Invalidity dossier
US 7973516
Sliding conductor transmission cable
Current assignee: Ampure Charging Systems Inc
Added 9/23/2026, 6:18:17 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 — US 7,973,516 B2
Title: Sliding conductor transmission cable
Patent number / application: US 7,973,516 B2; application US 12/833,838, filed 2010-07-09.
Publication / grant: US 2010/0277127 A1 published 2010-11-04; patent granted 2011-07-05.
Priority date: 2008-01-14 (listed as an assumption, not a legal conclusion).
Inventor: Albert Joseph Flack.
Assignees: Originally Aerovironment Inc.; current assignee listed as Ampure Charging Systems Inc, with a later assignment recorded to Webasto Charging Systems, Inc. (2018-08-29).
Legal status: Active; anticipated expiration 2029-01-13.
Stated field / purpose: The patent is classified for electric power networks and supplying/distributing electric power, including battery charging (H02J 7/00, H02J 7/70), plus charging of electrically propelled vehicles — conductive energy transfer, cables specially adapted for charging electric vehicles, and charging-station construction and cooling (B60L 53/14, 53/18, 53/302). Additional classes cover handling filamentary material/cables, storing and repeatedly paying out and re-storing lengths of cable without a core, with pulleys (B65H 75/36, 75/368), enclosed reel housings (B65H 75/4471), and arrangements of electric cables between relatively movable parts using a take-up reel or drum (H02G 11/00, 11/02).
Plain-language scope (from the supplied text): The listed "prior art keywords" — transmission cable, conduit segment, conduit, battery charging, charging device — indicate the disclosure concerns a transmission cable made up of conduit segments that conveys current between a charging device and a battery charging application, using sliding conductors and cable take-up/payout arrangements. Because the excerpt omits the abstract, specification, and claims, the precise structural scope, claim language, and any stated advantages cannot be determined here.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not include the claims, abstract, detailed description, or drawings; does not identify prior art references or their teachings; and does not report litigation, validity findings, or the reliability of the listed assignees. Legal status and dates are expressly stated to be assumptions/conclusions that no legal analysis has verified. No attempt is made here to research litigation, ownership transfers, validity, or prior art, per the constraints given.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:42:53 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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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.