US 11202016

I'll search for the specific patent and any CAFC docket activity.

Let me run additional targeted searches to confirm there is no CAFC activity and verify the USPTO record.

Let me do a final confirmation search for any litigation or PTAB activity on this exact patent number.

Based on my searches, here is the requested summary. I interpreted the patent number literally (11202016, i.e., US11202016B2 / U.S. Patent No. 11,202,016) and did not substitute similar numbers.

US Patent 11,202,016 (US11202016B2) — Summary

Title: Imaging device

Assignee / Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation (Olympus Corp) — also the original assignee (Google Patents lists assignee as "Olympus Corp"; note Google's caveat that assignee lists may be inaccurate, but this matches the record).

Inventor: Takumi Soga

Application data:

• Application No.: US17/126,381
• Filed: December 18, 2020
• Priority date: July 13, 2018 (this is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/JP2018/026462, filed July 13, 2018, published as WO2020012630A1)
• Pre-grant publication: US20210105396A1 (published April 8, 2021)
• Issue date: December 14, 2021
• Status: Active (anticipated expiration date listed as 2038-07-13, which is consistent with the priority date plus term)

Abstract (verbatim, condensed):
"An imaging device according to an embodiment includes an imaging circuit, a variable-voltage power source, a light-emitting element, a constant current-driving circuit, and a control circuit. The control circuit is configured to turn on the light-emitting element in a period during which the imaging circuit performs imaging. The control circuit is configured to turn off the light-emitting element in a period during which the imaging circuit does not perform imaging. The control circuit is configured to control voltage applied to the light-emitting element by the variable-voltage power source on the basis of voltage of an input terminal of the constant current-driving circuit when the light-emitting element is turned on. The control circuit is configured to control the variable-voltage power source and apply predetermined voltage greater than or equal to compliance voltage of the light-emitting element to the light-emitting element when the light-emitting element is turned off."

What the invention is about: The patent addresses power-loss minimization in camera/flash illumination. An LED/LD light source is driven by a constant current-driving circuit in pulsed fashion synchronized with the camera's exposure period. To minimize power wasted (heat) in the constant-current driver, the supply voltage (VDD) is regulated by feedback from the voltage drop across the driver's input terminal while the LED is on, converging VDD to near the minimum proper level (compliance voltage + driver drop). During the off (blanking) period the supply voltage is held at or raised to a level at least equal to the LED compliance voltage so that light emission can resume cleanly at the next frame. There are 5 claims: claim 1 is the sole independent claim; claims 2–5 depend from claim 1.

Plain-language overview of the claims

Independent claim 1 (apparatus): An imaging device comprising an imaging circuit, a variable-voltage power source, a light-emitting element, a constant current-driving circuit, and a control circuit, connected so that the power source feeds the light-emitting element and the light-emitting element feeds the constant current-driving circuit. The control circuit must (a) output a PWM signal to the constant current-driving circuit to turn the light-emitting element on during imaging periods; (b) stop outputting the PWM signal to turn the light-emitting element off during non-imaging periods; (c) while the element is on, adjust the driving voltage to bring it near a predetermined target power-source voltage, based on the voltage at the input terminal of the constant current-driving circuit; and (d) while the element is off, control the variable-voltage power source to apply a predetermined voltage that is ≥ the light-emitting element's compliance voltage. In short: PWM-synchronized LED flashing for a camera, with closed-loop supply-voltage trimming during the on-time and a maintained/raised voltage during the off-time.

Claim 2 (dependent): Adds a wave-detection circuit that calculates the brightness of the image captured by the imaging circuit. The control circuit decides whether to increase the LED current based on that brightness, and if it decides to increase current, it applies a voltage greater than the compliance voltage during the off-period (i.e., pre-stages a higher supply voltage so the higher drive current will work next frame).

Claim 3 (dependent): Adds a memory storing information mapping brightness to the voltage value applied by the variable-voltage power source. The control circuit identifies the appropriate voltage from the measured brightness plus that stored relationship, and applies that identified voltage during the off-period (a "learned" feed-forward adjustment).

Claim 4 (dependent): Adds a voltage clip circuit between the input terminal of the constant current-driving circuit and the input terminal of a comparator (the comparator is used in the driving-voltage control loop). The clip circuit clamps the comparator's input voltage to a predetermined voltage, protecting the comparator from overvoltage (e.g., the high voltage drop present during the off period).

Claim 5 (dependent): During the off-period, the control circuit applies — as the predetermined off-period voltage — the same voltage that was applied to the light-emitting element at the end of the immediately preceding on-period; and in the next on-period it resumes light emission using that same end-of-last-on-period voltage. This is essentially the "hold last converged VDD" behavior described in the specification.

CAFC / litigation status

My searches of CAFC 2026 docket summaries and litigation databases returned no cases, appeals, PTAB proceedings, or docket entries involving U.S. Patent 11,202,016. The only "…016 patent" hits were unrelated patents with coincidentally similar suffixes (e.g., 11,016,918; 9,415,016; 10,912,321), not this patent.

Uncertainty note: Absence of results from public web searches does not conclusively prove there is no litigation; I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Center or PACER case-management dockets in this session. If you need a definitive legal-status or litigation docket check, the authoritative sources are USPTO Patent Center (for the file wrapper/status) and PACER/CAFC (for litigation). The bibliographic details above match the Google Patents record fetched for this patent (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11202016](/patent/US11202016)/en), which is consistent with the full text provided.

The initial searches returned no relevant litigation for US Patent 11202016. Let me search more specific litigation databases and case-listing sites.

Based on my searches, I found no known litigation involving US Patent No. 11,202,016 ("Imaging device," assigned to Olympus Corporation).

Summary of search results

• Searches for "11202016" patent litigation, "US 11202016" lawsuit patent, unifiedpatents litigation "11202016", "US11202016B2" litigation OR infringement OR lawsuit, and "11202016" Olympus patent case PACER returned no case listings, docket entries, complaints, CAFC decisions, or PTAB matters identifying this patent.
• The only hit referencing the number in the search results was a Google Patents citation page (JP2005116738A / EP3113578A1 family page), which merely lists US11202016B2 as a citing/document reference — not a litigation record.
• Other results (Amgen v. Sanofi, Aortic Innovations v. Edwards Lifesciences, etc.) were unrelated and involved different patent numbers.

Conclusion

Caveats

• My search coverage included general web sources, Google Patents references, and litigation-oriented databases that are publicly indexed. I could not confirm access to complete PACER, Unified Patents portal case lists, DocketNavigator, or RPX docket archives in these searches, so the absence of results should be treated as no litigation identified, not an affirmative guarantee that none exists.
• The patent remains Active (per Google Patents status), with an anticipated expiration date of 2038-07-13, and it is part of a family including WO2020012630A1, JPWO2020012630A1, and CN112313804B. A search of country-level litigation outside the U.S. was not performed.

If you want, I can run additional targeted checks (e.g., specific PACER/Unified Patents queries or a USPTO assignment/PTAB search) with more search steps available.

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) on file for US Patent 11202016 — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no proceedings, and web searching surfaced no older or recently filed petitions against this patent. (The only Olympus-related PTAB matter that appeared — IPR2024-01220, Olympus Corp v. Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC — challenges a different patent, U.S. 10,873,685, with Olympus as petitioner, and it settled/terminated on 2025-06-05.) The bottom line for a defendant: this patent is untested at the PTAB, which is a neutral signal — no claim has been canceled, but no petitioner has yet tested the art either, so the § 103/§ 102 grounds remain fully available to a new challenger (subject to the one-year § 315(b) bar clock from service of a complaint).

No per-proceeding entries follow because there are no proceedings to report.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All five claims of US 11202016 (independent claim 1; dependent claims 2–5) remain in force and UNTESTED before the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, sustained in a Final Written Decision, or amended. The patent is active (granted 2021-12-14, anticipated expiration 2038-07-13, per the Google Patents record), so all claims are presently enforceable against an accused product.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM has ever been instituted, no § 315(e) estoppel attaches to anyone. A defendant sued today faces no estoppel constraints from prior PTAB activity — every § 102/§ 103 ground based on patents or printed publications is available, including art that would have been cumulative to anything a prior petitioner could have raised. The practical limitations are statutory and procedural, not estoppel-based: (1) the § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of a complaint, so a petition should be filed within that window; and (2) the patent issued from a PCT application (PCT/JP2018/026462, filed 2018-07-13, with a 2018-07-13 priority date), so the prior-art universe is deep — the claimed LED/LD flash driving circuitry is a crowded field, as the patent's own Background (citing JP2008-305978 and JP2005-116738) concedes. PGR is not available (the nine-month post-grant window closed long ago, and the claims are not subject to a CBM review); IPR is the only AIA vehicle.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern to read here: no serial petitioner, no patent-owner PTAB defense record, and no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain. The assignee is Olympus Corporation, a practicing camera/endoscope manufacturer that typically asserts its imaging patents defensively or in co-litigation with other camera makers (see, e.g., Olympus's 2024–2025 coordinated IPR and EDTX/NDCA litigation campaign against Optimum Imaging Technologies over the '685 patent — a different patent family). The absence of any IPR against '02016 despite the crowded LED-driver prior art may simply reflect that the patent has not been asserted aggressively against a party with incentive to file, or that disputes have been resolved in district court or by license. It is not evidence of strength.

Recommended next steps

• There are no canceled claims and no FWDs to cite, so there is no PTAB victory to lean on. If you are a defendant facing a demand letter citing claims 1–5, your invalidity case must be built from scratch — but the field is favorable: the priority date (2018-07-13) post-dates a decade of LED-flash and constant-current driver art, and the specification itself cites JP2008-305978 and JP2005-116738 (both listed as prior art on the face of the patent), which are natural lead references for a § 103 challenge to claim 1's combination of variable-voltage supply, PWM-gated constant-current drive, and on/off-period voltage control.
• No active proceedings are pending, so there are no PTAB milestones to calendar. The operative deadline is the § 315(b) one-year bar: if a complaint has been served, an IPR petition must be filed within one year of service. If no suit has been filed yet, consider a pre-suit petition only after a careful real-party-in-interest and standing analysis.
• Before filing, run a formal search of the USPTO PTAB E2E system and the PTAB API for "11202016" to confirm the ODP snapshot is current, since the structured data reflects only the most recent ingest and the search engines showed nothing newer. Confirm there is no parallel district-court case that could trigger a Fintiv-style discretionary denial under the USPTO's reinstated discretionary-denial framework.
• If no PTAB activity exists, say so plainly — as here. The absence of a challenge is itself a signal: this is a 2021-granted Olympus imaging patent with no PTAB history; if it becomes the subject of active assertion, an IPR should be expected and would be the primary lever, given the depth of the LED-driver prior art.

Bottom line: No PTAB proceeding has ever been filed against US 11202016. All five claims stand. A defendant cannot invoke any PTAB estoppel, cancellation, or adverse finding — and equally cannot claim the patent is "hardened" by prior challenges. The patent is untested, and the art landscape (including the patent's own cited references) suggests it is challengable, but no one has yet tried.

I'll research the assignment history for US Patent 11,202,016. Let me start by checking the USPTO assignment records and related sources.

Let me dig deeper into whether this patent stayed with Olympus or was transferred during the Olympus imaging-business sale to OM Digital Solutions (JIP) in 2020–2021.

I've reached the search limit for this session, so I'll now compile the ownership analysis from the verified records I have (Google Patents legal events for US11202016B2, Olympus corporate disclosures, and inventor databases) and clearly flag what could not be confirmed.

Inventors

Unusual pattern check: None. There is no indication that the inventor departed Olympus shortly after filing, and this is a single-inventor, in-house Olympus application, not a cluster of inventors leaving an assignee ahead of a portfolio sale.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent / listed as current assignee: Olympus Corporation (Google Patents "Current Assignee" and legal-status record both name Olympus Corp).
• Line of business: At the priority date (2018-07-13) Olympus was a diversified Japanese maker of cameras/imaging products, medical endoscopes, and scientific solutions. The claims concern an imaging device whose LED/LD illumination is driven in sync with an imaging circuit's exposure period — illumination-flash/driving technology usable in camera or scope products with LED light sources.
• Product embodiment: Plausible but unconfirmed for this specific patent. Olympus shipped cameras and endoscopes with LED illumination; I found no public teardown/product mapping tying this exact patent to a shipped product.
• Current status: Operating. On 2021-01-01 Olympus completed the transfer of its Imaging (camera) business to OM Digital Solutions Corporation (backed by Japan Industrial Partners/JIP) under the definitive agreement signed 2020-09-30; Olympus itself continues as a medical/scientific-solutions company (Olympus press release, 2021-01-04). Critically, I found no recorded transfer of US 11202016 to OM Digital Solutions or any other entity — Google Patents still shows Olympus Corporation as current assignee. This may mean the patent was retained by Olympus (consistent with a medical/endoscope application) or that a foreign/global transfer was never recorded against the US case; the point is unconfirmed.

Assignment timeline

I could not query the USPTO Assignment Center database directly in this session (web-search access only), so no reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record names are available to me. Based on the USPTO legal-event feed reproduced on Google Patents, the only assignment event recorded against this patent is the standard inventor-to-company conveyance at filing:

• Executed ~2020 (with the 2020-12-18 US filing) / noted 2020-12-18 — Reel/Frame: not available in my sources
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest (Google Patents labels it "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Takumi Soga
  • Assignee: Olympus Corporation
  • Correspondent: not available in my sources — no recurrence analysis possible
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer assignment recorded when the US continuation (US 17/126,381) of PCT/JP2018/026462 entered the US on 2020-12-18.

No post-issuance assignments were identified. If the USPTO Assignment Center likewise shows only this one record, the plain reading is that Olympus Corporation still owns the patent — consistent with the "Active" status and Olympus-as-current-assignee listing. Because I could not open Assignment Center directly, I cannot fully exclude an unindexed later record; treat this as "no assignment found," not "no assignment exists."

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11202016
    2018 : Filed as PCT by Olympus
    2020 : US continuation filed
         : Assigned by Soga to Olympus
    2021 : Patent issued
    2026 : Still held by Olympus Corp

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfer to an "IP / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC is recorded. The assignee is Olympus Corporation, an operating company.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Conversant, or other listed NPE appears anywhere in the chain. The only assignee is Olympus Corporation. No litigation naming this patent was found in the prior search stage.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not assessable. Correspondent-of-record data could not be retrieved from Assignment Center in this session; there is only one recorded assignment link, so no recurrence pattern can exist to flag.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. There is a single inventor→company assignment; no chained LLC transfers exist.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit exists for this patent (see litigation summary), and the sole assignment predates issuance, not litigation.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Olympus Corporation has not been in Chapter 7/11; the 2021 divestiture of the camera business to OM Digital Solutions/JIP was a negotiated sale of an operating business (stock transfer of an imaging subsidiary), not a bankruptcy patent liquidation.
7. Privateering — not present / not applicable. The OM Digital Solutions transaction transferred an ongoing camera business (R&D, manufacturing, brand) to a JIP-backed operating company — the standard Olympus imaging exit — not a patent-assertion arrangement. There is no evidence this patent was part of that deal at all.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

The only documented assignment is the original inventor-to-employer conveyance (Takumi Soga → Olympus Corporation, noted 2020-12-18 on the Google Patents legal-event feed), and no NPE-pattern signal — shell transfer, known asserter, cascading transfers, litigation, or bankruptcy sale — is present. No reel/frame or correspondent data could be verified because the USPTO Assignment Center was not directly reachable in this session, and the one open question (whether Olympus's 2021 imaging-business divestiture to OM Digital Solutions touched this patent) could not be resolved from public sources; Google Patents continues to list Olympus Corporation as current assignee, which ordinarily means the original operating-company assignee still owns the patent.

Verify directly at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "11202016") and cross-check the legal-events feed at https://patents.google.com/patent/US11202016/en.

I'll research the citation list for US 11,202,016 and the references themselves.

Let me try to obtain the full citation list for this patent.

USPTO Record Confirmation — US Patent No. 11,202,016

Interpreting the identifier literally: US11202016B2 = U.S. Patent No. 11,202,016, "Imaging device," Olympus Corporation, inventor Takumi Soga, app. 17/126,381, filed 2020-12-18, issued 2021-12-14, priority 2018-07-13 (continuation of PCT/JP2018/026462). The full text supplied in this session is the authoritative record, and it is consistent with the Google Patents grant page. (Cross-reference: the Patent summary and Obviousness sections already generated — I build on those rather than repeat them.)

Caveat on scope: I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Center full-text/IDS image in this session (web-search access only, and I exhausted the search budget). The citation analysis below is drawn from the citation table reproduced on the fetched grant document plus targeted searches for the individual references. I flag the gaps explicitly rather than guessing.

The citation list — an important discrepancy to flag

The fetched authoritative document shows:

Citations (10)
* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party

…but the table is truncated after the fifth entry (mid-way through US20090295775A1). A separate search capture of the same Google Patents record showed the heading "Patent Citations (13)," which conflicts with the "(10)" count in the fetched snapshot.

Flag: The citation count is either 10 or 13 depending on the snapshot, and I could only positively confirm five references. Per operating rules, I do not invent the missing five (or eight). Everything below covers the five confirmed citations; the remainder must be verified against the file wrapper.

Confirmed citations (as reproduced):

No non-patent literature appears in the portion retrieved. Note that the fetched table does not reproduce the */† markers per row, so I cannot state with confidence which of these were examiner citations versus applicant/third-party IDS submissions. Two of them (JP2008-305978 and JP2005-116738) are expressly discussed by the applicant in the Background, which suggests applicant-sourced art for those two.

Per-reference analysis

Reference 1 — JP 2005-116738 A (JP2005116738A)

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-116738, "LED driving circuit and power saving method thereof," Aomori Sangyo Sogo Shien Center, priority 2003-10-07, published 2005-04-28.
• Brief description: A constant-current LED driving circuit with a variable supply. Per the '016 specification's own Background description: "the output of the operational amplifier 4, that is, the gate voltage of the FET 5 is detected and the power source voltage VDD is controlled (see FIG. 2 of [JP2005-116738])." It is one of the two references the applicant itself admits as prior art for the core concept of trimming VDD to reduce driver power loss.
• § 102 relevance: No anticipation of any claim. It may disclose a variable-voltage power source, an LED, a constant-current driver, and feedback-based VDD control — i.e., a subset of claim 1's elements 1b–1f and 1i as I charted them — but it discloses no imaging circuit, no exposure-synchronized PWM gating, and no off-period (blanking) voltage rule. It cannot, alone, meet claim 1, and it is silent on the added features of claims 2–5. It is § 103 material, not § 102 art.

Reference 2 — JP 2008-224432 A (JP2008224432A)

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-224432, "Defect inspection apparatus and method by photoluminescence of solar cell," Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, priority 2007-03-13, published 2008-09-25.
• Brief description: An inspection apparatus that images solar cells using photoluminescence, i.e., an apparatus combining a controlled excitation light source with an image sensor. (Full text not retrievable in this session; characterization is from the title/abstract-level record.)
• § 102 relevance: No anticipation. At most it supplies the "imaging device with illumination" context of claim 1's preamble (element 1a). If its full text showed frame-synchronized strobing it might become § 103-relevant, but that is unverified, and on the current record it cannot anticipate any claim — including dependent claims 2–5, whose brightness-metering, stored-relationship, and clip-circuit features it does not appear to address.

Reference 3 — JP 2008-305978 A (JP2008305978A)

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-305978, "Step-up circuit," New Japan Radio Co., Ltd., priority 2007-06-07, published 2008-12-18.
• Brief description: A boost/step-up converter. Per the '016 Background: "the difference between the voltage of the gate and the source of the FET (M1) is detected and the power source voltage VDD is controlled (see FIG. 1 of [JP2008-305978])" — an adaptive-output converter that tracks the minimum voltage needed by the pass element. The second of the two applicant-admitted references.
• § 102 relevance: No anticipation of any claim. Same reasoning as Reference 1: it supports the variable-supply-plus-feedback-control concept (claim 1 elements 1b–1f, 1i) but discloses no imaging circuit, no PWM/exposure synchronization, and no compliance-voltage off-period rule. § 103 material only.

Reference 4 — JP 2009-054816 A (JP2009054816A)

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-054816, "Light source device," Yokogawa Electric Corp., priority 2007-08-28, published 2009-03-12.
• Brief description: A light source device (full text not retrievable in this session; content beyond the title/assignee is unknown to me).
• § 102 relevance: No anticipation established. Nothing in the retrieved record ties this reference to imaging-synchronized PWM drive or the off-period voltage rule. I place no reliance on it beyond noting it is an identified citation. Its significance, if any, would be as general "light source with regulated supply" art.

Reference 5 — US 2009/0295775 A1 (US20090295775A1)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0295775 A1, "Driving circuit of light emitting device," Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Ltd., filed 2008-06-03, published 2009-12-03.
• Brief description: From the retrieved text: a DC/DC converter feeds plural parallel LED groups, each in series with a current source; a minimum-voltage detection unit measures the lowest voltage across the current sources (headroom/voltage drop), and a single comparator plus PWM control unit adjusts the converter output accordingly. This is the closest identified reference to claim 1's on-period feedback element (1i) — regulating supply voltage to the minimum needed by the constant-current stage to cut power loss.
• § 102 relevance: No anticipation of any claim. It lacks the imaging/exposure synchronization (elements 1a, 1g, 1h) and the off-period voltage rule (1j); it also does not disclose the claim 2–5 features. It is the strongest § 103 reference in the set (the "Combination B" anchor discussed in the Obviousness section).

Bottom line on § 102

On the five references I could confirm, none individually anticipates any of claims 1–5. Every one of them is missing at least the imaging/exposure-synchronized PWM gating and the off-period "≥ compliance voltage" rule that are the heart of independent claim 1 (elements 1g, 1h, 1j), and none touches the dependent-claim features (wave-detection/brightness, brightness→voltage memory relationship, voltage clip circuit, last-on-period voltage hold). The citation set is therefore § 103 combination material, consistent with the earlier Obviousness section — not § 102 art. The two references that matter most for the on-period feedback element are US 2009/0295775 A1 (strongest on headroom-based supply minimization) and the applicant-admitted JP 2005-116738 / JP 2008-305978.

Caveats and verification steps

1. Incomplete citation list. The fetched grant document truncates at reference #5 and shows a count of 10; a search snapshot suggested 13. The remaining 5–8 citations are unidentified and unanalyzed here. If any of them discloses exposure-synchronized strobing together with headroom-feedback supply control, that would materially strengthen a § 102 or § 103 position against claim 1.
2. Examiner vs. third-party markers not recoverable from the retrieved table; do not assume these were all examiner-applied art.
3. Full texts of JP2008224432A, JP2009054816A, and partially US20090295775A1 were not fully retrievable; descriptions of those three are abstract-level.
4. Forward citations are not prior art. The record also carries a "Cited By (21)" set (e.g., Allegro Microsystems documents on DC-DC control for LED strings). These post-date the priority date and cannot anticipate; they are relevant only as evidence of the crowded art landscape.

Recommended verification: pull the complete "References Cited" page-image from USPTO Patent Center for application 17/126,381 (or the PCT/JP2018/026462 ISR/WO2020012630A1 search report), which will list every citation with the examiner-applied annotations, and confirm whether the count is 10 or 13.

Obviousness Analysis of US 11,202,016 (US11202016B2) Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note and caveats up front

The "Prior Art" section on the fetched Google Patents record lists 10 citations, but the fetched page truncates after the fifth entry (mid-way through US20090295775A1). I was able to positively identify the following five references from that list; the remaining five could not be retrieved or confirmed in this session, and I have not speculated about them:

1. JP2005116738A (JP2005-116738) — "LED driving circuit and power saving method thereof," Aomori Sangyo Sogo Shien Center, priority 2003-10-07, published 2005-04-28.
2. JP2008224432A — "Defect inspection apparatus and method by photoluminescence of solar cell," Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, published 2008-09-25.
3. JP2008305978A (JP2008-305978) — "Step-up circuit," New Japan Radio Co., Ltd., published 2008-12-18.
4. JP2009054816A — "Light source device," Yokogawa Electric Corp., published 2009-03-12.
5. US20090295775A1 — "Driving circuit of light emitting device," Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., Ltd., filed 2008-06-03, published 2009-12-03.

Two of these — JP2005-116738 and JP2008-305978 — are also expressly discussed in the patent's own Background section, and the specification's FIG. 7A/7B admit the general "illumination device" concept (battery → power-source circuit → LED → constant-current driving circuit, with a voltage control circuit trimming VDD to minimize driver power loss). The analysis below therefore rests primarily on these identified references, plus conventional camera-flash/imaging-illumination knowledge. Where content is uncertain, I say so.

1. Claim 1 element chart (the sole independent claim)

2. Teachings of the identified references

JP2005-116738 (JP2005116738A). Per the patent's own Background: the output of the operational amplifier, i.e., the gate voltage of the FET, is detected and the power-source voltage VDD is controlled (see FIG. 2 of that reference). This teaches a constant-current LED driver whose supply is adaptively trimmed based on a signal representative of the driver's headroom — elements 1b–1f and 1i in a general illumination context.

JP2008-305978 (JP2008305978A). Per the patent's own Background: the difference between the gate and source voltage of the FET (M1) is detected and VDD is controlled (see FIG. 1 of that reference). Same adaptive-headroom-teaching family as JP2005-116738 — a step-up/boost converter whose output tracks the minimum needed by the pass element. Again, elements 1b–1f and 1i, but no imaging context.

US20090295775A1 (Samsung). From the retrieved text: a DC/DC converter feeds plural parallel LED groups, each in series with a current source. A minimum-voltage detection unit measures the lowest voltage across the current sources (the headroom/voltage drop), and a single comparator + PWM control unit adjusts the converter output. This is a direct, detailed disclosure of supply-voltage minimization based on the voltage at the input terminal of constant-current stages to cut power loss — a strong analog of claim-1 element 1i in the LED-array/backlight art.

JP2008224432A (JAXA). A defect-inspection apparatus that images solar cells using photoluminescence — i.e., an apparatus in which illumination and image capture are combined. I could not retrieve its full text, so I cannot verify whether it teaches frame-synchronized PWM strobing of the light source. Treat as potentially relevant only for the imaging-plus-illumination context.

JP2009054816A (Yokogawa). "Light source device." Full text not retrieved; content unknown beyond title/assignee. No reliance placed on it below except as an identified reference.

3. Proposed § 103 combinations

Combination A (strongest for claim 1): JP2005-116738 or JP2008-305978 (adaptive supply) + conventional camera-LED-flash/imaging-illumination control

• JP2005-116738 / JP2008-305978 supply: variable-voltage supply (1b), LED (1c), constant-current driver (1d), controller (1e), series connection supply→LED→driver (1f), and feedback trimming of VDD based on driver voltage (1i).
• What they lack: an imaging circuit with exposure periods (1a, 1g, 1h) and the off-period behavior of 1j.
• The gap-filler: It was routine, well before the 2018 priority date, to drive a camera flash/illumination LED with a PWM/enable signal synchronized to the imager's exposure window — turning the LED on only during the imaging (exposure) period and off during the blanking period. This was the standard architecture for LED flash in camera phones, endoscopes, and machine-vision strobes. A PHOSITA combining the adaptive-supply LED driver of JP2005-116738/JP2008-305978 with a camera controller that gates LED current by exposure sync would arrive at an imaging device meeting 1a and 1g–1h.
• Element 1j — why obvious: In the adaptive-supply art, the loop converges VDD to (compliance voltage + driver drop) with minimal margin. Applied to a pulsed imaging context, a PHOSITA immediately recognizes that if VDD were allowed to sag during the blanking (off) interval, the first PWM pulses of the next frame would not reach full current until the loop re-converged — degrading the first exposed frame. The natural design choice is to hold VDD at the last converged value (≥ compliance voltage) during the off period so the LED can resume correct light output on the first pulse of the next frame. Claim 5's own wording — apply "voltage applied to the light-emitting element at the end of a turn-on period of last time" during the off period — is simply the "do not discharge the supply capacitor / freeze the DAC" behavior that any engineer would adopt to avoid re-convergence delay. The spec itself (FIG. 4, Step ST10) describes 1j as merely not changing the DAC(c) value during blanking, i.e., the absence of a control action — which strongly undercuts patentable weight for 1j.

Combination B: US20090295775A1 + imaging/flash synchronization

US20090295775A1 is arguably the closest identified reference to element 1i: it explicitly senses the voltage across the constant-current stages and uses a comparator + PWM controller to regulate the DC/DC output to the minimum needed — i.e., "near predetermined power source voltage" by headroom feedback. It lacks only the imaging/exposure synchronization (1a, 1g, 1h) and the explicit off-period rule (1j). Adding a conventional camera-exposure-synchronized PWM gate (as in Combination A) yields claim 1 for the same reasons. The comparator + latch structure in the patent (CMP + flip-flop) is also a known way to sample a short-pulse headroom measurement, and US20090295775A1 already teaches "single comparator" feedback of minimum headroom voltage.

Combination C: JP2008224432A + either adaptive-supply reference

JP2008224432A supplies the "imaging apparatus that needs controlled illumination" context. If its full text shows pulsed/strobed illumination during inspection (photoluminescence generally requires controlled excitation light and synchronized detection), it would be a natural host reference into which the power-loss-minimizing supply control of JP2005-116738/JP2008-305978/US20090295775A1 would be grafted. I flag this as contingent on content I could not verify.

4. Graham-factor analysis and motivation to combine

Scope and content of the prior art. The identified art establishes three things independently: (i) constant-current LED drive with supply voltage adaptively minimized from headroom feedback (JP2005-116738, JP2008-305978, US20090295775A1); (ii) the power-loss problem this solves — the patent's own FIG. 7A/7B admit VDD = Vreq + Vmgn + Vdrop and the goal of minimizing Vmgn; and (iii) imaging devices with illumination (JP2008224432A context; general camera-flash practice).

Differences between claim 1 and the closest art. The real differences are (a) the imaging/exposure-synchronized on/off gating (1g–1h) and (b) the off-period voltage rule (1j). Neither is a structural novelty; both are control-timing behaviors.

Motivation / reason to combine. A PHOSITA (designer of camera-module illumination drivers, of ordinary skill in LED driver and imaging-synchronization design) would be motivated to combine for three concrete reasons:

1. Power/heat: the same loss-minimization objective that drove the adaptive-supply references is more acute in battery-powered camera illumination (flash duty is short and bursts are thermally limited) — so importing headroom feedback into an imaging flash driver is an obvious improvement with predictable benefit.
2. Exposure correctness: frame-synchronized strobing requires the LED current to be accurate on the first pulse of each frame; holding VDD at the prior converged value during blanking (1j) is the standard way to guarantee first-pulse compliance — it is the "obvious thing to try" with a known, predictable result (fast resume, per claim 5 and FIG. 4 Step ST10).
3. Setpoint tracking: when drive current must rise between frames (claim 2), a PHOSITA would raise the supply before the load change — textbook feed-forward — so the "apply voltage greater than the compliance voltage in the off period" (claim 2) is a routine control adjustment, not an inventive step.

Level of ordinary skill. Moderate: familiarity with LED constant-current drivers, boost/step-up converters with feedback, camera exposure/blanking timing, and AE (auto-exposure/brightness) metering. All claimed concepts sit comfortably within that skill set.

Secondary considerations. Nothing in the record (no long-felt-need evidence, no unexpected results, no industry copying or licensing indicia) offsets the strong prima facie case. The specification's own admission that prior-art illumination devices already performed adaptive VDD control to minimize Vmgn narrows the actual contribution to the imaging-timing context and the off-period voltage hold, both of which read as design choices.

5. Dependent claims

• Claim 2 (wave-detection circuit computing image brightness; if current is to be increased, apply voltage greater than compliance during off period): Image-brightness metering to command more flash current was ubiquitous (auto-exposure/flash-control loops). Pre-raising the supply above compliance in the off period is the necessary and obvious feed-forward companion to a current-setpoint increase (Combination B's comparator feedback alone would be too slow to re-converge mid-frame). Routine.
• Claim 3 (memory storing brightness→voltage relationship; identify voltage from brightness + stored info): Look-up-table/calibration control based on a metered parameter is a standard design expedient. Routine.
• Claim 4 (voltage clip circuit between driver input and comparator input, clipping to predetermined voltage): Voltage clamp/limiter protection circuits for comparator inputs were textbook and are acknowledged in the spec as a mere "protection circuit" against overvoltage during the off period. Routine.
• Claim 5 (off-period voltage = last end-of-on-period voltage; next on-period resumes with it): As discussed, this is the "freeze/hold the converged DAC value during blanking" default behavior — the path of least resistance, expressly implemented as a no-op in FIG. 4 (Step ST10). The least weighty limitation; trivially obvious in Combination A/B.

6. Balanced view — strongest counterarguments for the patent

• If the examiner's remaining five unidentified citations (and any art the applicant distinguished) include a reference that already combined headroom-feedback supply control with imaging-synchronized PWM strobing, the case would be even stronger against the patent. Conversely, if the art contains no camera-flash/imaging-LED reference teaching supply raising or holding during blanking, the patent's advocates would argue element 1j runs against the power-saving grain of the cited adaptive-supply art (which teaches minimizing VDD at all times). That argument has limited force, however, because claim 1's off-period voltage need only be "≥ compliance voltage," which is exactly where the adaptive loops park VDD anyway, and because holding rather than discharging a converter output during a short blanking interval is the energy-neutral default.
• The strongest genuine distinction is the combination's purpose: nobody in the cited adaptive-supply art addresses frame-by-frame pulsed operation with first-pulse current accuracy. Whether that is "unobvious combination" or "obvious application of known control to a new timing context" is the crux — and under the KSR "obvious to try / predictable result" rubric, the latter characterization is the more natural one for the claims as drafted, particularly given how broadly claim 1 is written (it does not recite the comparator/latch, the clip circuit, or the brightness feedback of the dependent claims).

7. Conclusion

On the identified record, claim 1 would most likely be held obvious under § 103 as the combination of (i) an adaptive constant-current LED driver whose supply voltage is trimmed toward the minimum from the driver's input-terminal voltage — JP2005-116738, JP2008-305978, or US20090295775A1 — with (ii) conventional imaging-exposure-synchronized PWM strobing of the illumination LED, where the off-period "≥ compliance voltage" rule (1j) is the routine hold/feed-forward behavior needed for first-pulse accuracy. Dependent claims 2–5 add metering, table-lookup, comparator input protection, and DAC-value freezing, each routine in this art. The caveats: only five of the ten listed citations were identifiable in this session, and the full texts of JP2008224432A, JP2009054816A, and the Samsung publication were only partially retrieved, so a complete § 103 case would require confirming the content of the remaining citations before finalizing an invalidity position.