US 5572653

I'll search for authoritative information on US 5,572,653, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for any litigation or 2026 appellate activity involving this patent and its owner.

US 5,572,653 — Verified Summary

Important caveat up front: I searched for both USPTO records and 2026 CAFC dockets specifically for 5,572,653. I found no 2026 CAFC docket or appellate activity involving this patent, and the 2026 CAFC results returned by search were unrelated (e.g., ironSource v. Digital Turbine, U.S. 11,157,256; a UPC Munich decision on EP 3 678 321). I also found no post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/reexam) for 5,572,653. Treat "no 2026 CAFC activity" as "none found," not as a certified negative.

Bibliographic data (from the patent document itself)

Prosecution/assignment history: Filed 1994-01-04 by REST Manufacturing, Inc.; assigned to INFRAREST, LLC (1997-01-21); then to ELECTRONIC ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS INNOVATORS, INC. D/B/A EASI, INC. (1998-05-15).

Continuity: This is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 08/083,389 (filed 1993-06-28, abandoned), itself a continuation of 07/753,004 (1991-08-23, abandoned), continuation of 07/427,896 (1989-10-24, abandoned), which was a CIP of 07/352,553 (1989-05-16, abandoned). A continuation, Ser. No. 08/740,859, issued as US 5,995,015. Foreign family: WO1995019005A1, EP0753175B1, CA2187764C, AU7204094A, DE69431213T2, ES2187526T3.

Abstract (as issued)

A system for communicating between a store computer and locations in the aisles of a retail facility. A hard wired grid connects the store computer to a plurality of transceivers located in zones throughout the facility and the transceivers establish a wireless link to the locations. One embodiment is a product information display system in which the locations are fixed information display terminals, such as price displaying shelf tags. Another embodiment is an item tracking system, in which the locations are movable shopping carts or baskets.

Independent claim 1 — plain language

Claim 1 is the only independent claim. It covers an "improved energy efficient, electronic merchandise price display system" having at least two levels of sequential addressability, for a retail store with multiple point-of-purchase (POP) locations, comprising:

1. Battery-powered display tags — a plurality of individually addressable tags mounted at the respective merchandise locations. Each tag is normally in a low-power (low-gain) mode and is temporarily switched to a high-power mode upon receiving an infrared signal.
2. A store platform computer coordinating price, product, and location data.
3. POS terminals linked to the computer.
4. Individually addressable infrared transmitters — a plurality distributed above the store with different fields of view that collectively cover the store. Each has a unique address; the number of transmitters is less than the number of display tags, and each transmitter serves multiple tags.
5. Hardwired coupling from the computer to the transmitters, carrying a signal with a first field = transmitter address and a second field = price information plus a tag address.
6. Control means so that only the transmitter whose address appears in the first field actually radiates the IR signal containing the second field (this is the first addressing "level").
7. Means to switch the selected tags into the high-power mode upon receiving the IR signal.
8. Display means at a tag that shows the price from the second field only if the tag address in the second field matches (the second addressing "level").

In short: a two-tier addressed IR paging architecture for battery shelf tags, where the transmitter is addressed first (so the store isn't flooded with IR and only nearby tags wake up), then the tag is addressed within the payload.

Dependent claims (all depend on claim 1):

• Claim 2 — the plurality of infrared transceivers transmit a binary infrared signal. (Note: claim 1 recites "transmitters," while claim 2 recites "transceivers"; the specification says the grid transceivers both transmit and receive. I flag this as an antecedent-wording quirk in the claim set, not an error on my part.)
• Claim 3 — the display tags store information and include means to display the stored price information at a time predetermined by a display tag instruction data.
• Claim 4 — all tags store price information over a period of time and display the second price information instantaneously at a time predetermined by a display tag instruction data of the second field.
• Claim 5 — the infrared signal additionally has a check sum field, and the addressed tag determines whether the price information is valid based on that check sum.

Plain-language description of the disclosed system (context for the claims)

• Two embodiments: (a) an electronic price/advertising display system using fixed shelf tags; (b) a shopping-cart/basket tracking system using battery transmitters with motion detectors. They can share the same IR grid and hardware, with separate software.
• Architecture: store platform computer 10 → POS terminals 12 → IR controller 22 (microcomputer terminal, parallel-to-serial and serial-to-parallel conversion) → hardwired IR transceiver grid 18 in the ceiling (example: 20,000 tags, ~300 transceivers, 6–8 ft spacing, 50–75 tags per transceiver) → wireless IR link to tags 16.
• Power saving: transceivers are individually addressed, so fewer than all transmit; only tags in those zones go to high gain. Handheld unit 24 with UPC scanner and IR link is used to initialize/address tags. Tags can store and time-release displayed information.
• Two-way link: tags return a data-valid signal (or retransmit data) so the controller can verify/retry. FIG. 4 shows a timed message sequence T1–T7 (acquisition signal, send data signal, display tag signal, data-valid signal, IR transmit, tag data-valid, message-completed signal), with retries and optional alarm after repeated failure.
• Tracking: cart-mounted transmitters send three identical transmissions of <100 ms once per second while moving; each carries unique address, battery status, and checksum. Transceivers store and are polled by the store computer; a real-time clock fixes event timing; POS and customer-card data are combined for traffic/demographic reporting.

Uncertainty / limits of this answer

• Legal status and current ownership are as listed on Google Patents/USPTO assignment records; Google expressly disclaims that its assignee list may be inaccurate. I did not independently pull a live USPTO Patent Center or Assignment record, so treat the "+13" (EASI) ownership as reported but unverified by me.
• No 2026 CAFC involvement was found. If you need a hard negative, that should be confirmed against the CAFC docket (appeal no. by patent) or PACER, which I could not query directly.
• One third-party aggregator snippet showed "Priority Date: 1989-05-15" alongside this title, but that entry was attached to a different patent (US 4,275,385, an infrared personnel locator system). I am not attributing that date to 5,572,653; the 5,572,653 record consistently shows 1989-05-16.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5572653A](/patent/US5572653A)/en (full text and family data); https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5572653; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5572653.html; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d4/db/64/7988e61419e2f9/EP0753175B1.pdf (foreign counterpart EP0753175B1).

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 5,572,653. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search for litigation involving the patent's assignees and specific case data.

Let me search targeted litigation databases and the Unified Patents portal.

Based on my searches, here is what I found — and an important caveat about the limits of what I could confirm.

Bottom line

I could not confirm any litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 5,572,653. My searches did not surface a complaint, docket entry, CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding, or PACER/Unified Patents litigation record naming the '653 patent as an asserted patent. I cannot responsibly provide plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case-number/outcome details for cases I could not verify, so I will not list any.

What I did find (and why it is not a litigation hit)

• Assignee/ownership chain for the '653 patent (from the patent record itself): original assignee REST Manufacturing Inc; later assigned to InfraRest, LLC (1997-01-21); then to Electronic Advertising Solutions Innovators, Inc. d/b/a EASI, Inc. (1998-05-15), which is listed as the current assignee. A related continuation, US 5,995,015, shares the same EASI ownership. This ownership history is the kind of context that can precede an enforcement campaign, but I found no filing tied to it.
• A USPTO "Litigation Search Report" (Reexam Control No. 90/007,402) that my first search surfaced relates to U.S. Patent No. 5,191,573 (Sightsound.com v. NZK, W.D. Pa.) — a different patent. I am flagging this because the number is close and could be mistaken for the '653 patent; it is not.
• Citations to the '653 patent in later patents (e.g., EP 1,581,901; various U.S. patents listing "DeTemple et al.") are prior-art citations, not litigation.
• A Unified Patents portal page surfaced in results showing "US-4275385-A … US-5572653-A," but this appears to be a prior-art/reference relationship display, not a litigation docket.

Why this outcome is plausible

The '653 patent is recorded as Expired – Fee Related, with an anticipated expiration date of 2013-11-05. The patent's priority dates to 1989, and it is directed to infrared shelf-tag display and shopping-cart tracking — a field in which the patent is far more often cited as prior art by defendants (you can see this in the long list of patents citing it) than litigated on its own.

Suggested next steps for a definitive answer

Since I could not access the litigation databases directly in this session, I recommend verifying via:

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search the exact string for the '653 patent).
2. PACER / CourtListener RECAP — search docket text for "5,572,653."
3. USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — check for IPR/PGR/CBM filings naming the patent.
4. USPTO Assignment records — to trace whether EASI/InfraRest ever recorded an enforcement-related transfer.

Caveat: My inability to find a case does not prove none exists. It may simply be a gap in the sources returned by my searches. If you can point me to a specific docket or case name, I can analyze it further — but I will not fabricate case identifiers, dates, or outcomes that I could not verify.

I'll search for any PTAB proceedings on this patent, since the ODP block says none are indexed.

I ran targeted searches (patent number alone and with IPR/CBM terms; assignee‑name litigation searches; the Unified Patents patent portal entry for US‑5572653‑A). No AIA trial proceeding surfaced. Consistent with the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block, the answer is zero — so the per‑proceeding template below is intentionally empty rather than populated with invented numbers.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5,572,653: 0. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denied. The bottom line for a defendant is not "hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "claims canceled" — it is untested and expired: no IPR/CBM/PGR has ever been instituted against this patent, and the patent's own record shows an anticipated expiration of 2013-11-05 with legal status "Expired - Fee Related."

No proceedings to report

Per the authoritative ODP block: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." My independent web searches (2026-10-01) found nothing contradicting that — no PTAB case page, no FWD, no institution decision, no CAFC appeal docket for US 5,572,653. I am not going to name a proceeding number I could not verify. If an older or recently filed proceeding exists outside ODP's index, it is not discoverable from the sources I searched; treat that as a gap to close manually via PTAB E2E, not as affirmative evidence of a filing.

Note also that with no institution and no Final Written Decision, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone — there is no petitioner-side estoppel landscape to map here.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Claims 1–5 are all UNTESTED — none canceled, none confirmed, none amended. Nothing about claim 1's validity has been adjudicated by the Board. Claim 1 recites the two‑level sequential addressability (individually addressed IR transmitters + individually addressed tags), the low‑power/high‑power tag switching responsive to received IR, and computer‑to‑transmitter signaling with a transmitter‑address field and a price/tag‑address field. Dependent claims 2–5 add binary IR signaling, time‑scheduled display of stored price data, and a check‑sum validity check. Untested does not mean strong: these are 1989‑priority claims in an art area (electronic shelf labels, IR polling grids) that was heavily trafficked, and family members were cited against later filers (e.g., US 5,572,653 and US 5,995,015 are cited in EP 1 581 901 B1's description).

Expiration is the dominant fact. The structured record shows the patent expired 2013-11-05 ("Expired - Fee Related," anticipated expiration), before Oil States, before most of the CBM regime matured, and before Unified Patents and similar defensive aggregators would spend petition fees on it. That explains the absence of PTAB activity far better than any inference that the patent is invulnerable. Any damages the owner can still pursue are limited to pre‑expiration infringement within the § 286 six‑year lookback; the live exposure is a backward‑looking royalty/trial question, not an injunction question.

Pattern signals, honestly stated. No petitioner has filed more than one IPR (no petitioner has filed any). The patent owner has not pursued PTAB appeals — there is nothing to appeal. No defensive aggregator is in the chain; the current assignee of record is Electronic Advertising Solutions Innovators, Inc. d/b/a EASI, Inc. (assignment recorded 1998-05-15 from INFRAREST, LLC). The related continuation US 5,995,015 (same 1989-05-16 priority, granted 1999-11-30) is likewise recorded as expired; it is a separate asset with a potentially different term calculation under pre‑URAA rules, so if a demand letter cites the family, check the '015 term independently rather than assuming it matches the '653 date.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the null result at the source. Query the PTAB E2E system (https://ptab.uspto.gov/) and the Patent Public Search "PTAB proceedings" tab for 5,572,653 and 5,995,015, and pull the PatentCenter file wrapper for any ex parte or inter partes reexamination certificate — none of which the ODP AIA‑trial feed would show. That is the one category of Office validity challenge my searches could not fully rule out.
2. Push back on the demand letter on expiration, not on IPR. If you are being asserted against, the strongest immediate response is: the '653 patent expired 2013-11-05 per the face of the record ("Expired - Fee Related"), the '015 continuation is likewise recorded as expired, so the owner can at most claim damages for conduct within the six years preceding filing and cannot seek prospective relief. Demand the plaintiff's damages model and its pre‑expiration infringement dates.
3. Preserve invalidity defenses in court. Because no IPR exists, there is no petitioner estoppel and no claim has ever been construed by the Board. You retain the full § 102/§ 103/§ 112 playbook in the district court, including art the owner has never faced, plus the § 282 defenses, laches‑adjacent arguments on aged pre‑expiration conduct, and any § 101 challenge.
4. If you want a PTAB record, weigh it carefully. A CBM or IPR petition is temporally awkward on an expired patent — institution on a patent with no remaining term is discretionary and often pointless, and § 315(b) timing still runs from service of a complaint. Absent a co‑defendant or aggregator with an independent reason to file, litigation invalidity is the better venue.
5. Note the caveat explicitly. If any proceeding on this patent turns up outside the ODP index, re‑run this analysis — an FWD canceling claims 1–5 would convert the patent into a paper tiger and should be quoted claim‑by‑claim. Today, on the record available to me, there is no such document.

I'll research the assignment record for US 5,572,653 across USPTO assignment sources and related databases.

Ownership Chain — US 5,572,653

Important sourcing caveat up front. In this session the USPTO Assignment Center / Assignment Search database (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) did not return queryable records to my searches, and I was unable to retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record data for any link in this chain. The events below are taken from the Google Patents legal‑events table for US5572653A (which is itself populated from recorded USPTO assignment data and carries the corresponding "Assignors:" lines). I am therefore not able to supply reel/frame numbers or correspondent attorneys, and I will not fabricate them. Every statement below is traceable to the patent record already in the file; anything I could not verify is marked as such.

Inventors

Pattern note. Three of the four inventors assigned on 1994-01-04; Goff's assignment was recorded ~16 months later (1995-05-15). That reads as a late-joining or late-papering inventor, not a departure. I found no evidence of all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of a portfolio fire-sale proximate to the original filing. The transfer away from the operating company happened ~8 years post-filing (1997), which is the more meaningful event in this chain. (Note: a later, unrelated third-party publication WO1998038589A1, "In-store consumer targeted messaging system," lists an inventor "Abell, Peter B." — plausibly the same person continuing in the same field, but I could not confirm identity, so treat as unverified.)

Original assignee

REST Manufacturing, Inc. — named as original assignee on the issued patent and as the assignee on both 1994/1995 recorded inventor assignments.

• Primary line of business: The patent describes an infrared electronic shelf-tag / price-display and shopping-cart tracking system for retail facilities (IR transceiver grid, battery-powered shelf tags, cart-mounted tracking transmitters). REST Manufacturing is consistently identified in the record as the operating entity behind this system.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / not verified in this session. The specification describes a concrete, buildable system and includes incorporated-by-reference source-code appendices ("Appendix A" IR-controller assembly listing; "Appendix B" store-platform listing), which is consistent with a real development program — but I could not confirm a commercial product.
• Current status: Not determinable from available sources. The patent-facing corporate trail ends with REST Manufacturing transferring the patent out in 1997; I found no reliable record of REST Manufacturing's current operating status (operating, acquired, or dissolved).

Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the Google Patents legal-events record for US5572653A:

• 1994-01-04 (executed) / recorded 1994-01-04 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Bird, E. Frederick; Abell, Peter; DeTemple, William C.
  • Assignee: REST Manufacturing, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — Assignment Center data unavailable in this session
  • Context: Original inventor-to-company assignment (the three co-inventors other than Goff).

• 1995-05-15 (executed) / recorded 1995-05-15 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Goff, Milton L.
  • Assignee: REST Manufacturing, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Second, separate inventor-to-company assignment perfecting REST Manufacturing's title (Goff papered ~16 months after the other three).

• 1997-01-21 (executed) / recorded 1997-01-21 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: REST Manufacturing, Inc.
  • Assignee: InfraRest, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer from the operating company to a newly named LLC — the first transfer-out in the chain.

• 1998-05-15 (executed) / recorded 1998-05-15 — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: InfraRest, LLC
  • Assignee: Electronic Advertising Solutions Innovators, Inc. d/b/a EASI, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Cascading transfer to the current assignee of record, ~16 months after the InfraRest transfer.

• 2013-11-05 — Anticipated expiration (2013-11-05). The patent is recorded as "Expired – Fee Related" at Google Patents; this is a legal-status event, not an assignment.

Finding on record completeness: the Assignment Center does appear to hold records for this patent (Google Patents' legal-events table is sourced from recorded assignments and lists four distinct transfers). What I could not retrieve in this session is the underlying reel/frame numbers and correspondent fields. If you can run the searches against the Assignment Center directly, capture (a) reel/frame for each of the four links and (b) the correspondent of record on the 1997 and 1998 links in particular — those two fields are the decisive missing evidence for signals 1, 3, and 4 below.

Cross-reference to the earlier litigation section (no contradiction): the prior analysis found no confirmed litigation naming the '653 patent. The ownership chain above is consistent with that — a transfer-heavy history that culminates in an entity whose name signals assertion, but with no docket located tying it to a suit. The prior section's flag that the USPTO Reexam/Litigation Search Report (90/007,402) belongs to US 5,191,573 (Sightsound) and not to this patent stands; it is a different patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5572653
    1989 : Priority date May 16
    1994 : Application filed Jan 4
         : Three inventors assign to REST Manufacturing
    1995 : Goff assigns to REST Manufacturing
    1996 : Patent issues Nov 5
    1997 : REST Manufacturing assigns to InfraRest LLC
    1998 : InfraRest LLC assigns to EASI Inc
    2013 : Anticipated expiration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Each call below is limited to what the record shows. Because reel/frame and correspondent data were not retrievable in this session, several signals that depend on those fields are called unclear rather than guessed.

1. Shell-entity transfer — present (name-level) / unclear (evidence-level). The patent moves from operating company REST Manufacturing, Inc. to InfraRest, LLC on 1997-01-21 — an entity whose "LLC" form and portfolio-flavored name ("Infra…") is the classic shell-transfer profile. However, per the operating rule, naming alone is not a finding: I do not have the assignee address, product evidence, or LLC registration details, so I cannot confirm "no products in commerce" or "registered-agent address." Flag: verify the InfraRest, LLC and EASI, Inc. addresses on the two assignment instruments.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present on the evidence available. Electronic Advertising Solutions Innovators, Inc. d/b/a EASI, Inc. is the current assignee of record (1998-05-15) and shares ownership of the sibling continuation US 5,995,015. I could not match EASI or InfraRest against the enumerated NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg entities) or against Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff directories. The name is assertion-flavored, but I found no directory entry confirming asserter status. Do not treat the name as a finding.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not retrievable. This is the single most probative field for this chain and it is exactly the field I could not obtain. The whole point of the InfraRest → EASI cascade is whether one attorney/firm of record papered both links. Action item: pull the correspondent from the 1997-01-21 and 1998-05-15 recordings; if the same firm/attorney appears on both — and especially if that attorney also appears on other "InfraRest"/"EASI" recordings — that converts signals 3 and 4 to present.

4. Cascading transfers — present (structural). Two consecutive assignments through successive non-operating-named entities — REST Manufacturing → InfraRest, LLC (1997-01-21) → EASI, Inc. (1998-05-15) — occurred within ~16 months, well inside the <24-month window. That structural fact is established by the record. What is not established is the shared-address / shared-correspondent / shared-principal link that would confirm the transfers were orchestrated as one chain rather than two unrelated deals; that depends on the un-retrieved correspondent field.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear / likely not applicable. No first infringement suit naming the '653 patent was located (consistent with the prior litigation section). Without a suit date, a "<6 months before filing" trigger cannot be computed. The nearest thing to a candidate date is the 1998-05-15 EASI transfer; no complaint within six months of that date was found.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present on available evidence. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving REST Manufacturing (or a patents-in-bankruptcy sale) was located. The 1997 transfer is not documented as a bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — unclear. No SEC filing (REST Manufacturing or a parent), Patent Progress, or EFF coverage connecting a REST→NPE assertion campaign against REST's competitors was located. The corporate predecessor here appears to be a private manufacturer, so a public-filing trail may simply not exist.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at EASI, Inc., an apparent private holder — the opposite of the neutralizing signal. This is why the verdict below is not "defensive/non-asserting."

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence (1 strong structural signal, several unverified).

The strong signal is structural and documented: a two-hop cascade from operating company REST Manufacturing, Inc. → InfraRest, LLC (1997-01-21) → Electronic Advertising Solutions Innovators, Inc. d/b/a EASI, Inc. (1998-05-15) inside ~16 months, terminating at a non-operating-named holder rather than at a defensive aggregator — i.e. signal 4 present, reinforced by the LLC-form / portfolio-styled name at signal 1. It does not rise to high confidence because (a) no asserter-directory match was found for InfraRest or EASI (signal 2 not present on available evidence), (b) no litigation naming the patent was located (signal 5 not computable), and (c) the two most probative fields — reel/frame and correspondent of record — could not be retrieved in this session, so the "repeat correspondent" test (signal 3) that would ordinarily confirm an orchestrated chain is unclear.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "5572653"; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). To move this to high confidence, retrieve the reel/frame and correspondent for the 1997-01-21 and 1998-05-15 recordings and compare them against each other and against the assignee addresses.

Contradictions with prior sections: none. The chain here is consistent with the earlier finding of no locatable litigation, and reinforces the earlier caution that the Reexam/Litigation Search Report No. 90/007,402 belongs to US 5,191,573, not this patent.

I'll research the specific prior art references cited in US 5,572,653. Let me search for the patent's front-page citations and related records.

Let me look for the actual front-page "References Cited" list on the patent document.

Let me try to retrieve the patent's front-page "References Cited" list directly from patent databases.

Scope note before the analysis

I searched for the specific number 5,572,653 (not similar numbers such as 5,572,653-adjacent or 5,572,653-family members). The identity check resolves cleanly to the patent whose full text you supplied:

• US 5,572,653 A, "Remote electronic information display system for retail facility," App. No. 08/176,781, inventors DeTemple et al., filed 1994-01-04, issued 1996-11-05 (verified at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5572653A](/patent/US5572653A)/en).

Critical limitation I must flag: the authoritative text you provided (and the Google Patents record I could retrieve) contains the "Cited By" list (the 197 later patents that cite '653) but does not include the front-page "(56) References Cited" / "Patent Citations" list — i.e., the prior art that '653 itself cites. I was not able to pull that examiner/applicant citation table from USPTO Patent Center or from the patentimages PDF of the front page in this session. I will therefore not invent a citation list. I can only analyze (a) the references explicitly identified as prior art inside the '653 specification, and (b) I will clearly separate what is verifiable from what is not.

One important terminological point that the task phrasing could blur: the 197 "Cited By" patents are NOT prior art to '653. They are later patents that cite '653 as background. Labeling any of them as § 102 prior art would be an error. I have not done so.

Prior art identified within the '653 specification

The '653 specification affirmatively discusses two pieces of prior art in its Background section. These are the only prior-art references I can confirm as being of record/considered, and they are the closest analogues to claim 1.

Reference 1 — U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,886 (Sundelin)

Reference 2 — U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,295 (Davis)

§ 102 anticipation analysis

Claim 1 is the sole independent claim. Every one of claims 2–5 depends from claim 1, so it can only be anticipated if claim 1 is anticipated.

Claim 1 — elements

1. ≥ two levels of sequential addressability;
2. battery-powered, individually addressable display tags, normally low-power mode, switched to high-power mode in response to an IR signal;
3. store platform computer;
4. POS terminals linked to the computer;
5. individually addressable IR transmitters above the store, different fields of view, #transmitters < #tags, each serving multiple tags;
6. hardwired computer→transmitter link carrying a first field (transmitter address) and second field (price + tag address);
7. control means so only the addressed transmitter radiates the IR;
8. means to switch selected tags to high-power mode on receipt of the IR signal;
9. tag displays price only if the tag address matches (second addressing level).

Sundelin '4,002,886

• Discloses elements 3, 4, and an addressed electronic price display (partially 2's "individually addressable" aspect).
• Does not disclose: the infrared link of element 5/6 (it uses a hardwired four-conductor connection), the two-level sequential addressability (element 1/7 — sundelin addresses the unit, not a transmitter-then-tag hierarchy), the battery low/high power-mode switching (element 2/8).
• Conclusion: Does not anticipate claim 1 under § 102. It may be relevant § 103 art on the "electronic price display tied to the POS computer with unique addresses" concept, but it cannot invalidate claim 1 alone.

Davis '4,766,295

• Discloses the infrared communication path — closer to claim 1's element 5.
• Does not disclose: two levels of sequential addressability (element 1); the '653 spec affirmatively states Davis is one-way and that all indicators receive data, which is the opposite of the selective, addressed-transmitter wake-up of elements 7–8; therefore also no disclosure of the low/high power gating (elements 2/8).
• Conclusion: Does not anticipate claim 1 under § 102. Closest prior art on the IR aspect, but missing the two-tier addressing and power-mode limitations that the '653 claim makes central.

Claims 2–5

Because all depend from claim 1 and add limitations (binary IR signal; time-programmed display; time-programmed second-price display; check-sum validation), and because neither Sundelin '886 nor Davis '295 discloses all of claim 1, neither anticipates claims 2–5 under § 102 either.

What I could not determine (and why it matters)

• The complete front-page citation list for '653 is unavailable to me in this session. If the examiner actually cited additional references (e.g., other EPL/IR-locator art), those are the ones most likely to trigger a genuine § 102 analysis. My list above is limited to the two references the specification itself treats as prior art.
• Davis '295's dates are unverified. I did not want to state an issue date I could not confirm.
• References such as US 4,275,385 (infrared personnel locator) surfaced repeatedly alongside '653 in search results, but everything I saw places it in a prior-art/related-reference display relationship, not as a confirmed citation on the '653 front page. I am not attributing it to the '653 citation record.

To complete the task rigorously, the authoritative source to retrieve is the "(56) References Cited" panel on the '653 front page — available at:

1. USPTO Patent Center / Patent Full-Text (https://patft.uspto.gov or PatentCenter), and
2. the patentimages PDF front page for US5572653 (e.g., via the "Download PDF" link on https://patents.google.com/patent/US5572653A/en).

If you can supply that front-page image or the USPTO full-text citation list, I will run the per-reference § 102 element-by-element analysis (claim 1 and dependents) against each cited patent — which is the analysis the task actually calls for, and which I can only partially perform without that list.

I'll ground the analysis by verifying what the cited prior-art references actually disclose, then build the § 103 combinations.

Let me verify a few more potential prior-art references that could fill the key gaps (zone addressing, battery-saving modes, IR tracking).

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 5,572,653 ("Remote electronic information display system for retail facility")

Scope and method. This analysis builds on the previously generated Patent summary (which already parsed claim 1 and the five claims) and Litigation summary. I do not repeat them. Per the page's Prior Art area, the operative prior-art inputs are: the "Prior art keywords" (display, store, price, tags, computer), the assumed priority date 1989-05-16, and the references cited in the specification's Background — Sundelin, US 4,002,886 and Davis, US 4,766,295. I verified the disclosures of those two plus two additional pre-1989 references that the record makes relevant: Gomersall, US 4,500,880 and Malec, US 4,973,952. I did not have full text for every reference I name; where a mapping rests on the '653 specification's own characterization rather than the reference's own words, I say so.

Caveat on legal conclusions. This is an analytical exercise, not a validity opinion. Claim scope, the effective filing date, and the ultimate § 103 determination are legal questions for the courts.

1. Effective priority date — the single biggest variable

The '653 patent issued from application 08/176,781 (filed 1994-01-04), a continuation-in-part. Its own "Cross Reference" section traces priority to Ser. No. 07/352,553 (filed 1989-05-16). Under § 120, the claims get the 1989 date only for subject matter disclosed in the 1989 parent. The specification introduces the two-level addressing, the low-/high-gain tag modes, and the T1–T7 messaging protocol as "the preferred embodiment" without clearly attributing them to the 1989 disclosure.

This matters enormously:

I flag this rather than resolve it. If any limitation of claim 1 is new matter, the later references — several of which are directed squarely at zone/subglobal addressing to conserve ESL power — become available, and the obviousness case becomes much stronger.

2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A bachelor's degree in electrical/computer engineering (or equivalent), with roughly 2–4 years of experience designing retail point-of-sale systems, electronic shelf-label/price-display systems, or short-range wireless (IR/RF) data-communication systems. This is the level against which the combinations below are judged.

3. The prior art on the page

Read together, these references span every layer of the '653 architecture: hardwired store-computer→display addressing (Sundelin/Gomersall), IR wireless communication (Davis), zonal/unique transmitter addressing with address-matched responses (Malec), time-delayed display of stored information (Gomersall EP), and checksum validation (Malec, Sundelin's parity logic, and digital-communication practice generally).

4. Claim 1 — element mapping and combination

Claim 1 breaks into: (A) battery tags addressable individually, normally low-power, switched to high-power on IR receipt; (B) store platform computer + POS terminals; (C) many individually addressed IR transmitters above the store, unique addresses, fewer transmitters than tags, each serving many tags; (D) hardwired computer→transmitter link carrying a message with field 1 = transmitter address and field 2 = price + tag address; (E) control so only the addressed transmitter radiates; (F) means to switch tags to high power; (G) display responsive to the tag address.

Combination #1 — Gomersall '880 (or Sundelin '886) in view of Davis '295, further in view of Malec '952.

• (B) computer + POS + individual tag addressing → Sundelin '886 (and Gomersall '880), verbatim.
• (D)/(G) a transmitted message with an address field followed by data, tag displays on address match → Gomersall '880 ("address code … followed by the selected information"); Sundelin '886 (address-match before accepting price). Structuring that message as two sequential address fields (zone, then tag) is a straightforward formatting choice once zonal transmitters are used.
• (C) IR link, transmitters above the store covering zones → Davis '295 (IR ESL) for the medium, plus Malec '952 for the architecture of fixed, uniquely addressed overhead/shelf-edge transmitters whose zones a movable unit traverses.
• (A)/(E)/(F) battery operation and power conservation via addressing fewer than all transmitters, low-power standby with wake-on-signal → motivation is in the art itself: the '653 spec criticizes Davis precisely because "all price indicators are receiving data whenever any price indicator is receiving its specific data," which "increases power consumption." Malec '952 supplies the battery-saving techniques (1% transmit duty cycle; receiver "sleep" modes; motion-gated activation).

Motivation to combine (KSR). All four references are in the same field (computer-driven price/information displays for retail), address the same problem (keeping shelf-displayed information synchronized with the store computer/POS while minimizing cost and power), and are analogous art. KSR v. Teleflex (550 U.S. 398 (2007)) makes the combination obvious where a known technique "has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill … would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way." Concretely:

1. Sundelin → Davis: replacing the four-conductor wired link (the spec concedes wiring "makes the system difficult to implement") with Davis's IR link is a simple substitution of one known transmission medium for another to eliminate field wiring — a routine design choice with a predictable result.
2. Davis/Malec → two-level addressing: the express problem in Davis (every tag wakes for every message) supplies a clear "need or problem known in the field" that motivates addressing the transmitting zone first, then the tag within the zone. Malec shows unique-addressed zonal transmitters are a known way to interact with units as they traverse defined zones. Applying that zonal-addressing concept to the ESL tags to cut receiver "on" time is the predictable use of a known technique.
3. Battery/gain modes: a PHOSITA would recognize that a battery tag which stays awake for all traffic has unacceptable battery life; "going to sleep" and waking on receipt of energy is elementary and is expressly taught in Malec '952 (duty cycling; sleep/wake).

Strength of the prima facie case. Elements (B), (C-med), (D-partial), (G), and the motivation for power savings are well covered. The genuinely contested limitation is (C)/(D)'s "two levels of sequential addressability" — i.e., addressing the transmitter as a discrete first level before addressing the tag, with fewer transmitters than tags. I could not confirm that any single pre-1989 reference teaches address-the-transmitter-first as its own level (Malec's topology is the reverse: the transmitter broadcasts continuously and the receiver filters by address). That distinction is the patent's best non-obviousness argument at the 1989 date. Under the later-date scenario (§ 1), however, the ERS "subglobal area addressing" art (US 5,704,049 et al.) is directed at exactly this power-conservation-by-sub-group-addressing idea, which would close the gap.

5. Dependent claims

• Claim 2 (binary IR signal): trivially obvious — digital/on-off-keyed IR is the ordinary mode of IR data communication and is inherent in Davis's IR ESL and Malec's IR trigger embodiment. Note the antecedent discrepancy flagged in the prior summary: claim 1 recites "transmitters," claim 2 "transceivers."
• Claim 3 (store information and display it at a time predetermined by instruction data): directly taught by Gomersall's EP 0 083 630 ("shifting said selected information from said storage means to said LCD display at a predetermined time"), and by Malec's storage-and-triggered-display model. Strong § 103 hit.
• Claim 4 (all tags store price information over time; display the second price instantaneously at a predetermined time): same teaching as claim 3, applied to a series of stored price values — the natural extension of time-scheduled display. Obvious in view of Gomersall EP + Malec.
• Claim 5 (checksum field; tag validates price information against it): Malec '952 discloses CRC check characters in each transmitted block and validation against them; parity/checksum validation is ubiquitous in digital data transmission and is also used in the '653 specification's own preferred verifying scheme. Nearly conclusive.

Dependent-claim conclusion: claims 2–5 add little; each is independently obvious over the base combination or over a single reference (Gomersall for claims 3–4; Malec for claim 5).

6. Alternative combinations

• Sundelin '886 + Davis '295 + Gomersall '880 — omits Malec; addresses the display-architecture elements; weaker on battery-saving rationale (Davis's power complaint still supplies motivation, but the concrete low-power techniques come from the art generally rather than a verified reference).
• Gomersall '880 as primary + Davis '295 — the cleanest two-reference § 103 case for elements (B), (D), (G) and time-scheduled display (claims 3–4), with Davis supplying the IR medium.
• Add the post-1989 ESL art (US 5,198,644; US 5,461,561; US 5,632,010; US 5,704,049; US 5,537,126/US 5,737,007) if the claims are not entitled to 1989 — these are directed at zone/subgroup addressing and power conservation in ESL systems and would supply the missing "sequential two-level addressing" teaching directly.

7. Counterarguments and secondary considerations

• Non-obviousness argument available to the patentee: at the 1989 date, no verified reference teaches the hierarchical, sequential addressing where the transmitter is the first addressed level. The claimed ordering (address zone → address tag) and the "fewer transmitters than tags" constraint are specific structural choices not plainly suggested as a package by Sundelin/Davis/Malec.
• Long-felt need / failure of others: the specification frames the invention as solving Davis's dual problems of one-way communication and universal tag wake-up. If the record showed others tried and failed to solve ESL battery life with zonal addressing before 1989, that would cut against obviousness.
• Commercial success / licensing: the assignments to InfraRest, then EASI, and the continuation US 5,995,015 are consistent with commercialization, but the prior Litigation summary found no enforcement campaign, so there is little secondary-considerations evidence of record to cite. No nexus evidence was located.
• Grant is not dispositive: the examiner allowed the claims, but the § 103 question turns on the reference set actually considered; the art above (notably Gomersall's time-delayed display and Malec's addressed zonal transmitters + CRC) may not have been before the examiner in this combination.

8. Bottom line

The most defensible § 103 rejection is: Gomersall US 4,500,880 (or Sundelin US 4,002,886) in view of Davis US 4,766,295, and further in view of Malec US 4,973,952, with the "sequential two-level addressability" limitation supplied either by design-choice reasoning from Davis's express power-consumption problem (1989 date) or directly by the 1989–1993 ERS zone-addressing art (later date). Claims 3–4 fall to Gomersall's time-scheduled display teaching; claim 5 falls to Malec's checksum/CRC validation.

Limits of this analysis. (1) The effective filing date of claim 1 is unresolved here and can flip the result. (2) I verified Sundelin '886, Gomersall '880, and Malec '952 from their own text; the Davis '295 mapping rests substantially on the '653 specification's characterization, which I could not independently confirm line-by-line. (3) I did not obtain full text for US 4,275,385 (White, IR personnel locator) or US 5,019,811 (Unigrafik); they are candidate prior art I could not verify, and neither bears on the display claims 1–5 in any way I confirmed. Treat any statement about them as unverified. (4) This is not a validity opinion or a substitute for a claim-chart against the actual references.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5572653A](/patent/US5572653A)/en (claims, spec, prior art); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4002886A](/patent/US4002886A)/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4500880A](/patent/US4500880A) ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4973952A](/patent/US4973952A) ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5572653](/patent/5572653)