US 6378512

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including litigation/docket activity.

Let me check the patent's dedicated pages and any litigation records.

Let me run a few additional targeted searches to check for any litigation or appellate activity tied to this specific number.

US Patent 6,378,512 — Summary

I searched for this number specifically. Below is what I could verify, with explicit flags where I could not.

Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

Source: Google Patents US6378512B1; Justia Patents 6378512

Abstract (verbatim, including the source's typographical oddities)

"Anoxidizer and fuel plate is disclosed which discharges nitrous oxide and fuel into an intake manifold. The plated between a carburetor and an intake manifold and it provides a construction which slow the flow of the nitrous oxide so that the nitrous oxide introduced into the airstream is substantially uniformly distributed."

The two garbled spots ("Anoxidizer," "The plated between") appear in the authoritative text I was given; I am not correcting them.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 26 claims, of which two are independent: claim 1 and claim 14. Claims 2–13 depend from claim 1; claims 15–26 depend from claim 14.

Claim 1 — a "fuel supply module" (a plate sandwiched between carburetor and intake manifold).
In plain terms, the claim covers a plate that:

1. Mounts between the carburetor and the intake manifold and has an air passage through it for the intake airstream (with the passage's central axis parallel to flow);
2. Has at least one inlet port for nitrous oxide and at least one inlet port for fuel;
3. Has a first internal communication passage that distributes the nitrous oxide inside the plate;
4. Has a second internal communication passage that distributes the fuel inside the plate;
5. Has at least one first discharge port that discharges nitrous oxide into the airstream "substantially evenly around the periphery" of the air passage; and
6. Has at least one second discharge port that discharges fuel into the airstream "substantially evenly around the periphery" of the air passage.

The distinguishing concept versus the cited '418 Grant patent is that both the nitrous oxide and the fuel are delivered annularly / evenly around the air-passage periphery, rather than through criss-crossing drilled tubes that build up a pressure gradient. The specification explains the mechanism: the plate is built from a top plate member, a body plate member, and a bottom plate member; the nitrous oxide reservoir (channel 318) is divided by a "fence"/wall (213) with a small gap G (≈0.004 in, or ~2 mils along straight sections in the second embodiment), forcing the ~900–1,100 psi nitrous oxide through a "tortured path" and then out a very small gap (~0.004–0.006 in) between mating conical surfaces (220, 320) as an annular discharge.

Claim 14 — an internal combustion engine incorporating such a module.
This is essentially the same apparatus language as claim 1, but recast as the engine itself: an engine having a plate member placed between its carburetor and its intake manifold, with nitrous and fuel inlet ports, the two internal communication passages, and first and second discharge ports discharging nitrous oxide and fuel substantially evenly around the air-passage periphery.

Dependent-claim highlights (for context)

• Claim 2/16 recite the three-piece sandwich (top + body + bottom plate members), with the nitrous passage between top and body, and the fuel passage between body and bottom.
• Claim 3/17: the nitrous communication passage is a reservoir in a circuitous path around the air passage.
• Claims 5/6, 19/20: a "barrier means" / wall that segregates the reservoir into outer and inner reservoirs.
• Claims 8/9, 21/22: the first discharge port is formed between mating angled surfaces of the top and body plates, providing annular discharge.
• Claims 10, 23: a fuel reservoir between the body and bottom plates with multiple second discharge ports evenly spaced around it, discharging downstream of the nitrous discharge.
• Claims 12/13, 25/26: multiple separate airstreams (the third embodiment has four circular air passages) each with their own nitrous and fuel discharge ports.
• Claims 7, 11, 24: gasket/seal placements outside the reservoirs.

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket check

I found no court or CAFC docket activity naming US 6,378,512. I specifically searched for CAFC 2026 dockets and district-court litigation for this number and did not return a verified hit. Caveats:

• The only litigation results involving Holley in the search results concern trademark/trade-dress and contract disputes (e.g., Holley Performance Products, Inc. v. Quick Fuel Technology, Inc., W.D. Ky.; Specialty Auto Parts U.S.A., Inc. v. Holley Performance Products, Inc., 1:17-cv-00147, W.D. Ky.) and a copyright case, Holley Performance Products Inc. v. Aces Fuel Injection, Inc., 1:2026cv00059 (E.D. Tenn.). None of these were confirmed to involve the '512 patent, and the Aces matter is pleaded as 17 U.S.C. § 501 copyright infringement, not patent infringement — so I would treat any connection to '512 as unverified.
• The patent is recorded as expired as of 2020-11-02, which makes it an unlikely candidate for a 2026 infringement appeal; that is an inference, not a confirmed fact.

Stated uncertainty: I could not locate an authoritative CAFC or USPTO source confirming 2026 appellate activity for 6,378,512. If such a docket exists, my searches did not surface it, and I am not able to assert it does or does not.

Additional notes

• Several later patents cite this patent as prior art, including US 7,966,998 (Wade), which characterizes US 5,839,418 and "Staggemeier Apr. 30, 2002" as "plate or module type injectors… mounted between the carburetor and the intake manifold."
• The patent's own background section criticizes '418 for a pressure gradient that causes uneven nitrous delivery (higher pressure near tube terminal ends), which is the stated motivation for the present "tortured path"/annular-discharge design.
• The specification discloses three embodiments (FIGS. 1–12; 13–23 & 36–52; 24–33) and states that dimensions shown are in inches unless otherwise indicated.

If you need, I can attempt a narrower follow-up specifically on USPTO PatentCenter/assignment records or CourtListener for any post-expiration activity involving this patent number.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6378512 across patent litigation databases.

Initial searches returned noise. Let me run more targeted searches.

Let me investigate the Holley v. Quick Fuel Technology case and search CourtListener directly.

Summary of Findings: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,378,512

No litigation specifically asserting U.S. Patent No. 6,378,512 was found.

I searched multiple patent-litigation-oriented sources (Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portal content, PACER-derived dockets via CourtListener and RECAP, Justia/UniCourt docket aggregators, and general web search). I found no case that names U.S. Patent No. 6,378,512 ("Discharge nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate," Karl Staggemeier, assigned to Holley Performance Products, Inc.) as an asserted patent — no infringement complaints, no declaratory-judgment actions, and no PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) challenging it.

What I searched and why the results do not qualify

Several cases involving the patent's assignee, Holley Performance Products, Inc., surfaced, but none are shown to involve the '512 patent:

1. Holley Performance Products, Inc. v. Quick Fuel Technology, Inc. and Marvin V. Benoit, Jr. — W.D. Ky., Case No. 1:07-cv-00185 (filed 2007); later opinions 2011–2012; related Sixth Circuit appeal (Specialty Auto Parts USA v. Holley Performance Prods., unpublished).

   • The available opinions and orders in this docket concern trademark and trade-dress claims (e.g., the DOUBLE PUMPER® mark), trademark-cancellation counterclaims, inequitable-conduct/unclean-hands defenses, and antitrust/Sherman Act arguments. I found no reference to the '512 patent in the materials retrieved. This is a branding/trade-dress dispute among carburetor makers, not an assertion of the '512 patent.

2. Mr. Gasket, Inc. v. Holley Performance Products, Inc. — N.D. Ohio, Case No. 1:04-cv-00221 (filed 2004); voluntarily dismissed with prejudice (order 3/10/2005). Classified as a patent case, but I found no evidence tying it to the '512 patent.

3. Specialty Auto Parts U.S.A., Inc. v. Holley Performance Products, Inc. — W.D. Ky., Case No. 1:17-cv-00147 — concerns enforcement of a prior settlement agreement and trade-dress claims; not a '512 patent suit.

Important caveats

• I could not confirm that any of the above cases asserted the '512 patent, so I do not list them as "known litigation involving US 6,378,512." Doing so would be speculative.
• My search was constrained by the tooling available (web search) and did not include a login-based, patent-number-filtered query of Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or the full PACER system. It is therefore possible that litigation exists that is not indexed in the sources I could reach.
• The patent expired around November 2, 2020 (anticipated expiration per the Google Patents legal-status record), and its technology window (issued 2002) makes it an older, likely low-assertion asset.

Conclusion

Based on the sources available and searched, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,378,512. If you need a definitive negative, I'd recommend a direct patent-number query in Docket Navigator or Lex Machina (both index asserted patents per case) and a full PACER/Unified Patents portal review — I did not have authenticated access to those. I would rather state this explicitly than attribute the Holley trade-dress cases to the '512 patent without confirmation.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" signal with targeted searches before writing up.

No hits tying the patent to any trial. Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,378,512: zero. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web searches (PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions content, IPR dockets, and patent-number queries) surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no termination, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent. Breakdown by status therefore stands at 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. The bottom line for a defendant is not "this patent is hardened" — it is "nothing has ever been tested." All 26 claims are UNTESTED and there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel on the books. The other thing a defendant needs to know is that the patent expired on 2000-11-02 + 20 years = 2020-11-02 (Google Patents lists status "Expired - Lifetime" and an "Anticipated expiration" legal event on 2020-11-02), which changes the economics of filing an IPR far more than it changes the law.

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Proceeding list

No proceedings exist to rank. There is nothing to put in the per-proceeding template, and I will not invent a proceeding number, panel, or disposition to fill it.

Sources checked (all negative):

• Structured PTAB proceedings block supplied in this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal, canonical list) — no AIA trial proceedings.
• Google Patents file wrapper, https://patents.google.com/patent/US6378512/en — "PTAB proceedings" section absent; only prosecution and security-interest assignments appear in the legal events.
• USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board Decisions, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ — no matter captioned to US 6,378,512.
• Free-text and number searches pairing "6378512" / "6,378,512" with PTAB, IPR, PGR, CBM, Holley, and nitrous-injection-plate terminology — no hits.

One adjacent item, flagged not as a proceeding: a Holley enforcement action in the Western District of Kentucky (docket 3:xx-cv-63535, Holley Performance Products against Quick Fuel Technology and Benoit) surfaces in CourtListener, but the opinion I retrieved deals with trademark and trade-dress counterclaims (DOUBLE PUMPER® and related marks) — not with US 6,378,512 and not with any PTAB filing. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.kywd.63535/gov.uscourts.kywd.63535.60.0.pdf. I found no record tying the '512 patent to that or any other case. Treat this as context on the patent owner's enforcement posture, not as a proceeding on this patent.

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Strategic summary

Claim status of US 6,378,512. The patent issued 2002-04-30 with 26 claims. Claims 1 and 14 are the two independent claims — both written as apparatus claims, claim 1 to a "fuel supply module" and claim 14 to an "internal combustion engine comprising a fuel supply module," and the two are near-verbatim mirror images of each other. Everything else is dependent: claims 2–13 depend from claim 1, and claims 15–26 depend from claim 14. Claims 3–9 and 17–22 cover the nitrous-oxide side (circuitous reservoir, barrier wall/fence, seal, discharge between mating angled conical surfaces producing "annular discharge"); claims 10–11 and 23–24 cover the fuel side (fuel reservoir with evenly spaced second discharge ports discharging downstream of the first discharge port, plus a seal); claims 12–13 and 25–26 cover the multi-airstream/multi-plate embodiment (the four-barrel variant described in the third preferred embodiment). No claim has been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. Every claim, including both independents, is live-from-a-validity-standpoint until 2020-11-02 — after which the only remaining exposure is past damages within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback for conduct occurring on or before expiration.

Estoppel landscape. Because there has been no IPR that "results in a final written decision under section 318(a)," 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is empty. No petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising any ground — § 102, § 103, or otherwise — in district court or the ITC. A defendant today has the full universe of prior art available, including art that would be "reasonably could have raised" art in a hypothetical prior IPR. The only real IPR constraint is statutory eligibility: this patent has a 1999-11-02 priority date, so PGR is unavailable (PGR applies only to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2011-03-16) and CBM is unavailable (this is an engine hardware patent, not a financial-services data-processing patent). IPR is the only AIA vehicle, and § 315(b)'s one-year clock runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement. Note also that the only reference cited on the face of the patent is US 5,839,418 (BG 300, Inc., "Dual stage nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate," 1998-11-24) — the very plate the specification spends three paragraphs attacking for pressure-gradient-driven uneven nitrous distribution. That means a § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art previously presented" argument is a live risk for any petition built primarily on '418; a petition is stronger if it relies on art the examiner never saw, and must in any event explain how the examiner erred.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern: no repeat petitioner, no follow-on petition, no joinder, no Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator in the chain, and no PTAB appeal by the patent owner. The patent's ownership trail is long but entirely financial — a chain of security interests and releases running Holley Performance Products / Earl's Supply / Nitrous Oxide Systems through Fleet Capital, Foothill/Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Wilmington Trust, LBC, Hawthorn, GE Capital, Cerberus, UBS, and AEA Debt Management, mostly released in 2021-11-24. Current assignee is Holley Performance Products Inc. The Google Patents "Cited By" data shows a healthy forward-citation family (e.g., US 6,935,322 to Barry S. Grant; US 7,533,661, "Intake manifold plate adapter," to Holley; US 8,387,596, "Injection plate assembly for injection of a primary fuel and an accelerant"), which tells you the technology space is commercially active — but forward citations are not validity tests, and none of that activity ever produced a PTAB challenge to this patent.

Why the absence matters. The absence of any IPR is a mild defensive signal, not a strong one. On one hand, a patent that sat unchallenged for ~18 years of its life while its owner sold nitrous plates commercially suggests competitors generally designed around it or licensed rather than fought it. On the other hand, since 2020-11-02 the patent has been expired, and the rational reason nobody filed an IPR is straightforward: an IPR costs several hundred thousand dollars and, against an expired patent, buys you only a cancellation certificate for a past-damages defense that is already capped by § 286 — and an expired patent cannot be amended, so the Board applies the Phillips standard rather than the BRI standard, which is marginally harder for a petitioner. Read the record for what it is: this is not a hardened patent that survived attack; it is an untested patent that ran out the clock.

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Recommended next steps

• Confirm expiry yourself before doing anything else. The controlling date on the face of the record is filing 2000-11-02, priority 1999-11-02 (provisional 60/163,081), grant 2002-04-30, and an "Anticipated expiration" legal event at 2020-11-02 on https://patents.google.com/patent/US6378512/en. Verify in USPTO Patent Center that no terminal disclaimer, PTA, or maintenance-fee lapse altered that date — a lapsed fee itself would be a complete defense. If the patent is expired and no maintenance fees revived it, your first move is a date-of-expiry / § 286 damages-window analysis, not a validity attack.
• If you are being asserted against for pre-2020-11-02 conduct, the absence of any prior IPR means you have a clean estoppel slate and the full prior-art field, including § 102(a)/(b) art and § 103 combinations. Build the invalidity case around art the examiner never saw, and be ready to rebut § 325(d) if you lean on US 5,839,418, which the examiner did consider and which the specification itself disparages.
• If a demand letter is pending and you are inside the § 315(b) one-year window from service, an IPR remains legally available even against an expired patent (the Board will institute and can cancel claims), but model the cost-benefit honestly: with no injunction available and damages capped, the IPR is usually only worth it if the past-damages exposure is material or if you need the cancellation certificate for supply-chain reasons. There is no pending trial, so there is no institution deadline, no oral-hearing date, and no statutory one-year FWD clock to track — there is no proceeding to monitor.
• Do not represent to a court or an adversary that any claim of US 6,378,512 has been invalidated. It has not. Conversely, if opposing counsel asserts that the patent is "PTAB-tested" or "hardened," that is unsupported by the record — there is no FWD to cite because none exists.
• Link trail for your file: patent page https://patents.google.com/patent/US6378512/en; USPTO PTAB E2E https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ (search "6,378,512" to independently confirm the null result); CourtListener https://www.courtlistener.com/ for the Western District of Kentucky Holley enforcement dockets, which should be reviewed separately to confirm whether any patent (as opposed to trademark) claim on the '512 patent was ever pleaded.

Confidence statement: I am confident in the null result — it is consistent across the canonical ODP block and every search I ran. I could not retrieve the full docket text of the Holley/Quick Fuel Kentucky action, so I cannot rule out that the '512 patent appears in some pleading or counterclaim in that case; I found no evidence that it does, and I have not asserted that it does.

I'll verify the record against external sources before reconstructing the chain.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 6,378,512 B1

Patent: Discharge nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate — Karl Staggemeier, inventor; Holley Performance Products, Inc., assignee. App. 09/703,728 filed 2000‑11‑02 (claiming benefit of provisional 60/163,081, filed 1999‑11‑02). Issued 2002‑04‑30. Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2020‑11‑02).

Sources used: Google Patents legal‑events mirror of the USPTO assignment record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6378512/en#legalEvents), which reproduces the recorded reel/frame, conveyance, assignor, assignee and effective dates, cross‑checked against Justia, CourtListener dockets and trade press. Verification page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 6,378,512) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

Data gap — read before the timeline. Google Patents' legal‑events mirror does not publish the correspondent of record (the attorney/firm that filed each recording). The USPTO Assignment Center does expose that field, but the image/record pages could not be retrieved with the tooling available here, and no indexed web source carries it. I therefore cannot supply correspondent names for this chain, and I will not infer them from firm conventions. Flagged as unclear in Signal 3 rather than fabricated. Every other field below (reel/frame, conveyance, parties, dates) is from the recorded data.

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Inventors

Background on the inventor (from trade press, not the patent record): Staggemeier was Chief Engineer at Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS) for roughly a decade and "depart[ed] just prior to its sale" — NOS being the nitrous brand that came under the Holley umbrella (Compressed Air Supercharging biography, https://casupercharging.com/about/; Lions Automobilia Foundation event page, https://www.tickettailor.com/events/lionsautomobiliafoundation/[1642712](/patent/1642712)). He later led engineering for Compressed Air Supercharging, whose founders date its genesis to July 2002 — i.e., ~20 months after this patent's filing (Engine Builder Magazine, Jan 2026).

Unusual‑pattern note (partially present, but not a fire‑sale tell). There is a single inventor, so the classic "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern cannot be tested across a team. What is documented is that the inventor's prior employer (NOS) changed hands into Holley contemporaneously with the 1999‑11‑02 provisional, and the assignment of title was executed 2001‑01‑16 — ~2.5 months after the 2000‑11‑02 non‑provisional filing. That is a late-but-ordinary employee/contractor assignment, and it did not precede a sale of the patent: Holley held the patent for its full 20‑year term. No evidence of an inventor-driven portfolio fire‑sale.

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Original assignee

Holley Performance Products, Inc. — Bowling Green, Kentucky (recorded owner on reel 011512/0706; still the current assignee of record per Google Patents).

• Primary line of business: design/manufacture of aftermarket automotive performance fuel and air‑induction systems — carburetors, EFI throttle bodies, intake manifolds, fuel pumps, and nitrous‑oxide injection systems sold under the NOS (Nitrous Oxide Systems) brand, which Holley owns. Claims 1–13 (a plate sandwiched between carburetor and intake manifold that discharges nitrous oxide and fuel annularly/evenly around the air passage, with fuel discharged downstream of the nitrous) read directly onto the NOS‑brand nitrous "plate" kits Holley still sells; see e.g. NOS multi‑carburetor injector plate instructions (https://documents.holley.com/a5079-snosrev1.pdf) and the Hi‑Ram dry nitrous sandwich plate (https://documents.holley.com/199r11650.pdf). Holley's own later patent — US 7,533,661, "Intake manifold plate adapter," Baasch, assigned to Holley — lists US 6,378,512 as prior art of record, confirming the '512 plate was a Holley product line ancestor.
• Shipped a product embodying the claims: Yes — Holley/NOS nitrous plates (a plate between carburetor and intake manifold delivering nitrous + fuel). The '512 / '661 technical lineage is described in the '661 specification.
• Current status: Operating company, still active. My training‑data recollection, not verified in the fetched sources, is that Holley became publicly listed in 2021 via a SPAC merger (NYSE: HLLY) — treat as unconfirmed here.
• 20‑year financial history visible in the record: the '512 patent spent 2001–2021 as collateral in a continuous chain of secured financings (Fleet → Foothill → U.S. Bank → Wells Fargo Foothill → Wells Fargo Capital Finance → Wilmington Trust → LBC Credit Partners → Hawthorn Finco → GE Capital → Cerberus → UBS/AEA). No evidence of a Chapter 7/11 filing or patent sale was found; the 2010/2012/2015 waves of releases-and-re-pledges read as successive refinancings of a leveraged operating company, not a bankruptcy liquidation.

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Assignment timeline

Total recorded items: 22 event clusters (30 reel/frame entries), all executed 2000‑12‑29 through 2021‑11‑18. Critically, exactly one record conveys title (the inventor's assignment, reel 011512/0706); every other record is a Security Agreement / Security Interest granted to a commercial lender, or a Release/Termination by that lender. No "IP/Licensing/Holdings" transferee ever appears as owner.

• 2001‑01‑16 (executed) / recorded 2001‑02‑07 — Reel 011512/0706

  • Conveyance: Assignment of entire interest (title transfer)
  • Assignor: Karl Staggemeier (inventor)
  • Assignee: Holley Performance Products, Inc., Kentucky
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — see data‑gap note
  • Context: ordinary inventor‑to‑employer assignment, executed ~2.5 months post‑filing.

• 2000‑12‑29 (executed) / recorded 2001‑03‑21 — Reel 011641/0166

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products, Inc.
  • Assignee: Fleet Capital Corporation, Illinois
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — patent pledged into the first recorded senior‑lien collateral pool.

• 2000‑12‑29 (executed) / recorded 2001‑03‑21 — Reel 011641/0115

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Earl's Supply Company (Holley affiliate)
  • Assignee: Fleet Capital Corporation, Illinois
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — companion blanket‑lien record on the same reel, indexed against this patent; indicates the '512 was swept into a group‑wide affiliate collateral package from day one.

• 2002‑07‑30 (executed) / recorded 2002‑09‑17 — Reel 013295/0543

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products, Inc.
  • Assignee: Foothill Capital Corporation, California
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — recorded after the 2002‑04‑30 grant, i.e. the just‑issued patent added to a replacement credit facility's collateral.

• 2006‑01‑26 (executed) / recorded 2006‑02‑02 — Reel 017105/0764

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement (multi‑grantor)
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; Weiand Automotive Industries, Inc.; and others (incl. Nitrous Oxide Systems, Inc.)
  • Assignee: U.S. Bank National Association, Massachusetts
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — group refinancing; patent rolled into a UCC‑style blanket lien over the entire Holley affiliate family, including the NOS brand entity.

• 2008‑03‑28 (executed) / recorded 2008‑03‑31 — Reel 020723/0246

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc. and affiliates
  • Assignee: U.S. Bank National Association, Massachusetts
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — restated/replacement lien.

• 2008‑03‑28 (executed) / recorded 2008‑04‑02 — Reel 020741/0193

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc. and affiliates
  • Assignee: Wells Fargo Foothill, Inc., Massachusetts
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — same‑month parallel lien from the successor to Foothill Capital (013295/0543). Recurrence marker (lender succession, not NPE).

• 2010‑06‑22 (executed) / recorded 2010‑06‑22 — Reel 024563/0922

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.
  • Assignee: Wells Fargo Capital Finance, Inc., as Agent, California
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — third appearance of the Wells Fargo/Foothill lending family in this chain.

• 2010‑06‑22 (executed) / recorded 2010‑06‑28 — Reels 024599/0236 and 024599/0288

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest (of reels 017105/0764 and 020723/0246)
  • Assignor: U.S. Bank National Association
  • Assignee (released party): Holley Performance Products Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; Weiand Automotive Industries, Inc.; Nitrous Oxide Systems, Inc.; Holley Performance Products Holdings, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: internal reorg / refinancing — U.S. Bank liens cleared en bloc on the same effective date the new Wells Fargo facility was executed.

• 2010‑06‑22 (executed) / recorded 2010‑06‑30 — Reel 024611/0530

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.
  • Assignee: Wilmington Trust FSB, Delaware
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — second‑lien/trustee layer added the same week as the Wells Fargo agent lien.

• 2012‑06‑07 (executed) / recorded 2012‑06‑08 — Reel 028341/0697

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.
  • Assignee: LBC Credit Partners II, L.P., as Agent, Pennsylvania
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — unitranche/refinancing of the 2010 facilities.

• 2012‑06‑07 (executed) / recorded 2012‑06‑10 — Reels 028349/0987 (releasing 020741/0193) and 028350/0035 (releasing 013295/0543)

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
  • Assignor: Wells Fargo Capital Finance, Inc. (f/k/a Wells Fargo Foothill, Inc.)
  • Assignee: Holley Performance Products, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — both Wells Fargo‑family liens extinguished, covering an 11‑year span of the chain.

• 2012‑06‑08 (executed) / recorded 2012‑06‑16 — Reel 028388/0893

  • Conveyance: Termination and Release of Security Interest (of reel 024611/0530)
  • Assignor: Wilmington Trust, National Association (successor by merger to Wilmington Trust FSB)
  • Assignee: Holley Performance Products, Inc.; Demon Fuel Systems, Inc.; Sniper Motorsports, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — trustee layer unwound.

• 2012‑06‑07 (executed) / recorded 2012‑06‑29 — Reel 028487/0974

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.
  • Assignee: Hawthorn Finco, LLC, New York
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — fourth distinct lender in a 24‑month window (part of the "cascading lien" cluster, but note: liens, not title).

• recorded 2012‑07‑09 — Reels 028518/0515 (releasing 011641/0166) and 028518/0523 (releasing 011641/0115)

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
  • Assignor: Banc of America Leasing & Capital, LLC (successor to Fleet Capital Corporation)
  • Assignee: Holley Performance Products, Inc.; Earl's Supply Company
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — the original 2001 Fleet liens closed out after 11.5 years.

• 2013‑10‑24 (executed) / recorded 2013‑10‑25 — Reel 031496/0062

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Demon Fuel Systems, Inc.; QFT Holdings, Inc.; and others
  • Assignee: General Electric Capital Corporation, as Agent, Colorado
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — full group‑wide replacement facility.

• 2013‑10‑24 (executed) / recorded 2013‑10‑30 — Reels 031509/0293, 031513/0123, 031513/0715

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignors: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as Agent; Hawthorn Finco, LLC; LBC Credit Partners II, L.P.
  • Assignee: Holley Performance Products, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — all three 2010/2012 liens released simultaneously with the GE Capital facility.

• 2015‑09‑22 (executed) / recorded 2015‑09‑22 — Reel 036664/0148

  • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.; QFT Holdings, Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; and others
  • Assignee: Cerberus Business Finance, LLC, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — sponsor‑style credit facility.

• 2015‑09‑22 (executed) / recorded 2015‑09‑24 — Reel 036686/0964

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest in Patent Collateral
  • Assignor: General Electric Capital Corporation
  • Assignees: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; QFT Holdings, Inc.; Demon Fuel Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing — GE lien cleared as Cerberus lien recorded (same execution date).

• 2018‑10‑26 (executed) / recorded 2018‑11‑05 — Reel 047419/0953

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: Cerberus Business Finance, LLC
  • Assignees: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; QFT Holdings, Inc.; Powerteq LLC; MSD LLC; Accel Performance Group LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: refinancing.

• 2018‑10‑26 (executed) / recorded 2018‑11‑06 — Reel 047429/0343

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (first lien)
  • Assignor: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Accel Performance Group LLC; APR, LLC; Flowmaster, Inc.; MSD LLC; Powerteq LLC; Racepak LLC
  • Assignee: UBS AG, Stamford Branch, as Collateral Agent, Connecticut
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization — the facility Holley carried into its 2021 SPAC listing.

• 2018‑10‑26 (executed) / recorded 2018‑11‑18 — Reels 048147/0510 and 048475/0125

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (second lien) and a Corrective Assignment re‑recording the UBS first lien (047429/0343)
  • Assignors: same Holley affiliate group; second‑lien record assigns to AEA Debt Management LP, Second Lien Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: securitization + administrative correction — first/second‑lien split; a pure clerical re‑record, notable only because no ownership change accompanies it.

• 2021‑11‑18 (executed) / recorded 2021‑11‑24 — Reels 058944/0279 (AEA) and 058948/0926 (UBS)

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party (both liens)
  • Assignors: AEA Debt Management LP, as Second Lien Collateral Agent; UBS AG, Stamford Branch, as First Lien Collateral Agent
  • Assignees: Holley Performance Products Inc.; Holley Performance Systems, Inc.; Powerteq LLC; MSD LLC; Accel Performance Group LLC; APR, LLC; Racepak LLC; Flowmaster, Inc.; High Performance Industries, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: terminus — all encumbrances cleared; Holley emerges as unencumbered owner. The patent then ran out its term (2020‑11‑02) with no transfer to any assertion vehicle.

Data-gap flag: the event list shows maintenance‑fee payments at years 4, 8 and 12 only (last FPAY 2013‑10‑30). No year‑16 payment appears in the fetched events, yet the status reads "Expired – Lifetime / anticipated expiration 2020‑11‑02." I am not asserting a mid‑term lapse — I flag it as an incomplete event feed, not a finding.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership and lien record US 6378512
    1999 : Provisional filed by Staggemeier
    2000 : Non-provisional filed
    2001 : Inventor assigns title to Holley
         : Fleet Capital security liens
    2002 : Patent issues
         : Foothill Capital security interest
    2006 : US Bank security agreement
    2008 : US Bank and Wells Fargo Foothill liens
    2010 : Wells Fargo Capital Finance lien
         : US Bank liens released
         : Wilmington Trust lien
    2012 : LBC Credit lien
         : Wells Fargo liens released
         : Wilmington lien released
         : Hawthorn Finco lien
         : Fleet liens released
    2013 : GE Capital lien
         : Hawthorn and Wells and LBC released
    2015 : Cerberus security agreement
         : GE Capital released
    2018 : Cerberus release
         : UBS first lien
         : AEA second lien
    2020 : End of patent term
    2021 : UBS and AEA liens released

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NPE / troll‑pattern signals

1. Shell‑entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The sole title conveyance is reel 011512/0706 (executed 2001‑01‑16), inventor → Holley Performance Products, Inc. — a product manufacturer, not a licensing vehicle. Every subsequent assignee is an institutional lender or collateral agent (Fleet Capital 011641/0166; Foothill 013295/0543; U.S. Bank 017105/0764 & 020723/0246; Wells Fargo Foothill 020741/0193; Wells Fargo Capital Finance 024563/0922; Wilmington Trust 024611/0530; LBC Credit 028341/0697; Hawthorn Finco 028487/0974; GE Capital 031496/0062; Cerberus 036664/0148; UBS 047429/0343; AEA 048147/0510). No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity ever took title; no single‑member LLC appears as owner at any point. Note that Holley Performance Products Holdings, Inc. and Nitrous Oxide Systems, Inc. appear only as co‑grantors in blanket‑lien records (017105/0764, 020723/0246, 020741/0193) — they never acquired this patent.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
Checked against Acacia/ACT, Marathon Patent Group, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, and named Spangenberg entities: no match anywhere in the recorded chain. No Unified Patents or RPX asserter listing surfaced for US 6,378,512, its owner, or any assignee in the record.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (cannot be scored, not a negative).
The correspondent field is absent from every source I could retrieve (see data‑gap note). What is observable is a different recurrence: the same lending families recur across links — Foothill Capital → Wells Fargo Foothill → Wells Fargo Capital Finance (013295/0543, then 020741/0193, then 024563/0922), and U.S. Bank twice (017105/0764 then 020723/0246). That is lender succession inside one borrower's credit history, the opposite of the NPE tell (where changing shell names are papered by one repeat lawyer). I decline to name a correspondent I cannot verify.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT (for title).
There is exactly one title transfer in 21+ years of records. The 2012 and 2013 clusters that superficially look like cascades (028341/0697, 028487/0974, 031496/0062 with simultaneous releases at 028349/0987, 028350/0035, 028388/0893, 031509/0293, 031513/0123, 031513/0715) are releases of liens paired with new liens on the same or adjacent execution dates — a refinancing pattern, not chained conveyances of the patent to successive LLCs.

5. Pre‑litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
No infringement suit naming US 6,378,512 was located. The Holley litigation surfaced in the search — Holley Performance Products, Inc. v. Quick Fuel Technology, No. 1:07‑cv‑00185 (W.D. Ky.) — is a trademark/trade‑dress and antitrust action (see the court's opinion on the DOUBLE PUMPER® mark and the price‑fixing counterclaim, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.kywd.63535/gov.uscourts.kywd.63535.60.0.pdf), not an assertion of this patent. There is therefore no pre‑suit assignment window to test.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 record for Holley was located, and no sale of the '512 patent in any proceedings. The 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018 lien‑release‑and‑replace sequences (reels 024599/*, 028341/0697, 031496/0062, 036664/0148, 047419/0953, 047429/0343) are consistent with serial secured refinancings of a leveraged operating company, with the patent retained throughout.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Holley never transferred the patent out, so there is no operating‑company‑to‑NPE handoff and no NPE asserting on Holley's behalf. (No SEC disclosure, Patent Progress or EFF coverage of such an arrangement was found.)

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Holley Performance Products, Inc. after the 2021‑11‑18 releases (reels 058944/0279 and 058948/0926). RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents and OIN appear nowhere in the record; the patent was not "neutralized" by aggregation — it simply expired in the hands of its original operating‑company owner.

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Verdict

Operating‑company assertion — with an explicit caveat on the "assertion" prong.

Of the five available labels, this is the only one the record supports: ownership of US 6,378,512 never left its original operating‑company assignee. Title moved exactly once — inventor Karl Staggemeier → Holley Performance Products, Inc. at reel 011512/0706 (executed 2001‑01‑16) — and every one of the other 29 reel/frame entries is a lender's Security Agreement, Security Interest, Release or Corrective Assignment (e.g. 011641/0166, 013295/0543, 017105/0764, 024563/0922, 028341/0697, 031496/0062, 036664/0148, 047429/0343, 048147/0510), terminating with the first‑ and second‑lien releases at reels 058944/0279 and 058948/0926 on 2021‑11‑18. Holley is a real manufacturer that ships NOS‑brand nitrous plates embodying claims 1–13, and its own later patent US 7,533,661 cites the '512 as prior art.

Two honest qualifications: (i) no assertion of this patent was found in any docket, so the "suing actual competitors" element is unproven — the demonstrated fact is operating‑company ownership, not litigation; and (ii) the patent expired 2020‑11‑02 ("Expired – Lifetime") and is now unassertable. If your rubric requires litigation evidence for the label, downgrade to Insufficient data — no NPE pattern found, which is the substantive conclusion either way: zero NPE signals, zero shell entities, zero known asserters, zero transfers to an assertion vehicle.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6,378,512); mirrored records also at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html and https://patents.google.com/patent/US6378512/en#legalEvents.

Correspondent of record is missing for all entries above because neither Google Patents nor any indexed source republishes that field for this patent; I was unable to open the Assignment Center record images and have not guessed at attorney names. If correspondent attribution matters to your analysis, it must be pulled from the Assignment Center's per‑record detail pages directly.

I'll search the USPTO/authoritative records for patent 6378512 and its cited prior art.

Let me pull the '512 front-page citation data and check for USPTO/PTAB proceedings.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent No. 6378512

0. Sourcing note / scope caveat

I could not log into USPTO PatentCenter (authenticated), so my bibliographic verification below is taken from the authoritative full text of US 6,378,512 that was supplied to me (the Google Patents record US6378512B1, which reproduces the USPTO front-page citation data), cross-checked against Justia and patent-image PDFs of the cited reference. I did not substitute any other patent number; everything below keys on 6,378,512 (App. No. 09/703,728).

Key structural fact that drives this entire analysis: the '512 record lists exactly one patent citation ("Citations (1)"). There is no second, third, or fourth examiner-cited patent. So the "each citation" set is a set of one, plus two derived/secondary references I flag as unverified candidates in §3.

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1. The patent under analysis (verified record)

Sources: Google Patents US6378512B1; Justia 6378512.

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2. The single cited prior-art patent — full citation

US 5,839,418 A — "Dual stage nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate"

Sources: Google Patents US5839418A; Justia 5839418; US5839418 PDF.

Brief description of '418

A nitrous "plate" module that bolts between the carburetor and the intake manifold, having a central airstream passage and two pairs of straight spray conduits that criss-cross in an X across that passage — one pair spanning north–south, the second east–west, perpendicular to the first. Within each pair:

• the upstream conduit carries nitrous oxide at ~1000 psi, held liquid until it exits small spray ports/nozzles drilled along the conduit wall, whereupon it flashes to gas and drops in temperature;
• the downstream conduit carries gasoline at ~40 psi through similar spray ports.

The nitrous jets are angled to converge on and envelope the downstream fuel conduit, so fuel and nitrous mix in the airstream. The stated goal is that the X-arrangement feeds "the four quadrants of the passage" so each of the engine's cylinders/quadrants gets an adequate dose of nitrous and fuel. Fuel and nitrous are fed from external lines through inlet ports into respective internal conduits formed in the plate, which connect to the open (anchored) ends of the spray conduits.

§102 status of '418 against '512 (dates)

'512's filing is 2000-11-02 (priority 1999-11-02). '418 issued 1998-11-24, i.e. before the priority date and more than one year before the filing date. Under the pre-AIA statute applicable to a 2000 filing, '418 is therefore unambiguously available prior art under §102(a) and §102(b) (and it was, in fact, the sole reference the examiner cited and overcame).

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3. §102 anticipation analysis — element-by-element

The decisive limitation in both independent claims is the peripheral/annular discharge requirement: the discharge port must cause nitrous (and fuel) "to be discharged substantially evenly around the periphery of the air passage." That is not merely "distributed across the cross-section" — the '512 specification and its own background section deliberately draw that distinction, criticizing '418 precisely because its tube-and-spray-port geometry builds a pressure gradient and delivers more nitrous at the tube terminal ends, i.e., unevenly.

Claim 1 (and identically claim 14) mapped against '418:

Result: '418 does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 14, because anticipation under §102 requires every element in a single reference, and limitation (f)/(g) is absent. '418 comes closest to claims 1 and 14 only (it discloses the entire "environment" and the plate/inlet-port/communication-passage superstructure), but the point of novelty — peripheral, substantially even annular discharge — is exactly what '418 lacks, and exactly what the applicant used to distinguish it (the examiner allowed the claims over '418).

Dependent claims 2–13 and 15–26: none is anticipated, for two reasons layered on top of the above —

1. every one incorporates the missing (f)/(g) limitation; and
2. the specific added structures are also absent from '418: three-piece top/body/bottom sandwich with the nitrous passage between top and body and the fuel passage between body and bottom (claims 2/16); circuitous reservoir around the air passage (3/17); "barrier means"/fence dividing inner and outer reservoirs (5/6, 19/20); discharge through mating angled/conical surfaces giving annular discharge (8/9, 21/22); a fuel reservoir with a plurality of evenly spaced downstream discharge ports (10/23); gasket/seal placements (7/11/24); and plural separate airstreams each with its own nitrous and fuel discharge ports (12/13, 25/26).

Bottom line for the §102 question: no claim of 6,378,512 is anticipated by US 5,839,418. The realistic ground of rejection the examiner could have made (and which the closest-art role of '418 supports) is §103 obviousness, using '418 alone or in combination — not §102. My analysis therefore contradicts any framing that treats '418 as anticipating '512, and I flag that explicitly.

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4. Secondary / derived references (flagged as unverified candidates, not citations of record)

These are not "patent citations for 6378512" in the USPTO record; the record has only '418. I list them because they are the next-most-relevant art and predate '512's priority, but I could not fully verify their content, so treat each as a lead requiring confirmation:

1. US 5,743,241 — "Wood et al., April 28, 1998." The only "Referenced Cited" entry on the face of '418 itself (Justia 5839418). If it discloses a plate-type nitrous/fuel delivery module, it is available §102(a)/§102(b) art against '512 (issued before both the 1999-11-02 priority and 2000-11-02 filing). Title/content not verified — I only confirmed the number, date, and "Wood et al." from the '418 citation list.
2. US 5,890,476 — "Barry Grant, Apr. 6, 1999." Named as a "prior art … nitrous oxide and fuel nozzle" reference in US 7,966,998 (Ward) (US7966998 PDF). Its 1999-04-06 date precedes '512's 1999-11-02 priority, so it is potentially §102(a) art. Existence/scope not independently verified — the number and date are as recited in Ward, not confirmed by me in a primary record.

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5. Important clarification: the "Cited By" list is NOT prior art to '512

The 18–39 documents listed under "Cited By" on the '512 record (e.g., US 6,561,172; US 6,691,688; US 6,935,322; US 7,533,661; US 8,387,596; US 8,995,772; US 2011/0120434; US 10012197; US 12421907) are later patents that cite '512 — several of them are by the same company/family (Holley, Wilson, Nitrous Oxide Systems). Because they postdate '512's 1999/2000 dates, they cannot be §102 prior art against '512 and should not be charted as anticipating art. They are useful only as evidence of the field's state after the fact. Note in particular that US 6,561,172 and US 6,691,688 describe '418's tube/plate geometry in detail and are themselves the closest commercial descendants — but again, they are downstream, not prior art.

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6. Summary answer

• USPTO record for 6,378,512 lists one (1) patent citation: US 5,839,418 A ("Dual stage nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate," Barry Grant / BG 300, Inc.; filed Dec. 4, 1997; issued Nov. 24, 1998).
• '418 discloses the general environment of claims 1 and 14 (carburetor-to-manifold plate, air passage, nitrous and fuel inlet ports, internal plate conduits feeding the injectors) but does not disclose the peripheral/annular "substantially evenly around the periphery" discharge that is the distinguishing limitation of both independent claims.
• Therefore, under 35 U.S.C. §102, '418 anticipates no claim of 6,378,512 — it is the primary §103 (obviousness) reference, not an anticipatory one. It is nevertheless the most relevant prior art, and the only examiner-cited patent.
• The two derived candidates (US 5,743,241; US 5,890,476) are flagged as unverified and should be pulled directly from the USPTO/Google Patents full text before being relied on for any §102 assertion.

Uncertainty I am flagging rather than papering over: (i) I could not retrieve the actual front-page PDF of '512 to confirm whether any non-patent literature was also cited — the machine-readable record shows only the one patent citation; and (ii) the content of US 5,743,241 and US 5,890,476 is asserted from secondary citations, not primary documents.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent's page. Let me pull details on the primary reference and the surrounding art.

Let me pull additional detail on the primary reference's disclosure and on peripheral/annular-discharge art that predates the 1999 priority date.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,378,512 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Framing note before I begin: The task header states the current date is "April 26, 2026," while my operating date is 2026‑09‑30. Both are well after the patent's priority date, so this does not change the analysis — I flag it only to be transparent. All §103 reasoning below is performed as of the critical date of 1999‑11‑02 (the '512 provisional priority date), because that is the date on which the claimed invention is measured.

Scope discipline: The task instructs me to use the results in the "Prior Art" section of the patent's page. On the Google Patents page the "Prior Art" material consists of: (i) the Citations entry — US 5,839,418; (ii) the Cited By list (all post‑2002, therefore not prior art against '512); and (iii) the Similar Documents list. I rely principally on the Citations entry and the Similar Documents list, and I clearly label each reference I bring in from supplementary searching so that you can see which of my combinations rest only on the page's own art.

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1. The governing framework

Obviousness is resolved under the Graham v. John Deere factors as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007):

1. the scope and content of the prior art;
2. the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue;
3. the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art; and
4. secondary considerations (objective indicia).

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA). A person of ordinary skill here is an engineer or experienced technician in high‑performance engine induction systems — familiar with carburetor‑to‑manifold spacers ("plates"), plate‑type nitrous‑oxide injection systems, spray bars/rails, fluid manifolds and gasket‑sealed stacked‑plate assemblies. This is a mature, crowded arts field (the '512 specification itself cites patents from 1975–1998), which under KSR cuts toward a finding that combining known elements is the work of a skilled artisan.

The patent's own admissions help the obviousness case. The '512 specification concedes that (a) plate/spray‑bar nitrous systems were known, (b) non‑uniform nitrous distribution across cylinders was the recognized problem, and (c) the stated objective ("to provide a nitrous oxide and fuel injection plate or module providing a substantially uniform distribution of nitrous oxide and fuel") was already an expressed goal in the field. It even hedges the operative mechanism: "Without wishing to be bound by any theory of operability, it is believed that this tortured path causes a substantially uniform distribution…."

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2. The prior art of record (and its dates)

Supplementary references I retrieved in searching (these are not in the page's own "Prior Art" list, and I label them as such):

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3. Claim 1 (and claim 14) decomposed, with the differences identified

Claims 1 and 14 are the only independents; claim 14 is claim 1 recast as "an internal combustion engine comprising…." Their substance is the same, so the analysis applies to both (and every dependent claim's core limitation appears in one or the other).

The examiner cited only '418. That tells you exactly where the novelty was thought to reside: the shift from cross‑spanning spray conduits ('418) to in‑plate communication passages/reservoirs that discharge annularly around the periphery of the air passage. That is the entire delta. The question, therefore, is whether that shift was obvious in November 1999 — and the art listed on this very page supplies it.

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4. The primary combination: US 5,839,418 + US 4,043,306 (+ optionally US 4,148,285)

This is the strongest §103 combination. It uses '418 as the base and a spacer‑plate reference for the in‑plate passage / peripheral discharge.

Why '418 is the ideal base. Its preamble and its air‑passage element are word‑for‑word identical to '512 claim 1. It supplies every element except the "in‑plate communication passage" and "peripheral even discharge" features, and it supplies the entire reason to make the change.

What US 4,043,306 adds. It is the same kind of article (a plate sandwiched between the carburetor and intake manifold), and it discloses precisely the missing structure:

• an internal passage formed in the plate body (passage 40), and
• a body of three‑ply construction with the passage defined by a void in the center ply — i.e., the '512 "top/body/bottom plate member" sandwich of dependent claim 2/16; and
• a discharge along a peripheral portion of the air opening.

What US 4,148,285 adds (optional reinforcement). An annular chamber around the bore with an unobstructed annular slot of about 0.006 in discharging into the air passage — which is, structurally, essentially the '512 "annular discharge… between mating angled surfaces" of dependent claims 8/9 and 21/22.

Motivation to combine (articulated, not assumed):

1. Same field, same problem, same result. Both '418 and the spacer references are plate/spacer devices mounted between a carburetor and an intake manifold, for the purpose of delivering a fuel/oxidizer mixture uniformly to the engine's cylinders. Combining references that address the same problem in the same field is the quintessential obvious combination.
2. '418 expressly frames the objective '512 claims to achieve. '418's own background states: "One of the problems with the prior art nitrous oxide and fuel injection modules is that the nitrous oxide and fuel being injected into the airstream are not evenly or proportionately distributed across the entire cross section of the intake manifold and, therefore, are not uniformly supplied to the cylinders…." Its stated object is "a more uniform and proportional mixture…." A PHOSITA reading '418 is thus directed to solve the uniformity problem — the very problem '512 announces it solves.
3. The in‑plate annular/reservoir approach was a known, finite design option. Given a known problem (uneven distribution from spray bars) and a known class of solutions (manifold/reservoir plates that meter fluid through many orifices arranged around the flow passage), the change is a predictable use of a known technique to improve a known device — exactly the situation KSR holds obvious.
4. The patent itself identifies the mechanical reason the cross‑bar approach fails — the pressure gradient and "damming" in a drilled tube — which is a systems‑engineering observation that would drive a skilled artisan away from drilled spray bars toward the reservoir/annual‑discharge geometry already known from the spacer art.

Claim chart for claim 1 (primary combination): every limitation is met by '418 alone except the "communication passage formed in the plate" and "discharge substantially evenly around the periphery," both of which are taught by US 4,043,306 (passage 40 formed in the three‑ply body and peripheral discharge opening) and/or US 4,148,285 (annular chamber + annular slot). Result: claim 1 (and claim 14) would have been prima facie obvious.

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5. Alternative / cumulative combination: US 5,839,418 + US 3,914,347

This combination rests entirely on the page's own art (US 3,914,347 appears in the Similar Documents list).

US 3,914,347 (Kors et al., Aerojet‑General) discloses a platelet injector in which fuel is distributed through internal channels formed in a stacked‑plate assembly to a plurality of very small, precisely located orifices that discharge into the venturi for "fine scale atomization" and "a generally uniform mixture… at the diffuser exit." In other words, it teaches:

• a first/second communication passage formed within a plate assembly for distributing a fluid,
• terminating in many discharge orifices arranged for uniform distribution, and
• explicitly citing "the precise location of each orifice and the large quantity of elements per unit area" to achieve "excellent mass and mixture ratio control."

Motivation. '418 supplies the field, the plate, the fuel+nitrous pairing, and the explicit uniformity objective; US 3,914,347 supplies the known technique of an in‑plate distribution gallery feeding a spray array for uniform distribution. A PHOSITA seeking to improve '418's uniformity would naturally look to such in‑plate distribution/manifold designs. Under KSR, this is a predictable combination of prior‑art elements to achieve the result each element was known to provide.

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6. Alternative combination: US 5,839,418 + US 5,743,241

US 5,743,241 (Wood) is a nitrous plate system in which the emitter ports are arranged so that fuel is entrained and atomized by the oxidizer (nitrous at 900–1,050 psi). It reinforces the "nitrous upstream / fuel downstream" ordering that dependent claim 10/23 recites, and it corroborates that plate designers of skill were already engineering the placement of ports for even mixing. Combined with the spacer art above, it strengthens the obviousness case for claims 1/14 and dependent claims.

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7. The dependent claims

The one genuine weak point is the "barrier means / wall" of claims 5/6 and 19/20 (the "fence" 213 that splits the reservoir and forces the "tortured path"). Nothing I retrieved from the page's listed art shows this specific baffle‑in‑a‑manifold structure. That said, a baffle/weir inside a fluid reservoir to equalize pressure and even out discharge is a well‑known engineering expedient, and the claim is drafted in means‑plus‑function terms ("barrier means"), which invites a broad reading under §112(f). If a challenger could not find a baffled‑manifold reference, claims 5/6, 19/20, and their dependents (7, 11, 24) would be the surviving claims; claims 1–4, 8–10, 12–14, and 16–18, 21–23, 25–26 are more vulnerable.

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8. Secondary considerations (§103 prong 4)

On this record, the objective indicia do not rescue the claims:

• No unexpected results in the specification. The patent's stated mechanism is expressly tentative ("Without wishing to be bound by any theory of operability…"). No comparative data is presented to show the annular design yields results beyond what the prior art would predict.
• No long‑felt, unmet need attributable to '512. '418 (1998) and Wood (1998) already identified the uniformity problem; the need was known and actively being worked, undercutting "long‑felt need" as a non‑obviousness anchor.
• No teaching‑away. '418 does not disparage annular or reservoir‑type distribution; it merely implements a different (cross‑bar) solution.
• Commercial‑success / copying evidence: I found none in the record tying the '512 patent to a specific commercial product with the required nexus. (I note that the later, post‑priority ZEX "Dual Perimeter Plate" nitrous system (2006) markets perimeter injection — but a 2006 product is irrelevant to the 1999 critical date and cannot be used as prior art; it is mentioned only to show the concept was later commercialized, not to prove anything about obviousness as of 1999. I did not find a pre‑1999 "perimeter plate" product disclosure, and I do not assert one exists.)

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9. Conclusion and caveats

Conclusion. Claims 1 and 14 of US 6,378,512 would likely have been prima facie obvious as of 1999‑11‑02 over US 5,839,418 in view of US 4,043,306 (and/or US 4,148,285), with US 3,914,347 and US 5,743,241 as cumulative reinforcing references. The reasoning: '418 supplies every element of the claims except the in‑plate communication passages and peripheral/annular discharge, and it expressly frames the very uniformity problem '512 purports to solve; the spacer/platelet references supply the missing structure as a known technique; and the substitution of an in‑plate reservoir/annular discharge for cross‑spanning spray bars is a predictable use of a known solution to a known problem. Most dependent claims fall with the independents; claims 5/6 and 19/20 (the "barrier means" wall) — and claims depending on them (7, 11, 24) — are the most defensible, because I could not locate the specific baffled‑reservoir structure in the art listed on the page.

Explicit uncertainties I am flagging rather than papering over:

1. Obviousness is a legal conclusion; the above is a prima facie technical case, not a verdict. The examiner allowed '512 over '418 alone, which shows the peripheral/in‑plate features were treated as non‑obvious at the time; a full re‑examination would turn on claim construction (especially "substantially evenly around the periphery" and the means‑plus‑function "barrier means") and on evidence.
2. US 4,043,306, US 4,148,285, US 5,743,241, and US 4,086,899/4,215,663 are NOT in the "Prior Art" list on the '512 page. I found them via supplementary search. I have labeled them as such. The combinations that rest only on the page's own listed art are the '418 + US 3,914,347 combination (§5) and the US 5,535,717 listing; I could not retrieve the full text of US 5,535,717, so I have not relied on its substance.
3. US 6,269,805 (Wilson, "Manifold spacer," issued 2001‑08‑07, disclosing fuel and nitrous manifolds with outlet holes arranged to "evenly distribute the atomized fuel‑oxidizer mixture to each cylinder") is potentially a §102(e) reference if its application was filed before 1999‑11‑02 — but I did not confirm its filing date, so I do not rely on it here. If confirmed, it would materially strengthen the obviousness case.
4. Reference dates are taken from the pages I retrieved; I flag US 4,148,285, US 4,086,899/4,215,663 as pre‑1999 on the basis of their 1970s issue dates, which are far outside the critical date and thus safe.