Invalidity dossier
US 6754965
Added 9/23/2026, 8:52:36 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US6754965B1
Title: Integrated sandwich crimping tool
Patent number / application: US6754965B1; application US09/724,271, filed 2000-11-28.
Inventor / assignee: Inventor Len C. Kretchman; original and current assignee listed as "Individual."
Key dates: Priority date 2000-11-28 (noted as an assumption); filed 2000-11-28; granted and published 2004-06-29; adjusted expiration 2021-02-02; status "Expired – Fee Related." Legal status is expressly an assumption, not a legal conclusion.
Purpose: The invention relates to sealed crustless sandwiches and, more particularly, to a tool for forming them. The background explains that ordinary sandwich fillings leak or squeeze out between bread slices, making storage and eating messy; sealed crustless sandwiches crimp the slices together to seal in filling while cutting away interior bread portions and discarding the crusts.
Plain-language scope (from the abstract, definitions, and description): An integrated container crimping and cutting tool arrangement has a tub with an opening providing access to an otherwise surrounded volume, plus a cover mountable on the tub at an opening to prevent immediate access to that volume. A closed wall structure — part of either the cover or the tub, and having two wall-thickness portions — presents an ending edge and a crimping edge offset away from it. Pressing the tool against a sandwich cuts out center portions and leaves sealed bread edges.
Embodiments described: In FIG. 1, a thickened cover wall (14) ends at an undulating edge (15), with a thinned wall portion (17) extending to open edge (16); threads (13, 13′) releasably mount the cover. In FIG. 2, the thickened/undulating/thinned structure (14′, 15′, 16′, 17′) is instead on a skirt of tub (11′). A further alternative forms the skirt as a separate, removable structure pressable onto a tub.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6754965](/patent/US6754965)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The supplied text is explicitly an excerpt with omitted description text. It does not establish the full claim set, prosecution history, the accuracy of assignee or legal-status listings, validity, ownership transfers, litigation, or prior art beyond the listed classification categories and "prior art keywords" (edge, tub, crimping, cover, closed wall).
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:06 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.