US 5335071

I'll search for information on this specific patent number.

Let me check for any litigation or CAFC docket references to this patent.

US Patent 5,335,071 — Summary

Important caveat up front: My searches did not return any authoritative USPTO record or any CAFC 2026 docket entry specifically tied to patent number 5,335,071. The litigation/appeal results that came back (e.g., a Samsung semiconductor PTAB appeal reported by IPWatchdog, Contour IP v. GoPro, T-Mobile v. Kaifi) involve different patents and are not this patent. The source that did return a match for "5335071" is FreePatentsOnline (Class 348/424.2) and Google Patents, both showing the same title. I have no evidence of any 2026 CAFC activity on this patent, and given its legal status (expired), such activity would be unusual. The summary below is grounded primarily in the authoritative patent text supplied.

Bibliographic data

Abstract

A motion-adaptive picture-image reproduction circuit that unfolds the luminance ("brightness") signal of a still picture that was recorded in a folded (bandwidth-compressed) form, but passes the luminance signal of a moving picture through unprocessed. The dynamic picture recorded in conventional VCR fashion is reproduced as-is, while a still image recorded with frequency folding is unfolded back to the luminance signal's full band using an unfolding carrier, improving resolution.

Context

The disclosure builds on the applicant's earlier work. It cites U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,262 (Samsung, filed 1990-08-17) for the folding technique that modulates the luminance high-frequency component with a folding carrier (180° phase difference between frames/lines/pixels), and refers to a proposed Korean Patent Application No. 91-10836 for the recording-side motion-adaptive folding. Note that 91-10836 (the cited recording technique) is distinct from KR 91-10774 / KR1019910010774A, which is this patent's own priority application — I am not conflating the two, and I flag this because the numbers are easily confused.

Mechanism (FIG. 1)

An input luminance signal Y is fed to three paths: (10) an unfolding portion, (20) a delay, and (30) a motion detector. The unfolding portion (11) modulates with an unfolding carrier, splits into high band (12) / low band (14), re-emphasizes the high band (13), and re-adds (15). Delay 20 holds the signal for the unfolding portion's processing time. Motion detector 30 outputs a control coefficient K = "1" for motion, "0" for still. Controllable attenuators 40/50 pass the unfolded or delayed signal accordingly, summed at adder 60. The description notes the attenuators "can be replaced by a hard switch," and that K may instead come from a separately recorded motion signal.

Independent claims (plain language)

There are six independent claims: 1, 5, 9, 12, 17, and 19 (22 claims total).

• Claim 1 — Apparatus. An image-quality enhancing VTR apparatus with: unfolding means (produces a full-bandwidth first luminance signal from a folded input); delay means (delayed luminance signal); motion detector means (detects motion from the input luminance signal); first and second controllable attenuators that pass the unfolded and delayed signals respectively depending on the detected motion signal; and an adder combining the attenuator outputs.

• Claim 5 — Motion-adaptive frequency unfolding apparatus. Receives a restricted-bandwidth luminance signal whose high-frequency components are folded over the low-frequency components; delays it; unfolds the high from the low components to produce an unfolded luminance signal; and selectively enables transmission of the delayed vs. unfolded luminance signal based on a motion coefficient indicating picture motion.

• Claim 9 — Method. The method counterpart to claim 5: receiving the folded luminance signal, delaying it, unfolding the high from low components, and selectively transmitting the delayed or unfolded luminance signal based on the motion coefficient.

• Claim 12 — Apparatus. Receives folded luminance signals (high components folded over low within a restricted band by a frequency-folding process); detects a motion coefficient from the folded luminance signals indicating image motion; unfolds the folded luminance; delays the folded luminance; and enables transmission based on the motion coefficient.

• Claim 17 — Method. Receives folded luminance signals; detects a motion coefficient; generates unfolded luminance signals; provides delayed luminance signals; generates first attenuated luminance signals (attenuating the unfolded signals per the motion coefficient) and second attenuated luminance signals (attenuating the delayed signals per the motion coefficient); and produces output luminance signals from those attenuated signals.

• Claim 19 — Apparatus. Detects a motion coefficient from folded luminance signals; generates unfolded luminance signals; delays the folded luminance signals; generates first and second attenuated luminance signals by attenuating the unfolded and delayed signals per the motion coefficient; and generates output luminance signals from them.

Dependent-claim themes

• Claim 4: the delay period equals the unfolding means' processing time (the disclosure stresses that the motion-detection time, unfolding processing time, and delay time "must be the same").
• Claims 2, 7, 10, 16, 18: unfolding sub-steps — modulator (unfolding carrier) → high-pass and low-pass filters → re-emphasis of the high band → adding re-emphasized high band and low band.
• Claims 6, 11, 13, 14: transmission of the delayed signal when the image is moving, and of the unfolded signal when it is still.
• Claims 15, 20, 21: first attenuator passes unfolded signal for still images and blocks it for motion; second attenuator does the reverse.
• Claim 22: output has as full a bandwidth as the pre-folding folded luminance signal.
• Claim 3: the input luminance signal path contains both the folded (motionless) and unfolded (motion) signals.

Prior art cited on the face

US 4,943,848 (Hitachi), US 4,772,961 (Victor/JVC), US 4,621,236 (Field Effects), US 5,063,457 (Canon), US 4,831,463 (Faroudja), US 5,161,030 (Samsung), US 5,113,262 (Samsung), US 5,031,030 (GE), EP 0482945A2 (Samsung); plus non-patent literature (J. British I.R.E., "Reduction of Television Bandwidth by Frequency-Interlace," Feb. 1960; Research Disclosure No. 183, Jul. 1979).

Uncertainty flags

• I could not confirm any 2026 USPTO filing, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC docket involving US 5,335,071. The CAFC 2026 material surfaced in searches concerns unrelated patents. Treat "no CAFC 2026 activity found" as the accurate statement rather than as proof of absence.
• The cited "US 4,621,236" (an NMR electromagnet patent) appears in the citation list; it looks unrelated to video, and I'm reporting it literally as listed rather than characterizing its relevance.
• Legal status ("Expired – Lifetime") is taken from Google Patents, which itself labels status as an assumption, not a legal conclusion.

Would you like me to attempt a more targeted retrieval from the official USPTO Patent Center or the CAFC opinions/orders archive to verify the docket question directly?

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5335071 across patent litigation databases.

Let me try additional search approaches and specific litigation databases.

Let me search litigation-specific databases directly.

Summary of Findings: US Patent 5,335,071 — Litigation Search

Bottom line: I found no evidence of any litigation involving US Patent 5,335,071.

Searches performed

I queried multiple litigation-oriented sources, including:

• Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com) and RPX litigation records
• CourtListener / RECAP (PACER-derived federal dockets)
• Justia federal district court dockets
• General web searches for the patent number in both 5335071 and 5,335,071 formats

None returned any infringement suit, declaratory-judgment action, CAFC appeal, or PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) naming the '071 patent.

Notes on the searches

• The only hits for the string "5335071" outside of the patent itself were false positives — e.g., a CourtListener financial-disclosure investment record ID (/api/rest/v4/investments/5335071/), which has nothing to do with the patent. This is exactly the kind of "similar number" match you asked me to exclude.
• Searches combining the patent with its assignee (Samsung Electronics) and its subject matter (motion-adaptive VCR luminance unfolding) likewise surfaced no case.

Patent context (for reference)

Important cautions / limitations

1. No litigation ≠ litigation never existed. Public dockets (PACER, CourtListener) are not perfectly complete for older cases, and pre-1990s paper filings may not be digitized. However, given the patent is a 1994 VCR signal-processing patent that expired in 2012, there is little economic incentive for late-stage assertion.
2. I cannot represent this as an exhaustive or authoritative litigation clearance. I did not have direct, confirmed access to a live Unified Patents litigation page or a PACER account in this session — the searches I ran were web-search-based and returned no relevant documents. A definitive answer would require:
   • Unified Patents litigation database (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation)
   • PACER docket search across all 94 district courts
   • Docket Navigator or Lex Machina
   • USPTO PTAB proceeding search (for IPR/PGR/CBM)

Recommendation

Based on the information available, there is no known litigation involving US Patent 5,335,071. If you need a litigation-clearance opinion or an FTO analysis, I'd recommend confirming via a direct PACER/Lex Machina/Docket Navigator query, as those are the authoritative sources and my search did not produce confirmed records from them. I want to be explicit that this conclusion rests on absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence.

I'll verify against public PTAB sources before finalizing.

Let me run two more targeted checks.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US Patent 5,335,071

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: zero. The canonical USPTO Open Data Portal ingest for US 5,335,071 returns no inter partes review, no post-grant review, and no covered business method review — no active trials, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, and no institution denials, because no petition has ever been filed. The bottom line for a defendant is unusual and worth stating plainly: this is not a "hardened" patent and not a "killed" patent — it is an unreachable patent. US 5,335,071 issued 1994-08-02, expired 2012-06-12, and its entire enforceable life closed before the AIA trial regime (instituted 2012-09-16) even existed. There is no PTAB record to attack, because there was never a PTAB window in which to attack it.

Per-proceeding detail

(none — no proceeding to report)

I am deliberately not generating proceeding templates with placeholders. There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, or Final Written Decision to report. Any IPR/PGR/CBM number I attached to this patent would be fabricated, and the instruction not to invent proceeding numbers is controlling.

Why the absence is structural, not accidental

This is the analytically important part for a defendant. The null PTAB result is not the usual "nobody bothered to file yet" signal. Three independent statutory gates made AIA trials unavailable against this patent:

The practical consequence: there is no FWD to link, no claim-level disposition to quote, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel anywhere in this patent's history. I want to be explicit that this is a statement about what does not exist — I have no document to quote because no document was ever issued.

One adjacent check worth flagging (not a PTAB proceeding)

Pre-AIA reexamination (ex parte, 35 U.S.C. § 302) is the only PTO-side validity challenge that could have touched this patent during its life, and reexaminations do not appear in the AIA-trial docket counts. The Google Patents record supplied shows no reexamination certificate for US 5,335,071 and no change to any claim. That is consistent with no reexamination having occurred, but I cannot rule out a paper-era filing that was never certificated, and I did not retrieve the full prosecution/file wrapper from USPTO Patent Center in this session. If you need that nailed down, it requires a direct Patent Center / Global Dossier pull for application 07/897,810.

Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim of US 5,335,071 is UNTESTED. All 22 claims — the six independents (1, 5, 9, 12, 17, 19) and all dependents — stand exactly as they issued on 1994-08-02. None have been canceled by the Board, none narrowed by reexamination certificate, and none affirmed as patentable in an AIA trial. Anyone who tells you claims 1–5 are dead, or that the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs, is describing a different patent. Note the specific false-positive risk here: U.S. Patent 8,512,071 B2 was the subject of Luxshare Precision Industry Co. v. Bing Xu Precision Co., IPR2017-01404 / -01492 / -01657 — a completely unrelated patent whose number happens to end in "071." Do not let a keyword search on "071" drag that proceeding into an '071 analysis.

Estoppel: none exists. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted, no petitioner is barred under § 315(e)(2), and there is no privity chain to worry about. In theory a defendant retains the full menu of PTO challenges — IPR, PGR (unavailable here anyway), and ex parte reexamination. In practice, this is cold comfort and largely irrelevant, because the real defense is temporal, not evidentiary.

The controlling fact is expiration, not validity. US 5,335,071 expired 2012-06-12 (20 years from the 1992-06-12 filing date, which controls over the 1994 issue date for a pre-URAA patent). Two consequences dominate any assertion analysis:

1. No prospective infringement. An expired patent cannot be infringed going forward. There is no injunction theory and no ongoing royalty theory.
2. Damages are time-barred. Under 35 U.S.C. § 286 there is a six-year lookback from the date suit is filed. With today being 2026-10-01, the last date on which any actionable pre-expiration infringement could have been sued on was approximately 2018-06-12. The damages window has been closed for roughly eight years. Unless there is a tolling agreement, a covenant, or a bankruptcy stay I have not seen, a demand letter asserting this patent today is not a litigation threat — it is a marketing document.

Pattern signals: no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain. No petitioner has filed multiple IPRs — no petitioner has filed one. The family shows the same profile: the cited Samsung sibling references (US 5,113,262, US 5,163,030, EP 0482945A2) and the related "Similar Documents" entries (e.g., US 5,303,059, "Motion adaptive frequency folding method and circuit") are likewise products of Samsung's early-1990s VCR-resolution program, a portfolio that was never a modern assertion vehicle. This is a 1990s consumer-electronics patent that quietly aged out.

Recommended next steps

Since there is no FWD and no proceeding to cite, the recommendations invert from the usual playbook:

1. Do not commission an IPR. There is no live claim set to invalidate and no ongoing royalty exposure to reduce. An IPR on an expired patent is a way to spend $300k+ to obtain a piece of paper with no commercial effect. If a supplier or indemnitor insists on a validity opinion, an invalidity analysis in opinion form (with the cited art: Faroudja US 4,831,463, Hitachi US 4,943,848, Canon US 5,063,457, GE US 5,031,030, plus the J. British I.R.E. Feb. 1960 and Research Disclosure No. 183 (Jul. 1979) references) is far cheaper and sufficient.
2. Lead with the expiration/§ 286 argument, not invalidity. For a demand letter response, the primary rebuttal is: expired 2012-06-12; § 286 bars all pre-expiration claims as of ~2018; § 271 requires an unexpired patent. Invalidity is the fallback, not the opener.
3. Verify the wrapper before relying on "no reexamination." Pull application 07/897,810 in USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier and confirm no reexamination certificate, no disclaimer under 35 U.S.C. § 253, and no terminal disclaimer affecting enforceability of the full claim set. This is the one open item in the file that could theoretically change the picture, and it is a five-minute check.
4. Confirm the PTAB null directly, once, and document it. Run the patent number through the USPTO PTAB E2E / PTAB Search portal (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and the USPTO Open Data Portal API, and save the empty result set with a timestamp. A contemporaneous negative search result has value in a bad-faith-assertion or fee-shifting posture — see the Netlist v. Micron bad-faith complaint (D. Idaho) surfacing in search, where a party's failure to account for known PTAB outcomes was itself the theory of liability. The inverse applies here: a documented absence of any PTAB history is useful proof that no reasonable pre-suit investigation occurred.
5. Check the foreign family for completeness, not for leverage. JP2558412B2, KR930010356B1, and DE4221020C2 are the equivalents. These are jurisdictionally irrelevant to a U.S. assertion, but confirming their status costs little if the demand letter mentions a "global portfolio."

Nothing to link to. There is no USPTO PTAB Final Written Decision for this patent and no Federal Circuit appeal from one, so I am not supplying a CourtListener or PTAB E2E opinion URL — none exists. The only authoritative records are the patent itself (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5335071/en) and the empty PTAB result set. If a demand letter to you cites a PTAB decision involving "5335071," that citation is false; ask the sender for the proceeding number and treat the failure to produce one as dispositive of the letter's credibility.

I'll investigate the assignment record for US 5,335,071, starting with the recorded reel/frame from the patent's legal events and verifying against USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

Let me try to retrieve the actual recorded assignment document (reel 006156 / frame 0023) and check for any later recordings.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 5,335,071

Critical sourcing note up front: I was unable to complete a live, authenticated query of the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or the legacy reel/frame document viewer in this session — my retrieval attempts returned unrelated assignment PDFs (Samsung semiconductor filings, IV/Parallel Networks/Uniloc records, etc.) and no page for this patent. The reel/frame below is taken from the Google Patents legal-events extract supplied in the authoritative patent text, which cites reel/frame directly. I could not independently verify it against the Assignment Center, and I could not retrieve the PTO-1595 cover sheet, so the correspondent of record is not determinable from the data I have. Treat the reel/frame as reported-not-verified. This limitation directly caps the confidence of the "Repeat correspondent" signal below.

Inventors

Pattern noted: There is only one inventor, so the "all inventors departed within 12 months" fire-sale tell is structurally inapplicable. The meaningful observation is the opposite of a fire-sale tell: the assignment was executed 10 days before the US filing and roughly a month before the KR priority date's anniversary window — i.e., captured at prosecution time, not later divested. No inventor-attrition signal.

Original assignee

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (a corporation of the Republic of Korea), recorded as assignee at grant. This is the entity named on the face of the issued patent and in the sole recorded assignment.

• Products embodying the claims: Yes — this is a VCR luminance-signal reproduction circuit (motion-adaptive frequency unfolding for videotape recording). Samsung was, at the 1991–1994 priority/filing window, a mass manufacturer of VCRs and video signal-processing ICs. The patent's own specification describes a "video cassette recorder (VCR)" reproduction path and cites the applicant's own earlier co-pending Samsung filings (US 5,113,262; EP 0482945) as the recording-side counterpart. This is a core operating-company product patent, not a paper asset.
• Primary line of business: Consumer electronics / semiconductors — an operating manufacturer.
• Current status: Operating (publicly traded, SEC-reporting). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition. Crucially, Samsung's ownership here is not an artifact of the 1997 IMF-crisis Korean corporate restructurings or any Chapter 7/11 — the chain shows no divestiture at all.

Assignment timeline

Only one assignment is recorded against this patent. The remaining entries in the Google Patents legal-events feed are maintenance-fee payments and the anticipated-expiration entry, which are not conveyances and are listed for completeness only.

• 1992-06-02 (executed) / recorded 1992-06-12 — Reel 006156 / Frame 0023
  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: SHIN, HYUN-KU (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., a corporation of the Republic of Korea
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from available data. The assignment was filed by Samsung-side counsel (Samsung is the assignee and the instrument is a standard employee invention-assignment, typically recorded by the company's outside US prosecution firm rather than the inventor). I could not retrieve the PTO-1595 cover sheet, so I decline to name an attorney or firm. No recurrence flagged — I have no correspondent identification to compare across the chain, and this patent family shows no other US recording in which to test recurrence.
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-corporate assignment at prosecution — the standard "company takes title before/at filing" step, not an acquisition, fire-sale, securitization, or transfer-to-asserter.

Non-conveyance events (Google Patents legal events, for chronology only):

The plain finding: after the original inventor-to-Samsung assignment, this patent was never assigned again. Samsung paid all three maintenance fees itself and held title to expiry. If the Assignment Center shows only reel 006156/0023 and no subsequent conveyance, that is the complete chain and it terminates at the original operating-company assignee.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5335071
    1991 : Korean priority application filed
    1992 : US application filed June 12
         : Inventor assigns to Samsung
    1994 : Patent issued to Samsung
    2012 : Patent expires held by Samsung

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Each signal assessed against the concrete record; absence of a follow-on recording is itself the dispositive fact for most of these.

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at the original operating company. There is no assignment to any "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" entity. The only recorded assignee is Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (reel 006156/0023). No single-purpose LLC appears.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither the original assignor (Shin) nor the assignee (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.) matches any entity on the public NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities). No Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff appears anywhere in this chain. Samsung is a practicing manufacturer, the inverse of an asserter.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT / UNVERIFIABLE. This signal requires a recurring correspondent; with one recorded assignment and no correspondent identification recovered, there is nothing to recur. The signal is not present on the record and cannot be established. I flag this as a data gap rather than an affirmative finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. No chained transfers exist. A cascade requires ≥2 consecutive assignments, ideally within 24 months; the chain contains exactly one transfer, executed 1992-06-02, with no successor assignment at any later date.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. There is no infringement suit involving this patent (per my prior litigation search, no district-court, CAFC, PTAB, or ITC proceeding names US 5,335,071). With no suit, there is no pre-suit assignment to test. The single assignment predates the patent's own grant by two years and cannot be a litigation-setup transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Samsung Electronics did not file for bankruptcy or reorganization. No patent-sale proceeding (the Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid pattern) is implicated. Title never left Samsung.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. Privateering requires an operating company to convey the patent to an NPE that then asserts on its behalf. There is no NPE in this chain and no assertion by anyone. Samsung retained title through expiry.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Samsung. (Note: a patent merely cited by an NPE-family patent is not a transfer — none of the "Cited By" documents contain a conveyance of the '071 patent.)

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

Per the verdict criteria, a chain consisting solely of the initial inventor-to-company assignment falls squarely in "Insufficient data," and here that label is descriptive rather than a hedge: the sole recorded conveyance is Hyun-ku Shin → Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., executed 1992-06-02, recorded 1992-06-12, reel 006156/0023, and Samsung paid every maintenance fee (1998-02-02, 2002-01-10, 2006-01-06) and held title through the 2012-06-12 expiry.

This is the benign explanation for "Insufficient data": there is no NPE chain to reconstruct because none existed — not because records are missing. No shell entity, no known asserter, no cascade, no pre-litigation transfer, no bankruptcy sale, no privateering, no defensive-aggregator terminus. The one ownership event is a routine pre-filing corporate capture of an employee invention by a practicing manufacturer, and the reason it never moved again is that the patent predates the modern patent-assertion economy and covered a consumer format (analog VCR) that Samsung implemented in its own products.

Caveat / verification path: Because I could not execute a live Assignment Center query and could not recover the PTO-1595 cover sheet, I have not independently confirmed that reel 006156/0023 is the only recording. If you are relying on this for an ownership or standing opinion, verify directly at the USPTO Assignment Center by searching patent number 5335071 (same underlying records at assignment.uspto.gov), and pull the frame image to capture the correspondent of record — the one field I could not populate. That single field is the only open item capable of changing signal #3 from "unverifiable" to a definite call; nothing else in the record is in doubt.

I'll research the specific patent and each of its cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis: US Patent 5,335,071

1. Patent confirmed (exact number, no similar-number substitution)

I verified the record directly on the USPTO-hosted patent image and Google Patents:

• US 5,335,071 A — "Apparatus for enhancing image quality of a videotape recorder using motion adaptive method"
• PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4a/f9/16/12b880decf5945/US5335071.pdf
• Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5335071
• App. No. 07/897,810; filed 1992-06-12; granted 1994-08-02; priority 1991-06-27 (KR 1019910010774A)
• Inventor Hyun-ku Shin; assignee Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

I deliberately excluded similar-number false positives — e.g., the CourtListener financial-disclosure record ID 5335071, the unrelated EP/JP siblings, and the unrelated "NMR electromagnet" entry (which is nonetheless literally listed among this patent's own citations, so it is reported below as-is).

2. Methodological limitation (stated up front)

I confirmed the '071 patent text and retrieved full/partial text for seven of the nine patent citations plus both non-patent items. I hit a tool-call limit before retrieving full text for US 5,031,030, US 5,161,030 (full claims only), EP 0 482 945 A2, and US 4,621,236. For those I rely on titles, dates, and partial text; confidence is correspondingly lower, and I flag it per reference.

3. The cited references — full citations and dates

4. Per-reference description and §102 exposure

4.1 US 4,943,848 — Hitachi (Fukinuki) — most "background-relevant"

Description: Extends-definition TV transmission. On the send side a wide-band luminance signal is frequency-shifted and inserted into a vacant spectrum of a standard TV signal to maintain backward compatibility. The reference (via its EP priority sibling EP 0 120 390) expressly addresses motion: high-band components are frequency-converted as "high resolution information," and it identifies that a moving picture is degraded because low-band luminance is erroneously regenerated — motivating motion-controlled processing.
§102 exposure: Low. It is a transmission-side, frequency-shift/interleave system, not a VCR reproduction circuit that unfolds a folded luminance signal. It discloses neither the "controllable attenuator selecting between a delayed raw signal and an unfolded signal," nor an unfolding modulator driven by an unfolding carrier. It is §103-level background art for the motivation to make luminance processing motion-adaptive. Does not anticipate claims 1, 5, 9, 12, 17, or 19.

4.2 US 4,772,961 — JVC (Ichinoi) — reproducing apparatus with "folded-back alias"

Description: A VTR plays back with a main and an auxiliary head simultaneously reproducing two video signals ~one field apart; a re-sampling/conversion circuit produces a progressively scanned frame. The spec expressly discusses a "folded-back alias component" and combining non-interlaced scanning with frequency-band compression obtained by re-sampling.
§102 exposure: Low–moderate on the "unfolding/aliasing" concept, essentially nil on the claimed combination. It reconstructs full bandwidth by multi-head re-sampling, not by modulating a folded band with an unfolding carrier and re-emphasizing a separated high band. Critically it has no motion detector and no motion-coefficient-controlled selection between a delayed signal and an unfolded signal. Does not anticipate any independent claim.

4.3 US 4,621,236 — Field Effects, Inc. — NMR electromagnet

Description: As titled and as literally listed on the '071 face, this is a cylindrical electromagnet for NMR imaging — an unrelated technology.
§102 exposure: None. It cannot anticipate or suggest any video-signal claim. (Reported literally because the operating rules require interpreting identifiers as listed; its presence in the citation list should not be read as a relevance endorsement.)

4.4 US 5,063,457 — Canon (Ishikawa et al.) — recording w/ frequency interleave

Description: Records a wide-band video signal by FM-modulating the low-band luminance, multiplexing the high-band luminance with the chrominance signal so their spectra interleave, and further multiplexing with the FM'd low band. Directed at EDTV/ED-system recording and interchangeability.
§102 exposure: Low. Same class of "fold/interleave luminance into restricted band" art as US 5,113,262 and US 4,831,463, but a recording apparatus. No reproduction-side unfolding carrier, no delay-equals-processing-time, no motion-coefficient switching. Relevant to claim 2/7/10/16/18 only as evidence that band-splitting (HPF/LPF) and re-emphasis were known; not anticipatory.

4.5 US 4,831,463 — Faroudja — fold/unfold luminance

Description: Folds high-frequency luminance into low/mid-band gaps by sub-Nyquist sampling + comb filtering through a bandwidth-limited medium, then unfolds at playback by a process generally the inverse of folding to recover a full-bandwidth likeness. Discusses MUSE and the Hitachi/Fukinuki motion-adaptive processing proposal.
§102 exposure: Moderate — the closest single reference on the "unfolding" element. It discloses the fold-then-unfold concept and full-bandwidth recovery. However, it lacks: (i) a motion detector producing a coefficient, and (ii) selective transmission between the delayed folded signal and the unfolded signal via first/second controllable attenuators feeding an adder. The motion-adaptive switch is the gravamen of every independent claim here. Potentially exposes only claim-scope elements (unfolding), not complete claims.

4.6 US 5,161,030 — Samsung — motion-adaptive spectrum folding (leading §102 candidate)

Description (from retrieved claims): A VTR picture-quality circuit with a luminance/chrominance separator, a motion-adaptive pre-filter producing an adaptively filtered luminance signal based on still-vs-moving image, a folding-carrier generator, a spectrum folding circuit, and — importantly — a playback path (claim 9) comprising: high-pass filter on the played-back signal; FM demodulator; unfolding carrier generator; spectrum unfolding circuit separating the adaptively filtered luminance signal and the folded signal; and a motion-adaptive post-filter that receives the separated signals, attenuates the separated folded signal, and restores high-frequency components to output a restored luminance signal. Claims 4–5 recite the motion coefficient "K" = 1 for motion and 0 for still.
§102 exposure — highest of the set, but still not a clean anticipation. This is a co-pending, same-assignee, same-field application that combines frequency folding/unfolding with a motion coefficient and a motion-adaptive post-filter on the reproduction side. That overlaps the purpose and mechanism of '071's claims 5, 9, 12, 17, 19. However, its reproduction path attenuates the folded component in a filter rather than providing (a) a delay means whose delay equals the unfolding processing time and (b) first and second controllable attenuators that selectively pass the delayed raw luminance signal vs. the unfolded luminance signal into an adder. On the text I retrieved, US 5,161,030 therefore appears to be §103 art (obviousness over it, optionally with Faroudja), not a §102 anticipation — but it is the single most dangerous reference and warrants a full-text, limitation-by-limitation chart.
Confidence caveat: I obtained its claim text but not its complete specification before the tool limit.

4.7 US 5,113,262 — Samsung — the folding "parent"

Description: The reference the '071 specification itself credits (filed 1990-08-17) for recording a full-bandwidth TV signal on a restricted-bandwidth medium by folding the luminance high-frequency component onto the low-frequency component, with the folding carrier imposing a 180° phase difference between frames, scan lines, and pixels; playback demodulates with an unfolding carrier of the same phase/frequency.
§102 exposure: Low for anticipation, high as §103 base. It supplies the folding/unfolding carrier teaching (claims 2, 7, 10, 16, 18 elements) but is a recording system and, per the '071 background section, applies folding regardless of motion — the very deficiency '071 purports to cure. Combining US 5,113,262 with a motion detector would be the classic §103 attack.

4.8 US 5,031,030 — General Electric — "Video signal encoded with additional detail information"

Description (limited confidence): Encoding/embedding additional picture-detail information into a video signal. I could not retrieve full text.
§102 exposure: Low. On its face an encoding reference; no reproduction-side unfolding-and-selective-transmission architecture. Confidence: low — full text not verified.

4.9 EP 0 482 945 A2 — Samsung — de-emphasis/re-emphasis of high frequencies

Description (limited confidence): Deals with de-emphasis on recording and re-emphasis on reproduction of high frequencies in a video signal. This maps to the re-emphasis means limitation of claims 2, 7, 10, 16, 18 ("recovering a deemphasis signal from said high-band brightness signal... without affecting the low-band brightness signal").
§102 exposure: Low as anticipation; relevant as §103 art on the re-emphasis sub-limitation. Timing note: published 1992-04-29, i.e., after the '071 KR priority (1991-06-27) but before the '071 US filing (1992-06-12), so its §102(a)/(e) status depends on the invention date actually established. Confidence: low — full text not verified.

4.10 Non-patent literature

*N1 — J. British I.R.E., "Reduction of Television Bandwidth by Frequency-Interlace," Feb. 1960, pp. 127–136.* Foundational frequency-interlace/bandwidth-compression publication. §102 exposure: Low — establishes the concept of interleaving/folding spectra, nothing about motion-adaptive unfolding or attenuator selection. Strong §102(b) printed publication status.
N2 — Research Disclosure No. 183, "Video Signal Bandwidth Compression," Jul. 1979, pp. 382–384. Anonymous disclosure on bandwidth compression. §102 exposure: Low, same reasoning; §102(b) printed publication.

5. Bottom line on the prior art

• Most relevant reference overall: US 5,161,030 (Samsung) — it is the only cited item that combines motion-adaptive processing with fold/unfold luminance on the reproduction side. It is the reference most likely to support an obviousness (§103) rejection, and the only plausible partial §102 reference for the broadest independent claims (5, 9, 12, 17, 19), subject to the full-text check flagged above.
• Second tier (unfolding / carrier / band-split / re-emphasis elements): US 4,831,463 (Faroudja), US 5,113,262, US 5,063,457, EP 0 482 945 A2 — these support §103 combination attacks against claims 2, 7, 10, 16, 18 (unfolding sub-steps) and claims 4, 14, 22 (full-bandwidth restoration).
• Background / motivation only: US 4,943,848, US 4,772,961, US 5,031,030, N1, N2.
• Not relevant: US 4,621,236 (NMR electromagnet).
• No cited reference, on the record retrieved, discloses the complete combination of an unfolding means + a delay means (delay = unfolding processing time) + a motion detector + first/second controllable attenuators selectively feeding an adder. The "selective transmission between delayed and unfolded luminance signals under a motion coefficient" is the element that defeats clean §102 anticipation for claims 1, 5, 9, 12, 17, and 19, and it is precisely where the examiner's citation list is thin.

6. Uncertainty flags (required)

1. Verification gaps: Full text not retrieved for US 5,031,030, EP 0 482 945 A2, US 4,621,236, and complete specification for US 5,161,030. Conclusions touching those four are provisional.
2. §102 vs §103: Where I say a reference "does not anticipate," that is not a conclusion that the claims are valid over it — most of these are ordinary §103 combination material.
3. No litigation/family inference drawn here. Per the earlier sections, no litigation was found; this analysis is prior-art-only and does not rely on that absence.
4. Dates are taken from the patent face / Google Patents / Espacenet as retrieved; where only a priority date was found I said so rather than inventing a filing date.

I'll ground the reference characterizations before analyzing. Let me verify the key cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,335,071 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. Per instruction, this analysis uses the references listed in the Prior Art (Citations) section of the US 5,335,071 page: US 4,943,848; US 4,772,961; US 4,621,236; US 5,063,457; US 4,831,463; US 5,161,030; US 5,113,262; US 5,031,030; EP 0 482 945 A2; plus the two non-patent items (Howson, J. Brit. I.R.E., Feb. 1960, pp. 127–136; Research Disclosure No. 183, Jul. 1979, pp. 382–384). I verified the substance of the four most load-bearing references (US 5,113,262; US 5,161,030; US 4,831,463; EP 0 482 945) against their published texts rather than relying on titles alone.

A. Framework

The application was filed 1992‑06‑12 and issued 1994‑08‑02, so pre‑AIA § 103 governs. The inquiry is the Graham v. John Deere sequence — scope/content of the prior art, differences between art and claims, PHOSITA level, and secondary considerations — with KSR Int'l v. Teleflex supplying the rationales (predictable combination of known elements, design incentive, "two ways" / obvious substitution, market/technical demand). A teaching, suggestion, or motivation need not appear in the references themselves; it may come from the art, the problem to be solved, or common sense.

B. Level of ordinary skill

A POSITA here is an engineer (B.S.E.E. or equivalent) with roughly 2–4 years in consumer video signal processing, familiar with: (i) NTSC spectrum interleaving/"Fukinuki hole" folding, (ii) comb filters (frame/line/pixel delay lines), (iii) adaptive/soft switching under a motion coefficient, and (iv) the requirement of equalizing delays across parallel signal paths. Every element of the claims falls within this skill set.

C. The prior art of record — content and prior‑art dates

D. The gap between the claims and the art

The '071 claims require, in substance:

1. an unfolding means producing a full‑band first luminance signal;
2. a delay means producing a delayed copy of the input (i.e., a bypass path);
3. a motion detector / motion coefficient;
4. first and second controllable attenuators that pass the unfolded and delayed signals respectively under that coefficient; and
5. an adder.

The references collectively disclose (1), (3), (4) and (5) nearly verbatim (see § E). The only genuine point of novelty is item (2) — the bypass/soft‑switch between "unfolded" and "not unfolded" as a function of motion, rather than '262's motion‑controlled selection between two filtered versions of the already‑unfolded signal (temporal LPF 1004 vs. adaptive spatial LPF 1006). That is a narrow difference of degree, not of kind, and it is squarely within the "two ways to solve the problem" and "obvious substitution of one known element for another" rationales.

E. Primary combinations — element‑by‑element

Combined teaching to which I would point (principal rejection)

Combination 1: US 5,161,030 + US 5,113,262 + EP 0 482 945, optionally corroborated by US 4,831,463 and the Howson NPL for the underlying folding/unfolding principle.

Claim 1

Claim 5 / Claim 9 (apparatus / method with "motion coefficient") — US 5,161,030 is the closest single teaching: it uses a coefficient K (expressly the letter "K," per '030's block 34) with K = 1 for a motion image and K = 0 for a still image ('030 claims 4–5), gating two luminance paths into a common adder. Substituting that coefficient as the control for an unfold/bypass choice is a predictable substitution of a known control for a known purpose in the same circuit.

Claim 12 (detect motion coefficient from the folded luminance signals, then unfold + delay + enable) — '030's motion derivation (frame‑difference comb) is disclosed in the same luminance channel context; '262 shows motion detection used in the playback decoder to control an unfolding circuit. The "delay the folded luminance" element is the routine equalizing delay of '262.

Claims 17 / 19 (first and second attenuated luminance signals, then output) — Literally the '030 architecture: block 34 produces K → two gain‑control (attenuator) circuits 28/32 scale two luminance signals → adder 29 forms the output. Also '262 FIG. 2: attenuators 82/92 scale two paths into adder 84.

Corroborating combination 2 (for claim 12's "restricted bandwidth" and claim 22's "as full a bandwidth")

US 5,113,262 + US 5,161,030 alone establish that the playback decoder is expected to regenerate the full‑bandwidth luminance signal from the folded signal (both abstracts say so), which meets claim 22.

F. Dependent claims

G. Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same assignee. US 5,113,262, US 5,161,030, EP 0 482 945 and the '071 are all Samsung Electronics (Korea) work on the identical problem: recording full‑band luminance through a limited‑bandwidth VCR channel by folding, without breaking backward compatibility. Common assignee/research program is a recognized source of motivation.
2. Complementary, expressly‑paired operations. The record‑side references state that the playback side must unfold adaptively. '262: "an unfolding circuit extracts the luminance high frequencies … and adaptively regenerates the full bandwidth luminance signal in response to the motion signal." '030: "the motion adaptive frequency spectrum unfolding method for restoring to original signal during playback." The '071's own Background concedes this record/playback pairing.
3. The record signal itself dictates the playback behavior. Because folding is applied only to still areas (KR 91‑10836 / '030 / '262), the reproduced luminance is already a mixture of folded (still) and unfolded (motion) content. A POSITA optimizing for resolution would inevitably conclude: unfold the still areas, and do not unfold the motion areas (unfolding moving content is pointless and injects artifacts). That is the claimed invention, and it is a design incentive, not an inventive leap.
4. Predictable combination of known elements. Unfolder ('262), motion‑coefficient generator ('030 block 34), dual attenuators + adder ('030 FIG. 4; '262 FIG. 2), and equalizing delay (routine) — each performing its known function, with no asserted and no expected synergy.
5. "Two ways" / obvious substitution. '262 already positions two programmable attenuators feeding an adder in its playback unfolding path, and separately uses a motion‑controlled soft switch in that same circuit. Controlling the existing attenuator pair with the existing motion coefficient instead of the recorded user code is the substitution of one known control for another in an otherwise unchanged circuit.

H. The patentee's best nonobviousness arguments — and why they likely fail

• "'262 teaches always unfolding, then adaptively filtering; it teaches away from bypassing the unfolder." This is the strongest argument, and it is the only real distinction. But '262's motion‑controlled soft switch (98) operates on which filtered version of the unfolded signal to use; it is a different solution to a different problem (suppressing the folding‑carrier image). A reference is not "teaching away" merely because it discloses an alternative to the claimed approach; a disclosure of one acceptable way does not foreclose a second. Moreover, '262 itself uses a motion signal to select between two signal paths — the leap to selecting between "unfolded" and "bypass" is minimal.
• "The references are only § 102(e) art." True for '262 and '030 (granted after the '071 priority date). That affects which subsection applies but not whether they may be combined for § 103. (See the §103(c) caveat in § I.)
• Secondary considerations. None are of record. The patent expired 2012‑06‑12, and no litigation or PTAB proceeding involving it is known (per the earlier litigation section). Absent nexus‑bearing evidence of unexpected results, commercial success, or long‑felt need, this factor does not rebut the prima facie case.

I. Caveats and uncertainties (stated explicitly)

1. EP 0 482 945 date problem. EP '945 published 1992‑04‑29, i.e. after the '071's 1991‑06‑27 priority date. As a printed publication it is therefore not § 102(a)/(b) art against the '071. It can only be prior art through a US filing (its priority US application 604,493 of 1990‑10‑26 and/or a granted US patent therefrom) under pre‑AIA § 102(e) — and the '071 face cites the EP publication, not the US case. I flag this rather than assume it away. Note also that the related EP 0 482 666 ("…utilizing a recorded control signal") is not on the '071 face and I do not rely on it.
2. Common ownership and § 103(c). Pre‑AIA § 103(c), which disqualifies commonly owned 102(e)/(f)/(g) art, was enacted in 1999 — after the '071 was filed and issued — so it does not aid the patentee on the law in force for this patent. If re‑examined today the analysis would be more nuanced. I state this because it materially affects the treatment of '262 and '030.
3. Verification level. I confirmed the substance of '262, '030, '463 and EP '945. My characterization of US 4,943,848, US 4,772,961, US 5,063,457, US 5,031,030 and the two NPL items is based on their titles/lineage and the description of them in the related Samsung literature; I did not open each one, and I do not assign them a decisive role.
4. US 4,621,236 is an NMR electromagnet patent. I am reporting it literally, as listed; it appears to have no bearing on luminance folding and I do not use it.
5. "Similar Documents"/"Cited By" lists are not prior art. US 5,303,059 ("Motion adaptive frequency folding method and circuit," 1994‑04‑12) and the US "Cited By" items (US 5,523,850; US 5,717,627; US 5,731,689) postdate the '071 priority date on their faces and are not available as § 102 art without a filing‑date check. Likewise, KR 930008717B1 ("Dynamic adaptive brightness control apparatus and method") appears to be a Samsung sibling, not prior art.

J. Conclusion

On the references of record, claims 1, 5, 9, 12, 17 and 19 would have been obvious under § 103 over US 5,161,030 in view of US 5,113,262, further in view of EP 0 482 945 for the re‑emphasis element, with US 4,831,463, US 5,031,030 and the Howson reference supplying the folding/unfolding principle. Dependent claims 2, 7, 10, 16 and 18 fall with EP '945 + '262; claims 4 and 22 with routine design and '262/'030's full‑bandwidth reconstruction; claims 6, 11, 13–15, 20 and 21 with '030's K = 1/K = 0 motion coefficient and complementary gain paths; and claim 3 adds only a characterization of the signal produced by the admitted prior art.

The single genuine difference — using the motion coefficient to select a bypass (delayed) path instead of unfolding, rather than to select between two post‑unfolding filters — is a predictable, design‑incentive‑driven substitution in a circuit that already contained both the two‑attenuator‑plus‑adder architecture ('262 FIG. 2) and the motion‑controlled switch ('262 soft switch 98; '030 gain‑control circuits 28/32). I would expect a § 103 rejection to be sustainable, subject to the two date/ownership caveats in § I.