Invalidity dossier
US 6095547
Added 9/23/2026, 1:35:59 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6,095,547 A
Title: Active piezoelectric damper for a snow ski or snowboard
Assignee / Inventors: Original assignee K2 Corp; later assignments recorded to Active Control Experts, Inc. and Cymer, Inc./Cymer, LLC. Inventors: James A. Vandergrift, Anthony O. DeRocco, Bard Glenne, Shane M. K. Sterling.
Key dates: Priority date 1995-08-01 (claimed from US 08/509,970); application US 09/110,629 filed 1998-07-06; granted/publication date 2000-08-01; anticipated expiration 2015-08-01; status listed "Expired – Lifetime." (Dates as stated in the source; the source itself labels priority date as an assumption.)
Purpose. Skis and snowboards are designed to carve turns, but vibrate in bending (and torsional) modes at resonant frequencies when contacting snow, bumps, or foreign objects. These vibrations can break edge contact with the snow, impair carving and control, produce annoying chatter, and transmit discomfort to the user. Prior viscoelastic dampers added weight, were only marginally effective, and were broadband rather than frequency-selective.
Plain-language scope. The invention couples piezoelectric material to a flexing ski or snowboard body so the material flexes with the body. A control circuit supplies a control signal causing the piezoelectric material to dampen that flexing, operating as either a passive or an active damper. The piezoelectric layer may run longitudinally (damping flexural vibration) or obliquely (damping torsional vibration), and is preferably placed near the top surface, beneath/forward/aft of a ski binding or between snowboard bindings. The control circuit may allow user selection of damping amount and broadband or selected-frequency damping. In an active embodiment, a sensor detects vibration frequency, and the control circuit generates a signal proportional to and an inverse waveform of the sensed vibration, driving the piezoelectric damper to deform or stiffen cyclically and reduce or cancel the vibration. Figures 2–11 depict ski and snowboard embodiments and control circuitry.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6095547/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide full claim language, the complete specification, drawing details, claims of priority/continuity beyond the noted references, or any litigation, validity, or prior-art conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:53:01 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.