US 3016952

I'll search for this specific patent and check for any litigation records.

US Patent 3,016,952 — Verification & Summary

Search scope caveat: I could not directly query USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or the CAFC 2026 docket system with the tools available here. The results below come from Google Patents, Justia, and general web indexing. I found no litigation, IPR/PGR, ITC, or CAFC appellate record associated with this patent number. I am not able to state with high confidence that none exists — absence of a hit in these searches is not proof of absence. Treat the litigation finding as "no record located," not "confirmed clean."

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Bibliographic Data

Abstract

This patent has no separately designated abstract. Google Patents renders an "Abstract"-like excerpt from the specification's stated objects. The operative summary from the specification is:

A vehicle insect screen whose peripheral frame is made of a highly elastic material (e.g., soft thin rubber, flexible plastic) that also forms internal transverse and longitudinal matrix sections dividing the screen into four rectangular quadrant panels of screen fabric. Magnets hemmed into the frame edges both hold the screen expanded into the automobile window channels and hold the screen closed when folded along its x and y axes to one-quarter area for storage (e.g., in a glove compartment or behind a sun visor).

Independent Claim — Plain-Language Overview

There is one claim, and it is independent (no dependent claims). In ordinary terms it covers:

1. An elastic planar body — a rectangular "highly elastic planar matrix" with four peripheral edges.
2. Four window openings — four symmetrically arranged rectangular openings formed in that elastic matrix.
3. Screen fabric in each opening — a rectangular screen fabric secured along all four of its edges within each opening. Two of each fabric's edges (the "outer" edges) run parallel to and spaced from the outer perimeter of the matrix; the other two ("inner" edges) run parallel to and spaced from the edges of the two other screen fabrics — i.e., a quadrant layout separated by the elastic matrix's crossing strips.
4. Two bar magnets on each of the four frame edges — eight bar magnets total, each with a north and south pole, each running parallel to and along the length of a corresponding fabric's outer edge.
5. Alternating polarity arrangement — the north pole of each magnet is positioned in spaced, linear, end-to-end relation with the south pole of another magnet. (This is what makes the folded screen self-cling: when folded into parallel courses, adjacent magnets present opposite poles to each other.)
6. Foldability limitation — the screen must be "adapted for being twice doubled up on itself and for magnetic retention in said twice doubled up position." This functional limitation is the essence of the claim's novelty hook over the cited art.

OCR / Identifier Caveats (per your strict rule, noted literally rather than corrected)

The machine-extracted text at the Google Patents URL contains several defects I am reporting as found, not correcting:

• The first claim word is rendered "rectangm larly" (evidently "rectangularly").
• The front-page line is OCR'd as "3,616,952" and, elsewhere, "3,016,952"; the authoritative publication number is US3016952A.
• Inventor name appears as "Ronald D. Shero," "Ronald D. Shem," and "Ronald D. Shero" in different OCR passes.
• Address OCR is garbled: "91f?!) dens-en Court NE, Aibuquertgum, N. Mex."
• Application number disagrees between sources: US788182A (Google metadata) vs. Ser. No. 788,132 (printed text).
• The title appears OCR'd as "AUIOMOBILE WINBOW SCREEN" in the description header, and as "AUTOMOBILE WINDOW SCREEN" in the search-result "Similar Documents" list (which shows US3085621A — Automobile window screen, a different patent — do not conflate).

Non-Matches Found (explicitly flagged)

Your instruction was to return results only for 3016952 and not similar numbers. Three unrelated documents surfaced that reuse the string "3016952" in different identifier spaces — I list them only to confirm they are not US 3,016,952:

• EP 3016952 A1 — "Spiro-condensed lactam compounds for organic electroluminescent devices" (a European application number, unrelated art).
• GB 2 075 225 A — cites priority data "3016952" dated 2 May 1980, Fed. Rep. of Germany (a German national application number).
• Brazilian STJ process 2025/0299190-6, "AGRAVO EM RECURSO ESPECIAL Nº 3016952" (a Brazilian court case number).

Confidence Statement

Bibliographic fields (number, title, inventor, dates, claim count, status) are grounded in the patent document itself and Google Patents metadata and I have high confidence in them, subject to the OCR discrepancies flagged above. The assignee identity ("Individual," no recorded assignment) is a Google Patents annotation and may not reflect unrecorded assignments. My confidence that there is no CAFC or district-court litigation involving this patent is moderate, not high, because I did not obtain direct docket confirmation; this patent's 1979 expiration makes post-1979 enforcement essentially moot, which is consistent with the absence of any litigation record.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 3016952 using the sources you specified.

Let me search the litigation-specific databases.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be thorough.

Result: No litigation found involving U.S. Patent 3,016,952

After searching litigation-oriented sources, I found no record of any lawsuit, administrative proceeding, or post-grant challenge involving U.S. Patent 3,016,952 ("Automobile window screen," Ronald D. Shero, filed Jan. 21, 1959 as Ser. No. 788,182; granted Jan. 16, 1962).

Case list

There are no entries to populate. I will not manufacture case numbers, parties, or dates to fill this table.

What I searched, and what came back

Searches performed (Google-patent/litigation-oriented web index, since I could not directly query PACER or CourtListener's API):

• US patent 3016952 litigation
• "3016952" patent case lawsuit
• "3,016,952" patent infringement lawsuit Shero
• CourtListener "3016952" OR "3,016,952" patent docket
• portal.unifiedpatents.com litigation "3016952"
• "Ronald D. Shero" patent infringement suit automobile window screen

All hits were false positives from other numbering systems. Per the strict rule to interpret identifiers literally and not auto-correct, I flagged and excluded each of the following rather than treating them as the patent in question:

1. EP 3016952 A1 / B1 — "Spiro-condensed lactam compounds for organic electroluminescent devices" (application EP 14733077; priority EP 13003343, WO 2015/000542). An unrelated European patent in a different field (C07D 471/…). Different jurisdiction, different numbering system.
2. FR 3016952 A1 — French publication in the family of WO 2015114243 (heat-exchanger-related, cited in the search report of FR 3088102). Again unrelated.
3. GB 2 075 225 A — UK application whose priority number is DE 3016952 (German priority of May 2, 1980, "Address range extension" / computer memory addressing). This is a priority-application number, not a patent assertion.
4. Brazilian STJ proceeding "AGRAVO EM RECURSO ESPECIAL Nº 3016952" (Processo 2025/0299190-6, distributed Oct. 6, 2025 before Min. Herman Benjamin). This is a Brazilian appellate docket number, not a US patent case.
5. Miscellaneous non-patent matches: 2006 WL 3016952 (People ex rel. Spitzer v. Grasso, No. 401620/04, N.Y. Sup. Ct. Oct. 18, 2006 — a fiduciary-duty/compensation case); INPI trademark 3016952 ("SCAN AND WIN," filed 2000, expired 2010); a Karnataka COVID media bulletin serial number; and a mathematics table entry. None relate to US 3,016,952.

Note on Google Patents data: the Google Patents page for US3016952A reports only Expired - Lifetime as its legal status and lists no litigation events. Its "Cited By" (40/55 documents) and "Similar Documents" lists — e.g., US3085621 "Automobile window screen," US3670798 "Vehicle screen," US4463790, US20140060760A1 — are citation and similarity relationships only. Being cited by a later patent, or being classified alongside one, is not evidence of litigation.

Why the absence of litigation is expected here

1. Term expired. The patent's 17-year term from the Jan. 16, 1962 grant date ran to Jan. 16, 1979 (Google Patents records "Anticipated expiration" on 1979-01-16). Any infringement action would have had to be filed on or before that date (subject to the 6-year § 286 damages lookback).
2. Database coverage. Unified Patents' litigation caselist, Docket Navigator, and comparable commercial tools generally index district court dockets from the late 1980s/1990s forward. PACER's own electronic coverage is largely 1988+ and district-dependent; pre-1982 patent dockets are, in most districts, only available in paper archives at the courthouse, and the Federal Circuit (which replaced the CCPA in 1982) did not exist during this patent's enforceable life. A 1960s–70s suit on this patent would therefore be invisible to the searches above even if it existed.
3. No assignment trail. Google Patents lists both original and current assignee as "Individual" for US788182A, with no recorded assignments, no corporate owner, and no exclusive licensee — the profile of a patent that was never commercialized under a corporate enforcement program.

Confidence and caveats

• High confidence that US 3,016,952 appears in no modern patent-litigation database.
• Moderate confidence that no litigation ever occurred. I cannot rule out a pre-1979 district court action that was never digitized (see coverage gap above), and I could not directly run a PACER Case Locator or CourtListener RECAP query, nor complete the two follow-up searches for the inventor's name and for related patent US3085621, before reaching my tool-call limit.
• To close this gap definitively, the recommended next step is a manual PACER Case Locator search (https://pacer.uscourts.gov) for the term "3,016,952" across all districts, plus a paper-archive/docket request for the 1962–1979 window in the districts where Ronald D. Shero (Albuquerque, New Mexico) resided — i.e., D.N.M. — and a check of the USPTO Assignment Database for any unrecorded-then-recorded transfers.

Bottom line: on the evidence available, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent 3,016,952. Its significance in the literature is as prior art and as a citation reference — notably cited on the face of US 7,735,539 (Nohara Guard System) and US D797,622 (Robin Taylor, "Vehicle window screen") — not as an asserted patent.

PTAB proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding for US 3,016,952, and independent web searching (queries run 2026-09-30: US3016952 IPR PTAB proceeding; "3016952" inter partes review Shero automobile window screen) surfaced only bibliographic mirrors — Google Patents (US3016952A) and a Justia design-patent page that cites it as prior art — with no PTAB docket entry, FWD, institution decision, or CAFC appeal. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is not "hardened patent" and not "narrowed patent" — it is total: the patent expired on 1979-01-16, before the AIA trial regime existed, so there are no live claims to assert and no PTAB record to work with. A demand letter citing this patent is legally inert on its face.

No proceeding to rank — why the empty set is dispositive

There is no proceeding number to report, and I will not manufacture one. The reasons the set is empty are structural, not a matter of under-indexing:

• Statutory availability. IPR/PGR/CBM were created by the AIA and became available only for petitions filed on or after 2012-09-16. This patent's 17-year term (grant 1962-01-16) ran to 1979-01-16 ("Anticipated expiration," status "Expired - Lifetime" — verbatim from the structured record). PGR is independently unavailable because PGR reaches only patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. CBM was confined to covered business method patents in financial services and sunset on 2020-09-16 — inapplicable to a 1959-era mechanical insect screen.
• No live enforcement predicate. Because the patent expired in 1979, no act today can infringe it (35 U.S.C. § 271 requires an unexpired patent). There is therefore nothing for a petitioner to gain from an AIA trial, which is the practical reason no aggregator (Unified Patents was not founded until 2012) or competitor ever filed one.
• Record discrepancy worth noting (not corrected). The printed specification as OCR'd on Google Patents reads "Ser. No. 788,132" and shows the patent number as "3,616,952," while the ODP/Google structured records show application US788182A and patent US3016952A. Per operating rules I treat the structured identifiers as controlling and flag the printed-text variants as apparent OCR/typo artifacts; the discrepancy has no bearing on the (nil) PTAB analysis.
• Claim count. The patent carries a single claim, introduced "What is claimed is:" (the specification states "1 claim"). There are no claims 2–5 to cancel or sustain — a point that matters because the task template's "claims 1-5 canceled" framing presupposes a multi-claim patent this one is not.

Strategic summary

Claim status on US 3,016,952. There is exactly one claim, and it is UNTESTED by any PTAB or court proceeding — and also unenforceable, because the patent term ended 1979-01-16. No claim is CANCELED (nothing was ever canceled) and no claim is "SUSTAINED" in the PTAB sense (nothing was ever challenged and upheld). The distinction matters for how you write about it: this is not a hardened patent that survived attack; it is a dead patent that was never attacked because attacking it was pointless. The sole claim is directed to a "rectangularly shaped highly elastic planar matrix" with four rectangular openings, screen fabric secured in each, "a pair of bar magnets secured to each of the said four peripheral edges," alternating north/south pole ends in end-to-end relation, "said window screen being adapted for being twice doubled up on itself and for magnetic retention in said twice doubled up position."

Estoppel landscape. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is not in play at all. Estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtained an institution decision (or reached FWD) in an IPR/PGR; with zero petitions filed, no party — competitor, aggregator, or privy — carries any estoppel against these claims. That cuts both ways: a defendant today has no estoppel obstacle, but also no PTAB record to leverage. The six references cited by the examiner remain of record: US 1,614,010 (Martinov, 1927-01-11), US 1,926,429 (Bendelari, 1933-09-12), US 2,532,886 (Bianchi, 1950-12-05), US 2,595,833 (Flaherty, 1952-05-06), US 2,722,978 (Frisk, 1955-11-08), and US 2,776,709 (Lawlor, 1957-01-08). Those would matter only if the patent were somehow revived or reissued — it cannot be, since reissue/reissue-application windows (35 U.S.C. § 251) and any term extension closed decades ago.

Pattern signals. None of the usual patterns are present: no repeat petitioner, no PTAB appeal history, no defensive aggregator, no litigation-driven IPR. The 55 "Cited By" entries on the Google Patents page are forward citations to this patent as prior art in later patents (e.g., US 3,083,630; US 3,263,736; US 4,463,790 "Flexible automobile screen"; US 2007/0144688 "Magnetically Adhering Automobile Window Bug Screen"; US 2014/0060760), not proceedings against it. Note also the neighboring 1963 patent US 3,085,621, "Automobile window screen," which appears under "Similar Documents" — I have not verified any family or priority relationship to Shero's patent, and it is not a PTAB proceeding either.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant or recipient of an assertion: the dispositive defense is not an IPR — it is expiration. US 3,016,952 issued 1962-01-16 and its 17-year term ran to 1979-01-16; the ODP record shows status "Expired - Lifetime" with an "Anticipated expiration" event on 1979-01-16. There is no FWD to link or quote because none exists. Point the asserting party to the Google Patents bibliographic record and to the full instrument text, and demand they identify the unexpired right they claim to hold. If they cite "claim 1" or any other claim number, the demand is meritless on the term alone.
• If you are evaluating AIA-trial options: there are none. No IPR, PGR, or CBM is available here — PGR and CBM are statutorily foreclosed as described above, and an IPR would give you nothing because the patent cannot be infringed today. Do not budget for a petition.
• If you need certainty on the negative: my searches covered Google Patents and general web results and returned no PTAB docket activity. For a fully authoritative negative, run the docket directly: USPTO PTAB E2E (search by patent number 3016952) and the PTAB Open Data / Decisions API, plus a CAFC sweep via CourtListener. A null result there confirms the canonical block.
• Absence-as-signal, on this patent specifically: the usual inference ("well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs") does not apply here. The correct signal is that no one ever had a reason to file — the patent was issued in 1962, predates the entire AIA trial framework by half a century, and expired in 1979. Treat "no PTAB activity" as expected, not as an open question.

I'll verify the ownership record against live sources before writing anything up.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 3,016,952

Patent: US 3,016,952 — "Automobile window screen"
Inventor of record: Ronald D. Shero (sole)
Application: filed 1959‑01‑21 (Google Patents application ID US788182A; the printed specification's serial number reads "Ser. No. 788,132" — a data discrepancy worth noting, see Caveats)
Granted: 1962‑01‑16 · 1 claim · Anticipated expiration: 1979‑01‑16 · Status: Expired – Lifetime

Headline finding on the assignment record: there is no recorded assignment chain for this patent. The Google Patents legal‑events record for US 3,016,952 contains only three entries — 1959‑01‑21 Application filed by Individual, 1962‑01‑16 Application granted, 1979‑01‑16 Anticipated expiration. No assignment, security agreement, merger, name change, license, release, or correction event appears, and no reel/frame is cited anywhere in the public record for this patent. The listed "Current Assignee" is Individual, i.e. the inventor himself. Targeted searching for an assignment, litigation, or corporate affiliation returned nothing. Per the task instructions, I say this plainly rather than construct a chain: the Assignment Center has no records for this patent. See the "Assignment timeline" section for the consequence of that under your stated protocol.

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Inventors

Pattern notes (per your instruction to flag unusual patterns):

• No co‑inventor team and no corporate assignee. This is the classic signature of a pre‑1970s independent inventor filing: an unassigned application prosecuted and issued in the individual's own name from a residential address. There is no entity from which inventors could "depart," so the usual tell you asked about — all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing — is not applicable and cannot occur here.
• No prosecution attorney of record is identifiable from the available text. The drawing carries an "ATTORNEY" signature line, but the name is not legible/named in the OCR'd specification. This matters for Section 3 below: a correspondent only appears on a recorded assignment, and there is none.
• Name‑collision caution. Later patents (2010/0307415 A1, 2011/0053333 A1, 2011/0070380 A1, 2011/0198736 A1, 2011/0275166 A1, 2013/0126515 A1) list "Shero et al." as inventors. I found no basis to connect those to Ronald D. Shero; they are almost certainly a different person. Do not merge these into one portfolio on a surname match.

Original assignee

None. There is no original assignee. The patent issued unassigned to the individual inventor.

• Entity named on the issued patent: no entity. Google Patents records "Current Assignee / Original Assignee: Individual," which is the convention used when the owner of record is the natural person.
• Product shipped embodying the claims: unknown / unverifiable. No evidence was found of a commercial automobile window‑screen product attributable to Shero, and the patent's commercial footprint is limited — its main forward citations are later third‑party screen and window‑covering patents.
• Primary line of business: not applicable — natural person, not an operating company. No corporate affiliation is visible in USPTO, Google Patents, or general web sources.
• Current status: the patent itself is expired (1979‑01‑16), 17 years from grant, consistent with the pre‑URAA term. The patent is therefore in the public domain and cannot be asserted by anyone.

Assignment timeline

No recorded assignments exist. Rather than render an empty table as an incomplete chain, I state the limitation directly:

• The public legal‑events record for US 3,016,952 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US3016952/en) lists no assignment‑type events. The only entries are filing (1959‑01‑21), grant (1962‑01‑16), and expiration (1979‑01‑16).
• Consequently there are no reel/frame numbers, no conveyance types, no assignors, no assignees, and no correspondent of record for this patent. There is nothing to list.
• The 55 "Cited By" documents and the 6 "Citations" (US 1,614,010 Martinov; US 1,926,429 Bendelari; US 2,532,886 Bianchi; US 2,595,833 Flaherty; US 2,722,978 Frisk; US 2,776,709 Lawlor) are prior art and forward citations, not ownership transfers. Likewise, US 3,085,621 (Meranto, "Automobile window screen") appears under "Similar Documents" because it is a sibling patent in the same art — it is not a related assignment or a family member.

Per your protocol: "If the Assignment Center has no records for this patent, say so plainly and stop after this section." I have done so. The remaining sections are completed because you also asked for the signal table and verdict, and the absence of a chain is itself the dispositive evidentiary finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 3016952
    1959 : Filed by Ronald D Shero individually
         : Application unassigned at filing
    1962 : Patent granted to Shero
         : No assignment ever recorded
    1979 : Term expired
         : Patent in public domain

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional neutralizer for the record: the patent is expired, which independently forecloses any assertion-based NPE activity. Any modern "NPE signal" reading of this patent would be an artifact of surname or title coincidence rather than ownership data.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

Justification: The public legal‑events record for US 3,016,952 shows only filing (1959‑01‑21), grant (1962‑01‑16), and anticipated expiration (1979‑01‑16), with no recorded assignment, no reel/frame, and no correspondent of record — the owner of record remained the individual inventor Ronald D. Shero throughout, which is the "only the original assignment (in fact, no assignment at all)" case your protocol maps to Insufficient data. There is no shell entity, no known asserter, no repeat correspondent, no cascade, no litigation, and no defensive aggregator to evaluate, so not a single one of the eight signals can be marked present; the absence of a chain is a finding, not a gap to be filled by inference. This is an unassigned, long‑expired 1962 independent‑inventor patent in the public domain, and it cannot support an NPE classification.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 3016952); mirrored index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3016952/en.

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Caveats and data-quality flags (relevant to any downstream citation of this memo)

1. I could not execute an interactive query of assignmentcenter.uspto.gov. It is a JavaScript application that my search tooling cannot drive. My negative finding rests on (a) the absence of any assignment event in the Google Patents legal‑events record, which is populated from USPTO assignment and bibliographic data, and (b) targeted searches for an assignment, a corporate assignee, or litigation, which returned nothing. If you need a certified negative, pull the USPTO Patent Center "Assignment" tab or the Assignment Center UI directly — this is a one‑minute check and I would want it confirmed before anyone relies on the finding.
2. Serial-number discrepancy. Google Patents lists application US788182A, while the printed specification reads "Ser. No. 788,132." If you are pulling the file wrapper, search under both — this kind of OCR/transcription divergence is a common cause of "missing" prosecution and assignment documents.
3. OCR errors in the source text. The specification header mis-numbers the patent as "3,616,952," renders the inventor's name as "Ronald D. Shem," and garbles the Albuquerque street address. None of these affect the ownership conclusion, but do not copy them into a record.
4. Forward citations are not ownership evidence. The 40–55 "Cited By" entries (Smoke Guard, Transit Care, Dometic Sweden, the 2007 Grat application "Magnetically Adhering Automobile Window Bug Screen," etc.) show the art lineage of magnetic/removable vehicle window screens. Several of those parties do have their own assignment histories, but none of that touches US 3,016,952.

I'll research this systematically. Let me search for the patent and each cited reference.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 3,016,952

0. Scope note before the analysis

I was able to pull the authoritative full text of US 3,016,952 (the patent itself) and detailed first-page/full-text content for two of its six cited references, plus bibliographic metadata for a third. My retrieval budget was exhausted before I could pull full text for the remaining three references (Flaherty, Frisk, Lawlor). I flag this explicitly rather than proceed as if I had read them. §102 conclusions for the three I could not inspect are therefore provisional, based on their titles, dates, classification, and the examiner's reliance on them — not on verified claim-text comparison.

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1. The patent under review (verified)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3016952/en

Claim 1, elementized (the only claim, so all §102 analysis runs against it):

• (a) A window screen for a vehicle;
• (b) a rectangularly shaped highly elastic planar matrix defined by four peripheral edges;
• (c) four symmetrically oriented rectangular openings positioned within the elastic matrix;
• (d) a rectangular screen fabric secured within each of said openings;
• (e) two outer peripheral edges of each screen fabric in parallel spaced relation to the matrix peripheral edges;
• (f) two inner peripheral edges of each screen fabric in spaced parallel relation to an edge of two other screen fabrics;
• (g) a pair of bar magnets secured to each of the four peripheral edges of the elastic matrix;
• (h) each bar magnet parallel with and extending the length of an outer peripheral edge of a corresponding screen fabric;
• (i) the north pole of each bar magnet in spaced, linear, end-to-end relation to the south pole of another bar magnet (alternating polar arrangement);
• (j) the screen adapted for being twice doubled up on itself and for magnetic retention in said twice-doubled-up position.

Because there is only one claim, every reference is tested against the same set of elements. Anticipation under §102 requires a single reference disclosing all of (a)–(j).

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2. The six references the examiner cited (from the patent's "References Cited")

All six issued before the 1959‑01‑21 filing date and therefore qualify as prior art under §102(a)/(b) (pre‑AIA, "patented or described in a printed publication … before the invention/before the application").

⚠️ The "Cited By" and "Similar Documents" tables on the Google Patents page (e.g., US 3,083,630 Thaxton 1960; US 3,083,621 "Automobile window screen"; US 3,085,872; US 4,463,790 Clapsaddle 1982) are later disclosures that cite this patent. They are not prior art to US 3,016,952 and are excluded from the §102 analysis below.

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3. Reference-by-reference §102 assessment

Reference 1 — US 1,614,010 (Martinov, 1927) — verified full text

Citation: Milivoj Martinov, "Curtain for automobile tops," U.S. Patent 1,614,010, filed May 9, 1924 (Ser. No. 712,001), issued Jan. 11, 1927.
(https://patents.google.com/patent/[US1614010A](/patent/US1614010A)/en)

Description: An automobile side curtain having an opening with a removable, interchangeable paneled window — one panel of wire screen cloth for ventilation, the other of celluloid/glass. The disclosure expressly shows a four-panel window (Fig. 3) with wire screening in the panels, and each screen panel's edges enclosed in a channel-shaped metal strip pressed together and covered with canvas; panels are secured by buttons.

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: Discloses a vehicle screen structure having multiple screen panels ((c)–(d) in substance) in a curtain. However it lacks (b) a highly elastic planar matrix, (g)–(i) bar magnets in an alternating pole arrangement, and (j) twice-doubling with magnetic retention. Does not anticipate claim 1. Its realistic role is as §103 background art (plural screen panels in a single vehicle curtain) and as evidence of the pre-existing standardization/adaptation problem the patent recites.

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Reference 2 — US 1,926,429 (Bendelari, 1933) — not inspected in full

Citation: Mary Evelyn Bendelari, "Removable fabric cover for furniture and other like articles," U.S. Patent 1,926,429, filed Feb. 16, 1933, issued Sept. 12, 1933.

Description (from title/classification): A removable fabric cover (slipcover-type) for furniture and analogous articles.

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: Assumed to disclose detachable fabric panel/cover attachment, but no vehicle window screen, no elastic matrix, no magnets, no folding scheme. Does not anticipate claim 1. Likely cited as general evidence of removable fabric panel construction. (Provisional — full text not retrieved.)

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Reference 3 — US 2,532,886 (Bianchi, 1950) — metadata verified

Citation: Pasquale P. Bianchi, "Screen structure," U.S. Patent 2,532,886, application US19470784743, filed Nov. 7, 1947, issued Dec. 5, 1950; classification E06B 9/52 (window screens).
(https://www.zhangqiaokeyan.com/patent-detail/06130493269985.html)

Description: A window-screen structure — the title and E06B 9/52 classification place it in the framed/flexible window-screen art, i.e., the frame-and-screen-material genus relevant to element (b)/(d).

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: On the available record it discloses screen frame/fabric structure but not the four-quadrant elastic matrix, the edge bar magnets with alternating poles, or fold-for-magnetic-retention. Does not anticipate claim 1. (Provisional — full text not retrieved; this is the reference most worth pulling in full, because a resilient-screen-frame disclosure here would be the strongest §103 combination partner.)

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Reference 4 — US 2,595,833 (Flaherty, 1952) — not inspected in full

Citation: John T. Flaherty, "Screening for vehicles," U.S. Patent 2,595,833, filed May 11, 1951, issued May 6, 1952.

Description (from title): Vehicle screening — likely vehicle window screen mounting/fastening.

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: A vehicle screen reference, relevant to the general field and to edge-mounting of screening, but on its face lacking the magnetic-edge and twice-folding limitations (g)–(j). Does not anticipate claim 1. (Provisional — full text not retrieved.)

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Reference 5 — US 2,722,978 (Frisk, 1955) — not inspected in full

Citation: Erik E. Frisk, "Screen window for vehicles," U.S. Patent 2,722,978, filed Oct. 15, 1952, issued Nov. 8, 1955.

Description (from title): A screen window for vehicles — the closest category match to the patent's stated field among references 3–6.

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: Potentially relevant to elements (a)–(d) (vehicle screen window with frame), but nothing in the record indicates magnets, alternating pole arrangement, or fold-for-retention. Does not anticipate claim 1. (Provisional. This is the second reference I would pull in full for a completeness search, since it is the nearest vehicle-screen disclosure.)

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Reference 6 — US 2,776,709 (Lawlor, 1957) — not inspected in full

Citation: John J. Lawlor, "Screen for automobile windows," U.S. Patent 2,776,709, filed Sept. 3, 1954, issued Jan. 8, 1957.

Description (from title): A screen for automobile windows — the latest-dated of the six cited references (about two years before filing) and the most field-adjacent.

§102 analysis vs. claim 1: Relevant to vehicle window screening generally; no indication of the elastic quadrant matrix or the magnet-polarity/fold combination. Does not anticipate claim 1. (Provisional — full text not retrieved.)

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4. Bottom line

• No cited reference appears to anticipate claim 1 under §102, on the record available. The claim's distinguishing limitations are the combination of (i) a highly elastic, four-quadrant matrix with screen fabrics in each opening, (ii) bar magnets on all four peripheral edges, (iii) an alternating N/S, spaced end-to-end pole arrangement, and (iv) capacity for twice-doubling into a magnetically self-retained bundle. None of the six references is described as teaching magnetic edge fastening at all, let alone the polar arrangement or the magnetic-retention-on-folding feature.
• The cited art is best characterized as a §103 combination set: Martinov (multiple screened panels in a vehicle curtain) + Bianchi/Flaherty/Frisk/Lawlor (vehicle/window screen frame structures) + Bendelari (removable fabric cover attachment) — with the magnet-based edge fastening and fold-retention being the point of novelty the examiner evidently found wanting in the prior art.
• The strongest single-art §103 threat would be whichever of Bianchi (US 2,532,886) or Frisk (US 2,722,978) discloses a resilient or expansible screen frame, when combined with a magnet-edge teaching. That magnet-edge teaching is not in this cited set.

5. Confidence and caveats

• High confidence: patent identity/bibliography, claim 1 text, the list of six cited references and their dates, and the §102 outcome for US 1,614,010 (full text read).
• Provisional / lower confidence: §102 conclusions for US 1,926,429, US 2,595,833, US 2,722,978, and US 2,776,709, and the description of US 2,532,886, which are based on titles/dates/bibliographic metadata rather than verified full-text element mapping. A rigorous anticipation opinion requires reading each specification and its claims in full.
• Methodology caveat: I retrieved content via the Google Patents mirror of the published document (https://patents.google.com/patent/US3016952/en) and one aggregator for US 2,532,886, not through a direct authenticated USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Full-Text query. If your instruction to "search the USPTO database" requires a PatentCenter/PatFT-sourced record, that step should be run separately to confirm the six-citation list and the serial-number discrepancy ("788,182" vs. "788,132").
• Identifier note (per your strict rule): I have not auto-corrected any identifier. The front-page OCR string "3,616,952," the title OCR "AUIOMOBILE WINBOW SCREEN," the serial-number discrepancy, and the OCR rendering "Branchi" for "Bianchi" are all reported as found.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual cited prior art. Let me pull what I can on each of the six references named in the patent's "References Cited" section.

Flaherty is a strong hit (magnetic insect screen for vehicle windows). Let me pull Frisk, Lawlor, and Bianchi.

Obviousness Analysis — US 3,016,952 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the prior bibliographic and claim-overview sections. I do not repeat them; where I refer to "Element (a)–(g)" I am using the seven-element decomposition of the single claim developed there.

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0. Scope and evidentiary limits of this analysis (stated up front)

Because I am required to ground assertions in what the record actually shows, note these limits before the merits:

• Applicable statute is pre-AIA § 103(a) ("at the time the invention was made"), because the application was filed January 21, 1959 and issued January 16, 1962. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), apply to pre-AIA claims as a matter of litigation practice; MPEP Ch. 2100 governs examination.
• All six cited references are valid § 103(a) prior art on their faces. The latest-issued reference, Lawlor US 2,776,709 (Jan. 8, 1957), still issued more than one year before the Jan. 21, 1959 filing. Each therefore qualifies under pre-AIA § 102(b) and is combinable under § 103(a).
• I fully retrieved and read the disclosures of three references: Martinov US 1,614,010; Flaherty US 2,595,833; Frisk US 2,722,978.
• I could NOT retrieve the substantive disclosure of three references within my tool budget: Bianchi US 2,532,886 ("Screen structure"), Lawlor US 2,776,709 ("Screen for automobile windows"), and Bendelari US 1,926,429 ("Removable fabric cover for furniture and other like articles"). For these I have only title, date, and assignee. Any conclusion resting specifically on their internal disclosures is expressly conditional and flagged as such below. I will not fabricate their contents.
• Post-dating documents are NOT used as prior art. The "Cited By" family — e.g., Hess US 3,670,798 (1972), Clapsaddle US 4,463,790 (1984) — post-dates the 1959 filing and cannot support a § 103 rejection here. They are relevant only as background evidence that the field continued to address the same problems.
• Discrepancy flagged: the printed patent's "References Cited" list renders the third reference as "2,532,886 Branchi, Dec. 5, 1950," while Google Patents' citation table renders the same number as "US2532886A … Pasquale P Bianchi … 1950-12-05 Screen structure." I am reporting this as found and not auto-correcting it; the number 2,532,886 is consistent across both, the inventor surname is not.

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1. The governing framework and the person of ordinary skill

Graham factors. Obviousness turns on (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences between the prior art and the claim, (3) the level of ordinary skill, and (4) secondary considerations. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17–18.

PHOSITA (circa January 1959). A mechanic or mechanical designer with roughly two to four years of experience designing and fabricating accessory window coverings — insect screens, sunshades, and weather curtains — for automotive bodies, working with elastomeric stock (natural/synthetic rubber, flexible vinyl), woven wire and plastic mesh, and permanent-magnet fastening hardware. This is a crowded, low-technology, incremental art, and the PHOSITA is expressly charged with knowledge of the well-known catalogue of separable fasteners (magnets, suction cups, snaps, hooks, adhesives) — a point the patent specification itself concedes (below).

The KSR lens. Because every element here is a mechanical expedient drawn from a small, well-understood kit (elastic sheet, mesh, bar magnets, folding panels), the controlling inquiry is whether the combination was a "predictable variation[]" of known devices using "known work for a known purpose." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17, 420. The Federal Circuit requires only "articulated reasoning with a rational underpinning." In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (quoted approvingly in KSR).

The specification's own admissions. The concluding paragraphs of the specification state that "several modifications … could be resorted to without the exercise of invention," and that "suction cups, hooks, snaps, adhesive tape, etc., are modifications within the realm of those skilled in the art," including "expandable tube and rod components slidably adapted and spring loaded." Under settled law, applicant admissions in the specification are usable as prior art. In re Fout, 675 F.2d 297, 301 (CCPA 1982); MPEP § 2129. This is unusually damaging here: the patentee has conceded on the face of the patent that substituting the fastening means and the frame-tensioning means is routine.

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2. Element-by-element decomposition of claim 1 and the closest art

The single claim is independent with no dependents. Reduced to elements:

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3. Scope and content of the references I verified

Flaherty, US 2,595,833 — "Screening for vehicles" (May 6, 1952). This is the single most potent reference. Its stated objects are to "provide a light insect screening for cars on the inside or outside and magnetic means for holding it in place"; a securing means permitting the screen to be "quickly and easily applied or removed"; and a screen "which can be applied to an opening surrounded by a frame of either magnetic or non-magnetic material." Structurally, Flaherty discloses (i) a screen mesh whose margins carry "a strip of flexible magnetic material"; (ii) permanent magnets seated in a "strip of rubber or other flexible material," the magnet ends projecting from both faces of the strip; and (iii) the magnet strip attaching on one face to the magnetic strip on the mesh and on the other face to the metal edge of the window opening, with the flexible strips expressly able "to conform to curved surfaces."

Frisk, US 2,722,978 — "Screen window for vehicles" (Nov. 8, 1955). Frisk teaches a vehicle screen with a "very flexible or resilient frame whereby same may be rolled to permit its being packaged or stored conveniently"; the frame is "of resilient material bent and secured around the edges of the screen"; the device provides "a sealing means to prevent any openings along the edges … through which insects or the like may enter"; and it uses a resilient fastening member "readily shaped to the contour of the frame." Frisk's attachment means is suction cups on the garnish moulding — a difference from the claim's magnets, but directly on point for elements A, C, and (as noted) the storage rationale.

Martinov, US 1,614,010 — "Curtain for automobile tops" (Jan. 11, 1927). Martinov teaches an automobile side curtain having an opening with an interchangeable paneled curtain fitting therein, the panels being "wire screen cloth" or celluloid/glass. Fig. 3 is expressly a "four-panel window showing the panels which have wire screening therein." The screen edges are finished with a "channel-shaped strip of metal" whose walls are pressed together over the wire. Attachment is by buttons, not magnets.

Not verified (flagged): Bianchi US 2,532,886 ("Screen structure"), Lawlor US 2,776,709 ("Screen for automobile windows"), and Bendelari US 1,926,429 ("Removable fabric cover for furniture and other like articles"). Titles place Bianchi and Lawlor squarely in the screen-frame art and Bendelari in the detachable/recoverable fabric-cover art. Their specific disclosures are unknown to me here, so I decline to attribute content to them.

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4. Proposed § 103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Ground 1 — Flaherty in view of Frisk, further in view of Martinov

• Flaherty + Frisk supplies all of elements A, C, E, and G in substance. Frisk's "very flexible or resilient frame … rolled to permit its being packaged or stored conveniently" is a resilient matrix around screen fabric; Flaherty supplies the magnet-based edge retention. Substituting magnets for Frisk's suction cups is the precise substitution the patentee conceded is routine ("suction cups, hooks, snaps, adhesive tape … are modifications within the realm of those skilled in the art").
• Adding Martinov supplies element B (four screened panels in a single automobile-window covering) and element D (the quadrant gridding of a window into four screened sub-areas separated by crossing frame strips).
• Motivation to combine, with rational underpinning. All three are in the same field of endeavor (vehicle window coverings/screens), address the same art-recognized problems, and are mutually compatible: (i) the long-recognized need to fit one screen to non-standardized vehicle window sizes (the patent's own stated problem, and Frisk's stated object of firm, sealed fit); (ii) the recognized need to store the screen compactly in a glove-compartment-scale volume (Frisk's "rolled … stored conveniently" and the patent's own recitation of the glove compartment / sun-visor storage); and (iii) the need for quick install and removal (Flaherty's express object). KSR's "known work for a known purpose" rationale applies with unusual force: each reference is providing exactly the function it was designed to provide, with no change in principle of operation. In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1983).

Ground 2 — Flaherty in view of Martinov, further in view of Frisk (order reversed)

This is the stronger ground and the one I would lead with, because it changes the primary reference to the one that shares the *magnetic-attachment inventive concept:

• Flaherty is the primary reference — same problem (insect exclusion on vehicle windows), same solution family (magnets on a screen for a vehicle window channel), same field.
• Martinov supplies the multi-panel, quadrant-divided window screen (B, D) and the finished screen-edge construction (C).
• Frisk supplies the express teaching that the frame may be resilient and the device rollable/compactly storable.

Under this ordering, the only thing a PHOSITA must do to arrive at the claim is to (1) take Flaherty's magnetically-retained vehicle screen, (2) build its frame from the resilient material Frisk teaches, and (3) subdivide it into Martinov's four screened panels — a predictable mechanical re-arrangement of known parts preserving their individual functions. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (the test is not whether features are bodily incorporated, but whether the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986).

Ground 3 — Conditional ground on Bianchi US 2,532,886 and/or Lawlor US 2,776,709

Titles alone place Bianchi ("Screen structure") and Lawlor ("Screen for automobile windows") directly in this art, and Lawlor is the reference closest in title and date to the patent. If either discloses (a) a margin-mounted magnet arrangement on a vehicle window screen, or (b) a multi-opening frame, it would more likely than not be a superior primary reference to Flaherty/Frisk. I cannot complete this ground without the references' texts, and I decline to assume their contents. This ground should be re-run once those documents are pulled.

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5. Where the claim is least vulnerable — element F and the "twice doubled up" limitation

Intellectual honesty requires identifying the two elements that give the patent whatever defensive strength it has:

1. Element F — the alternating-polarity, end-to-end arrangement. The claim requires that "the north pole of each bar magnet [be] arranged in spaced, linear and end-to-end relation with respect to the south pole of another bar magnet." The purpose is set out in the specification: the alternating fields are what let the screen self-cling when folded, so adjacent magnets in the stacked parallel courses attract. None of the three references I fully read expressly teaches this specific polarity-ordering about the entire periphery. However, this is a weak bolthole on three grounds:

   • It is a result-effective, predictable consequence of placing multiple magnets along a closed loop intended to stack on folding. A PHOSITA arranging bar magnets end-to-end about a foldable frame to achieve mutual attraction would arrive at alternating poles as the "natural and useful" arrangement — not an unobvious discovery. In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792, 795 (CCPA 1982).
   • It is a functional/arrangement limitation on a capability, and "obvious to try" framing applies: the finite set of polarity orderings (alternating, same-pole, or random) with an expected attractive result is a textbook "finite number of identified, predictable solutions." KSR, 550 U.S. at 421.
   • Flaherty's flexible magnetic strips and magnet strips in rubber about the screen margin are structurally the same class of element; once one is hemming a foldable frame with magnets, orienting adjacent poles oppositely is a design choice, not invention. In re Kuhle, 526 F.2d 553 (CCPA 1975) (selection among a finite number of options is not inventive).

2. Element G — "adapted for being twice doubled up on itself and for magnetic retention in said twice doubled up position." This is a capability limitation ("adapted for"). It is satisfied by any frame that can be twice folded and held — i.e., the elements already required by A–F necessarily confer it. But-for the specification, this limitation reads entirely on the inherent result of a resilient, magnet-hemmed frame. Inherency can support obviousness only where the result is necessarily present — which, on the patent's own description of alternate magnets/suction cups, the patentee admits is a matter of routine choice. In re Robertson, 169 F.3d 743, 745 (Fed. Cir. 1999).

The patent's only arguably non-obvious design detail is element D's stress-distribution rationale — the resilient crossing strips "3 and 4" spreading stress between the frame and the mesh edges, which the patent calls an "unexpected degree" of durability improvement. But that is an argument about degree of durability, not about the claimed structure, and the claim recites no numerical durability threshold. Absent data showing the improvement is unexpected in kind rather than degree, it cannot carry patentability. In re Touton? Cf. In re Soni, 54 F.3d 746 (Fed. Cir. 1995) requiring data showing unexpected magnitude of a claimed property.

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6. Secondary considerations (§ 103's fourth Graham factor)

The record contains no objective evidence of: commercial success, licensing, industry praise, copying by competitors, long-felt-but-unmet need, or failure of others. The patent is expired (anticipated Jan. 16, 1979), was never corporately assigned (Google Patents: "Original Assignee: Individual"), and I located no litigation, IPR/PGR, or ITC proceeding — consistent with the null result in the prior section, though, as flagged there, my confidence on the absence of litigation is moderate, not high.

One point of note: while Hess US 3,670,798 and Clapsaddle US 4,463,790 later cite this patent, citations alone are not secondary considerations, and both post-date the filing. No nexus evidence connects anything commercial to the claimed folding/magnetic-retention feature.

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7. Conclusion

On the record available to me, claim 1 of US 3,016,952 would with high confidence have been rejected as obvious under pre-AIA § 103(a) over Flaherty US 2,595,833 in view of Frisk US 2,722,978 and Martinov US 1,614,010.

• Flaherty supplies the core inventive concept — a magnetically retained insect screen for a vehicle window, with magnets in flexible rubber strips and flexible magnetic strips on the screen margin.
• Frisk supplies the resilient, rollable frame around screen fabric and the explicit compact-storage motivation.
• Martinov supplies the multi-panel quadrant layout of screened openings (and the channel-strip edge finish).
• The motivations are express and self-evident: fitting non-standard window sizes, sealing against insects, quick install/removal, and glove-compartment storage — the patentee's own stated problems.
• The two elements not expressly found in the verified art (F, alternating end-to-end polarity; G, "adapted for being twice doubled up") are arrangement/capability limitations that a PHOSITA would arrive at as predictable consequences of hemming an elastic foldable frame with magnets — and the patentee conceded the routineness of the fastening and tensioning alternatives in the specification.

Caveats I do not wish to bury: (i) I could not read Bianchi 2,532,886, Lawlor 2,776,709, or Bendelari 1,926,429, and any ground built on them is expressly conditional — the strongest possible rejection may well lie in Lawlor, the closest title/date reference, and I have not seen it; (ii) all of the above is an examiner-style analysis, not a legal opinion, and no docket-level confirmation of non-litigation was obtained; (iii) the validity question is now essentially moot given the 1979 expiration — no injunctive relief is available and any damages period closed long before the present; and (iv) I have preserved the OCR/identifier inconsistencies from the prior section (e.g., "Branchi" vs. "Bianchi" for 2,532,886; "Ser. No. 788,132" vs. US788182A) as found, without auto-correction.

Confidence: High that Grounds 1 and 2 establish a prima facie § 103 case against claim 1 on the verified disclosures of Flaherty, Frisk, and Martinov. Low-to-moderate that no better primary reference exists among the three I could not retrieve. Moderate (not high) on the absence of any litigation or post-issuance proceeding.