Invalidity dossier
US 6495498
Detergent compositions with enhanced depositing, conditioning and softness capabilities
Current assignee: Kenvue Brands LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 1:52:56 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: US6495498B2
Title: Detergent compositions with enhanced depositing, conditioning and softness capabilities
Patent number: US6495498B2
Assignee/current owner (as listed): Original assignee — Johnson and Johnson Consumer Companies LLC; current assignee listed as Kenvue Brands LLC (Google Patents notes listed assignees "may be inaccurate").
Key dates:
- Priority/filing date: 1999-05-27
- Publication date: 2002-12-17
- Anticipated expiration: 2019-05-27
- Legal status: Expired – Lifetime
Inventors: Susan M. Niemiec, Hsing Yeh, Regina Gallagher (assignment records also list "Gallgher, Regina" and "Ho, Kie").
Application number: US09/321,074. Other version: US20020077256A1.
Purpose and plain-language scope (from supplied text):
The patent concerns detergent compositions—the excerpt's key terms include detergent, shampoo, conditioning, deposition, softness, water, polysiloxane, cationic group, and hair. The recurring prior-art keywords ("percent," "composition," "water soluble," "carbon atoms," "hair") indicate the disclosure addresses water-soluble detergent compositions intended to deposit conditioning agents (notably polysiloxanes/silicones) onto surfaces such as hair, improving conditioning and softness. The classification terms (mixture; conditioning effects; deposition; polysiloxane; cationic group; shampoo; carbon atoms) reinforce this.
Family/foreign filings mentioned in the record: PH, CA2309413A1, AU782857B2, KR100766731B1, CN1277836A, EP1080714A3, JP2001002535A, MX221734B, BR0002284A, TWI291875B; later continuations US10/271,713 (US6858202B2) and US10/772,016 (US6908889B2).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6495498](/patent/US6495498)/en
What this excerpt does not establish:
The supplied text is an excerpt. It does not include the actual claims, full description, examples, formulation percentages, or defined ranges. It does not establish claim scope or limitations, specific ingredients beyond keyword frequency, or the exact mechanism of conditioning. Inventor-name spellings vary in the record. No factual conclusions about validity, infringement, prior art, or litigation are made.
Note: per instructions, litigation, ownership transfers, validity, and prior art were not researched.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:52:45 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.