US 6666449

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any litigation activity.

Let me search specifically for litigation involving this exact patent and check the Texas case referenced.

US Patent 6,666,449 — Analyst Summary

Sources: Full granted text at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6666449](/patent/US6666449)/en (authoritative), plus litigation/CAFC searches. Where search results and the record conflict, I flag it below.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A star wheel manufacturing process, and a star wheel manufactured thereby, suitable for an ink jet printer. Metal is formed by chemical milling, subtractive etching or the like, into the desired star wheel configuration, including a plurality of radially extending projections having tips. At least a portion of each tip has an electropolished surface. A coating of fluorinated polymer or the like may be applied to at least a portion of the electrolpolished surface on each tip."

(I have reproduced the typo "electrolpolished" exactly as it appears.)

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Star wheel (apparatus):
A star wheel made of metal with (a) a body, (b) multiple projections radiating outward from the body, each projection ending in a tip at its distal end, and (c) an electropolished surface on at least a portion of each of the projections. The claim is not limited to the tips — "at least a portion of each of said projections" is broader than tip-only.

Claim 5 — Ink jet printer (apparatus):
An ink jet printer comprising (a) a print station with a media transport path running through it, (b) a star wheel located in that path that engages the printed surfaces of media exiting the print station, and (c) that star wheel having multiple projections, each projection having an electropolished surface.

Dependent claims (for completeness):

• Claim 2: coating on at least a portion of the electropolished surface.
• Claim 3: coating is a fluorinated polymer.
• Claim 4: electropolished surface is on only the tips.
• Claim 6: each electropolished surface has a surface coating.
• Claim 7: coating is a fluorinated polymer.
• Claim 8: electropolished surface is on only the distal end of each projection.

Note on claim scope: The specification's "Summary of the Invention" recites a method form (providing metal, forming the star wheel shape, electropolishing at least a portion) and states "The invention comprises, in one form thereof, a method for forming a printer star wheel…" However, no method claim issued — all 8 granted claims are apparatus claims (star wheel or printer). The method is described and enabled but is not claimed. The commercial core of the claims is the electropolished star-wheel surface, optionally with a plasma-polymerized fluorinated polymer coating.

Key cited prior art (as listed by the examiner)

US 2,868,705 (Baier); US 3,591,468 (Daikin); US 3,945,893 (Suzuki); US 5,065,370 (IBM, microfinishing stainless steel print bands); US 5,115,740 (Man Roland); US 5,163,674 (Xerox); US 5,356,231 (Tokyo Electric); US 5,406,318 (Tektronix, ink jet print head with electropolished diaphragm); US 5,560,726 (Canon, pointed-teeth rotating member, tip radius ≤ 0.05 mm); US 5,912,690 (Fuji Xerox); US 6,007,063 (Samsung).

Litigation posture

• W.D. Tex. Case No. 6:19-cv-00364, Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., filed 2019-06-11 before Judge Alan D. Albright; the same patent is listed on the Google Patents "litigation" link (Unified Patents portal) for this family. Reported as later reassigned/numbered in the 1:20-cv series and dismissed with prejudice by joint stipulation (per a Slingshot mandatory notice describing the HP matter). A contemporaneous trade report (The Recycler) lists 6,666,449 among the patents asserted in the June 11, 2019 filings.
• A Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" link is associated with this family (ID 25320960).

CAFC 2026 dockets — explicit uncertainty

I did not find any 2026 Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or Rule 36 judgment naming U.S. Patent 6,666,449. My searches returned Slingshot Printing's 2026 Federal Circuit activity, but on other patents:

• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., Nos. 24-2127 and 24-2132 — U.S. Patent 7,152,951 (decided July 2026);
• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 25-1032 and related — U.S. Patent 7,290,864 (IPR2023-00309);
• Three additional Slingshot patents on inkjet chips/temperature sensors, affirmed July 16, 2026.

None of these appear to involve 6,666,449, and I found no CAFC appeal involving it. Because this patent is listed as expired with an adjusted expiration of 2021-08-20, 2026 appellate activity on it would be unusual. I cannot confirm or exclude a 2026 CAFC docket for this specific number — PACER/PTAB sources for the exact number were not retrieved, and I am not asserting a negative as fact. Any statement that no such appeal exists should be verified directly against the Federal Circuit docket and the USPTO PatentCenter record for application 09/855,327.

Caveats

• Bibliographic values above are taken from the patent text provided and the Google Patents record; the "expired 2021-08-20" adjusted-expiration entry is reproduced literally rather than recomputed.
• I kept all identifiers as given (e.g., 6,666,449 / US6666449B2, application 09/855,327) without normalization.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6666449.

Let me dig deeper into the specific case and confirm which patents were asserted.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation case list specifically filtered for the '449 patent.

Bottom line

Based on the litigation data embedded in the Google Patents record for US 6,666,449 B2 ("Star wheel surface enhancement and process of manufacture") and corroborating court/docket sources, the only known litigation involving this patent is a single asserted-patent campaign: Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Note an important context point: the '449 patent is one of 16 Lexmark-origin inkjet patents that Slingshot Printing LLC (the current assignee, per the 2019-03-29 assignment from Funai Electric Co., Ltd.) asserted against HP. The '449 patent was never asserted against Canon — the later Slingshot v. Canon suits in E.D.N.Y. involved a different patent set ('864, '951, '823, '629, '708, etc.).

Known litigation

Source for the case linkage: The Google Patents page for this patent carries a litigation entry — "US case filed in Texas Western District Court" — linking to Unified Patents' record for Texas Western District Court / case 6:19-cv-00364 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A19-cv-00364). The same page also flags "Family has litigation / First worldwide family litigation filed" via Darts-IP (family ID 25320960). Consistent with this, the industry publication The Recycler reported that Slingshot filed three separate complaints on June 11, 2019 in W.D. Tex. accusing HP of infringing 16 patents, expressly including 6,666,449 (alongside 6,137,502; 6,213,587; 6,243,115; 6,394,593; 6,485,124; 6,773,088; 6,817,707; 7,014,299; 7,244,015; 7,258,434; 7,311,385; 7,819,498; 7,841,712; 7,938,523; and 8,113,618).

Companion/related cases in the same campaign

The three June 11, 2019 complaints were docketed as 6:19-cv-00362, 6:19-cv-00363, and 6:19-cv-00364 (all before Judge Albright). Slingshot added a fourth suit on September 20, 2019 as 6:19-cv-00549, and a fifth on January 23, 2020 as 6:20-cv-00048. These W.D. Tex. matters were later transferred/reassigned to the Austin Division and renumbered (e.g., 6:19-cv-00362 → 1:20-cv-00184; 6:19-cv-00549 → 1:20-cv-00189; 6:20-cv-00048 → 1:20-cv-00189-ADA). The dismissed-with-prejudice disposition applies across this HP series. In the -00364 docket specifically, activity included HP's Rule 12(b)(6)/12(b)(7) motion to dismiss, a motion to stay, an amended complaint, and pro hac vice admissions (docket snapshot as of Aug. 2019 shows case "Open" at that time).

Related PTAB proceedings (not on the '449 patent): HP filed IPRs against several Slingshot/Lexmark patents in 2020 — IPR2020-01084 ('593), IPR2020-01085 ('115), IPR2020-01086 ('299), and IPR2020-01659 ('246). All were terminated-settled on March 29, 2021. I found no IPR, PGR, or reexamination directed to US 6,666,449.

What was not found

• No ITC Section 337 investigation involving the '449 patent.
• No litigation against Canon, Funai, Lexmark, or any other defendant involving the '449 patent. (The Canon suits, E.D.N.Y. Nos. 2:22-cv-00123 and 2:22-cv-01852, asserted a separate patent set.)
• No CAFC appeal involving the '449 patent (the Federal Circuit appeals I located — e.g., Nos. 2024-2127, 2025-1032 — concern other Slingshot patents such as 7,152,951 and 7,290,864).
• No pending litigation. This is unsurprising: the patent's term expired, with an adjusted expiration of August 20, 2021, and the Google Patents legal status is "Expired – Lifetime."

Caveats (strict-identifier note)

1. I interpreted 6,666,449 literally and did not substitute any similar number (e.g., 6,666,448 or 6,664,449), and I disregarded search hits tied to different patents (LG's '644 patent, the '449 reference in other records, etc.).
2. The determination that case 6:19-cv-00364 is the specific docket for the '449 patent rests on the Google Patents/Unified Patents litigation linkage for this patent plus The Recycler's reporting of the asserted 16-patent list. I could not, within this search session, open the underlying complaint in 6:19-cv-00364 to read the caption's patent enumeration directly. Because Slingshot filed three simultaneous W.D. Tex. complaints on June 11, 2019 splitting the 16 patents, the precise docket number for the '449 patent should be confirmed against the complaint in 6:19-cv-00364 (PACER) if that distinction is material.
3. Some secondary sources give inconsistent renumbered/reassigned docket numbers for the HP series (e.g., 6:19-cv-00549 is reported variously as reassigned to 1:20-cv-00187 and 1:20-cv-00189). I have flagged rather than harmonized these.
4. If you need a definitive, current docket-level confirmation, the authoritative sources would be PACER for W.D. Tex. case 6:19-cv-00364 and the Unified Patents litigation portal case list filtered on the '449 patent.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB proceedings" finding against live sources before finalizing.

The first pass returned only other patents numbered "449" (7,373,449 / 6,470,399). Let me confirm by targeting the patent owner and the patent's subject matter.

Let me run two final targeted checks — the W.D. Tex. HP case and any "star wheel" IPR.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file for U.S. Patent 6,666,449. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web checks — targeting the patent number, the "star wheel" subject matter, and the patent owner's entire PTAB history — surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming 6,666,449. A defendant cannot point to any PTAB outcome to knock this patent out: all eight claims (1–8) are UNTESTED at the PTAB, and there is no AIA estoppel to leverage. The defensive value of this patent's PTAB record is precisely zero — the file is empty, not adverse.

Important verification caveat: an absence is a weaker claim than a presence. I retrieved the ODP structured result and multiple corroborating searches, but I did not retrieve a PTACTS/E2E docket page keyed to this exact number. Do not state as a fact that no petition was ever filed; state that no proceeding is on file. Confirm against PTAB E2E ("Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End") and PatentCenter for application 09/855,327 before relying on the empty file.

No proceedings to report

There are no AIA trial proceedings to list. The section template in the current task assumes at least one proceeding exists; that assumption does not hold here, so the per-proceeding entries would be fabricated and I will not produce them.

False positives I affirmatively ruled out

These are the near-miss identifiers my searches returned. Every one is a different patent. Flagging them so nobody re-imports a "449 IPR" from a search snippet:

That last row is the strategically meaningful one, and it is developed below.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% untested. Claims 1–8 of 6,666,449 have never been construed or adjudicated by the PTAB in any AIA trial. There are no canceled claims, no confirmed claims, and no substitute claims. The full apparatus claim set survives at the Office by default — not because it was defended and won, but because no one attacked it. Contrast: for the Slingshot inkjet-chip family, the PTAB did reach the merits, and the Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation of the challenged claims; on 2026-07-16 the court upheld PTAB decisions invalidating all Canon-challenged claims in three Slingshot patents, and on 2026-07-21 it affirmed the Board in Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 24-2127 (U.S. Patent 7,152,951). None of that jurisprudence touches 6,666,449.

Estoppel landscape: nothing to work with — in either direction. Because no IPR reached a Final Written Decision under § 318(a), § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached against any party. A current defendant is therefore not restricted by anyone else's prior IPR grounds, but equally has no ready-made invalidity record to borrow. Any invalidity position must be built from scratch in district court or in a first-instance IPR petition. Note the practical consequence: an IPR of your own would be a first petition on this patent, so General Plastic follow-on concerns are minimal — though a 2025–2026 institution environment (bifurcated discretionary review, "settled expectations" denials, expanded § 314(a)/Fintiv practice) makes institution substantially harder than it was in the 2022 Canon wave.

Pattern signals. (1) Single-owner consolidation: the patent passed Lexmark → Funai Electric (eff. 2013-04-01) → Slingshot Printing LLC (eff. 2019-03-29), the classic NPE carve-out of a legacy OEM portfolio. (2) Assertion, then no PTAB follow-through specifically on this patent: 6,666,449 was named in the June 2019 Slingshot filings including W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00364, and appears in the Google Patents litigation link, yet the contemporaneous IPR wave that Canon later mounted targeted the inkjet-chip patents, not this star-wheel patent. (3) No defensive aggregator: Unified Patents appears only as a litigation-data source on the Google Patents page, not as a petitioner. No third-party IPR challenger (Unified, RPX-style) is in the chain. (4) Assertion window has closed: the patent is Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration listed as 2021-08-20 — a § 315(b)/timing and damages reality that likely explains the absent IPR more than any perceived strength of the claims.

Read-through for a demand letter. If Slingshot (or a successor) cites 6,666,449 today, the absence of PTAB history is not evidence the claims are strong. It is evidence the patent was left behind when the inkjet-chip family became the asserted core. The real defensive assets are the expiration date and the prior-art stack already cited on the face of the patent — most notably US 5,406,318 (Tektronix, ink jet print head with an electropolished diaphragm), which the examiner cited and which undercuts any argument that electropolishing a printer component was novel; US 5,560,726 (Canon, pointed-teeth rotating member with tip radius ≤ 0.05 mm); US 5,356,231 (Tokyo Electric, ink jet printer); and US 5,910,690 / US 6,007,063 on sheet-transport star wheels. Those references carry no § 325(d)/§ 315(e) baggage here because no IPR ever adjudicated them.

Recommended next steps

• If you need to confirm the empty file: query PTAB E2E by patent number 6,666,449 and application 09/855,327, and cross-check PatentCenter for any post-grant papers. There is no FWD to link to — and inventing one would be a sanctionable error. If E2E returns nothing, the correct representation is "no AIA trial proceeding on file."
• If you are defending an assertion: your leverage is (a) expiration 2021-08-20 (confirm the PTA calculation against the face of the patent rather than the Google Patents field), which limits any pre-suit damages and post-expiration relief to past infringement only, and (b) a fresh § 102/§ 103 attack built on the 11 examiner-cited references plus the electropolishing and plasma-polymerization literature. Claims 1 and 5 are the broad independent claims; claim 1's "at least a portion of each of said projections" is the widest aperture and the best IPR target if you elect that route.
• If you are considering an IPR: weigh it against the current discretionary-denial regime. A single, merits-strong petition directed at claims 1 and 5, with a § 102 anticipation theory built on the Tektronix electropolished-diaphragm reference combined with a star-wheel transport reference, is the cleanest posture. Do not assume institution — the settled-expectations and Fintiv lines flagged in the 2025 PTAB landscape are live.
• Preserve the caveat. Because the negative is derived from the ODP structured block plus web corroboration rather than a retrieved PTACTS docket, any client-facing memo should say "no proceeding identified" and record the E2E/PatentCenter check date.

Grounding links: USPTO PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ ; USPTO PatentCenter for application 09/855,327 — https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ ; CourtListener docket search — https://www.courtlistener.com/ ; Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 24-2127 (Fed. Cir.) (U.S. Patent 7,152,951 — not 6,666,449) — https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/ ; patent text (authoritative) — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6666449](/patent/US6666449)/en.

I'll research the assignment chain, correspondents of record, and entity details before writing.

Now let me verify correspondents of record and check for any additional recorded documents (licenses, security interests, license-back).

Ownership Chain — US 6,666,449 B2

Verification basis: Google Patents legal-events block for the patent (authoritative for reel/frame strings, reproduced literally) plus independent searches corroborating the 2013 Lexmark→Funai transaction (Lexmark Form 8-K dated 2013-05-01; Funai press release dated 2013-04-02) and the 2019 Funai→Slingshot transfer (Slingshot complaints and PTAB exhibits). I did not successfully retrieve the Assignment Center record for this patent in this session — the correspondent-of-record fields and any non-assignment filings (licenses, security interests) could not be confirmed. Those gaps are flagged below rather than filled.

Inventors

All three are Lexmark employees; the assignment was executed 2001-05-08 (one week before the 2001-05-15 filing) and recorded 2001-05-15 as Reel 011835/0265, naming LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC. (Kentucky) as assignee. This is a standard pre-filing, employee-inventor assignment — no inventors departed before execution, and there is no evidence of inventor-side abandonment within 12 months. The timing is unremarkable: it reflects a corporate practice of recording within days of filing, not a distress signal.

No unusual inventor pattern. The fire-sale character of this patent's history is entirely corporate (portfolio divestiture), not inventor-driven.

Original assignee

Lexmark International, Inc. — Delaware corporation, principal offices at One Lexmark Centre Drive, 740 West New Circle Road, Lexington, Kentucky 40550 (per Lexmark's 2013 Form 8-K). At filing Lexmark was a public company (NYSE: LXK) and Lexmark's primary business was printing/imaging hardware — laser printers at the time of the sale, but it had built the inkjet printer line (Lexmark Z-series, X-series, and the associated ink cartridges) that this patent served.

Did Lexmark ship a product embodying the claims? Effectively yes, in the sense material to an NPE analysis: the '449 patent claims an electropolished star wheel used in the media transport path of an inkjet printer (claim 5 recites an ink jet printer with such a wheel in the media path). Lexmark was a vertically integrated inkjet OEM and its printers used star-wheel exit rollers; the specification is written from the perspective of a manufacturer solving its own ink-tracking defect. I did not find, and do not assert, a part-number-level record tying this specific patent's embodiment to a named Lexmark model.

Current status: Lexmark exited the inkjet business entirely with this very transaction. It is now a print-imaging/software and IoT company (acquired by the Ninestar-led consortium in 2016 — noted for context, not verified here). Lexmark was not in bankruptcy; its later inkjet divestiture was a deliberate strategic exit, not a Chapter 7/11 fire-sale.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded assignments appear on the face of the Google Patents legal-events record for this patent.

• 2001-05-08 (executed) / recorded 2001-05-15 — Reel 011835/0265

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Stephen Francis DeFosse; Edward Lawrence Kiely; Sean David Smith
  • Assignee: LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC. (Kentucky)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. The Google Patents legal-events block does not expose the correspondent field, and my Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov queries for this patent number returned no result in this session. No attorney name is asserted here.
  • Context: Original employee-inventor assignment to the operating company; no third-party involvement.

• 2013-04-01 (executed/effective) / recorded 2013-05-14 — Reel 030416/0001

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC. and LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, S.A. (LITSA — Swiss joint stock company and wholly-owned Lexmark subsidiary; the two are defined together as "Sellers" in the transaction documents)
  • Assignee: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD. (Japan)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved (same limitation as above).
  • Context: Portfolio divestiture / asset sale. Lexmark's Form 8-K (event date 2013-04-01, filed 2013-05-01) discloses a Master Inkjet Sale Agreement with Funai for $100,000,000 cash, closing 2013-04-30, involving assignment of approximately 1,500 patents and applications plus the Cebu, Philippines manufacturing subsidiary. Funai's own release states ~JPY 9.5 billion and "more than 1,500 inkjet patents." The recorded execution date of 2013-04-01 and effective date of 2013-04-01 match the agreement date; the 2013-05-14 recording follows the April 30 closing. This is a bulk-transfer link — one reel/frame covering an entire portfolio, not a patent-specific negotiation.

• 2019-03-29 (executed/effective) / recorded 2019-03-29 — Reel 048745/0551

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
  • Assignee: SLINGSHOT PRINTING LLC (Maryland principal place of business; Delaware LLC per the E.D.N.Y. complaints)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. I flag the practical caution here: in the parallel Slingshot assertion campaign, Slingshot's correspondence address of record in PTAB filings was Goldberg Segalla LLP, 711 3rd Avenue, Suite 1900, New York, NY 10017 (Customer Number 133676, POA filed 2020-07-25 in the IPRs). That is a power-of-attorney correspondence address in a later proceeding — it is not evidence of who recorded Reel 048745/0551, and I do not treat it as the assignment correspondent. A related Slingshot-era recording at Reel 051430/0989 appears in a PTAB chain-of-title exhibit for a sibling patent; it is a different reel/frame than 048745/0551 and is noted only to show the family was recorded in blocks.
  • Context: Transfer to asserter. Same-day execution and recording; the assignee is a licensing entity.

Recorded licenses / security interests: The 2013 Intellectual Property Assignment and License Agreement included a license-back from Funai to the Sellers (Lexmark/LITSA) for certain patents, per Lexmark's 8-K description. I could not confirm whether that license-back, or any security agreement, appears as a recorded document against this specific patent number. Treat "no security interest recorded" as unverified.

Cross-check note: the examiner-cited Google Patents event "Assigned to LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC. / ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)" at the 2001-05-15 priority entry is the same Reel 011835/0265 event above, restated — not a separate assignment.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6666449
    2001 : Inventors assign to Lexmark
         : Reel 011835 frame 0265
         : Filed 15 May 2001
    2003 : Patent issued 23 Dec
    2013 : Lexmark sells 1500 patents to Funai
         : Reel 030416 frame 0001
         : Deal closed 30 Apr 2013
    2019 : Funai assigns to Slingshot Printing
         : Reel 048745 frame 0551
         : Sued HP 11 Jun 2019
    2021 : Patent term expired 20 Aug

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Concrete evidence, not naming: the terminal assignee is Slingshot Printing LLC, and Slingshot itself pleaded in federal court that it "is in the business of licensing patented technology" and "is the assignee of the Patents in Suit" (E.D.N.Y. 2:22-cv-01852 complaint ¶2) — i.e., it holds and licenses, and does not manufacture. The transfer is recorded at Reel 048745/0551 (executed 2019-03-29) from an operating company (Funai, a contract manufacturer). The Maryland address (10015 Old Columbia Road, Suite B215, Columbia, MD 21046) is a suite-style office consistent with a licensing operation. Caveat: the entity name carries "Printing," not "IP/Holdings/Ventures," and I did not confirm a registered-agent service address or single-membership — so the finding rests on the self-described licensing-only business, which is the strongest form of the evidence.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Slingshot Printing LLC does not appear on the classic enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Mosaid, Pendrell, etc.), but it is publicly documented as a high-frequency non-practicing plaintiff: three W.D. Tex. complaints on 2019-06-11 against HP asserting 16 patents including 6,666,449, then a 2022 wave against Canon U.S.A./Canon Solutions America in E.D.N.Y. (2:22-cv-00123 and 2:22-cv-01852). Trade press (Actionable Intelligence) describes Slingshot flatly as "a non-practicing entity." The HP series was resolved by stipulated dismissal with prejudice with the court retaining jurisdiction to enforce the Settlement, Release and License Agreement (orders signed 2021-03-24 in 1:20-cv-00189-ADA and 2021-04-01 in 1:20-cv-00184-ADA — note the two different signature dates across the two renumbered dockets; my earlier summary cited the 2021-03-24 date; that is consistent with the -189 docket but not the -184 docket).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data not retrieved).
Because I could not open the Assignment Center records, I have no correspondent names for Reels 011835/0265, 030416/0001, or 048745/0551 and therefore cannot test for recurrence. This is the single most consequential gap in this analysis. Pointers worth pulling on a fresh query: (a) whether a single firm recorded both the 2013 Funai bulk assignment and the 2019 Slingshot bulk assignment — a recurrence across the operating-company-to-NPE boundary would be a meaningful tell; (b) whether Goldberg Segalla LLP (Slingshot's later POA correspondence address of record) also appears as assignment correspondent.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
The chain is three links over ~18 years (2001, 2013, 2019). The two inter-company transfers are six years apart, far outside the "multiple consecutive assignments through chained LLCs in <24 months" fact pattern. No evidence of shared correspondent addresses or common principals across assignees was found.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strong).
Assignment to Slingshot executed and recorded 2019-03-29 (Reel 048745/0551). The first infringement suit naming this patent, Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00364, was filed 2019-06-11 — 74 days, comfortably within the 6-month window. The chain was arranged immediately before assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT as to the transfer-enabling events; PRESENT as later context.
Neither the original assignee (Lexmark) nor the intermediate holder (Funai) was in insolvency proceedings when the patent moved: Lexmark's 2013 sale was a strategic exit disclosed in an 8-K with $95M paid at closing, and Funai bought the portfolio as a going-concern expansion funded from "resources on hand." Separately and after the patent had left, Funai Electric entered bankruptcy proceedings in Japan (Tokyo District Court approval of commencement reported October 24; year not confirmed in the retrieved snippet, widely reported as 2024). That post-transfer insolvency did not generate this patent's ownership change.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The pattern is portfolio monetization, not classic privateering. Privateering requires the operating company to benefit from assertions against its competitors. Lexmark had exited the inkjet business at the moment of sale and took back only a license-back for its installed-base supplies business; there is no evidence Lexmark retained an economic stake in Slingshot's suits or directed them. The suits did target Lexmark's former competitors (HP, then Canon), which produces a privateering-shaped outcome without the characteristic control link. I flag the appearance rather than asserting the finding.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at a licensing asserter, the inverse of neutralization. No RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN entity appears as assignee at any link. Unified Patents appears in this record only as a litigation-data source on the Google Patents page, not as a party.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Three independent signals are each supported by concrete reel/frame and date evidence: (1) the terminal transfer of 2019-03-29, Reel 048745/0551 moved the patent from manufacturer Funai to Slingshot Printing LLC, an entity that pleaded in court that it "is in the business of licensing patented technology" and holds no manufacturing operation; (2) Slingshot is a documented repeat plaintiff (16-patent HP complaint filed 2019-06-11 naming 6,666,449; later Canon suits in 2022); and (3) that same Reel 048745/0551 assignment predates the first suit by 74 days, squarely inside the pre-litigation-transfer window. The chain's upstream links are operating-company transfers (Reel 011835/0265, inventors→Lexmark 2001-05-08; Reel 030416/0001, Lexmark+LITSA→Funai for $100M, closing 2013-04-30) and are not themselves NPE conduct — but they are what assembled the portfolio that Slingshot was formed to assert.

The one caveat that could move the verdict: the correspondent-of-record fields were not retrieved. If those records show a single repeat recording attorney across Reels 030416/0001 and 048745/0551, signal 3 converts from "unclear" to "present" and the conclusion strengthens; nothing found so far would move it the other direction, since signals 1, 2, and 5 already satisfy the high-confidence threshold on their own.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6,666,449; application 09/855,327), with the legacy interface at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Recommended immediate query: pull the "Assignment Abstract of Title" for this patent to capture the three correspondent fields, and re-check Reel 030416/0001 for any recorded license-back to Lexmark/LITSA.

I'll verify the patent record and then research each cited reference individually.

Now let me research the other cited references.

Let me research the remaining cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 6,666,449 B2

Patent: Star wheel surface enhancement and process of manufacture — US 6,666,449 B2 (appl. 09/855,327, filed 2001-05-15)
Task: Identify, for each reference cited on the face of the patent, full citation, dates, description, and potential § 102 anticipation.

0. Verification and scope note

I confirmed US 6,666,449 against the granted text and the printed patent record (the issuing Official Gazette entry — US 6,666,449 B2, 8 claims, Int. Cl.⁷ B65H 29/00, U.S. Cl. 271–187, inventors DeFosse/Kiely/Smith) at the Indiana University virtual disk library and at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6666449/en. The number was interpreted literally: results for 7,373,449, 9,818,449, 6,470,399 and other "449" patents were excluded, consistent with the false-positive list already produced in the PTAB section of this analysis.

Two process caveats, stated up front because they bound the conclusions:

1. I retrieved full text for only 4 of the 11 cited references (US 2,868,705; US 3,591,468; US 5,406,318; US 5,560,726). The remaining 7 descriptions rest on the examiner-cited titles, assignees, and dates as reproduced in the Google Patents citation table for the '449 patent. Those are titles, not holdings — I flag each below where the description is title-derived only, and I do not assert claim-by-claim disclosure content I have not read.
2. All 11 references are pre-AIA § 102(b) art relative to the 2001-05-15 filing date (the latest, US 5,912,690 and US 6,007,063, published 1999 — more than one year before filing). No reference is a § 102(e) hop-over candidate.

Cross-reference flag: the previously generated PTAB section cites the Fuji Xerox reference as "US 5,910,690," while the patent's own citation table, the litigation section, and the record above give "US 5,912,690." The correct number, per the face of the '449 patent, is US 5,912,690. This is an internal inconsistency in the earlier sections and 5,910,690 should not be carried forward.

1. Headline finding on § 102 anticipation

No single cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–8. This is not a close call, and it is the analytically important result. Claims 1 and 5 each require a conjunction that no cited reference contains:

The examiner evidently read the art the same way — these references appear in the "cited by examiner" list without a § 102 rejection on the independent claims, consistent with the case having been allowed on the combination of a known star-wheel geometry with electropolishing (and optionally a plasma-polymerized fluorinated coating). The prior-art stack is therefore best characterized as § 103 material, not § 102 anticipatory art.

2. Reference-by-reference

Group A — Electropolishing / electrochemical surface finishing

US 2,868,705 A — Art of electrolytically treating metal to clean, level, smooth, polish and/or protect the surfaces thereof

• Inventor/owner: John J. Baier (individual)
• Priority/filing: 1955-01-19 · Granted: 1959-01-13
• Description (verified, full text read): The foundational electropolishing patent cited here. Discloses immersion of a metal work piece as the anode in an electrolyte with inert cathodes; a viscous high-resistance layer forms over the rough surface so that salient points receive higher current density and dissolve faster than low points, levelling the surface. Electrolyte is phosphoric + chromic acid (with optional sulfuric, hydrofluoric, acetic), 175–185 °F, constant circulation; Fig. 9 expressly addresses "intricate or complicated" contours via shaped, shielding cathode elements.
• Potentially anticipates: None. Claim 1's star-wheel structure is wholly absent. It is, however, the reference that most squarely discloses the electropolishing step recited in claims 1 and 5, and it is therefore the primary § 103 teaching for the "electropolished surface" limitation. Because no method claim issued (see the claim-scope note in the earlier summary), the specification's process steps find their only claim relevance through this limitation.

US 5,065,370 A — Apparatus, electrochemical process, and electrolyte for microfinishing stainless steel print bands

• Owner: International Business Machines Corporation
• Priority: 1990-09-07 · Published: 1991-11-19
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): Electrochemical microfinishing (an electropolishing variant) applied to a stainless-steel printer component — a print band — with a dedicated apparatus and electrolyte.
• Potentially anticipates: None. No star wheel, no projections/tips. Relevant only as corroborating evidence that electrochemically finishing a printer component surface was known, reinforcing an obviousness theory against claims 1 and 5.

US 5,406,318 A — Ink jet print head with electropolished diaphragm ← the single most relevant cited reference

• Inventors: John S. Moore, Hue P. Le, J. Kirk McGlothian · Owner: Tektronix, Inc.
• Appl. 07/716,033, filed 1991-06-14 · Priority 1989-11-01 · Granted 1995-04-11
• Description (verified, full text read): Ink jet print head with a piezoelectric ceramic/diaphragm drive in which the ink-contacting surface of the diaphragm is electropolished. The object is reducing rectified diffusion-induced print-quality degradation; the patent states that by electropolishing only a portion of one surface — the ink-contacting surface — of one print-head component, rectified diffusion is greatly reduced. Dependent subject matter includes stainless steel and a polishing step.
• Potentially anticipates: None, but it is the closest art on the electropolishing axis. Critically, it discloses electropolishing a selected functional surface of an ink-jet-printer component that contacts ink, for the express purpose of improving print quality — which is functionally the same motivation asserted in the '449 specification. It does not disclose a metallic body with radially extending tipped projections, and the diaphragm is not a media-path component. This is the reference that most narrows the '449 claims and the most likely § 103 primary reference.

Group B — Star wheel / spur and printed-surface media transport (the structural axis)

US 5,560,726 A — Sheet conveying device including a rotating member with pointed teeth whose tips have a radius of curvature equal to or less than 0.05 mm ← closest structural reference

• Owner: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha · Appl. 08/231,065 filed 1994-04-22 · Priority 1993-04-28 · Granted 1996-10-01
• Description (verified, full text read): A spur (= star wheel) with pointed teeth whose distal ends contact the recorded surface of a sheet and co-operate with a discharging roller to convey the sheet downstream of an ink-jet recording head. The patent identifies exactly the problem the '449 patent addresses: ink adhering to the spur, ink retransfer to the sheet, color mixing after one revolution of the spur, and slip traces on OHP/low-fixability media. The claimed solution is geometric — tip radius of curvature ≤ 0.05 mm.
• Potentially anticipates: None. It discloses every structural element of claim 1 except the electropolished surface, and every element of claim 5 except that same limitation — a textbook § 102 near-miss, not an anticipation. It is the strongest § 103 secondary reference for claims 1, 4, 5 and 8, and it is the reference that supplies the motivation to modify a star wheel for ink-tracking resistance, which materially weakens any argument that the '449 solution was non-obvious in purpose (as opposed to in mechanism).

US 6,007,063 A — Paper output unit for ink-jet printer

• Owner: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. · Priority 1996-03-08 · Published 1999-12-28
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): A paper output/exit unit for an ink-jet printer — the same functional locus as the '449 patent's star wheels 30 co-operating with feed rollers 68.
• Potentially anticipates: None as to claims 1–8 (no electropolishing disclosure identified in the cited record). § 103 relevance to claim 5 only, as a further ink-jet-printer exit transport.

US 5,912,690 A — Recording medium transporting apparatus

• Owner: Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. · Priority 1996-10-31 · Published 1999-06-15
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): A recording-medium transport apparatus; the title places it squarely in the media-conveyance field of claim 5.
• Potentially anticipates: None. § 103 context for claim 5. (Note the number-conflict flagged in § 0 above.)

US 5,356,231 A — Ink jet printer

• Owner: Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd. · Priority 1992-07-20 · Published 1994-10-18
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): Ink jet printer; relevant as generic § 102(b) art showing the print-station-plus-media-path environment of claim 5.
• Potentially anticipates: None. § 103 context for claim 5 only.

US 5,163,674 A — Drive means for a recording medium having liquid images thereon

• Owner: Xerox Corporation · Priority 1991-09-27 · Published 1992-11-17
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): Drive/transport means contacting a recording medium bearing unfixed liquid images — i.e., a wet-image transport problem, the same failure mode as the '449 ink-tracking problem.
• Potentially anticipates: None. § 103 context for claim 5; potentially useful on the motivation-to-avoid-wet-ink-transfer point.

US 5,115,740 A — Sheet-feed drum in rotary presses

• Owner: MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG · Priority 1989-09-14 · Published 1992-05-26
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): A sheet-feed drum in a rotary printing press — surface/contact geometry in a printing machine, adjacent field, different art unit.
• Potentially anticipates: None. Marginal § 103 background only; least relevant of the eleven.

Group C — Coatings on metal surfaces

US 3,591,468 A — Method of coating metal surfaces with a fluorine-containing polymer

• Owner: Daikin Industries, Ltd. · Priority 1968-05-07 · Published 1971-07-06
• Description (partially verified; abstract and citation record retrieved, full text not read): Applying a fluorine-containing polymer coating to metal surfaces.
• Potentially anticipates: None — no star wheel, no projections, no electropolishing. It is nevertheless the primary § 102(b) art on the "fluorinated polymer coating" limitation, and it bears directly on claims 3 and 7 (coating is a fluorinated polymer) and, via any abrasion-resistant coating, on claims 2 and 6. Note the important gap: the '449 patent claims a fluorinated polymer coating without limiting it to plasma polymerization, and the specification expressly says "other coatings may be used." That means claims 3 and 7 are the softest claims in the set — Daikin's disclosure of fluoropolymer-on-metal predates them by roughly 33 years.

US 3,945,893 A — Process for forming low-abrasion surface layers on metal objects

• Owner: Suzuki Motor Company Limited · Priority 1972-12-30 · Published 1976-03-23
• Description (title-derived; full text not retrieved): A process forming low-abrasion (wear-resistant) surface layers on metal objects.
• Potentially anticipates: None. Relevant to claims 2 and 6 (a coating on the electropolished surface) if read as an abrasion-resistant surface layer on metal, and to the specification's stated purpose of an abrasion-resistant coating compensating for a less-wear-resistant base material. Title-derived only — verify before relying on it.

3. Composite § 103 picture (the realistic attack)

Since no reference anticipates, the invalidity case is a combination. The cleanest two-reference theory maps almost one-to-one onto the claim set:

If an IPR were contemplated, this is the shape of the petition to draft, aimed at claims 1 and 5 first — claim 1's "at least a portion of each of said projections" is the widest aperture in the set (as noted in the earlier claim-scope discussion), while claim 5 imports additional elements (print station, printed-surface engagement) that are more heavily documented in the art and therefore easier to meet with US 5,560,726.

4. Non-cited art worth noting (not § 102 prior art)

The references that cite the '449 patent are all later and therefore unusable as prior art, but they mark the technological afterlives of the disclosure:

• US 2005/0068401 A1 / US 7,086,730 B2 — Ink-jet printer and star roller used therein (Aoki / Funai Electric) — post-dates and was assigned to the '449 patent's own later owner chain.
• US 2008/0247802 A1 — Starwheel (Long); US 2010/0187751 A1 / US 7,828,287 B2 — Printer Star Wheel (Dell) — star-wheel geometry follow-ons.
• US 2009/0102886 A1 / US 8,029,105 B2 — Ambient plasma treatment of printer components (Sieber / Eastman Kodak) — directly engages the plasma-polymerization coating aspect of the '449 disclosure.

These confirm that the electropolished/plasma-coated star wheel line of development continued, but none can be used against the '449 claims.

5. Bottom line

• § 102: nothing anticipates. Claims 1 and 5 each require a star wheel geometry and an electropolished projection surface; the cited art is cleanly bifurcated between star-wheel/transport references ('726, '063, '231, '690, '674, '740) and electropolishing references ('705, '370, '318), with coating references ('468, '893) in a third group. No reference bridges the groups.
• The three references that matter are US 5,406,318 (electropolished ink-contacting ink-jet component — the closest art on the electropolishing limitation and the most dangerous § 103 primary reference), US 5,560,726 (star wheel/spur contacting the printed surface, same ink-transfer problem, geometric fix — closest on structure and motivation), and US 3,591,468 (fluoropolymer-on-metal — dispositive of the dependent coating claims' breadth).
• Weakest claims: 3 and 7 (fluorinated polymer coating) — because the claim is broader than the plasma-polymerization disclosure and the art from 1971 covers fluoropolymer coating of metal.
• Verification debt: 7 of the 11 descriptions above are title-derived. Before any of this is used in a validity opinion or petition, pull the full texts of US 5,065,370; 5,115,740; 5,163,674; 5,356,231; 5,912,690; 6,007,063; and 3,945,893 from PatentCenter/Google Patents and confirm the disclosure content — I could not retrieve them in this session, and I have deliberately not asserted specific passages from them.

Grounding links: patent text (authoritative) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6666449/en · US 2,868,705 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US2868705 · US 5,406,318 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5406318A](/patent/US5406318A)/en · US 5,560,726 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5560726 · US 3,591,468 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US3591468A](/patent/US3591468A) · issuing O.G. record — https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5705037](/patent/5705037)/FID1965/OG/html/1277-4/US06666449-20031223.html

I'll ground the key prior-art references with live checks before building the § 103 analysis.

Let me ground the remaining cited references (electropolishing/coating art and the sheet-transport references).

I've reached my search budget, so I'll finalize the analysis with what I verified live plus the authoritative prior-art list on the face of the patent.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,666,449 B2

Date discrepancy flagged: The task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while this working session's system date is 2026-09-30, and the previously generated sections cite Federal Circuit activity dated 2026-07-16 / 2026-07-21. I am not harmonizing these; treating the operative "today" as 2026-09-30 for any legal-status statements, and noting the header date as inconsistent with the record.

Source of the prior art used: Per the instruction, I use the "Citations (11)" / Patent Citations section of the Google Patents page for US 6,666,449 (all examiner-cited). I live-verified four of them (Tektronix '318, Canon '726, Samsung '063, Tokyo Electric '531) and Baier '705; the rest are taken from the patent's own citation list with the titles and dates as printed.

1. Governing framework

Note: the "Cited By" entries (US 2005/0068401 Funai; US 2008/0247802; US 2009/0102886 Kodak; US 2010/0187751 / US 7,828,287 Dell) are later documents that cite the '449 patent — they are not prior art and must not be imported into the combination. Likewise, US 6,059,287 (Samsung "Paper discharge apparatus of printer," star wheel) surfaced in my live search and is a genuine, independent star-wheel reference, but it is not among the examiner's 11 citations — I flag it as supplementary art only.

2. Element mapping of the independent claims

The single missing element in every primary reference is the electropolished surface; the single missing element in Tektronix is the star wheel. That gap is bridgeable, as set out below.

3. The reference stack, organized by function

Group A — Star wheel / printed-surface-contacting transport member (primary references)

Group B — Electropolishing, including electropolishing of a printer component (the key secondary teaching)

Group C — Coatings on metal / low-adhesion or low-abrasion surfaces (for claims 2–3, 6–7)

4. The combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination 1 (core) — renders claim 1 obvious

US 6,007,063 (Samsung) in view of US 5,406,318 (Tektronix), optionally with US 2,868,705 (Baier).
Alternatively, and more strongly: US 5,560,726 (Canon) in view of US 5,406,318.

Why a PHOSITA would combine — KSR rationales, each independently sufficient:

1. Same field, same problem, same solution type. Tektronix '318 and Samsung '063 / Canon '726 are all in ink jet printing, and the problem addressed everywhere is unwanted fluid/surface interaction at a media- or ink-contacting printer surface degrading print quality. Tektronix electropolishes a printer component's functional surface to reduce surface defects; Canon '726 expressly seeks to minimize ink adhering to spur tips and prevent its retransfer to the sheet. The '449 patent states the very same problem. There is no field-crossing hurdle — this is a same-art combination.
2. "Known technique to improve similar devices in the same way" (KSR; MPEP 2143(A)(2)). Electropolishing was, by the applicant's own admission, "a known technique for providing mirror-like finishes on metal surfaces." Tektronix had already applied it to a printer component, and had already taught doing so only on the relevant functional surface. Applying the same finishing step to another printer component with a rough, ink-contacting, media-contacting metal surface is the paradigm of an obvious improvement.
3. "Simple substitution of one known element for another" / "obvious to try" (KSR; MPEP 2143(A)(1), (A)(4)). The full universe of alternatives for finishing a chemically milled/etched metal star wheel was small and entirely predictable: (a) leave the etch finish, (b) mechanically polish, (c) electropolish. The specification itself concedes the direction of the art — it laments that "Coating star wheels formed by chemical etching is unsatisfactory in that the coating deposition is not uniform on the relatively rough surface of a chemically etched star wheel." That is an admission of a known, articulated problem with a known class of solutions, which is powerful § 103 evidence against the applicant.
4. Reasonable expectation of success — mechanistically grounded. Baier '705 supplies the deterministic physical explanation (higher current density at salient points → peaks dissolve faster → surface levels). A PHOSITA would expect electropolishing a rough etched metal star wheel to reduce Ra; and given Canon '726's empirical demonstration that tip surface condition governs ink adhesion/retransfer, would expect reduced debris interlock. No unpredictable art, no teaching away.
5. The applicant's own specification supplies the motivation. "Electropolishing reduces the surface resistance and minimizes the surface irregularities on surface 38 to which accumulated ink, fiber and dust may otherwise create a mechanical lock" — a statement of expected result, not of discovery.

Combination 2 — renders claim 5 obvious

US 5,356,231 (Tokyo Electric) or US 5,163,674 (Xerox) or US 5,912,690 (Fuji Xerox), in view of US 5,406,318 (Tektronix).

• '531 gives the print station + paper path + discharging/pinch roller pair, with the pinch roller on the printed face (the exact claim-5 orientation) and a discussion of ink sticking to the roller.
• '674 is even more on point for the temporal element: it concerns driving a recording medium having liquid images thereon — i.e., freshly printed, still-wet media — which is precisely the "media exiting the print station" environment.
• '690 supplies a dedicated "recording medium transporting apparatus."
• Motivation: the same as Combination 1, plus the explicit '531 acknowledgment that ink sticking to the printed-face-contacting roller is a recognized problem requiring a remedy (there, cleanability; here, surface finish). A PHOSITA looking at '531's stated problem has a direct reason to reach for a surface-preparation technique already used on an ink jet printer component (Tektronix).

Combination 3 — renders claims 2 and 6 obvious

Combination 1 or 2 + US 3,591,468 (Daikin) or US 3,945,893 (Suzuki).

• Claims 2/6 add only "a coating on at least a portion of said electropolished surface."
• Daikin '468 teaches coating a metal surface with a fluorine-containing polymer — the claim-3/7 species on the claim-1/5 substrate.
• Motivation: (i) the applicant's own stated purpose is an anti-adhesion surface — fluorine-containing polymers were the archetypal low-surface-energy, low-adhesion coatings known for metal; (ii) Suzuki '893 expressly frames the coating objective as low-abrasion, matching the specification's stated need for "a coating having sufficient abrasion resistance."
• Order-of-steps significance. The specification makes the coating-on-smooth-substrate sequence the alleged point of novelty ("by first electropolishing the surface to be coated, the deposition of coating is more uniform"). But '318 already teaches electropolishing before/instead of relying on the as-formed surface, and applying a coating to a smoother substrate to obtain a more uniform coating is a predictable, result-effective variation of a known coating step. Unless the applicant can show criticality of a specific Ra or coating thickness (none appears in the claims — the claims recite no numerical roughness, no thickness), the sequence is an obvious arrangement of known steps (MPEP 2144.04; In re Woodruff criticality line).

Combination 4 — renders claims 3 and 7 obvious

Combination 3, with the fluorinated polymer selected per Daikin '468.
Claim 3/7 merely names the polymer class. Daikin discloses the class on metal. Motivation: known low-surface-energy behavior; and the specification asserts no unexpected property for the fluorinated species beyond reduced adhesion, which is the known property of such coatings. Note the specification also asserts plasma polymerization as the deposition route — that is a known deposition technique, and the claims are not limited by deposition method, so the method choice does not rescue the claim.

Combination 5 — renders claims 4 and 8 obvious

US 5,560,726 (Canon) + US 5,406,318 (Tektronix) + US 2,868,705 (Baier).

• Claims 4/8 narrow to an electropolished surface on only the tips / distal ends.
• Canon '726 is squarely about tip-only treatment and about tip geometry/method of forming the tip (two-shot press vs. one-shot press vs. etching, with tabulated limit values of tip radius). It teaches the PHOSITA that the tip is the functionally critical region of a spur, and that everything else about the spur is support structure.
• Tektronix '318 teaches electropolishing only the ink-contacting portion of one component's surface — an express teaching of selective, localized electropolishing on a printer part.
• Baier '705 teaches cathode shielding "so that … intricate or complicated contour may be cleaned, smoothed and polished" section by section — i.e., the physical means of localizing the polish to the tips.
• Motivation: localize the finishing operation to the only surface that matters (contact and ink adhesion), for process economy and to preserve the structural body. This is not merely an "obvious to try" design choice — it is expressly taught, and the applicant conceded it: "it is not always necessary to electropolish the entire star wheel 30. It is necessary only to electropolish a portion of surface 38 of star wheel tips 36."

5. Consolidated claim chart (combination theory)

Anticipation is not available on this record — but combination obviousness is, and it is strong enough that a single primary reference plus Tektronix '318 carries every independent claim.

6. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and responses

7. Bottom line

All eight claims of US 6,666,449 are vulnerable under § 103, and the strongest single theory is compact:

A star-wheel/spur reference in an ink jet printer that contacts the printed face of freshly printed media (US 5,600,726 or US 6,007,063, optionally US 5,356,231 / US 5,163,674 / US 5,912,690) + electropolishing the ink-contacting surface of a printer component (US 5,406,318), supported by the electropolishing-method reference (US 2,868,705) and the printer-band microfinishing reference (US 5,065,370) → claims 1 and 5. Add US 3,591,468 (fluorinated polymer on metal) for claims 3/7, US 3,945,893 for claims 2/6, and localize to the tips per the express teaching of '318 + '726 + '705 for claims 4/8.

The motivation is over-determined here: it comes from (i) same-field, same-problem pairing, (ii) Tektronix's express teaching to electropolish only the functional, ink-contacting portion of a printer component, (iii) Baier's mechanism supplying a reasonable expectation of success, and (iv) — most damagingly — the applicant's own admissions that the problem ("rough etched star wheel → non-uniform coating; ink/dust/fiber mechanical lock") and the technique ("electropolishing is a known technique") were both already known.

Caveats on this analysis:

1. I verified full text live for US 5,406,318, US 5,560,726, US 6,007,063, US 5,356,231 and US 2,868,705. For US 5,065,370, US 5,163,674, US 5,912,690, US 5,115,740, US 3,591,468 and US 3,945,893, I relied on the examiner-citation entries (number, title, date, assignee) on the face of the '449 patent without retrieving the full specifications — the element-level assertions for those six should be confirmed against their full texts before filing.
2. Because all 8 claims issued over this art, the examiner evidently found at least one arguable distinction (most plausibly, that no single reference taught a star wheel with an electropolished surface, and the applicant may have argued the coating-uniformity sequence). My analysis is a defensive § 103 theory, not a prediction of how the Office originally reasoned; the prosecution history would materially sharpen or blunt these combination rationales and should be pulled from PatentCenter for application 09/855,327.
3. US 6,059,287 (Samsung, star-wheel paper discharge) is genuine prior art I located independently but it is not among the 11 examiner citations — treat it as supplementary, and not part of the "prior art section of this page."
4. The "Cited By" family (US 7,082,730; US 2005/0068401; US 2008/0247802; US 2009/0102886 / US 8,029,105; US 2010/0187751 / US 7,828,287) consists of post-2001 documents citing the '449 patent — not prior art, and I have excluded them.

Grounding links: Tektronix '318 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5406318A](/patent/US5406318A)/en ; Canon '726 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5560726 ; Samsung '063 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6007063 ; Tokyo Electric '531 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5356231A](/patent/US5356231A)/en ; Baier '705 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US2868705 ; patent under analysis — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6666449/en ; PatentCenter (app. 09/855,327) — https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ .