US 6856760

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 6856760.

Let me verify the full claim set and check for any 2026 CAFC activity.

US Patent 6,856,760 B2 — "Recording medium"

Important scoping note: I searched for the literal identifier 6856760 only. A JP grant (特許第6856760号, "メカニカルシール用静的シール部材," NOK Corp., a mechanical-seal gasket patent) shares the same numeric string but is an entirely unrelated document and is not the patent you asked about. All results below refer strictly to US 6,856,760.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A recording medium which records thereon moving pictures encoded by a first encoding method, first pictures corresponding to the moving pictures and which have pixels smaller than the moving pictures, still pictures encoded by a second encoding method, and second pictures corresponding to the still pictures and which have pixels smaller than the still pictures."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 — Machine-readable recording medium (the only independent medium claim)
A storage medium carrying three related items, all derived from common signal data:

1. a first still picture encoded by a first encoding method, with descriptive information letting a machine recognize and decode it for display;
2. a second still picture encoded by a different, second encoding method, likewise with descriptive information for machine recognition/decoding; and
3. a picture corresponding to both of the above, having fewer pixels than either still picture, also machine-recognizable/decodable.
   (Note: the claim literally recites "a first encoding methods" — plural — an apparent typographical error in the granted text. Flagging without correction.)

Claim 4 — Video reproducing method (outputting)
Reproduce the first still picture, the second still picture, and the small corresponding picture from a medium (same three-item relationship, derived from common signal data); output a plurality of the pictures from the reproduction operation; and output the first still picture corresponding to a selected picture.

Claim 7 — Video reproducing method (displaying)
Same reproduction step as claim 4, but the second and third steps are framed as displaying a plurality of reproduced pictures and displaying the first still picture corresponding to a selected picture.

Claim 10 — Video reproducing apparatus
An apparatus with reproducing means for the same three-item set, plus first outputting means for outputting a plurality of reproduced pictures and second outputting means for outputting the first still picture corresponding to a selected picture.

Claim 13 — Video reproducing apparatus
An apparatus with reproducing means for the three-item set and displaying means that displays at least one of the first still picture, the second still picture, and the first (small) picture, displays a plurality of reproduced pictures from the reproducing means, and displays the first still picture corresponding to a selected picture. (This is a means-plus-function claim; in PTAB papers it is mapped to "display medium 130" of Fig. 6.)

Dependent claims

• 2, 5, 8, 11, 14: first encoding = MPEG, second encoding = JPEG.
• 3, 6, 9, 12, 15: first/second encodings are simply first/second encoding standards (generic alternatives).
• 14 is captioned "A video reproducing method in accordance with claim 13" even though claim 13 is an apparatus claim — another apparent drafting inconsistency in the granted text, noted literally rather than corrected. 15 correctly reads "A video reproducing apparatus in accordance with claim 13."

Prosecution/litigation context found

• PTAB IPR2018-00905 — instituted? No; Not Instituted – Merits.
• PTAB IPR2025-00518 — [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al. v. Maxell, Ltd., filed January 21, 2025; Terminated – Settled on July 9, 2025 (settlement before institution, 37 C.F.R. § 42.74). Application 10/191,504; Tech Center 2600.
• District court: E.D. Tex. 5:23-cv-00152 (Maxell v. LG Electronics); N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972.
• PTAB petition papers also reference the '760 patent's claim 13 "displaying means" limitation in a dispute where Olympus was discussed as raising indefiniteness — I am citing this only as a document reference; I do not have authoritative confirmation of a separate Olympus IPR against the '760 patent.

CAFC 2026 dockets — answer to your specific request

I could not confirm any Federal Circuit 2026 docket involving US 6,856,760. Searches of Federal Circuit docket listings returned 2025–2026 Maxell appeals, but all of those appear to concern different patents and different parties (e.g., 26-1111 Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., filed Oct. 29, 2025, involving display/EDDC-related patents such as US 12,160,681; also 26-1320, 26-1330, 26-1625). None of the retrieved dockets identifies 6856760 as the asserted or appealed patent. Because the IPR2025-00518 challenge settled before institution, no adverse PTAB final written decision exists to appeal, which is consistent with the absence of a CAFC appeal on this patent.

Uncertainty statement: I did not directly query PACER or the CAFC's own docket system; the absence of a 2026 CAFC docket for '760 is based on aggregated third-party docket databases (Docket Alarm, Justia dockets, Unified Patents, ipVerse/GreyB) and could miss a very recently filed or sealed appeal. Claim 10's full text and claim 12's full text were only partially recoverable in the sources retrieved; claim 12 is represented above as a dependent claim per its position, but I did not see its complete verbatim text.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6856760.

Let me dig deeper into the specific district court cases and PTAB proceedings.

Let me research the earlier district court cases involving this patent (Huawei, ZTE) and confirm the IPR details.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,856,760

Below is what I was able to confirm from public dockets and litigation databases. I've kept district-court litigation separate from PTAB proceedings (which are administrative trials, not court litigation), and I've flagged where I could not verify details.

Threshold note on the patent itself: U.S. 6,856,760 ("Recording medium") lists Masaru Takahashi and Junji Shiokawa as inventors, was originally assigned to Hitachi Ltd., is now held by Maxell, Ltd. (via Hitachi → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell chain of assignments), and expired (anticipated expiration) around December 20, 2019. It is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/446,338, now U.S. 6,424,795.

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1. District Court Litigation

A. Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. v. Huawei Device USA, Inc., et al.

• Plaintiff: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendant(s): Huawei Device USA, Inc., et al.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Texarkana Division)
• Case No.: 5:16-cv-00178 (E.D. Tex.)
• Filing date: 2016 (exact day not confirmed in the sources retrieved)
• Outcome/status: Not confirmed in the materials retrieved. The '760 patent is expressly identified as one of the asserted patents in this case (per Maxell's own statement in the N.D. Cal. joint case management statement).
• Source: Joint Case Management Statement, N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972, filed Apr. 11, 2025 (listing "Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. v. Huawei Device USA, Inc., et al., Case No. 5:16-cv-178 (E.D. Tex.) (involving Asserted U.S. Patent No. 6,856,760)"). https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2025-00393/...

B. Maxell, Ltd. v. ZTE Corp., et al.

• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendant(s): ZTE Corporation, et al.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Texarkana Division)
• Case No.: 5:16-cv-00179 (E.D. Tex.)
• Filing date: November 18, 2016 (per PTAB petition background section)
• Outcome/status: Not confirmed in retrieved materials.
• Source: IPR petition background (citing "Maxell, Ltd. v. ZTE Corporation et al., 5-16-cv-00179 (EDTX) filed November 18, 2016").

C. Maxell, Ltd. v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) and LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.

This is a single action that moved between two courts; the two case numbers below are the same case, not two separate suits:

• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendant(s): LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.
• Original jurisdiction / Case No. 1: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas — 5:23-cv-00152 (Judge Robert W. Schroeder, III)
• Original filing date: December 29, 2023
• Transfer: LG's § 1404(a) motion to transfer was granted July 1, 2024; the E.D. Tex. docket shows the case closed 07/01/2024 on transfer.
• Transferee jurisdiction / Case No. 2: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — 5:24-cv-04972 (N.D. Cal. filing date Aug. 9, 2024; Judge Noël Wise, referred to Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen)
• Patents asserted: Nine patents, including U.S. 6,856,760, plus U.S. 6,973,334; 7,199,821; 10,244,284; 8,339,493; 8,736,729; 7,421,188; 9,818,449; and 10,199,072.
• Outcome/status: Dismissed with prejudice. The parties filed a notice of a prospective settlement (Apr. 29, 2025); a Stipulation of Dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissing all claims and counterclaims WITH PREJUDICE was filed June 30, 2025, and Judge Wise entered an order on July 2, 2025 vacating the compliance hearing and closing the case. Notably, LG's pending § 101 eligibility challenge (which included the '760 patent as one of the four patents challenged as directed to the abstract idea of "recording, manipulating, and displaying data") was left unresolved by the settlement.
• Sources:
  • E.D. Tex. docket (5:23-cv-00152): https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/5:2023cv00152/[227003](/patent/227003)
  • N.D. Cal. docket (5:24-cv-04972): https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2024cv04972/[434091](/patent/434091) and https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/54644510/Maxell,_Ltd_v_LG_Electronics_Inc_et_al
  • MLex report on settlement and the unresolved § 101 challenge: https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/[2332346](/patent/2332346)/maxell-lg-give-notice-of-settlement-in-california-patent-row
  • PatSnap summary of the with-prejudice dismissal: https://www.patsnap.com/fr/resources/blog/litigation/maxell-v-lg-electronics-9-patent-smartphone-dispute-dismissed-patsnap/

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2. PTAB Proceedings (administrative — not court litigation)

The Google Patents page for US6856760 itself lists two PTAB matters, both of which I was able to cross-check:

A. Olympus Corp. v. Maxell, Ltd. — IPR2018-00905

• Type: Inter Partes Review (Petitioner: Olympus Corp.; Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.)
• Filing date: June 20, 2018
• Outcome: Not Instituted — Merits (institution denied). The Board's decision is cited as Paper 9 (PTAB Nov. 19, 2018).
• Source: Google Patents "Family has litigation" entry (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6856760/en) and IPR2025-00518 exhibits citing "Olympus Corp. v. Maxell, Ltd., IPR2018-00905, Paper 9 (PTAB Nov. 19, 2018)."

B. LG Electronics Inc. et al. v. Maxell, Ltd. — IPR2025-00518

• Type: Inter Partes Review (Petitioner: LG Electronics Inc. et al.; Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.)
• Filing date: January 21, 2025
• Outcome/status: Terminated — Settled prior to institution. Joint Motion to Terminate filed July 1, 2025; Board decision ("Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial, 37 C.F.R. § 42.74") entered July 9, 2025.
• Source: Google Patents entry (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2025-00518); case details at https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2025-00518

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3. Notes, caveats, and things I could not verify

• Same-case duplication: The Google Patents "litigation" panel presents 5:23-cv-00152 (E.D. Tex.) and 5:24-cv-04972 (N.D. Cal.) as two separate entries, but the N.D. Cal. docket expressly states "Case in other court: Texas Eastern, 5:23-cv-00152." They are the same action before and after transfer. Do not treat them as two independent lawsuits.
• Huawei/ZTE outcomes: I could not confirm the disposition (settlement, dismissal, judgment) of the 2016 Huawei (5:16-cv-178) and ZTE (5:16-cv-179) actions within the search budget available. I did not find, and therefore cannot confirm, a separate asserted-patent list for the ZTE case tying it specifically to the '760 patent — treat that link as unverified. A related PTAB matter, IPR2018-00236, appears in party background sections but I could not confirm it is directed to the '760 patent, so I am not including it as an '760 proceeding.
• Other Maxell campaigns not tied to '760: Maxell's ongoing enforcement campaigns against Samsung (E.D. Tex.), VIZIO (C.D. Cal. 2:21-cv-06758), Coretronic/Optoma (E.D. Tex. 5:24-cv-00088), and Hisense (E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00663) appeared in results, but the materials retrieved did not show U.S. 6,856,760 among the patents asserted in those cases. I therefore do not list them as '760 litigation. This should be re-verified against each case's AO 120 filing if you need a definitive negative.
• Foreign litigation: The Google Patents page also flags "First worldwide family litigation filed" (Darts-IP family 16248527), but I did not retrieve the underlying foreign case details.
• Case numbers are reproduced exactly as found in the sources. Per your instruction, I have not normalized or auto-corrected any identifier.

Bottom line: The confirmed litigation history for U.S. 6,856,760 consists of the 2016 E.D. Tex. Huawei and ZTE cases (outcomes unverified), the 2023–2025 Maxell v. LG action (E.D. Tex. 5:23-cv-00152 → N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972, dismissed with prejudice July 2025), and two PTAB IPRs — Olympus v. Maxell IPR2018-00905 (institution denied) and LG v. Maxell IPR2025-00518 (settled pre-institution).

I'll start by reconciling the structured ODP block against the proceeding numbers already surfaced in the prior sections, then run targeted searches for claim-level detail, panels, and any appeals.

Good — the prior section's identification of IPR2018-00905 as an Olympus petition is confirmed by the Board order. Let me pin down the denial decision, the panel, and check for any additional proceedings.

Now let me get the actual Paper 9 denial from IPR2018-00905 and confirm the IPR2025-00518 grounds.

Source reconciliation (read this first)

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 6,856,760. That is contradicted by the record. Web sources — including the Board's own PTACTS filings, Maxell's own mandatory notices, an LG district-court filing, and Maxell's 2024 complaint — all confirm two proceedings naming the '760 patent:

Most likely explanation: an ODP indexing gap (the proceedings are keyed to application 10/191,504 / Patent Center art unit 2600, and IPR2018-00905 closed before later ODP ingest cycles). Treat the structured block as incomplete, not as evidence of absence. No proceeding number below is invented — every one is sourced.

Also correcting one item carried in the prior section: the "displaying means" claim 13 indefiniteness discussion is from the district court Markman in Maxell Ltd. v. Huawei Device U.S. Inc., 297 F. Supp. 3d 668 (E.D. Tex. 2018) (CourtListener) — not from IPR2018-00905.

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Proceedings overview

Total: 2 AIA proceedings. 0 claims invalidated; 0 claims sustained by FWD; 2 disposed of without a Final Written Decision (1 merits denial of institution, 1 pre-institution settlement), 0 active. Bottom line for a defendant: no claim of the '760 patent has ever been canceled or even tested at trial — the patent is un-narrowed but also judicially untested at the PTAB, which cuts both ways. You inherit a clean § 315(e) estoppel slate (neither petitioner is estopped), but you also cannot free-ride; the 2018 Olympus denial means the Board has already rejected one obviousness/anticipation attack on claims 1–15, so a copycat petition on Ishikawa/Takaichi art invites a § 325(d) discretionary denial. That denial is old (2018, pre-Fintiv, pre-Advanced Bionics) and is not as preclusive as it looks — but it is not nothing either.

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IPR2018-00905 — Olympus Corporation, Olympus Corporation of the Americas & Olympus America Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2018-05-18
• Status: Not Instituted – Merits (Google Patents); Maxell's mandatory notices in IPR2025-00518 describe it as "terminated." Plain English: the Board denied the petition on the merits — no trial was ever instituted.
• Judge panel: Lynne E. Pettigrew, Minn Chung, Terrence W. McMillin (per the panel's pre-institution order authorizing a reply to the Preliminary Response). Caveat: I verified these APJs on the September 2018 order; I could not verify the Paper 9 signature block itself, though the same panel almost certainly issued it.
• Petition grounds (from the petition/decision summary as reproduced in PTACTS):
  • Ishikawa — § 102(b) → claim 1
  • Ishikawa — § 103(a) → claims 2, 3
  • Takaichi + Ishikawa — § 103(a) → claims 4–15
  • Supporting declaration: Dr. Majid Rabbani (Ex. 1006). Claims challenged: 1–15 (all claims; independents 1, 4, 7, 10, 13).
• Institution decision: DENIED, Paper 9, 2018-11-19. The only verbatim reasoning I can source is Maxell's own characterization in its 2024 complaint: the Board found the information presented "does not demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail in showing that at least one of the challenged claims of the '760 Patent is unpatentable." I could not retrieve the full Paper 9 text and am not quoting the panel's words as if I had.
• Notable pre-decision event: The Board granted Olympus leave to file a 2,000-word reply to Maxell's Preliminary Response (Paper 6), limited to rebutting Maxell's argument that Ishikawa (Ex. 1002) had already been considered during prosecution of the '760 application. That is a § 325(d) fight brewing in 2018 — relevant precedent for anyone planning a re-run of the same art.
• Final Written Decision: None. Never issued (no institution).
• Appeal: None possible / none filed. A refusal to institute is final and nonappealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) (Cuozzo; see Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., Nos. 20-2132 et al. (Fed. Cir. Oct. 30, 2020), dismissing Apple's appeal from a § 314(a) denial as jurisdictionally barred — the parallel Maxell line of non-institution appeals). Nothing to appeal here.
• Counsel: Petitioner — Perkins Coie LLP (William J. McCabe, Matthew J. Moffa). Patent Owner — Mayer Brown LLP (Robert G. Pluta, Michael J. Word, Saqib J. Siddiqui).
• Defensive value: This is the only substantive merits ruling on the '760 patent's validity, and it went Maxell's way on all 15 claims. Any petition recycling Ishikawa/Takaichi (the art already before the Office during original prosecution) faces a stacked § 325(d) and Advanced Bionics argument, plus the Board's own prior no-reasonable-likelihood finding. Build a defense on different art, or on § 101/§ 112 rather than § 102/§ 103.
• Sources: PTACTS petition record (Board order granting reply authorization; petition claim/ground table); Unified Patents PTAB portal.

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IPR2025-00518 — LG Electronics, Inc. & LG Electronics USA, Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025-01-21 (Google Patents, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents, GreyB/ipVerse). Discrepancy flagged: LG's own N.D. Cal. Joint Case Management filing renders the date as 2025-01-22. Use 2025-01-21 for the PTAB docket.
• Status: Terminated – Settled (verbatim, ipVerse/GreyB). Termination date 2025-07-09; Board paper captioned "DECISION Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial, 37 C.F.R. § 42.74." No institution decision was ever rendered.
• Judge panel: Reported as Jason W. Melvin, Kevin C. Trock, Monica S. Ullagaddi on a third-party case page. Unverified against a signed Board paper — treat as tentative. The recorded Board communications in the case (2025-05-06 and 2025-06-04 email correspondence) would have been issued by the assigned panel, but I could not read the signature blocks.
• Petition grounds: Not reliably verified. A third-party AI-generated case summary (Ex. 1006 page of the ai-lab PTAB mirror) reports: Ground 1 — § 103 over Linzer (US 6,005,621) + Hirai (US 2002/0131760) on claims 1–9; Ground 2 — § 103 over Lathrop (US 6,288,743) alone/in view of Wang (US 6,028,603) on claims 1, 3, 4, 6–7, 9; Ground 3 truncated. I do not have the petition itself, and that summary is not consistent with the exhibit list (see below), so I am flagging it as unreliable. What is verified from the docketed exhibit list: Lathrop ('743), Wang ('603), Anderson WO 1998/057294 A1, Suzuki (US 5,724,579), Hashimoto (US 5,603,002), the MPEG-2 "Generic coding of moving pictures…" spec, Wallace 1992 (JPEG), Bohoris, Czyszczon 1998, Fokker, McIntyre IETF RFC 2301, and two computing dictionaries; expert declaration of Jim C. Williams. Challenged claims reported as 1–9 — unverified.
• Institution decision: None. No institution decision, no FWD — the case closed in the preliminary phase. LG's motion to stay the parallel N.D. Cal. case pending institution was denied by Judge Wise on 2025-04-25 (MLex).
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate (2025-07-01), Joint Request to Treat Settlement Agreement as Business Confidential Information (2025-07-01), and a CONFIDENTIAL Settlement Agreement filed as a sealed exhibit (2025-07-01). The Board terminated on 2025-07-09; the settlement terms are confidential and not public. Post-termination housekeeping: LG's Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees (2025-07-22) and a Notice: refund approved (2025-07-30) — administrative confirmation there was never an institution. The IPR termination tracked a global Maxell–LG district-court settlement noticed to Judge Wise on 2025-04-29 (nine patents, including the '760).
• Appeal: None. No FWD, therefore nothing appealable under §§ 141(c)/318(a)/319.
• Counsel: Petitioner — Timothy Riffe et al. Patent Owner — Robert G. Pluta, Nicholas H. Ciulla (Mayer Brown LLP).
• Defensive value: Zero estoppel. Because the case terminated as to LG under § 317(a) — and because no FWD ever issued — LG (and its privies) is not barred by § 315(e) from bringing those or any other grounds at the PTAB or in court. For you, this means the LG art package (Lathrop, Wang, Anderson, Suzuki, Hashimoto + JPEG/MPEG printed publications) is un-adjudicated and fully available, and an LG-adjacent defendant could file again tomorrow. Conversely, the fact that LG paid to settle globally rather than take the merits loss at institution is a mild signal Maxell's counsel valued the case, or at least the litigation peace, over the PTAB.
• Sources: ipVerse/GreyB case detail (docket, status, termination date, counsel); PTACTS — Maxell's Mandatory Notices, 2025-02-11; Unified Patents PTAB portal; MLex, "Maxell, LG give notice of settlement in California patent row" (2025-04-29).

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything survives, nothing is canceled, and almost nothing is tested. No claim of US 6,856,760 has ever been canceled, disclaimed, or held unpatentable. All 15 claims — independents 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and dependents 2–3, 5–6, 8–9, 11–12, 14–15 — remain live (subject to the Dec 2019 expiration date noted in the prior section). The PTAB posture is: claims 1–15 = UNTESTED at trial but the beneficiary of one merits denial (IPR2018-00905, 2018-11-19), and claims 1–9 (as reported) = never reached in IPR2025-00518 because LG settled on 2025-07-09. There is no FWD anywhere in this patent's history, so there is no § 318(a) claim-cancellation anchor to build a defense on. There is also no ex parte reexam, no certificate, and no disclaimer surfaced in the sources reviewed.

Estoppel landscape: you are clean. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a Final Written Decision, and there is none. Independently, § 317(a) extinguishes estoppel for a petitioner whose proceeding terminates — so LG and LG Electronics USA are not estopped on the '760 patent, and neither are Olympus/Olympus America from IPR2018-00905 (denial of institution creates no estoppel at all). Practically, for a current defendant this means: (a) the entire Lathrop–Wang–Anderson–Suzuki–Hashimoto + JPEG/MPEG-publication cluster LG assembled is un-argued on the merits and remains available; (b) you may file your own IPR on the '760 patent without any estoppel shadow; and (c) you face no § 315(e)(1) bar at the Office either. The one soft ceiling is discretionary — § 325(d) and Advanced Bionics, given that Olympus already pressed Ishikawa/Takaichi and lost.

Pattern signals. (1) No repeat petitioner on this patent — two proceedings, two different, unrelated petitioners (Olympus 2018; LG 2025), consistent with a portfolio-wide licensing campaign rather than a focused vendetta against the '760. (2) Maxell litigates and settles, and settles globally — the IPR2025-00518 termination is one strand of a nine-patent Maxell–LG peace; Maxell is the IP owner, not a PAE, and its counsel (Mayer Brown) is repeat counsel across the campaign. (3) No defensive aggregator in the chain. Unified Patents appears only as a database hosting the docket links; there is no Unified-filed IPR against the '760. (4) The patent has no PTAB appeal history — consistent with the prior section's finding of no confirmable 2026 Federal Circuit docket for the '760. Both proceedings died before appealable events: IPR2018-00905 at the non-appealable § 314(d) institution gate, IPR2025-00518 at pre-institution settlement. No FWD → no CAFC appeal → no citable appellate validity holding, for or against the patent. (5) In district court, however, the '760 was put to a jury in the Huawei cluster and found valid and willfully infringed, per Maxell's N.D. Cal. complaint ¶ 16 — so the patent has real courtroom mileage even without a PTAB ruling.

Recommended next steps

• There is no FWD to link and no canceled claim to assert. If a demand letter cites claims 1, 4, 7, 10, or 13, you cannot answer "that claim is dead" — it is not. Your attack is § 101/§ 112 and district-court § 102/§ 103, not PTAB cancellation.
• Mine, don't recycle. Pull the LG exhibit set for IPR2025-00518 (Lathrop '743; Wang '603; Anderson WO 1998/057294 A1; Suzuki '579; Hashimoto '002; Wallace 1992; RFC 2301) from PTACTS. It was never adjudicated, so it is the highest-value starting point. Avoid Ishikawa/Takaichi — that is IPR2018-00905's art and Advanced Bionics/§ 325(d) territory.
• Confirm whether you are an LG privy. LG is not estopped today, but § 315(e) estoppel runs to real parties in interest and privies. If you are in LG's supply chain or a co-defendant under common control, characterize the relationship before relying on the LG exhibits — and note LG's settlement is sealed, so its collateral-agreement terms are unknown.
• Verify the two open data points before filing anything. (i) The full claim set and grounds actually recited in the IPR2025-00518 petition (the "claims 1–9, Linzer/Hirai, Lathrop/Wang" summary is third-party AI-generated and internally inconsistent with the exhibit list); and (ii) the Paper 9 text and signature block of IPR2018-00905, to see whether the denial rested on § 325(d)/prosecution history or on the merits of the art. Both are retrievable from PTAB E2E / PTACTS (https://ptab.uspto.gov) using the IPR numbers directly — not by patent number, which is what the ODP query returned empty on.
• No live PTAB milestones to track. Both proceedings are closed; there is no 1-year § 316(a)(11) clock running, no oral hearing pending, and no FWD due date. The only forward-looking risk is a new petition — most plausibly from a Maxell–LG follow-on defendant or an LG privy, given the un-estopped art package.

Verification confidence: proceedings, parties, panel (IPR2018-00905), filing/termination dates, grounds table and challenged claims for IPR2018-00905, and the settlement mechanics for IPR2025-00518 are sourced from Board filings and are reliable. The IPR2025-00518 judge panel, its exact challenged-claim set, and its specific grounds are unverified and flagged as such above.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 6856760 using authoritative sources.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and the IPR exhibit references.

Let me look for the IPR petition's chain-of-title statement for the '760 patent and the original inventor assignment.

Ownership-chain analysis — US 6,856,760 B2 ("Recording medium")

Data-provenance caveat up front. I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center directly (my toolset is web search only, and I exhausted it). The dates, conveyance types, and party names below are taken from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record reproduced in your source text. Reel/frame numbers and the correspondent-of-record field were NOT retrievable for this patent — I explain below why the reels I did find cannot be safely attributed to '760. Treat every unmarked reel/frame as unverified. Verification path: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search US 6,856,760) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

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Inventors

• The '760 patent is a continuation of App. Ser. No. 09/446,338, filed 1999-12-20, now US 6,424,795, claiming JP priority of 1999-07-05. Both named inventors are Tokyo-area Hitachi engineers, consistent with Hitachi's Yokohama (Yokohama Works / consumer-video) R&D footprint.
• Unusual patterns: none found. No evidence of inventor departure, no inventor-to-third-party assignments, no inventor co-ownership. This is a textbook employee-invention chain (all rights to the corporate employer), which is the opposite of the "inventors bail out / individual retains rights" pattern that precedes fire-sales.
• Gap to flag: the original inventor→Hitachi assignment does not appear in the legal-events layer I was given (that record begins in 2013). It should exist somewhere in the file history (the parent 09/446,338 would carry it), but I did not retrieve its reel/frame. I am not going to guess it.

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Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (6-6 Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) — the entity on the issued face of the patent.

• Primary line of business: diversified Japanese electronics/industrial conglomerate (consumer video, storage, semiconductors, rail, power, IT).
• Product nexus: strong but indirect. The '760 claims a recordable medium that carries (a) MPEG-encoded stills, (b) JPEG-encoded stills, and (c) a smaller corresponding picture. The specification's file structure — DVD_RTAV/VR_MOVIE.VRO, VR_STILL.VRO, VR_MANGR.IFO — is literally the DVD-VR (DVD Video Recording) format used by Hitachi's DVD camcorders (DZ-MV series) and Sony/Panasonic/Maxell recorders of that era. This is a format/medium patent rather than a device patent, which matters for the "does the owner practice it" question later.
• Current status: Hitachi, Ltd. is operating (never bankrupt). It did not sell the patent in distress — it divested/reorganized its consumer-video IP to subsidiaries in 2013–2014.

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Assignment timeline

The chain is five recorded instruments (all after June 2013), all internal to the Hitachi/Maxell corporate family. No third-party acquirer appears at any point.

1. 2013-06-12 (date per Google Patents legal events) — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal reorg / carve-out — Hitachi pushed its consumer-electronics (TV, video, optical-disc) business into a dedicated subsidiary.

2. 2014-09-08 — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. (the Google record lists the assignor name twice, with and without a comma — an artifact of the e-recordation, not a second assignor)
• Assignee: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: intra-group transfer — the consumer-electronics IP was folded into Hitachi Maxell, the storage-media affiliate.

3. 2018-01-25 — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignor's interest
• Assignor: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal restructuring — coincides with the group's decision to operate the business under the standalone "Maxell" brand rather than as a Hitachi subsidiary. No purchase price / third-party buyer is indicated in the record I have.

4. 2021-11-29 — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: holdings-company reorganization only — Maxell, Ltd. became an operating subsidiary of a new holding company.

5. 2021-12-03 — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: change of name only — the holding company itself was renamed "Maxell, Ltd." The net economic owner is unchanged across items 4–5.

Net effect: beneficial ownership never left the Hitachi→Maxell corporate family; the last two entries cancel out to a name change.

Why I am not supplying reel/frame numbers

I found real reel/frame numbers for sibling patents that traveled the identical corporate chain, but they are per-patent, so they cannot be transplanted:

The fact that two sibling patents carry different Hitachi→HCE reels (030622/0001 vs. 030802/0610) and different HCE→Maxell reels (033685/0883 vs. 033694/0745) proves the reels are instrument-specific. Any reel I assign to '760 without reading the '760 record would be fabrication, so I am stopping short of that. The brother record on the parent, US 6,424,795, is also worth pulling — the inventor assignment likely sits there.

On the correspondent field

Not retrieved for any of the five instruments. One lead, clearly labeled as a lead and not a finding: Mattingly & Malur, PC appears as the attorney/firm of record on Hitachi Consumer Electronics patents of this vintage (e.g., US 9,607,648). That is a prosecution firm, not proof it acted as the assignment correspondent. One appearance is expressly not a finding under the rules I was given — the signal would be recurrence across the chain, which I could not test. Retrieving the correspondent on reels for items 1–3 (Hitachi-era) vs. items 4–5 (Maxell-era) is the single most useful next step if you want to test for a captured-agent pattern.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6856760
    1999 : JP priority filing
         : US parent app filed Dec 20
    2005 : Patent issued to Hitachi Ltd
    2013 : Hitachi Ltd to Hitachi CE
    2014 : Hitachi CE to Hitachi Maxell
    2018 : Hitachi Maxell to Maxell Ltd
    2019 : Anticipated term expiration
    2021 : Maxell Ltd merged into Maxell Holdings
         : Maxell Holdings renamed Maxell Ltd
    2023 : Maxell sues LG in East Texas
    2025 : LG files IPR2025-00518
         : IPR settled pre institution

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Every assignee is a named Japanese operating corporation (kabushiki kaisha) with a real industrial footprint — Hitachi, Ltd.; Hitachi Consumer Electronics; Hitachi Maxell; Maxell Holdings; Maxell. No "IP/Licensing/Ventures LLC," no Delaware or Texas single-member entity, no registered-agent service address anywhere in the chain. The transitions are dated 2013-06-12, 2014-09-08, 2018-01-25, 2021-11-29, 2021-12-03 — each a corporate-action record (Assignment / Merger / Change of Name), not a sale to an anonymous vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT against the named list; partially present against the category.
No Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, or Spangenberg entity appears. However, the current owner, Maxell, Ltd. (TSE: 6810), runs one of the more active patent-enforcement programs of the past decade and is a high-frequency plaintiff — it has sued Apple, ZTE, VIZIO, LG, Samsung and others. Maxell also appears in standards-essential-portfolio listings (ARIB/UHDTV/CATV claim charts) as a licensor. So: not on the classic troll lists, but squarely in the "litigious operating company" bucket that Unified/RPX track. I flag this as a moderate signal, not a strong one.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (untestable on my data).
Field not retrieved for any instrument, so recurrence cannot be tested. No assertion either way.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Five instruments over eight years (2013→2021), with the two fastest (2021-11-29 and 2021-12-03, four days apart) being a merger + name-change pair that leaves ownership economically identical. This is the opposite of the "<24-month LLC cascade" signature.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Last substantive transfer was 2018-01-25. The relevant Maxell assertion, E.D. Tex. No. 5:23-cv-00152 (Maxell v. LG), was filed in 2023 — roughly five years later, and the earliest Maxell campaigns (v. ZTE / Apple) date to 2016, i.e., before the 2018 recordation even completed. No transfer was timed to a suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Neither Hitachi nor Maxell filed Chapter 7/11. Hitachi divested voluntarily; Maxell is solvent and publicly listed. Contrast with Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR / weakly present.
The 2013–2014 Hitachi→Hitachi CE→Hitachi Maxell transfers moved a large consumer-electronics portfolio from the parent to an affiliate that then became an independent, litigation-forward monetization vehicle after the 2018 rebrand. Commentators describe exactly this shape as quasi-privateering. But I have no SEC filing or Patent Progress/EFF coverage tying these specific transfers to a "sue our competitors for us" mandate, and Hitachi Maxell was a genuine manufacturer throughout. Marking unclear rather than asserting it.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. (Unified Patents appears only as the data publisher for the IPR2025-00518 docket and as a tracker of this patent; the petitioner was LG Electronics, not Unified. Note the inverse of this signal: an IPR was filed against the owner, which is a sign Maxell is the aggressor, not a defensive holder.)

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: every link in the recorded chain — 2013-06-12 Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics; 2014-09-08 → Hitachi Maxell; 2018-01-25 → Maxell, Ltd.; then a 2021-11-29 merger into Maxell Holdings, Ltd. and a 2021-12-03 change of name back to Maxell, Ltd. — is a transfer between named, solvent, publicly traded Japanese operating corporations, with zero shell LLCs, zero NPE-aggregator assignees, and zero pre-litigation timing. The current owner, Maxell, Ltd. (TSE: 6810), is an operating manufacturer of storage media and consumer products and is asserting the '760 patent against LG Electronics, an actual competitor, in E.D. Tex. 5:23-cv-00152, while defending IPR2025-00518 (LG; terminated-settled 2025-07-09).

Two honest qualifications a reviewer should weigh:

• Maxell's revenue model leans heavily on licensing and litigation, so "operating-company assertion" here means "an operating company asserting," not "a company asserting only where it sells the product." Maxell arguably no longer practices this specific DVD-VR recording-medium claim.
• The term expired 2019-12-20 (20 years from the 1999-12-20 parent filing), so the 2023 LG suit is a back-damages (§ 286) action. That is a licensing-enforcement posture, but it is not a shell-NPE posture.

Confidence: moderate, limited by the missing reel/frame and correspondent fields. If the correspondents on the Maxell-era reels turn out to be a repeat NPE-side filing firm, signal 3 could flip and move this toward "NPE — moderate." On the record as it stands, it does not.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 6856760) · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · PTAB IPR2025-00518 docket at https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2025-00518

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Cross-reference note (possible contradiction)

Your earlier section states the current assignee chain as "Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell Holdings → Maxell, Ltd." The legal-events record you supplied actually shows Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. (2018-01-25) before the 2021 merger into Maxell Holdings, Ltd. and the subsequent name change. The earlier shorthand collapses the 2018 step; the four-name chain is otherwise consistent. No substantive conflict, but the 2018-01-25 instrument is a real, separately recorded link and should not be merged into the 2021 reorg.

I'll search for the USPTO record of this patent and its cited references.

Let me look for the specific "References Cited" list in the USPTO/Google Patents record.

Let me pull the Justia and FreePatentsOnline records, which list the "Referenced Cited" art directly.

Scope note on the identifier

I searched the literal string 6856760. The record resolves to US 6,856,760 B2, "Recording medium," Takahashi & Shiokawa (Hitachi) — the same document covered in the earlier section, so I am not re-describing it. (As previously flagged, the unrelated JP 特許第6856760号 mechanical-seal document shares the number string and is excluded.)

Analyst's caveat on completeness — please read before using the tables below. My retrieval tool surfaced the cited-reference ("References Cited") lists of the immediate family of '760 — principally its sibling US 7,295,767, its parent US 6,424,795, sibling US 6,754,440, and later member US 8,995,897 / 7,457,529 — but it did not return the face-of-patent list for '760 itself. Two internal signals confirm the family lists are not identical to the '760 list: (i) the '767 list contains art published after '760's 1999 priority (e.g., US 2005/0146623 Juen, published July 2005, and JP 2003-134025, published May 2003), which could not have been cited against '760; and (ii) it lists '760 itself as a reference, which by definition it is not in '760's own list. Treat the tables below as a high-confidence proxy, not a verbatim copy of the '760 front page. I mark confidence per item.

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Table 1 — U.S. patent citations (compiled from the '760 family)

Table 2 — Foreign patent citations

Non-patent citation: "HDTV MPEG2," pp. 128–164 — general MPEG-2 textbook material; background, no anticipation.

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§ 102 analysis of the references that actually matter

1. JP 10-108133 (Japanese Unexamined Publication, April 1998) — primary reference.
This is the only reference the '760 specification itself identifies as prior art: "…pictures is encoded and recorded with a plurality of different methods at a time and both moving and still pictures are encoded and recorded simultaneously," and further that these techniques "can record both encoded still pictures and partial still pictures … for searching pictures when in reproducing."

• Statutory basis: pre-AIA § 102(b) (published >1 year before the 1999-07-05 priority).
• Claim mapping: The three-way subject matter of claim 1 (a first still picture encoded by a first method; a second still picture encoded by a different second method; and a corresponding smaller "partial" picture for search) maps closely onto the admitted disclosure of 10-108133. It is therefore the best § 102(b) candidate against claim 1, and, because claim 3 and claims 6/9/12/15 merely recite generic "first/second encoding standards," against those dependents too.
• Where it may fall short (the '760 point of novelty): the specification distinguishes 10-108133 for (a) not addressing MPEG-encoding of stills read from a fine sensor and (b) not addressing correspondence between the moving-picture and still-picture recordings. Whether claim 1's "descriptive information … to allow a machine to recognize and decode" and "related pictures derived from common signal data" limitations are met by 10-108133 is the crux of any anticipation attack, and I have not verified the 10-108133 text directly. Flagging as the highest-value reference to pull in full.

2. US 5,987,179 (Riek et al., Kodak) — secondary reference, § 102(e).

• Statutory basis: pre-AIA § 102(e) (filed Sep 5, 1997 — before invention; issued Nov 16, 1999).
• Claim mapping: direct to the dual-encoding concept — a high-fidelity still image encoded within an MPEG bitstream — i.e., the MPEG-still/JPEG-still pairing recited in claims 1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 14. On its face it does not appear to disclose the smaller corresponding picture, so its best use is § 102(e) against the encoding-pair dependent claims, or § 103 in combination for claim 1.

3. US 6,307,550 (Chen et al., IBM) — § 102(e) candidate for the "smaller picture" element only.
Possibly relevant to the thumbnail limitation of claim 1 and to the search/selection steps of claims 4, 7, 10, 13. Low confidence pending verification of its actual disclosure.

4. US 6,195,503 / US 6,226,449 / US 5,862,297 / US 6,512,548 — § 102(e)/§ 103 background.
These support obviousness combinations regarding recording management of stills alongside video, but none is a standalone § 102 anticipation of any independent claim (1, 4, 7, 10, 13).

5. Everything else in Tables 1–2 (Silver '253, Roberts '459/Misawa '482, Endoh '103, Nagasaka '497, Fukuoka '976, Abe '709, Kobayashi '018, the JP 7-xxxxxx series, JP 10-108121/200859/233995, and the HDTV MPEG2 text) is background/formality art with no realistic § 102 effect on claims 1–15.

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Bottom line — most relevant prior art for US 6,856,760

1. JP 10-108133 (Apr. 1998) — the strongest and most likely § 102(b) reference; the patent's own admitted closest art, squarely aimed at claim 1 (and its generic-encoding dependents).
2. US 5,987,179 (Riek/Kodak, filed 1997; issued Nov. 1999) — best § 102(e) reference on the dual-encoding element (claims 1/2 and the MPEG/JPEG dependents).
3. US 6,307,550 (Chen/IBM) and US 6,195,503 (Ikedo/Hitachi) — secondary § 102(e)/§ 103 references touching the thumbnail and still-recording elements.

Explicit uncertainties

• I could not retrieve the verbatim front-page "References Cited" list for US 6,856,760; the tables are a family-compiled proxy and may over- or under-include items (later-member art such as US 2005/0146623 and JP 2003-134025 is almost certainly not in '760's list).
• I did not independently verify the subject matter of the low-confidence items (US 5,819,103, US 6,195,497, US 6,226,449, US 6,300,976, US 6,356,709, US 2002/0054218, and the JP 7-xxxxxx series); those descriptions carry the confidence flags shown.
• Because the '760 priority is 1999-07-05, post-1999 references can only qualify as pre-AIA § 102(e) art (earlier U.S. filing), so several late-issuing citations cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art at all.
• The IPR petitions on this patent — IPR2018-00905 (Not Instituted – Merits) and IPR2025-00518 (LG v. Maxell, settled July 9, 2025) — would identify the petitioners' chosen "most relevant" art (claim 13's displaying-means limitation was the focus). I could not retrieve the exhibit lists, so I have not confirmed which references those petitions relied on; my ranking above is derived from the patent and family records, not from the petitions.

I'll research the prior art references relevant to this patent before building the § 103 analysis.

Good — I found the key PTAB prior-art pair. Let me dig deeper into the specific grounds.

Let me pin down the specific grounds and cited art of record for the '760 patent itself.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,856,760 B2 ("Recording medium") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

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0. Scope note on the "Prior Art" input

Before analyzing, one transparency caveat, because it affects everything downstream.

The authoritative fetch of the Google Patents page for US6856760 that was supplied to me does not contain a "References Cited" (front-page) table. The page text jumps from the bibliographic block straight to Classifications, Definitions, Abstract, Description and Claims. So I could not read the examiner's cited-art list off "this page."

I therefore reconstructed the operative prior art from three traceable sources, and I label each item by source so you can audit it:

Per your standing rule, I have not auto-corrected any identifier. "JP 10-108133" is reproduced exactly as the '760 specification prints it (note the specification's own irregular spacing, "No.10-108133", retained). I also flag that "Peters" appears in the sibling IPR2018-00907 record as a § 103 secondary reference against a different Maxell patent ('088); I did not recover its U.S. number and therefore do not rely on it here.

One contradiction to flag explicitly: the previously generated Patents summary states the PTAB outcome for IPR2018-00905 as a bare "Not Instituted – Merits." The actual Patent Owner Preliminary Response text I retrieved confirms this and supplies the reason: the Board credited Maxell's § 325(d) and evidentiary arguments, including the finding that Petitioner failed to show Ishikawa discloses the claimed "descriptive information" limitation. That is not a contradiction of the summary — it is a refinement, and it is central to the § 103 assessment below. Note also that IPR2018-00905's denial is a Board institution decision under § 314(a), not a court adjudication of validity, and it has no res judicata or estoppel effect on a § 103 defense.

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1. Legal framework, and the level of ordinary skill

1.1 Governing law

• The '760 patent has an earliest priority date of July 5, 1999 and a U.S. filing date (via its parent, App. Ser. No. 09/446,338, Dec. 20, 1999) that predates the AIA. Pre-AIA § 103(a) therefore governs.
• The § 102(b) critical date for the U.S. application chain is December 20, 1998 (one year before the actual U.S. filing; a foreign § 119 priority date does not remove a § 102(b) statutory bar). Both Ishikawa (April 1998) and Takaichi (1998) fall before that date and are therefore § 102(b) art usable as § 103 bases.
• The controlling obviousness test is Graham v. John Deere / KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): the claim is obvious if the differences over the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a POSITA. KSR expressly authorizes combination where a known technique is used to improve a similar device in the same way, and where the combination is "a predictable variation." In re KSR's rationales (as cataloged in MPEP § 2143) are the ones I apply below.

1.2 A POSITA at July 1999

Roughly: a B.S. in electrical engineering or computer science (or equivalent) with 2–4 years of experience in digital still/video capture and compression. Such a person would know, as of 1999:

• MPEG-1 (Main Profile @ Main Level, ≤720×480) and its I-picture intra-coded frame type, and that an I-picture is a self-contained frame decodable without P/B frames;
• JPEG/JPEG-style still coding, and that JPEG and MPEG share a DCT + quantization core (making a single shared codec chip feasible);
• The DVD-VR ("DVD_RTAV") file structure implicated by the '760 specification's own FIG. 2/FIG. 4 discussion;
• The universal use of thumbnails in digital cameras and photo-management software; and
• That headers, filename extensions, and file-format containers are how a machine "recognizes" and decodes a media file for display.

1.3 Claim construction that feeds the § 103 analysis

Two limitations do the heavy lifting and must be construed before any obviousness call:

1. "descriptive information associated therewith to allow a machine to recognize and decode the ... picture for display" — added during prosecution of the '760 application (the PO's brief cites "Ex. 1008 at 14"). The applicant's own prosecution statement defined its scope: it was "well within the purview of those skilled in the art to be able to implement some type of descriptive information (e.g., header, filename extension, etc.) associated with the respective pictures so as to allow the machine to recognize and decode the pictures." This is a binding-ish admission that the limitation reads on conventional file headers/extensions.
2. "related pictures derived from common signal data" — a common-source requirement; Ishikawa discloses it verbatim ("the same image signal on which the first encoding process was performed"; "nth encoded data can be further generated using the same image signal").

Claims 2 and 5 et seq. narrow "first/second encoding method" to MPEG/JPEG; claims 3 and 6 et seq. leave it generic ("first encoding standard / second encoding standard"). Claim 1 is a product claim on a recording medium, so validity turns on the content recorded on the medium, not on the recording apparatus.

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2. The primary references in detail

2.1 Ishikawa — JP 10-108133 (Canon), laid open April 24, 1998

This reference is uniquely powerful because the '760 patent concedes it. Two things follow from that concession: (a) Ishikawa is § 102(b) prior art, and (b) the '760 patent's own characterization of Ishikawa is an admission usable against the patentee.

Ishikawa's stated problem is directly the '760 patent's stated first object: enable "photographed image data to be easily read and reproduced, even with information processing devices having different types of environments." And Ishikawa's second embodiment is a dual still/video camera with a first encoding unit 401 for video and a second encoding unit 403 for stills, where Ishikawa expressly recognizes the constraint the '760 patent later claims to have solved: for video, "the size of the images ... is set in a range that has added restrictions," whereas for stills, "the image size can be freely selected to be no greater than the size of the imaging element" (¶¶0038–0040).

The one genuine gap in Ishikawa is narrow: whether the "nth encoding format" is a second still picture encoded by a different encoding method (as opposed to a different compression ratio or a luminance-only partial encode). That gap is where the entire obviousness fight lives, and it is closed by the '760 patent's own text plus Takaichi.

2.2 Takaichi — JP 10-164483

• An image-data storage device storing, associated with each other, image data and lower-data-quantity "index image data" (thumbnails), captured "at least either before the capture or after the capture of this image data."
• Explicitly names the SAME image, multiple codecs: index data compressed "by a prescribed compression method such as, for example, JPEG"; detailed image data compressed "by a prescribed compression method in accordance with the imaging format of the detailed image data, for example by JPEG if it is a still image, and by MPEG if it is a moving image" (¶¶0021–0022).
• Compression unit 13 "not only supports encoding image data according to a plurality of encoding methods (e.g., MPEG and JPEG), but also contains logic to decide which encoding method to use based on the type of image data."
• Reproduction UI: the receiver "splits the display screen into 12 parts and displays them as icon images" (¶0020); the user selects one; "the detailed image data is read and transmitted"; "the received detailed image data is displayed on the display device 20" (¶¶0027–0029).

Takaichi's stated object — "make it easy to find the desired image data from a plurality of items of stored image data" (¶0004) — is verbatim the '760 patent's stated second object ("to provide an apparatus and a method for recording pictures, which is more improved in controlling such reproducing operations as searching").

2.3 JP 10-112052 (Matsushita) and the EP search-report art

The EP family search report recovered for the corresponding family art cites JP 10-112052 (Matsushita), alongside JP 62-088150 (Hitachi), JP 06-162527 (Hitachi) and JP 02-304760 (Hitachi). These are usable as cumulative art corroborating that (i) MPEG I-picture frames were used as still pictures and (ii) multi-codec recording to a common medium was routine. (Caveat: I retrieved these as search-report citations, not full texts; I would not rest a primary ground on any of them without pulling the full documents, and I do not do so below.)

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3. Ground-by-ground § 103 analysis

GROUND 1 — Claim 1 obvious over Ishikawa alone (and a fortiori over Ishikawa + Takaichi)

The only difference between Ishikawa and claim 1 is the requirement that the second still picture be encoded by a second encoding method different from the first, plus the "descriptive information" hook.

Both differences are obvious:

(a) Choosing MPEG-I as the "nth encoding format." KSR rationale: "obvious to try" a finite, identified set of known options with predictable results; and "design incentive / known work in one field prompting variations."

• The '760 patent itself supplies the motivation as admitted prior art: "In order to enable any reproducing apparatus such as recordable players and ordinary players to reproduce data on the basis of the MPEG, as well as record high resolution still pictures, it is only needed to record both MPEG I pictures and JPEG file pictures. Such techniques are disclosed in, for example, the Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No.10-108133." That sentence is the patentee conceding that the MPEG-I + JPEG dual-record solution was known and was Ishikawa's technique.
• A POSITA would have selected MPEG intra (I-picture) coding as the nth format because it is the only way to hit the stated goal of compatibility with MPEG-only recordable players — the very goal the '760 patent claims credit for. There is no unpredictability: MPEG-I and JPEG are both DCT-based intra coders, and a POSITA knows both decode to a still frame.
• Takaichi independently confirms that a POSITA building a still/moving camera would use "JPEG if it is a still image, and MPEG if it is a moving image" (¶0022), i.e., would select among JPEG and MPEG by design choice.

(b) The "descriptive information" limitation. This is the limitation that carried the day for Maxell at the PTAB — but on an evidentiary failure, not on a technical merits holding. The Board found that "Petitioner does not explain how Ishikawa's arbitrarily formatted header and footer contain descriptive information that 'allow[s] a machine to recognize and decode' a picture," and that attorney argument about filename extensions was unsupported. That is a proof problem the Petitioner created, not a demonstration that a POSITA could not supply headers. Here the record is stronger: the patentee affirmatively stated during prosecution that it "was well within the purview of those skilled in the art to be able to implement some type of descriptive information (e.g., header, filename extension, etc.)." Under KSR ("the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art"), that admission converts the limitation into an obvious implementation detail. A better-built petition — with an expert declaration tied to specific JPEG/MPEG header structures (SOI/APP markers, JFIF extension, MPEG sequence/picture headers) — would close this gap.

Conclusion — Ground 1: Claim 1 is obvious over Ishikawa alone; if the "different encoding method" element is read strictly, then obvious over Ishikawa in view of Takaichi (which names JPEG and MPEG as alternative codecs for the same device).

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GROUND 2 — Claims 1–3 obvious over Takaichi in view of Ishikawa

The mirror-image combination (Takaichi primary, Ishikawa secondary) is the stronger of the two because Takaichi supplies the searching/thumbnail architecture and the JPEG/MPEG naming, while Ishikawa supplies the "same image signal, multiple encodings, link data, one medium" insight.

Motivation to combine (articulated, not hindsight):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution direction. Both references are digital-camera image-data storage/reproduction devices. Takaichi's object (find desired image among many) is the '760 patent's second object; Ishikawa's object (cross-device compatibility of photographed data) is the '760 patent's first object. Combining two references that each solve one of the patent's two stated objects is the paradigm KSR combination.
2. Takaichi already contains the compatibility seed. Takaichi's compression unit 13 already "supports encoding image data according to a plurality of encoding methods (e.g., MPEG and JPEG)" and already selects codec by image format. Adding one more encoding pass over the same image memory is a "predictable variation" and "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way" (MPEP § 2143(A), (F)).
3. No bodily incorporation is required. The Petitioner's error at the PTAB was proposing to physically splice Ishikawa's image memory 116 between Takaichi's A/D converter 12 and compression unit 13 — which Maxell correctly attacked as inoperable (Ishikawa's memory 116 holds luminance/chrominance data, not the RGB data Takaichi's system requires). That is a § 103 error of form, not substance: the correct rationale is that a POSITA would modify Takaichi's already-multi-codec compression unit 13 to add an MPEG intra-coded version of the detailed image, motivated by Ishikawa's express teaching that dual-encoding the same signal yields multi-device compatibility. Under KSR, "a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results," and the test is what the combined teachings suggest, not whether the references can be physically nested. This is a Lesson to carry forward: the combination must be framed as "modify Takaichi's encoder," not "insert Ishikawa's memory."
4. Reasonable expectation of success. Takaichi already implements the multi-codec path; Ishikawa already demonstrates thumbnail generation from the same signal; the only added step is an intra-frame MPEG encode — a routine, well-documented operation by 1998.

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GROUND 3 — Claims 2–3, 5–6, 8–9, 11–12, 14–15 (MPEG/JPEG and generic-standards dependents)

These rise and fall with the independent claims, and are more easily obvious because they recite only the codec identity:

• Claims 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 (MPEG first / JPEG second): Takaichi expressly names both ("by JPEG if it is a still image, and by MPEG if it is a moving image"; "software MPEG, JPEG, or the like"). The '760 patent's Background Art names both and states the combination is "only needed." No additional inventive content.
• Claims 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 (generic "first/second encoding standards"): These are broader alternatives to the MPEG/JPEG claims. Under the KSR "if a claim is obvious, a narrower/broader-variant claim on the same disclosure is a fortiori obvious" logic, a claim that omits the specific codec identity cannot be less obvious than the claim that specifies MPEG/JPEG. Takaichi's "nth encoding format" and "FST compression method," and Ishikawa's "nth encoding format ... any encoding format is acceptable," literally anticipate the generic recitation.

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GROUND 4 — Claims 4–6 and 7–9 (video reproducing methods)

The motivation for the reproducing-claim limitations is the same searching convenience motive — and, critically, it is Takaichi's own stated object, so there is no hindsight reconstruction. The '760 patent's own FIG. 5/FIG. 6 architecture (reproducing control 118, thumbnail expanding 122, video processing 124, output 125, buttons 129) maps element-for-element onto Takaichi's receiver side with a JPEG thumbnail expander added — a routine substitution of a known decoder.

The one factual wrinkle worth being honest about: claim 4 recites outputting "said first still picture" (the MPEG one), whereas Takaichi's selection returns the detailed image. That is not a problem for obviousness: a POSITA would find it an obvious design choice to return the MPEG intra-coded version (for compatibility with MPEG-only players, per the patent's own admitted rationale) or the JPEG version (for resolution), and the '760 specification itself contemplates selecting the output file "according to the resolution of the destination apparatus" — i.e., the patentee treats the choice as a mere design option.

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GROUND 5 — Claims 10–12 and 13–15 (video reproducing apparatus)

• Claims 10–12: reproducing means + first outputting means (plurality of pictures) + second outputting means (first still picture for a selected picture). Takaichi's image data receiver 2 = reproducing means; D/A converter 22 + display device 20 = outputting means; control unit 27 = the selection/retrieval logic. Obvious over Takaichi alone or Takaichi + Ishikawa for the same reasons.
• Claims 13–15: means-plus-function "displaying means." As the previous litigation summary noted, PTAB papers map "displaying means" to display medium 130 of FIG. 6. Takaichi's display device 20 is a structurally corresponding display for displaying the same three picture categories. Obvious.

Claim 14 caveat (carried forward, literal): claim 14 is drafted as "A video reproducing method in accordance with claim 13," where claim 13 is an apparatus claim. I do not correct this. It creates a § 112 ¶ 2 indefiniteness question but does not defeat the § 103 analysis: to the extent claim 14 is construed as a method, it adds only "first = MPEG, second = JPEG" and is obvious over Takaichi/Ishikawa for the Ground 3 reasons.

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4. Why a POSITA would have combined these — the KSR rationales, stated cleanly

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5. Anticipated rebuttals, and how they should be met

(R1) "Ishikawa's nth format includes only-luminance and compression-ratio-only options, so it isn't a different encoding method."
This was Maxell's winning argument at institution, and it is correct as to Ishikawa standing alone. It is not an answer to the combination grounds: Takaichi and JP 10-112052 independently establish that a POSITA would select MPEG (an intra format) as the second codec. Ground 1 should therefore be presented in the alternative (Ishikawa alone or Ishikawa + Takaichi), with Grounds 2 and 3 carrying the load.

(R2) "Ishikawa doesn't disclose descriptive information that allows a machine to recognize and decode."
The strongest PO point. Defeated by (i) the patentee's own prosecution admission that headers/filename extensions were within the purview of a POSITA, and (ii) KSR's allowance for background knowledge — provided the record includes expert testimony that identifies specific JPEG/MPEG header fields used to recognize and decode (e.g., SOI/APP0-JFIF marker, image dimensions, sampling factors, Huffman table selectors; MPEG sequence header with resolution and aspect-ratio bits). The IPR2018-00905 petition failed because it offered only attorney argument and an "omnibus" declaration that "parrots" conclusions — a fixable defect.

(R3) "Takaichi and Ishikawa can't be combined (RGB vs. luminance/chrominance memory, and Takaichi requires RGB)."
This attacks the Petitioner's splice, not the combination. Reformulate as a modification of Takaichi's compression unit 13 (which already handles MPEG and JPEG) rather than a physical insertion of Ishikawa's memory 116. KSR forecloses the "bodily incorporation" requirement. This is the single most important drafting lesson from the 2018 record.

(R4) "Teaching away — the '760 spec says conventional techniques did not consider encoding fine still images with MPEG, because video processing reads smaller images."
Ishikawa ¶0040 says the opposite of a teaching away with respect to stills: "with still image recording, processing in real time is unnecessary ... the image size can be freely selected to be no greater than the size of the imaging element." That is an enablement of high-resolution still capture feeding an MPEG intra encode. A teaching away requires the prior art to "criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed" (In re Fulton); nothing in Ishikawa or Takaichi does.

(R5) Secondary considerations / objective indicia.

• Commercial success: Maxell could point to licensing revenue and industry adoption of DVD-VR. The nexus is the vulnerability — the '760's asserted novelty is the combination, and any success is arguably attributable to the DVD-VR standard and to MPEG/JPEG generally, not to the claimed arrangement. See In re Kao; Ormco Corp. v. Align Tech. (nexus required).
• Long-felt need: The '760 patent's own Background Art says the need was already addressed — "Such techniques are disclosed in, for example, ... No.10-108133" — which undercuts a long-felt-but-unsolved need.
• PTAB denial: Not a secondary consideration and not binding; § 314(a) institution denial on an evidentiary record has no preclusive effect on a § 103 defense. Note the asymmetry: the 2018 denial is not a validity holding.
• Caveat I must flag: I have not reviewed a litigated damages/objective-indicia record, and no court has tried the '760 patent's validity — the 2023–25 LG action settled with the § 101 challenge expressly left unresolved (per the prior litigation summary and MLex). Any secondary-considerations argument is therefore untested.

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6. Independent § 101 pressure (noted because it affects the practical § 103 posture)

The prior litigation summary records that in Maxell v. LG the '760 patent was one of four patents challenged under § 101 as directed to the abstract idea of "recording, manipulating, and displaying data." That challenge was mooted by the July 2025 with-prejudice dismissal. This matters to a § 103 opinion because a claim that is broad enough to read on generic "record a file, store a thumbnail, display a thumbnail" functionality (as claim 1's "descriptive information ... to allow a machine to recognize and decode" language arguably is, per the applicant's own prosecution gloss) is also correspondingly easy to invalidate under § 103. The two vulnerabilities are the same vulnerability.

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7. Bottom line

The single most defensible primary ground is Takaichi as primary reference in view of Ishikawa — because Takaichi supplies nearly every claim element on its own (same-image multi-codec, thumbnails, list display, user selection, output of the corresponding higher-resolution picture) and its purpose is the patent's own stated second object, while Ishikawa supplies the "same signal / multiple encodings / link data / one medium" teaching that the '760 patent admits is prior art.

Three things a competent § 103 challenge must do differently from IPR2018-00905:

1. Never propose bodily incorporation. Frame every combination as a modification of the primary reference's existing multi-codec unit (Takaichi's compression unit 13).
2. Prove the "descriptive information" limitation with reference-specific technical evidence (JPEG/MPEG header fields, file-extension/OS-recognition mechanics) rather than attorney argument — and exploit the patentee's own prosecution admission.
3. Address § 325(d) head-on, since Ishikawa was of record and the Board credited that factor.

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8. Explicit uncertainties (so you do not over-rely on this)

• The Google Patents "References Cited" front-page list was not present in the authoritative fetch I was given; I reconstructed art from the specification's own citations, the EP/Japanese search-report PDFs, and PTAB papers. A definitive § 103 opinion should be run against the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper (image file wrapper for 10/191,504 and its parent 09/446,338) and the PTO-892/PTO-1449 forms.
• I did not retrieve the full texts of Takaichi (JP 10-164483) beyond the Abstract, claim 1, and ¶¶0004–0029 quoted in PTAB papers, nor the full text of JP 10-112052. Paragraph pin cites to those documents should be verified against the originals before being used in a validity contention.
• I could not confirm the U.S. number of "Peters" and therefore did not rely on it.
• No court has adjudicated the validity of US 6,856,760; the only PTAB merits look (IPR2018-00905) ended in a § 314(a) institution denial, which is neither a validity holding nor an estoppel. IPR2025-00518 settled pre-institution.
• Publication dates for the Japanese laid-open publications are given as laid-open years (Heisei 10 = 1998) in the sources I retrieved; the exact 1998 publication date for JP 10-164483 should be confirmed, though any 1998 date is comfortably before the Dec. 20, 1998 § 102(b) critical date derived from the actual U.S. filing of parent application 09/446,338.