US 8240246

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

Let me verify litigation/CAFC activity and confirm bibliographic details from a second source.

Summary — US Patent 8,240,246 B2

Important caveat on the searches: I ran targeted searches for this exact number. I found no CAFC docket, district‑court case, or PTAB/ITC proceeding involving US 8,240,246. The only "2026" hit containing the string "8240246" was an unrelated Brazilian municipal act (Ato n.º 8240246, Município de Joaçaba), which I did not treat as patent‑related. Given the patent lapsed in 2016 (see below), a 2026 Federal Circuit appeal would be improbable, and I found none. Treat any litigation statement as "none found," not "confirmed none."

I also note that I did not query the actual USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Trial and Appeal Board APIs or the CAFC docket system directly — only public web sources (Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, patents‑review). So "no CAFC docket" reflects a web‑search limitation, not a certified docket clearance.

Bibliographic data (from the patent document / Google Patents)

Note: the patent is a utility patent (12/455,362), not a design patent, and there is only one U.S. family member.

Abstract (as printed)

A removable toaster basket assembly to be removably received in a toasting slot of an electric pop‑up toaster facilitates inserting and removing food articles in the toasting slot for toasting of the food article. The removable toaster basket assembly includes an elongate substantially planar frame for resting on an upper surface of the toaster and defines a rectangular slot therethrough. A handle extends from one end of the frame. An elongate basket is slidably received in the slot, the basket having ends and sides which define an open top for receiving a food article. A stop on the basket limits translation of the basket with respect to said frame to maintain the basket captive within the frame.

Independent claims in plain language

There are three independent claims (1, 12, and 20) out of 20 total.

Claim 1 — The broadest claim.
A removable toaster basket assembly that drops into a pop‑up toaster slot, comprising four elements:

1. an elongate, substantially planar frame that sits on top of the toaster, with a rectangular slot through it;
2. a handle extending from one end of that frame;
3. an elongate basket that sits in the slot and can slide up/down (perpendicular to the frame), where the basket has two ends, two sides, and a bottom, with the ends and sides forming an open top to receive food; and
4. at least one stop on the basket that limits how far the basket can slide in one direction, so the basket stays captive in the frame.
   Plainly: a handled frame that rests on the toaster top, plus a sliding basket that can't fall out because of a stop. No structure for the guide is required by claim 1.

Claim 12 — Adds the guide/tab structure.
Same frame‑plus‑handle‑plus‑sliding‑basket‑plus‑stop combination as claim 1, but adds:

• at least one guide extending downwardly from the frame at an end of the slot, made of first and second tab segments at adjacent corners of the slot, which together define a vertical notch between them; a portion of the basket sits in that notch to keep the basket guided as it slides.
  Plainly: claim 1's device, but with a two‑pronged downward tab whose gap acts as a vertical track for the basket (this is the structure that keeps the basket perpendicular to the frame and also keys the assembly into the toaster slot).

Claim 20 — The narrowest / most specific independent claim.
A "picture‑claim" version combining the most features:

• elongate planar frame resting on the toaster top with a rectangular slot;
• handle at one end of the frame;
• an elongate basket translatably slidable in the slot, whose ends and sides form an outwardly extending lip that defines the open top (the lip also acts as the upper travel limit/support on the frame);
• a vertical guide wire at each end of the basket;
• a guide at each end of the slot, each made of first and second tab segments at adjacent corners defining a vertical notch, each notch receiving one of the guide wires to guide the basket; and
• a stop on each end of the basket, each stop engaging a respective guide to limit travel in one direction and keep the basket captive.
  Plainly: the fully loaded commercial embodiment — two downward‑tabs‑with‑notches on the frame, two vertical guide wires on the basket that ride in those notches, a lip on the basket to seat it on the frame, and two stops to prevent the basket from separating.

Dependent‑claim highlights (for context, not independent scope)

• Claims 2–8 add/tie down the single‑tab vs. two‑tab guide variants and the guide‑wire‑in‑notch engagement.
• Claim 5 / 8 / 13 recite the outwardly extending lip supporting the basket on the frame and limiting travel in the second (opposite) direction.
• Claims 9 / 18 recite porous‑lattice (mesh) sides; claims 10 / 11 / 19 recite solid ends and a solid bottom.
• Claims 15 / 17 recite the legs projecting perpendicularly from the tab segments to run along the sides of the slot (disclosed as protecting the basket from the toaster's spring grids).
• Claims 14 and 16 tie the guiding portion to the guide wire and add the second, opposite‑end guide.

Point of uncertainty

• The assignee is listed only as "Individual" — the record shows no corporate owner, and I found no assignment to a company. The recent citing patents (e.g., Revolution Cooking, LLC; Manitowoc FSG) merely cite the Davis patent as prior art; they are not assignees of it. Do not read those citing assignees as the owner of 8,240,246.
• I did not independently confirm the inventor's full legal name or any assignment history beyond what the patent face shows; the instant specification and Google Patents both state "Rick Davis."

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8240246.

Let me search more specifically on litigation databases.

Let me check a few more targeted sources.

Litigation Search Results for US Patent 8,240,246

Short answer: I could not identify any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,240,246.

What I searched

I ran multiple queries across general web search, aimed at litigation-specific content (Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER-derived dockets, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, Justia, and CAFC/PTAB records), using both the unformatted number (8240246) and the formatted number (8,240,246) paired with litigation terms ("litigation," "lawsuit," "infringement," "case," "defendant," "complaint").

What the searches returned (and why none of it qualifies)

Every hit containing a similar-looking number was a different patent. I am flagging these explicitly so the distinction is clear and none is mistakenly attributed to the '246 patent:

None of these concern U.S. Patent 8,240,246, which is "Removable toaster basket with handle," invented by Rick Davis, filed May 30, 2009, granted August 14, 2012 (priority to provisional 61/057,930, filed June 2, 2008).

Other activity located (not litigation)

The only third-party online references to US 8,240,246 that appeared were patent citations (prior-art references), not lawsuits:

• US 11,006,783 B1 ("Toaster accessory," Orlando Morales) — lists 8,240,246 in its "References Cited."
• US D989,554 S1 ("Bread toaster accessory," Conchita Adsuar Christiansen) — lists 8,240,246 in its "References Cited."

These are examiner/third-party citations during prosecution, which are not litigation.

Caveats on completeness

• I did not reach the Unified Patents litigation caselist directly; my attempts to query it and additional PACER/PlainSite-specific searches were cut off, so I cannot claim I exhaustively reviewed that portal.
• The '246 patent's legal-status record shows only prosecution/maintenance events (reminder mailed 2016-03-25; lapse for non-payment; expiration effective 2016-08-14 due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362). No reexamination, IPR, PGR, or litigation entries appear in the record.
• The patent expired for fee non-payment in 2016, which is consistent with (though not proof of) there having been no commercial assertion campaign.

Bottom line: Based on the searches performed, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent 8,240,246. If you need a definitive negative confirmation, it should be verified directly against the Unified Patents litigation caselist and PACER for the specific number, which I was unable to fully query here.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings on file against US 8,240,246 — the structured PTAB/ODP block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, and the defensive posture is not "hardened by surviving IPRs" but something stronger and simpler: no challenger ever bothered, because the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees on 2016-08-14 and every claim is now unenforceable for any post-lapse conduct.

That distinction matters. A defendant receiving a 2026 demand letter citing 8,240,246 is not facing a patent that fought off the PTAB; it is facing a patent that the owner let die at the 4-year maintenance fee and that no one has asserted in any forum I could locate (consistent with the prior litigation section of this analysis, which found no district court or CAFC case).

No proceedings to report

I have no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, or FWD to give you, and I will not invent one. Per the operating instructions, the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block is canonical, and it states the USPTO Open Data Portal shows no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. My independent web searches corroborate that:

• Searches on "8240246" IPR, "8,240,246" PTAB, "8240246" reexam/PGR, and inventor-name queries returned no petition, no institution decision, no FWD, and no ex parte reexamination referencing this patent.
• The only recurring third-party hits are citations of the '246 patent as prior art in later patents (e.g., US 11,006,783 B1, Orlando Morales, "Toaster accessory" — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11006783](/patent/11006783); US D989,554 S1; US 2022/0202242 A1). A prior-art citation is not a validity challenge.

Near-miss dockets that are NOT this patent (do not misattribute)

These numbers repeatedly surfaced in searches and are frequently confused with 8,240,246. Each is a different patent in a different art:

I verified the CBM2015-00162 disposition text ("Decision Denying Institution of Covered Business Method Patent Review," Patent 8,214,246 B2, Paper 7, 2015-12-30) so there is no chance of carrying that result over to the '246 patent. Source copy: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/CBM2015-00162/

Why the absence is structural, not accidental

Three doctrinal points explain why the zero is real rather than a data gap:

1. Channel availability was narrow. The '246 patent claims priority to 2008-06-02 (provisional 61/057,930) and issued from a pre-AIA application. That forecloses PGR (available only for first-inventor-to-file claims under 35 U.S.C. § 321) and forecloses CBM (a toaster accessory is not a "financial product or service" patent under § 18 of the AIA). IPR under § 311 was the only AIA vehicle, and IPR does not require the patent to be unexpired — the Board has repeatedly instituted on lapsed patents. So expiration alone did not shut the door; nobody knocked.
2. No assertion, no IPR incentive. IPRs are overwhelmingly filed as a defensive response to being sued. The prior litigation section found no infringement suit. No suit → no § 315(b) clock → no petitioner with an economic reason to file.
3. The fee lapse is the real event. Maintenance-fee events in the record: REMI reminder mailed 2016-03-25; LAPS (lapse) 2016-08-14; STCH discontinuation notices 2016-09-09 and 2016-09-12; FP "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee," effective 2016-08-14. Note the distinction flagged in the earlier summary: the "adjusted expiration 2031-05-05" is the nominal term had fees been paid (20 years from the 2009-05-30 filing plus patent term adjustment), whereas the actual legal status is Expired – Fee Related since 2016-08-14. Those two entries are not a contradiction; they answer different questions.

Confidence / limitation. High confidence there are no AIA trials: the ODP-derived block is canonical and my searches found affirmative evidence of other patents' proceedings but nothing for this one. Lower confidence on reexaminations: I found no ex parte reexamination record, but the ODP AIA-trial feed would not necessarily surface a reexam, and I did not query the USPTO reexamination database directly. Treat "no reexam" as "none found," not "certified none."

Strategic summary

Claim status across the patent (all 20 claims). Because nothing was ever cancelled in an AIA trial, the claim-level ledger is uniform:

• CANCELED (PTAB): none — claims 1–20 were never subjected to a Final Written Decision.
• SUSTAINED (PTAB): none — a § 318(a) judgment "that the petitioner has not established unpatentability" is a sustained claim, and no such judgment exists here.
• UNTESTED: all of claims 1–20, including independent claims 1, 12, and 20 (the plain-language scopes are described in the earlier summary section and I won't repeat them). "Untested" cuts both ways: a defendant cannot point to a cancelation, but the patent owner also has no PTAB record of validity to wave around.
• What actually ends the exposure: expiration. Absent revival, the '246 patent ceased to be enforceable on 2016-08-14, so no damages can accrue for conduct on or after that date; and because 35 U.S.C. § 286 caps recovery at infringement occurring within six years before the complaint, a complaint filed today (2026-10-01) has no § 286 window left — the last recoverable acts would have had to occur by roughly 2020, which is already inside an expired term. In practical effect, all 20 claims are dead for forward-looking enforcement, and the PTAB ledger is irrelevant to that result.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue: there is no petitioner, no FWD, and therefore no one is estopped from anything. Conversely, there is no § 315(b) bar against a fresh petitioner either — but that is a theoretical opening, since (a) a successful IPR would produce only a cancelation of already-expired claims with no ongoing royalty value, and (b) the Board's current discretionary-denial practice (see the Magnolia Medical Technologies v. Kurin, IPR2026-00097 line of Director decisions, and the nondelegation challenge rejected in In re Volkswagen Group of America, No. 2026-123 (Fed. Cir. 2026-03-19)) makes institution on a lapsed, never-asserted patent an uphill ask. Any IPR filed today would be for defensive-estoppel optics or for a related patent's validity narrative, not to stop this patent. On the prior-art side, the grounds that a defendant would most naturally run — US 2,849,947 / 2,962,957 / 3,046,870 (Bork), US 4,184,419 (Ponte), US 4,290,349 (Fiorenza), US 4,656,927 (Mosby), US 3,511,170 (O'Connor), US 5,853,781 (P&G) — are all of-record patent citations from the 13-reference list, meaning they were already before the examiner and would have to be paired with new art or a new motivation-to-combine theory. That is not a § 315(e) problem; it is an ordinary § 103 "new argument on old art" problem.

Pattern signals. No pattern to read. There is no repeat petitioner, no patent-owner appeal activity (nothing to appeal), and no defensive aggregator — Unified Patents and similar entities have no proceeding here. The only downstream activity is citation traffic, including from commercially active toaster makers (Revolution Cooking, LLC holds the US 11,930,961 / 12,193,605 / D1,068,380 family that cites by and cites the '246 patent; Manitowoc FSG's US 11,266,266 descends from a citing application). Those are competitive-art signals, not PTAB signals.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and a demand letter or complaint cites 8,240,246: you do not need an IPR. Build the response on the record: (i) the patent's legal status is Expired – Fee Related, lapse effective 2016-08-14, per the maintenance-fee events visible on https://patents.google.com/patent/US8240246/en; (ii) 35 U.S.C. § 286 forecloses recovery for the only infringement that could still be within reach; and (iii) the earlier litigation section of this analysis found no assertion history, so there is no preclusive judgment or estoppel to work around. If the letter quotes claims 1, 12, or 20, the point to make is not "those claims were cancelled" (they were not) but "those claims expired and the damages window is closed."
• If a patent owner asserts the patent is revivable: the only path back is a petition to revive an unintentionally lapsed patent under 37 CFR 1.378. I recall such petitions being bounded by a deadline measured from the expiration date, which for a 2016-08-14 lapse would have run out years ago — but I am not certain of the current rule text or deadline, and I am not certain whether any revival petition was ever filed here (no such record appears in the PatentCenter legal-events list). Verify the rule at 37 CFR 1.378 and check the PatentCenter "Fees/Addresses" and "Petitions" tabs directly before relying on this point.
• If you actually need an IPR on an expired-but-live-by-record patent, or on a family member: note the trial-stage clock that would apply — a petition would trigger a § 314(b) three-month institution deadline, then a statutory one-year trial deadline under § 316(a)(11) running from the institution date, with the FWD due at that one-year mark. Given the discretionary-denial trends current as of 2026, expect a General Plastic/§ 314(a) and Magnolia-style discretionary fight before you ever reach the merits.
• If you need the definitive negative: the absence of PTAB activity is established for this patent as of the ODP ingest date, but confirm directly at PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the PTAB decision search (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-web/#/search/decisions) using the bare number 8240246, and cross-check CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=8240246) for any CAFC appeal that could have issued from a proceeding not reflected in the ODP feed. The absence of PTAB activity here is itself the signal: a patent that no one ever asserted and that lapsed for a missed $1,600-ish maintenance fee does not attract IPRs, and does not sustain a 2026 assertion.

I'll research the assignment record for this patent. Let me run several targeted searches.

Research note on sources

I attempted to pull the Assignment Center record for US 8,240,246 (app. 12/455,362) via targeted queries against assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov and broader indexed mirrors. No recorded assignment was surfaced for this patent anywhere. The assignment search interface is a JavaScript application, so I could not retrieve a rendered result page; my conclusion rests on (a) the absence of any assignment entry in the Google Patents legal-events record (which mirrors USPTO assignment data and shows only prosecution and maintenance-fee entries), and (b) the corroborating assignee fields on both Google Patents and the printed face of the patent. Treat this as "no assignment found" rather than a certified docket clearance.

Inventors

Pattern flags: No unusual inventor pattern can be assessed — there is a single inventor, so the "all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months" heuristic does not apply. The relevant structural fact is that there is no original corporate assignee to depart from; the invention was prosecuted and issued in the inventor's own name.

Original assignee

None (individual ownership). Both Google Patents and the printed patent list:

• Original Assignee: Individual
• Current Assignee: Individual

There is no company named as original or current assignee on the record. Consequently:

• Product embodying the claims: No evidence of a commercial product line. The patent discloses a wire-mesh removable toaster basket with a handled frame and guide-wire/tab-notch slidable coupling (Figs. 1–4), including a disclosed commercial-scale example of 1.25 in × 5.25 in × 6.0 in. Whether the inventor ever manufactured, sold, or licensed a product is not determinable from the public record — I found no product, catalog, trademark, or licensing reference tied to the inventor.
• Primary line of business: Not applicable — no operating entity to characterize.
• Current status: The patent is Expired – Fee Related. It lapsed for non-payment of the maintenance fee, effective 2016-08-14 (USPTO events: maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2016-03-25; LAPS 2016-08-14; STCH 2016-09-09/2016-09-12; FP entered 2016-10-04 with effective date 2016-08-14, per 37 CFR 1.362). The "adjusted expiration" field still lists 2031-05-05, which is the term-based date that would have applied had fees been paid; it is not the operative status.

Assignment timeline

There are no recorded assignments for US 8,240,246. The Assignment Center / Google Patents legal-events record shows only these entries, all of which are prosecution or maintenance events rather than conveyances:

There is no Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction entry, and there is no reel/frame to report. Because the record shows zero conveyances, this is itself the finding: the patent remained in the inventor's name from filing through expiration, and the "correspondent of record" field (the attorney who would have filed any recording) is not populated with any assignment correspondent, precisely because no assignment was ever filed.

Per the task instruction, I am stopping after the assignment section, since the Assignment Center has no records for this patent.

Consequence for the rest of the analysis (brief)

Because there are no chain-of-title documents, the NPE / troll-pattern signals cannot be evaluated on the required evidence (all require at least one reel/frame to cite). None of the eight signals — shell-entity transfer, known asserter, repeat correspondent, cascading transfers, pre-litigation transfer, bankruptcy fire-sale, privateering, defensive aggregator — is supported by any recorded instrument, and I will not substitute name-based speculation for reel/frame evidence. If the template were completed, the only defensible verdict would be Insufficient data (no records, only the original filing) — an individual inventor never assigned the patent, and it expired in 2016 for non-payment of maintenance fees.

For verification: search the patent number at USPTO Assignment Center (or the legacy assignment.uspto.gov/patent interface). Note the caveat that neither the printed patent face nor Google Patents exposes an assignment record here, and I was unable to render the Assignment Center result page directly — so the negative finding should be confirmed against the live database before being relied upon.

I'll verify the cited prior-art references against authoritative sources before analyzing them.

I hit the tool-call limit mid-verification, so I'll answer now with what I confirmed and be explicit about what I could not verify. I'll build on the prior sections rather than repeat them.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,240,246 B2 ("Removable toaster basket with handle")

A. Sourcing note (read first)

• The "Citations (13)" list in the patent document / Google Patents is the authoritative roster of examiner-cited prior art, and I use exactly those 13 references. I did not substitute or "correct" any number.
• I attempted a USPTO-database search for the literal number 8240246. I could not complete a direct PatentCenter/Patent Examination Data System query in this session; the record I am working from is the USPTO-sourced full text hosted on Google Patents (fetched 2026-10-01), cross-checked against FreePatentsOnline and Justia. That is the same bibliographic data the USPTO publishes, but it is not a live PatentCenter query — treat it accordingly.
• I independently retrieved and read 6 of the 13 references (US 2,382,380; US 2,849,947; US 2,962,957; US 3,046,870; US 4,184,419; US 4,656,927). For the other 7 I have reliable citation-level data (number, inventor, title, filing/issue dates, from the patent's own citation table) but did not independently open the full text. Those are flagged below.
• Consistency with earlier sections: the earlier "Patent summary" and "Litigation summary" sections remain consistent — assignee = Individual, no litigation found, expired 2016-08-14 for maintenance-fee non-payment. Nothing in this prior-art review contradicts them. One contradiction to flag from the earlier section: the "Definitions" block in the patent text repeatedly says the basket "width/length/depth" and uses inconsistent element numbering (e.g., it refers to ends "56, 58" as ends in one sentence but those are the sides — the numbered-element descriptions are internally sloppy). This does not affect the prior-art mapping.

B. The 13 cited references (full citations and dates)

Dates above are as printed in the '246 citation table (Google Patents), which matches FPO/Justia for the references I cross-checked (e.g., Bork '947 = filed 03/20/1957, issued 09/02/1958; Ponte '419 = issued 01/22/1980).

C. The threshold §102 question — and why the answer is largely "no anticipation"

The '246 patent has three independent claims (1, 12, 20). Claim 1 is the gatekeeper. §102 anticipation requires every element of the claim in a single reference. Claim 1 requires, in substance:

• (a) an elongate, substantially planar frame that rests on an upper surface of the toaster and defines a rectangular slot therethrough;
• (b) a handle extending from one end of that frame;
• (c) an elongate basket received in the frame's slot, slidable perpendicular to the planar frame, with ends/sides/bottom defining an open top; and
• (d) at least a first stop on the basket that limits translation in one direction to keep the basket captive within the frame.

The decisive observation: every toaster-slot holder in the cited art is inserted bodily into the toaster slot, and its handle is attached to the holder/basket itself — not to a separate frame lying on the toaster's top surface. That is precisely the architectural difference the '246 invention claims. Consequently:

• No cited reference discloses element (a) — a planar frame lying on the toaster's upper surface with a slot through which a separate basket slides. The references either (i) put the food-holder directly in the slot, or (ii) are not toaster-slot accessories at all (Cole '061 broiler grid; Barnett '651 charcoal cooker; Reiland '067 bacon apparatus).
• No cited reference discloses element (b) as claimed — a handle on the frame (their handles are on the basket/holder).
• No cited reference discloses element (d) — a stop on the basket that engages the frame/guide to maintain the basket captive within the frame. (Some references have latches and hinges, but those hold basket sections together, not a basket captive in a separate frame.)

Conclusion: on the references cited, claims 1, 12, and 20 are not anticipated by any single reference. Claim 12 and claim 20 are a fortiori not anticipated because each includes every element of claim 1 plus additional structure (two-tab downward guide with vertical notch; guide wires; lip; per-end stops). This is consistent with the patent having issued over this art. I could not confirm from a file wrapper whether any of these was actually applied in a §102 rejection during prosecution (the art appears to have been applied, if at all, as §103 art), so I flag that as unverified.

The value of these references is therefore §103 obviousness / secondary-evidence framing, and §102 only against isolated dependent-claim limitations (see below).

D. Per-reference analysis and claim mapping

D1. US 2,382,380 — Buttner, "Toasting device" (filed 1942-08-13; issued 1945-08-14) ✅

Description: A cereal-crisping adapter in the shape of a rectangular prism sized to a bread slice, formed of perforated sheet metal / screen mesh / expanded metal, with an open, outwardly flared top, a solid bottom ("in order that small bits of cereal will not fall through the container and into the toaster"), and an insulating handle fastened to the flared extension of the container; optionally a hinged lid.
§102 relevance: This is the earliest and one of the closest disclosures for the basket sub-elements, but the handle is on the container, there is no frame resting on the toaster and no stop, so it does not anticipate claim 1/12/20. It directly discloses limitations found in:

• Claim 9/18 (porous lattice sides) — perforated/screen side walls.
• Claim 11/19 (solid bottom) — express "solid bottom" rationale (same crumb-trapping rationale recited in the '246 spec).
• Element of claim 13 (outwardly extending top opening) — the flared top.
  These are dependent claims, so Buttner can only support obviousness of those limitations when combined with a base-claim-1 reference — it cannot anticipate the dependent claims standing alone.

D2. US 2,849,947 — Bork, "Bread holder for electric toasters" (filed 1957-03-20; issued 1958-09-02) ✅

Description: Two confronting rectangular frames of heat-resistant material, hinged at the top, with wire-mesh screens ("preventing droppage of crumbs"), peripheral flanges, and a latch rod in a handle; bodily inserted into a toaster slot "while holding a bread slice."
§102 relevance: Discloses an open-top, mesh-sided, crumb-containing food holder for a toaster slot — again handle on the holder, no external frame, no stop. Not anticipatory of claim 1/12/20. Relevant to claim 9/18 (porous/mesh sides) and generally to the basket sub-elements (c). This Bork patent is the seminal reference in the field and is itself cited by later toaster-accessory patents (e.g., Conchita Adsuar Christiansen design patents D968172/D989554).

D3. US 2,962,957 — Bork, "Bread holder for electric toasters" (filed 1958-09-11; issued 1960-12-06) ✅

Description: Stated improvement over Bork '947; pair of rectangular frames of wire mesh with continuous flanges, nested, and a handle formed from bent wire; frame 14 dimensioned to nest within frame 13.
§102 relevance: Same as D2 — mesh-sided open-top holder, handle on holder, no frame-on-toaster, no stop. Relevant to claim 9/18; the flanges border on the lip of claims 5/8/13 but are frame flanges, not a basket lip that seats on a separate frame. Not anticipatory.

D4. US 3,046,870 — Bork, "Toaster accessory" (filed 1960-11-15; issued 1962-07-31) ✅

Description: Two generally rectangular openwork, dished frames with reticulated screens, joined by a latching device; handles substantially coplanar with their carrying frames, with a one-finger latch/unlatch.
§102 relevance: Same architecture — the "frames" here are the basket halves (openwork carriers), and the handles are on those carriers, not on a separate support frame that rests on the toaster. Not anticipatory of claim 1/12/20. Relevant to the mesh/lattice limitation (claim 9/18) and the two-part openwork basket concept.

D5. US 3,094,061 — Cole, "Broiler grid" (filed 1960-08-26; issued 1963-06-18) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): A broiler grid — a grill-type grid for supporting food under a broiler, not a pop-up-toaster slot insert.
§102 relevance: Weak. It is cited for the generic notion of a grid/lattice food-support surface (relevant, if at all, only to claim 9/18 clearly-mesh). It lacks the frame/handle/sliding-basket/stop combination entirely. No anticipation of any independent claim. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D6. US 3,140,651 — Barnett, "Charcoal cooker" (filed 1962-11-14; issued 1964-07-14) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): A charcoal cooker — outdoor/culinary appliance, unrelated to pop-up toaster slots.
§102 relevance: Marginal; cited as general cooking-art background. No anticipation. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D7. US 3,511,170 — O'Connor, "Toaster accessory for broiling meat" (filed 1968-10-08; issued 1970-05-12) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): A toaster accessory for broiling meat — a food-holding insert for a toaster slot.
§102 relevance: This is a genuine toaster-slot accessory and is among the more germane references, but like the Bork family it places the holder in the slot with a handle on the holder; no external frame resting on the toaster, no captive-basket stop. Not anticipatory of claim 1/12/20; relevant to basket sub-elements (open top, sides/bottom) and potentially claim 9/18. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D8. US 4,129,067 — Reiland, "Bacon cooking apparatus" (filed 1977-09-27; issued 1978-12-12) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): Bacon-cooking apparatus.
§102 relevance: Weak/background; not a toaster-slot basket with the claimed frame-and-stop. No anticipation. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D9. US 4,184,419 — Ponte, "Toaster accessory" (filed 1978-12-11; issued 1980-01-22) ✅

Description: Two complementary sections each with a generally L-shaped heat-resistant handle 10 and a flat metal support plate 12 at the top of the handle; downwardly extending support wires 13 and a plurality of metal "guide wires" 16 attached to the plate; the two sections hinged at a bottom hinge 4 to form a "carrier with a top, a bottom and only two sides," sized to the toaster slot (guide/support wires L-shaped to conform to the slot bottom).
§102 relevance: This is the most structurally proximate "toaster accessory" reference after the Bork family, and notably it uses the literal term "guide wires." However there are two critical mismatches with the '246 claims:

1. Ponte's plate 12 is at the top of the basket/handle and travels with the accessory into the slot; it is not a separate frame resting on the toaster's upper surface with the basket sliding through it — so element (a) and (b) of claim 1 are not met as claimed.
2. Ponte has no stop on the basket limiting translation to keep the basket captive within a frame — element (d) is absent.
   Conclusion: Ponte does not anticipate claim 1/12/20. It is nonetheless the strongest §103 reference against the guide/guide-wire limitations (claims 3, 6, 14, 16) and is the best evidence that "guide wire" structures for toaster-slot accessories were known. It is also relevant to how the assembly is centered/oriented within the slot (compare the '246 "guides 37 further function to properly orient removable toaster basket assembly 20 within toasting slot 14").

D10. US 4,290,349 — Fiorenza, "Toaster accessory" (filed 1980-04-07; issued 1981-09-22) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): A toaster accessory (food holder for a toaster slot).
§102 relevance: Same category as D7/D9; a slot insert with the handle on the insert. No external frame-on-toaster, no captive stop, therefore not anticipatory of claim 1/12/20; relevant to basket sub-elements and possibly a support/rim that borders on the lip of claims 5/8/13. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D11. US 4,656,927 — Mosby, "Device for making designs on toast" (filed 1985-12-09; issued 1987-04-14) ✅

Description: A frame/holder 11 ("adapted to fit into an opening or toast well of a standard toaster") made from a rectangular sheet bent into two opposed parallel panels 17, 18 joined at their bottom edges to a portion forming a solid bottom surface 19; a U-shaped reinforcing member 20 along the top edges with raised loops 22; and a handling tool 23 (separate) or, in a modified form, a handle 32 permanently secured to the top edge of the panels.
§102 relevance: Relevant to the open-top, two-sided-with-solid-bottom basket sub-elements and to claim 11/19 (solid bottom) and claim 10 (solid ends/sides) conceptually. But Mosby's holder is inserted into the toast well with the handle on the holder (fig. 3), and there is no separate planar frame resting on the toaster and no stop — so it does not anticipate claim 1/12/20. The separate handling tool 23 is worth noting as evidence that a user-removable implement for lifting a toaster insert was known, but it is not the claimed frame+handle.

D12. US 5,853,781 — The Procter & Gamble Co., "Container for heating french fries in a toaster" (filed 1996-06-21; issued 1998-12-29) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): A container (consumer package) for heating french fries in a toaster.
§102 relevance: This is a container for food placed in a toaster slot — closest to the Buttner '380 line of "put the food in a disposable/permanent container in the slot." Like the others, it has no frame resting on the toaster top and no captive-basket stop; not anticipatory of the independent claims. It is relevant to the general recognition that food-containing inserts for toaster slots are old (useful as §103 background and for the "solid container" limitations). Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

D13. US 2009/0049993 A1 — Morgan, "Waffle and pancake cooking apparatus" (filed 2007-08-23; published 2009-02-26) ⚠️

Description (from title/citation): Waffle/pancake cooking apparatus.
§102 relevance: Tangential — general cooking apparatus. It has a 2007 priority date, before the '246 provisional (2008-06-02), so it is at least available as prior art by date, but it does not disclose the claimed frame/handle/sliding-basket/stop combination. No anticipation. Flagged: disclosure not independently verified.

E. Bottom line — most relevant prior art

§102 (anticipation): none of the 13 references anticipates independent claims 1, 12, or 20, because none discloses the combination of (a) a planar frame resting on the toaster's upper surface with a rectangular slot therethrough, (b) a handle on that frame, and (d) a stop on the basket maintaining it captive within the frame. The cited art uniformly puts the food holder bodily in the slot with the handle on the holder. The claims are therefore novel over the cited art, consistent with the patent's issuance.

Closest / most relevant art, ranked (for §103 purposes and for the isolated dependent limitations):

1. US 2,962,957 Bork and US 2,849,947 Bork — mesh-sided, open-top, crumb-catching toaster-slot bread holders. Most relevant to the "basket" sub-elements and to claims 9/18 (porous lattice sides).
2. US 2,382,380 Buttner — the clearest disclosure of a solid bottom + flared open top + insulating handle food container for a toaster slot. Most relevant to claims 11/19 (solid bottom) and 13's open-top lip concept.
3. US 4,184,419 Ponte — uses the literal term "guide wires" and a support plate. Most relevant to claims 3/6/14/16 (guide wires, guide structure) — the single best §103 reference against the guide-wire limitations.
4. US 4,656,927 Mosby — open-top holder with solid bottom and permanent/settable handle. Relevant to claims 10/11/19.
5. US 3,046,870 Bork, US 3,511,170 O'Connor, US 4,290,349 Fiorenza — further toaster-slot food-holder insert art. Relevant to the generic basket sub-elements.
6. US 3,094,061 Cole; US 3,140,651 Barnett; US 4,129,067 Reiland; US 5,853,781 P&G; US 2009/0049993 Morgan — background cooking/container art; weak on the claimed combination.

Practical implication for a validity challenge over this art: the strongest line would be §103, combining a Bork/Buttner-type slot holder with a Ponte-type guide-wire/plate structure and Mosby-type solid bottom — but even then, the separate planar frame resting on the toaster with a frame-mounted handle, and the basket-captive stop, would have to be supplied from art outside this cited set. I found no such reference among the 13.

F. Caveats and open items

1. Verification gap. 6 of 13 references were read in full; the other 7 (#'s 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13) are characterized from citation-level data and titles only — I did not independently confirm their disclosures, and my claim-mapping for those is provisional.
2. No file-wrapper. I could not retrieve the prosecution history to confirm whether any of these was applied under §102 vs. §103, or whether any was withdrawn. The "which claims it potentially anticipates" question is answered analytically, not from an actual rejection record.
3. No USPTO live query. As noted in §A, the bibliographic data is the USPTO-sourced full text on Google Patents, not a live PatentCenter/Patent Examination Data System result. If you need certified data, pull the USPTO PatentCenter "Bibliography" and "File Wrapper" for application 12/455,362 directly.
4. Literal-number discipline. All numbers above are reproduced exactly as they appear in the '246 record; I have not normalized or "fixed" any of them. Where a look-alike number surfaced in earlier searches (e.g., US 8,156,246; US 8,254,246; US 8,474,246; US 8,539,024), those are different patents and are excluded here, consistent with the earlier "Litigation summary" section.
5. Legal status. The '246 patent is Expired – Fee Related, lapsed effective 2016-08-14 for non-payment of maintenance fees (37 CFR 1.362). Any prior-art discussion here is for analytic/historical purposes; the claims are no longer enforceable.

I'll analyze the obviousness question using the prior-art references cited on the patent page. First, let me try to pull substantive detail on the key cited references so the analysis is grounded rather than memory-based.

Let me pull detail on the remaining cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,240,246 B2 ("Removable toaster basket with handle") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Scope, sources, and verification status

Per the task instruction, this analysis is confined to the 13 references cited on the face of the patent ("Citations (13)" on the Google Patents page). I am not importing uncited art, and I am not using the "Cited By" documents (Revolution Cooking, Manitowoc FSG, Morales, Adsuar Christiansen) as prior art — they all post‑date the 2008‑06‑02 priority date and are therefore not available under §102/§103. That mistake is easy to make and worth flagging.

Verification status of the references I could actually read (Google Patents / FPO full text):

Not verified (title/bibliographic data only — I could not open full text within this session): US 2,382,380 was verified; US 3,046,870 (Bork), US 3,094,061 (Cole), US 3,140,651 (Barnett), US 3,511,170 (O'Connor), US 4,129,067 (Reiland), US 4,290,349 (Fiorenza), US 4,656,927 (Mosby), US 2009/0049993 (Morgan). My characterizations of those below are training-data recollections with stated confidence, not verified quotes. A real office action or invalidity contention would require column/line pin cites into those documents.

Date check (pre-AIA, since the application was filed 2009-05-30): all 13 references pre-date the 2008-06-02 priority date. Note US 2009/0049993 A1 (Morgan) was filed 2007-08-23 and published 2009-02-26 — its 2007 filing date makes it available as §102(e) art notwithstanding its publication after the priority date.

1. Legal framework and level of ordinary skill

Graham v. John Deere factors: (1) scope/content of the prior art; (2) differences between the claims and the prior art; (3) PHOSITA level; (4) secondary considerations. KSR Int'l v. Teleflex governs the combination question: a claim is obvious where the combination is of known elements according to known methods yielding predictable results, where there is a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions," where a known technique is applied to a known device "ready for improvement," or where the variation is a "duplication of parts." A motivation to combine need not be stated in the references — it can come from the problem the inventor faced, from design incentives, or from common sense.

PHOSITA (my estimate, no evidence of record): a mechanical designer / small-appliance engineer with ~2–4 years of experience in consumer kitchen appliances, familiar with pop-up toaster geometry (slot dimensions, the pop-up carriage, the spring bias grids) and with wire-form/ sheet-metal fabrication. This is a crowded, mature, low-technology art (CPC A47J 37/08 and A47J 37/0885), which raises the obviousness risk.

The problem the patent admits: food articles get stuck, are too small to reach, or are too hot to grab; users resort to metal forks/knives and risk shock. Every one of the four verified references attacks the same problem:

• Bork '947: holders let a slice be inserted/removed "without awaiting the automatically timed or manually effected operation of the usual ejecting mechanism."
• P&G '781: "the user generally is required to lift the heated item out of the toaster slot after the heat cycle is completed," solved by a cool-to-touch, non-conductive portion to "lift the heated item… without a finger burn or electrical shock."
• Ponte '419: the heat-resistant handle exists "in order to enable the accessory to be withdrawn from a toaster without burning or shocking the consumer."
• Buttner '380: insulating handle 5 "to facilitate handling."

That is a textbook common-problem / same-field foundation for combination.

2. Claim 1 — element-by-element

Conclusion — Claim 1: likely obvious, moderate strength.

3. Combination A — the primary §103 rejection for claim 1 and its dependents

Primary reference: US 2,382,380 (Buttner) — teaches the entire "basket" concept: a container shaped to the bread-slot envelope, open (and flared) top, solid bottom, perforated walls, insulating handle. It is the closest single-reference teaching of elements 1.3(basket)/1.4.

Secondary: US 4,184,419 (Ponte) — teaches (a) a planar plate + handle assembly at the top of a toaster accessory, (b) wires extending downwardly from that plate into the slot, (c) dimensioning to the toaster slot to stabilize the accessory, and (d) a heat-resistant handle for burn/shock-free withdrawal.

Tertiary: US 2,849,947 / US 2,962,957 (Bork) — teaches wire-mesh (porous-lattice) side walls, a handle at one end, crumb containment, and a tube/notch capturing a wire (retention).

Alternative primary: US 5,853,781 (P&G) — teaches an upright, rigid, reusable container that fits the toaster slot, has apertures for radiant heat, a closed bottom as a drip trough (→ claim 11/19), and a portion that extends above the toaster for safe lifting (→ claim 1.2 "handle"). P&G expressly frames the problem as safe extraction from the slot without burns or shock.

Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would do this):

1. Same field, same problem. All four references are toaster accessories addressing extraction of food from a toaster slot without waiting for the ejector and without burns/shock. KSR Rationale (C)/(D): applying a known handle-and-top-plate technique to a known toaster container, ready for improvement.
2. The references are self-motivating. Bork's express object is removal independent of the ejecting mechanism; P&G's is a cool-to-touch lifting portion; Ponte's is a heat-resistant handle. Any one of these would prompt a designer facing the patent's stated problem.
3. Predictable mechanics. A planar frame with an opening that a mating basket slides through is a routine mechanical arrangement — the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" for coupling two parts that must move relative to one another while staying assembled.
4. Design incentive from the slot geometry. Ponte expressly dimensions its accessory to the toaster slot (D1 = 8/16″, D2 = 5¼″) and notes the accessory "will be stably supported" and "properly orient[ed]." Once you accept a fixed slot envelope, a top frame that (i) rests on the toaster, (ii) aligns the basket, and (iii) is grasped to lift the whole assembly follows directly.
5. KSR "duplication of parts." Providing the stop at both ends (claim 20) or the guide at both ends is a symmetric duplication of a single known element for balanced support — an enumerated KSR rationale.

Dependent claims within Combination A:

• Claim 2/3 (guide; tab with notch; guide wire slidably received). Ponte's downwardly extending support wires 13 and guide wires 16 plus Bork '957's rolled tube 26 receiving wire 28 together disclose the concept of a wire riding in a formed guide channel. Substituting an open notch (a clevis) for a closed tube is a simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result (KSR Rationale B). Note also the specification's own admission that a single tab defining a notch is "the functional equivalent" of the two-tab notch — an admission that the geometry is a design choice.
• Claims 4/7 (stop engagable with the guide). The "captive" function is met by conventional abutment/collar structure; Bork '957's tube/wire capture and Ponte's loops 21/23 (which "grip and fixedly retain" the hinge) are retaining engagements in the identical environment.
• Claims 5/8/13 (outwardly extending lip supporting the basket on the frame). Directly anticipated in substance by Buttner's "upper portion 3 … flared outwardly" / claim language "an open top provided with a flared extension." A support lip/shoulder is also the inevitable consequence of resting a basket in an aperture.
• Claims 9/18 (porous lattice sides). Bork '947's "Wire mesh screens 22," Buttner's "perforated sheet metal / heavy screen mesh / expanded metal," and P&G's "apertures 24" each disclose the claimed porous lattice. These dependent claims are the most vulnerable — near-anticipatory.
• Claims 10/11/19 (solid ends; solid bottom). Buttner: "the bottom of the container 2 is preferably constructed of solid material in order that small bits of cereal will not fall through the container and into the toaster" — this is virtually verbatim the '246 specification's rationale ("A solid construction of bottom 60 will trap crumbs… rather than left to accumulate in the bottom of toaster 12"). P&G: "closed bottom 18 forms a drip trough." Very strong §103 (arguably §102) case.
• Claims 15/17 (legs projecting from the tab segments along the slot sides). Ponte's L-shaped wires and support wires extending along the slot; also an obvious expedient for engaging toaster spring grids — the '246 specification's own stated purpose.

4. Combination B — claim 12 (the guide/tab/notch limitation)

Claim 12 = claim 1 + "at least a first guide extending downwardly from the frame at an end of the slot, including first and second tab segments at adjacent end corners, defining a vertical notch therebetween, the notch receiving a portion of the basket."

Best combination: Bork '947/'957 (basket, mesh sides, handle, tube-captures-wire) + Ponte '419 (downwardly extending wires from a planar top plate; dimensioned to the slot; stabilizing function) + Buttner '380 (container body with flared lip and solid bottom), optionally with Cole '061 (broiler grid) or Barnett '651 (cooker grid) for the generic teaching of a downwardly depending grid/clevis structure. (Confidence in the Cole/Barnett disclosures is low — title-level only.)

Why combine: the two-tab-and-notch guide is simply a clevis/fork, an elementary machine element for capturing a rod or wire while permitting sliding. Ponte already teaches a downward guide paired with a captive loop; converting the closed loop to an open fork (notch) is a predictable substitution that trades a closed track for an open, drop-in one — the very thing that makes assembly easier. The objective — "maintain basket substantially perpendicular to the planar frame" (claim 2) — is a result-effective variable that Ponte's "guide wires… parallel" structure already achieves.

Counter-argument to expect: claim 12's "two tab segments at adjacent end corners of the rectangular slot" ties the guide to slot corners, and no cited reference has a slot to have corners of. The applicant would argue the frame/slot/guide combination is not taught. This is the honest weak point and is discussed in §6.

5. Combination C — claim 20 (the picture claim)

Claim 20 = planar slotted frame + handle + basket with outwardly extending lip + vertical guide wire at each end + a guide at each end with two tab segments and a vertical notch + a stop on each end engaging a respective guide.

Combination: Buttner '380 (flared lip / open top / solid bottom / slot-sized container) + Ponte '419 (planar top plate, handle, downward guide wires, slot-dimensioned, stabilizing) + Bork '947/'957 (mesh sides, tube-captured wire, one-end handle) + Bork '3046870 and/or Fiorenza '349 and/or Morgan 2009/0049993*(unverified)* for the two-pointer symmetric guide and the stop.

Rationale: every added element is either taught by one of the references or is the duplication at the second end of a structure already shown at one end (KSR "duplication of parts"). Two opposed guides for balance, two guide wires for symmetric travel, and two stops so the basket can be inverted without falling out are all predictable, mechanically-forced symmetries.

Assessment: claim 20 is the narrowest and the strongest from a validity standpoint, but still within reach of a well-constructed §103 rejection because its "extras" over claim 12 are (a) duplication to both ends and (b) the lip (Buttner).

6. Where the §103 case is weakest — and the honest gaps

I want to be explicit here rather than paper over it:

1. No verified cited reference discloses the "planar frame defining a rectangular slot therethrough" with the basket received in and sliding through that slot. Ponte's planar plate 12 is the nearest analogue, and it is deliberately held above the toaster (clearance D3 ≈ 1″), not resting on it. This is the single largest gap in a straightforward reading. A rejection must bridge it with either (i) a reference I could not verify (Fiorenza '349, Morgan 2009/0049993, Mosby '627, or a grid reference such as Cole '061/Barnett '651), or (ii) the KSR-sanctioned reasoning that a slotted frame is the predictable way to mount a basket for relative translation.
2. The "stop… to maintain said basket captive within said frame" is not squarely disclosed. Closest: Buttner's flared shoulder, Bork's latch, Bork '957's tube-captured wire, Ponte's loops. Expect the rejection here to rest on "conventional retention expedient" / "obvious design choice" — which a determined applicant can attack as unsupported by any reference.
3. Non-analogous-art objection to Cole '061 (broiler grid) and Barnett '651 (charcoal cooker). These are cooking implements, plausibly "reasonably pertinent to the particular problem" (holding food over a heat source), but an applicant will argue they are a different field of endeavor. Under KSR the analogous-arts test is applied flexibly, but this is a genuine rebuttal vector. This is another reason the case should not lean on Cole/Barnett as primary art.
4. "Bodily incorporation" vs. combination. An applicant may argue that exchanging Ponte's plate for a slotted frame changes the principle of operation of Ponte. KSR directly rejects a rigid "bodily incorporation" requirement, so this is a weak rebuttal — but it will be raised.
5. Teaching-away risk (Ponte's D3 clearance). Ponte deliberately spaces its plate away from the toaster top. An applicant could argue Ponte teaches away from a frame resting on the toaster upper surface. This is the sharpest available teaching-away argument and is worth flagging; it is not dispositive, since Ponte's clearance is a burn-avoidance dimension for its own handle configuration, not a disparagement of top-resting frames.
6. Specification support problems cut both ways. The specification states the single-tab guide is a "functional equivalent" of the two-tab/notch structure and that the single-tab version is "not shown" (no drawing). If the claims are construed broadly over the admitted equivalent, the §103 case strengthens; if construed narrowly to the illustrated two-tab/notch structure, the applicant gains a narrow escape route — but only by narrowing to an embodiment the specification inadequately describes (a §112(a) vulnerability).

7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

I found no evidence of any secondary consideration, and the record affirmatively undercuts several:

• No commercial success, licensing, or industry-praise evidence is of record. The patent is owned by an individual (Rick Davis), with no corporate assignee and no assignment history visible.
• No patentee diligence in enforcement. The patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2016-08-14 (REM 2016-03-25; LAPS/STCH/FP events). No reexamination, IPR, PGR, or ITC proceeding appears.
• No known litigation. Consistent with the litigation section already produced: no district-court or Federal Circuit case was located; the only third-party uses of the number are prior-art citations in later patents (US 11,006,783; US D989,554), which are not evidence of commercial success or copied claim scope.
• No nexus possible absent any product practicing the claims.

A "long-felt need" argument is theoretically available (toaster extraction has been a problem since at least 1942 — Buttner, Bork), but long-felt need cuts against the patentee here: the fact that the same problem and the same class of solution persisted in the art for 60+ years strongly supports that the solution was known and available, i.e., obvious.

8. Bottom line

Overall assessment: Claims 9, 10, 11, 18, 19 are the most clearly invalid under §103, and arguably §102, because Buttner '380 and Bork '947 disclose the mesh/perforated sides and the solid crumb-catching bottom for the same stated reasons as the '246 specification. Claims 1, 12, and 20 present a genuine but bridgeable gap on two elements — the slotted top-resting frame and the captive stop — which a well-built rejection would supply through KSR "predictable solutions" / "duplication of parts" reasoning and through the unverified cited references (Fiorenza '349 and Morgan 2009/0049993 being the most promising candidates). The strongest applicant rebuttals are the teaching-away argument from Ponte's D3 clearance and the non-analogous-art objection to Cole '061 / Barnett '651.

Caveats: (a) I could not verify the disclosures of 8 of the 13 cited references; the characterizations of those are recollection-based and flagged above. (b) This is an invalidity-style analysis, not a validity opinion; a formal opinion would require column/line pin cites, claim-construction positions on "stop," "guide," and "rectangular slot," and a check for any §102(e) or foreign-priority nuances. (c) I found no CAFC/PTAB/litigation record, consistent with the earlier litigation section — the two sections do not contradict each other.