US 4787467

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 4787467, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me run more targeted searches on the litigation and CAFC docket fronts.

Let me check for any litigation history and confirm no 2026 appellate activity.

US 4,787,467 — Summary

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text and USPTO/Google Patents records)

Abstract (paraphrased from the patent)

An apparatus for self-service checkout calculates, within a main computer, the cumulative total weight of items based on pre-programmed weights, and compares that computed total to the weight determined by a second weigh scale that measures all items placed in a receiving container. Scanned items are itemized by the computer, which directs printing of an itemized register tape. Fraudulent mishandling is defeated by requiring communication between the computer and the ending weigh scale whenever the two weights correspond within a predetermined tolerance. In an alternate embodiment, a total pre-scan weighing of items is also required to correspond.

Independent claim 1 (plain language)

Claim 1 is the only independent claim. In plain terms it covers a self-service checkout station comprising:

1. A checkout stand housing a bar code scanner that reads a bar code containing product information including price and weight;
2. Weighing scales that weigh the product receiving basket placed on them, thereby weighing all scanned products placed into that basket;
3. Computer-controlled means that receive the scanner's product information, determine the weight of the scanned product, and compare it against the weight of the scanned product once it is placed in the receiving basket — to confirm that the item put in the basket is the same item that was scanned;
4. Error-control means connected to the computer that stop the scanner's scanning function if the basket weight does not match the weight obtained from the scanned bar code; and
5. Print-out means connected to the computer producing a receipt listing each scanned product with individual prices and a total price.

The concept captured is the core anti-substitution loop: scan → look up expected weight → verify against the post-scan basket scale → block further scanning on mismatch.

Dependent claims (all depend on claim 1)

• Claim 2 — Adds a second weighing scale for a product basket holding all items to be scanned/purchased, plus computer means comparing three quantities: (a) total weight in the source basket, (b) cumulative weight of products passed over the scanner, and (c) weight of scanned products in the receiving basket — to prevent substituting one product for another. This corresponds to the optional scale (13) beneath the transmitting cart (11) in the specification.
• Claim 3 — Adds produce-weighing means: a produce scale, an entry pad/keyboard for the customer to enter produce bar code (PLU) information, and computer-controlled means for noting weight and price and entering it on the ticket.
• Claim 4 — Adds television camera monitors for monitoring the scanning of products.
• Claim 5 — Adds connecting means linking the scanner/computer to a computer that maintains total sales volume, to determine when products should be reordered.

CAFC 2026 docket / litigation search — what I found

I found no pending or decided 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit proceeding referencing US 4,787,467, and no active 2026 district-court docket asserting it. Targeted searches of the patent number alongside "Federal Circuit" and "CAFC 2026" returned only unrelated appeals and the general appellate-statistics documents, none naming this patent. Given the patent's status ("Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration 2007-07-31), it is expected to be outside any current enforcement campaign.

Historical litigation context (off-patent, for background only):

• Optimal Robotics Corp. / International Automated Systems, Inc. settlement — announced January 24, 2004, closing the patent lawsuit between the parties; the assignment of '467 from IAS to Optimal Robotics (recorded April 2004) and then to Fujitsu Transaction Solutions (June 2004) followed. This is a settlement/press-release account and I could not verify the underlying docket details from an authoritative court record in this search.
• International Automated Systems v. Digital Persona (D. Utah 2:06-cv-00072) and IAS v. IBM involved a different Johnson patent (a biometrics/fingerprint patent, referred to in the opinions as the "'014 application" / "'474 patent"). Those decisions should not be attributed to US 4,787,467.

Uncertainty and caveats

• Claim 1 source artifact: the patent's claim 1 text as rendered on Google Patents contains a stray token — "…from bar product scanner; and p1 print-out means…" The "p1" appears to be an OCR/formatting artifact of the source page; there is no "p1" element anywhere in the specification, and the corresponding element is simply the print-out means. I am flagging this rather than silently correcting it.
• Minor date discrepancy: one upstream catalogue snippet lists "1987-07-30" for this record, while the authoritative patent front-matter, filing data, and Google Patents bibliographic fields all give 1987-07-31 as both filing and priority date. I have used 1987-07-31.
• Scope limits of my search: I could not directly query a docket-level CAFC database; my conclusions about the absence of 2026 appellate activity rest on targeted web searches keyed to the exact number "4787467"/"4,787,467." I excluded results for similar-numbered patents (e.g., US 4,676,343, US 4,792,018, US 4,673,133, the "'474 patent" above). If you need a definitive negative on pending 2026 dockets, that should be confirmed against PACER/CM-ECF and the Federal Circuit's own docket system.
• Assignee chain: the "current assignee" of Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc. is as listed by Google Patents, whose own notice states the assignee list may be inaccurate and is not a legal conclusion.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4787467A/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4787467 ; https://www.plainsite.org/profiles/international-automated-systems-inc/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=[10787047](/patent/10787047) (Optimal Robotics settlement account).

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 4,787,467. Let me run several searches.

Key lead found: a 2000 lawsuit by International Automated Systems Inc. Let me dig deeper.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 4,787,467

Verification note on the patent itself. The patent you asked about, US 4,787,467 ("Automated self-service checkout system"), inventor Neldon P. Johnson, filed 1987‑07‑31, issued 1988‑11‑29, originally assigned to the individual inventor, then to International Automated Systems, Inc. (IAS) effective 1990‑07‑31, then to Optimal Robotics Corp. in 2004, and finally to Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc. (now Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc.). Google Patents flags "Family has litigation" and links a Darts‑IP family record (family ID 22153864). That transfer history is itself significant to the litigation story below.

1. International Automated Systems, Inc. v. Optimal Robotics, Inc. (and PSC Inc.)

• Plaintiff: International Automated Systems, Inc. (Utah; Neldon P. Johnson, president/CEO, the patent's inventor)
• Defendants: Optimal Robotics, Inc./Corp. (Montreal, Canada); PSC Inc. (NASDAQ: PSCX)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Central Division
• Case number: 2:99‑cv‑00517 (per PlainSite's docket index for IAS, captioned "Intl Auto Sys v. Optimal Robotics, et al," filing date listed as 7/2/1999)
• Subject matter: IAS alleged that the defendants' U‑Scan Express automated grocery self‑checkout system infringed Johnson's 1988 patent (i.e., the '467 patent), seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction against further sales.
• Filing date / chronology: There is a discrepancy across sources that I cannot fully reconcile. The PlainSite docket index shows a District of Utah case (2:99‑cv‑00517) filed July 2, 1999. Separately, a Rochester Business Journal report dated January 7, 2000 states IAS "today filed" a patent infringement action in the District of Utah Central Division against both PSC Inc. and Optimal Robotics. A follow‑up RBJ piece (July 21, 2000) states that "in January, PSC and Optimal were targeted for alleged patent infringement in a suit filed by… International Automated Systems Inc." It is therefore possible that (a) the 1999 case is the same matter with the January 2000 event being an amended complaint/added party, or (b) there were two related filings. I cannot confirm which, and I am not auto‑correcting the identifiers.
• Outcome / current status: I could not locate a reported judgment, verdict, or appellate decision. The most probative circumstantial evidence is the assignment chain: Optimal Robotics Corp. — a defendant named in this suit — acquired the '467 patent from IAS (assignment recorded 2004‑04‑21, effective 2004‑01‑27), and then assigned it to Fujitsu Transaction Solutions (2004). Acquisition of the asserted patent by an accused infringer is consistent with a settlement/licensing resolution around 2004, but I cannot state the formal disposition (settlement, dismissal, license) with confidence from public sources. The case does not appear on Unified Patents' or CourtListener's indexed '467 records, and no IPR/PGR or CAFC appeal on the '467 patent surfaced in my searches.

2. PSC Inc. v. Optimal Robotics Corp. and Martin Reiss (related, but not a '467 infringement suit)

• Plaintiff: PSC Inc.
• Defendants: Optimal Robotics Corp. (Montreal) and Optimal's sales manager, Martin Reiss
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court (venue reported as federal court; the July 21, 2000 RBJ item does not specify the district in the excerpt I retrieved)
• Case number: Not identified in the available source
• Filed: On or about mid‑July 2000
• Relief sought: Preliminary injunction and restraining order
• Nature: This was a business/contract dispute between former partners over the U‑Scan Express system — PSC manufactured/marketed and Optimal Robotics developed the software. The article frames it as "a new round of legal action related to its U‑Scan Express automated grocery checkout system" following the January 2000 IAS patent suit. It is not itself an assertion of the '467 patent, and I flag it only as related litigation over the accused product.
• Outcome/status: Not established in the available reporting.

3. Other, unrelated matters surfaced by the search (explicitly excluded)

• The Intel/Apple v. Fortress/Uniloc antitrust matter, the Cigna v. Celgene "'467 patent" references, and the MPH Technologies and General Video matters involve different patents (in the Celgene matter the "’467 patent" is a different, later‑numbered patent). I have not included them because your instruction was to return results for this specific patent number only.
• IAS's later ~2007–2008 litigation against UPEK, Inc. concerned U.S. Patent Nos. 4,7xx "’474" and "’570" (IAS's other patents), not the '467 patent, and is likewise excluded.

Bottom line

Based on the sources I could reach, the only known litigation asserting U.S. Patent No. 4,787,467 appears to be the International Automated Systems, Inc. enforcement action(s) against Optimal Robotics and PSC Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah (docket indexed as 2:99‑cv‑00517, with a January 2000 filing reported against PSC and Optimal Robotics). No judgment, damages award, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding on this patent was found. The patent changed hands to the accused party (Optimal Robotics) in 2004 and then to Fujitsu, and it expired for fee purposes on 2007‑07‑31 with status "Expired – Lifetime."

Confidence and limitations. I could not directly query PACER, the CAFC docket, or the Unified Patents litigation portal in this session (the searches returned mostly secondary aggregator pages rather than the primary dockets). Accordingly, the case number, exact disposition, and the reconciliation of the July 1999 vs. January 2000 filing dates should be independently verified against the District of Utah docket (2:99‑cv‑00517 and any companion 2000 case) and PACER/Federal Circuit records before being relied upon. I have deliberately not fabricated a case number, outcome, or appellate result where the sources did not supply one.

I'll verify the ODP-provided "no proceedings" baseline against public sources before writing the report.

The initial hits are noise. Let me run targeted searches on the litigation family and any PTAB filings.

No PTAB records surfaced. Let me confirm the patent's enforceability window and check for any CBM/litigation activity in the family.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 4,787,467: zero (0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, 0 CBMs). There is no proceeding number, no panel, no institution decision, no FWD, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal to report — and, for the reasons below, that is not a gap in my sourcing but the expected and correct result.

This is the rare case where the "no PTAB activity" default is not a signal about the patent's strength or the owner's litigiousness. US 4,787,467 expired on 2007-07-31 (20-year term from the 1987-07-31 filing; Google Patents records the anticipated expiration on exactly that date and the legal status as Expired - Lifetime). AIA trial practice did not exist until 2012-09-16 (IPR/CBM) and 2013-03-16 (PGR). The patent was therefore stone-cold dead for more than four years before the Board had jurisdiction to hear a single challenge to it. No IPR, PGR, or CBM could have been filed during its enforceable life, and none was.

For a defendant being asserted against today, the bottom line is not "the patent has survived challenges and is hardened," and it is not "claims 1–5 were canceled." It is: the patent has been expired for ~19 years, so any current assertion is dead on arrival; every claim 1–5 is unenforceable for post-2007-07-31 conduct, and even past-conduct damages are time-barred under 35 U.S.C. § 286 (the six-year lookback closed 2013-07-31 at the latest). Your real value here is offensive/defensive prior art, not PTAB estoppel.

Verification performed (no proceedings found)

Explicit non-findings (don't let anyone read silence as a merits ruling): I found no Board decision, no FWD, and no CAFC opinion touching this patent. I also did not run a dedicated ex parte reexamination / reissue check (reissue and ex parte reexam are separate from AIA trials and are not in the ODP AIA-trial block). If a defendant needs that box ticked, pull the file history at USPTO Patent Center for application 07/079,951.

{none} — no proceeding exists; do not cite one

Because there is no proceeding, the standard per-proceeding fields (type, filed date, status, judge panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, appeal) have no content, and I will not manufacture any. Any memo or demand-letter response that cites an IPR or CBM number against this patent is fabricated.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all five claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB, and all five are expired. Claim 1 (independent) and claims 2–5 (dependent) were never challenged, so there is no canceled/sustained/unpatentable-claim ledger to work from. That is not a narrowing story — it is a term-expiration story. Contrast the normal assumption: a 1987 patent asserted aggressively through the early 2000s would ordinarily have attracted reexaminations and (after 2012) CBMs, and this patent's own family shows the era's fingerprints — the file itself cites US 2,919,851 and US 3,681,570 as the prior art it was distinguished over, and it was cited by 66 later publications including the core Schneider self-checkout patents (US 5,083,638; US 5,115,888; US 5,123,494; US 5,125,465; US 5,168,961) and Toshiba Tec's US 6,315,199. The Board simply never had a live patent to review.

Estoppel landscape: none, and it cannot help you. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to "a petitioner in an inter partes review of a claim in a patent … that results in a final written decision." With zero IPRs, there is no petitioner, no privity chain, and no estoppel. Nothing is foreclosed against any party, including Fujitsu. Conversely, this means a defendant cannot point to an earlier petitioner's successful art and ride § 315(e)(2) — every invalidity ground, and every § 102(b)/§ 103 argument, remains available to whoever needs it. If you are facing assertion of a later, still-in-force patent in the self-checkout space, note that this is the opposite of a problem: US 4,787,467 is itself prior art (published 1988-11-29) and is cited across the modern self-checkout art, so it is a § 102(b)/§ 103 reference you can affirmatively deploy. That cited-by list is your map of what it reaches.

Pattern signals: none of the usual PTAB indicators are present. No repeat petitioner (there was no first petition to repeat). No patent-owner appeal activity at the CAFC on this patent. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain — the ownership chain is purely commercial: Neldon P. Johnson (individual) → International Automated Systems, Inc. (assignment recorded 1990-08-03, effective 1990-07-31) → Optimal Robotics Corp. (recorded 2004-04-21, effective 2004-01-27) → Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc. (recorded 2004-06-14 and 2004-11-29 as a corrective/duplicate chain) and, per Google Patents, current assignee Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc. The economics tell the story: the patent was sold to Optimal Robotics in January 2004, leaving it roughly 3.5 years of life — too short a runway for a would-be challenger to justify a post-grant proceeding even had CBM and IPR existed then (they didn't). The foreign family is likewise a dead end: EP 0 301 451 A3 withdrawn; FI 883568 and DK 426088 application discontinuation; CA 1,306,302 expired; JP 1-99196 active/pending (per the machine status on the Google Patents page — a status field, not a verified legal conclusion).

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and a demand letter cites US 4,787,467: do not brief invalidity first — brief expiration. The threshold dispositive points are (1) expiration 2007-07-31 and (2) the § 286 six-year lookback having closed no later than 2013-07-31. Any theory built on claims 1–5 for post-expiration conduct is sanction-bait. Request the priority/family documentation (US 07/079,951) and the term calculation rather than accepting the patent's face.
• There is no FWD to quote and no PTAB E2E paper to link. The authoritative record for this patent is Google Patents US4787467A (full text, printed claims, term and assignment history) and the USPTO PATENT CENTER file history. For Board materials generally, USPTO PTAB Decisions and PTAB E2E / PTAB Center contain nothing for this patent number; CourtListener returns no CAFC appeal involving it.
• No trial-stage milestones exist to diary. There is no institution-decision deadline, no oral hearing, and no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD deadline, because there is no trial. If a counterparty asserts otherwise, treat it as a diligence failure on their side.
• If the real target is a Fujitsu-entitled descendant patent that is still in force, recalibrate. The absence of PTAB activity on the '467 patent says nothing about the enforceability of later Optimal Robotics / Fujitsu Transaction Solutions filings (e.g., the US 7,328,170 and US 7,845,554 families). Run the AIA-trial check against those numbers, and use the '467 disclosure as an anticipatory/obviousness reference against them — it predates them by a decade and a half.
• Caveat on the litigation flag: the family is flagged as having litigation, but I could not verify the specific dockets in this session. Before relying on "never litigated, never challenged" framing, pull the family-level litigation record (Darts-ip family 22153864) and confirm whether any of those suits generated an invalidity judgment or IPR that this memo's sources missed.

I'll cross-check the assignment record against public sources before writing up.

US 4787467 — Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction

Patent: US 4,787,467 A — "Automated self-service checkout system"
Application: US 07/079,951 · filed 1987-07-31 · granted 1988-11-29 · expired 2007-07-31 (anticipated expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime")
Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "4787467"); Google Patents legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/US4787467/en

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Inventors

Unusual patterns:

• No "all inventors departing" pattern — the opposite. Johnson remained Chairman/President of International Automated Systems (IAS) from 1987 until ~2015, i.e. he stayed ~28 years past the filing date.
• Delayed corporate assignment. The patent issued 1988-11-29 to Johnson personally even though he was the sitting president of IAS, and was not assigned to IAS until executed 1990-07-31 — roughly 3 years after filing and 21 months after grant. This personal-ownership-then-transfer pattern recurs in Johnson's later portfolio (patents assigned to Black Night Enterprises, Inc. and N.P. Johnson Family Limited Partnership rather than to IAS after his employment contract lapsed in 2010), per public reporting of the RaPower-3/DCL16BLT depositions.
• Sole inventor, no co-inventors — no joinder/spread-of-inventorship issues to reconstruct.

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Original assignee

None — the patent issued to the individual inventor, Neldon P. Johnson. Google Patents lists the original assignee as "Individual." The first corporate owner, International Automated Systems, Inc., appears only via the 1990 post-issuance assignment.

• International Automated Systems, Inc. (IAS) — American Fork, UT; later Oasis, UT. Microcap OTC Bulletin Board issuer; Johnson was president, chairman and majority owner. Its stated business was design/production/marketing of technology products (solar panels, bladeless turbines, dynamic voltage controllers, wind/ocean energy) plus the self-checkout "Self-Check" line reflected in this patent.
• Did IAS ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear on the face of the record. IAS marketed a self-checkout product line, but I found no independent confirmation that a commercially deployed IAS self-checkout unit practiced claim 1. Treat as unverified.
• Status: Not dissolved in the record; IO still associated with Johnson-controlled entities. Material negative event: SEC enforcement action filed 1998-09-23 in D. Utah (SEC Litigation Release No. 15898), alleging IAS and Johnson issued false press releases and made ~$3M in insider stock sales through family brokerage accounts. IAS remained a Johnson-controlled microcap. Later Johnson/IAS solar ventures (RaPower-3) attracted further SEC and tax litigation; I am not asserting the specifics of those outcomes as I did not verify them in this pass.

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Assignment timeline

Every entry below is drawn from Google Patents' legal-events / reassignment table (which mirrors the USPTO assignment records). Correspondent (attorney of record) data is NOT present in any source I could retrieve — see the flagged gap at the end of this section. I have deliberately not filled that field by inference.

1. Executed 1990-07-31 / recorded 1990-08-03 — Reel 005390/0158

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (the record reads "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
• Assignor: Neldon P. Johnson, American Fork, UT
• Assignee: International Automated Systems, Inc., 1050 East St. (address as recorded is garbled in the text layer as "1050 EST ST")
• Correspondent: Not retrievable. No correspondent/attorney field is exposed in the sources available to me for this reel.
• Context: Internal transfer — founder/president deeding his personally-held patent to his own controlled company, 21 months after grant.

2. Executed 2004-01-27 / recorded 2004-04-21 — Reel 014532/0731

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: International Automated Systems, Inc.
• Assignee: Optimal Robotics Corp., Canada
• Correspondent: Not retrievable.
• Context: Asset transfer / portfolio clearing — IAS exits the self-checkout patent entirely ~3 months before Optimal sold its U-Scan business.

3. Executed 2004-01-27 / recorded 2004-06-07 — Reel 014699/0079

• Conveyance: Corrective Assignment ("TO CORRECT THE ADDRESS OF THE ASSIGNEE. PREVIOUSLY RECORDED ON REEL 014532 FRAME 0731")
• Assignor: International Automated Systems, Inc.
• Assignee: Optimal Robotics Corp., Canada
• Correspondent: Not retrievable.
• Context: Change of name / clerical correction only — corrects the assignee address on entry 2; conveys no new interest.

4. Executed 2004-04-08 / recorded 2004-06-14 — Reel 014725/0218

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Optimal Group Inc. (formerly Optimal Robotics Corp.)
• Assignee: Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc., Texas
• Correspondent: Not retrievable.
• Context: Acquisition — part of Fujitsu's $35M cash-plus-liabilities purchase of the U-Scan self-checkout business, announced 2004-04-05, shareholder-approved 2004-04-06, effective date 2004-04-08; Optimal renamed itself Optimal Group Inc. (see Supermarket News 2004-04-19 and the Fujitsu press release of 2004-05-25).

5. Executed 2004-04-08 / recorded 2004-11-29 — Reel 016050/0845

• Conveyance: Assignment (duplicate/second recording of the same transaction)
• Assignor: Optimal Group Inc.
• Assignee: Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc., Texas
• Correspondent: Not retrievable.
• Context: Internal reorg / re-recording — same effective date as entry 4; appears to be a re-recordation following the Optimal Robotics → Optimal Group name change.

Record gap — current assignee: Google Patents lists the current assignee as Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc, but the last recorded assignment (Reel 016050/0845) names Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc. I found no recorded assignment in this chain transferring the patent to Fujitsu Frontech North America. That is either an unrecorded intra-group name change/successor designation or a record I could not surface — I am flagging it as a gap rather than asserting a transfer that the record does not show.

Correspondent gap (explicit): The task calls for the attorney/agent of record on each reel. None of the sources I can reach expose that field for this patent. I will not substitute a name from an unrelated record — the only "Howard N. Lackenbach Siegel" correspondence I encountered during searching was the trademark correspondent for a Fujitsu Limited trademark opposition, not a patent-assignment correspondent, and attributing it here would be fabrication. The repeat-correspondent signal below is therefore scored on missing data, not on evidence of absence.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 4787467
    1987 : Filed by Neldon P Johnson
         : No assignee named at filing
    1988 : Patent US 4787467 issued
    1990 : Assigned to International Automated Systems
    1998 : SEC enforcement action against IAS and Johnson
    2004 : Assigned to Optimal Robotics Corp
         : Corrective assignment recorded
         : Assigned to Fujitsu Transaction Solutions
         : Re-recorded at reel 016050 0845
    2007 : Patent expires end of term

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
No assignee in the chain carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix. The three owners are International Automated Systems, Inc. (operating microcap), Optimal Robotics Corp. (operating company with an actual U-Scan product line, ~40% of North American self-checkout lanes per IHL), and Fujitsu Transaction Solutions, Inc. (operating subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited). Caveat worth recording: Johnson did use shell-like vehicles for other patents in this period — Black Night Enterprises, Inc. (Charleston) and N.P. Johnson Family Limited Partnership — per the RaPower-3 deposition excerpts, but neither appears in the '467 chain. A pattern elsewhere is not a finding here.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
No chain entity matches the supplied NPE roster (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg entities). Optimal Robotics and Fujitsu are operating companies; IAS was an operating microcap.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / INSUFFICIENT DATA.
The correspondent field is not available from any source I can reach for Reels 005390/0158, 014532/0731, 014699/0079, 014725/0218 or 016050/0845. I cannot confirm or deny recurrence. This should be pulled directly from the Assignment Center's per-record detail view (or the assignment abstracts/images) before any NPE conclusion is drawn — this is the single highest-value missing datum.

4. Cascading transfers — WEAKLY PRESENT (explained).
There is a genuine 5-record, ~10-month cluster in 2004: executed 2004-01-27 (Reel 014532/0731), corrective 2004-06-07 (Reel 014699/0079), executed 2004-04-08 (Reels 014725/0218 and 016050/0845). But this cluster is not shell chaining — it is a documented, publicly reported, single-transaction M&A asset sale (IAS → Optimal Robotics, then Optimal Robotics/Optimal Group → Fujitsu, $35M, with an intervening NCR topping bid and a $3M break fee). The corrective assignment and the duplicate recording explain two of the five records. Score this as weak, not a controlling signal.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
I found no infringement suit naming US 4,787,467 in the record or in public reporting. The 2004-01-27 execution predates the 2004-04-08 acquisition close, not a complaint. (The Alpha Modus v. Kroger action surfaced in searching asserts US 12,423,718 — unrelated to this patent. IAS's litigation activity involved its fingerprint patents, e.g. IAS v. Digital Persona, D. Utah 2:06-cv-00072, and its RaPower-3 solar matters — not the '467 checkout patent.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding appears in this chain. IAS's negative event was an SEC enforcement action (Litigation Release 15898, filed 1998-09-23, D. Utah), not a bankruptcy, and it occurred five years before the 2004 transfer. The 2004 IAS→Optimal transfer is not documented as a court-supervised sale of a bankruptcy estate.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
The 2004 transfer is a straight commercial divestiture of an entire product line (U-Scan) to a competitor/acquirer, reported contemporaneously by Supermarket News, Progressive Grocer, Dallas Business Journal and Fujitsu press releases. There is no evidence Optimal transferred the patent to an NPE to assert against rivals while keeping the product business — Optimal sold the business and the patent together.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Fujitsu, a commercial operating company. Caveat: the patent is expired (2007-07-31), so it has in practical effect been neutralized regardless of ownership.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — closest available fit, with the caveat that the terminal owner is a commercial operating company, not a defensive aggregator.

Justification: The five recorded entries — Reel 005390/0158 (executed 1990-07-31, Johnson personally → IAS), Reels 014532/0731 and 014699/0079 (executed 2004-01-27, IAS → Optimal Robotics, plus a corrective re-record), and Reels 014725/0218 / 016050/0845 (executed 2004-04-08, Optimal Group → Fujitsu Transaction Solutions) — describe a single founder-to-operating-company assignment followed by one documented commercial M&A divestiture, with no shell LLCs, no NPE assignees, no bankruptcy, no defensive aggregator, and no infringement suit naming this patent. The only mild anomaly is the 2004 clustering of four recordings in ten months, which is fully explained by the Optimal Robotics → Optimal Group name change and the need for a corrective and a duplicate filing. The chain has never left commercial operating hands and the patent expired 2007-07-31; no NPE pattern is supported on this record. Two items should be closed out before this verdict is treated as final: (a) the correspondent of record for each reel is missing from all sources I can reach, and (b) the Fujitsu Transaction Solutions → Fujitsu Frontech North America step implied by Google Patents' "current assignee" field is not documented by any recorded assignment in this chain.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 4787467; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

I'll research each cited reference. Let me start with the target patent itself and the four front-page patent citations.

I have the four front-page citations. Now let me research the additional references cited in the specification and the family (US 3,681,570, US 2,919,851, CH 548073, US 4,373,611, US 4,792,018, FR 2,571,136).

Prior Art Analysis — US 4,787,467

Step 1 — Confirming the target patent (no similar-number substitution)

I searched specifically for the number 4787467 and confirmed a single matching record, not a look-alike:

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4787467 and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4787467. I deliberately excluded the visually similar records that pepper the same search results (e.g., US 4,676,343; US 4,792,018; US 4,373,133) as the target — but note that several of those similar numbers turn out to be prior art cited against the target, which is exactly the second half of this task.

Two flags before the analysis:

1. Date contradiction. The system header for this session says today is 2026-10-01, while the task prompt says April 26, 2026. I am not silently resolving this; I flag it as an inconsistency in the input.
2. Search-tool limit reached. I was able to retrieve abstracts/snippets for the four front-page citations, but my follow-up queries for the family-cited references and for US 3,681,570 were cut off by a step limit. Those entries are grounded in the citation tables of the authoritative full text and in my prior knowledge, and are explicitly marked as needing verification below.

Legal framework: the application was filed 1987-07-31, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. Relevant subsections: § 102(a) (known/patented before the invention), § 102(b) (patented or published more than one year before filing → before 1986-07-31), and § 102(e) (US patent granted on an application filed before the applicant's invention).

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Step 2 — The four front-page "Patent Citations" (examiner-cited)

These are the references actually cited on the face of US 4,787,467.

1. US 3,749,191 — Ashen — "Apparatus and method to facilitate shopping"

• Filing date: 1972-03-23 — Granted: 1973-07-31
• § 102 basis: pre-AIA § 102(b) (granted >1 yr before 1986-07-31).
• Description (from retrieved text): A largely mechanical shopping/recording apparatus — key banks (17, 18), rack bars, pinions, shafts, and a "recorder 7" adapted from the machine of U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,707 (Davis) to itemize a shopper's purchases. It is a customer-operated recording aid; it contains no bar-code reader, no UPC decoding, and no scale/weight-verification loop.
• § 102 anticipation of the claims: None of claims 1–5. It does not disclose the claim 1 "bar code scanner…code containing price and weight," the receiving-basket scale, the computer weight comparison, or the stop-scanning error control. Best characterized as cumulative background showing customer self-recording of purchases (potentially tangential to claim 5's sales-volume concept, but not anticipatory).

2. US 4,373,133 — Clyne — "Method for producing a bill, apparatus for collecting items, and a self-service shop"

• Filing date: 1980-01-03 — Published: 1983-02-08
• § 102 basis: pre-AIA § 102(b).
• Description (from retrieved text): A self-service shop method/apparatus. The customer carries an electronic recording unit with a memory store; each item's identity data is read (light pen/bar code) and price and gross weight are summed, either on inclusion of each item or at completion, by reference to a central data store. At the sales terminal the bag/collection is weighed, and if the measured weight matches the aggregate weight displayed within set limits, a bill is produced (green/red signal); if it does not match, the collection is repriced item by item in the conventional fashion. It expressly contemplates combination with a cash register to "produce a print out giving the identity of each item against its price (and if desired gross weight) and the total price," and notes item-count aids to stock taking and sales analysis.
• § 102 anticipation:
  • Claim 1 — partial / potentially anticipatory only in the preamble sense. Clyne discloses bar-code reading of item identity, a computed aggregate weight, a weigh-scale comparison, and an itemized print-out — but the comparison occurs at the sales terminal after collection, not at a checkout stand with real-time "stop scanning function" error control. Whether this rises to § 102 anticipation of claim 1 turns on whether the "compare-at-stand / stop scanner" limitations are read into claim 1; on the plain claim language, Clyne does not clearly disclose the claim 1 error-control element.
  • Claim 5 — potentially anticipatory. Clyne's central-data-source embodiment that "allows immediate up-dating of stock control systems for the store and provides ready access to sales analysis" is close to claim 5's "computer means for maintaining total sales volume to determine when reordering of products should occur." This is the strongest claim-5 overlap among the cited art.

3. US 4,661,908 — Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd. — "Sales data processing system" ★ closest art

• Filing date: 1984-06-13 — Granted: 1987-04-28
• § 102 basis: pre-AIA § 102(a) and § 102(e) (granted 1987-04-28, three months before the '467 filing).
• Description (from retrieved text): A checkout stand (1) carrying two weighing scales (2 and 3) with an installation-type code scanner (4) between them, plus an electronic cash register (CPU 50, ROM, RAM, printer 62). The customer places all selected articles on scale 2, picks them up one-by-one over the scanner, and places each scanned article on scale 3. The system detects the weight variation on scale 2 (article removed) and on scale 3 (article added) and compares each against the preset weight of the scanned article code; if the values are not equal it executes error processing. The disclosure states this "prevent[s] erroneous registering of sales data due to the customer's incorrect scanning," and that "the need for the cashier to constantly monitor the customer's action is completely eliminated."
• § 102 anticipation:
  • Claim 1 — strong § 102(a)/(e) anticipation candidate. It discloses the checkout stand, the product-code scanner, weighing of the scanned products as they are received (scale 3), computer comparison of the scanned product's weight against the weight measured post-scan, and error processing on mismatch — the functional core of claim 1. The open questions for a strict anticipation finding are (i) whether the code "contain[s] price and weight" (the '908 system reads article code and looks up stored weight data RWD), and (ii) whether "error processing" is literally "stopp[ing] the scanning function" of the scanner.
  • Claim 2 — strong § 102 anticipation candidate. Scale 2 (holding all articles selected for purchase) plus scale 3 (receiving scanned articles) plus the CPU's comparative logic maps directly onto claim 2's "second weighing scales for weighing a product basket containing all of the products to be scanned" and its comparison to prevent substitution.
  • Claims 3–4 — not anticipated. Claim 3's produce scale + customer PLU entry pad and claim 4's television cameras are not disclosed.

4. US 4,676,343 — Checkrobot Inc. — "Self-service distribution system"

• Filing date: 1984-07-09 — Granted: 1987-06-30
• § 102 basis: pre-AIA § 102(a) and § 102(e).
• Description (from retrieved text): An automated checkout for supermarkets using articles bearing UPC labels. Articles pass through an optical scanner tunnel with an optical curtain; a scale determines the actual weight, which is compared to the "anticipated weight obtained from a memory bank based upon the product UPC label identification." Products are conveyed to bagging only if (1) the actual weight corresponds to the anticipated weight and (2) no other adverse event has occurred. "Improper use of system causes interruption or reversal of conveyor operation with requirement that product be removed and re-scanned." The customer is prompted via display, and on completion receives a printed itemized list taken to a cashier. An article surveillance system may detect tagged products bypassing the tunnel. The patent expressly discusses (and criticizes) U.S. Pat. No. 3,836,755 "Self-Service Shop."
• § 102 anticipation:
  • Claim 1 — strong § 102(a)/(e) anticipation candidate. It discloses the checkout station, the UPC bar-code scanner, weighing of the scanned product, the memory-bank weight lookup and comparison, the interruption requiring re-scan (functional equivalent of the claim 1 "error control means… to stop scanning function"), and an itemized print-out. As with the '908 patent, the literal "code containing price and weight" and "stop scanning function of bar scanner" wording is the point of possible distinction.
  • Claim 4 — arguable, not clean. The optical curtain/article surveillance detects articles, but claim 4 specifically recites "television camera monitors… by a cashier"; the '343 optical-curtain and surveillance elements are not television camera monitors. Not anticipatory on the claim language.
  • Claim 2 — no. It describes a single-scale, memory-lookup architecture rather than the two-scale (source-basket + receiving-basket) arrangement.

Rank ordering of the front-page citations

1. US 4,661,908 (Tokyo Electric) — closest; hits both claim 1 and claim 2.
2. US 4,676,343 (Checkrobot) — hits claim 1.
3. US 4,373,133 (Clyne) — strongest against claim 5; partial on claim 1.
4. US 3,749,191 (Ashen) — background only; anticipates nothing.

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Step 3 — The five "Family Cites Families" references

These appear in the family citation tables (they were cited during prosecution of the family, e.g., the EP/JP/CA counterparts), and are not part of the four-item front-page list. I could not run full-text retrieval on all of them before the tool limit; the descriptions are from my prior knowledge and the citation metadata and are flagged accordingly.

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Step 4 — Reference named in the specification but absent from the front page

• US 3,681,570 — cited in the '467 specification ("prior art devices such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,919,851 and 3,681,570 cannot prevent fraudulent substitution…"). This number is not one of the four front-page "Patent Citations," and I was unable to retrieve its text in this session. I am recording it literally as US 3,681,570 and not auto-correcting it to any near neighbor (in particular, not to US 3,836,755 "Self-Service Shop," which is the number US 4,676,343 criticizes — those are different references and must not be merged). Its removal from the front-page list suggests the examiner did not rely on it, consistent with the specification's characterization of it as lacking product-identification means.

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Bottom line

• Most relevant prior art to US 4,787,467 is US 4,661,908 (Tokyo Electric, granted 1987-04-28), which independently discloses a two-scale checkout stand with a scanner between the scales and a computer that compares scanned-product weight against measured weight and runs error processing — the core of claim 1 and the two-scale anti-substitution scheme of claim 2.
• US 4,676,343 (Checkrobot, granted 1987-06-30) is the next-strongest reference against claim 1 (UPC scan → anticipated-weight lookup → conveyor interruption → itemized print-out).
• US 4,792,018 (Checkrobot, filed 1984-07-09, granted 1988-12-20) is a § 102(e)-only reference that also maps closely onto claim 1's reader/weight-sensor/rejector chain.
• US 4,373,133 (Clyne) is the best reference against claim 5 and is relevant to the claim 1 preamble.
• US 3,749,191 (Ashen), US 2,919,851 (Otis), US 4,373,611 (Frederick) are cumulative/background and anticipate no claim.
• CH 548,073 (Gretag) and FR 2,571,136 (Gro Est) are potentially important but were not text-verified in this session and should not be treated as established anticipation until their disclosures are retrieved.

Caveats: (i) full claim charts were not built because I obtained abstracts/snippets, not complete texts, for the citations; (ii) the tool step-limit truncated my verification searches for items B–E and for US 3,681,570; (iii) the previous section's flag about the "p1" token in claim 1 of the source text still stands and is unrelated to any prior-art element; (iv) the assignee/status data are as listed by Google Patents/uspto.report and are not legal conclusions.

I'll research the cited prior-art references to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me research the remaining key references, especially the Checkrobot security patent and the "Self-Service Shop" reference.

Obviousness Analysis — US 4,787,467 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent under review: US 4,787,467 ("the '467 patent"), "Automated self-service checkout system," Johnson, filed 1987‑07‑31, issued 1988‑11‑29.
Scope of analysis: All five claims (1 independent; 2–5 dependent). I rely on the reference set identified in the Citations, Family Cites Families, and Cited By sections of the Google Patents page, cross‑checked against the reference texts I was able to retrieve.

I build on the prior summary rather than repeating the claim breakdown. One note up front: because the '467 patent has an effective filing/priority date of 1987‑07‑31 with no earlier priority claim, the critical date for prior art is that date.

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I. Legal framework applied

Under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), I assess: (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill; and (4) secondary considerations. A claim is obvious where "the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious … to a person having ordinary skill in the art" (§ 103(a)), and where a combination "of familiar elements according to known methods" yields "predictable results," it is likely obvious (KSR, 550 U.S. at 416, 421). A motivation to combine may be found in the references themselves, in the nature of the problem, or in "common sense" market/design pressures — not only in an explicit teaching.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA): By 1987, an ordinarily skilled artisan in this art would have a bachelor's degree in electrical/mechanical engineering or equivalent experience, plus 2–4 years working with point‑of‑sale (POS) systems, UPC/bar‑code scanners, electronic cash registers, and electronic weighing scales. The art was mature: supermarket checkout automation, UPC scanning, and scale/PLU integration were all well established.

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II. Scope and content of the prior art (from the Citations / Family Citations sections)

Observation: All four examiner‑cited references (and the family citations) sit in the identical field and address the identical problem — reducing grocery checkout labor while preventing fraud/shrinkage in an unattended or semi‑attended checkout. This is the classic case where combination is "obvious to try" or plainly prompted by the problem itself.

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III. Claim 1 — element‑by‑element mapping and combinations

Claim 1 requires: (a) checkout stand; (b) bar‑code scanner reading a code with price/weight product info; (c) scales weighing a receiving basket and all scanned products in it; (d) computer means comparing scanned‑product weight to the weight of that product once in the basket to confirm identity; (e) error control that stops the scanner on mismatch; (f) print‑out means for an itemized receipt with individual and total prices.

Combination 1 (primary): US 4,661,908 in view of US 4,676,343

Result: Every element of claim 1 is disclosed; the only arguable gap is (e), where '908 stops registration and '343 stops the routine/conveyor rather than literally the scanner's emission. Combining them supplies the "stop scanning" limitation directly, and halting the scanning function is the most natural implementation of an error‑stop in a scanner‑based system.

Combination 2 (alternative): US 4,676,343 in view of US 4,661,908

Reversing the roles reaches the same place: '343 supplies the scan → look‑up‑anticipated‑weight → weigh → stop‑on‑mismatch → print‑out core; '908 supplies the clean two‑scale, before/after architecture that the '467 claim 1's "receiving basket placed on said scales" and claim 2's source‑basket scale presuppose.

Combination 3: US 4,373,133 (Clyne) as to the cumulative‑weight comparison and receipt

Clyne expressly discloses the concept the '467 patent's abstract treats as inventive: comparing a measured total weight of the customer's collection against a computed aggregate weight within a tolerance, and printing an itemized bill showing each item's price (and gross weight) plus totals. Clyne also teaches making this comparison electronically and automatically, with a red/green go/no‑go signal. This is the '467 patent's "if the weights do not equal, within a predetermined tolerance level, the apparatus sounds a warning alarm."

The one plausible non‑obviousness argument, and why it fails

• "The code must contain price and weight." The references largely look weight up from a stored table keyed to the article ID rather than encoding weight in the symbol. But: (i) Ashen '191 expressly teaches item indicia that include the weight in ounces and the price; and (ii) Clyne '133 expressly contemplates a central data source holding each item's price and gross weight while the code carries only identity — and notes the design trade‑off explicitly. Encoding weight in the symbol vs. storing it in a table was a routine design choice well within the skill level; the '467 specification itself relies on the table approach ("pre‑programmed with the weight of each item"). This distinction cannot carry patentability.
• "Stop scanning" vs. "inhibit registration." Addressed above via '343; also an obvious implementation choice.

Conclusion — Claim 1: Obvious under § 103 over US 4,661,908 in view of US 4,676,343, and alternatively over US 4,676,343 in view of US 4,661,908, optionally further in view of US 4,373,133.

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IV. Claim 2 — added second scale for the source basket + three‑way weight comparison

Claim 2 adds (i) a second scale weighing the basket containing all products to be scanned, and (ii) computer means comparing (a) total weight in that basket, (b) cumulative scanned weight, and (c) weight in the receiving basket.

This is nearly a verbatim description of US 4,661,908. The Tokyo Electric system is expressly built around first scale 2 (items awaiting scan) and second scale 3 (items after scan), with the CPU comparing the weight variation detected on each scale against the pre‑registered article weight — precisely to catch the customer "transferr[ing] … an improper article, or … a plurality of articles of the same type … under the same scanning." The '908 patent states its purpose in the same terms the '467 claim 2 recites: preventing substitution of one article for another after scanning.

• Motivation: explicit in '908's own summary of advantages ("even if the cashier leaves his seat, an erroneous operation by the customer is readily detected") and in '343's object of "adequate safeguards against misuse … through deliberate action."
• Result: predictable — adding the source‑basket scale of '908 to the '343 architecture merely closes the pre‑scan substitution loophole.

Conclusion — Claim 2: Obvious over US 4,661,908 (alone, or in view of US 4,676,343 / US 4,373,133).

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V. Claim 3 — produce scale + customer entry pad + computer printing weight/price on the ticket

Claim 3 adds a produce scale, a customer entry pad for produce bar‑code/PLU information, and computer means to note weight and price on the ticket.

• State of the art: scale/PLU (price‑look‑up) integration with electronic cash registers was standard POS practice by the mid‑1980s; the '908 keyboard itself includes a PLU key ("PLU key 61‑2 for registering single article data"). The '343 system is directed to a customer‑interactive terminal.
• Clyne '133 supplies the price‑per‑weight computation and printing of weight against price.
• Motivation: self‑evident — produce and other bulk items carry no reliable scannable unit UPC, so the only way to complete a self‑service checkout for them is to weigh and manually key the item code. Checkrobot's own later patents (in the Cited By list, e.g., the produce/bulk‑article Checkrobot family) confirm this was the recognized solution.
• Result: predictable aggregation of a known produce scale, a known keypad, and a known printer, all already interfaced to the same controller.

Conclusion — Claim 3: Obvious over US 4,661,908 / US 4,676,343 in view of US 4,373,133 and the general knowledge of scale/PLU POS integration.

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VI. Claim 4 — television camera monitors for monitoring scanning

Claim 4 adds TV camera monitoring of the scanning operation.

• US 4,676,343 itself discloses a "SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM (OPTIONAL)" and a controlled pedestrian pathway/security zone, with the stated purpose of defeating circumvention and deliberate misuse.
• US 4,792,018 (the '343 continuation‑in‑part) elaborates related anti‑fraud sensing (light curtains, EAS detection) directed at the same customer‑substitution problem.
• Motivation: cameras/CCTV were ubiquitous in retail loss prevention by 1987; a POSITA seeking to deter the very substitution the '467 patent set out to defeat would readily add a known surveillance camera to the station.
• Result: predictable — mounting a camera to view the scan area requires no new technology and no unexpected result.

Conclusion — Claim 4: Obvious over US 4,676,343 (surveillance optional element) in view of the well‑known use of CCTV in retail loss prevention.

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VII. Claim 5 — connection to a computer maintaining total sales volume for reordering

Claim 5 adds connecting means to a computer maintaining total sales volume "to determine when reordering of products should occur."

• US 4,373,133 directly and expressly discloses this. Clyne teaches combining the customer unit with a central data source, and states that "the combination of each customer's unit with the central data source also allows immediate up‑dating of stock control systems for the store and provides ready access to sales analysis," that the number of items recorded "can be an aid to stock taking and sales analysis," and that the arrangement is "of particular economic advantage to the shop owner."
• US 4,661,908 likewise maintains a "total sales amount memory (TSAM)" and updates a total sales number.
• Motivation: explicit in Clyne — automating inventory replenishment from POS data reduces out‑of‑stocks and labor.
• Result: predictable — aggregating POS line items into a running sales tally and comparing against a reorder threshold is routine data processing.

Conclusion — Claim 5: Obvious over US 4,373,133 (alone, or in view of US 4,661,908).

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VIII. Why a POSITA would have combined these references (motivation, articulated)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. Every reference is a supermarket/retail checkout system; each pursues unattended or reduced‑labor checkout while defeating substitution fraud. Combining references from a single, narrow art is the paradigm of obviousness.
2. The references teach the combination themselves. '908's entire architecture is the two‑scale scan‑between‑scales verification loop of claims 1–2; '343's core is scan‑look‑up‑weight‑verify‑stop‑on‑mismatch plus a print‑out; Clyne's core is measured‑vs‑computed total weight verification within tolerance plus itemized print‑out plus stock control. There is almost no "gap" to bridge.
3. Explicit design incentives / market pressure. The References' own stated objects — reducing cashier headcount and checkout time, and permitting the cashier to leave the station ('908), providing "adequate safeguards against misuse either inadvertently or through deliberate action" ('343), and reducing "running costs" ('133) — are exactly the '467 patent's stated objects. The '467 patent's own background frames its contribution against these references.
4. Predictable results / no unexpected behavior. Combining a scanner, a scale, a controller and a printer, all of which were already interfaced in the cited references, yields nothing more than the expected sum of known functions. KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."
5. The '467 specification's own characterizations undercut patentability. The '467 patent distinguishes the prior art (US 2,919,851 and US 3,681,570) on the ground that those lacked product identification and defined weighing boundaries. But US 4,676,343 and US 4,661,908 supply precisely those two features — UPC identification and defined before/after weighing scales. The asserted point of novelty was therefore already in the art.

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IX. Secondary considerations — no discernible nexus on this record

The record I can verify does not supply evidence of non‑obviousness with a nexus to the claims:

• Commercial context: the '467 patent was assigned to International Automated Systems, then to Optimal Robotics Corp. (2004), then Fujitsu Transaction Solutions (2004); current assignee listed as Fujitsu Frontech North America. A January 24, 2004 settlement between Optimal Robotics and IAS closed their patent suit — but this is a settlement/press‑release account, and I could not verify underlying docket details from an authoritative court record. Settlement of litigation is not evidence of non‑obviousness, and no nexus between any commercial success and the specific claim elements has been established in the record before me.
• Long‑felt need: if anything cuts the other way — the need for unattended checkout and anti‑substitution security was recognized from 1960 (Otis '851) through 1983 (Clyne) to 1984 (Checkrobot/Tokyo Electric), and the '467 filed in 1987 with no earlier priority.
• Copying/failure of others: not evidenced in the retrieved material.
• Status: the patent expired 2007‑07‑31 (anticipated expiration; "Expired – Lifetime"), which is consistent with the absence of any current enforcement campaign.

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X. Summary of § 103 conclusions

Overall: Each of claims 1–5 would have been obvious to a POSITA as of 1987‑07‑31. Claims 1 and 2 are the strongest invalid over US 4,661,908 and US 4,676,343, both of which issued a few weeks before the '467 filing date and both of which separately disclose the scan‑weight‑verify‑stop‑print loop. The dependent claims merely add known POS features (produce scale/PLU, surveillance camera, inventory data link) that the references themselves suggest.

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XI. Caveats and limits

• Reference texts not fully retrieved: I could not retrieve the full text of CH 548,073 (Gretag), FR 2,571,136 (Gro Est), US 2,919,851 (Otis), or US 3,836,755 ("Self‑Service Shop"). My characterizations of CH 548,073 and FR 2,571,136 are limited to their titles/listing in the Family Citations section; I have not relied on them as primary references.
• US 4,792,018 date caution: it issued after the '467 filing and is usable only under § 102(e) as to subject matter supported by its 1984 parent (Ser. No. 628,913, which issued as US 4,676,343). I therefore rest claims 1–4 on the '343 patent itself, and use '018 only as corroborating context — flagged so it is not mistaken for a primary reference.
• Claim 1 source artifact: as noted previously, the Google Patents rendering of claim 1 contains the stray token "p1" before "print‑out means" — an OCR/formatting artifact, not a claim element. My analysis treats the corresponding element as the print‑out means.
• No CAFC 2026 activity found (per the prior section); consequently this analysis is retrospective/hypothetical. I could not query a docket‑level database directly.
• Standard of proof caveat: this is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal validity opinion; a formal invalidity contention would require full copies of each reference, pin cites to columns/lines, and confirmation of each reference's prior‑art status and effective dates against USPTO records.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4787467A](/patent/US4787467A)/en (claim and citation data); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4661908A](/patent/US4661908A)/en (Tokyo Electric); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4676343A](/patent/US4676343A) (Checkrobot); https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[4373133](/patent/4373133) (Clyne); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US3749191A](/patent/US3749191A)/en (Ashen); https://patents.google.com/patent/US4792018 (Checkrobot CIP); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US3397764](/patent/US3397764).pdf and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/48/e7/90/f1ba03beb25762/US4676343.pdf (reference descriptions).