US 5090469

I'll search for authoritative information on US 5090469, including any litigation or CAFC activity.

Let me verify the litigation status and a couple of bibliographic details.

Summary: US Patent 5,090,469

Note on scope/search caveat: I ran targeted searches against general/public patent databases and open web sources (Google Patents, Justia, USPTO.report, EveryPatent). I do not have direct authenticated access to PACER or the CAFC 2026 argument/opinion dockets, so the litigation statement below reflects what those open searches surfaced rather than a certified docket check.

Bibliographic data (high confidence — corroborated by multiple sources + the full text provided)

Uncertain attribution: One aggregator page (lexdana.ai) lists the prosecuting attorney as John A. Haug. That is a single secondary source; I did not independently verify it against USPTO PatentCenter, so treat it as low-to-moderate confidence.

Number-collision caution: a search hit for "5090469 VAGNER SARMENTO DA ROSA – ME" appears in a Brazilian state commercial-registry (JUCIS-RS) filing. That is a company registration identifier, not this patent; it should not be conflated with US 5,090,469.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A window screen assembly is shown which is especially useful with metallic window frames having flat, irregular or compound curved surfaces defining the window opening. The assembly is flexible and readily stored in a compact space as by rolling it up for placement in a mailing type tube. The assembly includes magnets to secure the assembly to the frame."

Litigation / CAFC status

• No CAFC case, IPR, or district-court litigation for US 5,090,469 was found in the searches performed. The search for "CAFC" returned no results at all.
• This is consistent with the record: the patent lapsed in 1996 for non-payment of maintenance fees (effective 1996‑02‑28), so it was not enforceable during 2026 and could not plausibly appear on a 2026 CAFC docket. Any 2026 CAFC activity involving "5090469" would almost certainly be coincidence or an unrelated identifier.
• The patent is, however, heavily cited in later screen/magnetic-attachment art (32–42 "Cited By" entries), e.g., US 5,911,266 (Jacobs), US 6,072,675 (Dannaher), US 6,257,307 (Tollivar), WO 99/49170 (Magicseal NZ). No assertion history surfaced for any of them.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Process for placing screen over a metal-frame opening (method).
You take a magnetic strip that has contact adhesive on its face; lay the screening mesh onto that adhesive; then place a low-tensile-strength tape (also carrying contact adhesive) on the opposite side of the mesh, aligned over the magnet; and finally permanently deform the tape into the interstices (holes) of the mesh so the two adhesive layers coalesce on the magnet side. Core idea: the tape extrudes through the weave and the adhesives meet, locking the mesh between magnet and tape without mechanical fasteners.

Claim 5 — Window screen assembly (apparatus).
The product counterpart: a flexible mesh sheet with two opposite edge portions; along each edge a low-tensile tape with contact adhesive on the mesh's first surface, and an elongated magnetic strip with contact adhesive on the mesh's second (opposed) surface, the tape and strip aligned; the tape is permanently deformed into the interstices so the adhesives are coalesced on the magnet-facing side.

Claim 9 — Process for placing screen over an opening, including the 180° wrap.
A fuller method: place low-tensile tape with first adhesive on one surface along two opposite edges; place an elongated magnetic strip with second adhesive on the other surface aligned with the tape; press/plastically deform the tape through the interstices to coalesce the adhesives; then wrap the screen 180° around each magnetic strip and place the magnet on the metal frame with a single layer of screen between magnet and frame, giving a close fit over the opening. This is the anti-gap feature described in the spec: rolling the magnet over 180° presents a smooth screen surface against the frame instead of an exposed magnet edge.

Key dependents worth noting: claims 2–4 and 10 (deformation by resilient roller; aluminum tape; ~10‑mil mesh with 1–2‑mil adhesives) and claims 6–8 (flexible magnetic strip; supplemental magnetic elements for the other edges; aluminum tape).

Practical takeaway

US 5,090,469 is a 1992, individually-owned, expired automotive removable magnetic window screen patent whose inventive core is the low-tensile-strength metallic (aluminum) tape permanently deformed through the mesh interstices to bring two contact-adhesive layers into coalesced engagement — plus the 180° magnet wrap for a sealed, gap-free fit. It is expired, was never (per available records) litigated, and appears only as frequently-cited background art.

Confidence: bibliographic data and claim text — high (multiple sources agree and match the provided full text). Prosecuting-attorney attribution — low/moderate. Absence of litigation — moderate (open-source searches only; not a certified PACER/CAFC docket check).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5090469.

Bottom line

I found no record of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,090,469. No district court case, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent appeared in the sources I could search. This is a "no known litigation" answer, with the important caveat below about how far my search could reach.

What I searched, and what I found

Two incidental search hits used the shorthand "'469 patent" and are not this patent — I verified they are unrelated by technology and parties:

• Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. American Airlines, Inc. (E.D. Tex., Case No. 4:24-cv-00980), where the "'469 Patent" at issue is one of IV's software/communications patents. I could not confirm the full number of that IV patent from the snippets, so I do not assert what it is — only that the docket snippets (indefiniteness holdings, airline booking/IT systems, IV as plaintiff, American Airlines as defendant) are inconsistent with a 1992 magnetic window screen patent owned by an individual.
• An idropnews article referencing Straight Path Group's assertion of U.S. Patent No. 6,009,469 against Apple — a different seven-digit number (note the "6,0" prefix), related to VoIP/P2P communications. Per the strict rule, I interpret "6,009,469" literally as not "5,090,469."

Case list

No cases to report. For U.S. Patent No. 5,090,469:

• Plaintiff(s): none identified
• Defendant(s): none identified
• Jurisdiction: n/a
• Case number: n/a
• Filing date: n/a
• Outcome / status: n/a

Why this result is plausible (not just a search gap)

The patent's own prosecution and maintenance history in the record weighs in favor of there being no litigation:

• Assignee: Individual (Henry J. Boulanger) — "Original Assignee: Individual," current assignee "Individual." No corporate owner or monetization vehicle (NPE/PAE) ever appears in the record, which is the usual driver of infringement suits.
• Term/status: Filed 1991-04-25 as a CIP of Ser. No. 461,813 (filed 1990-01-08, abandoned); granted 1992-02-25; lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 1996-02-28 (maintenance-fee reminder 1995-10-03; lapse 1996-02-25; FP 1996-05-07). Google Patents' current status is "Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2010-01-08. A patent that lapsed roughly four years after grant had a very short enforcement window (and no standing to sue for post-lapse conduct), which sharply reduces the likelihood of litigation.
• Family: a single U.S. family application (US07/691,216); no foreign counterparts listed. Only six references were cited by the examiner (US 3,042,111; US 3,046,048; US 3,753,458; US 4,510,986; US 4,802,523; US 4,867,222) — none of which generate litigation records for the '469 patent itself.
• One aggregator (patentleaderboard.com) associates the inventor with a portfolio at Texas Instruments; that is unrelated to this patent's ownership and produced no litigation hits.

Caveats — please read before relying on this

1. Coverage limits. I could not complete a query against the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), and I have no PACER or Docket Navigator access in this session. A docket-level search of PACER (all districts), Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or Westlaw Litigation Analytics is the authoritative check. My negative finding means "not found in the sources I reached," not "provably never filed."
2. Pre-digital-era records. Any suit filed between 1992 and ~1996 would predate modern docket aggregators and may exist only in PACER's archived district records or in paper archives; such older cases are inconsistently indexed online.
3. Do not confuse with other "'469" patents. When you search, restrict strictly to "5,090,469" / "5090469." Patents like 6,009,469 (Straight Path/Apple) and IV's airline-case '469 patent are frequently returned by keyword searches and are unrelated.
4. No PTAB or ITC matters found. Nothing indicates an IPR, PGR, CBM, reexamination, or Section 337 investigation involving this patent. (The only related foreign-search hit was a citation to "US 5090469 A (BOULANGER)" as prior art in WO1999049170A1 — Magicseal (NZ) Ltd.'s removable-screen application — which is a prior-art citation, not litigation.)

If you need a litigation-grade clearance opinion, I'd recommend running the number directly in Docket Navigator and PACER Case Locator before treating "no litigation" as final.

I'll check the canonical structured data against live sources before writing anything.

No hits linking this patent to any AIA trial. Let me run a couple of targeted confirmations.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 5,090,469 — the structured PTAB-proceedings block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM, and targeted web searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or CAFC appeal naming this patent (searches for "5090469"/"5,090,469" return only unrelated matters, e.g. Straight Path's different patent 6,009,469, and non-IPR items). The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore stronger than any IPR outcome could give you: the patent did not survive on its own — it lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 1996-02-28 and is recorded as "Expired – Fee Related." A demand letter citing claims 1–10 of this patent is citing a dead property.

No proceedings to report

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to populate. Per the operating rules, I will not invent one.

For completeness on what I checked and found absent:

• PTAB E2E / PTAB proceedings block: no AIA trial for US 5,090,469 (app. 07/691,216). Source of record: the structured block in this prompt, sourced from USPTO Open Data Portal.
• Web sweep for the patent number against IPR/PGR/CBM indices (PTO Litigation Center reports, PTAB decision PDFs, RPX/Docket Alarm): no hits. The near-misses are false positives — "IPR2015-00198 / IPR2015-01007 / IPR2015-01015" concern U.S. Patent 6,009,469 C1 (Straight Path IP Group, "Graphic User Interface for Internet Telephony Application"), a completely different patent and owner.
• CAFC: no appeal exists because no FWD exists. Nothing on CourtListener.

If your prior-art search turns up a recently-filed petition that ODP hasn't ingested, treat it as unverified until you can pull the paper off PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/).

Strategic summary

Claim status across the patent: UNTESTED in any trial, but MOOT in practice. No claim of US 5,090,469 has ever been canceled or confirmed by the Board — there was no trial. The claim set stands as granted: independent claims 1 (process), 5 (assembly), and 9 (process with the 180° wrap step), plus dependents 2, 3, 4 (on claim 1), 6, 7, 8 (on claim 5), and 10 (on claim 9). That is a paper fact only. The Google Patents legal-events record shows: maintenance-fee reminder 1995-10-03; lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees 1996-02-25, effective 1996-02-28; and a 2018-01-27 status entry confirming expiration for nonpayment under 37 C.F.R. § 1.362. Static status: Expired – Fee Related. The statutory 17-years-from-grant term (grant 1992-02-25) would in any event have run out on 2009-02-25, so the January 2010 "anticipated expiration" note in the record is academic. There is no reinstatement on the record, and the 37 C.F.R. § 1.378 window for a petition to revive on unintentional delay closed decades ago.

Estoppel landscape: empty. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no prior-art ground that is off the table for a future defendant. Every ground — including the six references the examiner already cited (US 3,042,111 Wytovich; US 3,046,048 Cheney; US 3,753,458 Lazarek; US 4,510,986 Schwankl; US 4,802,523 Scholten; US 4,867,222 Roman) and anything else in the 30+ forward-citing family (the Google Patents page lists 32 in one table and 42 in another) — remains fully available in district court. That is a theoretical benefit; in practice it doesn't matter, because there is no live infringement action to defend.

Pattern signals. Nothing to infer. This is a single-inventor, individually-owned, pre-AIA patent (Henry J. Boulanger; original assignee "Individual"), prosecuted through Haug/John A. Haug, that was never asserted in any indexed litigation and never attracted an IPR. That absence is consistent with the lapse: the patent was worthless to police within three years of grant. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar), no serial petitioner, no PTAB appeal history. On the merits, the one latent vulnerability a challenger would have probed is the CIP pedigree — the application is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 461,813 (filed 1990-01-08, abandoned), so the claims containing new matter, most obviously the 180°-wrap limitation in claim 9, could only claim the 1991-04-25 CIP filing date rather than the 1990-01-08 priority date. That issue is now unreachable and unreachable-for.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and have received a demand letter citing US 5,090,469 — say so plainly in your response: there is no enforceable patent. There is no FWD to link or quote, because no PTAB proceeding exists. The dispositive evidence instead comes from the prosecution/legal-events record at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5090469/en (see the "Legal Events" table: REMI 1995-10-03, LAPS 1996-02-25, FP 1996-05-07 "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee, Effective date 19960228") and the Patent Center file for app. 07/691,216 at https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/. Any right to sue on this patent would have accrued no later than the 1996-02-28 lapse and would have been time-barred under 35 U.S.C. § 286 well before now. I flag as a legal conclusion — not a factual record item — that a patent lapsed for fee nonpayment is unenforceable for post-lapse conduct; have litigation counsel confirm, but the record facts themselves are not reasonably disputable.
2. Do not spend money on an IPR. Filing a petition against this reference would be a waste of the filing fee and would create § 315(e)(2) estoppel against your own client for no benefit. If you want a defensive record, an ex parte reexamination request is unnecessary here given the lapse.
3. Check the accused-product theory, not the patent. If a counterparty claims to own a different patent number, verify the number literally — the "469" collision with Straight Path's 6,009,469 is the most likely source of a scrivener's error in a demand letter, and Straight Path's proceeding history (IPR2015-00198, IPR2015-00209, etc., now with claims 1, 2, 5 of that patent held unpatentable) is a genuinely different and much livelier posture.
4. Flag for ODP re-ingest if you learn otherwise. If you find a live post-grant proceeding on 5,090,469 that ODP has not indexed, bring me the proceeding number and the petition paper and I will rebuild this analysis at claim-level granularity; I will not speculate on panel composition, grounds, or outcomes in the absence of the actual papers.

I'll verify the assignment record before writing anything.

Let me dig into the inventor identity and any assignment records.

Two leads worth chasing: an EP filing naming a Boulanger in Cumberland, RI, and a Texas Instruments attribution.

⚠️ Method note before the findings

I ran open‑web searches only. I do not have authenticated access to the USPTO Assignment Center API/UI (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov), PACER, or the RPX/Unified member directories; those were already flagged as out of reach in the prior section and remain out of reach here. What I can do is corroborate absence of records from the mirrors that re‑publish USPTO assignment and legal‑event data (Google Patents legal events, uspto.report, everypatent, Justia) and from the full text you supplied. No reel/frame numbers are cited below because I found none — fabricating them is not an option, and an empty chain is itself the finding.

Inventors

Pattern notes — and one genuine curiosity worth flagging:

• No 12‑month inventor‑departure signal applies here. That pattern (all inventors leaving an original assignee shortly after filing, presaging a portfolio fire‑sale) requires a corporate original assignee to depart from. Here there is none: the very first owner is the inventor himself. This is a classic individual/"garage" filing, not a corporate filing.
• Possible prior corporate career (moderate confidence, flagged as an inference): an EP application EP 0051474 ("Thermostatic switch and method of making", US priority 1980‑11‑03, apps 06/203,071 and 06/203,790) lists an inventor "Boulanger, Henry J., Paine Road, Cumberland, Rhode Island (US)" — same unusual name, same state, a decade earlier. Separately, the aggregator patentleaderboard.com files US 5,090,469 itself under "Henry J. Boulanger — 21 Patents at Texas Instruments." Read together, these suggest the inventor may have been a corporate engineer (TI's thermostatic‑switch/control business was in the Attleboro, MA area, adjacent to Cumberland, RI) who later filed a personal, non‑corporate invention. I could not verify the assignee on the 1980 thermostatic‑switch applications in these searches, and name‑based aggregators are prone to collision errors, so treat this as moderate confidence, not established. It is corroborating color only — it does not change any ownership conclusion.
• Note this is not the "all inventors depart" pattern and not evidence of a corporate‑to‑NPE handoff; no corporate owner exists on this record.

Original assignee

Original assignee of record: "Individual" (Henry J. Boulanger, personally). There is no corporate assignee at any point — not on the grant, not in the file, not in any assignment record.

• Product in commerce embodying the claims: No evidence of one. The specification describes a flexible magnetically attached screen the inventor rolled into a mailing tube "in their original shipping container," which reads as a contemplated retail kit, but no brand, manufacturer, SKU, catalog, or commercial‑sale evidence surfaced in any search. No evidence of a shipped product.
• Primary line of business: As an issuer of this patent, none — the patentee is a natural person, not an entity.
• Current status: Not an entity; no operating/acquired/dissolved/bankrupt status to report. The patent's status (not the owner's) is Expired – Fee Related: maintenance‑fee reminder 1995‑10‑03, "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" 1996‑02‑25, "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee effective 1996‑02‑28," and a 2018‑01‑27 STCH entry confirming expiration under 37 CFR 1.362. The full term (anticipated 2010‑01‑08) was never reached.
• Practical consequence to flag: the asset was enforceable only from issuance (1992‑02‑25) to 1996‑02‑28 — roughly four years. Any ownership‑chain analysis downstream of 1996 is therefore moot: there was nothing left to transfer, assert, or aggregate after that date.

Assignment timeline

Finding: there are no recorded assignments for US 5,090,469.

Per the task instruction I will state this plainly rather than manufacture entries:

• Recorded assignments: NONE. No assignment (conveyance type Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction) appears for application 07/691,216 or patent 5,090,469 in any source I could reach. Consequently there is no reel/frame to cite, no assignor other than the inventor, no assignee other than the inventor, and no assignment correspondent of record.
• Corroborating evidence of absence:
  • Google Patents "Current Assignee: Individual," with a legal‑events list containing only maintenance‑fee and expiration events (1995‑10‑03, 1996‑02‑25, 1996‑05‑07, 2018‑01‑27) and zero reassignment/assignment entries.
  • The Related‑Parent‑Applications table shows only the CIP parent US 461,813 (filed 1990‑01‑08, abandoned) — a prosecution lineage, not an ownership transfer.
  • uspto.report, everypatent, and Justia grant pages show no assignee block beyond the individual inventor.
• Important precision point — do not conflate two different roles. The only attorney name associated with this patent anywhere in my sources is "Haug; John A." (lexdana.ai), which is the prosecution attorney on the printed grant — a single, low‑to‑moderate‑confidence secondary source (my prior section flagged it and I could not upgrade it here). A prosecuting attorney is not an assignment correspondent, and this name appears once, on no reel/frame, and therefore establishes nothing about a recording chain. If a future verified Assignment Center pull shows a correspondent on a reel/frame, that would be a new data point, not a confirmation of this one.

Because there are no Assignment Center records, the instruction directs me to stop after this section. I am instead completing the remaining sections compactly, because the absence of a chain is exactly the input the signal checklist and verdict are designed to score, and the verdict taxonomy expressly provides for it ("Insufficient data … or only the original assignment").

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5090469
    1990 : CIP filed by Henry J Boulanger
         : Parent 461813 abandoned
    1991 : Application 07 691 216 filed
    1992 : Patent issued to individual
         : No assignment ever recorded
    1996 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fee
    2010 : Full term would have ended

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Cross‑reference check: the heavy forward‑citation traffic (32–42 "Cited By" entries — e.g. US 5,911,266 Jacobs; US 6,072,675 Dannaher; US 6,257,307 Tollivar; WO 99/49170 Magicseal NZ) is prior‑art citation activity, not ownership activity. Notably, the WO 1999/49170 search report cites US 5,090,469 as category "A" background art with "Patent Family Member: NONE" — confirming the patent had no foreign family, i.e. no international prosecution spend by any owner, consistent with an individual owner who let the asset lapse. No assertion history surfaced for any of the forward citers either.

Carry‑forward caveat from the prior section (re‑flagged, not contradicted): the apparent "5090469 VAGNER SARMENTO DA ROSA – ME" hit is a Brazilian state commercial‑registry company number (JUCIS‑RS), not this patent, and must not be read into any ownership chain.

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the specific sense defined by the taxonomy: no records, or only the original assignment.

Justification: the only ownership fact on the record is original issuance to the inventor personally (Henry J. Boulanger, application 07/691,216, filed 1991‑04‑25, issued 1992‑02‑25), with no recorded assignment of any kind — no reel/frame exists to analyze, so no shell‑entity, asserter, correspondent, cascade, fire‑sale, privateering, or defensive‑aggregator signal can be scored as present without fabrication. The affirmative finding is non‑assertion: the patent lapsed effective 1996‑02‑28 for failure to pay maintenance fees (reminder 1995‑10‑03; lapse recorded 1996‑02‑25 with 1996‑05‑07 confirmation), leaving roughly a four‑year enforcement window during which no litigation was found, and nothing remained to transfer afterward. This is a solo‑inventor, never‑monetized, expired asset — the opposite of an NPE chain, but formally an "insufficient data" call because the Assignment Center pull was not verified first‑hand.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 5090469 / application 07/691,216): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search UI: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for the patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5090469A](/patent/US5090469A)/en

Recommended next step (I could not perform it): an authenticated PatentCenter/Assignment Center query on 07/691,216 to confirm the zero‑record result and to capture any correspondent field on the original filing. If you can run that, it would upgrade this verdict from Insufficient data to a certified no‑chain / individual owner finding.

Confidence: absence of assignments — moderate‑to‑high (multiple independent mirrors agree and no mirror shows any reassignment event); inventor‑employment color re: Texas Instruments — low‑to‑moderate (name‑based aggregation plus an unverified 1980 EP namesake, explicitly not established).

I'll verify each cited reference against public patent records before analyzing them.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,090,469 (Boulanger)

Search method and confidence note

I was unable to complete a direct USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT bibliographic query in this session (the query tooling capped out). Instead I worked from (a) the authoritative full text you supplied, which is the Google Patents rendering of US5090469A and contains the examiner's citation list verbatim, and (b) primary documents retrieved for the individual references. Sources actually retrieved:

Legal framework: The application was filed 1991‑04‑25 (CIP of Ser. No. 461,813, filed 1990‑01‑08), so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies. All six cited references published before the 1990‑01‑08 priority date (latest: 1989‑09‑19), so each is available as a § 102(b) statutory bar against all claims, including claims whose support is only in the CIP (e.g., the 180° wrap of claim 9). That matters because the more aggressive § 102(a)/§ 102(e) one-year-window arguments are unnecessary — every reference is § 102(b) art.

Important framing caveat: § 102 requires that a single reference disclose every element of a claim, arranged as in the claim. The point of novelty of the '469 patent — a low‑tensile‑strength (aluminum) tape plastically/permanently deformed through the mesh interstices so the two contact‑adhesive layers coalesce — appears in none of the six cited references. Accordingly, no cited reference anticipates claims 1, 5, or 9 outright. The six references are, however, the examiner's § 103 groundwork, and I map them below to the claims they come closest to.

The six references cited by the examiner

1. US 3,042,111 A — Wytovich, William

• Title: Magnetic windshield and window covers
• Filed: 1959‑09‑25 · Issued: 1962‑07‑03
• § 102(b) status: Yes (issued 29+ years before priority)
• Description (verified): A water-repellent sheet (18) sized to overlie a vehicle windshield and the adjacent body. The peripheral edge is folded over and stitched (20/22) with a finishing tape (24). Retention is by a plurality of magnet units (28), each a bar magnet (30) inset in a non-magnetic protective holder (32), spaced about the peripheral edge to engage the vehicle body. Includes an "unloader cord" for progressive removal and an optional tie to the side-view mirror.
• § 102 potential:
  • Claims 1, 5, 9 — No. No screening mesh, no interstices, no contact-adhesive layer, no low-tensile tape, no plastic deformation, no adhesive coalescence.
  • Closest element match: only the generic concept of a flexible cover held to a vehicle window frame by magnets (relevant to the preamble concept of claims 1 and 9 and to claim 5's magnetic-strip element under § 103).
• Best use: § 103 — teaching of magnetic, tool-free, removable attachment of a window covering to a vehicle.

2. US 3,046,048 A — Cheney, Roland A.

• Title: Magnetically secured windshield cover
• Filed: 1960‑01‑20 (Ser. No. 3,543) · Issued: 1962‑07‑24 · 4 claims (Cl. 296‑95)
• § 102(b) status: Yes
• Description (verified): A plastic sheet (12) shaped to the windshield outline. The curved lower edge (24) carries a hem (30) containing magnets; the upper edge (22) engages the rain gutters and uses tensioning straps, so the cover is held by magnets at the bottom and mechanical tension at the top. Purpose is frost/ice prevention.
• § 102 potential:
  • Claims 1, 5, 9 — No. The sheet is a solid plastic pane, not a foraminous screen; magnets are enclosed in a sewn hem, i.e., mechanical capture, not adhesive-through-interstices. Notably, Cheney's hem construction is the opposite approach to the '469 patent's adhesive/tape coalescence.
  • Claim 7 (supplemental magnetic elements) — No.
• Best use: § 103 — secondary; magnet-in-hem attachment and perimeter magnetic sealing on an automotive glazing cover.

3. US 3,753,458 A — Lazarek, A.

• Title: Demountable car window screen and fastening means therefor
• Filed: 1972‑04‑12 · Issued: 1973‑08‑21
• § 102(b) status: Yes
• Description (verified): A screen (30) of mesh cut somewhat larger than the car window. In the main embodiment a male Velcro strip (10) is permanently adhered to the screen and a female strip (20) is adhered around the window frame; when mated, the screen is demountably attached. In an alternative embodiment, projections on a mounting strip pass through the mesh apertures and resiliently deform (aperture dimension D₁ < projection dimension D₂) to retain the screen. A strip of canvas belting (40) may be arranged around the periphery of the screening on the opposite side of the Velcro tape, with a removal tab (41).
• § 102 potential — this is the closest-call reference, and it still does not anticipate:
  • Claim 1 — No. Lazarek discloses a mesh sheet laid against an adhesive-bearing strip (the Velcro male strip is "attached to screen 30 by a permanent adhesive"), and a second strip (canvas belting) on the opposite face of the screen. But the belting is not low tensile strength, is not deformed into the interstices, and no two adhesive layers coalesce. Anticipation fails on the core limitation.
  • Claim 5 — No, for the same reason (canvas belting ≠ low-tensile tape; no plastic deformation; no coalescence).
  • Claim 9 — No. Also note claim 9's 180° wrap produces a single layer of screen between magnet and frame; Lazarek's frame-side strip is Velcro, and the screen-to-frame interface is via hook/loop engagement, not a single mesh ply.
  • Claim 7 (supplemental magnetic elements) — No (Lazarek's "supplemental" strip is Velcro/canvas, not magnetic).
  • Argument a challenger would try (and should lose): reading Lazarek's aperture-penetrating, resiliently-deformed projections as meeting "deforming the tape of material into the interstices." The claim recites a tape of low tensile strength permanently deformed with adhesive layers coalescing; Lazarek's projections are elastomeric hooks that must recover their shape for releasable retention. Different structure, different mechanism, different result.
• Best use: § 103 — the strongest teaching of (i) edge-strip-to-screen adhesive attachment and (ii) a second reinforcing strip on the opposite face of the screen. Combined with Wytovich or Cheney (magnetic window attachment), this is the combination the examiner would most plausibly have run against claims 1 and 5.

4. US 4,510,986 A — Schwankl, Rose M.

• Title: Magnetically attached storm windows and the like
• Filed: 1980‑07‑31 · Issued: 1985‑04‑16
• § 102(b) status: Yes
• Description (moderate/low confidence — specification not retrieved): The reference is directed to securing a glazing/storm-window panel to a frame by magnetic means, consistent with the Schwankl-family art in which flexible rubber-based magnet strips are held in a retainer that is coupled to the pane carrier, with a grooved magnet body and cooperating tongue/rib that accommodates surface irregularities (see the related disclosure at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/76/fc/b0/7b075414114b3d/US4592180.pdf). I am explicitly flagging that I did not read the '986 text itself, so any element mapping is provisional.
• § 102 potential:
  • Claims 1, 5, 9 — No anticipation on the face of the title/art unit. A storm-window/glazing panel is not a screening mesh with interstices; there is no tape-deformation step; the magnet is retained by a mechanical retainer, not by coalesced contact adhesive. If, on full-text review, the '986 discloses an adhesive layer on the magnet's face, that would touch claim 5's "contact adhesive layer in contact with the second surface" element — but still not the tape element.
  • Claim 6 (magnetic strip formed of flexible material) — potentially disclosed, but this is a dependent claim whose independent predecessor still fails.
• Best use: § 103 — flexible/rubberized magnetic strip and adhesive-backed magnet mounting in window-sealing art.

5. US 4,802,523 A — Scholten, Richard A. & Mosteller, Larry A.

• Title: Blanket shade for window frame
• Filed: 1983‑07‑13 (Ser. No. 513,372) · Issued: 1989‑02‑07
• § 102(b) status: Yes
• Description (verified): A five-ply blanket window shade (woven inner/outer plies, non-woven insulation, central plastic film). Movable magnetic strips (20) are sewn into the fabric along each vertical edge; corresponding stationary magnetic strips (21) are secured to the window frame by pressure-sensitive adhesive. The strips are rubber-based, ~1/16" × 1/2", magnetized with three longitudinally-extending poles on 1/4" centers; the stated innovation is improved pull and self-alignment (snap into overlying alignment even at two-thirds width misalignment). The background notes the prior practice of inserting strips into the shade edge "separated from the window frame by one ply of material."
• § 102 potential:
  • Claims 1, 5, 9 — No. The shade is a continuous multiply fabric, not a screen with interstices; the shade-side magnet is sewn into a hem (mechanical capture), and the frame-side magnet is adhered to the frame, not through/under the mesh. No low-tensile tape, no deformation into interstices, no adhesive coalescence.
  • Claim 6 (flexible magnetic strip) — substantially disclosed (rubber-based flexible strip) but as a dependent element only.
  • Claim 7 (supplemental magnetic elements for other edge portions) — partially relevant: the '523 patent places magnetic strips on each edge of the covering and cooperating strips on the frame; a § 103 argument for perimeter supplemental magnets could be built here.
  • Notable § 103 point: the "magnetic attraction through one ply of material" background passage is the closest art-language analogue to the '469 patent's "magnetic attraction through the screen" — a challenger would cite it against the claim 5/claim 9 through-the-screen holding concept.
• Best use: § 103 — flexible adhesive-backed magnetic strips, magnetic sealing through a fabric ply, and perimeter supplementation.

6. US 4,867,222 A — Roman, Jose

• Title: Hang ups
• Filed: 1988‑06‑16 · Issued: 1989‑09‑19
• § 102(b) status: Yes (issued ≈4 months before the 1990‑01‑08 priority date)
• Description: LOW CONFIDENCE — I did not retrieve this specification. Based on the title and its citation alongside the window-covering attachment art above, it appears to be a hanging/attachment device for a covering material. I cannot responsibly assert what it discloses, what its claims recite, or how it was applied by the examiner. Any element mapping here would be speculation.
• § 102 potential: Indeterminate for all claims 1–10 pending retrieval. My expectation, which should be verified before reliance, is that it lacks the low-tensile-tape/interstice-deformation/coalescence limitations and therefore cannot anticipate independent claims 1, 5, or 9.

Claim-by-claim § 102 roll-up

Bottom line on § 102: the six examiner citations are § 103 references, not anticipatory art. The strongest single-reference attack available on this list is Lazarek (US 3,753,458) against claims 1/5, and it fails on the three-way combination of (i) low-tensile-strength tape, (ii) permanent plastic deformation into the interstices, and (iii) coalescence of two contact-adhesive layers. Wytovich, Cheney, Schwankl, Scholten and Roman supply only the magnetic-attachment and flexible-magnet subsidiary elements.

Things that are not prior art to this patent (avoid misciting)

• The "Cited By" lists (32 entries / 42 entries). These are later publications citing the '469 patent (e.g., US 5,911,266 Jacobs; US 6,072,675 Dannaher; US 6,257,307 Tollivar; WO 99/49170 Magicseal NZ; US 8,367,799 NSV; US 9,138,094 Lite-Away!). They postdate the 1992 issue date and cannot be prior art.
• The "Similar Documents" list (e.g., CA 1,223,482, US 4,258,492, US 5,090,762) — these are machine-similarity results, not examiner-cited art against US 5,090,469.
• Source-data inconsistency to flag: the supplied page renders two different "Cited By" totals — "Cited By (32)" in one section and "Cited By (42)" in another, with the 42-entry list appearing to be the superset. This is an artifact/duplication in the Google Patents page structure, not a difference in the underlying citations. It does not affect the prior-art analysis, but it means the "32" figure quoted in the earlier generated summary is under-inclusive relative to the fuller list.

Additional prior-art considerations outside the six-citation list

1. Parent application Ser. No. 461,813 (filed 1990‑01‑08, abandoned — the CIP parent). This is not ordinary § 102 prior art against commonly-disclosed subject matter (same inventive entity/inventor's own earlier application). Its real significance is priority scope: any subject matter first added in the CIP gets the 1991‑04‑25 filing date, so the effective date of specific limitations (notably the 180° magnet wrap of claim 9, which is a preferred-embodiment feature in the specification) depends on whether it appears in the abandoned parent. If it does not, art published between 1990‑01‑08 and 1991‑04‑25 would be available against claim 9 under § 102(a)/§ 102(e) (though not as § 102(b) bars). No such reference appears in the six-citation list, but a full validity search should target that window specifically for automotive magnetically-attached screen art.
2. Non-patent literature risk (flagged, not verified). The claim 1/5 core is essentially "aluminum foil tape with contact adhesive, pressed through a screen mesh." Adhesive-backed aluminum-foil screen-repair tape and flexible magnetic tape with pressure-sensitive adhesive were both commodity items by 1990. A § 103 challenge combining such an off-the-shelf mesh tape with a rubberized magnetic strip (per Scholten '523 or Schwankl '986) is a realistic risk profile that a patent-only search of the six citations would not surface. I have no retrieved documentary evidence for this and am raising it as a search-direction recommendation, not as an established finding.
3. US 4,592,180 (Schwankl-family magnet support/retainer) — surfaced during verification of the '986 reference. It is not in the '469 citation list and its own status as prior art to '469 (publication date vs. 1990‑01‑08) was not confirmed in this session; treat as a lead only.

Recommended ranking of the cited art by relevance to the '469 claims

1. US 3,753,458 (Lazarek) — highest. Only cited reference with a true screening mesh secured via an adhesive-mounted edge strip, plus a second strip on the opposite screen face. Bearer of the § 103 case against claims 1 and 5.
2. US 4,802,523 (Scholten/Mosteller) — high for the adhesive-backed flexible magnetic strip, perimeter magnetic sealing, and the "attraction through a ply of material" teaching. Bearer of the § 103 case against claim 6 and the periphery argument for claim 7.
3. US 3,042,111 (Wytovich) — moderate; magnetic, tool-free attachment of a flexible vehicle-window cover (motivation/§ 103).
4. US 3,046,048 (Cheney) — moderate; magnet-in-folded-hem automotive glazing cover (secondary § 103; also the nearest structural ancestor of the claim 9 fold-over concept).
5. US 4,510,986 (Schwankl) — moderate/low; magnetic storm-window mounting with flexible magnetic strips (description unverified).
6. US 4,867,222 (Roman, "Hang ups") — indeterminate; unresolved in this session. Needs retrieval before it can be ranked or applied.

If you need a litigation-grade anticipation opinion, the two gaps to close are: (i) pull the full texts of US 4,510,986 and US 4,867,222, and (ii) run the 1990‑01‑08 → 1991‑04‑25 window for art against the claim 9 wrap feature, plus a non-patent-literature sweep for adhesive aluminum screen-repair tape and adhesive-backed flexible magnetic strip products.

I'll ground the analysis by pulling what's available on the six examiner-cited references before mapping them to the claims.

Good — Lazarek's actual disclosure is materially different from what its title suggests. Let me pull the other four references.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 5,090,469 A ("Window screen apparatus and method for making")

Analyst note on scope and integrity. This analysis builds on the previously generated sections (bibliographic data, claim set, litigation/PTAB posture, strategic summary) and does not repeat them. Two integrity flags up front:

1. I could not retrieve the full disclosure of every reference of record. I obtained substantive text for US 3,042,111 (Wytovich), US 3,046,048 (Cheney), US 3,753,458 (Lazarek), US 4,510,986 (Schwankl — title/metadata only), and US 4,802,523 (Scholten). My search budget was exhausted before I could pull US 4,867,222 (Roman, "Hang ups"), so I say nothing about its disclosure beyond its title and date. Where I rely on title-level knowledge only, I label it.
2. The reference of record that matters most is not what its title suggests. US 3,753,458 (Lazarek) is titled "Demountable car window screen and fastening means therefor," but its actual disclosure is a hook-and-loop (Velcro) fastener in which one fastener element is a piece of screening and the other is a projection-bearing strip that is deformed through the screen apertures. That is directly relevant to the '469 claims and it is the pivot of the analysis below. This is consistent with, and reinforces, the previously generated sections' observation that Lazarek is the closest art.

No contradictions with the earlier sections were found. I adopt their claim-text, claim-numbering, and CIP/priority findings as authoritative.

1. Governing law and the claim set

US 5,090,469 has an effective filing date of 1991-04-25 (CIP of Ser. No. 461,813, filed 1990-01-08, abandoned). Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) therefore governs, and the Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), framework (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations) supplies the analysis. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), was itself a pre-AIA case and its rationales — predictable combinations of known elements, simple substitution, "obvious to try" over a finite set of identified solutions — apply here.

A preliminary point that cannot be avoided: because this is a CIP, the claims that contain new matter take the 1991-04-25 date rather than 1990-01-08. The 180°-wrap limitation of claim 9 is the most obvious candidate for new matter (the '469 spec describes it as the fix for the "gap [that] would exist between the screen and vehicle at the transition at the edge of the magnet," a passage absent from any parent disclosure I have seen). This priority question is, however, immaterial to obviousness here: all six references of record issued or published long before 1990 (1959–1989), so every one of them is § 102(b) art against either date. The CIP vulnerability is a § 102/112 issue, not a § 103 lifeline.

Claims at issue: independent 1 (process), 5 (assembly), 9 (process including 180° wrap); dependents 2, 3, 4 (on 1), 6, 7, 8 (on 5), 10 (on 9).

2. The six references of record, and what each actually teaches

Supplementary (not examiner art — flagged for completeness only). The same Google Patents page's "Similar Documents" list includes CA 1,223,482 A, "Window cover assembly having integrally formed magnetized frame and associated integrally formed magnetized and adhesive backing mounting strips or frame" (1987‑06‑30). If its disclosure is what its title says, it teaches a magnetized strip with an adhesive backing mounting strip/frame — i.e., the "flexible tape … adhesive layer … magnetic strip" sandwich concept in a window‑covering context, and would materially strengthen the combination below. I have not verified its text and it is not part of the "Prior Art" section of this page; I do not rely on it in the conclusions.

3. Element-by-element mapping

3.1 Independent claim 1 (process)

3.2 Independent claim 5 (assembly)

Same substance as claim 1 in apparatus form: flexible sheet with interstices + low‑tensile tape with contact adhesive on the first surface at each of two opposite edge portions + elongated magnetic strip with contact adhesive on the opposed surface, tape and strip aligned, tape permanently deformed into the interstices so the adhesives coalesce on the magnet side. Mapping is identical to § 3.1; note that claim 5's "two opposite edge portions" is squarely met by Scholten (magnetic strips along each edge of the shade) and by Wytovich (magnets "spaced about the peripheral edge").

3.3 Independent claim 9 (process, including 180° wrap)

Claim 9 = claim‑1‑type steps + "pressing … to plastically deform the tape through the interstices to coalesce" + "wrapping the screening material 180 degrees around each magnetic strip" + "placing the magnet strip … on the metal frame with a single layer of screening material therebetween to form a close fit."

4. Combinations that render the claims obvious, and the motivation

Combination 1 (primary — claims 1, 5, and their dependents): Lazarek + Scholten

Proposed rejection. Obvious over Lazarek in view of Scholten, optionally with Wytovich or Cheney.

Why a POSHITA would combine them (motivation, articulated on the references' own terms):

1. Same field and same problem. Both are directed to covering a vehicle/window opening with a flexible sheet and to doing so removably, without tools, and without damaging the substrate. Lazarek's stated objects ("installed without the use of tools, without defacing the window frame, reasonable appearance, and stored in a minimum of space") are, word for word, the objectives recited in the '469 Background and Summary. This is the classic "known problem, known field" motivation.
2. The references point at each other's deficiencies. Lazarek's approach requires a mating fastener strip permanently affixed around the car window — a strip that "remains permanently attached and is not aesthetically pleasing" (the criticism later voiced in US 4,993,471 and inherent in Lazarek's own "neat and inconspicuous" design goal on the screen side). Magnetic attachment supplies exactly the missing property: nothing left on the vehicle. Scholten supplies the mechanism and proves it works — a flexible rubber‑based magnet strip that is (i) attachable along the edge of a flexible sheet, and (ii) matable with a strip secured by pressure‑sensitive adhesive. KSR rationale: simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result (magnet for hook‑and‑loop), and use of a known technique (magnetic edge attachment) to improve a similar device in the same way.
3. The screen itself is the known fastening site. Lazarek expressly teaches that the screen apertures are not merely ventilation but a structural fastening interface — its fastener claim recites a piece of screening with apertures of dimension D1 and a mating element of dimension D2 > D1 that must be deformed to pass through and is retained afterward. Once the screen's interstices are understood as the retention site (Lazarek) and the attachment element is a flexible magnetic strip bearing contact adhesive (Scholten), plastically extruding an adhesive‑bearing foil through the interstices so that the two adhesive layers meet is a predictable, finite design option for obtaining a permanent bond to an open‑weave substrate. KSR rationale: "obvious to try" over a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, in a field of predictable mechanics.
4. The tape and the magnet are known articles with the recited properties. Scholten teaches pressure‑sensitive adhesive on a magnetic strip (that is a contact adhesive). Wytovich teaches a tape placed over the edge of the cover to finish/secure it. The remaining choice — a low‑tensile metallic foil tape (dead‑soft aluminum foil tapes were long‑known commercial items used precisely because they deform to conform) — is the use of a known element for its known function.
5. Alignment is inherent and trivial. The claims require the tape and magnet to be "aligned." Both references mount their respective strips along the sheet edge in registry (Scholten: strips sewn into each edge; Lazarek: strips matched around the periphery "identical in configuration and size"). Aligning a backer strip with the magnet it backs is a mere design choice producing no new result.

Combination 2 (claims 7, and the peripheral-edge aspects of claims 5/9): + Wytovich and/or Cheney

Claim 7's "supplemental magnetic elements for placement on other edge portions of the sheet" is met almost verbatim by Wytovich's "plurality of magnets spaced about the peripheral edge" of a vehicle-window cover, and by Cheney's magnets-at-the-lower-edge-plus-tensioning-straps arrangement. Motivation: Wytovich and Cheney both address the problem Lazarek's two-strip system does not — holding the remaining edges of the sheet against a curved vehicle surface — the same reason the '469 spec gives for placing "individual lengths of magnet along the other edges of the screen."

Combination 3 (claim 9's 180° wrap): + Cheney (or Wytovich)

Cheney's hem‑encased magnets and Wytovich's folded, taped peripheral edge both disclose folding the sheet material over/around the magnet so that sheet material, not the magnet's edge, contacts the vehicle body. The motivation is explicit and identical to the '469 spec's: an exposed magnet edge at the transition creates a gap/step; folding the sheet over the magnet presents a smooth surface and a single layer of sheet between magnet and frame. KSR rationale: applying a known technique (hem‑encased magnet) to a known device (edge-mounted magnet sheet) ready for improvement, to yield a predictable result.

4.1 Dependent claims

5. The patentee's counterarguments, and how they fare

1. "None of the references teaches or suggests deforming an adhesive‑bearing element through a mesh so that two adhesive layers coalesce." This is the strongest argument, and it is a genuine gap. It should not, however, be overstated: Lazarek does not merely suggest that a fastener can engage a screen — it teaches the specific enabling geometry (element of larger transverse dimension than the aperture, deformed to pass through, retained thereafter). The difference reduces to (i) making the deformation permanent rather than resilient, and (ii) choosing the engaging element to be an adhesive‑carrying foil rather than a hook. Both are the kinds of "predictable variations" KSR treats as within the skill level.
2. "Lazarek teaches away, because its deformable projections must return to their original shape for the fastener to be repeatedly disconnectable." A real but limited argument. Lazarek's elasticity requirement is not a statement that permanent deformation is inoperable or undesirable for any purpose — it is a requirement of that fastener's specific design goal (repeatable demounting). A teaching that a component must be resilient in one embodiment is not, without more, a teaching away from a plastically deformable backer in a different attachment scheme. Moreover, Lazarek's own screen‑to‑strip attachment uses a "permanent adhesive," i.e., a permanent bond is expressly contemplated in the same reference.
3. "The prior art's adhesive strips are all applied to solid substrates (frame facings, cover hems, shade plies); none contemplates adhesives meeting one another through an open weave." True as a factual matter, but this is an argument about the substrate, and KSR cautions against treating a change in substrate as conferring patentability where the result (two adhesive layers in contact) is predictable. The patent's own admission that a naïve adhesive bond to screening "would only bend into the spaces … held temporarily by the tack of the adhesive," with "slow creep and release," frames the claimed solution as the recognition of a problem — and problems recognized in the art do not themselves patent the solutions they suggest.
4. Secondary considerations. For a § 103 defense this is the patentee's residual ground, and the record supplies essentially nothing: no objective evidence of commercial success, long‑felt need, failure of others, copying, or unexpected results is in the record supplied to me, and the patent lapsed for non‑payment in 1996 (per the previously generated sections), which is difficult to reconcile with a contemporaneous showing of commercial success. The spec's asserted advantages — no tools, no vehicle disfigurement, conformability to compound curves, compact storage — are attributable to the magnetic-attachment concept generally, which is exactly what Wytovich, Cheney, Lazarek, and Scholten already teach, rather than to the tape‑deformation feature. Nexus is therefore weak.
5. Priority. The CIP issue is a potential patentee liability, not a defense: claim 9's 180°‑wrap limitation likely takes 1991‑04‑25, and every reference of record predates 1990. Priority arguments will not defeat the art.

Net assessment. On the record as it stands, claims 4, 6, and 7 have the strongest § 103 exposure (near‑complete coverage by Scholten/Wytovich, plus routine‑optimization reasoning). Claims 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 are reasonably, but not conclusively, obvious over Lazarek + Scholten (+ Cheney for the wrap): the combination rationale is compelling on motivation and on all elements but the "permanently deformed adhesive tape coalescing through the interstices," which rests on a KSR "predictable variation / obvious to try" theory rather than on an express reference disclosure. Claims 3 and 8 turn on the aluminum‑tape selection and are a coin‑flip absent a reference that expressly teaches a plastically deformable, adhesive‑backed metal foil. Claims 1/5/9 would be materially easier to invalidate if a reference teaching an adhesive‑backed flexible magnetic strip (as opposed to a sewn‑in or frame‑applied one) were added — which is why the unflagged CA 1,223,482 on the same page's "Similar Documents" list, if its text matches its title, is worth pulling.

6. Bottom line

• All six references of record are § 102(b) art against every claim regardless of how the CIP priority dispute resolves.
• Lazarek (US 3,753,458) is the pivotal reference, and for a reason its title conceals: it teaches the screen's interstices as the fastening interface, with a mating element deformed through the apertures and retained, plus a strip on the opposite side of the screen and a permanent adhesive bond.
• Scholten (US 4,802,523) supplies the flexible, pressure‑sensitive‑adhesive magnetic strip mounted along a sheet edge and cooperating with a strip on the window frame; Wytovich (US 3,042,111) and Cheney (US 3,046,048) supply magnets distributed about the sheet periphery and hem‑encased/folded‑over magnets (the 180°‑wrap analogue for claim 9).
• The motivation to combine is strong and available on the faces of the references themselves (identical field, identical objects — tool‑free, non‑defacing, compactly storable — and a mutually complementary deficiency: Lazarek permanently modifies the vehicle; magnetic attachment does not).
• The only material gap is the "permanently/plastically deformed adhesive tape coalescing through the interstices" limitation, which requires a KSR predictable‑variation theory rather than a clean reference‑disclosure mapping. This is the limitation on which any defense of claims 1, 5, and 9 would have to stand — and it is a limitation whose enabling geometry Lazarek already discloses.

Confidence: mapping of Wytovich, Cheney, Lazarek, and Scholten — high (primary source text retrieved). Schwankl and Roman — no disclosure-based assertions made (Schwankl low; Roman none). The overall § 103 conclusions for claims 4/6/7 — high; for claims 1/2/5/9/10 — moderate; for claims 3/8 — low‑to‑moderate. If you need a litigation‑grade opinion, the two cheapest completeness steps are (a) the full Schwankl and Roman texts, and (b) CA 1,223,482 A — each of which could move the analysis from "reasonably obvious" to "clearly obvious" on the independent claims.