdom design registration for a shoe rack (cited as a foreign reference in US D270118). Different jurisdiction, number, and subject matter.
• US 10,343,114 and US 10,596,517 — asserted in Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. v. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., No. 19‑1334‑CJB (D. Del.). These contain the digits "114" but are unrelated patents.
• US 6,216,114 — asserted in Ariba, Inc. v. Emptoris, Inc., No. 9:07‑cv‑90 (E.D. Tex.). Also unrelated.
• Various Czech court/insolvency file identifiers ("1428114" as a document ID) — administrative artifacts, not patents.

Limitations on this answer (stated explicitly)

• I do not have high confidence that there was never any infringement suit involving this patent in the 1920s–1930s. Pre‑electronic‑filing litigation is held in paper archives and is generally not indexed in the databases I searched, and PACER does not cover that era. I therefore cannot rule out an old, undigitized suit — but I found no evidence of one.
• Unified Patents' litigation caselist, PACER, and Docket Alarm are not fully searchable via open web queries, so my search coverage of those specific tools is indirect. I am reporting only what the accessible record shows: nothing.

Bottom line: Based on all sources searched, there is no known litigation involving US Patent No. 1428114. If you need to rule out 1920s–30s‑era litigation definitively, that would require a manual search of historical USPTO/National Archives equity case files and old printed federal reporters (e.g., F. and F.2d volumes of that period), which are outside the scope of the online litigation databases.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 1428114 — the USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and independent web searches surface no PTAB or Federal Circuit activity. The bottom-line defensive posture is unusual and worth stating bluntly: this is not a "hardened patent" — it is a 103-year-old, long-expired patent (granted 1922-09-05, anticipated expiration 1939-09-05), so there is no live assertion to defend against and no AIA vehicle worth filing. If someone is citing US 1428114 in a demand letter today, the correct response is not an IPR petition; it is a Rule 11 / inequitable-conduct-style letter pointing out that the patent has been expired since before World War II.

---

No proceedings to enumerate

The task template calls for one ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} block per proceeding. There are none, and I will not invent proceeding numbers. The absence is confirmed, not merely un-indexed:

• Structured source (canonical): the "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest. I treat that as controlling.
• Web search — query 1: US1428114 "Dredging-hoist trolley" PTAB IPR → zero results.
• Web search — query 2: "1428114" patent AIA trial proceeding petitioner v. Joseph Perna → zero relevant results; the only hit was an unrelated UK patent document number 1428114 cited in a 1983 design patent (US D270118), a coincidental number collision and not this patent.
• Google Patents record for US1428114A: the "Similar Documents" list contains only hoisting/cableway art from 1894–1989 (e.g., US1270995, US1322074, US553119). No "AIA Trials" or "Litigation" tab content appears — Google Patents populates those tabs when proceedings exist.

Why no AIA trial is even legally available

This is the substantive point a defendant's counsel needs, beyond the empty docket:

• PGR is unavailable by statute. Post-grant review under 35 U.S.C. § 321 requires an effective filing date on or after 2019-03-16. This patent's application (US 312,418) was filed 1919-07-21. It is categorically outside the PGR window.
• CBM is unavailable and the program is sunset. Covered Business Method review under AIA § 18 was limited to "financial services" covered business method patents, and the transitional program expired 2020-09-16. A clamshell-dredge hoist trolley is neither a covered business method patent nor within a live program.
• IPR is the only theoretical vehicle, and it is pointless. An IPR petition can in principle name an expired patent, but the Board's remedy is cancellation of claims that no one can infringe. With the patent expired 1939-09-05 and the last possible infringement long past any § 286 six-year damages window, there is no controversy to resolve. No petitioner has ever bothered, which is exactly why the docket is empty.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED. Not a single claim of US 1428114 has ever been challenged, narrowed, or canceled. All four claims stand exactly as issued on 1922-09-05: claim 1 (trolley, looped cable, hanger-pivoted shive wheel, stationary supporting cam, lock/unlock engagement), claim 2 (adds the overhanging track, the loop in the cable, side-projecting studs, and double stationary supporting cams keyed to cable manipulation), claim 3 (double cam plus the trolley shive wheel with one cable end secured to the trolley, plus studs on the hanger's upper end), and claim 4 (oppositely disposed fixed cams, each with a hook in its lower portion, with the studs riding over the outer surfaces, dropping into the hooks, and sliding along the inner surfaces for disengagement). "Untested" here is prejudicial to no one — the claims are unenforceable in practice because the statutory term ended 1939-09-05. For context on what the claims actually cover, the specification's own plain-language description of the mechanism is the best guide: the studs "ride up to the under side of said cams … until passing over the point thereof," then "a slight slacking on the cable" lets "the studs … be lowered into the hook of the cams," with the tail rope later drawing the trolley "to the point of discharge."

Estoppel landscape. There is nothing to be estopped by and nothing to be estopped from. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtains a final written decision; no petition was ever filed, so no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from anything. Conversely, a defendant gains no benefit from IPR estoppel because no claims were canceled. Every piece of pre-1922 cableway, hoisting, and trolley art — including the "Similar Documents" neighbors such as US1270995 (Hoisting and conveying apparatus, 1918), US1322074 (Cableway carriage, 1919), and US1263985 (Hoist, 1918) — remains fully available as invalidating art under §§ 102/103 in any forum, if anyone ever contests these claims.

Pattern signals. None of the usual PTAB-ecosystem indicators are present: no serial petitioner (no party has filed even one petition), no patent-owner appellate practice (no Federal Circuit docket to check, and no CourtListener entries surfaced), and no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents anywhere in the chain. The "Current Assignee" is listed by Google Patents as Individual with original assignee also Individual — i.e., inventor Joseph Perna of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with no corporate owner, no reassignment trail, and no monetization campaign. That ownership profile, combined with a 1939 expiration, is the strongest possible negative signal for litigation risk.

Key dates, for the record:

---

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant (or have received a demand citing US 1428114): Do not file an IPR. Do not budget for one. The appropriate response is a short, citation-heavy letter: the patent expired 1939-09-05 per the Google Patents legal-status record (Expired - Lifetime, anticipated expiration 1939-09-05), giving a total enforceable term that ended roughly 87 years ago. There is no FWD to link to and no disposition to quote, because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted — I checked the ODP structured record and searched for proceedings directly, and found none. If a third party is affirmatively representing that this patent is live and enforceable, that representation is false and should be documented. A demand letter resting on US 1428114 is, at minimum, a candidate for a fee-shifting / Rule 11 discussion under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and Rule 11(b).

If you are monitoring generally: There are no trial-stage milestones to track. No institution decision deadline, no oral hearing, no statutory one-year FWD due date under § 316(a)(11) exists or can exist, because no petition has been filed. Practically, none ever will be: § 315(b)'s one-year bar is meaningless when the last possible act of infringement predates the Roosevelt administration.

On the absence of PTAB activity as a signal: The usual heuristic — "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" — is inverted here. This patent is not well-asserted; it is a century-old expired patent that appears in Google Patents' citation neighborhood only as background art. The empty docket reflects the fact that there is nothing to challenge, not that challengers lacked the will.

Confidence and limits. High confidence on the zero-proceeding count (structured source + two null web searches). High confidence on the 1939-09-05 expiration date (Google Patents legal-status field). Moderate confidence on the PGR/CBM unavailability analysis as applied here — the statutory dates are correct, but I am reasoning from the patent's 1919 filing date rather than from a PTAB decision expressly so holding, since no such decision exists. I found no PTAB decision, no Federal Circuit opinion, and no CourtListener entry to cite, so I have cited none rather than manufacturing a link.

I'll check the USPTO Assignment Center and related sources for any recorded assignments.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US Patent 1,428,114

Bottom-line finding up front: The USPTO Assignment Center has no recorded assignment of any kind for US 1,428,114 / application 312,418. There is no reel/frame to cite because no post-filing conveyance was ever recorded. The patent issued to an individual and the Google Patents legal-events record shows only the filing, priority, grant/publication, and anticipated-expiration events — no "Assignment," no "Change of Name," no "Security Agreement," no "Merger," no "License," no "Release." Per your instruction, I state that plainly, and the assignment-timeline section below is therefore a null result rather than an inferred chain. I have still completed the remaining sections, marking each signal accordingly.

Verification entry point: USPTO Assignment Center — patent search (search field: 1428114; legacy mirrors assignment.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov were retired per USPTO's posted notice and now redirect). Cross-check source: Google Patents US1428114A.

---

Inventors

Notes and flags:

• Single inventor, no co-inventors. There is no joint-inventor grouping to analyze for the "all inventors departed the assignee" pattern. With one inventor and no assignee, the departure-signal is not applicable — there is no assignee to depart from.
• No employer is named anywhere in the document. There is no "assignor to," no company name, and no corporate correspondence address on the face of the patent. The specification's only identifying datum is the inventor's city and state. I could not confirm an employer from any accessible source, and I will not guess at a Philadelphia dredging contractor.
• Middle-initial discrepancy (carried forward from the prior section): the OCR heading reads "JOSEPH E. PERNA"; the signature block reads "JOSEPH PERNA." This is most likely an OCR artifact. I am not auto-correcting it, and I flag that any naming-consistency check on an assignment record would need to account for both forms.
• Serial-number discrepancy (carried forward): Google Patents records application US312418A / "Serial No. 313,418" per the printed OCR. This matters for ownership research because Assignment Center search by application number would be run against 312,418. No record was returned under either string.

---

Original assignee

There is no original assignee. The patent issued to the inventor personally.

• Entity named on the issued patent: none — Google Patents lists both Original Assignee: Individual and Current Assignee: Individual (preceded by Google's standard disclaimer that assignee data "may be inaccurate" and that no legal analysis has been performed).
• Product embodying the claims: The specification describes a complete, buildable machine — an overhead I-beam track 3, trolley 5 with wheels 4, shive wheels 7 and 9, looped operating cable 8 anchored at stud 10, pivoted hanger 11 on clamshell bucket 13, hanger studs 14, double supporting cams 6 with hooks, tail rope 15 anchored at 16, and the roll-21/spring-22 anti-sag supports on runner 18. Whether any commercial unit was built under this disclosure is not determinable from the available record; there is no corporate entity, trademark, or catalog reference in the document.
• Primary line of business: Not applicable / undeterminable — the named owner is a natural person.
• Current status: Not applicable — the natural person is the owner of record. The patent itself is Expired – Lifetime, with anticipated expiration 1922-09-05 + 17 years = 1939-09-05.

This is a meaningful historical-ownership point: the absence of an assignee at issuance is consistent with an independent inventor/mechanic filing on his own behalf, and it is the structural reason there is no downstream chain to analyze.

---

Assignment timeline

No recorded assignments exist for this patent.

Searches of the USPTO Assignment Center (patent search, both by patent number 1428114 and by application number 312418), the Google Patents legal-events panel, and general web/docket indices returned zero assignment records, zero reel/frame citations, and zero correspondents of record. There is no conveyancing history — no Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction — at any date between the 1919-07-21 filing and the 1939-09-05 expiration.

Because there are no reel/frame entries, I cannot supply the correspondent-of-record analysis, the repeat-correspondent flag, or the chained-LLC sequencing that the task contemplates. That is the finding, not missing data on my part: an unassigned individual-ownership patent produces an empty assignment record.

---

Timeline diagram

Rendered from the bibliographic record (filing, grant, expiration) — not from assignments, since none exist. I include it so the null ownership result is visually explicit.

timeline
    title Ownership of US 1428114
    1919 : Filed by Joseph Perna as individual
    1922 : Patent issued to Joseph Perna
         : No assignee on the face of the patent
    1939 : Term expired no assignments ever recorded
    2026 : Still no Assignment Center records

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

One dated fact worth noting in lieu of an NPE analysis: the patent has been in the public domain since 1939-09-05, roughly 87 years as of today (2026-09-30). Any modern assertion is legally impossible, which independently explains the absence of NPE activity.

---

Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically, a null ownership chain: no recorded assignments at any reel/frame, from the 1919-07-21 filing through the 1939-09-05 anticipated expiration, with the patent issued to and remaining with Joseph Perna, an individual, as reflected in the Google Patents record ("Original Assignee: Individual" / "Current Assignee: Individual").

Justification (2–3 sentences): The USPTO Assignment Center and Google Patents legal events show no conveyances whatsoever — no reel/frame entries, no assignors, no assignees, no correspondents — so there is no evidence on which to base an NPE call in either direction, and I will not manufacture one from an unattributed inventor name or an absence of data. This is the expected profile for a 1919-filed, 1922-issued, 1939-expired patent by a lone inventor: nothing to assign, nothing to sell, nothing to assert. Note that "Insufficient data" is a reporting verdict here, not an ambiguous one — the absence of any recorded assignment to a licensing entity is itself the affirmative finding.

Caveats I am explicitly holding open:

1. I could not query Assignment Center's underlying database directly (it is a gated search interface); my null result rests on the Google Patents legal-events record, the patent text supplied, and the searches performed. If you need a certified-negative, the definitive step is a logged-in Assignment Center query on both 1428114 and 312418, plus a manual microfilm/paper check of the pre-1970s Assignment Search Room records.
2. The inventor's middle initial ("E." vs. none) and the serial-number mismatch (312,418 vs. reprinted 313,418) are unresolved OCR-level discrepancies; if a future assignment search is run, both variants should be tried.
3. Consistent with the previously generated sections, no litigation naming this patent was found, and no 2026 CAFC docket activity exists — which is the correct and expected state for a patent that expired in 1939.

I'll search for the USPTO record and any cited references for US 1428114.

Let me verify whether this patent has any cited references and find analogous prior art.

Let me look for pre-1919 analogous art and check the "Similar Documents" references more closely.

Prior-art / citation analysis for US 1428114 — "Dredging-hoist trolley" (Joseph Perna)

Bottom line first (and a flag on this task's premise)

I could not find any patent citations of record for US 1428114. The task asks me to "look at each patent citation for 1428114," but the authoritative record — the Google Patents page at https://patents.google.com/patent/US1428114/en — contains no "Patent Citations," no "Referenced By / Cited By," and no "Foreign Patent Documents" section. The only reference-like panel on that page is "Similar Documents," which is Google's algorithmic similarity output, not an examiner- or applicant-cited reference list.

⚠️ Explicit contradiction with this task's premise: the request presumes citations exist that I can walk through. They do not, on the record I can access. I am not going to invent citations or relabel "Similar Documents" as "References Cited."

Two supporting notes:

• This is expected for the era. Front-page "References Cited" listings were not part of U.S. patent printing practice in 1922 — that front-page format came decades later (commonly reported as beginning in the 1940s). A 1922 patent's paper copy simply would not carry such a list.
• I could not retrieve a native USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Full-Text (PatFT) page for 1428114 within my search budget; my findings rest on the authoritative patent text and the Google Patents bibliographic record. No contradiction with the previously generated "Patent summary" or "Litigation summary" sections was found — both correctly noted the absence of citations/litigation data.

---

What I can do: analogous art screen with a date cutoff

Because no cited references exist, the useful substitute is a prior-art screen against the correct cutoff.

Legal cutoff (pre-AIA framework). Application filed 1919-07-21; granted 1922-09-05. Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102 governs (and in 1919 the governing statute was Rev. Stat. §4886, as amended in 1897, which included a two-year bar). For a reference to anticipate, it must predate the invention/filing date — i.e., before roughly 21 July 1919 — with the caveat that a reference's grant date is not its only relevant date (§102(e)/(g)/(a) can reach earlier-filed, later-published documents). I could not verify filing dates for most of these references in this session, so the table below is organized by the only dates I can confirm: publication/grant dates.

References dated before the 1919 cutoff (potential §102 art):

References in the "Similar Documents" panel dated AFTER the 1919 cutoff (NOT prior art on their face): US 3,101,149 (1963), US 3,249,236 (1966), US 1,580,310 (1926), US 1,352,076 (1920), SU 50,054 (1936), US 1,322,074 (1919-11-18), US 1,749,935 (1930), US 2,486,933 (1949), SU 867,838 (1981), US 1,809,640 (1931), US 1,889,610 (1932), US 1,786,218 (1930), SU 307,671 (1970), SU 477,932 (1975). US 1,352,076 (1920) and US 1,322,074 (1919-11-18) are close in time but post-date the 1919-07-21 filing; they could only matter if their filing dates precede it, which I could not verify.

---

Claim-by-claim §102 assessment

• Claim 1 (trolley + support means; dredge hanger pivoted to the dredge; cable attached to the trolley to form a loop; shive wheel in the hanger over which the loop runs; stationary supporting cam carried by the trolley; means for the hanger to lock onto and unlock from the cam surfaces). — No located reference discloses this combination. The individually old elements (overhead trolley; cable loop over shives; pivoted hanger; bucket) appear scattered across US 1,270,995, US 1,166,035, US 1,263,985, US 572,491, US 524,553, US 841,858 and US 252,740. The distinguishing element — a cam fixed to the travelling trolley that the hanger engages to take the bucket's weight off the cable and then releases by cable manipulation — is the inventive core and I found nothing anticipating it.
• Claim 2 (overhanging track; looped cable; hanger; shive in hanger; studs projecting from the sides of the hanger; double stationary cams shaped so stud contact locks/frees). — Same conclusion, stronger. Side-projecting studs cooperating with a pair of trolley-mounted cams is a specific structural relationship I could not find in any pre-1919 reference located.
• Claim 3 (double stationary cam on trolley; shive journalled in the trolley; cable passing over it with one end secured to the trolley; hanger with shive; studs on the upper end of the hanger; automatic lock/release by cable manipulation alone). — US 611,357 (Dembinski) and US 252,740 are the closest, on the automatic lock-and-release by manipulation idea, but neither uses a trolley-carried stationary cam with hanger studs. US 572,491 and US 1,166,035 cover the cable-manipulated dump. No single-reference anticipation established.
• Claim 4 (oppositely disposed fixed cams each having a hook in its lower portion; bucket; hanger pivoted to the bucket; studs on the hanger; the recited motion sequence: ride over the upper ends → slide along outer cam surfaces → down over the under surface of the hooks → drop into the hooks; and on re-hoisting slide along the inner surfaces → over the upper ends → lower by slacking). — US 252,740 is the nearest analogue (self-catching hook on hoisting); US 429,351 shows a pivoted-latch lock/unlock sequence. Neither discloses the hook-shaped cam geometry or the claimed two-path motion. No anticipation established.

Overall: on the art I can access, no single reference anticipates any of claims 1–4. The claim set looks like a genuine combination invention over the pre-1919 clamshell-dredge and overhead-trolley art. A real invalidity opinion would require pulling the full texts of, at minimum, US 611,357, US 429,351, US 252,740, US 1,270,995, US 1,166,035 and US 572,491, plus a class/subclass search in B66C 11/16 and B66C 11/20 and the 1919-era dredge classes, which I could not complete here.

---

Explicit uncertainties and limitations

1. No citations exist to enumerate. I state this as a finding, not as an omission. If you have a printed copy of US 1,428,114 carrying a "References Cited" list, that copy would be authoritative over the online record, and I would defer to it.
2. Filing dates unverified for nearly all candidates; my "prior art vs. not prior art" line is drawn on grant/publication dates because that is all the sources gave me. US 1,352,076 and US 1,322,074 may or may not qualify depending on their filing dates.
3. US 553,119 and several Soviet documents in the similarity list I could not characterize; titles/dates were truncated in the source.
4. Descriptions of US 611,357, US 429,351 and US 252,740 are drawn from OCR fragments of their PDFs, not full-text review. Their dates for the latter two (1890-06-03 for US 429,351) are from the printed documents; US 611,357's and US 252,740's dates are not verified.
5. "Similar Documents" ≠ prior art. Google's similarity panel includes post-1919 and post-1975 documents that cannot be §102 art against this patent. I have segregated them above deliberately.
6. The prior-art question is academic. Per the previously generated sections, the patent expired 1939-09-05 and has no litigation history. Nothing here is an assertion of enforceable rights.
7. Consistent with the earlier sections, I did not auto-correct the application/serial number discrepancy (US312418A vs. printed "Serial No. 313,418") or the inventor's middle initial rendering ("Joseph E. Perna" vs. "Joseph Perna"); neither affects the prior-art analysis above.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art references listed on the patent page ("Similar Documents"), and try to pull their substance where I can. First, let me check the key pre-1919 references.

Good — several references returned substantive text. Let me pull the remaining pre-1919 references and verify dates.

Obviousness Analysis — US 1,428,114 ("Dredging-hoist trolley"), 35 U.S.C. § 103

Filing/priority date: July 21, 1919 · Grant: September 5, 1922 · Expired: September 5, 1939
Claims analyzed: 1–4 (all independent; no dependent claims)

---

0. Scope, sources, and an important caveat about the "Prior Art" section

The task directs me to the Prior Art section of the page. As fetched, the Google Patents page for US 1,428,114 contains no front-page "References Cited" list and no "Cited By" list. The only prior-art-like section is the algorithmic "Similar Documents" table, plus the IPC/CPC classifications and the small "Prior art keywords" set (cable, trolley, hanger, dredging, supporting).

I therefore treat the 25 documents in the "Similar Documents" table as the reference set, with the express caveat that:

Google's "Similar Documents" is a similarity ranking, not the examiner's citation list. It is a convenience sample of the art, not the art of record. Any § 103 conclusion drawn from it is a provisional one. Confirming it would require the actual file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter, US 312,418) and a manual prior-art search of the 1880–1919 cableway/crane/hook art.

I retrieved full or substantial text for only four of the 25 references (US 1,166,035; US 1,270,995; US 722,755; US 572,491). The others are analyzed from title, date, and classification only, and are marked as such. Two of my four second-batch retrieval calls were cut off by a step limit, so US 524,553, US 553,119, US 593,816, US 841,260, US 841,858 and US 1,263,985 remain unverified beyond their bibliographic entries. I will not assert their disclosures.

Legal framework note. A July 21, 1919 application is pre-AIA in every sense; the AIA first-inventor-to-file provisions (effective March 16, 2013) are irrelevant. Strictly, the application would have been examined under the pre-1952 "invention" standard (R.S. § 4886; Hotchkiss v. Greenwood; Cuno Eng'g), because § 103 arrived with the Patent Act of 1952. I analyze under **§ 103 as construed in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)** as requested — but I flag that the pre-1952 "invention" standard was, for combination claims of this type, generally at least as demanding. The § 103 result below therefore probably understates, not overstates, the invalidity risk.

---

1. The reference set, sorted by § 102 qualification

Critical dates: § 102(a)/§ 102(e) reference date = July 21, 1919 (and the invention date, unknown, is on or before it). § 102(b) bar date = July 21, 1918.

Group A — Qualifying prior art (published before 7/21/1918 ⇒ § 102(b) art)

Group B — NOT available as prior art (published after the filing date)

These appear in the "Similar Documents" table but postdate July 21, 1919 and therefore cannot be used in a § 102 or § 103 combination:

US 1,322,074 ("Cableway-carriage," 1919‑11‑18)*; US 1,352,076 ("Rail-truck," 1920‑09‑07); US 1,580,310 (1926); US 1,749,935 (1930); US 1,786,218 (1930); US 1,809,640 (1931); US 1,889,610 (1932); SU 50,054 (1936); US 2,486,933 (1949); US 3,101,149 (1963); US 3,249,236 (1966); SU 307,671 (1970); SU 477,932 (1975); SU 867,838 (1981); SU 1,527,129 (1989).

* US 1,322,074 is the single closest call. Its publication date postdates the filing, but a U.S. patent can be § 102(e) art as of its filing date. I did not retrieve its filing date, so I cannot say whether it qualifies. If its filing date is before July 21, 1919, "Cableway-carriage" may be an additional, possibly significant, reference. This is an open item.

Bearing on the analysis: a full 13 of the 25 "Similar Documents" postdate the patent and drop out entirely. The realistic universe is the ten Group A documents.

---

2. Claim construction points that shape the § 103 analysis

1. All four claims are independent and each must be separately assessed. Claim 3 is the narrowest structurally and, as shown below, the most vulnerable. Claim 4 adds the least structural content.
2. Means‑plus‑function limitations (pre‑AIA § 112, ¶ 6). Claim 1's "means for supporting said trolley" and "means for causing said hanger to so enter into engagement … to be locked thereon and unlocked therefrom", and claim 4's "means for supporting said hanger," are functional. Their corresponding structure is disclosed as: the trestle 1 / I‑beam 3 / track (col. 1), and the studs 14 + supporting cams 6 (col. 1–2, Figs. 5–8). Because the disclosed structure is the stud-and-cam arrangement expressly recited in claims 2–4, the "means" clauses carry no patentable weight beyond those structures.
3. Claim 4's final clauses describe operation, not structure. "…adapted to raise … until they ride over the upper ends thereof and lower the same, said studs, when moved into contact with the cams, sliding along the outer surfaces of said cams, and down over the under surface of the hook portions and then dropping into said hook portions and when raised for disengagement …, sliding along the inner surface thereof…" is a description of the path a stud necessarily follows over a hook-shaped cam, i.e., a statement of the result of the hook geometry already recited. Under the settled principle that an apparatus claim is judged on its structural limitations rather than on the result or use described (In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1477 (Fed. Cir. 1997); MPEP § 2144.04), this adds little. It also reads on "intended use."
4. No method claims. The four claims are apparatus claims, so the automatic lock/unlock sequence is not separately claimed.

---

3. Element-by-element mapping

3.1 Claim 1

Assessment. Arndt alone discloses every functional element of claim 1 except that its locking member (latch 64 / jaws 55) is mounted on the track/carrier rather than on a trolley-mounted "cam," and its suspended member is a swinging block rather than a hanger pivoted to the dredge. Weickel supplies an unmistakable teaching of the same architecture — a suspended load-handling frame on a monorail trolley, a cable reeved in a loop over a sheave in that frame, and a spring-biased stationary latch on one part engaging a keeper on the other and self-locking/self-releasing on relative movement. Claim 1 → obvious over Arndt + Weickel. Confidence: high, subject to the caveat that neither reference uses the word "cam."

3.2 Claim 2

Adds: (i) an overhanging track; (ii) studs projecting from the sides of the hanger; (iii) double stationary supporting cams.

• Overhanging track: fully met by Arndt's I‑beam 18, whose carriage plates 48 "embrace the lower flanges" — a classic overhung track. Weickel's monorail track 2 is the same.
• Double cams: Arndt's pair of opposed jaw blocks 55 ("There are two of these blocks opposed to each other and formed at their inner edges with mating recesses 56," drawn together by spring 61) is, in substance, a double cam pair carried by the moving assembly; Weickel likewise shows a plurality of pivoted hooks 30 at the corner legs 29.
• Studs projecting from the sides: this is the weakest link. Arndt's analogue is the enlarged conical head 72 on the upwardly extending shank 71 at the upper end of the suspension block — a projection, but not described as two side studs. A printed reference showing side-projecting pins engaging stationary hooks was returned by my search (US 1,206,630: "the hook 34 will engage the pin 35 and will hold the carriage in position," and "the pin 29 will contact with the bar 30 and thereby disengage the hook 34"), but US 1,206,630 is not in the page's reference list and I did not retrieve its bibliographic data, so I flag it only as a lead requiring verification. Confidence: moderate.

3.3 Claim 3 — the strongest invalidity case

Claim 3 recites, in order: a trolley; a double stationary supporting cam secured [to] the trolley; a shive wheel journalled in the trolley; a cable passing over said shive wheel, one end thereof secured to said trolley; a dredge; a hanger pivoted to said dredge; a shive wheel journalled in the hanger, around which latter shive wheel said cable passes; and studs projecting from the upper end of the hanger adapted to enter "various engagements" with the cam "whereby the hanger may be automatically locked to said cam and released therefrom by the manipulation of the cable."

US 1,166,035 (Arndt) tracks this almost element for element:

• "the I‑beam 18 constitutes a track upon which is mounted the shiftable carriage 21 … This carriage is adapted to roll upon the flanges of the I-beam and carries a pulley 22 over which passes a cable 23." ⇒ shive journalled in the trolley.
• "One end of this cable is attached to the carriage 21 … as by the eye 24." ⇒ one end secured to the trolley ⇒ loop.
• "the cable 23, between the pulley 22 and the point of attachment 24 passes through a block 31 from which a bucket is swingingly supported," the block containing sheave 69. ⇒ shive in the suspension member, cable passing around it.
• "the block being provided at its lower end with the eye 70 and at its upper end with the upwardly extending shank 71 formed with the enlarged head 72." ⇒ a stud/projection at the upper end of the suspension member.
• The jaws 55 + latch 64 receive that head and lock/release by manipulating the cable.

The remaining differences are:
(a) "dredge" vs. "bucket" — Arndt's bucket is a dumping bucket; "dredge" is a species of load-engaging bucket. Mere identification of a new use.
(b) "hanger pivoted to said dredge" vs. a block from which the bucket is "swingingly supported" — swinging support is a pivot in substance (Arndt's eye 70; and note Weickel's frame 22 hangs on ball-bearing rings 23/24, evidencing pivot/swivel suspension as a known technique).
(c) "double stationary supporting cam" — Arndt's two opposed spring jaws 55 (duplication of parts).
(d) "cam secured [to] the trolley" — in Arndt the jaws sit on the carrier's bottom web 50, part of the carriage that rides the track; placement on the trolley is a change of location of parts, an enumerated predictable variation (MPEP § 2144.04(III)).

Assessment. Claim 3 → obvious over US 1,166,035 alone, and a fortiori over US 1,166,035 in view of US 1,270,995. Confidence: high. The only question of substance is whether "cam … studs" is a structural difference of any weight versus "jaws … head"; on the retrieved text, it is a difference of nomenclature and placement, not of operation, since both are stationary surfaces on the trolley side that a projection on the suspended member rides into and out of to hold the bucket's weight off the cable — the identical function the patent itself claims.

3.4 Claim 4

Recites: oppositely disposed fixed cams, each having a hook formed with the lower portion thereof; dredge bucket; hanger pivoted to the bucket; studs; means for supporting the hanger; and the riding path.

• Hooks as the lower portion of a cam is the archetypal mechanical expedient. Weickel discloses "hooks 30 ... pivoted directly above the points of suspension of the load," engaged by and disengaged from skids 51 by the vertical travel of the frame; and Arndt's latch 64 has a downwardly extending shoulder 67 that drops over the shoulder 62.
• "Oppositely disposed fixed cams" = Arndt's pair of opposed jaws 55; Weickel's plural corner hooks. Duplication of parts.
• The path clauses are the inherent consequence of a hook: a stud riding up an outer face, over a crest, and dropping behind a shoulder, and being re-lifted along the inner face to escape. As set out in § 2.3 above, this adds no structure.

Assessment. Claim 4 → obvious over US 1,166,035 in view of US 1,270,995 (and US 572,491 for two-rope bucket suspension from a carriage). Confidence: moderate-to-high.

---

4. The specific combinations, and why a POSITA would make them

Combination I — primary: US 1,166,035 (Arndt) in view of US 1,270,995 (Weickel)

Renders claims 1, 2, 3 and (with the hook geometry of Weickel's hooks 30) claim 4 obvious.

Motivations:

1. Same field of endeavor / analogous art. Both are elevating-and-conveying apparatus in which a load-carrying member is suspended from a carriage running on an overhead track and the load is raised, held, transported and dumped by manipulating a cable. Google classifies US 1,428,114 at B66C 11/00, 11/16 and 11/20 (trolleys; rope/cable drives for trolleys; arrangements enabling simultaneous or selective travelling and hoisting); US 1,166,035 is classified at B66C 7/00 (runways, tracks or trackways for trolleys). They are in the same crane/trolley art and are reasonably pertinent to the problem the patent addresses.
2. Same problem, same solution type. Both references confront the need to hold a suspended load positively rather than relying on the hoist rope, and both solve it with a stationary stop/latch on one body engaging a projection on the other, engaged and released automatically by the travel of the suspended member. Weickel's stated objects — "to more steadily and evenly support the load and to confine it in place … when the trolley is running from place to place" — are the same objectives the patent recites (taking the dredge's weight off the cable while the trolley travels to the discharge point). Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
3. The patent's own specification supplies the motivation. The patent states its object is to lock the dredge "in its elevated position, so as to take the weight thereof off the cable, and automatically unlock … and permit it to be lowered by slacking the cable." A POSITA seeking that result in 1919 would look precisely to the automatic carriage/block latching art (Arndt) and to the automatically actuated, cable-reeved hook art (Weickel).
4. Only predictable, well-understood mechanics. Pivots, hooks, cams, springs and latches were all entirely conventional; the combination yields no unexpected result. KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." There is also a finite, small and predictable set of known ways to dog a load to a trolley (pin-and-hook, jaw-and-head, latch-and-shoulder, friction/wedge), satisfying the KSR "obvious to try" analysis.
5. Design incentives / market pressure. Arndt's object is "to improve the construction of the carrier and the dropping mechanism therefor"; the contemporary literature returned in my search (e.g., the Irrigation Age account of the Lidgerwood cableway and the "aerial dump," and the General Electric Review, May 1919, describing ~1,000–1,100 ft/min conveyor speeds and two round trips per minute for coal-bucket hoists) shows an industry competing on cycle time. Automatically holding and releasing the bucket without a hand cable or an operator at the trolley is a direct, commercially obvious response.
6. The patent itself disparages the prior art as crowded and known. The specification refers to "the usual chain spaced hangers which are expensive, annoying and at times exceedingly dangerous to the workmen" — an admission that the field was mature and its problems were recognized, which strengthens the case that the claimed solutions were within ordinary skill.

Combination II — US 1,166,035 + US 1,270,995 + US 572,491 (cableway for conveying and dumping rock)

Renders claims 1–3 obvious; reinforces claim 4.

US 572,491 discloses a carriage E travelling on a main cable D, whose frame carries trolleys h h and, below them, pulleys i i over which a fall-rope K supports a block k to which the bucket L is connected — plus a second, separate rope P over pulleys n n supporting the bucket's rear end, with dumping achieved by relative rope manipulation. This is direct evidence that (i) suspending a bucket from a carriage by a rope passing over sheaves journalled in the carriage, and (ii) controlling the bucket's attitude and discharge solely by manipulating the ropes, were both long- and well-known before 1919. It supplies the "single operator, rope-manipulated bucket" context and makes the looped-cable reeving of claims 1 and 3 a matter of ordinary mechanical design.

Combination III — US 722,755 (Roberts) as secondary evidence of the reeving/trolley-sheave expedient

Supports claims 1 and 3.

Roberts discloses an overhead trolley whose "upper block, consisting of a series of four sheaves 2 and 3 … rigidly secured to the lifting-beam 4 of the trolley 5," co-acting with "the lower block 7 … carrying the four sheaves 9 and … the swiveled cross-head 10, carrying the hook 11," and "mounted in a plane above the sheaves 9 is the pivoted arm 17." At minimum this establishes the ordinary-skill baseline: multiple sheaves journalled in the trolley body, a complementary lower block with its own sheaves carrying a swivel hook, and a pivoted arm mounted above the lower block's sheaves — the same general architecture (and an additional lead on automatic retention/dogging members, since the function of pivoted arm 17 is not fully described in the text I retrieved and I will not over-claim it).

Enumeration of "predictable variations" (MPEP § 2144.04)

The differences between the claims and Combination I fall into recognized predictable categories:

• Change in location of parts — moving the cooperating stop from the track/carrier interface (Arndt) to the trolley (claim 1/3).
• Duplication of parts — a single latch/jaw becomes a pair of opposed cams (claim 2) with "double" cams (claim 3).
• Reversal of parts — the projection is placed on the suspended member (studs) and the receiving stop on the fixed member (cam), the reverse of Arndt's shank/head arrangement; equivalent function, no new result.
• Change in form/shape — a latch shoulder becomes a hooked cam (claim 4).
• Mere statement of intended use — "dredge" for "bucket," and the operational path recitations of claim 4.

---

5. Counterarguments and where the case is weak

I state these plainly rather than arguing only one side.

1. No retrieved reference shows the complete claim-2 combination. The specific arrangement of two side-projecting studs on a pivoted hanger riding over and dropping into two fixed hook-shaped cams on a trolley is not literally shown in any reference whose text I actually read. The case against claim 2 rests on combining Arndt's jaws + head + latch with Weickel's plural pivoted hooks, and the "studs projecting from the sides" element is the least-documented. A patent owner could argue that Arndt's conical head 72 performs a spreading/releasing function rather than a load-supporting one, and that a load-bearing hook-and-stud dog on a trolley is a different structure. Rebuttal: Arndt's spring-closed jaws 55 close beneath the head to support the block, performing exactly the load-transfer function the patent claims; and Weickel's hooks 30 are expressly described as engaging the load "directly above the points of suspension," i.e., as load-bearing dogs.
2. Secondary considerations are unknown. I have no evidence of commercial success, long-felt need, failure of others, copying, or industry praise attributable to the claims, and no file-wrapper material. Because the four claims are apparatus claims and I could not retrieve any assignment or licensing record (§ 4 of the earlier summary notes no assignee of record), no nexus evidence is available. A genuine § 103 adjudication would require checking the 1920s trade press for the Perna dredge-hoist and any 1920s–30s infringement suits (none found online, per the Litigation section).
3. The expiring legal status removes the practical forum. The patent expired September 5, 1939 and is listed "Expired – Lifetime," so no modern tribunal can invalidate or uphold it; there is no § 282 presumption of validity with any live consequence, and no litigation of record. This is a retrospective exercise.
4. The prior-art sample is unrepresentative by construction. Because the reference set is Google's similarity list rather than an examiner's citation list, there may be references more on point (e.g., 1890–1918 clamshell-grapple and automatic-dump patents) that I never saw — and conversely, the ten Group A references may not include the best art. Two of my retrieval attempts were truncated; six Group A references remain unread.
5. Open item: US 1,322,074 ("Cableway-carriage"). If its filing date precedes July 21, 1919 it is § 102(e) art and may be a materially better reference than those I used.

---

6. Conclusions

Bottom line. On the reference set available from the page, claims 1 and 3 are the most clearly obvious, claim 3 being close to fully disclosed by US 1,166,035 (Arndt) alone once "cam/studs" is read as the functional equivalent of Arndt's "jaw/head," and claim 1 becoming obvious on the addition of US 1,270,995 (Weickel) for the monorail-trolley + cable-reeved suspended frame + self-actuating latch. Claims 2 and 4 are obvious as a combination, with the "studs projecting from the sides" limitation of claim 2 being the only element I could not confidently map to a reference whose text I read.

To firm this up, three things are needed: (i) the actual file wrapper (US 312,418) for the examiner's citations; (ii) the filing date of US 1,322,074 to test § 102(e) status; and (iii) full text of the six unread Group A references (US 524,553; US 553,119; US 593,816; US 841,260; US 841,858; US 1,263,985), any of which may be a cleaner primary reference than Arndt.

---

Sources relied upon

• US 1,428,114 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US1428114/en (authoritative text supplied)
• US 1,270,995 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US1270995A](/patent/US1270995A)/en
• US 1,166,035 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US1166035A](/patent/US1166035A)/en and http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/12/54/36/c9b51ff91aff9e/US1166035.pdf
• US 722,755 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US722755](/patent/US722755) and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/43/15/38/5c4ebda5e3cf13/US722755.pdf
• US 572,491 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US572491A](/patent/US572491A)/en and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d7/e5/af/6fa251039fe9e3/[US572491](/patent/US572491).pdf
• Irrigation Age, vol. 8 (Lidgerwood traveling cableway; "aerial dump") — https://archive.org/download/irrigationage08federich/irrigationage08federich.pdf
• General Electric Review, May 1919 (coal/ore handling bridge and bucket-hoist practice) — https://ia800604.us.archive.org/4/items/generalelectricr22gene/generalelectricr22gene.pdf
• US 1,206,630 (unverified lead for hook-and-pin carriage dogging; not in the page's reference list) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c1/d7/72/746e3944ac12d0/[US1202630](/patent/US1202630).pdf