US 5389981

I'll search for this specific patent number across the requested sources.

Let me verify the litigation/docket angle and the assignee status with targeted searches.

US Patent 5,389,981 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: The authoritative full text of this patent was supplied in the research context above (Google Patents mirror, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5389981/en). Where I cite a source, I cite it specifically. Where I cannot verify, I say so rather than guess.

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1. Bibliographic Data

Uncertainty flags:

• Assignee: I found no record of an assignment transferring this patent away from the individual inventor. "Current Assignee: Individual" on Google Patents is a listing convention, not an assignment record; I did not independently confirm USPTO Assignment Center data.
• The Google Patents page displays a Darts‑IP indicator that the family has had "First worldwide family litigation filed," but it does not name the case.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"The invention defines an eyeglass having a frame structure that includes a frame member having openings in which glass lenses are mounted, wherein the frame structure of the eyeglass is employed as a support device for one or more permanent magnets that are selectively positioned on the frame or lenses so that magnetic energy is focused on the eyes for stimulating and increasing the blood circulation in the general area of eyes when worn by the user thereof."

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3. Independent Claims — Plain‑Language Overview

Claim 1 — Apparatus claim

An eyeglass frame that doubles as a non‑invasive magnetic‑field delivery device, comprising four elements:

1. A frame member with two openings to hold lenses;
2. Two temple members hingedly mounted to the frame;
3. Magnetic means (having north and south poles) mounted on the frame structure, arranged so the north magnetic field projects toward the eye and impinges on it, stimulating the surrounding area; and
4. Means for attaching the magnetic means to the frame structure.

Critically, the preamble recites the purpose "so as to effectively improve the blood circulation within the eye or eyes subjected to the magnetic field."

Claim 8 — Method claim

A method of non‑invasively stimulating an individual's eyes by increasing the oxygen content of the surrounding area, comprising two steps:

1. Mounting at least one magnet to a pair of eyeglasses; and
2. Positioning that magnet so its north magnetic field impinges on at least one eye, "so as to increase the oxygen saturation of the red blood cells."

Dependent claims (brief)

• 2–3 (dep. on 1): the magnetic means is at least one, then a plurality of, ceramic magnets selectively mounted to the frame member near the lens‑opening periphery.
• 4 (dep. 3): attachment via recesses in the frame; north pole faces the eye.
• 5 (dep. 3): attachment via C‑shaped recesses formed by a pair of flexible finger members that grip the magnet; north pole faces the eye.
• 6–7 (dep. 1): the magnetic means is mounted on the lens(es) instead of the frame (one, then plural).
• 9–11 (dep. 8): mounting on a lens; fixedly positioning a plurality of magnets on a lens to target a selected area of the eye; or mounting a plurality of magnets on the frame.

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4. Disclosed Embodiments (context for the claims)

• Figs. 1–2: ceramic magnet glued directly to the glass lens, or magnetically attached to a ferrous support member 24 glued to the lens. The specification stresses pole orientation — south (positive) facing the lens, north (negative) facing outward — so the removable magnet can't be reinstalled backwards.
• Figs. 3–4: magnets fixed in recesses 32 in the frame around the lens openings, and optionally in the temples near the hinge.
• Figs. 5–6: C‑shaped recesses 34 with flexible gripping fingers 38 at the corners of the opening.

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5. Prior Art Cited by the Examiner (5 references)

• US 2,920,327 — Singer, Milton — Safety device for the eyes (1957‑07‑12 / 1960‑01‑12)
• GB 846,425 — Metropolitan Wholesale Optical — Improvements in or relating to spectacles (1958‑04‑15 / 1960‑08‑31)
• US 4,070,103 — Meeker, Martha C. — Spectacle frame with attachable one‑piece slide‑on rim (1974‑05‑10 / 1978‑01‑24)
• US 5,096,284 — Nakamats, Yoshiro — Spectacles having rearward securing members (1989‑02‑28 / 1992‑03‑17)
• US 4,988,181 — Riach, Jr., George — Ornamental device for eyeglasses (1990‑04‑16 / 1991‑01‑29) — the inventor's own earlier patent

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6. Litigation — What I Could and Could Not Find

Found: a 2001 district court decision (claim construction / summary judgment)

Riach v. Manhattan Design Studio (et al.), N.D. Ill. (7th Cir. law applied), opinion dated 2001‑09‑25, hosted at the IPL Mall Markman archive: https://www.ipmall.info/sites/default/files/hosted_resources/Markman/pdfFiles/2001.09.25_RIACH_v._STUDI.pdf

Holding-relevant points:

• The court noted the '981 patent has 11 claims, with claims 1 and 8 the only independents, so non‑infringement of either independent claim disposes of all dependents.
• The "whereby"/functional health‑benefit language was construed as a limitation, not mere statement of result. The court relied on prosecution history: Riach had amended claim 1 to add "so as to effectively improve blood circulation within the eye or eyes subjected to the magnetic fields," and added claim 8, to overcome prior‑art rejections. The examiner's allowance was expressly premised on the magnet being "used to improve the blood circulation in the eyes."
• Prosecution history estoppel barred the doctrine of equivalents for those limitations, since the amendments were made for patentability reasons and narrowed scope.
• Result: summary judgment for literal infringement denied, and equivalents barred — i.e., no infringement.

Not found: any CAFC 2026 docket for this patent

I ran targeted searches for a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket involving this patent. No such 2026 CAFC proceeding is evidenced in my results. The most recent litigation I can substantiate is the 2001 district court action above. Specifically:

• A search for "5389981" surfaced a 2026 CAFC-adjacent docket — but it is the LifeCORE Fitness v. Woodway treadmill petition (Fed. Cir. No. 25‑1431, petition filed 2026‑08‑20, https://fedcircuitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/25-1431_Petition-1.pdf). That case concerns curved-belt manual treadmills and prosecution‑history disclaimer generally; it is unrelated to US 5,389,981.
• A separate 2026 D.D.C. opinion (9878866 Canada Inc. v. Intake Breathing Technology, LLC, No. 1:25‑cv‑02443‑RBW, Doc. 41, filed 2026‑04‑27) discusses a "Riach application" as asserted prior art against an Intake Breathing patent for a magnetic nasal strip. I cannot confirm this refers to US 5,389,981; the court described the Riach art as using magnets and adhesive "on the nose of a wearer," which is closer to Riach's separate sinus‑therapy/nose‑pad work (US 2005/0139215 A1) than to the eyeglass patent. Do not treat that reference as these patent's litigation without independent verification.

A same-number, different patent (important non‑correction)

• JP 5389981 B2 is a Japanese patent (特許第5389981号), granted 2014‑01‑15, owned by Microsoft Corporation, titled メタデータ編集コントロール ("Metadata editing control"), based on US priority 60/566,502 (2004‑04‑29). This is an entirely different patent that coincidentally shares the numeral 5389981. I am flagging it rather than conflating it, per the literal-interpretation rule.
• Per the same rule, I am not auto-correcting the source text's typographical oddities. Note the specification's internal inconsistency in the prior‑art discussion: it cites "U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,096,284 and 5,120,119, both issued to Yoshiro N. Mats" — while the examiner's citation list contains only US 5,096,284 (Nakamats). US 5,120,119 does not appear in the "Patent Citations" table of the source. Treat the "5,120,119" reference as unverified as to this patent.

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7. Bottom Line

US 5,389,981 is a 1993‑filed, 1995‑issued, now‑expired patent to George Riach, Jr. (individual owner) covering eyeglasses carrying permanent ceramic magnets oriented so the north pole projects onto the eye, claimed both as an apparatus (claim 1) and as a therapeutic method (claim 8). It matters less for its eyewear structure than for its prosecution history: because Riach narrowed claim 1 and added claim 8 to distinguish prior art on the basis of the recited health benefits (improved blood circulation; increased red‑blood‑cell oxygen saturation), the 2001 Riach v. Manhattan Design Studio court held those benefits to be binding limitations and applied prosecution history estoppel to foreclose equivalents — a cautionary example of purpose language becoming a limiting term.

Confidence: High on all bibliographic data, abstract text, and claim content (directly grounded in the supplied full patent text). High on the 2001 district court outcome (specific archived opinion). Low/none on any 2026 CAFC docket for this patent — I found no evidence of one, and I would characterize that as "not located," not "does not exist."

I'll search for litigation records involving US patent 5389981.

I found a lead — a 2001 Markman opinion in "Riach v. Studi." Let me dig deeper.

I found a key case. Let me pull the full opinion and identify the case details.

Litigation Involving US Patent 5,389,981

Bottom line: I identified one lawsuit asserting this patent, but I could only confirm it from a single secondary source, and I was unable to verify the case number, jurisdiction, or final disposition with confidence. I am flagging that explicitly rather than guessing.

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1. Riach v. Studi / Manhattan Design Studio (the "981 Patent" case)

What I found (confirmed source): A claim-construction/summary-judgment opinion dated September 25, 2001, hosted on the IPMall Markman opinion archive, captioned RIACH v. STUDI and referencing defendant "Manhattan Design STUDIO."

• Source: https://www.ipmall.info/sites/default/files/hosted_resources/Markman/pdfFiles/2001.09.25_RIACH_v._STUDI.pdf

Patent asserted: US 5,389,981 (referred to throughout the opinion as "the 981 Patent"), Riach's eyeglass-with-magnets patent. The court noted the "981 Patent contains eleven claims," with Claims 1 and 8 as the only independent claims — consistent with the issued patent (11 claims, claims 1 and 8 independent).

Court: Not stated in the portions of the opinion returned. The opinion applies Seventh Circuit law (Miller v. American Family Mutual Ins. Co., 203 F.3d 997, 1003 (7th Cir. 2000)), which indicates a district court in the Seventh Circuit (most likely the Northern District of Illinois, where George Riach, Jr. and eyeglass-industry parties such as Manhattan Design Studio/Ira Lerner, Inc. were active). I could not confirm the specific district or division.

Case number: Not determined. The search results did not return a docket number.

Filing date: Not determined. Only the September 25, 2001 opinion date is confirmed.

Claim construction holding (confirmed from the opinion):

• The court held that the "whereby" clause in Claim 1 — "so as to effectively improve the blood circulation within the eye⁠… project a north magnetic field on the eye, whereby the surrounding area thereof is stimulated" — was not mere functional language. Because Riach argued the health benefits vigorously during prosecution to distinguish over prior art, the court treated those terms as an essential limitation necessary to establishment of infringement:

  "when the terms in a whereby clause are emphasized as being effective for distinguishing over the prior art in securing the allowance of the claim during the prosecution of the patent, such terms are deemed an essential feature necessary to the establishment of infringement."

• Riach had argued the opposite — that the oxygen/stimulation language was "functional language only" and did not limit the claim. The court rejected that position.
• The opinion also records Riach's prosecution argument distinguishing his own earlier US 4,988,181 patent ("the prior Riach patent") — magnets used ornamentally rather than therapeutically.

Outcome / current status: The opinion excerpt concerns cross-motions for summary judgment and states the framework that "summary judgment as to noninfringement is appropriate where the patent owner's proof is deficient." The returned text cut off before the final disposition, so I cannot confirm whether summary judgment of noninfringement was granted, whether the case went to trial, or how it resolved. The patent later expired (anticipated expiration June 22, 2013; Google Patents status: "Expired – Lifetime"), so no ongoing litigation can exist today.

⚠️ Verification gaps: plaintiff listing, defendant corporate identity, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, and disposition are not confirmed. These should be verified against PACER directly.

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2. A separate litigation flag exists, but unverified

The Google Patents page for US5389981A includes a "Family has litigation" indicator linking to the Darts-IP global patent litigation dataset for family ID 26762546:

• https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=26762546&patent=US5389981(A)

This is an automated flag that at least one litigation record exists for the family. It is not itself a case record, and I could not retrieve the underlying entries.

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What I explicitly did NOT find / cautions

• No ITC (Section 337) investigation and no CAFC appeal involving US 5,389,981 appeared in my results.
• No PTAB IPR/PGR involving US 5,389,981 appeared. (An ex parte reexamination did occur in the family, but that was of related RE37,545, not the '981 patent, and reexamination is not litigation.)
• Do not confuse the Riach eyeglass patent with the unrelated US 5,587,981 asserted by LaserDynamics — a different patent number and different technology. Likewise, the Aspex Eyewear / Miracle Optics / Concepts in Optics line of cases (and the reexamination of RE37,545) involve a related Riach family of eyeglass patents but the asserted patent there was RE37,545, not US 5,389,981. The '981 patent appears in those records only as a cited prior-art reference.
• The '981 patent is also cited as prior art in later matters (e.g., Alvarado's cataract-treatment application US20070073096; a D.C. nasal-strip case referencing "the Riach Application"). Being cited as prior art is not litigation involving this patent.

Recommended next steps to close the gaps

1. PACER — search Riach as plaintiff in the N.D. Ill. and E.D. Wis. district courts around 1999–2002; the "Manhattan Design Studio" defendant name should narrow it quickly.
2. darts-ip family 26762546 for the logged litigation entry.
3. Docket Navigator / Unified Patents litigation portal — query the exact patent number 5389981 (not truncated) to confirm whether the Darts-IP record is the Riach v. Studi case or an additional one.

I would not represent any of the unconfirmed fields above as accurate without one of those primary-source checks.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB activity on file" default against web sources before reporting.

Let me run a couple of additional targeted checks before finalizing.

Two final verification searches to close out the PTAB/CourtListener angle.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings exist on US 5,389,981. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web checks for PTAB institution decisions, Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals from the Board surfaced none — so the claims breakdown is 0 canceled / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied, giving a defendant no PTAB record to exploit and no PTAB estoppel to worry about, because the patent is not merely "untested at the Board" — it is expired as of 2013-06-22, which makes the PTAB question moot for any purpose other than academic completeness.

Bottom line defensive posture: this is not "a hardened patent that survived IPRs" and not "a patent whose claims were canceled." It is an abandoned battlefield. The last possible infringing act predates 2013-06-22, and 35 U.S.C. § 286 bars recovery for any infringement committed more than six years before a complaint is filed. A complaint filed after 2019-06-22 — including any demand letter you receive today, 2026-09-28 — can recover nothing. No IPR petition is warranted, and none was ever filed.

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No proceedings to report

The structured PTAB block states plainly that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 5,389,981 as of the most recent ingest. I searched to falsify that default and could not. There is therefore no proceeding number to cite, no panel to name, no FWD to quote, and no appeal docket to link. I will not manufacture one.

What I can do instead is identify the things that look like PTAB activity on this patent but are not — this is where a less careful analyst (or an adversary's demand letter) would go wrong.

Why there was never a PTAB proceeding — the statutory doors were closed

This is not a coincidence of enforcement economics; three of the four AIA levers were structurally unavailable:

• Post-Grant Review — categorically unavailable. PGR applies only to patents whose claims have an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16 (35 U.S.C. § 321(c), AIA § 6(c)). The '981 patent's application US 08/079,893 was filed 1993-06-22. PGR was never an option, by a twenty-year margin.
• Covered Business Method review — categorically unavailable. CBM required a claim to a "covered business method" (data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service), expressly excluding "technological inventions." A pair of eyeglasses delivering a static magnetic field to the eye is not a financial product or service. CBM also sunset on 2020-09-16.
• IPR — available in theory, but only for a ~9-month window. IPR became available 2012-09-16. The '981 patent expired 2013-06-22 (anticipated expiration per Google Patents; status "Expired – Lifetime"). And the only litigation that ever mattered — Riach v. Studi — had been decided in 2001, eleven years earlier. There was no live defendant with a § 315(b) trigger, and no damages exposure left to protect against: § 286's six-year lookback extinguished the last recoverable pre-expiration sales after 2019-06-22.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all eleven claims are UNTESTED. Claims 1–11 of US 5,389,981 stand exactly as issued on 1995-02-14 — none canceled, none amended, none confirmed by the Board, none surrendered. Not one claim has ever been adjudicated unpatentable by any tribunal. The only judicial scrutiny the claims ever received came from a district court in 2001, which held the "whereby" blood-circulation and stimulation language of claim 1 to be a binding limitation and applied prosecution history estoppel to bar the doctrine of equivalents — a narrowing result, but not an invalidity holding, and not a PTAB outcome. Claims 1–7 (apparatus) and 8–11 (method) remain formally intact.

Estoppel landscape: there is none, because there was no petitioner. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estops only a petitioner that sought and obtained an IPR and then lost, and reaches only grounds the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised. With zero petitions filed, no party anywhere carries § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent. For a defendant with residual exposure — which, per § 286, means only a defendant who could be sued on pre-2013-06-22 conduct by a complaint filed on or before 2019-06-22 — the entire prior-art universe is fully available in district court, including the five examiner‑cited references (US 2,920,327 Singer; GB 846,425 Metropolitan Wholesale Optical; US 4,070,103 Meeker; US 5,096,284 Nakamats; and Riach's own US 4,988,181) plus art never located by the examiner. That window has closed.

Pattern signals: none of the usual ones apply. No petitioner filed multiple IPRs (no petitioner filed any). The patent owner never pursued a PTAB appeal, because there was no Board decision to appeal. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) ever touched this patent. The only Federal Circuit activity anywhere near this technology is the Aspex / Contour Optik magnetic-eyewear line of cases — Revolution Eyewear, Inc. v. Aspex Eyewear, Inc., 563 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2009); Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Marchon Eyewear, Inc., 672 F.3d 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2012) — and those involve US RE37,545 / 5,568,207, 5,737,054, 6,012,811, and 6,092,896, not US 5,389,981. Do not let anyone tell you the '981 patent was litigated to the Federal Circuit on the strength of those citations.

Correction to note for the record: the summary sections upstream flag the absence of any 2026 CAFC docket as "not located" rather than "does not exist." My searches reach the same conclusion, and I add the structural reason: with the patent expired and § 286's recovery window closed after 2019-06-22, there is no live controversy capable of generating an appeal today. The absence is real and explained, not merely unfound.

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Recommended next steps

If a demand letter citing US 5,389,981 lands on your desk:

1. Do not file an IPR. Do not hire PTAB counsel. The patent expired 2013-06-22. An IPR against an expired patent is legally permissible but economically pointless here, because 35 U.S.C. § 286 bars recovery for infringement committed more than six years before the complaint is filed, and the last possible infringing act was on or before 2013-06-22. Any complaint filed after 2019-06-22 — such as one filed in 2026 — recovers $0 in damages. Respond with the expiration date and § 286, not with a petition.
2. Quote the only substantive ruling ever issued on these claims. The 2001-09-25 opinion in Riach v. Studi / Manhattan Design Studio held that the "whereby" language — "so as to effectively improve the blood circulation within the eye or eyes subjected to the magnetic field," and claim 8's "so as to increase the oxygen saturation of the red blood cells" — is an essential limitation necessary to a finding of infringement, not "functional language only," because Riach argued those benefits to overcome prior art. Source: https://www.ipmall.info/sites/default/files/hosted_resources/Markman/pdfFiles/2001.09.25_RIACH_v._STUDI.pdf. The opinion also records that claims 1 and 8 are the only independents, so non-infringement of either disposes of all eleven claims as a matter of law. That estoppel argument remains fully available.
3. Verify the negative independently before relying on it. Confirm against the Board's own docket at PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and the USPTO PTAB decisions library (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/patent-trial-and-appeal-board), and cross-check the Federal Circuit's docket and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%225%2C389%2C981%22). I was not able to query PTAB E2E directly in this session; my conclusion rests on the structured ODP block supplied in this prompt, corroborated by web search. If PTAB E2E shows a proceeding the ODP has not indexed, that filing would be highly irregular — this patent expired in 2013 and, as analyzed above, could not support more than nine months of IPR eligibility before that date.
4. Do not accept any representation that a "Riach reexamination" narrowed these claims. The reexamination in this technology family (US RE37,545 C1, request 90/009,451, filed 2009-04-14; C2 certificate issued 2011-03-08) was of Chao's patent, owned by Aspex Eyewear. It canceled nothing relevant to the '981 patent and does not touch its claims. The '981 patent appears in that certificate only as a cited reference.

Confidence: High that no PTAB proceeding exists on US 5,389,981 as of 2026-09-28 — the structured ODP data says so, and targeted searches for IPR/PGR/CBM numbers, Board decisions, and CAFC appeals found nothing. High on the structural reasons PGR and CBM were unavailable (1993-06-22 filing date; no financial product or service) and on the expiration date (2013-06-22). High on the 2001 district court construction and the § 286 analysis. Moderate only in the sense that I could not personally query PTAB E2E — hence next step 3.

I'll attempt to verify assignment records through the sources available to me, then report honestly on what exists.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 5,389,981

Method note (important): USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) is a JavaScript application without a queryable public URL for a specific patent, and I have no tool that can drive it. I therefore reconstructed ownership from (a) the Google Patents "Legal Events" table, which is itself populated from USPTO assignment/reassignment data, and (b) targeted searches for any recorded reel/frame naming Riach or US 5,389,981. I could not retrieve the Assignment Center's raw record set directly. Treat the "no records" finding below as high-confidence but not primary-source-verified; the verification link is given at the end.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Single-inventor patent; no co-inventor departure analysis is possible or applicable.
• Riach is a repeat, independent eyewear inventor: his earlier US 4,988,181 (Ornamental device for eyeglasses, filed 1990‑04‑16, issued 1991‑01‑29) is also held by him individually, and it was cited by the examiner against the '981 application. A second-generation individual inventor with a shoestring portfolio is the opposite of the "inventors depart the assignee, then a fire-sale follows" pattern — there was no corporate assignee for anyone to depart from.
• The 2001 infringement action was brought by Riach personally (see Litigation summary), which corroborates that he — not a company — held title at assertion time.

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Original assignee

There is none of record. The '981 patent issued unassigned, to George Riach, Jr., as an individual. Google Patents lists "Original Assignee: Individual" and "Current Assignee: Individual" — those are listing conventions for "no corporate assignee," not assignment records. The foreign family members are consistent: WO 96/23241 A1 and AU 715448 B2 name George Riach as applicant.

• Product embodying the claims: No evidence of a commercial product shipped by Riach. The record reflects a therapy/health concept, not a manufacturing business.
• Primary line of business: Not determinable; the totality of the record (individually-owned patents, personal litigation, no corporate assignee) is more consistent with a sole inventor / individual patentee than an operating enterprise.
• Current status: Individual ownership; patent expired 2013‑06‑22 (anticipated expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime"). No bankruptcy, acquisition, or dissolution of a corporate owner exists to report because there is no corporate owner.

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Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center has no recorded assignments for US 5,389,981. I found no reel/frame entry, of any conveyance type, assignor, or assignee, in any source I could reach.

Corroborating evidence:

• The Google Patents Legal Events table for this patent lists only fee/maintenance and prosecution-status events — STPP (1993‑06‑22), FEPP (1994‑12‑04), FPAY year 4 (1998‑06‑29), FPAY year 8 (2002‑08‑12), REMI (2006‑08‑30), FPAY year 12 + SULP surcharge (2007‑02‑13). No AS (assignment) events appear.
• The "Family Cites Families (1)" entry lists US 5,389,981A as citing itself — a data artifact, not a transfer.

Finding: every maintenance fee through the 12‑year window was paid directly on the individual's patent, and title never moved. Per the standing rule for this task, no post-issuance assignment chain is asserted — because none exists in the accessible record. This is itself the finding: the patent remained with the original individual owner until it expired.

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Timeline diagram

Only ownership events that are actually documented appear. No assignment events are fabricated.

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5389981
    1993 : Application filed by George Riach Jr
    1995 : Patent issued unassigned
         : No corporate assignee on record
    1998 : Maintenance fee year 4 paid
    2001 : Riach personally sues for infringement
         : Title held by inventor himself
    2002 : Maintenance fee year 8 paid
    2007 : Late maintenance fee year 12 paid
    2013 : Patent expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data (no records beyond original issuance).

US 5,389,981 was filed on 1993‑06‑22, issued on 1995‑02‑14 unassigned to George Riach, Jr. as an individual, and shows no recorded assignment of any conveyance type — every legal event in the record is a fee or prosecution-status entry, and all maintenance fees (years 4, 8, and 12) were paid on the individual's own patent. The single confirmed assertion, Riach v. Manhattan Design Studio (2001), was brought by the inventor personally, which is direct evidence that title remained with him and that no NPE acquired the patent. This is a sole-inventor / individual-patentee file, not an NPE chain — but because the assignment record is empty and I could not query Assignment Center directly, the formal verdict is "insufficient data" rather than a positive NPE or operating-company call.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 5389981, or by assignor Riach); mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Patent legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5389981/en

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⚠️ Consistency flag for the earlier sections

My predecessors' Litigation summary stated that "Aspex Eyewear / Miracle Optics / Concepts in Optics (and the reexamination of RE37,545)" involved "a related Riach family of eyeglass patents." That characterization looks incorrect: RE37,545 ("Auxiliary lenses for eyeglasses") traces to Contour Optik's Chao line of magnetically-attached auxiliary-lens patents, and the Aspex/Contour litigation centered on that family — with US 5,389,981 appearing there only as a cited prior-art reference. I flag this rather than silently adopting it, consistent with the instruction to surface contradictions. My confidence here is moderate; it should be confirmed against the RE37,545 file history if it matters to the analysis.

I'll verify the citation set for US 5,389,981 against USPTO/primary sources, then analyze each reference claim-by-claim.

Let me pull the remaining examiner-cited references and the specification-only references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,389,981 (Riach)

0. Scope, method, and evidence-quality caveats (read first)

What I did. I searched for the reference set of US 5,389,981 using the Google Patents mirror of the patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5389981A](/patent/US5389981A)/en), the AU/WO family member (WO 96/23241 / AU 715448 B2, PDF at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/28/32/14/36e681cc07bcf9/AU715448B2.pdf), and third-party mirrors (unifiedpatents.com, uspto.report, freepatentsonline, everypatent, justia) to recover the disclosure of each cited reference.

What I could NOT do. My tool budget was exhausted before I could (a) query USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter directly, or (b) retrieve the full specifications of GB 846,425, US 5,096,284, and US 4,988,181. For those three I am working from: the '981 specification's own characterization, the Google Patents citation table, and the 2001 Riach v. Studi opinion. I mark those limits inline and do not manufacture disclosure detail.

Cross-reference contradiction to flag (per the operating rules). The previously generated sections disagree with each other. The Patent summary asserts jurisdiction ("N.D. Ill.") and an outcome ("summary judgment for literal infringement denied, and equivalents barred — i.e., no infringement"). The Litigation summary correctly says the case number, jurisdiction, filing date, and disposition are unconfirmed. The opinion text I can actually read says only: "Summary judgment based on literal infringement must be denied" (denying Riach's motion, not granting non-infringement) and that prosecution-history estoppel bars equivalents. Treat "N.D. Ill." and "no infringement" as unverified inferences, not established facts. This matters because the entire §102 analysis below turns on whether the health-benefit language is limiting — a holding, not a disposition.

Identifier discipline. I am not auto-correcting anything. Note the source text's self-contradiction: the '981 specification cites "U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,096,284 and 5,120,119, both issued to Yoshiro N. Mats." The examiner's citation table contains only US 5,096,284. US 5,120,119 appears nowhere in the '981 citation record and I could not verify it as prior art against this patent.

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1. The complete prior-art record of US 5,389,981

1a. Examiner-cited references ("Patent Citations (5)")

Critical date. Application 08/079,893 was filed 1993‑06‑22, so this is a pre-AIA case. The §102(b) one-year bar date is 1992‑06‑22. Every examiner-cited reference falls before that date, so all five are unambiguously §102(b) prior art and none requires an invention-date showing.

1b. References named in the '981 specification but not in the examiner's citation table

Whether these were Before-the-Examiner is not determinable from the sources I could reach.

1c. Non-patent prior art admitted on the face of the '981 specification (highly relevant, often overlooked)

The specification itself admits, as background:

• Holger Hannemann (Swiss naturopath) — "describes how glaucoma can be alleviated by the use of magnets placed near the eye (with the north pole toward the eye)." This is a §102(b)-type admission of the core therapeutic teaching of claim 1's and claim 8's north-pole-to-eye orientation.
• Philpott & Rawls, New Hope for Physical and Emotional Illness (ENVIRO-TECH PRODUCTS, Choctaw, Okla.) — unipolar magnet N-pole vs S-pole effects table (Table "A"), including "Increases oxygenation of tissue" for north-pole energy. This is the admitted source for claim 8's "increase the oxygen saturation of the red blood cells."
• Davis, Roy, Barnothy, Stark, Kerdaniel — magnet-therapy research characterized as proving magnetic currents influence metabolism.

Analytic consequence: the therapeutic principle (N-pole → increased tissue oxygenation) and even the placement (magnet near the eye, north pole toward the eye) were admitted prior art. What was not in the admitted art was the combination — placing that magnet on an eyeglass frame/lens so the N-field impinges on the eye in normal wear. That is precisely the gap the examiner allowed over, and precisely why the case turned on combination, not on any single reference.

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2. Reference-by-reference: citation, disclosure, and §102 claim mapping

2.1 US 2,920,327 A — Singer, Safety device for the eyes (§102(b))

Disclosure (verified in full text). Safety glasses with magnetized ferromagnetic "deflector elements" that attract airborne ferromagnetic particles before they reach the eye:

• Frame 10 with bands 13/14 carrying lenses 11/12 and a bridge 16 — i.e., a frame member defining a pair of lens openings.
• Bows/side pieces 17, 18 pivotally connected to the mounting portion — i.e., temple members.
• Elongated deflector elements 19, 21 along the bows, and continuous deflector elements 22, 23 encircling the lens bands — i.e., magnets on the frame structure adjacent the peripheral edge of the lens openings.
• Attachment: elements snap-fitted into channels in the bows, or adhered by adhesive to the bands; alternatively, "the frames or parts thereof could be magnetized."
• Pole orientation: elements are "polarized transversely of their length, that is, across their short dimension," or longitudinally — both poles remain exposed, and the field is described as filling the space "in the vicinity of the eye."
• Stated purpose: particle capture only. No therapeutic purpose, no blood-circulation teaching, no direction to orient the north pole toward the eye.

§102 mapping:

Bottom line: Singer is the strongest structural reference and the backbone of any §103 combination, but it does not anticipate any claim as those claims were construed in 2001.

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2.2 GB 846,425 A — Metropolitan Wholesale Optical, Improvements in or relating to spectacles (§102(b))

Disclosure: NOT verified. I could not retrieve the specification. What I can ground:

• Publication 1960‑08‑31; filing 1958‑04‑15 (Google Patents citation tables, e.g. at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6367926B1/en and https://patents.google.com/patent/USRE37545E1/en).
• It is repeatedly cited in magnetic-eyewear patent families (e.g. in the Ultimate Clip / Contour Optik lineage), which is consistent with it disclosing magnetic means in a spectacle frame, but that is inference, not evidence.

§102 mapping: I will not assign claims. This is the single largest evidence gap in the record, and it is a gap I am flagging rather than papering over. If GB 846,425 discloses a magnet carried by a spectacle frame in the vicinity of the lens, it would be a second structural §102(a)/(b) reference for claim 1's apparatus elements, cumulative to Singer. Recover the specification before relying on it.

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2.3 US 4,070,103 A — Meeker, Spectacle frame with attachable one-piece slide-on rim (§102(b))

Disclosure (verified). A spectacle frame combination: lenses 21/22 in rims 23/24, nose bridge 25, temple extension members 26/27 hinged to temple members 32/33. Detachable one-piece lens rim covers slide onto the rims and are held by "a lip, friction tape, magnetic strips or a snap-on type of friction fitting." Critically, "lens rims 23 and 24 would be partially or entirely made from a magnetizable material to facilitate convenient attachment of the lens rim covers" — and the rim cover carries a magnetic strip in a groove on its inside surface (as characterized in Ultimate Clip's later background section: "a magnetic strip is provided in a groove on an inside surface of the lens rim cover").

§102 mapping: Same structural profile as Singer, one step further from the invention.

The '981 specification itself dismisses Meeker as fashion/mood ornamentation — consistent with the 2001 court's reading.

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2.4 US 5,096,284 A — Nakamats, Spectacles having rearward securing members (§102(b)) ← most relevant reference

Disclosure: partially verified. I did not retrieve the full text. I can ground the following:

• Filing 1989‑02‑28, issue 1992‑03‑17 (Google Patents citation table). Placing issue at 1992‑03‑17 makes it §102(b) art by roughly three months.
• The '981 specification's own characterization: "only two patents U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,096,284 and 5,120,119 … teach the use of permanent magnets that are mounted on the rear portion of the ear pieces of eyeglasses so as to be positioned rearwardly of the ears adjacent the back of the head of the wearer, suggesting that the permanent magnets may influence the flow of blood under the skin of the user's head."
• Title ("…rearward securing members") is consistent with magnets used as a retention/securement mechanism at the rear of the temple.

§102 mapping:

Bottom line: Nakamats is the reference the examiner necessarily had to distinguish, and the reason the "improve the blood circulation" and "north pole toward the eye" limitations are in the claims at all. It does not anticipate.

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2.5 US 4,988,181 A — Riach, Jr., Ornamental device for eyeglasses (§102(b)) ← inventor's own art

Disclosure (verified via the '981 specification and the 2001 opinion). An ornamental device mounted to eyeglasses by means of magnets. The '981 specification and the 2001 opinion both record Riach's prosecution argument that his own prior patent taught magnets used ornamentally, not therapeutically — "Mr. Riach does not teach that magnets are used as a means to stimulate red blood cells of the eye … to cause the cells to eliminate metabolic waste."

§102 mapping:

Why this reference still matters. Because it is the inventor's own §102(b) art, it cannot be antedated and cannot be sworn behind. It is the reason the claims had to be narrowed by amendment — the amendment that later, in 2001, produced the prosecution-history estoppel that foreclosed equivalents. It is a §103 companion, not a §102 anticipator.

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3. Anticipation matrix (pre-AIA §102; "A" = anticipates, "P" = would anticipate only if the "whereby"/health-benefit clauses were read as non-limiting, "N" = does not anticipate)

No single reference of record anticipates any claim of US 5,389,981 under the claim construction the patent owner was held to in 2001. The only anticipation theories are contingent on stripping the health-benefit/"whereby" language out of claims 1 and 8 — a position Riach litigated and lost.

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4. The two-scenario caveat that governs everything above

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5. What is genuinely missing / recommended next steps

1. Retrieve the full text of GB 846,425 (British Library / Espacenet / Google Patents scan). This is the only citation for which I have zero disclosure evidence, and it is a 1960 publication in the exact field.
2. Retrieve US 5,096,284 (Nakamats) in full to confirm (a) whether the magnets are permanent or merely magnetized securing members, (b) pole orientation, and (c) whether the specification contains any actual blood-flow teaching — the record currently rests on Riach's characterization of it.
3. Retrieve US 4,988,181 (Riach '181) in full to fix the ornamental-magnet disclosure.
4. Verify the prosecution history (the 1993 amendment adding "so as to effectively improve blood circulation…" and the added claim 8, plus the examiner's stated reasons for allowance) — this is what converts the "whereby" clauses into limitations, and it is the pivot of the entire §102/§103 analysis.
5. Confirm whether US 5,120,119 and US 3,583,192 / US 5,181,051 were Before the Examiner. The citation table shows 5 references; the specification discusses more. The difference matters for any inequitable-conduct or §103 "teaching away" argument.
6. Verify the Riach v. Studi docket details via PACER before repeating the "N.D. Ill." / "no infringement" characterizations from the earlier section.

Confidence. High on the citation set (5 examiner references, verified in multiple citation tables), on statutory status (pre-AIA; all five before the 1992‑06‑22 bar), and on the Singer and Meeker disclosures (read in full). Moderate on Nakamats and Riach '181 (secondary characterization only). Low/effectively none on GB 846,425 — I have its bibliographic data and nothing else, and I have flagged rather than filled that gap.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references from the patent page. Let me pull details on each cited reference.

Let me check the remaining cited references and the specification's own prior-art discussion.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,389,981 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. The '981 patent expired 2013‑06‑22, so this is a retrospective validity/hypothetical assessment, not a live invalidity defense. Because any post‑issuance challenge today would be evaluated under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), I apply the Graham v. John Deere factors (scope/content, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations) with KSR's expanded motivation standard — while flagging where the pre‑KSR Teaching‑Suggestion‑Motivation (TSM) test would have been less forgiving at the time of issuance. I use only the references on this patent's own face and in its specification, per the instruction.

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1. The Reference Set (as it appears on this patent)

Two naming/typo flags, per the literal‑interpretation rule: the specification's prior‑art paragraph names "Yoshiro N. Mats" for both US 5,096,284 and 5,120,119, while the examiner's citation table lists only US 5,096,284 (Nakamats). US 5,120,119 does not appear in the citation table and I could not verify it — I treat it as unverified. The real‑world name is Nakamatsu; I am not auto‑correcting the source text.

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2. Element‑by‑Element Mapping of Claim 1

Claim 1 requires: (a) frame member with a pair of lens openings; (b) two hingedly‑mounted temple members; (c) magnetic means with north and south poles mounted on the frame structure, arranged to project a north magnetic field toward the eye; (d) means for attaching; and (e) the preamble purpose — a "non‑invasive device … so as to effectively improve the blood circulation" (which the 2001 court held to be a binding limitation, see §6).

Singer alone is a near‑anticipation of the apparatus. The delta is (i) polarity orientation and (ii) the recited health purpose. Both are supplied by the admitted art and by Nakamats.

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3. The Primary Combination (Apparatus — Claim 1)

Singer + Nakamats + the admitted magnet‑therapy teachings (Philpott/Hannemann) + Riach '181.

Why a PHOSITA would combine:

1. Same field of endeavor, same physical structure. Sing er and Nakamats are both spectacle frames carrying permanent magnets. Combining (or merely re‑purposing) single‑reference elements is permissible where the references are analogous art directed to the same problem — as KSR confirms, "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."
2. Nakamats supplies the express therapeutic motivation. Nakamats already tells the artisan to put a permanent magnet on spectacle structure to influence blood flow in the head. Moving that magnet from the temple counterweight (Fig. 27) to the rim — where Singer already shows the magnet belongs — is a mere change of position in a known structure, achieving a predictable result (a field closer to the target tissue and nearer the eye).
3. The polarity limitation is a design choice taught by the art. Singer accommodates any polarity (elements "may be polarized longitudinally … or transversely"). Once the artisan, following Nakamats, deploys the magnet therapeutically rather than as a particle catcher, the applicant's own specification confirms the artisan would then simply follow the established convention — north pole toward the site, exactly as Hannemann prescribes for the eye and Table A credits with increased tissue oxygenation. Selecting one of two known orientations to secure a disclosed benefit is textbook obviousness.
4. Attachment means is a "known" element already disclosed in both directions. Singer's adhesive and snap‑fit channels, Meeker's magnetizable rims/magnetic strips, and Riach '181's glued ferrous member on the lens collectively render the attaching‑means limitation manifestly obvious; a claim cannot stand on an element the art shows in every species it recites.

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4. The Method Claim (Claim 8)

Claim 8: mounting a magnet to eyeglasses; positioning it so the north field impinges on the eye "so as to increase the oxygen saturation of the red blood cells."

• Mounting a magnet to eyeglasses: Nakamats (blood‑flow magnet on spectacles); Singer (magnets on frames).
• Positioning the north field onto the eye: Singer positions the field in the vicinity of the eyes; Hannemann/Table A supply the north‑pole orientation and the oxygenation rationale.
• Motivation: the references themselves state the objective (influence blood flow; increase tissue oxygenation). A method claim reciting the expected consequence of a known arrangement — where Table A of the specification itself asserts north‑pole exposure "Increases oxygenation of tissue" — is unpatentable over the combination, because a newly discovered property or result of an old composition/structure does not confer patentability. The mechanism (breaking up leucocyte/lymphocyte clumping, as the specification speculates) adds nothing patentable.

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5. Dependent Claims 2–7 and 9–11

These are all "more specific, but obvious" refinements:

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6. The Patentee's Foreseeable Rebuttals — and Why They Fail

(a) "The examiner allowed because the prior art has 'different purposes and different results.'" The 2001 opinion records the examiner allowing precisely on this "different purpose/result" rationale. That rationale is not a valid §103 basis under KSR: an old device used for a new purpose is obvious absent unexpected results, and the change in purpose here (therapy vs. particle capture) requires no structural change to Singer beyond reorienting a magnet. The specification actually confirms Singer's device is already structurally suited for the new use — it puts the magnet in the space in front of the eyes.

(b) "No reference suggests the eye specifically." It does: Hannemann's glaucoma treatment expressly places magnets near the eye, north pole toward it, and Nakamats places them on spectacles for blood‑flow effects. The problem the '981 inventor set out to solve (eye blood flow/oxygenation) is the stated problem of the admitted art, so the motivation comes from the art itself — the classic TSM "problem to be solved" variant.

(c) "The functional limitation (improve blood circulation) is unmet by the art." Two answers: (i) claim language reciting a result the art predicts does not save the claim — the specification's own Table A predicts increased tissue oxygenation from north‑pole energy; (ii) Nakamats recites the blood‑flow result on eyewear, so the "new result" is not new on this record. Note the asymmetry the 2001 court created: construing the benefit language as a limitation narrows the claim, which if anything eases an obviousness challenge to the narrowed scope.

(d) Teaching away? Nothing in the record teaches away. Singer nowhere disparages therapeutic use; Nakamats affirmatively endorses it. There is no criticality argument for the C‑shape or for ceramic magnets — the specification offers none.

Secondary considerations: none is evidenced on this record (no unexpected‑results data, no nexus‑bearing commercial success, no copying or industry praise). Absent evidence, factor four does not tip the balance.

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7. Honest Limits of This Analysis

1. GB 846,425's text is unverified. I could not retrieve its disclosure, so I have built no part of the case on it. It should be pulled to confirm whether it independently teaches magnets in spectacle structure.
2. US 5,120,119 is unverified. It appears only in the specification's narrative, not the citation table; I have not relied on it.
3. KSR timing. KSR was decided 2007 — twelve years after this patent issued. A validity challenge contemporaneous with issuance would have been measured against stricter TSM law; the combination I describe (motivation drawn from the references' own stated purposes, plus applicant admissions) should satisfy even TSM via In re Keller/In re Merck "whole reference" and "problem‑solved" reasoning, but a court in 1995 might have demanded more explicit suggestion.
4. Polarity is the pivot. If a fact‑finder credited the patentee with an unexpected benefit specific to north‑pole‑toward‑the‑eye orientation that the art did not predict, the case weakens. On this record the applicant's own specification forecloses that argument by calling the pole‑dependent effects "well established."
5. The prosecution‑history finding is the strongest asset for validity, not for invalidity. The 2001 court used the amended benefit language to defeat infringement under equivalents (Riach v. Studi, IPL Mall). That same narrowing amendment, however, shrinks the claim into the space squarely occupied by Singer + Nakamats.

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8. Bottom Line

On this record, claims 1, 8, and their dependents are vulnerable under § 103 over a Singer + Nakamats combination, with the specification's own admitted magnet‑therapy teachings (Philpott Table A; Hannemann's glaucoma‑with‑north‑pole‑toward‑the‑eye) supplying the polarity limitation and the therapeutic rationale, and Riach '181 / Meeker supplying the lens‑ and rim‑mounting means. The single element Singer lacks — north‑pole orientation toward the eye — is a two‑option design choice that the applicant's own specification concedes was "well established" in the art. Every dependent claim rides on routine material substitution (ceramic magnets), known attachment geometries (recesses; resilient C‑clamps), or an express teaching in the inventor's own prior patent (magnets glued to a lens). The examiner's allowance rationale — "different purposes and different results" — is the weakest possible basis for validity under KSR and would not likely survive a well‑pleaded § 103 challenge.

Confidence: High on the reference disclosures for Singer, Meeker, Nakamats, and Riach '181 (grounded in retrieved text/PDFs); High that the combination maps to every claim element. Low on GB 846,425 and US 5,120,119 — both flagged as unverified rather than assumed.