Invalidity dossier
US 4117846
Skin conducting electrode and electrode assembly
Current assignee: Consolidated Medical Equipment Inc
Added 9/23/2026, 4:23:23 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 4117846 A
Title: Skin conducting electrode and electrode assembly.
Assignee: Consolidated Medical Equipment Inc (original and current assignee as listed).
Inventor: Frank R. Williams.
Key dates: Prior art date 1976-05-07; filing date 1977-07-19; publication/grant date 1978-10-03; anticipated expiration 1996-05-07. Legal status: Expired – Lifetime.
Application number: US05/816,952.
Purpose and plain-language scope (per supplied excerpt): The patent concerns a skin-contacting electrode and an assembly built around it, intended for passing electrical current into or out of a patient's skin. The indexed disclosure centers on an electrode body with a surrounding adhesive pad, peripheral sealing, and an electrolyte interface, with metal conductors (stainless steel, including 316 stainless steel, and aluminum are named in the index). Indexed contexts include electrosurgery/coagulation, electrotherapy, nerve stimulation, and wound healing. The abstract/description indexes indicate attention to problems such as skin burns, patient pain, heat generation, and damage or injury, plus electrode-material and electrolyte considerations. The claims index refers to adhesive, adhesive effects, and peripheral effects, suggesting the claims emphasize how the pad adheres and how its periphery is configured. The classification is A61N1/04 (electrotherapy details — electrodes).
What the excerpt does not establish:
- The actual wording of any claim, the number of claims, or claim scope.
- The full specification text: paragraph numbering, embodiments, dimensions, materials in context, or manufacturing steps.
- The specific abstract text or any drawing content (images appear but are not transcribed).
- Any express relationship to named prior-art documents; no references are identified here.
- Anything about litigation, licensing, reexamination, or the accuracy of the listed assignee/legal status (the excerpt itself labels status and assignee as assumptions).
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:50:56 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
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.