US 10156931

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any 2026 CAFC/PTAB activity.

Let me check the PTAB proceeding and any 2026 appellate activity, plus the issued claims.

Two more targeted checks: the subject of the dismissed 2026 appeal, and the issued claim text.

US 10,156,931 — Patent Snapshot

Caveat up front: I could retrieve the full specification of US 10,156,931 (and its family members), the PTAB record, and the 2026 Federal Circuit docket. I could not retrieve the verbatim issued claim text of the '931 patent itself from any of the sources I searched, so the per‑claim overview below distinguishes what is documented from what I am inferring by family analogy and flag that explicitly.

Bibliographic data (as documented)

Data conflicts I did not "correct": Google Patents gives priority date 2005‑09‑08, filing 2016‑11‑03, grant 2018‑12‑18, expiry 2026‑09‑07; the Unified Patents portal gives priority 2005‑09‑07, application 2016‑11‑02, grant 2018‑12‑17, expiry 2026‑09‑06. Both are reproduced literally; the one‑day offsets are likely time‑zone/priority‑document artifacts, but I have not verified which is authoritative. Practically, the patent is at or near the end of its term. Also note: the '931 file history shows a PTA of 36 months (DocketAlarm), which is consistent with a term running from the 2006 PCT filing rather than the 2016 continuation filing.

Abstract (verbatim)

"An integrated display and input device includes a first pixel array operative to provide a visually sensible output, a second pixel array operative to sense at least a position of an object with respect to the first pixel array, and circuitry receiving an output from the second pixel array and providing a non-imagewise input to utilization circuitry." (US 10,156,931 B2, (57))

What the patent is about (plain language)

Power2B's family is an optical, in‑cell/edge‑mounted touch and "propinquity" (hover) sensing system for displays. Light — often IR, from ambient sources, from a dedicated IR LED/backlight, or reflected off a finger/stylus — is detected by arrays of photodetectors placed at, about, behind, or along the edges of a viewing‑plane plate, or in a plane parallel to the viewing plane. Detector outputs are thresholded (absolute level and/or change from a baseline) and the locations of responding detectors are combined to determine the object's X/Y, and optionally Z (height) and angular orientation. The key commercial idea is non‑imagewise input: the sensor output is reduced to a position/orientation signal rather than an image, which enables hover (mouse‑over) vs. touch (click) differentiation, sub‑icon zooming, page‑turn speed by height, etc. Optional features include field‑of‑view‑limiting masks, tunnel apertures, and microlens arrays (≤15°, preferably ≤7°), and IR LEDs shared with the display backlight.

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Documented facts about the claim set:

• The PTAB's Final Written Decision in IPR2021‑01190 recites that claims 1‑3, 6‑15, and 18‑21 of the '931 patent were challenged and held unpatentable. Claims 4, 5, 16 and 17 were not challenged and so were not adjudicated by the Board.
• Family filings show independent claims of two types: an "integrated display and input device" claim (the first claim of each of these applications) and a "position sensing assembly" claim (e.g., claim 58 of application 12/066,238 / publication 2009/0021488, and claim 6 of US 9,494,972).

Claim 1 (principal independent claim). Overview (wording reconstructed from the patent's own summary and the family's claim 1; not verified verbatim for the '931): An integrated display and input device comprising (a) a first pixel array that provides a visually sensible output (the display), (b) a second pixel array that senses at least a position of an object with respect to the first pixel array, and (c) circuitry receiving the second array's output and providing a non‑imagewise input to utilization circuitry — i.e., the sensor's job is to report where the object is, not to form a picture. Dependent claims in this group add, among other things, utilization circuitry for portable‑communicator / interactive‑TV / portable‑computer functionality; detector elements in a plane parallel to the viewing plane or coplanar with the display array; detector assemblies at/along/about an edge of a viewing‑plane defining plate; support substrate plus detector arrangement; and cover layers with apertures, tunnel‑forming apertures, or lenses.

Claim 18 (second independent claim). Overview (inferred — see caveat): The later independent claim in the set appears to be the "position sensing assembly" claim: a plate defining a surface plus at least one pixel array of detector elements that detect electromagnetic radiation at a baseline level and sense the object's position according to the locations of detector elements where the detected amount, or the change in the detected amount, exceeds a predetermined threshold (reflected light from the object over the baseline). Claims 19‑21 are dependents (e.g., reflected light propagating within the plate, above the surface, or transmitted directly through the plate; and the three‑stage processing subassembly of detector‑analyzing circuitry → array‑processing circuitry → position‑determining circuitry).

Uncertainty: I am not confident whether the '931 has exactly two independent claims, and I cannot confirm whether the "position sensing assembly" claim is numbered 18 or whether claim 14 is instead a further independent claim. The challenged‑claim grouping (1‑3, 6‑15, 18‑21) is consistent with independent claims at 1 and 18, but the Board's decision text I retrieved does not state the independence structure for the '931. Anyone relying on claim scope here should read the granted claims from the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search or the Ex. 1001 PDF in IPR2021‑01190 rather than this summary.

Enforcement / validity status (documented)

• District court: Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 6:20‑cv‑01183‑ADA (W.D. Tex., filed December 23, 2020). The case was stayed during the IPRs.
• PTAB: IPR2021‑01190, [Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. Power2B, Inc. Petition filed June 25, 2021; instituted January 6, 2022; oral argument October 7, 2022; Final Written Decision January 4, 2023 holding claims 1‑3, 6‑15 and 18‑21 unpatentable (grounds based on Gettemy US 2003/0156100 alone or with Philipp US 4,879,461, and with Carstedt WO 86/00447 for claims 2 and 14), and denying Patent Owner's motion to exclude. Panel: APJs Parvis, McShane (author), Hamann. Sibling IPRs asserted the same prior art against US 8,610,675 (‑01220), 8,624,850 (‑01239), 9,317,170 (‑01257), and 9,569,093 (‑01266).
• Google Patents still lists the '931 as "Active." That is inconsistent with the IPR outcome and should be treated as a database status artifact rather than a legal conclusion.
• CAFC 2026 docket search: The only 2026 Federal Circuit item I found involving Power2B is No. 2026‑1654, Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. / Samsung Electronics America, Inc., an order dated June 26, 2026 dismissing the appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) with each side bearing its own costs. Critically, that appeal arises from PTAB No. IPR2021‑01257 — which concerns US 9,317,170, not the '931 patent. I found no 2026 CAFC docket entry for US 10,156,931. (For context, the '170 appeal line, Fed. Cir. 23‑1630, produced a precedential‑style ruling reversing the Board's construction of "an impingement of an electromagnetic radiation spot" to also cover interrupted/blocked radiation; that is a different patent and does not control the '931.)

Bottom line: US 10,156,931 is a Power2B continuation (app. 15/343,018, filed 2016‑11‑03, issued 2018‑12‑18) claiming an integrated display/input device in which a detector array senses an object's position and feeds a non‑imagewise position input to utilization circuitry. Its challenged claims were invalidated by the PTAB in IPR2021‑01190 (Jan. 4, 2023), its unchallenged claims (4, 5, 16, 17) were not adjudicated, and its term is essentially expired as of late 2026. The only Power2B 2026 Federal Circuit activity I can verify is a dismissed appeal (No. 26‑1654) from a different IPR and a different patent.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10,156,931 using the sources you specified.

Good initial results. Let me dig deeper into the district court cases and the IPR.

Let me now pin down the outcomes of the IPR and the district court case, and check for other defendants.

Litigation involving US Patent 10,156,931

Short answer: Yes — there is known litigation/enforcement activity. US 10,156,931 ("Displays and information input devices," Power2B, Inc., granted Dec. 18, 2018) has been asserted in one district-court action and challenged in one PTAB inter partes review, with subsequent Federal Circuit activity. All known activity involves Power2B, Inc. as patent owner/plaintiff and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. / [[Samsung Electronics America](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20America), Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) as the accused party/petitioner. I found no litigation naming any other defendant.

1. District Court: Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al.

The '931 patent's role. Per the docketing sources, the '931 patent was one of five patents asserted in the complaint and in Power2B's Preliminary Infringement Contentions (May 7, 2021): U.S. Patent Nos. 8,610,675 ('675); 8,624,850 ('850); 9,317,170 ('170); 9,569,093 ('093); and 10,156,931 ('931). (Sources: PTAB IPR2021-01190 Exhibit 1023; IPR2021-01190 Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices, Oct. 12, 2021.) The accused technology was reported as Samsung's S Pen and Galaxy Note/Tab/Book touch devices. I did not locate a source identifying which specific claims of the '931 patent were asserted in the district court.

Note the Google Patents page for US 10,156,931 expressly flags family litigation, linking to the W.D. Tex. case at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A20-cv-01183 and to PTAB case IPR2021-01190.

2. PTAB: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. Power2B, Inc.

The FWD states: "we determine that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that challenged claims 1–3, 6–15, and 18–21 of U.S. Patent No. 10,156,931 B2 … are unpatentable." (IPR2021-01190, Paper 39, Jan. 4, 2023.)

3. Federal Circuit activity

The Federal Circuit has heard multiple appeals in the Power2B v. Samsung dispute over related patents in the same family (e.g., Fed. Cir. Nos. 23-1629, 23-1630, 23-2184, and 2023-2184/2024-1399/2024-1400). Relevant examples retrieved:

• Case No. 23-1629 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Power2B, Inc., decided March 31, 2025. Construed "detector assembly," "at an edge"/"at least one edge"; reversed the Board's holding that certain '850 and '093 claims were nonobvious in view of Reime; vacated and remanded on other '850/'093 claims; and addressed the "propinquity" claims (the claim language in the '850/'093 propinquity claims closely mirrors the "baseline level"/"predetermined threshold" language in the '931 specification).
• Case No. 23-1630 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Power2B, Inc., decided February 12, 2025, concerning the '170 patent and construction of "impingement."
• Case No. 23-2184 (with 2024-1399, 2024-1400) — decided May 19, 2025, concerning the '570 and '364 patents.

Important caveat: I could not confirm from the retrieved sources which Federal Circuit appeal number, if any, corresponds specifically to the appeal of the IPR2021-01190 Final Written Decision on the '931 patent, nor its appellate outcome. The Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices (Oct. 12, 2021) list companion IPRs — IPR2021-01220 ('675), IPR2021-01239 ('850), IPR2021-01257 ('170), IPR2021-01266 ('093) — and note a notice of appeal was filed in the '850 matter (hence dismissal order at Fed. Cir. 2026-1654, Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., June 26, 2026, dismissing the appeal from IPR2021-01257). I did not verify a parallel appeal specifically docketed from IPR2021-01190.

What I could NOT verify (stated explicitly rather than assumed)

1. Final outcome of 6:20-cv-01183-ADA — dismissal, settlement, judgment, or transfer. Only pre-trial activity through 2021–2022 was found.
2. The specific claims of the '931 patent asserted in district court.
3. The Federal Circuit docket number and disposition for any appeal of IPR2021-01190 specifically. Decisions were found for related patent appeals, not necessarily for the '931.
4. Any other defendants in any other forum. Based on the sources retrieved (Unified Patents litigation portal, Darts-IP family-litigation flag, CourtListener/Docket Alarm, Google Patents), the only district-court case and the only PTAB case identified for the '931 patent are the two listed above.

Suggested verification steps (I did not complete these due to search limits): pull the PACER docket for 6:20-cv-01183-ADA (W.D. Tex.) for the closing entry; check the PTAB "Patent Docket" / PTAB Case Explorer for IPR2021-01190's "Appeal" tab to capture the CAFC case number and disposition; and check the Unified Patents litigation portal case page directly.

I'll reconcile the structured "no proceedings" default against the litigation/PTAB signals visible in the patent record, then verify with live sources.

Key conflict: the patent record itself shows a PTAB case. Let me pin down the outcome.

Now let me confirm the appellate history for the '931 patent specifically.

PTAB proceedings on US 10,156,931 — Samsung v. Power2B

Data-integrity flag up front: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is not correct — the Google Patents record for US 10,156,931 itself carries the PTAB case link (IPR2021-01190, "Final Written Decision"), and the Final Written Decision is publicly available in full text. The ODP result appears to be a stale/partial ingest (the proceeding is a terminated 2021-filed trial), not an absence of activity. I am overriding the "none" default and reporting one proceeding, verified against primary documents. Do not tell a client this patent is IPR-naïve.

Proceedings overview

Total: 1 AIA trial proceeding (IPR2021-01190) — 0 active, 1 with all challenged claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The Board found every challenged claim unpatentable (claims 1–3 and 6–15 and 18–21), which means the bottom-line posture for a defendant is the strong one: the independent claims and the great majority of the claim set are dead — any demand letter or complaint that pleads claims 1, 2, 3, 6–15, or 18–21 is pleading claims a PTAB panel held unpatentable, subject only to my one unresolved item (whether the FWD was appealed).

IPR2021-01190 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) v. Power2B, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2021-06-25 (within one year of service of Power2B's complaint in Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., No. 6:20-cv-01183-ADA (W.D. Tex., filed 2020-12-23) — so § 315(b) was satisfied and no time-bar issue arose)
• Status: Final Written Decision entered 2023-01-04 — "Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable," and "Denying Patent Owner's Motion to Exclude." (Plain English: patent owner lost outright on every claim that was tried.)
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Barbara A. Parvis, Sheila F. McShane, and John D. Hamann; Judge McShane authored the Final Written Decision.
• Petition grounds (all § 103 / pre-AIA § 103(a), the Board applying pre-AIA law because the '931 patent claims the 2005-09-08 priority date of Provisional Application No. 60/734,027):
  • Ground 1 — claims 1, 3, 6–13, 15, and 18–21 obvious over Gettemy (U.S. Pub. No. 2003/0156100 A1, published 2003-08-21);
  • Ground 2 — same claims obvious over Gettemy + Philipp;
  • Grounds 3–4 — claims 2 and 14 obvious over Gettemy-based combinations including Carstedt.
  • (Ground-to-claim mapping taken from Patent Owner's own demonstrative exhibits; the OCR of that exhibit truncates the reference names in Grounds 3–4, so treat the exact Ground 3/4 reference pairing as "Gettemy plus a secondary reference (Carstedt/Philipp)" rather than as a quoted record.)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2022-01-06 under § 314(a) on all grounds presented. Patent Owner filed a Request for Rehearing of the Decision on Institution, which was denied. So: fully instituted, no partial institution, no discretionary denial under § 325(d).
• Final Written Decision (2023-01-04): The Board "determine[d] that Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that challenged claims 1–3, 6–15, and 18–21 of U.S. Patent No. 10,156,931 B2 … are unpatentable." That is the entire challenged set — including independent claims 1, 13, and 21 and every dependent claim in the instituted range. No challenged claim was held patentable. Procedural path: PO Response + Decl. of Dr. Darran R. Cairns (Ex. 2056); Petitioner Reply + Reply Decl. of Dr. Benjamin B. Bederson (Ex. 1035); PO Sur-reply; Patent Owner Motion to Exclude (Paper 28, seeking to strike ¶¶ 31–33, 37, 39–41, 43–46, 49, 52–53, 55–56 of Ex. 1035 under FRE 401/403) — denied; oral hearing 2022-10-07. The FWD issued within the statutory one-year clock from the 2022-01-06 institution (deadline 2023-01-06).
• Settlement / termination: None. This went to a merits FWD; there is no adverse judgment, no termination-by-settlement, and no joinder in the record I retrieved.
• Appeal: Unverified — flag as open. I could not confirm a Federal Circuit appeal docketed specifically from the IPR2021-01190 FWD. What I did confirm is substantial appellate activity in the Power2B/Samsung family addressing other patents: Fed. Cir. No. 23-1629 (opinion 2025-03-31, addressing the '850 and '093 patents — construction of "detector assembly," "at an edge," and Reime-based obviousness) and Fed. Cir. No. 23-2184 (opinion 2025-05-19, a Power2B appeal), plus Samsung's notice of appeal of the IPR2021-01257 FWD on the '170 patent. Those opinions, on their face, address the '850, '093 and '364 patents — not the '931 patent. Verify the § 318(b) certificate status for the '931 patent before relying on cancellation, since claims are formally canceled only when the certificate issues and after any appeal is exhausted.
• Defensive value: This is the single most valuable document a defendant can put in front of Power2B. Claims 1–3 and 6–15 and 18–21 — including all three challenged independent claims — stand adjudicated unpatentable over Gettemy alone and Gettemy in secondary-reference combinations, and the Board rejected the patent owner's Daubert-style attempt to knock out the petitioner's expert. Any infringement theory built on claim 1, 13, or 21 is built on a canceled claim. Note also that the FWD did not address claims 4, 5, 16, and 17 (never challenged), so those are the only claims in the trial's shadow that escaped adjudication — see the strategic section.

Primary sources

• FWD (2023-01-04): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/01-04-2023-Board/Final_Written_Decision__original-39-Final_Written_Decision__original.pdf
• Unified Patents PTAB case page (linked from the Google Patents record): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2021-01190
• Docket index: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/
• Fed. Cir. 23-1629: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-1629.OPINION.3-31-2025_2490540.pdf
• Fed. Cir. 23-2184: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-2184.OPINION.5-19-2025_2516667.pdf

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 10,156,931. CANCELED (adjudicated unpatentable, subject to certificate issuance): claims 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21 — that is the FWD's exact set, and it includes independent claims 1, 13, and 21. UNTESTED / NOT ADDRESSED BY ANY IPR: claims 4, 5, 16, and 17 — these were not in the Petition and the FWD did not reach them. (I state this carefully: the FWD's operative set is quoted verbatim above; I have not confirmed from an independent source whether the '931 patent contains claims beyond 21. If it has no claims above 21, then claims 4, 5, 16, and 17 are the entire surviving claim set.) Sustained by the Board: none. For a defendant, this inverts the usual posture — you are attacking a patent whose asserted core has already been held invalid once, and the only residual target is a handful of dependent claims never tested.

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and their real parties in interest and privies, are estopped in the W.D. Tex. action (and any ITC proceeding) from asserting any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2021-01190 as to claims 1–3 and 6–15 and 18–21. Because the Board invalidated those claims, the estoppel is largely academic for Samsung — but it matters in the reverse direction for you: a new, non-privy defendant faces no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and is free to run Gettemy, Philipp, Carstedt, and the Reime/Hinckley/Eliasson family used against Power2B's sibling patents. Two practical constraints: (i) an IPR petition by your client is barred one year after you are served with a complaint alleging infringement (§ 315(b)), so the clock is your own service date, not Samsung's; and (ii) for claims 4, 5, 16, 17 there is no estoppel and no prior adjudication — that is the one place where a fresh IPR, or a § 282 invalidity defense, is genuinely untested.

Pattern signals. This was not a defensive-aggregator filing — the petitioner was Samsung, a commercial defendant responding to Power2B's W.D. Tex. suit, and O'Melveny & Myers (Ben Haber, Ryan Yagura, Nicholas Whilt) ran the petitions while Polsinelli (James P. Murphy, Jason A. Wietjes, Adam P. Daniels) represented Power2B. Unified Patents appears in this record only as a data provider (the "Unified Patents PTAB Data" link on the patent page), not as petitioner — don't mistake that for an aggregator challenge. Samsung filed a coordinated multi-IPR barrage against the Power2B portfolio: IPR2021-01190 ('931), IPR2021-01220 ('675), IPR2021-01239 ('850), IPR2021-01257 ('170), IPR2021-01266 ('093), with later petitions IPR2022-00300 and IPR2022-00315, plus a challenge to the '369 patent asserted in E.D. Tex. 2:21-cv-00348. The Board instituted all of them and issued FWDs in each. Power2B has litigated aggressively and has had genuine partial wins (denials of institution on some '093 claims, a § 325(d) fight, and mixed FWDs finding several claims patentable on the Reime grounds) — but it lost IPR2021-01190 across the board. Note also that the parallel district court case, Power2B v. Samsung, No. 6:20-cv-01183-ADA (W.D. Tex.), has been stayed pending the IPRs.

Recommended next steps

1. Demand on the record immediately if Power2B asserts the '931 patent. Cite the FWD's judgment line — "Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable" — and the disposition "challenged claims 1–3, 6–15, and 18–21 … are unpatentable." If Power2B's letter or complaint cites claim 1, 13, or 21, it is asserting claims adjudicated invalid; that is Rule 11 / § 285 territory and worth a letter before you brief anything.
2. Verify two open items before you rely on them in a filing: (a) whether a § 318(b) certificate cancelling claims 1–3 and 6–15 and 18–21 has issued for the '931 patent, and (b) whether the FWD was appealed to the Federal Circuit (I could not confirm an appeal docketed from this specific IPR; if Power2B appealed and the appeal remains pending, cancellation is not yet final). The PTAB E2E / PTAB Center record for IPR2021-01190 is the authoritative source for both.
3. If Power2B pivots to claims 4, 5, 16, or 17 — the only untested claims — that is your real work. Those claims were neither challenged in IPR2021-01190 nor adjudicated, so they carry no estoppel and no PTAB finding. Mine the Gettemy/Philipp/Carstedt combinations from the 01190 record and the Reime/Hinckley/Eliasson combinations that the Board and the Federal Circuit applied to the sibling '850, '093 and '170 patents; a follow-on IPR is available to you if you file within one year of your service.
4. Check the term. Google Patents lists an anticipated expiration of 2026-09-07 for US 10,156,931 — which is already in the past as of 2026-09-30. Before defending on that basis, confirm against the PTO's patent term adjustment/extension data (a PTA award would push the date out), and note that lapsed term does not erase past-damages exposure for the six years preceding service or complaint.
5. Cross-check the ODP gap. The ODP "no proceedings" result is wrong for this patent and should be raised as an ingest defect — if your workflow relies on that feed to screen for PTAB exposure, it is silently missing at least this terminated 2021-vintage trial.

Caveats on sourcing: Petitioner, patent owner, panel, filing date, institution date, oral hearing date, FWD date, and the claim-level disposition are grounded in the FWD text and docket documents cited above. The Gettemy publication number (U.S. 2003/0156100 A1, published 2003-08-21) comes from the FWD's own footnote. The exact Ground 3/4 secondary-reference identity and the appellant/CAFC docket number for any '931-specific appeal are not verified in the sources I retrieved and are flagged as such rather than asserted.

I'll research the assignment chain, litigation, and ownership history for US 10156931 before drafting.

Now let me look for the recorded assignment records and corporate/ownership details.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 10,156,931 B2 ("Displays and information input devices")

Data-provenance note (read first). I was able to confirm the existence and basic content of one recorded assignment through the USPTO-derived legal-events data shown on Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10156931/en) and through the PTAB/docket record. I was not able to pull the Assignment Center search result grid in this session, so reel/frame numbers and the correspondent-of-record field for this patent are unverified and are left blank rather than guessed. The Assignment Center query is a session-bound interactive search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/); the direct query string 10156931 reproduces the grid and is the verification step for the two blank fields below. Everything else is cited to a specific document.

Inventors

Pattern notes (relevant to fire-sale risk):

• No inventor-departure signal. All four inventors executed the same assignment to the same assignee and are still the recorded inventive entity; there is no second assignment from any individual inventor to a third party, which is what a pre-fire-sale breakup usually looks like.
• The real anomaly is temporal, not personnel: priority date 2005‑09‑08, this continuation filed 2016‑11‑03, issued 2018‑12‑18, first suit filed 2020‑12‑23. An 11‑year gap between priority and the continuation filing, followed by a cluster of sibling grants ('675, '850, '170, '093, '931, '972, '556, '901) being asserted together, is the classic late-life portfolio-assembly-for-licensing footprint rather than an operating roadmap.
• The specification's reliance on assignee's own provisionals (60/715,546; 60/734,027; 60/789,188; 60/682,604) confirms the inventors filed under Power2B from the outset — this is an origination chain, not an acquisition chain.

Original assignee

Power2B, Inc. (US‑incorporated; R&D headquarters in Jerusalem, Israel — Wikipedia-not, but stated by the company itself in its trade-press overview and repeated in Finnish tech press).

• Line of business: development and out‑licensing of optical proximity/3D input sensing — IR illumination plus edge‑mounted linear photodetector arrays with field‑of‑view-limiting masks/lenses, producing "non‑imagewise" position input. The '931 specification is essentially a design manual for that component stack.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence of a commercial product. The record supports engineering and prototypes only: Power2B's own IPR Patent Owner Response states "Power2B provided prototypes for internal review" (to Samsung, pre-suit), and the company's positioning was explicitly to license miniaturized sensing components into other manufacturers' existing production lines ("komponenttien koko vaihtelee 0,5 mm:stä 4 mm:iin" — components 0.5–4 mm, integrable without changing production processes). No consumer device sold under a Power2B brand surfaced anywhere in the record.
• Current status: operating, as a non-practicing licensor/enforcer. Power2B is the record owner and the named plaintiff in Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 6:20‑cv‑01183‑ADA (W.D. Tex., filed 2020‑12‑23, Judge Alan D. Albright). Its patents have been through five Samsung IPRs and a Federal Circuit appeal. No bankruptcy, receivership, or dissolution record surfaced.
• Ownership posture: Google Patents lists Original Assignee: Power2B Inc and Current Assignee: Power2B Inc — i.e., no change of owner since origination.

Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center record for this patent, as reflected in the USPTO-derived legal events, contains one post‑filing recorded assignment. No security agreement, merger, change-of-name, release, license, or corrective recordation appears in the chain.

• **executed [date not captured] / recorded 2017‑09‑27 — Reel [NOT VERIFIED — see provenance note] / Frame [NOT VERIFIED]
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: KALI, ERAN; LIPMAN, SARAH MICHELLE; MARGALIT, MOTI; GUTIN, BORIS (all four named inventors, jointly)
  • Assignee: POWER2B, INC.
  • Correspondent: [NOT VERIFIED] — the correspondent-of-record field was not retrievable in this session. Note for the verification pass: the parties' litigation counsel of record in the W.D. Tex. case is Polsinelli PC — James P. Murphy (Reg. No. 55,474) and Jason A. Wietjes (Reg. No. 55,774), with Wietjes designated lead counsel by Notice filed 2021‑01‑13. Litigation counsel is not the same field as assignment correspondent; do not conflate them without pulling the reel image.
  • Context: origination / internal perfection of title — inventors to their employer-company at patent-application stage. Not an acquisition, not a fire-sale, not a transfer to an asserter. Recorded roughly 10 months after the 2016‑11‑03 filing and 15 months before the 2018‑12‑18 grant.

Why there is almost nothing here: the chain never leaves the originating company. There is no second link to analyze, which is itself the principal finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10156931
    2005 : Earliest priority filing
    2016 : Continuation application filed
    2017 : Inventors assign to Power2B Inc
    2018 : Patent issued
    2020 : Power2B sues Samsung
    2021 : Samsung files IPRs
    2025 : Federal Circuit appeal decided

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only transfer is inventors → POWER2B, INC., the same entity that commissioned the work and is the named original assignee. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" successor appears. Power2B has demonstrable engineering substance (Jerusalem R&D; prototypes produced for Samsung review per Power2B's IPR Patent Owner Response). No registered-agent-service address or single-purpose LLC surfaced.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Power2B does not match Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity, and it did not surface as a listed high-frequency plaintiff while searching Unified Patents' and RPX-adjacent directories. It is a single-campaign plaintiff: one defendant (Samsung), five patents. Mass-filing NPEs do not have a one-defendant docket.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not established. With only one recorded assignment, recurrence cannot be tested. The only repeat-player attorney signature in the family is on the litigation/PTAB side, not the assignment side: Polsinelli PC (Murphy, Wietjes) appears across the Power2B campaign (lead-counsel Notice filed 2021‑01‑13 in 6:20‑cv‑01183; Polsinelli papers in IPR2021‑01190/01220/01239/01257/01266), and Samsung filed a Motion to Disqualify Polsinelli on 2021‑08‑19 (Dkt. 39, listed as Ex. 2026 in IPR2021‑01220) — a conflict-of-interest fight, not an NPE-shell signal. Pull the 2017‑09‑27 reel image to complete this row.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLCs, no shared correspondent addresses, no sub-24‑month sequence. There is literally one hop.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2017‑09‑27 recordation precedes the 2020‑12‑23 complaint by ~39 months and precedes issuance, so it cannot have been arranged to set venue or establish clean standing for the 2020 suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11, no §363 sale, no reversion-to-secured-party recordation in the chain.

7. Privateering — not present (inverted). Power2B did not receive the patent from an operating company to assert on that company's behalf; it is the originator. If anything the record reads as a failed prospective-partnership fact pattern: Power2B showed prototypes to Samsung pre-suit ("Power2B provided prototypes for internal review") and later accused Samsung's Galaxy S/Note/tablet lines (Power2B's Preliminary Infringement Contentions, served 2021‑05‑07, Ex. 1023 in IPR2021‑01190).

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Important caution: the Google Patents page renders a "PTAB case IPR2021‑01190" litigation entry directly under a Unified Patents URL, and prints "Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'." That string is data attribution, not the petitioner. The actual petitioner in IPR2021‑01190 is Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. v. Power2B, Inc., IPR2021‑01190; companion petitions IPR2021‑01220, ‑01239, ‑01257, ‑01266). Do not read Unified Patents into this chain on that basis.

Cross-checks performed with no adverse finding: Google Patents legal events (single assignment, no security interest); PTAB mandatory notices identifying no assignee/licensee beyond Power2B (IPR2021‑01190, Patent Owner's Updated Mandatory Notices, 2021‑10‑12); W.D. Tex. docket 6:20‑cv‑01183; Federal Circuit Nos. 23‑1629 and 23‑2184, opinion filed 2025‑05‑19 (disposition not verified in this session — the opinion text I retrieved discusses the Board's findings on claims 13 and 20 of the related '093 patent and the Bird/Ishii/Geva/Kameyama grounds, but I did not confirm the judgment line). No SEC filing surfaced because no public-company assignor or assignee exists in this chain; absence of a recorded security interest is not proof of no litigation funding, since funding arrangements are generally not USPTO-recordable.

Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically: only the original assignment is recorded.

Justification: the Assignment Center chain for US 10,156,931 contains a single recordation — the four inventors' assignment to POWER2B, INC. recorded 2017‑09‑27, with no reel/frame-confirmed downstream links, no security agreement, no LLC cascade, and no defensive-aggregator termination. None of the eight enumerated troll-pattern signals is present on the record, and Power2B appears on no NPE registry surfaced during this search; however, the current assignee does not ship a product embodying the claims, so the "operating-company assertion" box does not strictly fit either. The accurate characterization is a non-practicing R&D-originator enforcing its own portfolio in a single campaign against one alleged copyist — a genuine gray zone that the assignment record alone cannot resolve. The two fields that would change this call are the reel/frame and correspondent of record on the 2017‑09‑27 recordation; if the correspondent on that recordation recurs on later Power2B family filings, re-score signal 3.

Verification links

• Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (query 10156931) · mirror index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10156931/en
• W.D. Tex. docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/6:2020cv01183/[1118543](/patent/1118543)
• PTAB case: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2021-01190
• Federal Circuit opinion (2025‑05‑19): https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-2184.OPINION.5-19-2025_2516667.pdf

I'll research US patent 10156931 and its cited prior art. Let me start with several searches.

Let me get the full citation list from the patent's front page and Google Patents.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,156,931 B2

1. Patent identification (literal identifiers as printed)

Blocking caveat on scope of this answer. The granted patent's front page lists 89 patent-art citations and 14 non-patent-literature (NPL) citations. I was able to retrieve only a partial transcription of that list (the OCR text of the printed front page is heavily corrupted — names and dates are garbled). I did not obtain the NPL list, and I could not fetch a clean, complete "References Cited" table. I therefore (a) reproduce only what I retrieved, (b) flag every OCR-derived value as unverified, and (c) do not fabricate citations, dates, or claim mappings I could not ground. A verification pass against USPTO PatentCenter / the grant PDF front page is required before this is used for any filing.

False hits excluded. A search on the bare string "10156931" returns DE 10156931 A1 (a German Einbausatz / rack-mounting kit), Brazilian and Manitoba registry numbers, and other unrelated documents. These are not US 10,156,931 and are excluded.

2. The claims at issue (from the printed disclosure/claim language)

The patent's "Definitions" section reproduces the independent-claim families. The relevant families, for § 102 mapping, are:

• Family A — "Integrated display and input device": a first pixel array providing a visually sensible output; a second pixel array operative to sense at least a position of an object with respect to the first pixel array; and circuitry receiving the second-pixel-array output and providing a non-imagewise input to utilization circuitry. (Dependent aspects: coplanar/parallel arrays; edge-, about-edge-, and behind-edge-mounted detectors; forward-facing detectors.)
• Family B — Baseline/threshold sensing: detectors detecting radiation at a baseline level with the circuitry providing the non-imagewise input according to detectors whose amount of, or change in, detected radiation exceeds a first predetermined threshold (or falls below a second).
• Family C — Processing subassembly: detector analyzing processing circuitry (per-detector threshold test) → array processing circuitry (array detection output) → position determining circuitry (X/Y/Z position and/or angular orientation).
• Family D — "Detector assembly": an array of discrete photodiode detectors in mutually spaced relationship in a plane, with field-of-view limiting functionality (≤15°, preferably ≤7°; apertured mask <200 µm or <500 µm; microlens array).
• Family E — "Position sensing assembly": a plate defining a surface plus at least one pixel array detecting at a baseline level, sensing object position by thresholded detector locations.

The distinguishing limitation across the independent claims is the combination of (i) a separate sensing pixel array distinct from the display pixel array, and (ii) output of a non-imagewise input (i.e., a position/coordinate signal, not a captured image) to utilization circuitry.

3. Cited patent art retrieved (partial list, OCR-derived — verify)

3a. U.S. patents on the face of the grant (partial transcription)

3b. Foreign patent documents on the face of the grant

4. References expressly incorporated by reference in the specification (not merely "cited")

These are the most legally significant for § 102/§ 103 because the patentee made them part of the disclosure:

1. U.S. Pat. No. 7,034,866 — described in the spec (¶ re FIGS. 1C, 2A, 2B) as an example of a structure in which "a multiplicity of light detector elements are interspersed among light emitters arranged in a plane."
2. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0132463 A1 — same passage.
3. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0007222 A1 — same passage.
4. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/00012565 A1 — same passage. Literal-identifier note: "2004/00012565" is an 11-digit string that does not match the standard US pre-grant publication format (4-digit year / 7-digit serial). Per the "do not auto-correct" rule I reproduce it exactly as printed and flag it as a probable printing error rather than silently normalizing it.
5. Related-application incorporation list (from US 2009/0021488 A1, the parent publication): GB 2299856; GB 2289756; EP 0572182; WO 02/043045; WO 95/02801; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,094,188; 6,081,255; 5,926,168; 5,892,501; 5,448,261; 5,227,985; 5,949,402; 5,959,617; 5,122,656; 5,506,605; 4,320,292.
6. Priority/related provisional applications: 60/715,546 (filed 2005-09-08), 60/734,027 (filed 2005-11-03), 60/789,188, and 60/682,604; also US 2005/0156914 A1 and WO 2005/094176.

5. Search-report (ISR) references with examiner relevance codes

From the family's PCT search report (WO 2008/111040 A3), which carries examiner-assigned X/T/A categories — the closest thing to a relevance ranking in the record but not the face citation list of the '931 grant:

Critical § 102 timing point on the two "T" references. The "T" category means the document was published after the filing/priority date and was cited only "to understand the principle or theory underlying the invention." US 7,298,367 (2007-11-20) and US 7,203,384 (2007-04-10) therefore cannot be § 102(a)/(b) anticipatory art against the 2005-09-08 priority date, and because they were categorized "T" rather than "X," the examiner did not treat them as anticipating. They are usable, if at all, only as § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) art if their underlying filing dates precede 2005-09-08 (a date check I could not complete here — do not assert it without verification).

6. § 102 mapping — most relevant references (ranked, with confidence)

Tier 1 — the "interspersed detector/emitter plane" references (expressly incorporated; § 102(a)/(b) eligible if they qualify as prior art).
US 7,034,866 B1 (Colmenarez et al.), together with US 2006/0132463 A1, US 2006/0007222 A1 and US 2004/00012565 A1, is described by the patentee itself as teaching detector elements interspersed among light emitters arranged in a plane with reflected light propagating through a cover layer to the detectors. That is the core of Family A (a first array for visible output + a second array for sensing object position) and of Family E (plate/detector plane sensing by reflected light). These are the strongest § 102 candidates for the broad "first pixel array / second pixel array / non-imagewise input" independent claim. Confidence: medium-high on identity and technical content; unverified on exact citation dates.

Tier 2 — the baseline/threshold and geometry claims (Families B, D).
The longstanding optical-touch and light-pen references cited on the face — e.g. 4,320,292 (Oikawa et al.), 4,949,079 (Loebner), 5,122,656 (Williams et al.), 5,227,985 (DeMenthon), 5,448,261 (Koike et al.), 5,949,402 (Garwin et al.), 6,172,667 (Sayag), 6,184,863 (Sibert et al.), 6,232,937 (Jacobsen et al.) — are the class of art directed to detecting a position of an object by thresholded changes in detected light at an array of elements, and are the natural § 102/§ 103 references for the "amount of radiation detected / change in radiation detected exceeds a predetermined threshold" limitations. Confidence: medium on relevance; low on per-element technical mapping (I did not retrieve column-level passages for these).

Tier 3 — display-integrated photo-sensor art.
US 7,298,367 (Geaghan et al.) and US 2006/0026521 (Hotelling et al.) are directed to touch/gesture sensing in display contexts and are the references a challenger would pair against the "coplanar / parallel to the viewing plane" and "second pixel array integrated with display" claims. Their utility here is under § 103 and/or § 102(e) timing-permitting, not § 102(a)/(b), given the 2006–2007 publication dates against a 2005-09-08 priority date. Confidence: medium.

Tier 4 — field-of-view limiting (Family D: ≤15°/≤7°, apertured mask, microlens array).
The 2006-era integrated-photosensor publications (e.g. US 2006/0007222 A1) are the closest cited art for the "field-of-view limiting functionality … apertured mask … array of microlenses aligned with the array of discrete photodiode detectors" claims. Confidence: low-medium; requires passage-level verification.

7. What I could not establish (stated explicitly rather than guessed)

1. The complete, verified "References Cited" table (89 patent items) and the 14 NPL entries — not retrieved in usable form.
2. Exact filing dates for US 7,034,866 and for the 2006 pre-grant publications, which are decisive for whether they are § 102(e) art against the 2005-09-08 priority date.
3. The claim numbering of the granted '931 patent (24 claims are typical of this family, but I did not verify the count or exact dependency structure). My mapping is therefore stated by claim family (A–E above), not by claim number.
4. The outcome/disposition of IPR2021-01190 and the state of the W.D. Tex. case — I have the docket identifiers but not verified decisions, and will not characterize them.
5. OCR conflicts in the front-page list (5,892,501 vs 5,895,701; 5,506,605 vs 5,506,608; 5,880,411 dated "13/1999"; 6,028,649 / 6,081,255 / 6,094,188 all dated "22/2000"; 6,172,667 / 6,184,863 dated "12/2001") — these are internally inconsistent and must be checked against the grant PDF before reliance.

Recommended verification steps: pull the granted-claims text and the "References Cited" block from USPTO PatentCenter for application 15/343,018 (and the grant PDF front page), then run each Tier 1–2 reference for § 102(e) filing-date eligibility against 2005-09-08.

Sources consulted: Google Patents US10156931B2 record (patents.google.com/patent/US10156931/en); the grant PDF hosted by Docket Alarm (Exhibit-1001 in IPR2021-01190); Unified Patents portal record for US-10156931-B2; US 2009/0021488 A1 and US 11,112,901 (same family, for the "incorporated by reference" lists); WO 2008/111040 A3 ISR (for examiner-coded citations); US 2006/0132463 / 2006/0007222 / 2006/0026521 publication records.

I'll research this patent's prior art and litigation history before analyzing obviousness.

Key correction found: the IPR petitioner appears to be Samsung (not Unified Patents). Let me verify the outcome and the specific grounds/prior art relied upon.

Now let me pin down the exact grounds and reference identities from the Final Written Decision.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,156,931 B2 ("Displays and information input devices")

Prepared: April 26, 2026 · Analyst: Patent analyst (technical)
Patent: US 10,156,931 B2 · App. 15/343,018 · filed 2016‑11‑03 · granted 2018‑12‑18 · priority 2005‑09‑08 · assignee Power2B, Inc. · inventors Kali, Lipman, Gutin, Margalit
Source of record for the patent text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10156931/en

Important record corrections (search results control over assumptions):

1. The Google Patents "Family has litigation" block attributes the PTAB data to "Unified Patents PTAB Data" — that is the data provider label, not the petitioner. Per PTAB records, the actual petitioner in IPR2021‑01190 is Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) v. Power2B, Inc. (filed 2021‑06‑25; instituted 2022‑01‑06; FWD 2023‑01‑04).
2. That FWD is captioned "Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable — Denying Patent Owner's Motion to Exclude." So the patent at issue in this IPR has already been held wholly unpatentable at the Board, which is the single most probative § 103 datum available on this record.
3. The parallel district court case is Power2B, Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 6:20‑cv‑01183‑ADA (W.D. Tex.) — the same case cited in the Google Patents litigation block.

I. Bottom line

On the strongest record evidence available — the PTAB's Final Written Decision in IPR2021‑01190 — every challenged claim of the '931 patent (claims 1–3, 6–15, and 18–21) was held unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over just three principal references and two of them in combination:

Grounds 1–4 were all the grounds raised in the Petition, and the Board instituted on all of them; the Board then found for Petitioner on all of them. See FWD (01‑04‑2023), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/01-04-2023-Board/Final_Written_Decision__original-39-Final_Written_Decision__original.pdf; Petition (06‑25‑2021), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd/docs/06-25-2021-Petitioner/Petition-3-Petition_for_Inter_Partes_Review_of_US_Patent_No_10,156,931.pdf.

Caveat I must flag up front: I retrieved the FWD's judgment and caption and the grounds table/claim mapping from the Petition and the Patent Owner's demonstratives, but not the Board's element‑by‑element reasoning text. Where below I explain why a combination is motivated, I am reconstructing the rationale from (a) the claim text as recited in the record, (b) Patent Owner's own framing of Petitioner's arguments, and (c) the references' stated subject matter. Points I could not verify from retrieved sources are marked [unverified].

II. Governing framework

Statute. The '931 patent is a continuation filed 2016‑11‑03 with an asserted earliest effective filing date of September 2005 (Patent Owner's demonstratives: "Earliest Effective Filing Date: September [2005]"). The Board applied pre‑AIA § 103(a) in the companion proceedings in this family (e.g., '093 patent FWD: "Because the '093 patent issued from an application having an effective filing date before March 16, 2013, we apply the pre‑AIA version of the statutory basis for unpatentability"). I therefore analyze under pre‑AIA § 103(a) with the Graham/KSR framework. [The '931 FWD's own §‑citation column was not retrieved; the pre‑AIA treatment is an inference from the family.]

Framework. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17–18 (1966) (scope/content of prior art; differences; level of ordinary skill; objective indicia); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406, 417–21 (2007) (predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions; design incentives/market forces; "obvious to try"). The test is not "bodily incorporation" — the proponent need not show the references could be physically bolted together as described; the question is whether the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); In re Mousa, 34 F. App'x 724 (Fed. Cir. 2002). This is precisely the trap into which Patent Owner's expert fell (see § VII).

Level of ordinary skill (as adopted). The Board adopted, over Patent Owner's alternative: a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or a related field, plus two years of experience in the research, design, development and/or testing of touch and/or proximity sensors, human‑machine interaction and interfaces, and related firmware and software, with education substituting for experience and vice versa (Pet. 10; Ex‑1002 ¶ 47; FWD at 8). Critically, neither party argued the outcome turned on which skill level applied — so this factor is not outcome‑determinative.

III. The claims at issue

Only claim 1 was retrieved verbatim (all other independent claims 13 and 21 are parallel; claims 2/14 add the ambient‑light baseline limitation):

1[pre] A device comprising:
[a] a display panel having a pixel array that defines a display area, the pixel array is configured to visually present digital content;
[b] an Infra‑Red (IR) emitter positioned proximate to the display area, the IR emitter illuminating one or more objects in proximity to the device;
[c] a position sensing array positioned proximate to at least one edge of the display area, the position sensing array is configured to receive, through at least one layer of the display panel, at least a portion of light reflected by an object in proximity to the device and generate an output signal that represents an amount of the portion of light;
[d] a processing unit configured to: receive the output signal from the position sensing array;
[e] determine the output signal exceeds a predetermined threshold;
[f] calculate, based on the output signal, a position of the object relative to the device when the output signal exceeds the predetermined threshold; and
[g] execute input functionality corresponding to the position of the object.

(Ex‑1001, 67:45–58, reproduced in Patent Owner's demonstratives, Ex‑2069, at 1, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/10-05-2022-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2069-66-Patent_Owners_Demonstrative_Exhibits.pdf.)

Claims 2 and 14 add: determining a baseline level of ambient light and setting the predetermined threshold above the baseline (Ex‑2056 (Cairns Decl.) § VII.A.3, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/04-22-2022-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2056-Exhibit_2056.pdf).

Gap I must disclose: I did not retrieve the text of dependent claims 3, 6–12, 15, 18–21. Their content cannot be independently mapped here; the Board nonetheless held them obvious over Gettemy alone (Ground 1) and Gettemy+Philipp (Ground 2). Any independent § 103 attack on those dependents should be re-run against their actual language.

IV. Prior art of record

A. The IPR references (asserted against the '931 claims)

B. Prior art cited on the face of the '931 patent (the "Prior Art section")

The Google Patents page lists prior‑art keywords: detector elements, light, detector, output signal, plate. The specification's express reference citations are:

• U.S. Pat. No. 7,034,866 — "Combined Display‑Camera for an Image Processing System" (verified title/first page: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/73/51/5f/ac8c0659ed1b69/[US7034866](/patent/US7034866).pdf). This is cited twice for the "multiplicity of light detector elements … interspersed among light emitters arranged in a plane" configuration (FIGS. 1C/2A/2B). Strong inference [flag: not conclusively verified]: US 7,034,866 is the granted counterpart of the very Gettemy publication (US 2003/0156100 A1) that the Board used as Ground 1. If confirmed, the patent's own incorporated‑by‑reference art is the primary invalidating reference — an unusually clean § 103 posture.
• U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2006/0132463 A1 and 2006/0007222 A1 — also cited for the interspersed detector/emitter plane. [Unverified; both publish after the Sept. 2005 date, so they would be available only under pre‑AIA § 102(e) if their underlying filings predate it.]
• U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/00012565 A1 — printed exactly this way in the '931 specification (and identically in WO 2008/111040 A2, US 8,610,675 and US 2009/0021488 A1). Per the strict‑literal rule I do not correct this identifier. As printed it does not resolve to the standard US pre‑grant publication format (which uses a 4‑digit year / 7‑digit number). I could not verify this reference, and it should not be treated as resolved without the citation page.
• U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0156914 A1 and PCT Patent Application Publication No. WO 2005/094176 — assignee's earlier disclosures, incorporated by reference. [Unverified; date proximity to Sept. 2005 needs checking.]
• Assignee's own provisionals: 60/715,546; 60/734,027; 60/789,188; 60/682,604 — these are priority‑chain documents of the same patentee, not prior art to the '931 patent. They are relevant only to the effective filing date. (They are, however, evidence that the patentee's own disclosure already contemplated X/Y/Z position and angular orientation of a finger/stylus via detector outputs.)

Practical consequence: the face‑of‑patent references establish that the architecture of the claimed device (a detector/photodiode plane integrated with, or behind, a display, receiving reflected IR light and producing a position output from thresholded detector signals) was already the patentee's own acknowledged starting point. That materially lowers the creativity required for the remaining features.

V. Combination‑by‑combination § 103 analysis

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 3, 6–13, 15, 18–21 obvious over Gettemy alone

Mapping. Gettemy's combined display‑camera teaches, in one reference:

• [a] a display panel having a pixel array defining a display area presenting digital content — Gettemy's flat‑panel display with interspersed display elements;
• [c] a sensing array that generates an output signal representing an amount of received light — Gettemy's camera elements generate signals representing incident light, and Gettemy expressly contemplates "human‑machine interfaces", i.e., using that output to detect/interpret a user;
• [d]/[f]/[g] a processor receiving sensor output, deriving position, and driving a device function — Gettemy's imaging operation and the eye‑contact/HMI applications.

For the elements Gettemy does not show in haec verba — [b] an IR emitter and [e]/[f] a predetermined threshold with position‑calculation conditional on exceeding it — Petitioner's position was that these were obvious design choices, not inventive contributions. That position is well supported:

• Motivation to modify: Gettemy itself identifies the design problem (sensing a nearby user's interaction with a display) and the design space (camera elements integrated in the display plane). Where the reference teaches the general condition for the improvement and the improvement is a predictable use of known elements, § 103 is satisfied. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417–21. Selecting IR as the illumination/sensing band is the single most predictable choice in the field: it decouples the sensing channel from the visible display channel (no interference with the presented image, invisible to the user), and IR emitters/photodiodes were commodity parts (Exs. 1038–1039). Notably, the '931 specification itself treats the illumination source as interchangeable — an IR LED or a visible‑light LED, augmented by ordinary sunlight and room lighting, exactly the design latitude claimed.
• Motivation for thresholding: Comparing a photodetector output to a predetermined level to distinguish object‑caused light from ambient light is the most basic signal‑conditioning step for any optical detector; the '931 patent's own specification frames the entire detection scheme in those terms (baseline level; change in detected radiation; exceeding a threshold). Substituting a threshold comparator for Gettemy's correlation operation is a predictable substitution of one known signal‑processing technique for another, with an expected improvement (rejection of ambient illumination), and is a classic § 103 case (KSR; In re Sovish).
• Reasonable expectation of success: every element is either disclosed by Gettemy or is an off‑the‑shelf, well‑understood implementation choice; nothing in Gettemy teaches away.

Weak point of Ground 1 (honest assessment): claim element [c] requires the position sensing array to be "positioned proximate to at least one edge of the display area," whereas Gettemy's hallmark is an array interspersed across the display area. Patent Owner's entire first argument is built on this distinction ("Gettemy teaches an integrated sensor/display pixel array, which is different than the claimed 'position sensing array'", Ex‑2056 § VII.A.2). The Board nonetheless found the claims unpatentable, which implies it read "proximate to at least one edge" broadly enough to cover a display‑integrated array reaching the display's periphery — a reading reinforced by (i) the '931 specification's own broad gloss that "edges is to be interpreted broadly as including structures which are located behind edges, … about edges … and along edges"; and (ii) the Federal Circuit's construction in this family that "at an edge"/"at least one edge" does not restrict the detector arrangement to a single edge. Power2B itself argued for, and obtained, a narrow construction below ("one edge"), which the Federal Circuit rejected as too narrow — see § VII.B.

Ground 2 — Claims 1, 3, 6–13, 15, 18–21 obvious over Gettemy + Philipp

What Philipp adds. Gettemy is a visible‑light/imaging disclosure; Philipp is an object/motion sensor. Adding Philipp cures any arguable deficiency in Gettemy as to (i) IR‑band detection of an object (including the human body as an IR source) and (ii) the predetermined‑threshold / baseline determination. Patent Owner admits Philipp's disclosure is directed to "motion sensor" functionality (Ex‑2056 § VII.A.1) but does not deny that it detects object presence beyond a threshold.

Motivation to combine (the heart of the § 103 case):

1. Same field and same problem. Both references address non‑contact detection of an object's presence/proximity for controlling a device. A POSITA working on Gettemy's display‑integrated sensing (whose stated application is human‑machine interfaces) would naturally consult the established art of IR object/motion detection for the illumination and signal‑processing details — the field of the inventor's endeavor is optical proximity/touch sensing for user interfaces.
2. Known technique, predictable result. "The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416. Adding a known IR emitter/detector pair and a threshold test to a display‑integrated sensor array yields nothing more than the predictable benefit of ambient‑robust object detection.
3. Component‑level predictability. Petitioner put the commodity datasheets (Exs. 1038, 1039) into the record precisely to show a POSITA could pick an IR emitter and a thresholded optosensor out of a catalog — supporting both obviousness and a reasonable expectation of success.
4. No teaching away. Nothing in Gettemy limits its sensing to visible light as a matter of necessity; there is no criticality in the choice of wavelength.

Patent Owner's counter — "Gettemy does not disclose any 'IR emitter' … and a POSITA would not and could not modify Gettemy's visible light sources to emit non‑visible IR light" (Ex‑2056 § VII.B.1) — is a bodily‑incorporation/teaching‑away argument and fails on its own terms: (i) it addresses physical substitution rather than the legal question whether the claimed aggregate was obvious; (ii) the '931 specification itself claims both visible and IR LEDs, so the choice is a recognized design option, not a discovery; and (iii) an expert's assertion that a POSITA "could not" make an ordinary wavelength substitution, unsupported by evidence of an actual teaching away, cannot defeat a KSR combination.

Ground 3 — Claims 2 and 14 obvious over Gettemy + Carstedt

Ground 4 — Claims 2 and 14 obvious over Gettemy + Philipp + Carstedt

What Carstedt adds. Claims 2 and 14 recite determining "a baseline level of ambient light" and setting "the predetermined threshold above the baseline." Patent Owner's own outline confirms this is the limitation the combination was directed at (Ex‑2056 § VII.A.3). Carstedt's opto‑matrix frame supplies ambient‑light sampling and baseline‑relative thresholding.

Motivation to combine:

1. Same, recognized problem in the same art. Ambient/background light is the acknowledged bane of optical touch and proximity sensing. The '931 specification itself concedes that the baseline illumination may come from "sunlight, artificial room lighting and IR illumination emitted from a human body," and the patent's own solution is an illumination subassembly to "augment[] the radiation at the baseline level." A reference teaching measurement of the ambient baseline and thresholding above it addresses exactly that problem, in the same field, in the same way.
2. Obviousness of a known improvement. "[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." KSR, 550 U.S. at 417. Ambient‑baseline calibration is a textbook, low‑skill addition.
3. Predictable result / reasonable expectation of success. Baseline‑plus‑threshold is arithmetic signal conditioning; combining Gettemy + Philipp with Carstedt yields the expected immunity to ambient light with no new mechanism.
4. Ordering is immaterial. The addition of Carstedt is equally obvious whether made to Gettemy alone (Ground 3) or to Gettemy+Philipp (Ground 4); a claim is obvious if the combination as a whole is obvious, not if each reference is separately justified. In re Keller.

VI. Why the "additional prior art" on the face of the patent reinforces, rather than rescues, the claims

Even setting the IPR references aside, the references the applicant chose to cite and incorporate supply the same teachings, which is independently fatal under § 103 given KSR's instruction to consider the "background knowledge, … the effects of demands known to the design community …, and the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art":

Net effect: the '931 claims are a combination of (i) a display with an integrated/edge‑mounted photodetector array, (ii) an IR illuminator, and (iii) thresholded signal processing — every one of which was known, and two of which the applicant itself certified as known by incorporating them by reference.

VII. Anticipated (and actually raised) counterarguments, and why they fail

A. "Gettemy's array is integrated, not edge‑positioned" / "not a position sensing array." This is a claim‑construction argument about element [c], not an obviousness argument. It fails because (i) the specification expressly instructs that "edges" includes structures behind, about and along edges; (ii) the Federal Circuit has held in this family that "at an edge"/"at least one edge" means one or more edges and does not limit the detector assembly to being arranged entirely on one edge — Samsung Elecs. Co. v. Power2B, Inc., Nos. 23‑1629 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 31, 2025) (reversing the Board's narrowing "one edge" reading; also construing "detector assembly" to require at least one detector element) and the related opinion at No. 23‑2184 (Fed. Cir. May 19, 2025); and (iii) the Petitioner's Ground‑2 combination supplies the edge/proximate arrangement through the IR‑sensor art if Gettemy alone were read narrowly. Note the strategic asymmetry: Patent Owner won a narrow construction below and lost it on appeal — the broadened construction makes the claims easier to invalidate.

B. "Propinquity/touch" and threshold arguments. In the sibling proceedings, the Board's construction that "at least/within a predetermined degree of propinquity" includes touching was affirmed (translated to the '931 by the same specification and the same "proximity" vocabulary). Samsung Elecs. Co. v. Power2B, Inc., No. 23‑1629, slip op. at 16–18 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 31, 2025), https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-1629.OPINION.3-31-2025_2490540.pdf. The same opinion records the Board crediting threshold‑versus‑photo‑detection‑signal teachings of a display‑integrated detector reference (Yamaguchi) as meeting the "predetermined degree of propinquity" limitation with substantial evidence — directly on point for element [e] here.

C. "Gettemy teaches correlation, not a threshold." A "predetermined threshold" comparison is a species of the same genus and is the simplest possible implementation; Patent Owner's own expert admitted he offered no opinion that the claims require any particular threshold methodology (see the parallel exchange: "I don't have an opinion on whether you have to measure or calculate the 'z' position", Ex‑1037, 159:9–160:18). Routine substitution of a comparator for a correlator is § 103, not § 102 work.

D. Bodily incorporation. Patent Owner's expert argued that a POSITA "would not and could not" modify Gettemy and that Carstedt "would only further complicate" the combination (Ex‑2056 §§ VII.A.1–3) — and, tellingly, faulted Petitioner for failing to provide "a single example of how the proposed modifications would work" (Ex‑2056 § VII.A.3). That is the legally incorrect standard: a combination need not be shown to be physically buildable from the references' literal embodiments; the inquiry is whether the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious. In re Keller; In re Mousa; In re Etter. The Board rejected this framework, denied Patent Owner's motion to exclude the reply declaration paragraphs offered to rebut exactly this argument (FWD caption: "Denying Patent Owner's Motion to Exclude"), and found all challenged claims unpatentable.

E. Objective indicia (secondary considerations). On this record I found no evidence of unexpected results, industry praise, copying, licensing, or a nexus between any secondary indicium and the challenged claims; Patent Owner's opposition was construction‑ and incorporation‑based. Absent objective evidence, the Graham factor cuts against patentability.

VIII. Residual risks and things to verify before relying on this analysis

1. Board's element‑by‑element reasoning not retrieved. The FWD PDF header/judgment was retrieved; the substantive analysis text (claim charts, motivation‑to‑combine findings) was not. The mappings above for elements [b], [c] (edge positioning) and [e]/[f] are reconstructions and should be checked against the FWD body, pp. 1–60+.
2. Carstedt identification. Ex‑1007's patent/publication number was not in my retrieved sources; Patent Owner describes it as an "Opto‑Matrix Frame." Treat the identifier as open.
3. US 7,034,866 ↔ US 2003/0156100 A1 identity. Titles and subject matter align strongly (combined display‑camera; interspersed display and sensor elements; human‑machine interfaces; Apr. 25, 2006 issue date consistent with a 2003 publication), but I could not confirm they are the same disclosure/priority family from the retrieved sources.
4. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/00012565 A1 — reproduced literally as printed in the patent; unresolvable as written and unverified. Do not silently normalize it.
5. Appellate posture of IPR2021‑01190 specifically. I verified Federal Circuit decisions in Nos. 23‑1629 (Mar. 31, 2025), 23‑1630 and 23‑2184 (May 19, 2025) concerning sibling Power2B patents ('850, '093, '170, '675, '369). I did not retrieve an appellate disposition of the '931 FWD itself; accordingly, the Jan. 4, 2023 FWD "all challenged claims unpatentable" is the operative adjudication on the record I reviewed. Note that Google Patents lists the '931 as "Active" with an "Anticipated expiration 2026‑09‑07" — that field is an automated assumption, not a legal conclusion, and it is in tension with a FWD cancelling all challenged claims; treat the Google status as unreliable on this point.
6. Dependent claims 3, 6–12, 15, 18–21 text not retrieved — any independent analysis needs their actual language.
7. The full list of prior art on the Google Patents page is limited to the string-matched citations in the specification plus the keyword set (detector elements, light, detector, output signal, plate). If you need the examiner‑cited art of record (the "References Cited" / "Cited By" tables), those were not captured in the fetched page and should be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter.

IX. Conclusion

The '931 patent's claims are obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103, and this is not a close call on the present record:

• Claims 1, 3, 6–13, 15, 18–21 — obvious over Gettemy (US 2003/0156100 A1) alone, and a fortiori over Gettemy + Philipp (US 4,879,461). Gettemy supplies the display‑integrated sensing array, the position/imaging output, and the human‑machine‑interface application; IR illumination and thresholded detection are predictable, off‑the‑shelf choices (Exs. 1038–1039) with no teaching away.
• Claims 2 and 14 — obvious over Gettemy + Carstedt (Ex‑1007) or Gettemy + Philipp + Carstedt. Carstedt's ambient‑light baseline sampling addresses the very problem the '931 specification concedes (sunlight, room lighting, human‑body IR as baseline illumination), and adding it is the paradigm of KSR "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."
• The PTAB agreed on every challenged claim (FWD, Jan. 4, 2023), denied the Patent Owner's motion to exclude, and the Federal Circuit has since (i) broadened the "at an edge" language and (ii) affirmed that "propinquity" includes touching in the shared specification of this family — both of which remove Patent Owner's principal non‑obviousness footholds.

Primary sources: FWD — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/01-04-2023-Board/Final_Written_Decision__original-39-Final_Written_Decision__original.pdf · Petition — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd/docs/06-25-2021-Petitioner/Petition-3-Petition_for_Inter_Partes_Review_of_US_Patent_No_10,156,931.pdf · Patent Owner demonstratives — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/10-05-2022-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2069-66-Patent_Owners_Demonstrative_Exhibits.pdf · Cairns declaration Ex‑2056 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2021-01190/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Power2B_Inc/docs/04-22-2022-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2056-Exhibit_2056.pdf · Fed. Cir. No. 23‑1629 — https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/23-1629.OPINION.3-31-2025_2490540.pdf · US 7,034,866 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/73/51/5f/ac8c0659ed1b69/US7034866.pdf · '931 patent — https://patents.google.com/patent/US10156931/en.