Invalidity dossier
US 6125565
Outdoor menu display device
Current assignee: Marketing Displays Inc
Added 9/23/2026, 5:16:00 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6125565 A
Title: Outdoor menu display device
Assignee: Marketing Displays Inc. (listed as both original and current assignee; the source notes assignee listings "may be inaccurate" and that no assignee analysis was performed).
Key dates: Priority date 1994-10-05 (assumed, not a legal conclusion); application US09/283,069 filed 1999-03-31; granted and published 2000-10-03; anticipated expiration 2014-10-05. Legal status: expired – lifetime.
Inventor: David U. Hillstrom.
Purpose and plain-language scope (from the supplied text): The patent concerns an outdoor display, described as a menu display device, illuminated from behind the displayed material. The classification data indicate a sign or board with a frame or casing structure, slidable panels or parts, and constructional details. The recurring prior-art keywords in the excerpt — "members," "display," "housing," "divider," "menu" — suggest a housing with dividers and members for holding and arranging menu panels. No abstract, detailed description, or claims are included in the excerpt, so the specific structural elements and the exact scope of the claims cannot be stated from this source.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6125565/en (fetched 2026-09-23).
What this excerpt does not establish: It does not reproduce the abstract, specification, drawings, or claims, so the claimed scope and the precise arrangement of the housing, dividers, and display members are unknown. Dates are flagged as assumptions, not legal conclusions. Assignee accuracy is expressly disclaimed. Because per instructions I did not research litigation, ownership transfers, validity, or prior art, nothing here is established about the listed litigation, the related family members (e.g., US5682694A, US6298589B1, US6631576B2, US6843011B2, US7174663B2), or the enforceability or validity of any claim.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:43:42 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
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
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.