Invalidity dossier
US 3571585
Panel and edge lighting assembly
Current assignee: COASTAL DYNAMICS INCORPORATED A CORP OF OREG
Added 9/23/2026, 5:47:37 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 3571585 A
Title: Panel and Edge Lighting Assembly
Patent number: US 3571585 A
Application number: US774938A
Inventor: Louis Clarence Schermerhorn
Original assignee: Coastal Dynamics Corp
Priority/filing date: 1968-11-12
Publication (grant) date: 1971-03-23
Legal status as listed: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 1988-03-23)
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3571585/en
Purpose: The patent addresses edge-lighted panels used chiefly to illuminate nomenclature on aircraft instrument, control, and console panels. Light is transmitted through the edge of a light-conducting core (preferably acrylic) coated first with translucent white paint and then an opaque coating, with legend characters exposed through the opaque layer. Prior arrangements reportedly required destroying part of the panel and buried circuit connections to replace a burned-out lamp, and required more lamps than necessary to meet safety standards.
Plain-language scope: The assembly combines a printed circuit board with the panel. The board has conductive paths exposed on a surface held in flush face-to-face contact with the panel rear. The panel has bores receiving filter assemblies of miniature lamp structures, plus rear channel segments for laterally extending leads from the filter housing. A modified filter-housing end portion has both exterior and interior threads. An internally threaded ring member threads onto the exterior threads and seats in a counterbored front-face recess. Assembly sequence: filter housing leads are secured to the printed circuit board, the panel is placed over the assembly, and the ring is threaded on from the front, holding board, filter housing, and panel together. A threaded cap and lamp assembly is then inserted from the front via the internal threads, flush with the front surface. Replacement of lamps can thus be done without disturbing the panel, filter housing, and printed circuit board assembly.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claim set, complete drawings, prosecution history, or details of the referenced copending application. It contains no litigation, validity, or prior-art analysis, and the listed assignee/reassignment and legal-status entries are expressly assumptions rather than legal conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:43:17 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.