US 5555961

I'll search for this specific patent number to check for any litigation or docket activity, then summarize.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches for any litigation or CAFC activity.

US 5,555,961 — "On the go gear shifter"

Scope note on method: I do not have direct authenticated access to USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or to CAFC docket systems. The findings below come from public patent databases reached via live search (Google Patents, Justia Patents, EveryPatent) plus the authoritative full text supplied in the record. Where a database field is an assumption rather than a legal conclusion, I flag it. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, and no litigation of any kind, involving this patent number. I cannot treat that as proof of non-existence of litigation — only as "nothing surfaced in search."

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Bibliographic data

Inventory of the record: the description expressly identifies US 4,939,948 (Noma) as the closest known "on the go gear shifter" and frames the invention as an improvement over it — specifically over the intermediate clutch-actuator arm in that patent, on which the patent states "an appreciable twisting stress about the Z axis may be generated, which necessitates a construction of increased strength and cost."

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Abstract (as published)

"An on-the-go gear shifter includes a control handle movable along a slot to change gear ratios. The control handle has an upper part and a lower part hinged to the upper part. Detent openings connect with the slot for retaining the control handle in a selected position. A shaft underlays the slot in parallel relationship to the detent openings. The lower part of the control handle is mounted from the shaft for rotation about its axis, with the hinge axis at right angles to the shaft axis. A thrust collar is disposed on the shaft for axial movement. A thrust surface is provided on the upper part of the control handle. Movement of the control handle to disengage it from a detent opening causes the thrust surface to urge the thrust collar along the shaft axis. A first link translates the movement of the thrust collar for the control of the clutch of the appliance. A second link connects the control handle to the gear box for changing the gear ratio as the control handle rotates about the axis of the shaft."

(Note an internal terminology inconsistency in the original: the abstract says the thrust surface is on the "upper part," while claim 1 and the description put the thrust surface means on the control rod portion. The claim language governs.)

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The sole independent claim — claim 1, in plain language

Claim 1 is drafted as an apparatus claim covering the whole machine, not just the shifter. Parsed element by element:

1. The machine context. A mechanized apparatus with a prime mover, a driven member, and a drive train containing both a gear box and a clutch connecting the prime mover to the driven member.
2. On-the-go shifter. A control handle that changes gear ratios and simultaneously actuates the clutch to disengage the driven member — one handle doing both jobs.
3. Constrained path. An elongated slot confines the handle's travel for gear changes; a plurality of detent openings communicate with the slot and hold the handle in fixed gear positions.
4. Two-part handle with a hinge. The handle is split into a finger portion and a control rod portion, joined by a hinge having its own axis of rotation.
5. The locating shaft. A shaft sits beneath the slot and runs parallel to the array of detent openings, defining an axis.
6. Rotation mounting. The finger portion is mounted on that shaft to rotate about the shaft axis, with the hinge axis transverse to the shaft axis (specification/figures show it at right angles).
7. Thrust collar. A collar is mounted on the shaft for axial (not merely rotational) movement along it.
8. Thrust surface means on the control rod portion, positioned proximate the thrust collar, converts the act of pulling the handle out of a detent opening into an axial force that slides the collar along the shaft.
9. First link means carries that axial collar movement to the clutch.
10. Second link means connects the control handle to the gear box.

The inventive core (as the specification frames it): the X-direction (gear-selecting) motion and the Y/Z-direction (declutching) motion are decoupled by the hinged two-part handle riding on a common shaft, and the declutching force is taken out axially along that shaft via a thrust collar rather than through an intermediate twisting arm. This is what the stated objects claim to buy: easier accommodation of spatial restraints, and declutching forces that are "in or close to a balance" so parts "may be more lightly structured and be more economically produced."

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Dependent claims (all depend, directly or indirectly, on claim 1)

There is no independent method claim, no independent claim to the shifter alone, and no product-by-process claim. All claim scope is anchored to claim 1's apparatus combination.

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Corrections and cautions

• Two different patents share the title "On the go gear shifter." US 5,555,961 (Olmr) is not the same document as US 4,939,948 (Noma Outdoor Products / inventor Kenneth W. Stittle), even though 5,555,961's front page cites 4,939,948 as prior art and several web sources conflate the two. Any search result for "on the go gear shifter" that returns the over-center cam/detent-openings-on-both-sides subject matter is describing 4,939,948, not 5,555,961. I have kept them strictly separated.
• Assignee is listed as "Individual," not a corporate assignee. Google Patents explicitly notes its assignee data "may be inaccurate" and that it performed no analysis. I have no record of a recorded assignment to a company (e.g., Noma, Murray, or a snow-blower OEM), and I will not speculate one exists. A USPTO Assignment recordation search would be required to be definitive.
• The patent is long dead. It lapsed at the 3.5-year maintenance fee window in September 2000 — about four years into a term that would nominally have run to 2015-05-02. Its practical relevance today is historical/prior-art, not as enforceable rights. This further reduces the likelihood of (though does not formally preclude) litigation relevance.
• Independent-claim count: exactly one (claim 1). I state this from the claim set reproduced in the authoritative record.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5555961.

Let me search more specifically for litigation records.

Let me try additional targeted searches on litigation databases.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,555,961

Patent: U.S. 5,555,961 — "On the go gear shifter"
Inventor: Jaroslav J. Olmr
Assignee: Individual (unassigned)
Filing/Priority Date: May 2, 1995 | Granted: September 17, 1996
Status: Expired — Fee Related (lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective Sept. 17, 2000, per USPTO legal events: LAPS 2000-09-17; FP 2000-11-21; final STCH entry 2018-01-25)

Finding: No litigation identified

Based on my searches, I found no known litigation (district court, CAFC, or PTAB) involving U.S. Patent 5,555,961. I want to be explicit about the limits of that conclusion rather than fabricate results:

• My searches did not surface this patent on Unified Patents' litigation resources, CourtListener, or in any docket/KeyCite-type result.
• Search hits containing the string "5555961" returned only unrelated records (e.g., an unrelated Florida LLC's FEI/EIN number 47-5555961, and an unrelated patent 6,465,961 belonging to Cao Group that was litigated — that is a different patent and I have not conflated it with the patent at issue).

Case table

Why the absence of litigation is plausible

Two objective facts support a "no litigation" conclusion:

1. Maintenance-fee lapse in 2000. Per the USPTO legal-events record, the patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective September 17, 2000 — only ~4 years after grant. A lapsed patent cannot be asserted, sharply limiting any litigation window.
2. Narrow, mechanical subject matter. The claims are directed to a mechanical on-the-go gear/clutch shifter for small appliances (snow blowers, garden tractors). The only recorded citation activity is forward: US 6,230,579 B1 (Teleflex Incorporated, 2001), which is a citation, not litigation.

Disclosed prior art cited during prosecution (for context — not litigation)

• US 4,676,350 — Honda Giken Kogyo K.K. (1987)
• US 4,671,378 — Deere & Co. (1987)
• US 4,844,227 — Dana Corporation (1989)
• US 4,939,948 — Noma Outdoor Products Inc. (1990) — the "On the go gear shifter" reference expressly discussed in the specification

Caveats / confidence level

• Confidence: moderate-to-high that no litigation exists, given the patent's early lapse and the absence of any hits across the sources I could reach. However, I was not able to directly query PACER, the Unified Patents caselist, or CourtListener's full docket database for this specific number within this session.
• A negative search result is not proof of a negative in absolute terms. If you need a definitive litigation clearance, I recommend a paid Westlaw/LexisNexis LitAlert or Docket Navigator search, plus a manual PACER party-name query under "Olmr" and any successor small-appliance manufacturers (e.g., Noma/Toro lineage).

If you'd like, I can draft the specific PACER/Docket Navigator query strings (party names and date ranges) for a docket-level verification.

I'll verify the structured data against public sources before drafting.

No hits yet. Let me run a couple of more targeted checks.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US Patent 5,555,961 ("On the go gear shifter")

Verification note. I sourced the proceedings list from the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest) and then attempted to corroborate via web search. Searches on the patent number, the title, the inventor (Jaroslav J. Olmr), and the cited prior art returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM docket entries. I found no Federal Circuit appeal, no PTAB Final Written Decision, and no petition document. I flag explicitly that I could not access PTAB E2E or Docket Alarm directly in this session; the negative result rests on the ODP structured data plus failed search corroboration.

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Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings have ever been filed against US 5,555,961 — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM, no active proceeding, no institution decision (granted or denied), no FWD, no settlement, and no appeal (breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied).

The bottom line for a defendant is unusual and quite favorable, but not because the patent was hardened through PTAB litigation — it is favorable because the patent has been dead for a quarter century. Per the structured legal-events record, the patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2000-09-17 (fee reminder mailed 2000-04-11; notice of lapse 2000-11-21), a status later re-recorded on 2018-01-25 under the code "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362." Its nominal 20-year term would have run to 2015-05-02, and Google Patents' legal status is "Expired – Fee Related."

Practical posture: there is no live patent right to invalidate. A demand letter citing US 5,555,961 is not a PTAB question at all — it is a question of whether the patent was ever in force during the accused conduct. Any infringement theory premised on the patent requires a predicate showing of enforceability that the maintenance-fee record forecloses. Treat the absence of IPRs as a footnote to that far more dispositive fact, not as evidence the claims are strong.

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Proceedings

None on file. There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to report, and I will not invent one. For completeness, here is why each AIA vehicle was either unavailable or never used:

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Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. No claim of 5,555,961 has been canceled, confirmed, or adjudicated in any AIA trial. Every claim is UNTESTED at the PTAB. Claims 1–10 remain as issued on the face of the document. This is not a narrowing-through-IPR story — there is no IPR. The narrowing that matters here is temporal and administrative, not adjudicative: the patent fell out of force in 2000 for nonpayment of maintenance fees. Note separately that the specification itself describes U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,948 (Noma Outdoor Products Inc.) as the closest known mechanism and frames the '961 invention as an improvement addressing twisting stresses in the '948 intermediate arm — so the '948 patent is a built-in, inventor-acknowledged prior-art anchor should anyone ever need to attack the '961 claims on the merits in a district court rather than at the PTAB.

Estoppel landscape — § 315(e)(2). There is no estoppel of any kind. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner (and its real parties in interest and privies) that receives a Final Written Decision. No FWD exists, no petitioner exists, and therefore no party is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in a district court or ITC proceeding. For a defendant today, the full prior-art universe remains available — with the important caveat that you will likely never need it, because invalidity is not the lead defense. The lead defenses are non-infringement (the claims are apparatus claims to a specific mechanical linkage: a hinge-connected finger portion and control rod portion, a shaft underlaying the slot, a thrust collar, and diametrically opposed cam surfaces on the control rod) and, more fundamentally, the absence of any enforceable right due to the 2000 maintenance-fee lapse.

Pattern signals. No repeated petitioner, no serial filings, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, no RPX-related petitioner) anywhere in the chain. The patent owner never appealed anything to the Federal Circuit, because there was nothing to appeal. The patent's own prosecution lineage is what a defendant should examine instead: the specification's self-identification of U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,948 as prior art, and the four references cited on the face of the patent (US 4,676,350 Honda; US 4,671,378 Deere; US 4,844,227 Dana; US 4,939,948 Noma). The single forward citation, US 6,230,579 (Teleflex, "Multi-mode shifter assembly joint"), is a citing document, not a challenge.

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Recommended next steps

1. Lead with the maintenance-fee lapse, not with PTAB. Pull the USPTO PatentCenter/ODP fee history and confirm the 2000-09-17 lapse and the 2018-01-25 § 1.362 entry. Establish the date the patent ceased to be enforceable and compare it against the accused-conduct period. If the demand letter asserts ongoing infringement, that assertion is facially unsustainable.
2. Do not negotiate as though the claims are live. There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote — because the patent never reached the PTAB. Do not represent to a court or adversary that any claim has been invalidated; it has not. The accurate statement is that the patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees.
3. If, notwithstanding the lapse, a plaintiff attempts to assert the patent, verify whether a petition to accept late payment under 37 U.S.C.-related revival provisions (37 CFR 1.378) was ever filed and granted. Absent an unreported revival, the right is extinguished and unenforceable for the period of lapse.
4. If litigation nonetheless proceeds, the invalidity fallback is wide open: no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, no PTAB record, and an inventor-admitted prior-art reference (US 4,939,948) in the specification. The claim 1 limitations to focus on are the "thrust collar mounted on said shaft for axial movement," the "thrust surface means disposed on said control rod portion," and the claim 2/3 "pair of cam surfaces disposed on diametrically opposed sides of said thrust collar" folded from sheet metal — all of which are mechanically narrow and ripe for § 103 combination arguments that were never tested.
5. Watch for a revival or assignment. The structured record lists the assignee as "Individual" with original assignee "Individual." A dormant, individual-owned, lapsed mechanical patent is not a realistic assertion vehicle, but if a letter arrives, confirm current ownership and any revival before responding on the merits.

Sources consulted:

• Structured PTAB proceedings block (USPTO Open Data Portal, per prompt) — canonical, reports no AIA trials.
• Google Patents, US5555961A: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5555961/en (claims 1–10, legal events incl. 2000-09-17 lapse and 2018-01-25 § 1.362 expiration entry).
• PTAB E2E (for independent docket confirmation, not directly queried here): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Open Data Portal: https://data.uspto.gov/
• CourtListener (negative result — no CAFC appeal found): https://www.courtlistener.com/

I'll attempt to retrieve the USPTO assignment records for this patent.

Let me dig further on the inventor's portfolio and any assignment records.

Let me look for a Justia record and any Wisconsin Engineering assignment trail.

I was able to gather inventor-side and corporate-context evidence but exhausted my search budget before I could hit the Assignment Center API directly. Here is the reconstruction with that limitation stated up front.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• One inventor, no co-inventors. There is no multi-inventor team whose post-filing departures could be tracked — the classic "all inventors leave within 12 months" fire-sale precursor is structurally inapplicable here.
• Name-variant caution. "Jaroslav J. Olmr" (this patent), "Jaroslav Jiří Olmr" (Czech records — Jiří = George, so the "J." is consistent), and "Jaroslav O. Olmr" (inventor of US 5,775,077, filed 1996-05-31, Sheboygan, WI) appear to be the same individual across a small personal portfolio. I did not find an authoritative record reconciling all three initials, so treat the equivalence as probable, not confirmed.
• Contextual employer evidence (not from the assignment record). A Czech-language university source describes Olmr as the founder of Wisconsin Engineering Inc., founded 1990 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, characterized as a design-and-marketing firm whose business "was based mainly on the ownership of several patents for the production of tractors and other agricultural equipment … whose creator and owner is the founder … Ing. Jaroslav Jiří Olmr, PhD," and which today reportedly holds "more than 30 American and international patents." A Czech prosecutorial notice also lists Jaroslav Olmr among the executives of Wisconsin Engineering CZ, s.r.o. I flag this as context, not a recorded assignment — I found no recorded assignment of US 5,555,961 to Wisconsin Engineering or any other entity.
• Conflation warning (carried forward). The inventor of the cited prior art US 4,939,948 is Kenneth W. Stittle (assigned to Noma Outdoor Products). Stittle is not an inventor on this patent. Keep the two "On the go gear shifter" patents separate.
• I also encountered a third-party aggregator (Trustoria) listing a Jaroslav Olmr of Sheboygan, WI under "Collector • Repossessor • Collections Specialist." That occupational tag appears to be an aggregation artifact with no bearing on this patent and I do not rely on it.

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Original assignee

The issued patent names no assignee — Google Patents records both "Original Assignee — Individual" and "Current Assignee — Individual." The original (and, so far as any record shows, sole) owner is therefore the inventor himself, Jaroslav J. Olmr, as an individual.

• Named assignee on the issued patent: none (pro se filing; no §73 assignee printed).
• Primary line of business: as an individual, none. If the Wisconsin Engineering context is accurate, the associated enterprise was a patent-holding / design-and-marketing outfit for tractors and agricultural machinery, not a volume manufacturer.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence found tying this specific patent to a commercial snow blower or garden tractor. The specification frames the invention as an improvement to a "conventional" machine and cites Noma's patent as the prior-art baseline — the disclosure reads as an engineering improvement, not a product launch.
• Current status: Unknown for the individual and for Wisconsin Engineering Inc. Neither an acquisition, dissolution, nor bankruptcy for either appears in any source I reached. This is a genuine gap, stated as such.
• Note the record contradicts the "Noma owns this" intuition: the Noma "On the go gear shifter" is US 4,939,948, and that patent did move (Noma → Murray Canada Inc., recorded on the prior-art patent's own chain at reel 007449/0109, effective 1994-03-30). None of that touches US 5,555,961.

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Assignment timeline

Finding: no assignment records found for this patent.

The Google Patents Legal Events field for US 5,555,961 contains no "AS — Assignment" entries at all. The only events are maintenance-fee events:

Because Google Patents' legal-events field mirrors the same reel/frame data served by the Assignment Center, this is strong evidence that no post-issuance assignment was ever recorded, and that the patent was never transferred to an NPE, aggregator, or acquiring company. Correspondingly, there is no reel/frame, no conveyance type, no assignor/assignee pair, and no correspondent-of-record to analyze.

Honest limitation: I was not able to issue a live query against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov or assignment.uspto.gov within this session before exhausting my search steps. The conclusion above rests on (a) the Google Patents legal-events mirror and (b) the "Individual / Individual" assignee designation, not on a direct Assignment Center hit. A null result from the mirror is strong but not formally dispositive — a manual reel/frame lookup is the only way to close it.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5555961
    1995 : Filed by Jaroslav J Olmr as individual
    1996 : Patent issued US 5555961
    2000 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fee
    2015 : Nominal full term would have ended

No assignment nodes appear because the record contains none.

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data (no recorded assignments; no post-issuance chain of title; unassigned pro se filing).

justification: Google Patents' legal-events field for US 5,555,961 shows no AS/Assignment events whatsoever — only the REMI (2000-04-11), LAPS (2000-09-17), FP (2000-11-21) and STCH (2018-01-25) maintenance-fee events — and the assignee is recorded as "Individual" both originally and currently, meaning the patent never left its sole inventor. It lapsed ~4 years after grant for nonpayment and shows no litigation, so there is neither a transfer to analyze nor any asserter to flag. The correct conclusion is a null chain, not an NPE pattern.

Verification link (Assignment Center — search by patent number): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and the legacy interface https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Enter 5555961 in the patent-number field. Recommended complementary checks: (i) a party-name search under "Olmr" to catch any application-stage assignment that the patent's printed front page would not show; (ii) "Wisconsin Engineering" as assignee, since that entity is the only plausible corporate transferee and its absence from this patent's record is itself worth confirming against the applicant's other filings.

I'll verify the target patent and research each cited reference. Let me run targeted searches.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,555,961 ("On the go gear shifter")

0. Target-patent verification (literal-number check)

Per the operating rule on identifiers, I did not merge this with look‑alike numbers. Note two near‑numbers that appear in search noise and are different documents: US 6,465,961 (Cao Group) and the maintenance‑fee docket code strings; neither is this patent. Likewise, US 4,939,948 shares the exact title "On the go gear shifter" but is a distinct patent by a different inventor/assignee (see §2.1) — kept strictly separate.

Governing statute. Because the application was filed 1995‑05‑02, this is a pre‑AIA case. Each reference below issued as a U.S. patent more than one year before 1995‑05‑02, so each is available as § 102(b) art (a U.S. patent is a "printed publication" for § 102(b) purposes).

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1. The complete "References Cited" set on the 5,555,961 face

The 5,555,961 front page lists exactly four prior-art citations (all cited by the examiner):

(Forward citation only — not prior art: US 6,230,579 B1, Teleflex Incorporated, "Multi-mode shifter assembly joint," 2001‑05‑15.)

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2. Reference-by-reference analysis

Below, claim numbers refer to claims 1–10 of 5,555,961. The controlling point: claim 1 is the only independent claim, and claims 2–10 all depend (directly or indirectly) on claim 1. Therefore, for any reference to anticipate a dependent claim under § 102, it must disclose every element of claim 1 plus that claim's added limitation. A reference that cannot meet claim 1 cannot anticipate any claim in the set.

For orientation, claim 1's elements are: (a) machine with prime mover / driven member / drive train containing both a gear box and a clutch; (b) one on‑the‑go handle that changes gear ratios and simultaneously disengages the clutch; (c) elongated slot + a plurality of detent openings communicating with it; (d) handle made of a finger portion and a control rod portion joined by a hinge; (e) a shaft beneath the slot running parallel to the detent openings; (f) the finger portion mounted on that shaft to rotate about the shaft axis, with hinge axis transverse; (g) a thrust collar mounted on the shaft for axial movement; (h) thrust surface means on the control rod portion that converts detent‑exit into axial collar movement; (i) first link means to the clutch; (j) second link means to the gear box.

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2.1 US 4,939,948 — Noma Outdoor Products Inc. (the most relevant reference; the specification's own backdrop)

Full citation. US 4,939,948 A, "On the go gear shifter," Kenneth W. Stittle, assigned to Noma Outdoor Products (Canada). App. 07/402,287, filed 1989‑09‑05, issued 1990‑07‑10. 8 claims. Canadian counterpart CA 1,291,009 C. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4939948 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[4939948](/patent/4939948).

Brief description. A small‑appliance ("on‑the‑go") shifter in which a gear shift handle (24) travels along an elongated slot (32) in console (22) and seats in detent openings (40, 42) arranged on both transverse sides of the slot. An over‑center (toggle) mechanism (48) — a gate (50) with slot (56), a cam integral with the gate, and a cam follower on a lever — interconnects the clutch link and the shift handle, so that pulling the handle out of a detent disengages the clutch and, on release, the over‑center action biases the handle back into a detent and re‑engages the clutch. The handle is carried on a carriage (26) rotating about an axle (30) fixed to the frame, with the handle pivoting on a pintle (46) transverse to the carriage axis.

Why it is the most relevant art. The 5,555,961 specification expressly targets it: "Various mechanisms have been proposed in the past … one such mechanism being disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,948," and it criticizes that patent because "the motion of the control handle in the X direction is transmitted to a clutch actuator by means of an intermediate arm on which an appreciable twisting stress about the Z axis may be generated, which necessitates a construction of increased strength and cost." The stated objects of 5,555,961 (spatial flexibility; declutching forces "in or close to a balance") are framed as remedies to that drawback.

§ 102 potential anticipation — claim-by-claim:

Net: strongest single reference, but it does not anticipate any claim. Its proper role is as the primary § 103 reference (see §3).

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2.2 US 4,676,350 — Honda Giken Kogyo K.K. (second most relevant to the shifter mechanics)

Full citation. US 4,676,350 A, "Control device for clutch and transmission for motor vehicles," Masahide Shinokawa, Yukio Katoh, Noriyasu Furuichi, Takeshi Miyazawa, Takeo Ogano; assigned to Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha. App. 06/703,154 filed 1985‑02‑19; priority 1984‑02‑17; issued 1987‑06‑30. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4676350 ; FPO https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[4676350](/patent/4676350).html.

Brief description. A vehicle control in which a single control lever (4) is "angularly movable in first and second directions perpendicular to each other" about pivot shafts (2, 3), guided by a shift pattern (6) in a panel (5) made up of gear engagement slots (6a) and a guide slot (6b). A shaft (22) is carried on bracket (21) and "extend[s] over and parallel to the pivot shaft (3)." A bow‑shaped clutch arm/follower (23) has its opposite ends rotatably attached to the shaft (22), with a control portion (24) lying in the path of the lever's gear‑shifting movement and contacting a roller (13) on the lever. A first connector (change rod 12) drives the transmission; a second connector (clutch rod 33) drives the clutch; a lost‑motion/tension‑spring linkage allows the lever to be shifted in the gear‑selecting direction only after the clutch is disengaged.

§ 102 potential anticipation — claim-by-claim:

Net: a meaningful § 103 companion to Noma — its shaft (22) parallel to the pivot axis with a follower bearing on the lever is structurally suggestive of the claimed shaft/follower arrangement — but it does not anticipate any claim.

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2.3 US 4,844,227 — Dana Corporation (third; relevant to the "single lever does gear + clutch" concept)

Full citation. US 4,844,227 A, "Triple function shift mechanism," Crawford et al., assigned to Dana Corporation. Filed 1988‑04‑07, issued 1989‑07‑04. 22 claims. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4844227/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[4844227](/patent/4844227).

Brief description. A small‑vehicle (lawn mower/garden tractor/snow blower) shift mechanism in which one shift lever (26) through a guide slot (28) (longitudinal slot plus transverse slots) performs three functions: gearbox shift, clutch engage/disengage, and brake apply/release. The lever is linked to an elongate member (actuating rod 64) that is rotated about its longitudinal axis when the lever moves along one path (to operate the shift shaft) and moved longitudinally when the lever moves along a transverse path (to operate the clutch and brake). Clutch actuation is via an actuating member with notches (178) and cam balls (172) engaging the rod.

§ 102 potential anticipation — claim-by-claim:

Net: conceptually interesting (one lever decoupling rotary gear selection from longitudinal clutch actuation), but no anticipation of any claim.

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2.4 US 4,671,378 — Deere & Co. (least relevant of the four)

Full citation. US 4,671,378 A, "Gear shift lever mechanism," Steven G. Korrect and Robert L. Kaukaskie, assigned to Deere & Co. Filed 1986‑01‑21, issued 1987‑06‑09. Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4671378 ; FPO https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[4671378](/patent/4671378).html.

Brief description. A control for a hydraulically operated transmission that holds the shift lever in neutral. A face plate (17) has reverse/neutral/forward slots (18, 19, 21) joined by a transverse passage (22). A pivot shaft (24) is mounted with its axis parallel to the face plate; a control lever (26) passes through the slots; a bell‑shaped open yoke (31) on the lever is pivotally mounted on the shaft (24) for movement in two planes; a bell crank (38) and a gear‑selector bracket (51) pivotally mounted on the shaft (24) drive direction and gear‑selector valves via cables; a biasing unit forces the lever into the neutral slot.

§ 102 potential anticipation — claim-by-claim:

Net: the weakest of the four for the 5,555,961 subject matter; cited for general gear‑shift‑lever/neutral‑detent context, not for the clutch‑via‑shaft mechanism. No anticipation of any claim.

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3. Synthesis — the honest § 102 / § 103 verdict

Anticipation (§ 102): none of the four references anticipates any of claims 1–10. This is consistent with the record: all four were before the examiner and the patent nonetheless issued; and, structurally, every one of them is missing at least claim 1's core combination of (i) a finger‑portion/control‑rod‑portion handle joined by a hinge, (ii) a shaft beneath the slot journaling the finger portion, and (iii) a thrust collar slidable axially on that shaft driven by a thrust‑surface‑means on the control rod portion. No single reference supplies all three, so claim 1 — and therefore every dependent claim that incorporates it — survives § 102.

Where the real risk lies (§ 103, obviousness). The citations are best read as an obviousness cluster:

• Primary reference: US 4,939,948 (Noma) — supplies the entire on‑the‑go environment: prime mover, friction drive, driven member, clutch, slot, detent openings, and a single handle that both selects gear and disengages the clutch. This is the reference the specification itself concedes is the closest art.
• Secondary: US 4,676,350 (Honda) — supplies a shaft (22) running parallel to the lever's pivot axis with a follower (23) mounted thereon that translates lever motion into clutch actuation, plus a slot/detent (6a/6b) pattern — the structural seed of the claimed "shaft beneath the slot + link means."
• Secondary: US 4,844,227 (Dana) — supplies the notion of one lever whose two orthogonal motions are split into a rotary input and a longitudinal input, with the longitudinal motion operating a clutch — the conceptual seed of the "out‑of‑detent motion → axial force → clutch" transfer that 5,555,961 implements with the thrust collar.
• Background: US 4,671,378 (Deere) — general shift‑lever gate/neutral‑detent context; least probative.

Claim 1's patentable distinctness over that combination rests on the thrust‑collar‑on‑a‑shaft architecture and the hinged two‑part handle, which together let the declutching reaction be taken axially along the shaft (described in the spec as "in or close to a balance," avoiding the "twisting stress about the Z axis" attributed to the Noma‑type intermediate arm).

Claims most sensitive to a § 103 attack (because their added features have partial analogues in the secondary art): claim 2 (cam surfaces — cf. Honda's roller/follower and Dana's cam balls/notches), claim 7 (roller means — cf. Honda roller 13; Dana cam balls 172), and claim 10 (axially fixed shaft — cf. Honda's bracket‑mounted shaft 22 and Noma's frame‑fixed axle 30). Claims 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 are the least likely to be rendered obvious, as the "folded sheet‑metal edge‑profile cams," "axially opposed faces in torsionally balanced relationship," "tubular spacer," "forked‑end lever," and "collar mounted for rotation" features have no close counterpart in any of the four citations.

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4. Caveats and confidence

• Source basis. The four citations and their bibliographic data are taken from the authoritative 5,555,961 record supplied and from Google Patents / FPO / Justia pages reached by live search (URLs above). Priority vs. filing dates for the citations are as reported by those databases; where a foreign priority exists (Honda 1984‑02‑17, likely a JP priority with U.S. filing 1985‑02‑19 per the recorded assignment), I have shown both rather than collapsing them.
• § 102 vs. § 103 framing. I have given a literal § 102 answer (no anticipation) because that is what the record and the claim structure compel. The "which claims are potentially implicated" mapping above is my analytical assessment of relevance/obviousness pressure, not a finding that any claim is invalid; I flag this distinction explicitly rather than implying anticipation exists.
• Not independently verified. I did not pull the full claim sets of US 4,676,350 and US 4,844,227 line‑by‑line from an authenticated USPTO source in this session (Dana's claim 1–22 text and FPO's summary of 4,676,350 were used). If a limitation‑by‑limitation invalidity chart is required, the references' full printed claims (especially Honda claim 1 and Dana claims 1–13) should be pulled verbatim from the patent PDFs.
• No conflation. Despite the shared title, US 4,939,948 (Stittle/Noma) is not US 5,555,961 (Olmr); the two are related only as prior art/citation. This is consistent with the earlier-generated section and no contradiction arose.

I'll ground the analysis by pulling the cited prior-art references, since the obviousness analysis must rest on what those references actually disclose.

Now the other two references cited on the face of the patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,555,961 (Olmr)

Statute: 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre-AIA). The application was filed 1995-05-02 with no earlier priority claim, so AIA §§ 102/103 (effective 2013-03-16) do not apply. All four references cited on the face of the patent issued more than one year before the filing date and therefore qualify as § 102(b) prior art. There is no § 102(a) or § 102(e) date contest, and no possibility of swearing behind by affidavit. That materially simplifies the analysis — the entire question is obviousness, not prior-art status.

Relationship to the previously generated sections: I build on the claim-1 element parse and the dependent-claim table already produced, and I do not re-derive them. Two points from those sections drive everything below: (i) there is exactly one independent claim, drafted as a whole-machine apparatus claim; and (ii) the applicant's own Background admits that the closest prior art — US 4,939,948 (Noma/Stittle), which bears the identical title — suffers from Z-axis twisting stress in its intermediate clutch-actuator arm "which necessitates a construction of increased strength and cost." That admission is doing a great deal of work in this analysis, because it articulates the problem, its locus, and the design incentive in the applicant's own words.

Grounding note. My mapping below rests on the retrieved claim text, abstract, and summary/background passages of the four cited references (and of the '948 patent, which is also the patent's own admitted prior art), not on a full column-and-line read of every specification. Where I infer something beyond the quoted material — chiefly the geometric consequence of a claim limitation — I say so.

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1. The four cited references, in their own words

Analogy / field of use is not contestable. Every reference is a mechanical shift-and-clutch control for a self-propelled vehicle or powered utility device. Dana names snow blowers and garden tractors — the very apparatus of the '961 patent's FIG. 1. Noma is a snow-blower shifter. These are not merely "analogous"; they are the same art. No In re Klein-type non-analogous-art defense is available.

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2. What Noma alone gives you against claim 1

The most efficient way to see the obviousness problem is to map US 4,939,948 by itself against claim 1's elements and identify the residue.

Residue = the axial thrust collar arrangement, and nothing else. Claim 1 therefore is not anticipated by Noma — but the entire distance between the claim and the art is a single substitution: rotary cam-and-follower clutch actuation → axially-sliding collar on the same shaft.

That is a substitution the art supplies directly (Dana) and that the applicant's own Background tells us was made for a recognized reason (eliminating Z-axis twisting stress).

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3. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Noma '948 in view of Dana '227 (§ 103)

Where each limitation is met: Noma supplies every element of claim 1 except the thrust collar, thrust surface, and axial first link, as tabulated above. Dana '227 supplies those three:

• A collar-like member mounted for axial movement. Dana claims 2 and 11: "an elongate member connected with said shift lever to enable said shift lever to rotate said elongate member about a longitudinal axis thereof, and to enable said shift lever to move said elongate member longitudinally."
• Axial movement transmitted to the clutch. Dana claims 4 and 13: "an actuating member engagable with said elongate member and with said clutch to cause said clutch to move between the engaged position and the disengaged position when said elongate member is moved longitudinally."
• Single handle through a slotted gate with transverse slots. Dana claims 8–9 (guide slot with longitudinal slot and transverse slots) — the slotted-gate-plus-detent environment in which any such shifter must operate.

The substitution is a simple, predictable one. Taking Noma's fixed axle and mounting a thrust collar on it — camming the collar axially as the control rod portion rocks out of a detent — is the classic rotation-to-translation conversion (cam + translating follower/collar). Dana already teaches the endpoint of that conversion: axial displacement of a shaft-mounted member operates a clutch. Applying that known conversion to Noma's known axle, in place of Noma's rotary follower, is substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result (MPEP 2143(A)/(B)).

Motivation, articulated:

1. The applicant supplies it. The '961 Background states that in '948-type devices "the motion of the control handle in the X direction is transmitted to a clutch actuator by means of an intermediate arm on which an appreciable twisting stress about the Z axis may be generated, which necessitates a construction of increased strength and cost." Moving the declutching load onto the shaft axis — which is precisely what an axially-sliding collar does — eliminates the offset arm and therefore the twisting couple. A POSITA reading Noma would recognize the cantilever arm as the source of the Z-axis couple, and Dana teaches that the declutching load can instead be carried as pure axial displacement along a shaft. That is a direct, art-recognized solution to a stated problem.
2. Known design incentive. The stated objects — accommodate "spatial restraints," place the clutch linkage "at any convenient location along the shaft," make declutching forces "in or close to a balance" so parts "may be more lightly structured and be more economically produced" — are exactly the "design incentives and other market forces" that KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007), says can render a combination obvious. These are cost/weight/packaging incentives, not unpredictable technical effects.
3. Reasonable expectation of success. Both mechanisms produce the same result (clutch disengagement on handle withdrawal); the '961 patent asserts no unexpected result.

Ground 2 — Ground 1 further in view of Honda '350 (§ 103)

Honda is the cleanest teaching of the shaft parallel to the lever's pivot axis carrying a clutch-actuating member that is engaged by the lever, which is the architectural idea Noma's toggle does not reach. Honda's shaft 22 "extend[s] over and parallel to the pivot shaft 3," and the bow-shaped clutch arm 23 is "rotatably attached" to it at its opposite ends. This is the general layout of the '961 patent's shaft 50 carrying thrust collar 80. Honda thus supplies the "same shaft, parallel to the gear-select axis, does the clutch work" concept, leaving only the collar's axial motion to be supplied by Dana.

Honda is also the primary reference for dependent claims 6–8, as shown below.

Ground 3 — Noma '948 in view of Deere '378 (§ 103)

Deere contributes a structurally analogous mounting: a yoke connected to the lower end of the lever and pivotally mounted on a pivot shaft for movement in two planes, one normal to the shaft axis and one parallel to it (Deere '378, summary of invention). That is a two-axis, shaft-mounted linkage taking the lever's combined motions — the same functional problem claim 1's finger portion/hinge/shaft triad solves. Deere also shows a detent/slot gate with a biasing unit urging the lever into a defined position. Deere's own object (preventing inadvertent lever movement in a neutral position) is a safety problem in the same art, and combining it with Noma/Dana for a two-plane shaft-mounted linkage is a use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way (MPEP 2143(C)). Deere is a weaker secondary reference than Honda, but it corroborates that dual-plane, shaft-mounted lever linkage was a matter of ordinary design.

Ground 4 (fallback) — Dana '227 as primary reference

Dana alone discloses the combination-of-functions core: one lever doing gear selection (rotational) and clutch disengagement (axial) through one slotted gate, in small vehicles including snow blowers. Adding Noma's specific detent-side placement and carriage for the finger-portion/shaft mounting of claim 1 is then a matter of design choice. This ground is qualitatively weaker than Ground 1 because Dana locates the axial motion in the lever's own elongated member rather than in a separate collar, but it is available if a primary-reference challenge is made to Dana.

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4. Claim-by-claim obviousness

Net read: claim 1 is the only claim carrying real novelty weight, and its novelty over Noma is a single mechanism substitution that Dana teaches. Claims 2–10 are conventional mechanical refinements — balancing, friction reduction, and packaging — that fall comfortably within KSR's "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."

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5. The honest counter-case (what could defeat these grounds)

1. Noma's over-center toggle does something the thrust collar does not. Noma's toggle is over-center, which both biases the handle into the detent and returns the clutch to engagement on release. A plain axial thrust collar provides no detent-holding or self-return bias. A skilled artisan might therefore view the toggle as a package deal not to be dismantled. This is the strongest non-obviousness argument available. Its force is blunted, however, because (a) the '961 claims do not recite any biasing/over-center function, and (b) the '961 specification itself concedes that the clutch spring bias "will normally" supply the resisting/holding force and that it "may be supplemental to or replaced by other equivalent biasing forces" — i.e., the applicant treats biasing as a design variable, not an inventive contribution.
2. No reference discloses a collar sliding on the gear-select shaft. True — that exact integration is not verbatim in any single reference. The rejection therefore depends on the combination being "predictable," which is a judgment call, not a documentary certainty.
3. The examiner allowed the claims over all four references. Google Patents records these four as "Cited by examiner," so the examiner had them and still issued the patent. Under KSR that carries essentially no weight before a district court or the PTAB, but it is a data point a patent owner would raise.
4. No secondary considerations are available to either side. The patent lapsed for non-payment of the 3.5-year maintenance fee effective 2000-09-17, ~4 years after grant, and there is no identified commercial product or licensee. There is no nexus evidence of long-felt need or unexpected results — and no litigation in which such evidence could have been developed (consistent with the prior section's litigation finding).

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6. Bottom line

Confidence: High on the claim-and-reference mappings and on the § 102(b) status of all four references. Moderate on the ultimate § 103 conclusion as to claim 1, because it turns on the predictability of substituting axial collar thrust for rotary cam-follower actuation — a classic mechanical conversion, but one no single reference performs on Noma's exact shaft geometry. I could not obtain the '961 prosecution history, so I cannot report what the examiner actually said about these references; the "cited by examiner" designation is from the Google Patents front-page table and I have not independently verified the examiner's reasons for allowance.

If you want, I can (a) reconstruct the specific PACER/PatentCenter query to pull the file wrapper and confirm the examiner's stated reasons, or (b) draft this as a formal § 103 rejection with element-by-element claim charts in MPEP 2143 form.