US 4524898

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Let me check for litigation and current USPTO status.

US Patent 4,524,898 — Verified Summary

Search scope note: I searched Google Patents, Justia, PatentCenter-linked sources, and the CAFC's public calendar/opinions feed. I found no Federal Circuit 2026 docket entry, appeal, or ITC/PTAB proceeding involving patent 4,524,898. That absence is expected: the patent lapsed in 1993 (see status below), so there is no live enforceability to litigate. I cannot rule out an obscure or uncaptured docket entry, but nothing authoritative ties this number to any 2026 CAFC matter per the sources available to me. I also note that "4524898" fetches only the one patent — the similar-number hits (e.g., 4,527,727; 4,545,519) are separate Fairchild-family patents and are not this patent.

Bibliographic Data (from the patent document and Google Patents record)

Assignment record: Recorded 1983-04-12, executed 1983-04-11, Reel/Frame 004118/0161; assignor Renshaw to Fairchild Industries, Inc., 20301 Century Blvd., Germantown, MD (address truncated in the Google record).

Legal status (as of the sources retrieved):

• 4-year maintenance fee paid 1988-12-07.
• Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees entered 1993-06-27; lapsed 1993-09-14.
• Google Patents shows "Expired – Fee Related," and also lists an anticipated expiration of 2003-04-12 (20 years from filing under the URAA transitional rule; the 17-years-from-issue date would have been 2002-06-25). The later date is moot because the patent lapsed a decade earlier.
• Accordingly, this patent is long expired and unenforceable; treat any "current assignee" label as a derived record, not a statement of present ownership rights.

(Caveat: I did not directly query PatentCenter's fee/status transaction history in this session; the status details above come from the Google Patents legal-events record and assignment data, which I could not independently contradict or confirm against a raw USPTO database export.)

Abstract (authoritative text)

Ultrasonic vibratory spot welding apparatus is provided, including a welding tip adapted to introduce into and through at least two workpieces high frequency vibratory energy so as to effect a spot weld therebetween. A complementary anvil is positioned relative to the welding tip to define a throat for inserting the workpieces. Means are provided about either or both the welding tip and the anvil for preventing step shearing during welding, comprising a shield positioned about the welding tip and/or anvil. The shield preferably includes an inner and an outer layer; the inner layer is fabricated from either an organic material or a plurality of metallic materials. The outer layer, fixedly attached to the tip and/or anvil, is a metallic material having a modulus lower than that of steel. In operation the shield applies coaxial pressure to the workpieces, preventing step shearing at the weld point.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — Organic-interlayer shield. Covers an add-on for an ultrasonic spot welder (of the type with a laterally vibrating welding tip and a complementary anvil). The add-on is a pressure-applying means that presses coaxially against the workpieces. Specifically, it is at least one shield that wraps around the anvil, the welding tip, or both, with the shield's inner surface in continuous contact with that part's surface. The shield has two layers: an outer layer and an inner layer made of an organic material. In substance: a two-layer "sleeve" that enlarges the effective contact footprint of the tool, so pressure is exerted outside the sharp tool edge, with an organic (energy-isolating) layer sandwiched between the metal tool and the outer shell.

Claim 5 — Metallic-multilayer shield. The same apparatus and same "shield in continuous contact, two-layer, coaxial pressure" structure, but the inner layer is at least two layers of metallic material instead of an organic material. In substance: the same anti-step-edge concept, substituting a stack of dissimilar metals (chosen so the metal/metal interfaces attenuate vibratory energy) for the organic interlayer.

Dependent claims at a glance:

• Claim 2: organic material is polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyvinyl chloride (depends on claim 1).
• Claim 3: organic material is a high-temperature adhesive (depends on claim 1) — the specification names EPY-500 from BLH Electronics.
• Claim 4: outer layer is a metal with modulus lower than steel (depends on claim 1).
• Claim 6: outer layer is a metal with modulus lower than steel (depends on claim 5).

Practical / Prosecution Context

• Prior art cited on the face: US 3,586,122 (Branson Instruments, "Sonic apparatus with sonic energy barrier means"); US 4,249,986 (Branson Ultrasonics, "High frequency horn with soft metallic coating"); US 4,406,720 (Burlington Industries, "Ultrasonic production of nonwovens"). The two Branson references are the closest conceptual neighbors (energy-barrier and soft-coating concepts).
• Forward citations include US 5,520,774 (Sonobond Ultrasonics), US 6,019,271 (Ford), US 2007/0175867 / US 7,429,713 (GM), and WO 2007/092186 A3 (Mac Valves).
• Working example in the spec: a hardened copper sleeve, 0.040″ wall, bonded to a 0.5″-diameter anvil with EPY-500 adhesive to give a ~0.005″-thick cured resin wall; sleeve length 0.75″ to limit impact on anvil vibration. Welding 0.025″ 2024-T3 sheets through 0.005″ FM-123-2 film adhesive avoided the step-edge defect that appeared without the shield.
• Technical identifiers straight from the text (uncorrected): the weld zone is described in FIG. 7 as zone Z1 (vibratory energy + pressure) and zone Z2 (pressure only, no vibratory power); the reference numerals used are welder 10, frame 12, pivot 14, frame 16, welding head 20, tip 21, reed 22, transducer 24, anvil 40, guides 44, cylinder 46, clamps 50/60, adhesive 100, shield 200 (inner 210, outer 220), and shield 300 (inner 310/315, outer 320).

Uncertainty statement: I have high confidence in the bibliographic data, abstract, and claim structure because they come directly from the authoritative patent text. I have moderate confidence in the legal-status details (verified against the Google Patents legal-events record, not a raw USPTO PatentCenter transaction query), and I have no evidence of any CAFC 2026 activity involving this patent — I am reporting the absence of such a record from the sources searched rather than asserting categorically that none exists.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 4524898. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more specifically across patent litigation databases.

Let me check specific litigation databases directly.

Litigation Search Results — US Patent 4,524,898

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving US Patent 4,524,898. Based on the sources I was able to search, no district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal appears to have asserted or challenged this patent.

Patent identity (confirmed from the authoritative record)

• Patent: US 4,524,898 — "Apparatus for preventing step-edge shearing during ultrasonic welding"
• Inventor: Theodore A. Renshaw
• Assignee: Fairchild Industries, Inc. (assignment recorded 1983-04-12, effective 1983-04-11)
• Application No.: US 06/484,189
• Filed: 1983-04-12; Granted: 1985-06-25
• Legal status: Expired – Fee Related. Maintenance fees lapsed effective 1993-06-27 (lapse for failure to pay; final status noted 2018-01-23 as expired under 37 CFR 1.362)
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4524898/en

What I searched and what I found

Important distinction — citations are not litigation

The patent is cited as prior art by four later patents (per the Google Patents "Cited By" list), but a citation is not an infringement suit:

• US 5,520,774 — Sonobond Ultrasonics, "Ultrasonic cylinder arm machine" (1994-10-03 priority)
• US 6,019,271 — Ford Motor Company, "Method for ultrasonic bonding flexible circuits" (1997-07-11 priority)
• US 7,429,713 B2 — GM Global Technology Operations (2006-01-27 priority)
• WO 2007/092186 A3 — Mac Valves Inc, "Flux bushing for solenoid actuator" (2006-02-02 priority)

None of these reflects an assertion of the '898 patent against another party.

Caveats and confidence

• Because the patent lapsed in 1993 for non-payment of maintenance fees, its term ended long ago, which makes later assertion litigation very unlikely. This is consistent with finding no cases.
• Confidence: I have high confidence that no litigation is recorded in the accessible public patent databases (Google Patents, PTAB/Unified Patent litigation portals, and general web results). However, I cannot rule out a docketed case from the 1983–1993 window that is not indexed in modern online databases, and I was unable to retrieve results directly from the Unified Patents case list at the specific URL you provided (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) during this session. I recommend confirming with a paid docket service (LexisNexis/Docket Navigator/PACER historical) if a negative litigation history is being formally relied upon.
• Nothing here is legal advice, and status determinations above are drawn from the patent's own legal-events record rather than an independent legal conclusion.

If you'd like, I can attempt targeted searches against specific PACER-style docket identifiers or the Docket Navigator/Unified Patents portal for the 1983–1993 period.

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" finding against live sources before writing.

Let me check two more angles — PTAB filings naming the patent owner/inventor, and any AIA trial searchable by the patent number.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US Patent 4,524,898

Scope note: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) is the canonical list and returns zero AIA trial proceedings for this patent. I independently re-ran the search angles (patent number, patent owner, inventor, PTAB E2E-style queries, RPX/Unified litigation-and-trial portals) and found nothing to add. The only web hits for the literal string "4524898" were the patent itself and a coincidental New York State Bar number (Andrey Belenky, NYSB No. 4524898) appearing in Complex Memory v. Samsung/STM and FireNet v. Fujitsu complaints — not this patent. No proceeding numbers are reported below because none exist to report. I am not filling the template with invented dockets.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 4,524,898: 0 (0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials). The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore the strongest possible negative signal but for an unusual reason: this is not a "hardened survivor" patent — it is a dead patent. Claims 1–6 were never tested at the PTAB because the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 1993-06-27 (see the Google Patents legal-events record), roughly 19 years before the first IPR was ever filed. There is no PTAB record to rely on, and equally, no PTAB attack you need to make. Any assertion of this patent today is not a defensive-planning problem; it is a demand-letter credibility problem for whoever sent it. (This is consistent with, and does not contradict, the prior "Litigation summary" section above, which likewise found no PTAB/ITC/court activity.)

Why the count is zero — and why that is not a data gap

Proceeding-by-proceeding detail

None on file. There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} entry to expand — no IPR, PGR, or CBM docket exists against US 4,524,898 in the USPTO Open Data Portal ingest or in any public source I searched. Accordingly, there is no judge panel, no petition ground, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no settlement/termination, and no Federal Circuit appeal to report for this patent. I will not manufacture placeholder dockets to fit the requested sub-headings.

For verification of the negative, the two primary public checkpoints are:

• USPTO PTAB E2E / P-TACTS (Patent Trial and Appeal Case Tracking System): https://ptab.uspto.gov/ — search "4,524,898" returns no AIA trial records.
• USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) API — the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block furnished in this prompt, which returns null for this patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all six claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB — but none are viable. Claims 1 and 5 (the two independents) and claims 2–4, 6 (dependents) were never the subject of an AIA trial, so there is no FWD canceling or sustaining anything, and no claim number to quote verbatim from a decision. Critically, "untested" here does not mean "presumed valid and enforceable." The patent's enforceability is extinguished by the 1993 fee lapse, not by any adjudication. Do not let an adversary translate "no IPR on file" into "the claims survived challenge" — that is a category error. There was no challenge because there was no target worth challenging within the AIA era.

Estoppel landscape: effectively nonexistent. With no petitioner and no institution, there is no § 315(e)(1) estoppel before the Office and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel before a district court or the ITC — those bars bind a petitioner, real party in interest, or privy to a proceeding that reached a final written decision, and no such party exists here. Practically, this cuts in favor of a defendant in the other direction: your invalidity defenses are entirely unconstrained. If someone nevertheless asserts this patent, the prior art of record on its face — US 3,586,122 (Branson Instruments, "Sonic apparatus with sonic energy barrier means"), US 4,249,986 (Branson Ultrasonics, "High frequency horn with soft metallic coating"), and US 4,406,720 (Burlington Industries, "Ultrasonic production of nonwovens") — plus the near-identical Fairchild-family siblings disclosed as similar documents (US 4,527,727, "Stabilized ultrasonic welding apparatus"; US 4,545,519, "Method and apparatus for preventing tip sticking during welding operation") and the Sonobond M-8000 public use detailed in the specification itself, are all fair game in any post-1993-style § 102/§ 103 framing. Those references were never run through an IPR, so no printed-publication or public-use ground has been "reasonably raised" and thereby foreclosed.

Pattern signals. There is no petitioner repetition because there is no petitioner. There is no PTAB-appeal history because the patent owner never had an adverse FWD (Fairchild Industries' patent-prosecution history shows only ordinary maintenance-fee events, per the legal-events record). There is no defensive aggregator — no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar entity appears anywhere in the chain; the forward citations to this patent (US 5,520,774 / Sonobond; US 6,019,271 / Ford; US 7,429,713 / GM; WO 2007/092186 / Mac Valves) are cite-not-sue relationships, i.e., later patents citing it as prior art, not assertion campaigns. In short, the "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" heuristic returns a null because this patent was never a live assertion vehicle.

Recommended next steps

• Say it plainly: there is no PTAB activity on US 4,524,898. No proceeding numbers, panels, FWDs, or CAFC appeals exist to cite. The absence is the finding, and it is explainable by the 1993 lapse, not by an indexing failure. Confirm via PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov/) and the ODP API if a formal negative-clearance memo is required.
• Do not rely on the PTAB record as your defense. Your real defenses are (a) the patent expired for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 1993-06-27, leaving no enforceable term; and (b) if any party nonetheless asserts it, unencumbered invalidity positions under the on-face references US 3,586,122, US 4,249,986, and US 4,406,720 — with no § 315(e)(2) estoppel constraining you.
• Challenge the assertion, not the claims. If you received a demand letter citing claims 1–6, the correct response is a laches/expiration/standing and § 285/§ 101-style reality check on the asserting party — not an IPR petition. Filing an IPR against a patent that lapsed 33 years ago would spend six figures to invalidate an unenforceable claim.
• If a 2026 assertion or ex parte reexam activity surfaces that I could not see, treat it as an outlier and flag it to me; I will pull the specific record. I am reporting the absence of PTAB activity from the sources searched (USPTO ODP ingest, PTAB E2E-style queries, RPX/Unified portals, Google Patents legal events, and general web) rather than asserting categorically that no historical filing exists. Nothing here is legal advice.

Sources cited:

• Authoritative patent record and legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4524898/en
• Patent PDF (specification, claims 1–6): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/27/28/61/057786f93a0a1b/US4524898.pdf
• PTAB E2E / P-TACTS (negative result): https://ptab.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical, zero records) — as furnished in this prompt.

I'll verify the assignment record against the authoritative sources before reconstructing the chain.

Let me verify whether any post-issuance assignment exists and check the original assignee's corporate fate.

Let me check for any post-issuance assignment or NPE-linked transfer.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US Patent 4,524,898

Scope note: The authoritative patent text (Google Patents legal-events record) surfaced only prosecution, assignment, and fee-lapse events. No post-issuance transfer appears in that record, and my searches of the indexed assignment/NPE surfaces produced no additional recordings. I was not able to retrieve the correspondent-of-record (recording attorney/firm) field for the one assignment in the chain — see the gap flagged in the timeline. I state that plainly rather than guess.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Renshaw is a corporate employee-inventor, not an independent filer: he assigned as a matter of course on the filing date, which is the standard "obligation to assign" pattern for a large aerospace prime.
• According to PatentLeaderboard, Renshaw is credited with 6 US patents at Fairchild Industries, all granted in 1985 — consistent with a single productive engineering stint, not a serial-filer or portfolio-building profile.
• No evidence of Renshaw departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no co-inventor fragmentation (he is the sole inventor here). The "all inventors bolt shortly after filing" precursor to a portfolio fire-sale is not observable on the record available. I could not verify his exact tenure or title beyond the assignee relationship, so treat the departure question as unclear-but-uneventful.

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Original assignee

Fairchild Industries, Inc. (20301 Century Blvd., Germantown, MD — assignee address as recorded in the assignment)

• Primary line of business: Large US aircraft/aerospace prime contractor — commercial and military aircraft, subassemblies, and space/satellite hardware (A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-27/FH-227, Metroliner, Boeing 747/757 control surfaces, NASA Pegasus satellites). This is an operating industrial company, not a holding vehicle.
• Product embodying the claims: The specification states the weld apparatus was a modification of the Sonobond Model M-8000 ultrasonic spot welder and that trials were run by the assignee on structural aircraft sheet (0.025″ 2024-T3 through FM-123-2 adhesive). So the patented subject matter was reduced to practice in the assignee's own aircraft-sheet-metal manufacturing process — a genuine operating use, not a paper patent.
• Current status: No longer an independent operating entity.
  • Name changed to Fairchild Dornier after the 1996 Dornier acquisition; acquired in Dec. 1999 by Allianz AG and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice for $1.2B.
  • 2003: assets purchased by M7 Aerospace (moved to San Antonio). M7 was itself acquired by Elbit Systems in 2010.
  • Separately, the aircraft-subsidiary line (Fairchild Aircraft Corp.) had been sold out of the parent in 1987 and filed Chapter 11 in 1990 — but that is a different corporate entity from the named assignee and post-dates this patent by years.
  • Caveat: These are corporate-history findings from encyclopedic/archival sources, not a certified chain-of-title for Fairchild Industries' patent estate. I did not find any recorded assignment moving the '898 patent into any of the successor entities.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments found for US 4,524,898: exactly one.

• 1983-04-11 (executed) / recorded 1983-04-12 — Reel 004118/0161
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of inventors' rights) — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST"
  • Assignor: Theodore A. Renshaw (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: Fairchild Industries, Inc., 20301 Century Blvd., Germantown, MD
  • Correspondent: NOT CAPTURED — data gap. The legal-events record I retrieved exposes the reel/frame, parties, and effective date but not the recording attorney/firm of record. I could not confirm the correspondent via the indexed sources, so I make no recurrence finding. This field should be pulled directly from the Assignment Center cover sheet (Reel 004118, Frame 0161) before any repeat-correspondent conclusion is drawn.
  • Context: Original corporate assignment — employee-inventor to employer, executed the day before filing. Not a sale, securitization, or transfer.

No other recordings exist. After issuance the record shows only maintenance-fee administration and lapse, not transfers:

This is itself the finding: there are no post-issuance assignments at all. The patent never left Fairchild Industries, and it died in place in 1993 — the 8-year maintenance fee was simply not paid. A patent with only the original employee-assignment and a fee-lapse is the antithesis of an NPE chain, which requires deliberate, recorded transfers into assertion vehicles.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 4,524,898) — and the mirrored record at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4524898/en

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 4524898
    1983 : Renshaw executes assignment
         : Assigned to Fairchild Industries
    1985 : Patent issued
    1988 : Maintenance fee paid
    1993 : Lapsed for nonpayment

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The chain ends at Fairchild Industries, Inc. (Reel 004118/0161), a named aerospace operating company with a Germantown, MD address. No LLC, no "IP/Holdings/Licensing/Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent service address anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. The only assignee is Fairchild Industries, which matches none of the listed asserters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). Note a near-miss to avoid: Sonobond Ultrasonics later cited this patent (forward citation US 5,520,774) and Sonobond built the M-8000 machine described in the spec — but Sonobond is a citer, not an assignee, and a citation is not an assertion.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (no basis to call). With a single recorded assignment and the correspondent field not retrieved, there is no recurrence to measure. The signal is undefined, not satisfied. This is the one item worth a direct cover-sheet pull (Reel 004118/0161).

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Zero consecutive transfers; the "multiple LLCs inside 24 months" pattern is impossible here.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement suit naming the patent was found (consistent with the prior litigation section), so there is no assertion event for a transfer to precede. The patent lapsed 1993; no suit window exists.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. The named assignee did undergo later corporate distress, but it is not a bankruptcy sale of this patent: the '898 patent lapsed for non-payment in 1993, years before Fairchild's 1996/1999/2003 corporate transactions, and no assignment of this patent to any successor (Fairchild Dornier, Allianz/CD&R, M7 Aerospace, Elbit) is recorded. The 1990 Fairchild Aircraft Chapter 11 involved a different subsidiary entity sold out of the parent in 1987. No reel/frame ties any bankruptcy proceeding to this patent.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No transfer from the operating company to any assertor; the patent never moved.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The patent was neutralized the ordinary way — by fee lapse, not by defensive acquisition.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — the record contains only the original employee assignment (Renshaw → Fairchild Industries, executed 1983-04-11, recorded 1983-04-12, Reel 004118/0161) and no further recordings.

Substantively, this is a clean negative finding, not an ambiguous one: every NPE indicator that requires a recorded transfer (shell LLC, known asserter, cascading/privateering/pre-litigation transfers) is absent by definition, because there are no transfers — the patent sat with its original aerospace-prime assignee and expired for non-payment of the 8-year maintenance fee effective 1993-06-27. The only unresolved item is informational, not evaluative: the correspondent-of-record on Reel 004118/0161 was not retrievable in this session, so no repeat-counsel conclusion can be asserted either way.

Not legal advice. Ownership and status statements derive from the patent's own assignment/legal-events record and the corporate-history sources cited above; a formal negative chain-of-title should be confirmed against the Assignment Center cover sheet and, if needed, a paid docket/title service.

I'll research each cited reference for US 4,524,898. Let me search for the patent and its prior-art citations.

Let me get more detail on the two Branson references, which appear to be the closest prior art.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 4,524,898

Scope note on method: I searched Google Patents and Justia (both mirror USPTO bibliographic data) for the literal number 4524898, and I worked from the authoritative full text/PDF of the patent itself. I did not obtain a raw USPTO PatentCenter full‑text export in this session, so the reference details below are cited to the patent's own "References Cited" table and to the Google Patents pages for each reference. I did not retrieve the full specification of US 4,249,986 — only its bibliographic entry and title — and I flag that limitation explicitly below. Nothing here is legal advice.

1. Target patent confirmed (literal number match only)

The similar-number hits that appear alongside it (e.g., US 4,527,727; US 4,545,519) are different Fairchild-family patents and are excluded, per your instruction.

2. The three references cited on the face of '898

Per the "Patent Citations" / "Citations (3)" table on the Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4524898/en), the examiner-cited prior art is exactly three U.S. patents:

Note the classic structure of this art set: the two Branson references (energy barrier; soft metallic coating) are the conceptually adjacent "energy‑handling" art, and the Burlington reference is the "anvil with interposed insulating material" art. All three are cited as references, not as litigation.

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3. Reference-by-reference

Reference 1 — US 3,586,122 A (Branson Instruments)

• Full citation: US 3,586,122 A, "Sonic apparatus with sonic energy barrier means," Branson Instruments, Inc. Filed 1970‑04‑27; issued 1971‑06‑22. (Inventor name not captured in the text I retrieved — I will not guess it.) Available at https://patents.google.com/patent/US3586122 and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/0c/dd/d5/9b5dd0684b5985/US3586122.pdf
• Description (from the specification retrieved): A sonic/ultrasonic welder has a converter unit (16) and horn/resonator (22) that is driven toward a workpiece (W) resting on an anvil (24). A sound‑absorbing enclosure (34) surrounds the horn and is spring‑urged (spring 38) toward the platform; the anvil is surrounded by an annular gasket (40) of noise‑absorbing material held by a flange (42). During the weld cycle the enclosure seats on the gasket to form a barrier that substantially reduces radiation of sonic energy to ambient and toward the operator. Materials disclosed: cork, plastic sheeting lined with urethane foam, "Feltmetal" (felt‑impregnated metal, Huyck Metals) and "QuietMetal" (American Cyanamid) for the enclosure; urethane foam, felt, or cork for the gasket. A modified version (FIGS. 3‑4) mounts the enclosure on the horn via flanged brackets that are acoustically isolated from the horn by O‑ring gaskets.
• Relevance to '898 claim 1: This is the closest structural neighbor. It does disclose (a) a sonic welding apparatus with a horn and a complementary anvil, and (b) material positioned about the anvil (gasket 40) and about the horn (enclosure 34), some of it organic (urethane foam, felt, cork).
• Why it does not anticipate claim 1: Claim 1 requires, as a single integrated means, "means for applying coaxial pressure against said workpieces" and a two‑layer shield (inner organic layer + outer layer) positioned with its inner surface in continuous contact with the surface of the anvil/tip. In '362 the barrier's purpose is noise/energy radiation containment to protect the operator — not to press coaxially on the workpieces to suppress step shearing. The enclosure (34) and the gasket (40) are separate components that only seat against each other during the cycle, and the gasket is not a two‑layer inner‑organic/outer‑layer shield in continuous contact with the anvil surface. Also, '362 is not directed to lateral (shear) vibratory energy spot welding of the kind recited. Anticipation under §102 fails on the "coaxial pressure against the workpieces" and "two‑layer, continuous‑contact shield" limitations.
• Claims potentially impacted: At most a §103 reference against the general concept of disposing sound/energy‑barrier material about the anvil and horn. It does not squarely read on claim 1, and it does not disclose the specific organics of claim 2 (polyethylene/polypropylene/PVC) or the high‑temperature adhesive of claim 3.

Reference 2 — US 4,249,986 A (Branson Ultrasonics)

• Full citation: US 4,249,986 A, "High frequency horn with soft metallic coating," Branson Ultrasonics Corporation. Filed 1980‑02‑12; issued 1981‑02‑10. Bibliographic entry appears on the '898 face and in Google Patents citation lists (e.g., https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5248504B2/en, citing "US4249986A … Branson Ultrasonics Corporation … High frequency horn with soft metallic coating").
• Description: Per the title and citation record, this reference concerns an ultrasonic horn whose working face carries a soft metallic coating — i.e., a low‑hardness metal layer applied to the ultrasonic tool, in the classic Branson approach to coupling/wear/sticking at the horn face.
• ⚠️ Confidence limitation: I retrieved only the bibliographic entry and title for this reference, not its full specification or claims. The description above is drawn from the title; I did not verify the coating's modulus, thickness, or deposition details. Treat the below as provisional.
• Relevance to '898 claims 4 and 6: Claims 4 and 6 each require the outer layer to be metallic with a modulus lower than the modulus of steel. A "soft metallic coating" on a horn is at least conceptually the same idea family — a low‑modulus metal at the tool/workpiece interface. If '986's soft metal is softer than the steel horn it coats (e.g., a copper/brass‑type coating), it is relevant art for the low‑modulus‑metal outer‑layer limitation.
• Why it does not anticipate: Claims 4 and 6 are dependent — claim 4 depends on claim 1 (organic inner layer), and claim 6 depends on claim 5 (≥2 metallic inner layers). A single reference must disclose every limitation of the claim as a whole, and '986 discloses a coating on a horn, not a shield with an inner energy‑isolating layer plus an outer low‑modulus metallic layer in continuous contact with the anvil/tip. It therefore does not anticipate any claim; at most it is §103 art against the "low‑modulus outer metal" feature.

Reference 3 — US 4,406,720 A (Burlington Industries)

• Full citation: US 4,406,720 A, "Ultrasonic production of nonwovens," Burlington Industries, Inc. (Greensboro, NC); inventors Kenneth Y. Wang and Berlie R. Hill. Filed 1981‑11‑06; issued 1983‑09‑27. https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4406720A](/patent/US4406720A)/en and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/34/ec/85/cc4bddc6c60202/US4406720.pdf
• Description: An ultrasonically bonded non‑woven web with reduced "fuzziness." An ultrasonic horn cooperates with an anvil roller whose circumferential surface intersperses metal projections (ultrasonically conducting) and ultrasonically insulating material (organic: "rubber, polytetrafluoroethylene, and Mylar") filling the volume between the projections. The projections give relatively high fiber compression; the insulating material gives partial compression. The spec explicitly frames the anvil surface as combining conducting and non‑conducting materials, and the insulating material as "sonic wave reflecting."
• Relevance to '898: Conceptually it teaches an anvil surface having metal regions interposed with organic, ultrasonically insulating material — i.e., the "organic insulating layer next to a metal element" idea, and even a two‑zone (high‑compression vs. partial‑compression) treatment that loosely parallels the '898 FIG. 7 zones Z1 (energy + pressure) and Z2 (pressure only).
• Why it does not anticipate: It is non‑woven fabric bonding with a rotary anvil roll, not lateral‑vibration spot welding of metal workpieces; there is no "means for applying coaxial pressure against the workpieces" in the '898 sense, and no continuous‑contact, two‑layer inner‑organic/outer‑layer shield about the tip/anvil. It is §102(e) art by date only; on the merits it does not disclose any complete '898 claim. It does not anticipate claim 1 (no two‑layer shield in continuous contact; no coaxial‑pressure function) or claim 5 (no ≥2 metallic inner layers).

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4. Claim-by-claim §102 mapping

Net result: None of the three cited references anticipates any of claims 1–6 under §102. Each fails on at least one essential limitation of the claim as a whole (most commonly the claim‑1 "means for applying coaxial pressure against said workpieces" and the "two‑layer shield in continuous contact" structure, and for claims 5/6 the "≥2 metallic inner layers"). Their real value is as §103 obviousness prior art — which is consistent with the patent having issued with all 6 claims intact after these references were of record.

5. Bottom line

1. The patent's complete prior‑art citation set is exactly three references — US 3,586,122, US 4,249,986, US 4,406,720 — per the "Patent Citations (3)" table at https://patents.google.com/patent/US4524898/en. (The separate "Cited By" list — US 5,520,774; US 6,019,271; US 2007/0175867 / US 7,429,713; WO 2007/092186 A3 — is forward citation of '898 by later patents, not prior art against it.)
2. Closest art: US 3,586,122 (energy barrier/gasket about anvil and horn) is the nearest structural neighbor; US 4,406,720 (anvil with interposed insulating + conducting material) is the nearest "anvil material" neighbor; US 4,249,986 (soft metal on a horn) is the nearest "low‑modulus metal" neighbor for claims 4/6.
3. No reference is anticipatory. All are properly characterized as §102(b)/§102(e) prior art usable for §103 challenges, not §102 anticipation.

Caveats I want to be explicit about:

• I did not retrieve the full text of US 4,249,986, so its treatment is title‑based and provisional; confirm its coating material/modulus before relying on it against claims 4/6.
• The inventor of US 3,586,122 was not captured in the text I retrieved; I did not guess it.
• The "potential anticipation" question was evaluated on a single‑reference (per‑claim, all‑elements) basis, which is the correct §102 test; a §103 combination analysis (e.g., '362 + '720, or '362 + '986) is a separate question I can run if you want.
• This is technical analysis, not a legal opinion or a freedom‑to‑operate/validity conclusion.

I'll ground the key prior-art references before building the § 103 analysis.

Now let me pin down the other two on-face references.

Let me check the Fairchild-family siblings and the Harthoorn reference for dates (they matter for § 102/§ 103 status).

Obviousness Analysis — US 4,524,898 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Cross-reference note: this builds on the prior sections (bibliographic verification, litigation, PTAB). Two housekeeping flags before the substance: (1) the task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the session metadata reads 2026‑09‑30; nothing in this analysis turns on the difference, but the discrepancy is logged per the operating rules. (2) The prior sections concluded the patent lapsed for non‑payment effective 1993‑06‑27. That does not diminish this analysis's practical relevance — an expired patent remains fully effective as § 102(b) prior art against later filings — but it does mean a live § 103 challenge is academic absent a 2026 assertion. I do not repeat that analysis here.

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1. Governing law and the analytical frame

The application was filed 1983‑04‑12, before the AIA's first‑inventor‑to‑file effective date. Pre‑AIA § 103(a) therefore applies, with the Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), framework as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Critically for the art selection below: pre‑AIA § 102(e) art is available for § 103, and the § 103(c) common‑ownership carve‑out does not apply because the references and the '898 patent are owned by different entities (Branson, Burlington, Fairchild).

PHOSITA definition (proposed): a mechanical engineer (BSME or equivalent) with 2–4 years' experience in ultrasonic metal welding equipment, or a skilled welding technologist with 5+ years, familiar with the architecture of commercial spot welders (transducer/booster/horn or wedge‑reed, anvil, clamping frame), with working knowledge of sonotrode and anvil materials and of acoustic decoupling/isolation practice. In re GPAC, 57 F.3d 1573 (Fed. Cir. 1995), factors: ultrasound joining is a mature, moderately active field; the art is relatively predictable in the mechanical layer‑stack sense.

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2. The prior art of record — what each reference actually teaches

I verified each reference against its own specification text. The three on‑face references are the operative art; see § 8 for why the Fairchild‑family "similar documents" cannot be used.

A. US 3,586,122 — Branson Instruments, "Sonic apparatus with sonic energy barrier means" (filed 1970‑04‑27; issued 1971‑06‑22) → § 102(b)

This is the primary reference and it is closer than its noise‑abatement framing suggests. Verified disclosures:

• An annular shield about the anvil: "The anvil 24 is surrounded by an annular gasket 40 made of noise absorbing material and the gasket is retained by a flange 42."
• A sleeve member about the horn: "An enclosure 34 made of sound absorbing material surrounds all or a substantial portion of the horn 22."
• Coaxial, spring‑loaded seating against the workpiece station: "A helical coil spring 38 … causes the enclosure 34 to be urged in a direction toward the platform 10," and "the underside of the noise absorbing enclosure 34 seats on the gasket 40" as the converter descends and "the spring 38 becomes slightly compressed." This is a coaxial, resiliently‑biased pressure application about the working zone — structurally the "means for applying coaxial pressure" of claims 1 and 5.
• A two‑layer shield containing an organic layer: "the enclosure may be made of cork, or plastic sheeting which is lined with urethane foam." That is an expressly laminated two‑layer wall — outer plastic sheet, inner urethane foam. The gasket alternatives are "urethane foam, felt, cork, or a similar sound‑absorbing material" — all organic.
• Acoustic isolation of the shield from the vibratory energy — precisely the property the '898 specification claims as its insight: in the FIGS. 3–4 embodiment, "By virtue of the O‑ring gaskets the flanged brackets 58 and 60 are acoustically isolated from the vibration of the horn 22A. A cylindrical enclosure 64 made of noise‑absorbing material is supported by the flanged brackets." The reference thus teaches the general principle of a workpiece‑side member that touches/presses the work zone while being decoupled from the horn's vibratory energy.
• A composite metal‑plus‑fiber barrier: "felt impregnated metal available as 'Feltmetal' … or 'QuietMetal'."

What '122 does not state: it does not articulate step‑edge shear as the problem, and its stated purpose is "substantially reduce or eliminate the radiation of sonic energy to ambient and toward the operator." That purpose difference is real but, under KSR, not dispositive — the reference's own structure applies coaxial pressure to the workpiece region.

B. US 4,249,986 — Branson Ultrasonics (Obeda), "High frequency horn with soft metallic coating" (filed 1980‑02‑12; issued 1981‑02‑10) → § 102(b)

• A metallic layer around the sonotrode, low modulus, over a two‑metal stack: "A usable soft coating is the conventional 60/40 lead‑tin alloy (solder). In order to apply such alloy, the horn made from aluminum or titanium base material is first nickel plated in the usual manner. Next, the soft metallic coating … is applied." Claim 4 is explicit: "said metallic body being aluminum which is nickel plated, and said soft metallic coating comprising an alloy containing lead and tin covering such nickel plating." So the reference discloses a three‑layer metallic stack (substrate → Ni → Pb/Sn), and Pb/Sn has a modulus roughly an order of magnitude below steel.
• Location: claim 6 — "said coating being present at a lateral surface near said output end," i.e., the working end, exactly where the '898 shield sits.
• Dimension: "Typical coating thickness of the solder material is 0.010 inch" — comparable to the '898 working example's 0.040″ copper sleeve.
• The express substitution rationale (the motivation‑to‑combine gold): "While soft non‑metallic coatings such as Teflon, Mylar or rubber have been suggested, these materials fail to stand up under the high mechanical stress to which resonant horns are subjected … However, it has been found that a soft metallic coating is readily adhered to the horn and surprisingly serves as a cushioning and lubricating agent." This is a contemporaneous, in‑field teaching that a person of skill should replace a polymeric interface layer with a metallic one in an ultrasonic‑tool context — the exact claim‑1 → claim‑5 transition.

C. US 4,406,720 — Burlington Industries (Wang & Hill), "Ultrasonic production of nonwovens" (filed 1981‑11‑06; issued 1983‑09‑27) → § 102(e) only

Important status point that the citation table alone obscures: '720 issued after the '898 filing date (1983‑04‑12), so it is not § 102(a) or § 102(b) art. It is available only as § 102(e) art, on the strength of its 1981‑11‑06 filing date, and (being differently owned) is usable for § 103. Its disclosures:

• An ultrasonically insulating (organic) material co‑located with metal energy‑transmitting elements on the anvil: the roller's "projections are formed of ultrasonically conducting material (e.g. metal) … a surface‑defining material is provided between the projections, the surface‑defining material consisting of ultrasonically insulating material, which provides partial fiber compression."
• The insulating material is expressly in pressure‑bearing contact with the workpiece adjacent the energy zone: "the surface 27 providing for partial compression of the fiber," with "only short tip portions of the projections … extending above the surface‑defining material."
• Organic insulators named: "rubber, polytetrafluoroethylene, and Mylar."
• A curable/cast interlayer, not a pre‑formed sheet: "Such materials 26 may be heated so that they are flowable, and then poured into the engravings volume, solidifying to provide the structure illustrated in FIG. 3."

So '720 supplies exactly the functional insight the '898 claims are built on — apply pressure to the workpiece through an energy‑insulating layer that surrounds/abuts the metal energy‑coupling element — and it does so in an ultrasonic horn/anvil system.

D. Applicant‑admitted prior art (AAPA) in the '898 specification itself

The specification admits: ultrasonic metal welding was known; the Sonobond M‑8000 with its wedge‑reed transducer and hardened steel tip/anvil (Rc 50) was known and on sale; the prior anvil geometry "causes a sharp step edge indentation to be formed in upper workpiece W1"; adhesive interlayers and thin workpieces aggravate it; and "larger diametered anvils having relatively shallow curvatures were investigated." These admissions are properly treated as prior art for § 103 and supply the problem statement the claims purport to solve.

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3. Claim construction points that matter to the § 103 analysis

Internal inconsistency to flag (contradiction between sections): the specification's stated theory of novelty is that the shield is "effectively isolated from any mechanical energy moving through the anvil … and/or welding tip," while the claim requires the shield's inner surface to be in continuous contact with that same surface. '122 achieves the specification's stated property (isolation) through an air/O‑ring gap in its FIGS. 3–4 embodiment and through direct contact of a sound‑absorbing gasket 40 on the anvil in its FIG. 1–2 embodiment. Both decoupling approaches were known; the claim's "continuous contact" wording therefore does not exclude the reference but instead invites the argument that the reference already achieves the same decoupling.

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4. Combination charts

Claim 1 (independent) — Organic‑interlayer shield

Primary ground: '122 anticipates or, at minimum, renders claim 1 prima facie obvious. Alternative/stronger ground: '122 + '720, where '720 supplies the reason the pressure‑applying insulating layer should surround the metal element (to eliminate an interface artifact on the workpiece) and confirms the insulating layer's workpiece‑contacting, compression‑providing role.

Claim 5 (independent) — Metallic‑multilayer inner layer

Supplementary motivation for the organic → metallic swap: the '898 specification itself states that "the organic inner layer 210 … may be replaced with two or more metallic inner layers 310 and 315" — an express admission of interchangeability. 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." The inventor claimed the identical structure twice with alternative materials, which is itself evidence that the two interlayer chemistries were recognized as substitutable options.

Claims 4 and 6 — Outer layer of metal with modulus lower than steel

• '986 supplies the express selection rule: the outer layer of the lateral coating is a soft metal (60/40 Pb/Sn) chosen for cushioning, applied over the harder stack — the functional analogue of "modulus lower than the modulus of steel."
• The specification's own examples — "copper, nickel, brass or the like" — are ordinary engineering‑materials selections. Note the internal weakness: nickel's modulus (~200 GPa) is not lower than steel's, so the specification's own list is partly inconsistent with its own claim limitation; that inconsistency further supports treating the "lower modulus" selection as a routine, result‑oriented choice rather than an inventive discovery.
• MPEP 2144.04 (VI): selecting a known material for its known property to achieve a predictable result is routine optimization. Copper sleeves and soft‑metal bearing/cushion layers were ubiquitous.

Claim 2 — Organic material is PE, PP, or PVC

• '720 names rubber, PTFE, and Mylar (PET); '122 names urethane foam, felt, cork. The '898 specification frames the choice as "polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride or other like polymeric material."
• Selecting among well‑known thermoplastics with known acoustic‑damping and compliance properties, in a claim that itself recites an open‑ended genus, is routine optimization and, at most, an "obvious to try" selection under KSR and In re Rosselet‑type reasoning.

Claim 3 — Organic material is a high‑temperature adhesive

This is the least vulnerable claim in the set (see § 6):

• '122 teaches the laminated barrier with a bonded/retained structure.
• '720 expressly teaches forming the insulating layer by making it flowable, pouring it into the volume, and letting it solidify in place — functionally identical to an adhesive interlayer that is applied as a paste and cures in situ.
• The '898 specification treats the adhesive purely as the bonding expedient: "hardened copper sleeve … bonded to a 0.5″ diametered anvil 40 with a high temperature adhesive, EPY‑500, to form a cured wall of resin approximately 0.005″ thick between the sleeve and the anvil." The inventor did not present the adhesive as the point of novelty; the claim then recites that same bonding expedient as the functional inner layer.

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5. Why a POSITA would have combined these references

Addressing "motivation" expressly, as the task requires:

1. Same field of endeavor. All three references are ultrasonic welding apparatus. '122 and '986 are both Branson. '720 is an ultrasonic horn/anvil system. Under KSR, familiar elements combined according to known methods in the same field, yielding predictable results, are obvious.
2. Common problem at the horn/anvil/workpiece interface. '122: sonic energy radiated where it shouldn't be. '720: unwanted fiber welding and "fuzziness" caused by energy reaching the anvil's valleys. '898: shear deformation of the workpiece at the sharp anvil edge. All three are solved by interposing a workpiece‑contacting member at the periphery of the energy‑transmitting element.
3. '720 supplies the missing purpose for '122's structure. '122's annular member exists to keep sound in; '720 teaches that the very same kind of member — an annular, energy‑insulating layer surrounding metal projections on the anvil — (a) contacts and compresses the workpiece and (b) prevents an interface defect. Combining gives the '898 shield with an articulated, in‑field rationale.
4. '986 supplies the express substitution rationale for the interlayer chemistry. An examiner or petitioner need not infer motivation for the organic‑vs‑metal choice because '986 states it: non‑metallic coatings were known to be used on ultrasonic tooling, and '986 advocates replacing them with metal for durability and adherence. That is the ipso facto motivation for the claim‑1 claim‑5 distinction.
5. Predictable results. Every element is a mechanical layer about a known tool; the only asserted benefit (broader pressure footprint outside the sharp edge, with the vibratory energy confined to the central zone) follows directly from '720's own disclosure of "partial compression" through an insulating surface adjacent metal projections.
6. Reasonable expectation of success (pre‑KSR "predictable," post‑KSR "reasonable expectation"). No unpredictable field (no microbiology/chemistry unpredictability line of cases); the result is a mechanical contact‑area change.

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6. Counterarguments a patent owner would raise — and their force

Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4) — no probative evidence of record. There is no evidence of commercial success tied by nexus to the claimed shield, no industry praise, no copying, no failure of others' shielded designs, and no unexpected results. The specification's performance comparison (0.025″ 2024‑T3 through 0.005″ FM‑123‑2 film adhesive) is a single trial demonstrating operability, not unexpected results against the closest art — and '720 independently demonstrates that an insulating surface adjacent metal elements produces the predicted surface‑quality improvement. The Sonobond M‑8000 story in the specification supports the general value of ultrasonic spot welding, not the claimed shield, and therefore lacks the requisite nexus.

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7. Ranked conclusion on validity exposure

Bottom line: claims 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 present a substantial, probably winning, § 103 exposure over the on‑face art, with '122 as the structural core and '720/'986 supplying motivation. Claim 3 is the only claim I would rate as genuinely contestable, and its vulnerability is a materials‑selection issue, not a structural one.

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8. Why the "Similar Documents" and other page content are not usable prior art

The page's Prior Art section also lists a "Similar Documents" block including US 4,527,727 ("Stabilized ultrasonic welding apparatus") and US 4,545,519 ("Method and apparatus for preventing tip sticking during welding operation"). These look tempting but are not available as § 103 prior art:

• US 4,527,727 has a priority date of 1983‑04‑12 — the same day as the '898 filing — is by the same inventor (Renshaw) and the same assignee (Fairchild). It cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art (issued 1985‑07‑09, after the '898 filing) and cannot be § 102(e) art because it was not filed before the '898 application.
• US 4,545,519 issued 1985‑10‑08 and is likewise Fairchild‑family; without a filing date preceding 1983‑04‑12 it is not § 102(e) art, and it is certainly not § 102(a)/(b) art.
• Treating these as art would also be an inter partes trap: same‑day, same‑inventor, same‑assignee filings raise § 102(f)/(g)‑type derivation and § 103(c) common‑ownership questions, not clean § 103 grounds.

The "Harthoorn 1978 — Ultrasonic metal welding" entry is a 1978 book/chapter citation and would be § 102(b) art if its date and content are confirmed; I have not verified its text and therefore do not rely on it. I likewise have low confidence in the content of the other "Similar Documents" entries (US 3,831,262; US 4,496,095; US 3,899,116) beyond their titles; US 3,899,116 ("Method of vibratory welding") is plausibly relevant background as a § 102(b) reference on vibratory welding generally but I make no specific disclosure attribution to it.

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9. Limitations of this analysis and confidence statement

• High confidence in the verified disclosure content of US 3,586,122, US 4,249,986, and US 4,406,720, which I obtained from their own specification/claim text (USPTO/Google Patents PDFs) in this session.
• High confidence in the § 102 status analysis: '122 and '986 are § 102(b) art; '720 is § 102(e) only (filed 1981‑11‑06, issued 1983‑09‑27, i.e., after the '898 filing) and, being differently owned, survives the § 103(c) carve‑out.
• Moderate confidence on the '898 claim‑construction calls; in particular, whether the preamble ("Apparatus … with ultrasonic vibratory spot welding apparatus of the type having …") is limiting, and how narrowly the Williamson structure for the means‑plus‑function term will be construed. A narrower construction (shield bonded in continuous contact + specific interlayer) makes the claim harder to invalidate; a broader one makes it easier.
• Not verified: the text of Harthoorn (1978), the content of the remaining "Similar Documents," and the filing dates of US 4,545,519 (I reached the tool‑call limit before confirming it; the reasoning above rests on the Fairchild‑family pattern and the post‑filing issue date, and should be re‑checked if a formal petition depends on it).
• I was unable to search for any post‑1985 patents that already invalidated or distinguished this art; the obviousness assessment here is confined to the Prior Art section of the page as instructed.

Not legal advice. This is a technical analysis of § 103 exposure based on the record described; a formal validity opinion requires the full file wrapper, an inventor‑interview record, and confirmation of the unverified items above.