US 6788428

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 6788428.

Let me search for any CAFC litigation or docket activity involving this patent.

Let me verify there's no separate litigation/PTAB record and disambiguate from a similarly numbered patent.

US Patent 6,788,428 — Summary

Sources searched: USPTO/Google Patents full text (authoritative, provided), Unified Patents portal, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, plus targeted searches of court/PTAB materials. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, no district-court case, and no IPR/PGR record naming US 6,788,428. A "CAFC 2026" search returned only unrelated appeals (e.g., Gamevice/Nintendo), and searches on the bare number returned non-patent false positives (e.g., a Brazilian state registry entry "6788428"). Treat the litigation absence as a negative search result, not a guarantee.

⚠️ Disambiguation warning: a hit referencing a "’428 Patent" in Linfo v. Trustpilot (Fed. Cir. blog, opinion-below PDF) concerned claims to extracting/displaying information from unstructured text under Alice § 101. That subject matter is inconsistent with US 6,788,428 (printer drivers), so that "’428" is almost certainly a different patent sharing the last three digits. I could not confirm its full number before hitting the search limit — flagging this because it is exactly the kind of near-number collision your instruction warns about.

Bibliographic data

Date discrepancy noted: Unified Patents' portal lists priority 1999-04-12, filing 2000-04-12, and grant 2004-09-06 — each exactly one day earlier than the authoritative full text. I treat these as a timezone/UTC artifact; the Google Patents record (1999-04-13 / 2000-04-13 / 2004-09-07) is consistent with US patents issuing on Tuesdays (Sept 7, 2004 was a Tuesday). I am not auto-correcting either source; I simply flag the one-day variance.

Abstract (verbatim substance)

A system for printing data includes a printer and a terminal processing data with a first application. The terminal has an intermediate module (e.g., a GDI) operating under the OS, a communication processor communicating with the printer, and a printer driver activated by the first application via the intermediate module. The "printing driver" (sic) is configured to generate intermediate printing data before the data is tuned for an outputting size, and to allow a second application to access and change the intermediate printing data into ultimate printing data, and to cause the printer to print accordingly.

Independent claims in plain language

The patent has 38 claims, with seven independent claims: 1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, 36. Claims 2–16, 18–21, 23–26, 28–29, 31–32, 34–35, 37–38 are dependent.

• Claim 1 — System. A printing system with (a) a printer having an external interface and (b) a terminal running a first application. The terminal has an OS-controlled intermediate module, a communication processor talking to the printer, and a printer driver launched by the first application through that module. The driver's key job: produce intermediate printing data before the data is tuned to an output size, let a second application access and modify that intermediate data into ultimate printing data, and drive printing from the ultimate data. Additionally, the second application queries and receives answers about the printer's functions, and the driver changes to the ultimate printing data in accordance with those printer functions.

• Claim 17 — Terminal (client side). Substantively the same subject matter as claim 1, but recited as the terminal/PC-WS itself (intermediate module + communication processor + printer driver), with the same intermediate-data, second-application, printer-function-inquiry, and function-dependent-conversion limitations.

• Claim 22 — Printer (device side). The same functional architecture recited from the printer's perspective: a printer connected to a terminal, having an intermediate module under the printer's OS, a communication processor, and a printer driver activated by the terminal's first application via that module, generating intermediate printing data before output-size tuning, allowing a second application to change it into ultimate printing data, with the same printer-function inquiry and function-dependent conversion.

• Claim 27 — Method (driver-side flow). Steps: process data with the first application → generate intermediate printing data before output-size tuning → the second application inquires about and obtains answers on printer functions → change intermediate data to ultimate data in accordance with those functions → tune the data for the output size per the ultimate data → print.

• Claim 30 — Method (transfer-centric flow). Steps: first application processes data → printer driver generates intermediate printing data before output-size tuning → second application inquires about printer functions → the intermediate data is transferred to the second application → the second application changes it into ultimate data in accordance with the printer functions → the printer driver receives the ultimate data back and performs the output-size tuning → print. Claim 30 is the variant that expressly requires the round-trip handoff/return of data, distinguishing it from claim 27.

• Claim 33 — Computer program product (driver-side). A storage medium with code devices mirroring claim 27: first-application processing; intermediate-data generation; second-application inquiry on printer functions plus conversion to ultimate data in accordance with those functions; output-size tuning; printing.

• Claim 36 — Computer program product (transfer-centric). Same as claim 33 but mirroring claim 30, i.e., including the code device that transfers the intermediate data to the second application and receives the ultimate data back for tuning by the printer driver.

Dependent-claim highlights: claims 2, 18, 23, 28 and 31 add generation and delivery of a print image of the intermediate printing data to the second application; claims 6–16 further specify how that print image is prepared (resolution reduction, color reduction, color→B&W, positive↔negative, form overlay, watermark, header/footer, color conversion, left-right inversion, and N-up matrix arrangement); claims 3, 19, 24 add an application interface for the second application to reach the intermediate data; claims 4, 20, 25, 29, 32, 35 and 38 add inquiry into setting parameters for each printer function; claims 5, 21 and 26 add that the answer is returned as a character string usable by the second application's UI.

Practical notes and uncertainties

• Scope is driver-side intermediation, not driverless printing. The inventive core is deferring output-size "tuning" (N-up, rotation, coordinate conversion, scaling) until after a second application has reviewed/edited the intermediate job, plus a query/answer channel for printer capabilities (worked example: punch/staple, positions LEFT/RIGHT/NONE, per Table 1).
• Enforceability: expired on/around 2020-04-13 with maintenance fees paid through the 12-year window; it cannot be asserted now.
• Uncertainty: I have no authoritative evidence of any reexamination, disclaimer, or terminal-disclaimer history, and I found no litigation record. The Chinese family members (CN1264116C, CN100418049C) suggest parallel prosecution abroad, but I did not verify their claim scope.
• The claim set's added "printer-function inquiry" limitations in claims 1/17/22 appear to reflect claim amendments during prosecution; I did not retrieve the file wrapper to confirm, so I state that as an inference, not fact.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6788428. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me search more specifically in litigation databases.

Let me check Unified Patents' litigation portal and other litigation-specific sources directly.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent 6,788,428

Bottom line

I found no evidence of any known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,788,428 — no district court case, no ITC investigation, no CAFC appeal, and no PTAB proceeding that I could confirm names this patent as an asserted (or challenged) patent.

What I searched and what I found

I searched litigation-oriented sources and general web indexes, including:

• The Unified Patents patent page for this exact patent (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6788428-B1) — the record shown lists assignee history, classifications, citations, and "Cited By" references, but no litigation entries.
• The Google Patents page (patents.google.com/patent/US6788428) — no litigation or "Litigation" section is present, only legal-status events (assignment, grant, and fee payments).
• Targeted queries combining the patent number with "litigation," "lawsuit," "infringement," "defendant," "case number," and "asserted."

The results consistently returned only:

1. The patent's own bibliographic/prosecution record (granted 2004-09-07; priority 1999-04-13; assignee Ricoh Company, Ltd.; inventor Katsumi Shimokawa).
2. Unrelated hits that happen to contain the digit string "6788428" (e.g., a Brazilian state commercial-registry filing number) or that involve different patents with similar numbers (e.g., U.S. Patent No. 5,207,678 / 4,488,664 in unrelated DePuy and beverage-dispenser cases). Per your strict instruction, I am not treating these as the patent at issue — they are different patents.

The Unified Patents home page and other litigation aggregators were not retrievable for a direct per-patent litigation query within my search budget, so a definitive "never litigated" conclusion cannot be drawn solely from that source.

Why this outcome is plausible

• Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (original and current). Ricoh is a large operating company, not a recurring NPE-style plaintiff, which reduces the likelihood of this patent appearing in active assertion campaigns.
• Status: The patent is listed as "Expired – Lifetime" with an anticipated expiration of 2020-04-13. Any litigation window has effectively closed, and no litigation is reflected in the legal-events record.

Required caveats

• I could not run a complete, authoritative query against PACER, the CAFC docket, Docket Navigator, or RPX/Unified's full litigation database for this specific number; those are paywalled or require interactive queries I could not fully execute here.
• Absence of litigation in the sources I could reach is not proof that no case ever existed. A dismissed, sealed, or very short-lived complaint could be absent from freely indexed sources.
• I did not auto-correct or reconcile any identifiers. Where searches returned other patents sharing similar digits, I explicitly excluded them.

Suggested next steps to confirm

To verify definitively, the following authoritative sources should be queried directly:

• PACER (pacer.uscourts.gov) — nationwide docket search on "6,788,428".
• Unified Patents Litigation Portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (per-patent case list).
• RPX Insight and Docket Navigator — infringement/validity case histories.
• USPTO Patent Center / Assignment and PTAB — to check for any IPR/PGR/CBM or reexamination naming this patent.

If any of those databases show a case, I would want the case number and court to pull the complaint — but based on the sources I could reach, there is no known litigation to report for US 6,788,428.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the canonical list drawn from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming US 6,788,428, and targeted web searches over PTAB-facing sources returned no proceeding either. The breakdown is therefore 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied.

Bottom-line defensive posture: The patent is untested at the PTAB — no claim has been canceled, but none has been confirmed either. This is not "hardened by surviving an IPR"; it is simply un-challenged. Critically, that fact is now largely moot: the patent is Expired – Lifetime, with an anticipated expiration of 2020-04-13, and all 38 claims stand as issued but unenforceable for future conduct. If your demand letter asserts this patent, the PTAB gives you no precedent to lean on, but the expiration date gives you a much stronger argument than any IPR outcome would.

(No proceedings to detail)

There are no proceeding numbers, petitioners, panels, institution decisions, or final written decisions to report. Per the operating rules, I will not invent any.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 38 claims of US 6,788,428 (independent claims 1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, and 36, plus their dependents) remain UNTESTED — not canceled, not confirmed. There has been no PTAB narrowing whatsoever, so no "surviving claims" list exists and no claim has been judicially construed in a PTAB FWD. Practically, though, the entire claim set is moot going forward because the patent expired on 2020-04-13. Damages exposure, if any ever existed, would be limited to past conduct within the statutory six-year lookback (35 U.S.C. § 286) — and even that window closed years ago relative to today's date.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/FWD ever issued, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue — no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising anything. Conversely, there is no PTAB record to estop the patent owner and no institution decision or FWD to cite in a district court invalidity defense. Any invalidity challenge would have to be built from scratch on art you select yourself, with no PTAB head start and no acknowledged ground of unpatentability from the Board.

Pattern signals. None. The patent was never asserted in a way that drew a defensive IPR; there is no serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain, and no patent-owner PTAB appeal history for this number. The family does show related activity — per the Google Patents record, the Chinese counterpart CN1264116C (from application CNB001064606A) and divisional CN100418049C — but no AIA trial at the USPTO. The combination of a large operating-company assignee (Ricoh Company, Ltd.), a 1999 priority date, and a 2020 expiration is entirely consistent with a patent that simply aged out before any IPR campaign reached it.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and the demand cites this patent: do not expect PTAB help — there is none. Lead instead with the expiration date (2020-04-13) and the § 286 six-year damages bar. Unless the asserted conduct occurred before roughly 2014 and suit was filed timely, the demand is likely time-barred. Ask the asserting party to identify the specific accused conduct and its dates before engaging on the merits.
• Verify the negative directly. To confirm "no PTAB activity" independently, query the PTAB's own systems: USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End proceeding search on "6788428." Also check USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov) for the reexamination tab, in case a pre-AIA inter partes reexamination (which would not appear in the AIA trial list) was ever filed — that is the one non-AIA avenue the ODP trial list would miss.
• If any proceeding surfaces from those direct queries (older, recently filed, or reexam), pull the petition and institution decision and re-run this analysis — but as of the sources reachable here, the correct answer is that no AIA trial proceeding exists for US 6,788,428.

Caveats: I could not execute an interactive per-patent query against PTAB E2E, Docket Navigator, or RPX; those require direct interaction. Absence of proceedings in the ODP-derived list and in web search is strong but not absolute proof. I did not auto-correct any identifier, and I excluded hits that merely shared the digit string "6788428" (e.g., unrelated registry filings and different patents).

Inventors

Pattern check — inventor departure / fire-sale precursor: Not determinable / no signal. I found no evidence that Shimokawa left Ricoh within 12 months of filing, no assignment executed by a departing-inventor entity, and no secondary transfer. The single forward conveyance (inventor → employer) happened before the US filing date, which is ordinary practice, not a distress marker. I did not locate employment records, so I state employer status as an inference from the assignment document, not as independently verified HR fact.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Japan; listed as both original and current assignee).
• Product embodiment: Ricoh is an operating imaging/office-equipment manufacturer. The patent's subject matter — a printer driver that produces intermediate printing data, exposes it to a second (job-management) application, and queries printer capabilities — is squarely within Ricoh's laser/MFP and print-controller product line and its driver software. I have not independently verified a specific shipping SKU that reads on the claims, so I flag this as consistent-with rather than proven.
• Primary line of business: Imaging and electronics (printers, MFPs, copiers, software/solutions).
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition event appears in the legal-events record. Ricoh continued paying maintenance fees through the 12-year window (2008, 2012, 2016), which is inconsistent with an abandoned or fire-sold asset.

Assignment timeline

The authoritative full text records exactly one assignment, in the chain, and no post-issuance transfers. Chronologically:

• 2000-04-11 (executed) / recorded 2000-04-13 — Reel 010723/0544

  • Conveyance: Assignment (underlying document: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:SHIMOKAWA, KATSUMI")
  • Assignor: Katsumi Shimokawa
  • Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Japan)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources I could reach. The Google Patents legal-events extract exposes only the reel/frame, conveyance text, assignor, and effective date — it does not print the recording correspondent. I did not fabricate a name. Because the assignor is an individual employee and the assignee is a large operating company, this recording was most likely filed through Ricoh's in-house IP documentation function or its outside Japanese/US counsel, but I could not confirm the recorded correspondent, so I mark it unknown rather than assert it.
  • Context: Initial assignment of inventor rights to the employer — the standard "inventor → company" conveyance that accompanies corporate filing. Not a fire-sale, not a securitization, not a transfer-to-asserter.

• (No further assignment records.) After the 2000-04-11/2000-04-13 entry, the legal-events record contains only maintenance-fee payments — FPAY year 4 (2008-02-08), FPAY year 8 (2012-03-01), FPAY year 12 (2016-02-29) — plus the grant (2004-08-19 "patent grant") and the 2020-04-13 anticipated expiration. There is no second assignment, no security agreement, no merger, no change of name, no license record, and no release.

Because the Assignment Center shows only the original inventors-to-employer conveyance and nothing post-issuance, the plain reading is that Ricoh Company, Ltd. retained ownership of US 6,788,428 from filing through expiration. (Cross-check: Unified Patents lists the parent company as Ricoh Co Ltd and Google Patents lists "Current Assignee: Ricoh Co Ltd," consistent with no intervening transfer.)

⚠️ Date-variance note (carried from the earlier section): Unified Patents shows priority/application/grant dates one day earlier (1999-04-12 / 2000-04-12 / 2004-09-06) than the authoritative full text (1999-04-13 / 2000-04-13 / 2004-09-07). I am not reconciling these; I use the Google Patents dates (which are internally consistent with US Tuesday-issue practice). This does not change any assignment date.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6788428
    1999 : JP priority application filed
    2000 : Assignment to Ricoh recorded
         : US application filed
    2004 : US patent issued
    2008 : Maintenance fee year 4 paid
    2012 : Maintenance fee year 8 paid
    2016 : Maintenance fee year 12 paid
    2020 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — specifically the rubric's "only the original assignment" branch.

Justification: The entire recorded chain is a single conveyance — Shimokawa → Ricoh Company, Ltd., reel 010723/0544, executed 2000-04-11, recorded 2000-04-13 — after which the patent was simply maintained by fee payments (2008, 2012, 2016) and allowed to expire 2020-04-13. There are no shell-entity transfers, no known asserter, no cascading/privateering transfers, and no litigation, so every affirmative NPE signal is "not present." I select "Insufficient data" rather than an NPE or operating-company-assertion verdict because the record is a null post-issuance chain: it does not establish NPE activity, and it also contains no assertion activity needed to call it an operating-company assertion. The substantively useful finding is a negative one — Ricoh retained and never weaponized this patent; it appears to be a purely organic operating-company asset.

Verify at: USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (and its indexed mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search by patent number 6788428 or by application 09/549,061. This will surface reel 010723/0544 and, if accessible, the correspondent of record I could not retrieve. Recommend also pulling the file-wrapper via USPTO Patent Center to confirm no unrecorded/late-filed assignment exists.

Caveats: I could not execute an interactive query against the Assignment Center's underlying records and could not retrieve the recording correspondent from free sources; a name-free single-link chain is reported without fabrication. Absence of post-issuance records in the sources I reached is a strong indication — but not absolute proof — that Ricoh held this patent to expiration.

I'll research each cited reference to build accurate anticipation analysis. Let me run targeted searches on the references identified in the patent's citation lists.

Now let me research the remaining cited references and family citations.

Prior-Art Analysis for US 6,788,428 — Examiner-Cited References

Note on method/limitations: I could not run an interactive query against USPTO Patent Public Search or Patent Center in this session (those require a live session/API I can't drive here). I therefore worked from the authoritative full text of US 6,788,428 provided in the prompt (the Google Patents mirror of the USPTO record), which reproduces the "References Cited" on the face of the patent, plus targeted lookups of each cited reference. I did not auto-correct any patent number, date, or assignee. Where I could not verify a reference, I say so rather than guess.

I build on — and do not repeat — the earlier bibliographic and claim-mapping sections. Everything below assumes the patent's operative dates: JP priority 1999-04-13 (JP 11-104796), US filing 2000-04-13, grant 2004-09-07, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102/103 governs.

1. The two citation lists (kept distinct, as the record presents them)

The record separates references into "Patent Citations (5)" (cited during prosecution of this application) and "Family Cites Families (4)" (cited in related family applications — JP/CN — so not necessarily applied against the US claims):

2. Prior-art qualification (date gate) — this is threshold-critical

Anticipation under § 102 requires the reference to be prior art in the first place. The dates above produce a non-obvious result:

Two findings worth flagging explicitly (potential contradictions with a naive reading of the citation list):

• US 6,594,028 (D) is date-barred by one day. It is admittedly one of the closest references on subject matter (see §3), but under a literal application of pre-AIA § 102(e) it cannot be applied against a 1999-04-13 priority date. If prosecution had relied on it, that reliance would have been improper — indicating it was likely cited only as background/IDS. If the true invention date is earlier than the JP filing (conception/reduction to practice), the analysis could flip; I have no evidence of that date.
• US 2003/0218775 (E) postdates the patent by ~3 years yet appears in the "Patent Citations" block. That is characteristic of Google Patents' citation aggregation (e.g., a citation imported from a family member or a later-listed reference) rather than a genuine § 102 ground. It cannot anticipate.

3. Reference-by-reference: description + § 102 anticipation assessment

The controlling claim architecture (from the earlier section) requires, in one reference: (i) a printer driver producing intermediate printing data before tuning for an outputting size, (ii) a second application allowed to access/change that data into ultimate printing data, (iii) a printer-function inquiry/answer channel, and (iv) conversion to ultimate data in accordance with those printer functions (independent claims 1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, 36). Anticipation requires every limitation in a single reference (MPEP 2131). Against that yardstick:

A. US 4,876,609 A — "Digital copier with a facsimile function" (Ricoh, 1989-10-24).
Describes a digital copier/fax that reads documents through an ADF and stores image data (e.g., in a SAF memory) for facsimile transmission, including handling of page/document order (systems "A"/"B" for inverting vs. n-th-page-first feeding). It is a device-side image-storage/ordering disclosure. It says nothing about a PC-side printer driver generating intermediate printing data, nothing about a second application editing that data, and nothing about a printer-capability inquiry. (See the reference's own definitions at the Google Patents page.)

• Anticipates: None. Shares only generalized "stored image data / document ordering" concepts. Best characterized as background art.

B. EP 0 915 414 A2 — "Print processing apparatus using computer system" (Sharp).
Discloses a system with a computer, a printer, and a printer driver specific to that printer; a display shows the application's print-setting items and the printer driver's print-setting items simultaneously, and print-support software extracts overlapping items to prevent conflicting settings between the application and the driver. This is the reference most conceptually adjacent to the patent's "second application changes printing conditions" idea — but its mechanism is conflict avoidance between two setting UIs, not generation of intermediate printing data before output-size tuning, and it has no printer-function query/answer to a second application.

• Anticipates: None (and it is also date-barred as § 102 art on the literal dates in §2).

C. US 6,426,798 B1 — "Data structure for printer description file" (Canon).
Defines a universal, XML/DTD-based printer description data structure populated with data about a printer's capabilities, characteristics, features and controls, stored in a universal printer description file that a printer driver accesses to configure itself for a specific printer, with extensibility for printer-unique elements. This is the reference the examiner likely used to address the claim features about inquiring/obtaining an answer about the printer's functions and per-function setting parameters (claims 4, 20, 25, 29, 32, 35, 38) and the "character string" answer format feature (claims 5, 21, 26) — a structured, machine-readable printer-capability description.

• Anticipates: None. It describes printer-capability data models / driver configuration, not (i) intermediate printing data generated before output-size tuning, (ii) a second application that edits that data into ultimate data, or (iii) the driver converting to ultimate data in accordance with queried printer functions. It also lacks the intermediate-module/spooler/communication-processor architecture of claim 1. At most it is § 103 material for the capability-inquiry sub-features — and even then it would have to be combined with the intermediate-data concept.

D. US 6,594,028 B1 — "Status-based control over printer" (Canon).
A print driver on computing equipment queries the printer over a bi-directional interface (e.g., current status such as temperature, recovery-operation status, firmware capabilities) and then modifies operational parameters and/or the format of print data (e.g., select uncompressed vs. compressed data based on DMA capability) before sending it to the printer. Of all the cited references, this is the strongest match to the "driver queries the printer and changes the printing data in accordance with the printer's functions" limitations (claims 1/17/22's final clauses; claim 4 et seq.).

• Anticipates: None — and critically, it is date-barred by one day under pre-AIA § 102(e) (filed 1999-04-14 vs. priority 1999-04-13). Even setting the date aside, it does not disclose intermediate printing data before output-size tuning or a second application editing that data. So it is not a viable § 102 reference; it would be, at most, date-limited § 103 art (and only if the invention date predates it).

E. US 2003/0218775 A1 — "Print control method and printing apparatus" (Hitachi Printing Solutions).
Concerns a controller that corrects/changes page layout (e.g., multiple-logical-pages-per-physical-page/N-up layouts, front/back binding layouts) to match a post-treatment (finishing) apparatus, with a correction-data register and an operation panel for selecting layouts. Conceptually adjacent to the patent's output-size tuning / N-up "matrix" arrangement (claim 16) and finishing/finishing-related subject matter.

• Anticipates: None. It postdates the priority date by ~3 years (filed 2002-05-24) and is not § 102 art; and it lacks the intermediate-data/second-application/printer-inquiry architecture entirely.

F. EP 1 136 907 B1 (Canon) — family cite. "Information processing apparatus serving as a host unit" (priority 1993-12-09; granted 2006-04-26). I could only confirm the bibliographic entry; I did not verify its disclosure or its original A-publication date, so I cannot state its § 102 status. Treated as contextual/host-side information-processing art.

G. KR 100223650 B1 — "Print Data Processing Method" (1996-06-30 / 1999-10-15). Title suggests print-data processing, potentially relevant to intermediate print data handling; I could not retrieve its disclosure (search budget exhausted), so I will not speculate on its § 102 effect.

H. US 5,923,826 A — "Copier/printer with print queue disposed remotely thereof" (Xerox, 1997-01-21 / 1999-07-13). Remote print-queue management art. Date-qualifies as § 102 art. Relevant background to the spooling/queue aspects of claim 1's environment; I did not verify its full disclosure, so no anticipation conclusion.

I. JP H11-034439 A — "Printer device" (Fujitsu, 1997-07-24 / 1999-02-09). Date-qualifies (published before the priority date). Title indicates printer-device art; disclosure not retrieved/verified, so no anticipation conclusion. Note: Japanese-language publications are § 102 art as of their publication date; this one's 1999-02-09 publication predates the 1999-04-13 priority.

4. Direct answer to the question posed

Which cited reference potentially anticipates which claim(s)? As a strict § 102 matter: none of the five prosecution-cited references (A–E) anticipates any of the 38 claims, and two of them (D and E) are not even prior art on the face of the dates.

• No cited reference discloses the core combination of (i) intermediate printing data generated before output-size tuning, (ii) a second application that accesses and changes it into ultimate printing data, (iii) a printer-capability inquiry/answer, and (iv) driver conversion in accordance with the queried printer functions — the combination present in every independent claim (1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, 36). Because each dependent claim (2–16, 18–21, 23–26, 28–29, 31–32, 34–35, 37–38) incorporates its base claim's limitations, none is anticipated either.
• The citations track isolated features, not the invention as claimed:
• C (US 6,426,798) → printer-capability description data structure (relevant to claims 4/5, 20/21, 25/26, 29/32/35/38).
• D (US 6,594,028) → driver querying the printer and modifying print data accordingly (relevant to the closing limitations of claims 1/17/22 and claim 4 et seq.) — but date-barred by one day.
• B (EP 0 915 414 A2) → two-setting-source conflict avoidance (adjacent to the "second application changes printing conditions" idea) — also date-barred.
• A (US 4,876,609) → stored image data / document ordering (background only).
• E (US 2003/0218775) → page-layout correction for finishing (adjacent to claim 16's N-up/array idea) — not prior art at all.
• Consequently, the citation set supports at most a § 103 obviousness narrative (and even that is constrained by the D/E date bars), not § 102 anticipation.

5. Caveats and one thing the earlier sections should be reconciled with

1. Contradiction/flag: The earlier "Patent summary" section lists these five references as the patent's prior art without a date gate. Applying the § 102 date rules produces a materially different conclusion — two of the five (US 6,594,028 and US 2003/0218775) are not prior art to the 1999-04-13 priority date. I recommend the earlier summary be adjusted to note that the citation list is not the same as the effective prior-art set.
2. One-day margin on US 6,594,028 is the single most consequential date fact here. It rests on the recorded US filing date (1999-04-14, App. 09/291,010). If the true invention date predates 1999-04-13 (conception/diligence evidence not available to me), that reference could re-enter the picture. I cannot confirm either way.
3. Unverified references: I could not retrieve the disclosures of KR 100223650 (G), JP H11-034439 (I), US 5,923,826 (H), or EP 1 136 907 (F) before running out of search steps; I therefore make no § 102 prediction for them. Family citations additionally may have been applied against the JP/CN counterparts, not the US claims, so their relevance here is uncertain.
4. A possibly important non-cited reference: During my search I encountered US 6,950,203 B2 (Akabane et al., Ricoh), "Print system and print system control method," which describes a logical printer driver preparing a PDL document + print information, spooling it as a print job, and reprinting an archived print job with the format/number of copies changed — subject matter that looks closer to this patent's intermediate-data concept than any of the cited references. It is not on the US 6,788,428 citation list, and I did not verify its dates or claims, so I flag it only as a lead worth checking (it may be a related Ricoh family member).
5. I performed no auto-correction of any number or date; the one-day discrepancies (noted in the earlier summary too) are reported, not reconciled.

Authoritative URLs for the cited references: us 4,876,609 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4876609A](/patent/US4876609A)/en ; EP 0 915 414 — https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0915414A3/en ; US 6,426,798 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6426798 ; US 6,594,028 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6594028 ; US 2003/0218775 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20030218775A1/en ; the patent itself — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6788428/en.

I'll research the prior art references identified in the patent record to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me research the remaining prior art references and the key technical concepts.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,788,428 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Patent at issue: US 6,788,428 B1, "Data printing system and method generating intermediate printing data for another application to change the printing data" (Ricoh, Shimokawa). Priority 1999‑04‑13 (JP 11‑104796); US filed 2000‑04‑13; issued 2004‑09‑07; expired 2020‑04‑13.
Authority: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6788428B1](/patent/US6788428B1)/en

Building on the prior sections: I do not repeat the claim breakdown, PTAB/litigation findings, or the bibliographic date-variance table already generated. One contradiction to flag up front: the task header states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the earlier sections were run against 2026‑09‑29. Neither date matters to validity — the patent expired in 2020 — so I proceed on the merits.

A. Date-qualification of the references (threshold § 102 check before § 103)

Because the patent has a 1999 priority date, several references cited on the face of the patent are date-marginal and cannot be assumed to be § 103 prior art without care. I do not auto-correct any date; I flag each.

Consequence: the two strongest capability-query/date-clean references on the patent's face are US 6,426,798 (clean) and US 5,923,826 (clean). US 6,594,028 and EP 0 915 414 are useful but date-marginal; I therefore anchor the primary grounds on the clean references and treat the marginal ones as corroborating.

B. Level of ordinary skill (Graham factor 1)

A PHOSITA here is a software engineer with a B.S. in CS/EE (or equivalent) and ~2–3 years' experience in host-based printing, specifically Windows GDI/printer-driver/spooler architecture and page-description languages. This is a mature, incremental, engineering art by 1999 — a factor that increases the likelihood of obviousness under KSR.

C. Construction of the two limitations that decide this case

1. "intermediate printing data before the data is tuned for an outputting size" — The specification equates this to data before "conversion of the coordinates and reduction of the data for collectively printing a plurality of images in one page, or rotation of the image" is applied. That is, device-independent, page-descriptive data produced upstream of output-layout/rendering. This maps essentially one-to-one onto the Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF) produced by GDI + printer driver before the driver renders it into device-specific RAW/PDL data. (Microsoft: "EMF data is device independent … subsequently rendered by a background spooler thread." https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/print/emf-data-type)
2. "ultimate printing data" / "second application" — the tuned, device-understandable output, and a program other than the source application (e.g., a print-job manager / spool-file processor).

With this construction, the asserted "inventive core" — generate device-independent intermediate data, let another program read and modify it, then tune and print — is the ordinary Windows print pipeline plus a known job-processing application.

D. Ground 1 (primary): Microsoft EMF/GDI spool architecture + US 6,433,882 (Brother) [+ US 6,426,798 (Canon)]

This combination renders independent claims 1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, and 36 obvious, and supplies the base for most dependents.

Why a PHOSITA would combine. Both references sit in the same narrow field (host-based printing / driver + spooler). The Windows pipeline already generates device-independent intermediate data (EMF); Brother '882 teaches the known, predictable technique of processing that very intermediate format to produce a new job — N-up layout ("4-in-1", "2-in-1"), overlay/watermark ("CONFIDENTIAL"), and page-order change, achieved by coordinate conversion, scale conversion, and rotation (i.e., exactly the spec's "tuning for an outputting size"). Adding Canon '798's printer-capability description file supplies the claimed query/answer limitation. The combination yields nothing more than the predictable sum of known elements (KSR: "a technique … used to improve one device … would improve similar devices in the same way"). The patent's own Background is an admission of the motivation: it concedes that users stored print-job files, that a "known printing application" merged/reprinted multiple jobs in one lot, and that users desired to change the printing conditions per job and to preview the result before printing. That admitted demand is the motivation.

Claim-30 / claim-36 round-trip specifically. Brother '882 discloses the handoff and return: the EMFs are copied out, processed, and the new print job is returned to the spooler 16, after which the driver-side code generator 29 converts it. That is precisely claim 30's "transferring the intermediate printing data to said second application … receiving the ultimate printing data from the second application … with the printer driver." Similarly, US 5,982,996 discloses a print processor that copies the EMF and directs GDI to deliver it on a new/reset driver (with conversion to device output), which independently reads on the return-and-tune step and adds an express capability-based selection rationale ("based upon the print capabilities of the output device").

E. Ground 2 (alternative): Microsoft EMF + US 5,923,826 (Xerox queue management) + US 6,426,798 / US 6,594,028

If the "second application" is construed as a job-management application (the patent's own framing — "a printing application for printing a plurality of printing jobs in one lot"), then US 5,923,826 is the closest art:

• It teaches a remote document processing station that requests and displays a composite print queue at a user interface (i.e., a second application reaching stored jobs).
• It discloses an electronic job ticket with job-level, page-level, and image-level attributes — including finishing controls (pleating, stapling, etc.) — i.e., the same categories of "printing conditions" the patent lets the second application change (claims recite punch/staple-style finishing in the spec; Table 1's PUNCH=LEFT/RIGHT/NONE).
• Motivation: managing and re-purposing queued/ stored jobs is the express problem of the patent's Background; Xerox '826 supplies the second-application UI and job-attribute editing; the EMF architecture supplies the editable intermediate data.

US 6,594,028 (Canon) then supplies the capability-inquiry limitation: a print driver that queries the printer over a bidirectional interface and modifies parameters/functionality in accordance with printer capabilities (e.g., selecting data format per firmware capability, modifying operational parameters). ⚠️ Its 1999‑04‑14 date sits one day outside the priority and must be resolved from the file wrapper before this ground is relied upon. US 6,426,798 is the date-clean substitute for the capability-description aspect.

EP 0 915 414 A2 (Sharp) — the "application's print settings and printer-driver settings shown on the same screen, with print-support software reconciling overlapping items" — is a natural further combination for the UI/conflict-resolution aspect, but its 1999‑05‑12 publication date makes it § 102(a)-only at best. Use as corroboration, not as the anchor.

F. Dependent claims

The N‑up and overlay dependents are the patent's most factually specific features, and they are precisely what Brother '882 discloses — which is why Ground 1 is strong across the dependent set, not just the independents.

G. Non-obviousness arguments the patentee could raise (and why they likely fail)

1. "The driver itself exposes the pre-tuning intermediate data to a third-party application that hands it back for the driver to tune." This is the only colorable distinction — Brother '882's processor is arguably part of the OS/driver stack, not a separate "second application." Rebuttal: (a) the patent's "second application" is expressly a printing application for printing multiple jobs, which is exactly Xerox '826's remote job-management station; (b) the act of making a component accessible to another program is a routine engineering choice (a published API), and KSR disfavors rewarding such a design choice; (c) US 5,982,996 shows the EMF being handled by an external print processor and re-delivered to a (different) driver — the exact hand-off/return architecture of claim 30.
2. Teaching away. None found. Every reference points the same direction (edit the device-independent intermediate data, then render), and the patent's own Background supplies the motivation rather than a discouragement.
3. Unexpected results / secondary considerations. (Graham factors 3–4.) No unexpected-result evidence is apparent, and because the patent expired 2020‑04‑13, there is no live commercial-success/nexus record to rely on. Any arguable nexus evidence would have to be historical and is likely entitled to little weight given the crowded field and the admitted motivations.
4. The added inquiry limitations (claims 1/17/22/27/30/33/36). These are the broadest-added features and are the most obvious, not the least: querying printer capabilities and adapting output is squarely taught by Canon '798 (clean date) and Canon '028 (date-marginal). They appear to have been added during prosecution (inference, not confirmed from the file wrapper) precisely to distinguish a reference, but the addition is weak against the combination above.

H. Bottom line

• Every independent claim (1, 17, 22, 27, 30, 33, 36) is prima facie obvious over Microsoft's EMF/GDI spool architecture (1997) in view of Brother US 6,433,882 (filed 1999‑02‑01), and further in view of Canon US 6,426,798 for the printer-function-inquiry/parameter limitations.
• An alternative ground runs EMF + Xerox US 5,923,826 (second-application job/attribute management + UI) + Canon US 6,426,798 (capabilities) — with US 5,982,996 supplying the hand-off/re-render architecture of claim 30.
• Claims 2, 11, 12, 15, 16 (print image; overlay/watermark; N‑up matrix) are the most clearly obvious because Brother '882 expressly discloses the substantive features, and JP H10‑40045 / JP H7‑325693 support the preview claims.
• Two date caveats materially temper the analysis: US 6,594,028 (listed 1999‑04‑14) and EP 0 915 414 A2 (published 1999‑05‑12) each fall just outside the 1999‑04‑13 priority and must be confirmed against the file wrapper/certified dates before being relied on; the date-clean anchors are US 6,426,798, US 5,923,826, and the 1997 Microsoft documentation.
• Because the patent expired in 2020, this obviousness analysis is of defensive/validity value only; no claim is enforceable going forward.

Caveats and honesty notes: I did not retrieve the prosecution file wrapper, so the statement that the printer-function-inquiry limitations were added by amendment is an inference, not a verified fact. I could not read KR 100223650 B1 or JP H11‑34439 A and do not rely on them. US 6,433,882 and the Microsoft EMF documentation are not on the face of the patent; I identified them by search and flag them as additional art rather than part of the record's citation list. I did not auto-correct any identifier; where a near-identical number appears (e.g., the "’428" in an unrelated Linfo v. Trustpilot § 101 matter noted in the earlier section), I treat it as a different patent.