US 6215559

I'll search for authoritative information on US 6215559, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me check the litigation history and any 2026 appellate docket activity.

Let me check the New York Western District case and any IPR/appellate activity tied specifically to 6215559.

US Patent 6,215,559 — "Image queing in photofinishing"

Note on formatting: the title is spelled literally as issued ("queing," not "queuing"). I have not corrected any identifiers.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain of record: Eastman Kodak → Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC (recorded 2013-04-18, effective 2013-02-01) → Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (recorded 2017-03-09, effective 2017-02-15), with a 2023 release by secured party.

Abstract (as issued)

"A method of processing customer images in a photofinishing apparatus. The method includes obtaining customer image signals and associated requests for image products or services incorporating respective images. The images signals are directed into image queues having different associated formats, based on the associated product or service requested for each. The image signals are communicated from the queues to respective image renderers which render the image signals into the different formats associated with each queue. An apparatus which can execute such a method is also provided."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

There are five independent claims (1, 8, 11, 19, 23):

• Claim 1 — method (core). Take in image signals plus the customer's order requests (what products/services they want from those images); route each image into one of several queues that each correspond to a different output format, based on what was ordered; then feed each queue's images to renderer(s) that convert them into that queue's format. The organizing idea is "sort by destination format first, render second," so each renderer only ever has to do one kind of conversion.

• Claim 8 — method, film-based pipeline. Same routing/rendering scheme, but starting from a conventional photofinishing front end: chemically develop customer film bearing latent images, scan the resulting optical images to produce digital image signals, obtain the associated product/service requests, then queue by format and render. Adds the develop-scan path as a limitation.

• Claim 11 — apparatus, generic. A photofinishing apparatus with (a) at least one real memory, (b) a render manager that receives product/service requests and, based on them, directs image signals into format-differentiated image queues in memory, and (c) multiple image renderers each communicating with a respective queue and able to render into that queue's format.

• Claim 19 — apparatus, film-based. Same apparatus architecture as claim 11, but additionally reciting a developer (chemical development of film to fixed optical images) and a scanner to scan those optical images into image signals.

• Claim 23 — computer program product. A computer-readable storage medium carrying a program that, when loaded into a photofinishing apparatus computer with multiple processors, causes the machine to perform the claim-1 steps: obtain image signals and requests, direct them into format-differentiated queues defined by respective memories, and communicate queue contents to renderers that produce each queue's format.

Dependent claims add, among other things: forwarding rendered images to output devices (2, 13); a single renderer serving multiple queues (3, 9, 14, 20); multiple parallel renderers serving one queue, each pulling only from that queue (4, 10, 15, 21, 22); sequential round-robin servicing of queues (5, 16); servicing one queue until empty then moving on (6, 17); and "pull" retrieval by renderers as they become free (7).

One drafting oddity worth flagging, taken literally: claim 18 reads "A method according to claim 14…" even though claim 14 is an apparatus claim. That is how it appears in the issued text; I am not correcting it.

Supporting description describes an IDM 170 with render manager 208, three queue memories 210/212/214, and five renderers 220/224/226/228/230 feeding printers 130/132/134, where queue 210 fans out to three renderers and renderer 226 is shared between queues 210 and 212. The specification also cross-references a Kodak application "IMAGE MOVEMENT IN A PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY" (G. Bryniarski et al., Ser. No. 09/107,571, filed June 29, 1998) and "PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD" (T. Murray et al., Ser. No. 09/016,238, filed Jan. 30, 1998).

Litigation and 2026 appellate status

Searches for CAFC 2026 docket activity specifically naming 6,215,559 returned no results. I could not identify any Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 involving this patent, and I want to be explicit that this reflects an absence of search hits rather than a confirmed negative — I did not query PACER or the CAFC docket system directly, and the patent's term expired 2018-07-31.

What I did find on the enforcement side:

• Xerox Corp. v. Monument Peak Ventures, LLC, No. 6:20-cv-06263-FPG (W.D.N.Y., filed 2020-04-23; closed 2021-08-31). This was a declaratory-judgment action by Xerox against MPV over eight patents. U.S. 6,215,559 was among the complaint exhibits (docket listings show it as one of the eight patent exhibits; separate listings reference it variously as Exhibit #2 or #3 — I'm not confident of the exhibit number). The court (Geraci, J.) dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction over MPV, in decisions dated 2020-08-18 (Doc. 28) and 2021-08-31 (Doc. 48).
• Google Patents' litigation metadata also lists a Texas Eastern District Court case, 4:21-cv-00683, flagged "Critical" and sourced to Unified Patents, and a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" entry for family ID 22431198. I did not independently verify the Texas case content.
• Related PTAB proceedings I encountered (IPR2021-00330 and IPR2022-00318) concern other patents in the same MPV portfolio (U.S. 7,583,294 and U.S. 7,684,090 respectively), not 6,215,559. I found no IPR petition against 6,215,559.

Uncertainty statement

The bibliographic, abstract, and claim content above is taken from the full issued patent text, so it is authoritative. The assignee-of-record detail ("Monument Peak Ventures, LLC") comes from the Google Patents listing, which itself cautions that listed assignees may be inaccurate. My statement about the absence of 2026 CAFC activity is based on web searches only and should not be treated as a definitive docket check.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6215559 across litigation databases and court records.

Let me dig into the specific litigation references cited on the patent record and search litigation databases.

I found key results. Let me verify the full case history and check for any additional suits asserting this specific patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,215,559

Important note on scope/limitations: I was able to reach the Google Patents litigation record and several dockets/PTAB filings, but I hit search-step limits before I could complete an exhaustive sweep of PACER and the CAFC docket for every case that ever cited the '559 patent. The answer below reflects what the retrieved records show with confidence, and flags what remains unverified. I have interpreted the patent number 6,215,559 / 6215559 literally and excluded look‑alikes (e.g., '559 numbers belonging to other patents).

Patent identification (for accuracy)

• US 6,215,559 B1 — "Image queing in photofinishing" (title as printed; note the original spelling "queing").
• Application 09/127,653, filed July 31, 1998; granted April 10, 2001; expired – lifetime (anticipated expiration July 31, 2018).
• Inventors: Gregory R. Bryniarski, Brian R. Wilson, Lawrence J. Bovenzi. Original assignee Eastman Kodak Co.; current assignee Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (via Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC, 2013/2017).
• The '559 patent's Google Patents record itself flags "Family has litigation" with two linked cases — the E.D. Tex. and W.D.N.Y. matters described below. These are the same underlying dispute (one case, transferred), not two separate lawsuits.

Known litigation

1. Xerox Corporation v. Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (declaratory judgment of non-infringement)

• Plaintiff: Xerox Corporation
• Defendant: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (MPV)
• Jurisdiction / case numbers:
  • W.D.N.Y. — Case No. 6:20-cv-06263 (Judge Frank P. Geraci, Jr.)
  • Transferred to E.D. Tex. — Case No. 4:21-cv-00683 (Judge Sean D. Jordan)
• Filing date: April 23, 2020 (W.D.N.Y.)
• Basis: Complaint for Declaratory Judgment that Xerox does not infringe eight patents MPV had accused it of infringing. U.S. 6,215,559 was expressly named as one of the "Patents‑in‑Suit" (attached as an exhibit to the complaint, alongside U.S. Patents 5,923,908; 6,157,436; 6,396,599; 6,873,336; 7,006,890; 7,092,966; and 7,684,090).
• Procedural history / outcome:
  • MPV moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction (June 29, 2020). On Aug. 18, 2020, the W.D.N.Y. court found Xerox had not made a prima facie showing of personal or general jurisdiction over MPV (a Texas entity in Plano/Dallas), but permitted limited jurisdictional discovery and denied the motion without prejudice.
  • After discovery, on Aug. 31, 2021, the court transferred the case to the Eastern District of Texas (becoming 4:21-cv-00683).
  • Xerox then voluntarily dismissed its declaratory‑judgment claims without prejudice (Sept. 1, 2021), and the case was terminated Sept. 2, 2021.
• Current status: Closed / terminated. No merits ruling on infringement, validity, or enforceability of the '559 patent.

2. Related, contemporaneous assertion by MPV against Xerox (context)

On Sept. 1, 2021, MPV filed its own affirmative infringement action, Monument Peak Ventures, LLC v. Xerox Corporation, Case No. 2:21-cv-0345 (E.D. Tex.), asserting six patents (the IPR record confirms the '090 patent among them). The retrieved materials do not clearly confirm whether the '559 patent was one of the six asserted in that Texas case — I could not verify this before hitting search limits, so I flag it as unconfirmed rather than asserting it.

What I did NOT find

• No CAFC appeal specific to the '559 patent surfaced in the records retrieved.
• No IPR/PGR specifically on the '559 patent. (The related PTAB proceedings — e.g., IPR2022-00318 — concerned U.S. 7,684,090, not the '559 patent.)
• No litigation on the '559 patent's foreign family members (EP 0 977 084 B1; JP 2000-056397) was found in the retrieved results.
• A Kyocera action (MPV v. Kyocera, 2:23-cv-00127, E.D. Tex., 2023) asserted a different photofinishing-related patent ("System and method for managing work load distribution among a plurality of image output devices") — not the '559 patent. I am noting it only to avoid a false association.

Bottom line

The only litigation I can confirm specifically involving U.S. 6,215,559 is the Xerox v. Monument Peak Ventures declaratory-judgment action (originally 6:20-cv-06263, W.D.N.Y., filed April 23, 2020; transferred to 4:21-cv-00683, E.D. Tex.; Xerox's claims voluntarily dismissed without prejudice and the case terminated Sept. 2, 2021). No case reached a merits decision on the '559 patent.

To complete an exhaustive verification, the definitive sources to check directly are PACER (for the two docket numbers above and any other districts) and the Unified Patents litigation portal entries the patent record cites:

• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/4:21-cv-00683
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6:20-cv-06263

If you'd like, I can attempt a follow‑up pass focused solely on whether the '559 patent appears in the 2:21-cv-0345 Texas complaint and in any other MPV assertion campaign.

I'll research this patent's PTAB history. Let me start with the structured data baseline and run targeted searches.

Let me check the litigation dockets referenced and search more specifically.

The litigation picture is emerging. Let me determine whether Xerox (or anyone) filed an IPR specifically against the '559.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,215,559: 0. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. The USPTO Open Data Portal (the canonical structured source for this matter) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding against the '559, and targeted web searches surfaced none either. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is unusual and worth stating precisely: every claim of the '559 (claims 1–23) is UNTESTED at the PTAB. There is no final written decision to point to, no claim-level cancellation, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaching to anyone. A defendant facing assertion of this patent cannot piggyback on an existing PTAB win — but also faces no hardened, IPR-tested claim set. If your demand letter or complaint rests on the '559, the patent owner's validity case has never been stress-tested by the Board.

Caveat on method: the ODP structured block is authoritative for the count, and my searches independently failed to surface any AIA proceeding against the '559. I did not get to run an exhaustive PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm docket sweep before running out of search budget, so I flag this as "no activity found" rather than a mathematically exhaustive negative. Nothing I found contradicts the ODP result.

For completeness, there is related PTAB activity on a sibling Kodak/MPV patent — not this one — which is relevant context, not a proceeding on the '559:

• IPR2022-00318 — Xerox Corporation v. Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (U.S. Patent No. 7,684,090, a different patent). Filed 2021-12-15; institution granted (Paper 7); terminated due to settlement after institution under 35 U.S.C. § 317 (Paper 11). This is the only MPV/Kodak-portfolio IPR I could confirm, and it is not on the '559. Sources: Docket Alarm – IPR2022-00318 (Institution Decision Grant; Termination Decision Post DI Settlement).

I did not identify any IPR, PGR, or CBM naming US 6,215,559 as the challenged patent. I am not inventing proceeding numbers for it.

Strategic summary

Claim status. The '559 has not been narrowed by any AIA trial. Claims 1–23 — including independent claim 1 (method), claim 8 (method, chemical develop/scan variant), claim 11 (apparatus), claim 19 (apparatus with developer/scanner), and claim 23 (computer program product) — all remain UNTESTED. There are no canceled claims and no claims held patentable over art. "Untested" is not the same as "strong": with no FWD, there is also no PTAB-tested claim construction or validity record to rely on or to fear.

Estoppel landscape. Because there is no final written decision in any AIA trial on the '559, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to any petitioner or privy. That cuts both ways for a defendant: (i) you are not foreclosed from raising any prior-art ground; the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art remains available in an IPR or in district court; and (ii) you cannot borrow someone else's estoppel or invalidity judgment — you'd be the first to litigate validity at the Board. Every ground a prior challenger "raised or reasonably could have raised" is still open, because there was no prior challenger.

Pattern signals. Monument Peak Ventures (MPV) is a Dominion Harbor–affiliated NPE that acquired the Kodak portfolio; the '559 was originally Eastman Kodak's and passed Kodak → Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 → Monument Peak Ventures (recorded 2017-03-09). MPV accused Xerox of infringing an 8-patent Kodak/MPV group — including the '559 — prompting Xerox's declaratory-judgment action, Xerox Corp. v. Monument Peak Ventures, LLC, No. 6:20-cv-06263 (W.D.N.Y., filed 2020-04-23), later transferred to E.D. Tex. as 4:21-cv-00683 and dismissed without prejudice on 2021-09-02. See W.D.N.Y. complaint (Ex. to IPR2022-00318) and UniCourt docket, 4:21-cv-00683. Xerox did file at least one IPR against the portfolio (the '090 patent, IPR2022-00318), but not against the '559. MPV continues an active assertion campaign against camera/imaging defendants (see its 2023–2025 E.D. Tex./W.D. Tex. filings against Tesla, TP-Link, Vivotek, Instron/Insta360, Zeiss, ARRI, etc.), so the '559 remains a live assertion candidate against imaging/printing-adjacent products. There is no evidence of a Unified Patents (or similar defensive aggregator) challenge to the '559 — the aggregated activity I found in the results was on other patents.

Timing note worth flagging. The '559 expired 2018-07-31 (20 years from the 1998-07-31 filing; legal status "Expired – Lifetime"). That means any present-day assertion is a past-damages-only theory for pre-expiration conduct; it also means the practical incentive for a new IPR is lower (no injunctive leverage) — which may explain the absence of Board activity. An expired patent can still be challenged, but the economics rarely justify it.

Recommended next steps

• No PTAB proceeding exists to cite. Do not represent to a court or opposing counsel that the '559 has been invalidated, narrowed, or even institution-tested — it has not. Say plainly: "there is no PTAB activity on the '559."
• If you are a defendant, an IPR is unencumbered by estoppel. No petitioner has previously raised (or could have raised) any ground, so your § 102/§ 103 theories are unrestricted. Because the patent is expired, weigh whether a Board challenge is worth the spend versus litigating validity in district court, where you control the record and avoid the 1-year statutory FWD deadline (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)) and the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a complaint.
• Chain-of-title is a fertile defense. Confirm the Kodak → IV Fund 83 → Monument Peak assignments and MPV's standing/ownership at the relevant times; the same portfolio-intactness issues that surfaced in the Xerox DJ (personal jurisdiction, licensing demands) may recur. See Google Patents legal events for US 6,215,559.
• For accuracy of any opinion you file: the canonical zero-count comes from the USPTO ODP structured block; I recommend a confirming PTAB E2E / CourtListener docket sweep on "6,215,559" before you certify "no AIA proceedings," since my web verification was not exhaustive. If any recently filed (2024–2026) petition names the '559, ODP ingest lag is the most likely reason it would not yet appear.

Bottom line: the absence of PTAB activity is itself the signal here — a patent in an active NPE campaign, asserted against Xerox in 2020–2021, that nonetheless attracted zero AIA challenges. That leaves the '559 fully exposed (no cancellation, no estoppel, no Board record) but also fully untested. Your validity attack starts from a clean slate.

I'll research the assignment record for US 6,215,559, focusing on reel/frame numbers and correspondents of record.

Let me gather more detail on the correspondents and the IV/MPV transactions.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 6,215,559 ("Image queing in photofinishing")

Source note up front: I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center directly (no retrievable page content from assignmentcenter.uspto.gov), and the Google Patents legal‑events table — which mirrors the recorded assignment data — does not expose the correspondent of record field. Every reel/frame, date, and party below is taken from the Google Patents legal‑events table (reproduced in the authoritative patent text provided) and cross‑checked against SEC filings and RPX/Mondaq coverage. I could not retrieve any correspondent-of-record names for this patent's recordings, and I will not guess at them. That is a gap in this report, not a finding.

Inventors

Employer: Established by the assignment itself — all three signed over their rights to Eastman Kodak Company, and the assignment recites signing dates of 1998-07-30 to 1998-07-31 (the day before/on the filing date). Kodak's Rochester, NY headquarters and the "assigned to the same assignee" language in the specification confirm they were Kodak personnel, not contractors.

Departure pattern: Unclear / not established. I found no evidence of any inventor leaving Kodak within 12 months of filing, and I want to flag that I did not verify this against employment records or LinkedIn-type sources. There is general context worth noting — Kodak's headcount fell steeply through the early 2000s — but a company-wide downsizing is not the same as the "all inventors depart within 12 months" pattern that often precedes a portfolio fire-sale, and I have no per-inventor data. Treat this row as unproven.

Original assignee

Eastman Kodak Company (a New Jersey corporation, 343 State Street, Rochester, NY 14650), per reel 009372/0166 and the face of the issued patent.

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, substantively. The patent is directed to a photofinishing apparatus — the specification describes an IDM 170 with a render manager 208, three queue memories, and five renderers feeding printers 130/132/134, spliced into a real production line with a chemical developer 20 and a high-speed scanner 102 operating at ≥200 images/minute. This is a Kodak commercial photofinishing architecture (wholesale lab / minilab), not a paper-only invention. Kodak sold photofinishing equipment and ran photofinishing services in this era.
• Primary line of business at filing (1998): photographic film, photofinishing equipment and services, chemical imaging — the classic vertically integrated film business.
• Current status: Operating, post-bankruptcy. Kodak filed Chapter 11 on 2012-01-19 (SDNY, No. 12-10202), sold ~1,100 digital-imaging patents in a §363 sale, and emerged in 2013 refocused on commercial imaging. It remains an operating company; it no longer owns this patent.

Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the USPTO-derived legal-events records:

• 1998-07-31 (executed 1998-07-30/1998-07-31) / recorded 1998-07-31 — Reel 009372/0166

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; see document for details)
  • Assignor: Gregory R. Bryniarski; Brian R. Wilson; Lawrence J. Bovenzi
  • Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company, New York
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from my sources — the Google Patents legal-events entry omits the correspondent field. The recorded document was filed through Kodak's usual patent-recording channel; I could not confirm the specific attorney/firm.
  • Context: Standard employment assignment at filing — inventor-to-employer, routine, pre-issuance.

• 2012-02-21 recorded (effective 2012-02-15) — Reel 028201/0420

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement (SECURITY INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Eastman Kodak Company; Pakon, Inc.
  • Assignee: Citicorp North America, Inc., as Agent
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from my sources.
  • Context: Securitization — Kodak pled its patent estate as collateral under its debtor-in-possession credit facility (Citicorp North America as Agent and Co-Collateral Agent, alongside Wells Fargo Capital Finance). This is a lien, not a title transfer.

• 2013-02-01 effective / recorded 2013-02-01 — Reel 029913/0001

  • Conveyance: Release (PATENT RELEASE)
  • Assignor: Citicorp North America, Inc.; Wilmington Trust, National Association
  • Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company and numerous Kodak affiliates released (Pakon, Kodak Aviation Leasing, Kodak Americas, Qualex, Creo Manufacturing America, Laser-Pacific Media, Kodak Realty, NPEC, Kodak Near East, Kodak Portuguesa, Kodak Philippines, Kodak Imaging Network, FPC, Far East Development, Kodak International Capital, etc.)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from my sources.
  • Context: Lien release (internal unwind) — the DIP collateral liens were discharged upon the §363 sale closing.

• 2013-04-18 recorded (effective 2013-02-01) — Reel 030239/0154

  • Conveyance: Assignment of interest (ASSIGNMENT OF INTEREST; see document for details)
  • Assignor: Eastman Kodak Company
  • Assignee: Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC, Nevada
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the record I have. Note as a lead only, unconfirmed for this patent: Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. (1100 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20005) appears as correspondent on a separate Intellectual Ventures I LLC merger recording — the same law firm is widely associated with IV's USPTO recording work, but I did not confirm it appears on reel 030239/0154 and am not asserting that it does.
  • Context: Bankruptcy fire-sale / §363 asset sale — transfer to aggregator. Kodak's digital-imaging portfolio (~1,100 patents) was sold under the Patent Sale Agreement dated 2012-12-18 between Kodak and Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC, a Delaware LLC at 7251 W Lake Mead Blvd, Ste 300, Las Vegas, NV 89128, for a purchase price of $527M (≈$525M net received), with a 12-licensee consortium organized by IV and RPX (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, Fujifilm, Huawei, HTC, RIM, Shutterfly) taking licenses. Court approval via the Final Sale Order; the transfer was recorded post-closing in April 2013.

• 2017-03-09 recorded (effective 2017-02-15) — Reel 041941/0079

  • Conveyance: Assignment of interest (ASSIGNMENT OF INTEREST; see document for details)
  • Assignor: Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC (Delaware, at 7251 W Lake Mead Blvd, Ste 300, Las Vegas, NV 89128)
  • Assignee: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC, Texas (at 1400 Preston Road, Suite 400/475, Plano, TX 75093)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from my sources. (I did locate the parallel IV Fund 83 → Monument Peak Ventures assignment instrument, executed 2017-02-15, covering other Kodak-origin assets; it recites the two parties and addresses above but the public excerpt shows no correspondent block.)
  • Context: Transfer to asserter. Monument Peak Ventures is, per RPX Insight, "a subsidiary of the patent monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC." IV carved the Kodak portfolio into assertion campaigns; MPV was one of the vehicles.

• 2023-08-15 recorded (effective 2023-07-28) — Reel 064599/0304

  • Conveyance: Release by secured party (RELEASE BY SECURED PARTY)
  • Assignor (releasing party): Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC
  • Assignee/beneficiary: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from my sources.
  • Context: Securitization release (lien discharge). Read literally, an IV entity released a security interest it held over MPV's assets. The most natural reading — flagged as inference, not confirmed — is that IV Fund 83 retained a purchase-money/security interest in the portfolio it sold MPV in 2017, and released it in 2023. Note the chronology tension: the patent's term expired 2018-07-31, so a 2023 lien release on an expired patent is administratively routine cleanup of a portfolio-level security interest, not a value event.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6215559
    1998 : Filed by Eastman Kodak
         : Inventors assign rights to Kodak
    2012 : Kodak files Chapter 11
         : Citicorp security interest recorded
    2013 : Citicorp release recorded
         : Kodak 363 sale to IV Fund 83
    2017 : IV Fund 83 assigns to Monument Peak Ventures
    2018 : Patent term expires
    2023 : IV releases security interest in MPV

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. Kodak (operating) → Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC (reel 030239/0154, effective 2013-02-01), a Delaware LLC at 7251 W Lake Mead Blvd, Ste 300, Las Vegas, NV 89128 — a patent-holding fund vehicle, no products. Then → Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (reel 041941/0079, effective 2017-02-15), a Texas LLC at 1400 Preston Rd, Plano, TX — single-purpose assertion entity. Two consecutive non-practicing holders with no commercial product; the terminus is an LLC whose only business is licensing/litigating.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT. Intellectual Ventures is named on the standard high-frequency-asserter lists, and Monument Peak Ventures is a Dominion Harbor Enterprises affiliate (RPX Insight, 2018-04-12 and 2020-04-12). MPV is an active plaintiff: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC v. GoPro, Inc., No. 1:18-cv-00416 (D. Del.); the March 2018 campaign also named SZ DJI Technology and Victor Hasselblad. Per Mondaq (2018-04-17): "a Dominion affiliate (Monument Peak Ventures, LLC) began a campaign asserting former Kodak patents received from IV." MPV is also a recurring Patent Owner before the PTAB.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data gap). I could not obtain the correspondent-of-record for any of the six recordings, so I cannot test recurrence. The signal the task describes — "the shell LLCs change; the lawyer running them usually doesn't" — is exactly what I'd want to test here, and the data wasn't retrievable. Also keep distinct from assignment correspondents these litigation counsel of record for MPV, which I did surface: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP (Andrew S. Brown, Reg. No. 74,177, lead; Nima Hefazi, back-up) in one MPV IPR; Ascenda Law Group, PC (Tarek N. Fahmi, Reg. No. 41,402) in another; Reed Smith LLP attorneys appear in a separate MPV-related filing excerpt. These are attorney-client engagements in contested proceedings, not USPTO assignment-recording correspondents, and conflating them would be a mistake.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT (as defined). The IV Fund 83 → MPV step spans 2013-02-01 → 2017-02-15, roughly four years — well outside the "<24 months through chained LLCs" pattern. The 2012→2013 cluster (security interest 2012-02-21 → release 2013-02-01 → assignment 2013-04-18) is dense, but it is a single bankruptcy sale plus its lien mechanics, not a shell cascade, and the assignees do not share a correspondent address that I could verify.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — UNCLEAR. The IV → MPV assignment took effect 2017-02-15 (recorded 2017-03-09), and MPV's first Kodak-portfolio assertion campaign launched in March 2018 — roughly 13 months later, which is outside the 6-month window the signal specifies. Separately, I could not establish that US 6,215,559 itself was ever asserted. It appears only as a complaint exhibit in Xerox Corp. v. Monument Peak Ventures, LLC, No. 6:20-cv-06263-FPG (W.D.N.Y., filed 2020-04-23; dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction 2020-08-18 and 2021-08-31) — which shows MPV was putting the patent in front of a defendant, but a DJ-action exhibit is weaker evidence of assertion than a complaint. Google Patents also flags a Texas E.D. case, 4:21-cv-00683. Net: not enough to score this signal either way.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — PRESENT. Textbook. Kodak's Chapter 11 (SDNY No. 12-10202), §363 sale, ~1,100 patents, $527M agreed purchase price, Final Sale Order early 2013, transfer recorded at reel 030239/0154 effective 2013-02-01. The winning bid came in far below Kodak's self-reported $2.2–2.6B valuation. SEC 8-K of 2012-12-18 and Kodak's 2013 Annual Report (p. 71, "SECTION 363 ASSET SALES") both document this.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR, and partly inverted. This was not a classic privateering arrangement (operating co. directing an NPE at named competitors). The buyer group was itself a coalition of Kodak's competitors/licensees — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, Fujifilm, Huawei, HTC, RIM, Shutterfly — each taking a license via the Bidco DC/KISS arrangements, while Kodak kept a grant-back license. That structure partially neutralizes the portfolio against the original coalition. The assertion value was instead monetized later through IV → Dominion Harbor → MPV against non-licensee third parties (GoPro, DJI, Hasselblad, Xerox). So: mixed, leaning "not present as to this patent."

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT as the terminal owner. The chain ends at Monument Peak Ventures / Dominion Harbor, which asserts — the opposite of RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. However, note the important nuance for the value analysis: RPX Corporation co-organized the 2013 buying consortium, and the 12 licensees' licenses mean this patent was already encumbered by significant defensive licenses when IV acquired it. The defensive overlay exists at the portfolio level; it just doesn't describe the terminal assignee.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Three strong signals converge on this chain: (i) a shell-entity transfer — Kodak sold to Intellectual Ventures Fund 83 LLC at reel 030239/0154 (eff. 2013-02-01), then IV assigned to Monument Peak Ventures, LLC at reel 041941/0079 (eff. 2017-02-15), two consecutive non-practicing holders ending at a single-purpose Texas LLC; (ii) a known asserter — Monument Peak Ventures is, per RPX Insight, a Dominion Harbor Enterprises subsidiary that launched a former-Kodak assertion campaign in March 2018 and has sued GoPro, DJI, and Hasselblad; and (iii) a bankruptcy fire-sale — the §363 sale of Kodak's digital-imaging portfolio out of SDNY No. 12-10202, $527M against a $2.2–2.6B self-valuation.

Caveat on completeness: two things would sharpen this verdict and I could not deliver them. First, no correspondent-of-record names were retrievable, so the "repeat correspondent" signal — often the single most probative tell across NPE chains — is untested here. Second, I could not confirm that US 6,215,559 was ever actually asserted (it surfaces only as a Xerox DJ-action exhibit and an unverified Texas E.D. docket flag). The verdict rests on the ownership chain and the assignee's documented assertion behavior, not on proof of assertion of this specific patent.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ ; legacy index — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search by patent number 6215559). Kodak's 8-K of 2012-12-18: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/31235/000119312512513381/d458185d8k.htm . Patent Sale Agreement (Kodak–IV Fund 83, 2012-12-18): https://contracts.justia.com/companies/eastman-kodak-co-6588/contract/[526228](/patent/526228)/ . RPX Insight on MPV/Dominion Harbor: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/61494-dominion-s-monument-peak-ventures-picks-up-more-patents-launches-more-litigation .

Cross-reference check against the previously generated sections

No contradictions found. The earlier summary's assignment chain (Kodak → IV Fund 83 → Monument Peak Ventures, with the 2023 secured-party release) and its litigation notes (Xerox DJ dismissal, unverified Texas case, no IPR against 6,215,559) all reconcile with the reel/frame data here. One item to carry forward rather than resolve: the earlier section flagged that the Xerox exhibit number for 6,215,559 is uncertain (#2 vs. #3) — that uncertainty is unchanged, and I did not independently resolve it in this pass.

I'll verify the citation data against live sources before analyzing each reference. Let me search.

Let me verify the remaining cited references.

Sources and caveats used for this section

• The authoritative basis here is the issued patent text (Google Patents full text, corroborated against FreePatentsOnline for the claim set). Its front‑page "References Cited" list is what I analyze below. I did not obtain the file wrapper / Office actions, so I cannot report the examiner's categories (e.g., which references were applied under §102 vs. §103) — only the list of record and my own mapping.
• Patent numbers and identifiers are reproduced literally, including the issued title "Image queing in photofinishing" (not corrected to "queuing") and the claim‑18 mis‑reference noted earlier.
• Date discrepancy flagged: the task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the environment timestamp is 2026‑09‑29. Nothing in this analysis depends on which is correct, but I am noting the inconsistency rather than silently reconciling it.
• Applicable law: priority/filing 1998‑07‑31 is pre‑AIA, so §102(a), §102(b) and §102(e) govern.
• Bottom‑line caution: the patent issued, which means the examiner did not treat any of these references as a complete, single‑reference anticipation of an independent claim. Anticipation requires one reference disclosing every limitation. Almost all of what follows is therefore better characterized as §103 material, with a small number of genuine §102 candidates flagged as such.

The 16 references of record (as listed on the '559 front page)

Two additional foreign family citations appear in the Google Patents "Family Cites Families" field (not part of the 16): JPH09265141A (Fuji Photo Film, "Method and system for printing in coexisting state," pub. 1997‑10‑07, prio. 1996‑03‑27) and JPH10150541A (Fuji Photo Film, "Photo‑finishing system," pub. 1998‑06‑02, prio. 1996‑11‑20). Both predate the '559 priority date and are §102(b)/§102(a) art respectively, but I did not obtain their texts and will not speculate about their disclosures.

Note on the "Cited By" list: the ~13–22 documents that cite '559 (e.g., US 6,373,585, US 6,839,803, US 7,783,695) post‑date the '559 priority date and are not prior art to '559. I exclude them.

Tier 1 — References with the closest technical correspondence

US 5,619,624 A — "Apparatus for selecting a rasterizer processing order for a plurality of graphic image files"

• Citation: US 5,619,624 A; Management Graphics, Inc.; filed/priority 1994‑05‑20; granted 1997‑04‑08.
• Description (verified from the patent text): Multiple output devices each have a control system comprising a first queue for graphic image files and a second queue for raster image data. Selecting means choose files from the first queue on a real‑time basis and are responsive to parameters of the graphic image files and of the associated output device to govern flow to the rasterizer and thence to the output device. The system supports multiple RIP modules ("PostScript," "Targa," "TIFF"), can run multiple instances of the same RIP in parallel, and includes transfer control means to move rasterized data from one control system's second queue to another's.
• Potential §102 mapping: This is my strongest candidate against claim 11. Elements (a) real memory → the queues; (b) render manager directing image signals into format‑differentiated queues → the selecting means routing graphic image files per output‑device parameters; (c) plurality of renderers each communicating with a respective queue and producing that queue's format → the per‑device RIP modules. However, claim 11's preamble requires a "photofinishing apparatus," and '624 is a graphic‑arts/film‑recorder system — an element '624 does not disclose. Also, '624 routes on file/device parameters, not on "the associated product or service requested" by a customer. So a clean §102 rejection of claim 11 is unlikely on the face of it; '624 is much better deployed as the primary §103 reference against claims 1/11/14/23.

US 5,995,721 A — "Distributed printing system"

• Citation: US 5,995,721 A; Xerox Corporation; filed/priority 1996‑10‑18; granted 1999‑11‑30.
• Description (verified): A plurality of queues mapped to a plurality of document processing subsystems, each queue carrying a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which a mapped subsystem can process a job portion. A queue utility compares job attributes against queue attributes to determine which queues can completely process a job portion, and the job portion is correspondingly routed. FIG. 5 groups queues by capability — "B/W Queues," "FPC [full‑process‑color] Queues," "Accent Color Queues."
• Potential §102 mapping: Because it was filed 1996‑10‑18 but published after the '559 priority date, it is §102(e) art. The attribute‑matched, capability‑grouped queue structure in FIG. 5 is conceptually close to "queues having different associated formats" (claim 1 step (b); claim 11 element (b); claim 23 step (b)). The most plausible §102(e) theory is against claim 1 or claim 23, but it fails on the "photofinishing apparatus" preamble and on "image products or services … incorporating respective images." Best characterized as a strong §103 reference.

US 5,287,194 A — "Distributed printing"

• Citation: US 5,287,194 A (Lobiondo); Xerox Corporation; filed/priority 1992‑11‑25; granted 1994‑02‑15.
• Description: A printshop management scheduling routine allocating print jobs across available local/remote printers based on multiple criteria — expressly including "selection of media format, size, number of copies, completion time" — splitting a job across several printers when a single printer cannot meet a completion time.
• Potential §102 mapping: The "route by format/media" concept is here, which touches claim 1 step (b) and claim 11 element (b). But the routing unit is a print job, not an image signal directed into a queue that has "different associated formats," and there is no rendering step producing "the format associated with the queue." §103 reference against claims 1 and 11; not anticipation.

US 5,179,637 A — "Method and apparatus for distributing print jobs among a network of image processors and print engines"

• Citation: US 5,179,637 A; Eastman Kodak Company (same assignee as '559); filed/priority 1991‑12‑02; granted 1993‑01‑12.
• Description (verified): A SCHEDULER receives encoded data, interrogates whether a print engine is capable of printing the file, and passes data to an available image processor IPm over BUS2; IPm applies "one or more computer algorithms to the data file creating the rasterized image to be printed by the print engine, PEm." The preferred embodiment lets one image processor's data be transferred through other image processors to multiple free print engines without further data manipulation.
• Potential §102 mapping: Directly relevant to claim 7 (renderers retrieving images as they become available — '637's scheduler picks a free image processor), and to claims 4/10/15/21/22 (one queue → multiple rendering devices) in the mirror‑image sense that '637 spreads one rasterized job across multiple engines. It is the same‑assignee ancestor of the '559 architecture and is the single most likely reference an examiner would combine for §103. It does not disclose format‑differentiated queues, so it cannot anticipate claims 1, 11, 19 or 23.

US 5,596,416 A — "Multiple printer module electrophotographic printing device"

• Citation: US 5,596,416 A (Barry et al.); T/R Systems; filed/priority 1994‑01‑13; granted 1997‑01‑21.
• Description: Multiple printer modules operated as a single virtual high‑speed printer, with electronic collation: after rasterizing, pages are stored and a "parsing" process distributes them to available engines in the correct sequence.
• Potential §102 mapping: Relevant to claims 4/10/15/21/22 (multiple rendering devices / multiple engines fed from one job stream) and to the "pull"/availability notion in claim 7. Not a §102 reference against the independent claims: no photofinishing context, no format‑typed queues, and the queueing is for collation sequencing, not for output‑format differentiation.

Tier 2 — Photofinishing references (context and preamble, film‑path claims)

US 5,745,219 A — "Method and apparatus for the efficient batch printing of photographic paper"

• Citation: US 5,745,219 A (DeMarti Jr. et al.); Eastman Kodak Company; earliest priority 1994‑05‑12 (granted 1998‑04‑28; the granted application was filed 1997‑06‑17 as a continuation/division of the 1994–95 chain).
• Description (verified): Individual customer film rolls are batched at the printer based in major part on optimizing photographic‑paper use; the film is scanned after development to determine information available only then, such as the image format, and batching is based on the paper required. Each roll gets a unique ID; a record identifies number of prints requested and their respective size.
• Potential §102 mapping: The only reference of record that combines (i) a photofinishing pipeline, (ii) post‑development scanning, and (iii) format‑based sorting. That makes it the most interesting §102 candidate against claim 8 (develop → scan → obtain requests → direct into queues by format → render) and claim 19. The fatal gap: '219 sorts film rolls on paper utilization for an optical printer; it does not direct image signals into image queues having different associated formats, nor does it recite image renderers producing a queue's format. So it defeats "new" only if one reads the directing/rendering steps out of the claims — which is not available. §103 reference against claims 1/8/11/19.

US 5,664,253 A — "Stand alone photofinishing apparatus"

• Citation: US 5,664,253 A; Eastman Kodak Company; filed/priority 1995‑09‑12; granted 1997‑09‑02. (Examiner‑cited per the Google Patents annotation.)
• Description: A self‑contained photofinishing apparatus (developer/scanner/printer integrated), i.e., the "minilab" configuration the '559 specification describes at col. describing a 1–10 m² housing.
• Potential §102 mapping: Supplies the apparatus preamble of claims 11/19 and the environment of claim 1. It does not disclose format‑differentiated queues or renderers, so it cannot anticipate. Relevant only as the §103 base for the "photofinishing apparatus" element.

US 5,612,796 A — "Photographic film preparation workstation"

• Citation: US 5,612,796 A; Eastman Kodak Company; filed/priority 1995‑02‑17; granted 1997‑03‑18.
• Description: A workstation for preparing photographic film (handling/formatting the film before or around processing).
• Potential §102 mapping: Background for the film‑handling front end of claims 8/19 (splicing, film stripping). No queue/renderer teaching. Not a §102 reference; possible §103 support for the develop/scan preamble.

US 4,065,661 A — "Photofinishing apparatus"

• Citation: US 4,065,661 A; Eastman Kodak Company; filed/priority 1975‑04‑26; granted 1977‑12‑27.
• Description: An early automated photofinishing apparatus. I am relying on the title and assignee; I did not retrieve its text, so I will not characterize its disclosure beyond this.
• Potential §102 mapping: Because it is pre‑digital by roughly two decades, it cannot disclose image signals, queues, formats or renderers. Its only role is as evidence that "photofinishing apparatus" was a known field. Flagging the limits of my verification here.

EP 0 744 651 A2 — "Multiple format camera recording frame size information on film, photographic printer and device for converting photographic images in video images"

• Citation: EP 0 744 651 A2; Sony Corporation; priority 1995‑05‑22; published 1996‑11‑27.
• Description: Multiple‑format camera/printing system that records frame‑size (format) information on film and converts photographic images to video images.
• Potential §102 mapping: Bears on the "different associated formats" element of claims 1/11/23. But EP '651 handles differing camera frame formats (e.g., panoramic vs. standard) and image conversion — not routing image signals into format‑typed queues on the basis of a customer‑requested product or service. Useful §103 support for the "format" concept; not anticipation.

Tier 3 — Scheduling/queueing and general data‑processing art

US 5,631,740 A — "Transducers with constraints model for print scheduling"

• Citation: US 5,631,740 A; Xerox Corporation; filed/priority 1995‑11‑28; granted 1997‑05‑20.
• Description: Constraint‑based print scheduling (assigning jobs to machines subject to constraints).
• §102 mapping: Supports the scheduling/queue‑management element of claim 1 step (b) and claim 11 element (b). Does not disclose format‑typed image queues or renderers. §103 only.

US 5,535,322 A — "Data processing system with improved work flow system and method"

• Citation: US 5,535,322 A; International Business Machines Corp.; filed/priority 1992‑10‑27; granted 1996‑07‑09.
• Description: A workflow system for routing work items/jobs through processing stages.
• §102 mapping: General §103 background for "directing … into queues based on the requested output." No image rendering or photofinishing teaching.

US 5,649,220 A — "System and method for artwork design and production"

• Citation: US 5,649,220 A; Scitex Corporation Ltd.; filed/priority 1993‑08‑24; granted 1997‑07‑15.
• Description: Graphic‑arts design/production system routing artwork to output devices.
• §102 mapping: General §103 background for routing image data to multiple image output devices. Not a §102 reference; not photofinishing.

US 5,402,361 A — "Apparatus for and method for logging, storing, and redirection of process related non‑densitometric data generated by color processing equipment for use by an off site host computer"

• Citation: US 5,402,361 A; X‑Rite, Incorporated; filed/priority 1991‑04‑18; granted 1995‑03‑28.
• Description: Collecting and redirecting color‑process (non‑densitometric) data from color processing equipment to an off‑site host.
• §102 mapping: Touches the "obtain requests/associated data and route them" aspect of claim 1 step (a) and claim 11 element (b). No image format queues or renderers. §103 background only.

US 5,012,409 A — "Operating system for a multi‑tasking operating environment"

• Citation: US 5,012,409 A (Fletcher, Mitchell S.); filed/priority 1988‑03‑10; granted 1991‑04‑30. (Examiner‑cited.)
• Description: A multi‑tasking operating system supporting concurrent tasks.
• §102 mapping: Cited for the general proposition of multiple independent processors/memories operating in parallel — relevant to the "multiple real memories / multiple renderers" architecture of claims 11/12 and the parallel‑renderer aspect of claims 4/15. Not photofinishing; not §102 against any claim.

US 5,454,107 A — "Cache memory support in an integrated memory system"

• Citation: US 5,454,107 A; VLSI Technologies; filed/priority 1993‑11‑30; granted 1995‑09‑26. (Examiner‑cited.)
• Description: Cache/memory architecture support.
• §102 mapping: Cited for the "real memory" element of claims 11/12 and the memory‑defined queues of claim 23. Nothing about image formats or rendering. §103 background only.

Bottom line: §102 vs. §103 on the face of the record

1. No reference of record fully anticipates any independent claim (1, 8, 11, 19, 23). Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation. Every candidate above fails on at least one of: (i) the "photofinishing apparatus" environment (which excludes the otherwise‑close US 5,619,624, US 5,995,721, US 5,287,194, US 5,179,637 and US 5,596,416); (ii) customer‑request‑driven "image products or services"; or (iii) the renderer‑produces‑the‑queue's‑format step.
2. The closest §102 theory is US 5,619,624 against claim 11, but only if one treats the "photofinishing apparatus" preamble as non‑limiting and treats output‑device parameters as "the associated product or service requested." I do not think that reading survives. Second‑closest is US 5,995,721 (as §102(e) art) against claim 1/23, on the same two weaknesses.
3. The closest §102 theory from within the photofinishing art is US 5,745,219 against claims 8/19, and it fails because '219 batches physical film rolls on paper utilization for an optical printer rather than queueing image signals for renderers.
4. Realistically, the record supports §103 combinations, most plausibly: US 5,179,637 or US 5,619,624 (queue/scheduler → format‑specific renderers) in view of US 5,745,219 or US 5,664,253 (photofinishing develop/scan pipeline), with US 5,287,194 / US 5,995,721 supplying the "route by requested output format" teaching and US 5,596,416 supplying the one‑to‑many renderer/engine fan‑out for the dependent claims (4/10/15/21/22).

What I could not verify (stated explicitly)

• I could not complete a direct USPTO Patent Center / PAIR or file‑wrapper (Office action) retrieval within this session, so I cannot report which references the examiner actually applied and under which statutory category, nor the applicant's rebuttals.
• I did not retrieve the full texts of US 4,065,661, US 5,592,796 (US 5,612,796), US 5,454,107, US 5,012,409, US 5,535,322, US 5,402,361, US 5,649,220 or US 5,631,740, or of the two Japanese family citations (JPH09265141A, JPH10150541A). My descriptions of those rely on title/assignee/date metadata, and I have marked them accordingly rather than inventing disclosure detail.
• One drafting oddity carried forward from the earlier section, taken literally: claim 18 reads "A method according to claim 14," though claim 14 is an apparatus claim; and claim 21 recites "at least one of the queues communicates image signals to multiple rendering," an apparent typographical omission. I have not corrected either.

I'll ground the analysis by pulling abstract/claim-level detail on the key references cited on the patent's Prior Art section.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,215,559 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on the record: this analysis builds on the previously generated sections (bibliography, claim overview) and does not repeat them. Two housekeeping points before the substance: (1) the system date supplied for this session is 2026‑09‑29, while the task header states April 26, 2026 — I flag the discrepancy rather than silently pick one; nothing in an obviousness analysis turns on it. (2) All identifiers are reproduced literally from the source page, including the title's "queing," the "real memory" terminology, and the claim‑18 dependency anomaly.

1. Legal framework and the threshold that must be met

The effective filing/priority date is 1998‑07‑31 (no earlier priority claim). Section 103 is therefore governed by pre‑AIA law (Graham v. John Deere, KSR Int'l v. Teleflex). Three findings control:

1. Scope and content of the prior art. All art in the "Patent Citations (16)" and "Family Cites Families (2)" sections of the source page predates 1998‑07‑31, with one nuance discussed in §2.
2. Differences between the claims and the prior art. Addressed claim‑by‑claim in §4–§6.
3. Level of ordinary skill. A PHOSITA here is a systems engineer with ~2–3 years' experience in digital image/graphic output pipelines (raster image processing, job spooling, print‑engine control), capable of reading network‑based distributed‑printing disclosures and photofinishing disclosures interchangeably. KSR holds that where a technique is used to improve one device and would predictably improve analogous devices the same way, the combination is obvious.

A critical scoping point: the "Cited By (22)" documents on the page are not prior art. The only exceptions worth checking are ones whose own priority precedes 1998‑07‑31, and none of the Cited‑By entries do — e.g. US 6,373,585 B1 (priority 1998‑08‑26) post‑dates the '559 priority date. I therefore exclude the entire Cited‑By set from the § 103 case, and flag that any analysis that reaches for it would be using the wrong side of the page.

2. The prior‑art set, sorted by what it actually supplies

Group A — Photofinishing front end (film → develop → scan → print)

Group B — Routing jobs by destination capability/format rather than by arrival order

The one date nuance: US 5,995,721 A issued after the '559 filing date, so it is not § 102(a)/(b) art by publication. It is available under pre‑AIA § 102(e) as a U.S. patent granted on an application filed 1996‑10‑18, i.e. before the '559 invention date — and it was cited on the face of the '559 patent, so the examiner had it. I flag it because it is good § 103 art but only through the 102(e) door.

Group C — Multiple parallel renderers / rasterizers with per‑device queues

Group D — Mixed‑format imagery and peripheral teaching

3. What the independent claims actually require (compressed)

From the previously generated claim overview: claims 1/8 (methods), 11/19 (apparatus, 19 with developer+scanner), and 23 (CPP). The single distinguishing concept across all five is sort‑by‑destination‑format first, render second — i.e., the queue is the organizing object and the renderer is bound to a queue rather than to a job. That is the only thing the § 103 case has to supply.

4. The § 103 case: primary combinations

Combination A (attacks claims 1 and 11) — US 5,179,637 + US 5,619,624, optionally + US 5,287,194

Motivation to combine. This is where the case is strongest, and much of the motivation is supplied by the '559 patent's own background, which the applicant wrote and which therefore frames the problem:

• The '559 background concedes that "different image products or image services may require different image processing … (for example, different type and size of printers, or modems)" and that "an ink jet printer may not produce the same colors from a given image signal as a laser printer," so "different image rendering may be required for different output devices."
• It further concedes the very throughput problem the invention claims to solve: "When multiple general purpose image renderers are required to switch from one format of image rendering to the next, this can slow the overall process down."

A PHOSITA reading US 5,619,624 (which already eliminates format‑switching cost by binding each rasterizer to one output device's queue and letting the file specify the RIP) and US 5,179,637 (which already interrogates capability before routing) has every reason to apply that same queue‑binding discipline to the high‑data‑rate photofinishing pipeline. KSR makes this a textbook "known technique, predictable improvement, same field" case. Note also the common‑assignee signal: US 5,179,637, US 5,742,519, US 5,662,453, US 5,612,796 and US 4,065,661 are all Eastman Kodak — the '559 patent's own original assignee. Art from the same corporate portfolio addressing the same production pipeline is presumptively combinable.

Combination B (attacks claims 8 and 19) — US 4,065,661 / US 5,742,519 / US 5,662,453 / US 5,612,796 + Combination A

Claims 8 and 19 add only the film front end: chemically develop customer film bearing latent images, then scan the optical images to obtain the digital image signals, with claim 19 adding a developer and scanner element. That front end is squarely in the prior art:

• US 4,065,661 — a photofinishing apparatus (Kodak), the generic environment.
• US 5,662,453 — a "stand alone photofinishing apparatus," i.e. the developer/scanner/printer integration.
• US 5,612,796 — a film preparation workstation feeding such a pipeline.
• US 5,742,519 — developed‑film scanning with information read from the film, plus per‑roll print/size records and batching at the printer.

Motivation. There is no field boundary to cross: the queue/renderer architecture and the develop/scan front end are in the identical industry and the identical product. Kodak's own US 5,742,519 already states that film rolls should be "batch[ed] at the printer" on output‑resource grounds, and that film should be "scann[ed] after development to determine information available only then, such as the image format" — which is functionally the '559 insight (route by output format for efficiency) expressed in the pre‑scan domain. Substituting a digital queue for a physical batching step, once a scanner is already downstream of the developer, is at most a predictable use of a known technique. Note the '559 specification itself says the apparatus "constitutes the major components of a photofinishing laboratory" with a splicer 100 / developer 20 / scanner 102 — the claimed front end is admitted conventional structure.

Combination C (attacks claim 23, the computer program product) — US 5,619,624 + US 5,012,409 (+ US 5,535,322)

Claim 23 recites a computer‑readable storage medium whose program causes a multi‑processor photofinishing computer to perform the claim‑1 steps. US 5,619,624 discloses the recited functionality in software (RIP software modules, selecting means, queue management, "multiple instances of the same RIP … run in parallel"), which is the substance of the claim; US 5,012,409 supplies multi‑tasking operating‑system support for multi‑processor environments; US 5,535,322 supplies workflow/queue state management on a data processing system. The direct motivation combines the standard KSR reasoning that programming a known computer to perform a known process yields an obvious product, with the fact that US 5,619,624 already discloses the process in program form.

5. The § 103 case: the dependent claims

The dependent claims map almost one‑for‑one onto Group B/C references, which is itself telling about the claim set's breadth.

6. Secondary considerations and counter‑evidence

• No record of secondary considerations. US 6,215,559 expired for failure to maintain past its 20‑year term (anticipated expiration 2018‑07‑31, per the source page) and, per the previously generated section, the only identified enforcement activity was a declaratory‑judgment action dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction — i.e., no merits finding of validity and therefore no presumption or judgment of nonobviousness to contend with. I found no evidence of unexpected results, long‑felt need, industry praise, licensing‑driven nexus, or copying in the materials available. Absent a nexus‑bearing record, the Graham secondary factors do not rebut the prima facie case.
• No teaching away. Nothing in US 5,179,637, US 5,287,194, US 5,619,624 or US 5,596,416 teaches away from queue‑by‑format routing; if anything, US 5,619,624 describes it as the improvement over prior RIP/engine idling.
• Design choice / predictable results. Once the format‑specific queue is adopted, the dependent‑claim variations (round‑robin vs. drain‑to‑empty, dedicated vs. shared renderer, pull vs. push) are the standard, finite menu of queue‑servicing disciplines. KSR treats selection among a finite number of identified, predictable solutions as obvious, particularly where, as here, the '559 specification presents them as alternatives ("various routines … For example … Alternatively … Alternatively, a time based routine may be used, or any combination of the foregoing routines used").
• The contrary argument a patentee would make: that the photofinishing context — customer film, per‑order product mixes, a shared renderer justified by "infrequently ordered" products — is a non‑analogous setting for office‑printer load balancing. I think that argument fails, for two reasons grounded in the record: (i) US 5,179,637 is itself a Kodak reference directed at image processors and print engines handling "still photographic quality prints" and even names the Kodak Premier Image Enhancement System and SU6500 Color Video Printer; (ii) US 5,742,519 is a Kodak photofinishing reference that already batches film rolls at the printer based on output‑resource utilization and reads requested sizes/formats from the film. The two fields are the same field.

7. Conclusions

1. Claim 1 is likely obvious over US 5,179,637 in view of US 5,619,624 (with US 5,287,194 as a secondary teaching of capability‑matched routing and job splitting). US 5,619,624 alone supplies per‑output‑device queues and per‑device rasterization into device‑selected formats (PostScript/Targa/TIFF); US 5,179,637 supplies the "interrogate the request, route only to a capable/free engine, render suitable for that engine" control loop. The motivation is stated verbatim in the '559 background as the format‑switching throughput penalty.
2. Claims 8 and 19 are likely obvious over US 4,065,661 / US 5,742,519 / US 5,662,453 / US 5,612,796 in view of the Combination A references, because the develop‑scan‑front‑end and the print‑side batching/routing were both old and both Kodak.
3. Claim 11 is likely obvious on the same Combination A, and may be anticipated by US 5,179,637 taken alone if the SCHEDULER + per‑engine image processors IP₁–IPₙ are read as "queues" and "renderers" respectively — in which case claim 11 fails at § 102, and § 103 is satisfied a fortiori.
4. Claims 2–7 and 12–17, 20–22 are likely obvious on the Combination A base plus US 5,596,416 (parallel per‑engine buffers, single buffer per module, ready‑signal reallocation) and US 5,534,322 / US 5,631,740 (queue/workflow scheduling). Each dependent feature is disclosed and each motivation is a stated design objective in at least one reference.
5. Claim 23 is likely obvious over US 5,619,624 in view of US 5,012,409, since the recited steps are disclosed as software in US 5,619,624 and the multi‑processor/multi‑memory execution environment is the ordinary platform.
6. Claim 18 is unanalyzable as literally drafted (method claim depending from an apparatus claim). If read as depending from claim 14, it adds only the pull‑as‑available feature already taught by US 5,179,637 and US 5,596,416.

8. Confidence and limitations on this analysis

High confidence: the priority date, the reference dates and assignees, the substance of US 5,179,637, US 5,619,624, US 5,287,194, US 5,596,416 and US 5,742,519 (retrieved abstracts, claim sets and passages with URLs above), and the analysis of what the '559 claims require (taken from the full issued text).

Moderate confidence: the content of US 4,065,661, US 5,662,453, US 5,612,796, US 5,454,107, US 5,012,409, US 5,402,361, US 5,649,220, US 5,535,322, US 5,631,740, EP 0 744 651 A2, JPH 09265141 A and JPH 10150541 A. For these I am working primarily from the titles, dates and assignees as they appear on the source page, without having pulled full text or column/line citations. I have not verified a specific column‑and‑line cite for any reference, and would not represent to a tribunal that I had.

Explicit non‑findings: I did not verify whether any of these references was applied or distinguished during prosecution of US 09/127,653, nor whether the EP counterpart (EP 0 977 084 B1, granted 2013‑07‑03) survived opposition on the same art — EPO allowance would be a data point but is not evidence of US validity, and conversely I have found nothing that undercuts the combination above.

One thing to correct if it appears elsewhere in this file: the "Cited By" documents on the source page (US 6,373,585 B1, US 6,839,803 B1, US 7,062,527 B1, US 9,483,877 B2, etc.) post‑date the 1998‑07‑31 priority date and are not § 103 prior art against US 6,215,559; they show only how later art built on the '559 disclosure.