Invalidity dossier
US 2069960
Added 9/21/2026, 9:32:46 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 2069960 A
Title: Apparatus for burning liquid fuel
Assignee/Current Assignee (as listed): Universal Oil Burner Co. Inc. (original assignee listed as "Universal Oil Burner Co I")
Inventor: Albert A. La Pointe
Dates: Priority/filing date 1933-12-08; publication/grant date 1937-02-09; anticipated expiration 1954-02-09. Legal status listed as "Expired – Lifetime."
Purpose: The patent addresses liquid-fuel burners. One known method "consists of vaporizing the fuel in a vaporizing chamber and ejecting the vapors therefrom, by natural draft, into a combustion chamber where they are also mixed with air." The stated primary object is "to provide an improved apparatus whereby liquid fuel is vaporized and mixed with just the correct amount of air in a vaporizing chamber wherein the resulting hydroxylated mixture is superheated to a degree which is sufficient to convert the said mixture into a form of gas from which the greatest amount of combustion may be obtained." A further aim is to provide a burner that maintains continuous combustion and can "automatically increase or decrease the supply of gas" to hold a predetermined temperature.
Plain-language scope: The apparatus includes a burner base with a vaporizing chamber and a superheating chamber joined by ducts, with a combustion groove, jet orifices small enough to prevent ignition inside the superheating chamber, a blower supplying air, fuel and air supply piping, an electrical heating element for preheating, and an automatic fuel/air regulating device operated by boiler pressure. The excerpt presents claim-like language describing a burner base with vaporizing receptacle, superheating chamber, interconnecting ducts, combustion groove, orifices directing combustion products against duct walls, plus fuel and proportional air supply means; further claimed combinations recite recesses, slots, an inverted dish-shaped plate with orifices, and under-passages.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claim set, complete specification, drawing details, or the full text of the concluding claims (the final claim is visibly truncated). It does not establish prosecution history, litigation, validity, or prior art beyond the background remarks quoted above.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:02:11 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.