Invalidity dossier
US 6129276
Shopping cart mounted portable data collection device with tethered dataform reader
Current assignee: Symbol Technologies LLC
Added 9/24/2026, 1:09:00 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US6129276A
Title: Shopping cart mounted portable data collection device with tethered dataform reader
Patent number: US6129276A
Inventors: William M. Jelen; Timothy P. O'Hagan
Original assignee: Telxon Corp. Current assignee listed as Symbol Technologies LLC (the source notes listed assignees may be inaccurate and that no legal analysis has been performed).
Key dates: Priority date 1996-06-26 (claimed from US08/668,343, with a further external priority link to US08/744,109 dated 1996-11-05); application US09/364,436 filed 1999-07-30; granted and published 2000-10-10; anticipated expiration 2016-06-26. Legal status: Expired – Lifetime.
Purpose and plain-language scope: The supplied text establishes only the title, bibliographic data, and classification entries. From the title, the device is a portable data collection unit that mounts on a shopping cart and includes a dataform reader attached by a tether. "Dataform reader" corresponds to the classification entries in G06K7/00 (sensing record carriers and reading patterns), including optical sensing by electromagnetic radiation, and to G06K17/00 and G06K17/0022 (cooperative working between equipment, including transferring data to distant stations from a sensing device). The classifications also place the invention with hand carts having display or electronic display devices mounted on the handle (B62B3/14, B62B3/1408, B62B3/1416, B62B3/1424) and with coin-freed or like apparatus actuated by credit registering devices (G07F7/00, G07F7/02). The listed "prior art keywords" concern shopping lists, list information, data, information, and consumer, indicating the disclosed subject matter relates to consumer shopping-list information handling. The classification scheme is administrative indexing, not a statement of claim scope.
What the excerpt does not establish: The excerpt contains no claim text, no abstract, no written description, and no drawings content. It therefore does not establish the actual claimed elements, the specific configuration of the tethered reader, how the device operates, or any embodiment details. It also does not establish validity, enforceability, or the accuracy of the listed assignees or dates, which the source itself labels as assumptions.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6129276](/patent/US6129276)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:31:35 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.