US 7014299

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7014299, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me dig into the PTAB and any appellate history specific to 7,014,299.

One more targeted check on any appellate activity for the '299 patent specifically.

US 7,014,299 B2 — Verification Summary

Identification (interpreted literally). The number queried, 7014299, corresponds to US 7,014,299 B2. Note that this patent has closely-related siblings with different numbers that are frequently conflated: US 6,863,381, US 7,075,509, and US 7,244,015 (same title, same specification). The 2026 Federal Circuit activity I found involves other Slingshot patents — 7,195,341 and 7,152,951 — not 7,014,299. I have kept these separate.

Bibliographic data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7014299/en ; https://www.docketalarm.com/patentapps/US/10-946,680/INKJET_PRINTHEAD_HEATER_CHIP_WITH_ASYMMETRIC_INK_VIAS/ ; http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1587685A1 ; https://patexia.com/us/patent/07014299

Abstract (as issued)

"An inkjet printhead heater chip has an ink via asymmetrically arranged in a reciprocating direction of inkjet printhead movement. The ink via has two sides and a longitudinal extent substantially parallel to a print medium advance direction. A column of fluid firing elements exists exclusively along a single side of the two sides. The heater chip and ink via each have a centroid and neither resides coincidentally with one another. Preferably, the heater chip centroid resides externally to a boundary of the ink via. In other aspects, the column of fluid firing elements can be a sole column or plural and may be centered in the reciprocating direction. The ink via can be a sole via or plural. The heater chip can be rectangular and the ink vias can be closer to either the long or short ends thereof. Inkjet printers for housing the printheads are also disclosed."

Plain-language overview of the claims

The commercial point of the disclosure is silicon cost: the specification argues that conventionally centered ink vias waste silicon on the side of the via where no heaters are placed (the "wiper must not travel over the bond pads" constraint means the minimum wipe distance d1/d2 is only needed where nozzles actually are). The claims, however, as issued are drawn to a rectangular chip with three parallel ink vias and a specified centroid location.

• Claim 1 (independent) — An inkjet printhead with (a) a substantially rectangular heater chip having two long ends and two short ends and three substantially parallel ink vias, and (b) a chip centroid located between the boundary of the middle ink via and the middle column of fluid firing elements that corresponds to that middle via. In other words, the geometric center of the chip falls in the strip of silicon between the center via's edge and its own heater column — i.e., the via set is offset, not centrally disposed. Notably, the word "asymmetric" does not appear in the claim; the offset is captured purely by the centroid positional limitation.
• Claim 2 (dependent on 1) — The three parallel vias are positioned closer to one of the two long ends of the chip (the vias sit nearer one long edge, producing lengthwise asymmetry).
• Claim 3 (dependent on 1) — The three parallel vias run substantially parallel to the two long ends of the chip.
• Claim 4 (independent) — An inkjet printhead with a substantially rectangular heater chip (two long, two short ends), three substantially parallel ink vias located closer to one of the two long ends, plus plural columns of fluid firing elements, where one column runs exclusively along one side of one of the vias, and the columns run substantially parallel to the two long ends. This adds the "heaters on only one side of a via" and "columns parallel to long ends" requirements on top of the offset-via requirement.
• Claim 5 (independent) — The broadest of the three: simply an inkjet printhead with a substantially rectangular heater chip having two long and two short ends and three substantially parallel ink vias disposed closer to one of the two long ends. No centroid limitation and no heater-column limitation.

Litigation and PTAB record for 7,014,299 specifically

• IPR2020‑01086, HP Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC — Petition filed 2020‑06‑15 challenging claims 1–5 of the '299 patent. Instituted 2021‑01‑14 (panel: Baer, Hamann, Margolies). The Board's institution decision describes the '299 patent as directed to a substantially rectangular heater chip (625) with three ink vias (632) asymmetrically disposed closer to one end of the chip, with the chip centroid located between a heater column (634) and the periphery (637) of the center via — matching Fig. 6 of the specification. Terminated as settled on 2021‑03‑29; the settlement agreement was treated as business confidential. Because there was no final written decision, there was no appealable PTAB outcome from this IPR. https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-01086/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7014299/ ; https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/HP-Inc-v-Slingshot-Printing-LLC-id-[138617](/patent/138617)
• District court — The '299 patent was one of 31 Slingshot patents asserted against HP in the Western District of Texas (per the Board's institution decision, five co-pending suits including 1:20-cv-00185 in which the '299 patent was asserted; Google Patents also lists 6:19-cv-00363). These matters settled in parallel with the IPR. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7014299/en

2026 CAFC dockets — what I found and did not find

I found no Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 involving US 7,014,299. Searches across CAFC opinions/orders, PTAB records, and litigation trackers returned only the settled IPR2020‑01086 and the W.D. Tex. cases for this patent number.

The 2026 Slingshot/Canon Federal Circuit activity I did find is on different patents and is worth flagging so it is not misattributed to '299:

• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 24‑1956 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 23, 2026) — nonprecedential affirmance of PTAB obviousness holdings as to US 7,195,341 (claims 1–5, 8). https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1956.OPINION.4-23-2026_2681303.pdf
• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 24‑2127 (Fed. Cir. July 21, 2026) — affirmance as to US 7,152,951. https://www.law360.co.uk/newyork/articles/[2503795](/patent/2503795)/
• A July 16, 2026 ruling affirming PTAB invalidations in three other Slingshot chip/temperature-sensor patents. https://thelawyersdaily.com/media/articles/[2502156](/patent/2502156)/

Uncertainty / caveats

1. Date discrepancy: the prompt states the current date as April 26, 2026, while my session context indicates 2026‑09‑30. Some retrieved results are dated after April 26, 2026 (e.g., the July 2026 CAFC decisions and a July 2, 2026 Finnegan statistics post). I am reporting them as retrieved.
2. Not an exhaustive docket check. I did not query PACER/CM‑ECF directly. My statement that no 2026 CAFC appeal exists for 7,014,299 is based on web-indexed CAFC, PTAB, and litigation-tracker sources; a PACER docket query would be needed to make this conclusive.
3. Assignee accuracy. Google Patents expressly disclaims accuracy of the listed assignees. The recorded assignment chain (Lexmark → Funai → Slingshot Printing LLC) is consistent across Google Patents, the PTAB mandatory notices, and the institution decision, but I have not inspected the underlying assignment instruments.
4. Expiration. Google Patents lists anticipated expiration 2022‑12‑30 with status "Expired – Lifetime." I have not independently recomputed the term (e.g., any §154(b) adjustment or terminal disclaimer in the family). The '299 patent's 20‑year term from the 2002‑12‑30 priority date would expire 2022‑12‑30 on its face, consistent with that listing.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7014299 using multiple targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific district court case numbers referenced on the patent page.

Let me get more detail on the Texas cases and confirm whether the '299 patent was among the asserted patents.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,014,299

Bottom line: Based on my searches (Unified Patents litigation portal, Docket Alarm, Justia, PTAB/PTACTS filings, and the Google Patents litigation links), U.S. Patent No. 7,014,299 ("Inkjet printhead heater chip with asymmetric ink vias," originally assigned to Lexmark International, later Funai, now Slingshot Printing LLC) was asserted only against HP Inc. — in one Western District of Texas action (which appears twice in the record under two docket numbers due to reassignment) and in one parallel PTAB inter partes review. No Canon, Xerox, or other-defendant litigation involving the '299 patent was found.

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1. District Court Litigation

Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc.

Key docket history:

• The '299 patent was one of the patents asserted in the group of complaints Slingshot filed against HP on June 11, 2019. Reporting on the filings lists the asserted patents as 6,137,502; 6,213,587; 6,243,115; 6,394,593; 6,485,124; 6,666,449; 6,773,088; 6,817,707; 7,014,299; 7,244,015; 7,258,434; 7,311,385; 7,819,498; 7,841,712; 7,938,523; and 8,113,618 (The Recycler, "HP in second infringement case").
• HP's Amended Preliminary Invalidity Contentions (May 22, 2020) in Case No. 1:20-cv-00185-ADA specifically address the '299 patent, claims 1–5, alongside the '015 and '268 patents (Docket Alarm exhibit 2013 in IPR2020-01084).
• The petition in the parallel IPR2020-01090 confirms that the '015 patent (a sibling of the '299 patent) was litigated in "Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., Case No. 1:20-cv-00185-ADA (formerly Case No. 1:19-cv-00363-ADA in the Western District of Texas, Waco Division)" — confirming the 6:19-cv-00363 → 1:20-cv-00185 reassignment.
• HP filed a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and 12(b)(7) and an opposed motion to stay (late 2019/early 2020); Slingshot opposed both.
• The court issued a Claim Construction Order on September 15, 2020 (covering, e.g., "bubble chamber," "heater element," "ink feed edge," "pitch ranging from about 600 to about 2400 dpi") and set jury selection/trial for August 16, 2021 (Order Setting Jury Selection and Trial, Aug. 27, 2020).
• The related Slingshot v. HP case bearing the '629 patent (No. 6:19-cv-00549, reassigned as 1:20-cv-00189) was dismissed with prejudice on April 1, 2021 by joint stipulation; the -00184/-00185 dockets likewise show final activity/docket closure around April 1, 2021, consistent with a global Slingshot–HP settlement (see Slingshot's Mandatory Notices in IPR2023-00312).

Note: The Google Patents litigation links for US 7,014,299 list these as two separate "US case filed in Texas Western District Court" entries (6:19-cv-00363 and 1:20-cv-00185). The underlying records indicate they are the same proceeding under its original Waco docket number and its reassigned Austin docket number.

• Unified Patents' case lists show both dockets (6:19-cv-00363 / 1:20-cv-00185) as "Closed", Plaintiff Slingshot Printing LLC, Defendant HP Inc., cause of action Infringement, plaintiff entity type NPE.
• Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A19-cv-00363 ; https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent%3A%287014299%29 ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/1:20-cv-00185

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2. PTAB — Inter Partes Review

HP Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC, PTAB IPR2020-01086

• Docket entries include: P.O. Surreply (Dec. 15, 2020); Institution Decision granting IPR (Paper 12, Jan. 14, 2021); Scheduling Order (Paper 13); Joint Motion to Terminate (Paper 14, Mar. 16, 2021); Joint Request to treat the settlement agreement as business confidential (Paper 15); Termination Decision Document (Paper 16, Mar. 29, 2021).
• Sources: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2020-01086 ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-01086/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7014299/ ; Google Patents legal events (IPR trial no. IPR2020-01086, opponent HP Inc., effective 2020-06-15).
• The IPR was part of HP's coordinated June 2020 PTAB campaign against the Slingshot/Lexmark inkjet portfolio (IPR2020-01084, -01085, -01086, -01090), filed against the same patents asserted in the W.D. Tex. cases.

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3. Cases That Do NOT Involve the '299 Patent (to avoid conflation)

Subsequent Slingshot enforcement and the resulting PTAB/CAFC decisions involve other Slingshot inkjet patents, not the '299 patent:

• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc. et al., No. 2:22-cv-00123 (E.D.N.Y.) and No. 2:22-cv-01852 (E.D.N.Y.) asserted the '951, '341, '629, '523 and '405 patents — not the '299 patent.
• The 2024–2026 PTAB final written decisions and Federal Circuit affirmances (e.g., IPR2023-00312/-00313; CAFC Nos. 2025-1033, -1034, and related 2025-2127 etc.) concern U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,484,823; 7,594,708; 7,559,629 and others — not 7,014,299.

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4. Caveats / Confidence

• High confidence: IPR2020-01086 (HP v. Slingshot, '299 patent, filed June 15, 2020; instituted Jan. 14, 2021; terminated-settled Mar. 29, 2021).
• High confidence: The '299 patent was asserted by Slingshot against HP in W.D. Tex. case 6:19-cv-00363, reassigned as 1:20-cv-00185-ADA, filed June 11, 2019.
• Moderate confidence: The precise closing document/date for the -00185 district court case. Docket records show the docket closed with final activity around April 1, 2021 and status "Closed," strongly consistent with the Slingshot–HP global settlement that also terminated IPR2020-01086 and produced a with-prejudice dismissal in the companion -00549/-00189 case. I did not retrieve a standalone dismissal order text for -00185 itself in these searches.
• No other litigation (against Canon, other OEMs, or in other jurisdictions) naming the '299 patent was found. Note that the Google Patents family page flags the family generally as having litigation, but the specific case links tied to the '299 patent are the two Texas docket entries plus IPR2020-01086 listed above.

Suggested primary sources for verification: Unified Patents litigation caselist (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PTAB PTACTS/IPR2020-01086, PACER/W.D. Tex. dockets 6:19-cv-00363 and 1:20-cv-00185-ADA, and Docket Alarm's patent:7014299 search.

I'll start by verifying the PTAB proceeding flagged in the patent's own legal-events and litigation records, plus check for sibling-patent proceedings.

Now let me check for any other proceedings on this patent (e.g., Canon), the institution decision reasoning, and Federal Circuit activity.

Let me confirm no other PTAB proceeding on '299 exists (e.g., a Canon IPR or a second HP petition) and check the settlement/termination scope.

Source note on the structured data (read first)

The "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this task states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,014,299. That is an ingest gap, not a substantive fact: the patent's own Google Patents record contains a docketed PTAB entry —

"PTAB case IPR2020-01086 filed (Settlement)" and, in the Legal Events table, "2020-08-11 — IPR — Aia trial proceeding filed before the patent and appeal board: inter partes review; TRIAL NO: IPR2020-01086; Opponent name: HP INC."

Google Patents labels that docket row with the source attribution "Unified Patents PTAB Data" — that is the data provider (Unified Patents' CC-BY litigation dataset), not a Unified Patents filing. No defensive aggregator appears in the chain on this patent. So: structured list = empty; verified web record = one IPR, which never reached a Final Written Decision.

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Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding total: IPR2020-01086 (HP Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC) — instituted on 2021-01-14 over all of claims 1–5, then terminated by settlement on 2021-03-29 before any Final Written Decision. Zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained on the merits, zero claims adjudicated. Bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant today: this patent is not "hardened" — it is untested. Claims 1–5 were put in issue and survived only because HP bought peace, not because the Board ruled for Slingshot. The upside for a defendant is that the entire HP petition file (grounds, claim constructions, expert declaration) is public and reusable; the downside is that there is no invalidating judgment to point to, and no estoppel to hold HP's art against anyone.

Two facts control the practical analysis as much as the IPR does: (1) the '299 patent reached its anticipated expiration on 2022-12-30 (Google Patents record; the 11.5-year maintenance fee was paid 2017-09-07), so injunctive relief is off the table and only pre-expiry damages are in play; and (2) every remaining claim is squarely within a family-wide settlement that ended both the W.D. Tex. litigation and four instituted IPRs on 2021-01-31 / 2021-03-29.

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IPR2020-01086 — HP Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319), U.S. Patent No. 7,014,299 B2

• Filed: 2020-06-15 (notice of accord accorded filing date 2020-07-15). Source petition caption: "PETITION FOR INTER PARTES REVIEW OF U.S. PATENT NO. 7,014,299 CHALLENGING CLAIMS 1–5."

• Status: Terminated-Settled (verbatim from the PTAB/third-party docket records). Plain English: review was instituted, a trial was opened, and the parties then settled and the Board closed the case without deciding the merits. No certificate of cancellation issued; claims 1–5 remain as issued (until expiry).

• Judge panel: Garth D. Baer, John D. Hamann, and Stacy B. Margolies, Administrative Patent Judges; the institution decision is authored by AJ Baer ("Before GARTH D. BAER, JOHN D. HAMANN, and STACY B. MARGOLIES… BAER, Administrative Patent Judge"). (One commercial database lists Baer as "Judge Writing the Final Decision" — that is a data artifact; no FWD ever issued.)

• Petition grounds: All five claims challenged. Per the institution decision's own table:

  • Claims 1, 3 — § 103 over Torgerson
  • Claims 1–3 — § 103 over Mitani
  • Claims 4–5 — § 102 (anticipation) by Mitani
  • Claims 1, 3 — § 103 over Torgerson in view of Horie (spelled "Horiie"/"Horlie" in OCR of the petition cover page)

  Supporting evidence: Declaration of Charles M. Curley (Ex. 1002). No § 112 grounds. Proposed constructions were offered for "centroid," "fluid firing elements," and the claim 2/4/5 limitation "three substantially parallel ink vias… closer to one of said two long ends." The petition also affirmatively briefed the then-current § 314(a) Fintiv factors ("THE BOARD SHOULD NOT EXERCISE ITS DISCRETION TO DENY INSTITUTION").

• Institution decision: Instituted, 2021-01-14, on all challenged claims. The Board held: "Upon consideration of the Petition and the Preliminary Response, for the reasons discussed below, we grant the Petition and institute inter partes review." Standard applied: reasonable likelihood of prevailing on at least one challenged claim, 35 U.S.C. § 314(a). Procedurally notable: the Board authorized a pre-institution Reply (Paper 10) and Patent Owner Sur-reply (Paper 11) — an unusual allowance, tied to the discretionary-denial briefing — and Patent Owner filed an Updated Mandatory Notice (Paper 8) on 2020-10-15. Independent claims were identified as 1, 4, and 5, with claim 1 illustrative. The Board described FIG. 6 of the '299 patent as the embodiment at issue (rectangular chip 625 with three asymmetrically disposed vias 632 and the chip centroid between heater column 634 and via periphery 637).

• Final Written Decision (if issued): None. The Board expressly declined to reach the merits: "Although we have decided to institute a trial in IPR2020-01084, IPR2020-01085, IPR2020-01086, and IPR2020-01090, we have not conducted an oral hearing, and we have not decided the merits in any of these proceedings." ⚠️ Do not assert otherwise: no claim of the '299 patent has ever been held unpatentable, and none has ever been confirmed patentable, by the PTAB. The Public PAIR/PatentCenter record shows no adverse judgment under 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(b).

• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2021-03-16 with the Board's prior authorization (authorization email 2021-03-12 in the companion case). The parties filed a written, confidential "SETTLEMENT, LICENSE, AND RELEASE AGREEMENT" as Ex. 1016 in IPR2020-01086, plus a Joint Request to treat it as business confidential information under 35 U.S.C. § 327(b) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c). The Board granted the request and terminated the proceeding on 2021-03-29 (Termination Decision, Paper 16), finding "good cause exists and… it is appropriate to terminate… without rendering a final written decision." Terms are confidential — the title confirms a license and release ran to HP, but scope (field, products, royalty/paid-up) is not public. Corresponding district-court resolution: HP's Form 10-Q (Q1 FY2021) states "On January 31, 2021, HP and Slingshot entered into an agreement to resolve all litigation"; Slingshot's later mandatory notices confirm the W.D. Tex. HP case (No. 6:19-cv-00549, reassigned No. 1:20-cv-00189) "was dismissed with prejudice following joint stipulation."

• Appeal: None, and none possible. A settlement termination before FWD is not appealable; there is no Federal Circuit docket for the '299 patent. (Federal Circuit appeals by Slingshot exist for other Slingshot patents — see the pattern signals below — and none involve 7,014,299.)

• Defensive value: You cannot stand on an invalidating judgment for this patent, and HP is estopped from nothing (§ 315(e)(1)–(2) estoppel attaches only upon a final written decision, which never issued). What you can do is treat IPR2020-01086 as a free, pre-vetted invalidity workup — HP's Torgerson/Mitani/Horie grounds, the Curley declaration, and HP's proposed constructions are all in the public file, and the Board found them institution-worthy under § 314(a). Any new petition that substantially recycles them, however, will face § 325(d) ("same or substantially the same art previously presented") and General Plastic follow-on-petition risk — so the value is as a starting point to be upgraded, not a copy-paste.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — nothing is canceled, everything is untested, and the patent has expired. Claims 1–5 were the only claims in the patent and all five were challenged. Independent claim 1 (rectangular heater chip, three substantially parallel ink vias, chip centroid between the middle via boundary and the middle heater column), independent claim 4 (three vias closer to one long end plus a column exclusively on one side of a via), and independent claim 5 (three vias closer to one long end), together with dependent claims 2 and 3, emerged from IPR2020-01086 unchanged — not because they were adjudicated valid, but because the case died by settlement. Status key: CANCELED: none. SUSTAINED (on the merits): none. UNTESTED: claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — all of them. Compounding this, the patent's term ran out on 2022-12-30, so the remaining assertion value is a backward-looking damages claim (subject to the six-year § 286 bar, i.e., no earlier than 2020-09-30 for a complaint filed today), plus the res judicata/licensing history of the HP settlement.

Estoppel landscape. With no FWD in IPR2020-01086, there is no § 315(e)(1) or (e)(2) estoppel anywhere. HP is not barred by the statute from re-litigating the same art elsewhere (its contractual release likely moots the point), and no third party inherits any estoppel. For a defendant being asserted against now, the prior-art universe is the full § 102/§ 103 world: HP's Torgerson, Mitani and Horie references are still fair game, but they now carry a § 325(d) discount because they are already "previously presented to the Office," and a near-identical follow-on petition risks denial under General Plastic (same patent, same claims, same art). The realistic paths are (a) file with materially new art or a new statutory basis not before the Board in 2020–2021, or (b) skip the PTAB and run invalidity in district court, where the Board's intervening institution decision on the same grounds is at least persuasive evidence of a substantial validity question. Note also § 315(b): if your client was served with a complaint asserting the '299 patent more than one year ago and is not covered by a license flowing from the 2021 Slingshot–HP settlement, the PTAB door is already shut.

Pattern signals. The chain of custody explains the litigation posture: Lexmark International (original assignee) → FuNai Electric Co., Ltd. (assignment recorded 2013-05-14, effective 2013-04-01) → Slingshot Printing LLC (recorded 2019-03-29) — i.e., a monetization entity that began suing HP in W.D. Tex. in June 2019 across dozens of former Lexmark/FuNai inkjet patents. HP responded with a coordinated four-petition volley on 2020-06-15 — IPR2020-01084 (6,394,593), IPR2020-01085 (6,243,115), IPR2020-01086 (7,014,299), and IPR2020-01090 (7,244,015) — all four instituted on 2021-01-14 and all four terminated together on 2021-03-29 under one settlement. Note the family overlap: '244,015 is the continuation of the '299 application (both from the 10/334,157 parent, now US 6,863,381), so HP challenged the family twice over and settled both. Slingshot then ran the same play against Canon in E.D.N.Y. (2022), drawing seven Canon IPRs; in that campaign the PTAB did reach the merits, and the Federal Circuit has now affirmed invalidation in five appeals — ’341 (No. 24-1956, 2026-04-23), ’864 and ’823/’708 (Nos. 25-1032/1033/1034, 2026-07-16), and ’951 (No. 24-2127, 2026-07-21). None of those appeals involve the '299 patent, and the widespread "printhead patent" headlines from July 2026 refer to the '951 and '738/'673-art cases, not this one. Slingshot's willingness to litigate to judgment against Canon while settling with HP is the strongest signal here: expect Slingshot to settle rather than risk a merits ruling on the '299 claims, which is leverage a defendant can use.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not cite IPR2020-01086 as an invalidation. There is no Final Written Decision to link. The honest citations are the institution decision (2021-01-14) and the termination decision (2021-03-29): Institution Decision, Paper 12 and Termination Decision, Paper 16 (covering IPR2020-01084/‑01085/‑01086/‑01090). The operative holding is: "we have not conducted an oral hearing, and we have not decided the merits in any of these proceedings… it is appropriate to terminate each of these proceedings, without rendering a final written decision." That is a non-precedential, non-estoppel, non-invalidating event.
2. Lead with expiration, not validity. Confirm the expiration date and any PTA certificate on PatentCenter/E2E (PTAB E2E, PatentCenter). If the '299 term ended 2022-12-30, the demand-letter math is a six-year backward look only (§ 286) — and any assertion of "ongoing" or future infringement is wrong on its face.
3. Audit the settlement's reach. Pull the recorded assignments and the HP case dismissal orders (Slingshot v. HP, W.D. Tex. No. 1:20-cv-00185 / 6:19-cv-00549). If HP-sublicensed supply-chain entities (ODMs, cartridge remanufacturers, distributors) are in your supply chain, the "SETTLEMENT, LICENSE, AND RELEASE AGREEMENT" filed as Ex. 1016 may already exhaust Slingshot's rights as to those units — an exhaustion defense worth more than an IPR here.
4. If you file an IPR (expired patents remain reviewable for past-damages purposes): build the petition on materially different art or a new statutory theory, and pre-empt § 325(d) by affirmatively distinguishing Torgerson, Mitani and Horie and explaining why the new art is not "substantially the same." At the institution stage, expect the Board's current discretionary framework (the 2025 rescission of the Fintiv factors in favor of a narrower "compelling merits"/workload approach) and confirm the governing guidance on the USPTO PTAB site before you brief it — I am not confident enough in the exact current memo language to quote it for you.
5. Treat this as an absence-of-precedent case in negotiation. The clean statement to opposing counsel: the PTAB has never decided the validity of any claim of the '299 patent; the one petition that reached institution — HP's, on Torgerson/Mitani/Horie — was bought out; the patent expired on 2022-12-30; and the only remaining exposure is pre-expiry damages subject to § 286. Verified facts here come from the PTAB filings and HP's own 10-Q; anything about the settlement's license scope is confidential and should not be assumed.

I'll pull the assignment records. Let me run targeted searches against the USPTO assignment indexes and third-party mirrors.

Let me try the USPTO assignment API and search for the recording correspondents.

Let me hunt for the recording correspondents and any additional reels.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,014,299 B2

Scope note and source limitation (read first). I was able to retrieve the conveyance dates, assignors, assignees and two reel/frame numbers for this patent, but not the recorded correspondent field, and not a first-recorded inventor→Lexmark assignment. The two reel/frames below are those surfaced in the Google Patents "Legal Events" record, which mirrors the USPTO Assignment dataset. A direct, interactive query of Patent Assignment Search / Assignment Center is required to confirm correspondents and pull the original 2002–2003 reel/frame. I am flagging every field I could not verify rather than filling it in.

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Inventors

Both are Central Kentucky residents, consistent with employment at Lexmark's Lexington campus, which is also named as the original assignee of the parent application (10/334,157, filed 2002-12-30).

Unusual patterns: I found no evidence of a within-12-months inventor departure, and I make no such claim. Inventor employment histories and departure dates are not in the assignment record or in the sources I could reach. Note, however, that the corporate divestiture came ~10 years after filing (2013), not within 12 months — the classic "inventors bail then portfolio is dumped" pattern does not appear here.

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Original assignee

Lexmark International, Inc., One Lexmark Centre Drive / 740 West New Circle Road, Lexington, KY 40550.

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. The specification's FIG. 1 printhead and FIG. 2 printer are Lexmark's own thermal inkjet architecture (TAB circuit, heater chip, bond pads), and the "asymmetric ink via for silicon savings" design is a Lexmark heater-chip cost-reduction feature. Lexmark shipped inkjet printheads/printers and cartridges into the 2010s.
• Primary line of business: Imaging/printing hardware, supplies, and later enterprise software/content management.
• Current status: Operating. Lexmark exited the inkjet hardware business and, effective 2013-04-01, sold its inkjet technology and assets — including the patent family containing the '299 patent — to Funai Electric. (Lexmark itself was later taken private in a 2016 consortium acquisition led by Apex/Ninestar and PAG.) So: assignee operating, but the asset was divested, not the company.

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Assignment timeline

⚠️ The Google Patents legal-events block for this patent lists only two post-issuance recorded events (2013 and 2019). No Security Agreement, License, Release, Correction, or Change of Name record appears for this patent number. The original inventor→Lexmark record was not retrievable by me.

• 2002-12-30 (exec.) / recording date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventors → employer), assumed standard practice; NOT CONFIRMED
  • Assignor: George Keith Parish; Kristi Maggard Rowe
  • Assignee: Lexmark International, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. I could not confirm a reel/frame or correspondent for this link. Lexmark's in-house attorney of record at the time appears elsewhere in the family (e.g., a Lexmark docket shows in-house correspondence to "Scott N. Barker, 740 W. New Circle Rd., Lexington, KY 40550"), but I have not tied any name to a specific reel/frame for the '299 patent and will not assert one.
  • Context: Ordinary pre-filing employee invention assignment; no evidence of anything else.

• 2013-04-01 (exec.) / recorded 2013-05-14 — Reel 030416/0001

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (asset sale, not a merger)
  • Assignor: Lexmark International, Inc. and Lexmark International Technology, S.A.
  • Assignee: Funai Electric Co., Ltd. (Osaka, JP)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved / no recurring correspondent determinable from the records I could access.
  • Context: Corporate divestiture / portfolio sale. Documented by a Lexmark SEC filing — an "Intellectual Property Assignment and License Agreement, dated April 2, 2013 (Japan Standard Time), April 1, 2013 (U.S. Eastern)" covering "more than 1,000 U.S." patents — and by Funai's own notice "Notice of Acquisition of Inkjet-Related Technology and Assets of Lexmark International, Inc.," price JPY 9,500 million (~US$100M). See https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/[1001288](/patent/1001288)/000100128813000018/exhibit101.htm and https://www2.funai.co.jp/usr/dl_en.php?path=http://www2.funai.co.jp//images/news/1384733665/1384733665_3.pdf. Not a bankruptcy sale — Lexmark was solvent.

• 2019-03-29 (exec.) / recorded 2019-03-29 — Reel 048745/0551

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
  • Assignee: Slingshot Printing LLC (Maryland)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved. Publicly, Slingshot's USPTO power-of-attorney filings were signed by Keith Machen, President, Slingshot Printing LLC, with prosecution/briefing counsel at Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP and, on one POA record, Goldberg Segalla LLP. Those are powers of attorney and litigation counsel — not verified recording correspondents — so I do not treat them as the §3-recording correspondent for reel 048745/0551. This is a material gap in the "repeat correspondent" test below.
  • Context: Transfer to an asserting entity. Slingshot is a licensing-only plaintiff: it filed 31 patents against HP across five W.D. Tex. suits (1:20-cv-00184/-00185/-00186/-00187/-00189), and sued Canon in E.D.N.Y. (2:22-cv-01852). Same-day execution and recording is itself a tell of a pre-arranged transfer.

Verification links: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 7014299) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US7014299/en · related family: US 6,863,381 (10/334,157), US 7,075,509 (10/946,679), US 7,244,015 (11/269,311) — the Funai and Slingshot recordings were blanket portfolio recordings covering many patents at the same reel, so the same reel/frame will appear on sibling patents.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7014299
    2002 : Inventors assign to Lexmark
         : Parent application filed
    2004 : Continuation application filed
    2006 : Patent US 7014299 issues
    2013 : Lexmark sells inkjet assets to Funai
    2019 : Funai assigns to Slingshot Printing LLC
         : Slingshot sues HP
    2020 : HP files IPR against the patent
    2021 : IPR settled and case dismissed
    2022 : Patent term expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. Reel 048745/0551 (2019-03-29) moves the patent from an operating OEM (Funai) to Slingshot Printing LLC, a Maryland LLC with no products in commerce that exists to assert a portfolio: 31 patents asserted against HP in five co-pending W.D. Tex. cases and a parallel Canon suit. The 2019-03-29 same-day execution and recordation is consistent with a prepared transfer. Caveat I must state: I have not confirmed a registered-agent service address or single-membership for the LLC, so the "shell" call rests on the no-products/assertion-only conduct plus the recorded conveyance, not on entity formation records.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (qualified). Slingshot Printing LLC is not one of the legacy names you listed (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg), but it is a high-frequency plaintiff tracked by Unified Patents and RPX, which is the operative test. Its campaigns appear in Unified's PTAB/litigation trackers (e.g., https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-01086) and it filed IPR-defended portfolio suits against HP and Canon. Funai and Lexmark are not asserters.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / CANNOT BE ESTABLISHED. This is exactly the field that would be most probative, and it is the field I could not retrieve. I have no confirmed correspondent name on reel 030416/0001 or reel 048745/0551. The names that do recur in Slingshot's USPTO-facing filings — Keith Machen (President, Slingshot Printing LLC) as signatory, and counsel Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery LLP / Goldberg Segalla LLP — are from powers of attorney and IPR briefs, not the assignment-recording correspondence. Per your own caution, I will not upgrade a litigation/POA appearance into a §3-recording finding. Action item for a definitive report: query Assignment Center and read the correspondent block on both reels.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Only two recorded post-issuance transfers, separated by ~5.9 years (2013-04-01 → 2019-03-29). No chained LLCs within 24 months, and no evidence the two assignees shared a correspondent address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT. Reel 048745/0551 is executed and recorded 2019-03-29; Slingshot's HP complaints followed in June 2019 (reported filings 2019-06-11; HP was served 2019-06-17 per the Board's IPR2020-01085 institution decision). That is ~2.5 months from assignment to first suit — comfortably inside the 6-month window, and it establishes a clean standing record for the asserting plaintiff.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. Lexmark's 2013 transfer was a solvent strategic divestiture of the inkjet line (documented by the Lexmark 8-K exhibit and Funai's acquisition notice, ~US$100M), not a Chapter 7/11 sale. Funai's 2019 transfer to Slingshot likewise shows no bankruptcy proceeding in the record.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR (weak). There is a colorable version: Funai bought the portfolio, then moved it to an asserting LLC that sued Lexmark's and Funai's competitors, HP and Canon. But by 2019 Funai had effectively exited inkjet itself, and I found no SEC filing, Patent Progress, or EFF reporting showing Funai directing or sharing in the assertion proceeds. On the available evidence this reads as portfolio monetization rather than classic privateering, so I mark it unclear rather than present.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Slingshot Printing LLC, an asserting entity. The inverse signals are actually present in the litigation posture: HP's IPR2020-01086 against claims 1–5 of this patent was instituted 2021-01-14 and terminated as settled 2021-03-29, and the parallel W.D. Tex. cases were dismissed with prejudice on 2021-04-01 under a settlement/release/license — i.e., the patent was licensed/liquidated, not neutralized by RPX/AST/LOT/Unified ownership.

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Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals are documented by recorded conveyances and dates: (i) a licensing-only-entity transfer at reel 048745/0551 (Funai → Slingshot Printing LLC, executed and recorded 2019-03-29), to an LLC that ships no products and has asserted a 31-patent portfolio against HP and Canon; and (ii) a pre-litigation transfer, with first HP complaints ~2.5 months after that assignment (June 2019). A third, weaker supporting fact is that Slingshot is a recognized high-frequency plaintiff in Unified Patents/RPX trackers. The chain's upstream link — reel 030416/0001 (Lexmark → Funai, 2013-04-01, ~US$100M, >1,000 U.S. patents) — was a solvent corporate divestiture, not a bankruptcy sale, so it does not independently count as an NPE signal. I expressly do not rely on the "repeat correspondent" test, because I could not retrieve correspondent data.

Confidence limiter: the single most diagnostic field — the recording correspondent on each reel — is unverified here; confirming it (and locating the original 2002–2003 inventor→Lexmark reel) could raise this to "high confidence with a named recurring attorney" or, in principle, change the read on signal 3. Verify at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html by searching patent number 7014299.

I'll verify each cited reference against authoritative sources before analyzing.

Let me check the IPR2020-01086 grounds and the family-related references cited during prosecution.

Prior Art Analysis — US 7,014,299 B2

Scope of this pass. I ran targeted lookups against the USPTO/Google Patents record for 7014299 specifically (application 10/946,680). The number resolves to US 7,014,299 B2 and nothing else; I did not fold in results for the sibling patents (US 6,863,381, US 7,075,509, US 7,244,015), consistent with the boundaries drawn in the earlier verification section. This section builds on that bibliographic work rather than restating it.

Important procedural fact that governs everything below. The references printed on the face of the '299 patent are prosecution citations. They are not the references that were later asserted against the patent. The only substantive §102/§103 challenge to the '299 claims was in IPR2020‑01086 (HP Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC), which relied on Torgerson US 6,478,404 and Mitani US 5,821,960 (plus Horie/Horlie) — references that appear nowhere in the patent's own citation list. The IPR was instituted 2021‑01‑14 and terminated as settled 2021‑03‑29, so no claim of the '299 patent has ever been adjudicated invalid. I separate the two sets of art below.

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1. The references cited on the face of the '299 patent ("Patent Citations (4)")

Per the Google Patents prosecution record for 7014299 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7014299/en), the examiner cited three distinct documents (the fourth entry is a reexamination-certificate duplicate). All are pre‑AIA §102(a)/(b) art — every one predates the 2002‑12‑30 priority date by more than a decade.

1.1 US 5,016,023 A — Chan et al. (HP)

• Full citation: Chan, C. S., Wright, C. L., Hanson, G. E., Large expandable array thermal ink jet pen and method of manufacturing same, US 5,016,023 A, filed Oct. 6, 1989, issued May 14, 1991. https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5016023A](/patent/US5016023A)/en
• Disclosure: A hybrid thermal ink‑jet pen in which a plurality of individually diced thin‑film printheads (typically 0.25″ × 0.6″) are bonded to a common ceramic insulating substrate having ink feed ports; adjacent printheads are laterally offset by at least one printhead width; TAB flexible circuitry and driver‑decoder ICs provide interconnection.
• §102 assessment: Does not anticipate claims 1, 4 or 5. The reference is drawn to multiple discrete printheads on a carrier substrate, not to a single heater chip bearing three parallel vias. There is no teaching of three substantially parallel ink vias within one chip, no "two long and two short ends" chip geometry, and no centroid limitation. Its only relevance is as §103 context — it evidences that asymmetric/offset layout of ink‑jet ejection structures on a substrate was a recognized silicon‑economy technique well before 2002.

1.2 US 5,030,971 A and US 5,030,971 B1 — Drake et al. (Xerox)

• Full citation: Drake, D. J., Hawkins, W. G., Precisely aligned, mono- or multi-color, 'roofshooter' type printhead, US 5,030,971 A, filed Nov. 29, 1989, issued Jul. 9, 1991; B1 reexamination certificate issued Nov. 28, 2000 (reexam request 90/005,335 filed Apr. 20, 1999). https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5030971A](/patent/US5030971A)
• Disclosure: A multi‑color roofshooter printhead with a common heater substrate having at least two arrays of heating elements and a corresponding number of elongated feed slots, each heater array located adjacent its corresponding feed slot and extending along substantially the entire length of that slot. A channel substrate carries corresponding nozzle arrays. Switching/driver circuitry is placed on the heater substrate adjacent its heater array, with driver matrices alternating with the feed slots; inputs extend from the sides of the switching circuitry so that "distances between adjacent feed slots are minimized." The stated object is explicitly to arrange multi‑color printheads on a single wafer "so that silicon real estate is conserved."
• §102 assessment — conditional, claim 5 only, and even then not clean:
  • The four‑color embodiment of Drake discloses four elongated feed slots on one heater substrate, which literally satisfies "at least three" parallel vias. If the heater plate is characterized as a "substantially rectangular heater chip having two long and short ends," Drake could be argued to read on claim 5.
  • But the "disposed closer to one of said two long ends" limitation of claim 5 is not shown. Drake's stated geometry is alternation of slots and driver matrices and minimized spacing between adjacent feed slots — i.e., a distributed, parallel‑slot architecture, not a cluster of three vias pushed toward one long edge as in Fig. 6 of the '299 patent.
  • Claim 1 additionally requires the chip centroid to lie between the middle via's boundary and the middle column of fluid firing elements. Drake never discusses a chip centroid; anticipation would have to rest on inherency (that Drake's slot/driver layout necessarily produces that centroid position). Under Net MoneyIN v. VeriSign, 545 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2008), that gap cannot be bridged by probabilities — it must be necessarily present. Drake does not disclose the chip outline/centroid needed to make that showing. No anticipation of claim 1.
  • Claim 4 requires one column of fluid firing elements lying "exclusively along one side" of one via, with columns parallel to the long ends. Drake's feed slots have heating‑element arrays adjacent them and driver circuitry on the substrate adjacent the arrays; the reference is a two‑sided/high‑density roofshooter architecture. Asserting that Drake shows a single‑sided feed slot is a stretch on the face of the document. No anticipation of claim 4.
• Practical relevance: Drake was Exhibit 1009 in HP's IPR2020‑01086 petition, but HP did not carry it in any instituted ground — it served as state‑of‑the‑art/background evidence. It also reappears as Exhibit 1034 in a later Slingshot/Canon IPR. Treat it as strong §103 art, not §102 art.

1.3 US 6,267,468 B1 — Torgerson et al. (HP) — the most pertinent face citation

• Full citation: Torgerson, J. et al., Printhead substrate having a mixture of single and double sided elongate ink feed channels, US 6,267,468 B1, filed Apr. 13, 2000 (Ser. 09/548,709), issued Jul. 31, 2001. Family: EP 1 145 855 B1 (granted 2004‑06‑30). https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6267468B1](/patent/US6267468B1)/en
• Disclosure (verified): An ink‑jet printhead with (a) first and second arrays of ink drop generators adjacent the edges of the printhead substrate, (b) third and fourth arrays inboard, (c) a first ink feed slot adjacent the first array that feeds only that array (i.e., a "single‑edge feeding ink feed slot" with no drop generators on the opposite edge), (d) a second single‑edge feeding slot adjacent the second array, and (e) a third slot between the third and fourth arrays feeding both. Circuit regions sit between the first slot and the third array, and between the second slot and the fourth array. Claim 13 is a method claim expressly reciting four drop‑generator pluralities fed through three feed slots, with the first and second slots being single‑edge fed.
• §102 assessment — the strongest face‑citation candidate, directed at claims 4 and 5:
  • Claim 5 ("substantially rectangular heater chip having two long and short ends and three substantially parallel ink vias … disposed closer to one of said two long ends"): US 6,267,468 discloses a single substrate with exactly three elongate ink feed slots (the disclosed embodiment has three slots/three feed regions). Whether the three slots are "closer to one of the two long ends" depends on figure orientation — the reference's own framing is edge‑to‑edge distribution across the substrate (two slots near opposing long edges, one in the middle), which is closer to symmetry than to the '299 offset cluster. Potential §102 only if the figure geometry is read to place all three slots nearer one long edge; on the face of the abstract/claims, that is not established. If not established, it remains powerful §103 art.
  • Claim 4 ("one of said plurality of columns exists exclusively along one side of one via"): US 6,267,468 directly discloses this element — claim 13's "having no ink drop generators adjacent a second edge that is opposite the first edge" is the single‑sided‑feed limitation in so many words. This is the closest the face citations come to reading on an actual claim element.
  • Claim 1: no centroid disclosure; same inherency problem as with Drake. No anticipation.
• Caveat: the reference is a Hewlett‑Packard patent (Torgerson is the same inventor whose US 6,478,404 HP later wielded in the IPR). It is squarely the kind of art that a §103 combination would build from.

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2. References cited in the family's prosecution (Google Patents "Family Cites Families," 21 entries)

These were cited across the '299 family — the parent US 10/334,157 (now US 6,863,381) and the EP/JP/CN/DE/TW/WO counterparts and the child US 11/269,311 (US 7,244,015). They are relevant prior art for the same subject matter and would be §102/§103 candidates against the shared specification. The most pertinent:

§102 verdict for this group as a whole: none of these, standing alone, discloses the full combination of a rectangular heater chip + three parallel vias + the claim 1 centroid limitation. The most dangerous are US 6,443,564 (asymmetry of fluidic structures), US 4,683,481 / US 5,317,346 / US 5,604,222 (multi‑via/slot architectures), and US 4,794,411 / CA 1,303,904 (deliberate offset geometry). These are §103 building blocks; the Calvert‑wood‑veneer and Casio‑tone‑generator citations should be disregarded as IDS noise.

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3. The art actually asserted against the '299 claims in IPR2020‑01086

This is where the only real §102/§103 dispute over 7014299 played out. HP's petition (filed 2020‑06‑15, Ex. 1001 = the '299 patent, Ex. 1002 = Curley declaration) laid out five grounds:

Point worth flagging: the only explicit §102 anticipation theory ever advanced against any claim of 7014299 in a contested forum was Mitani US 5,821,960 against claims 4 and 5. Notably, claims 4 and 5 are the two independent claims that carry no centroid limitation — consistent with the analysis above that the centroid limitation in claim 1 is the hardest element for prior art to reach.

HP's petition also alleged that the claims "were well‑known in the art years before the '299 patent application was filed," pointing to (i) the 1984 HP ThinkJet printhead (single column of nozzles asymmetrically placed on a rectangular chip), (ii) the 1992 Smith Corona CoronaJet, (iii) a 1995 asymmetric bi‑color printhead, (iv) HP's US 5,648,804 (bi‑color, two slotted vias, filed Oct. 1994), and (v) the Hewlett‑Packard Journal, June 1997 describing the HP DeskJet 820C tri‑color printhead (introduced April 1996) with three ink vias asymmetrically arranged on the chip. The HP Journal article in particular is a potential §102(b) printed publication directed at exactly the claim 5 subject matter — but these are petitioner's allegations in a settled proceeding, not adjudicated findings, and I have not independently verified the journal's contents.

Outcome: instituted 2021‑01‑14 (Baer, Hamann, Margolies); terminated as settled 2021‑03‑29 with the settlement agreement treated as business confidential. No final written decision → no adjudicated anticipation for any claim. Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2020-01086/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7014299/ ; https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/HP-Inc-v-Slingshot-Printing-LLC-id-[138617](/patent/138617)

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4. Claim‑by‑claim §102 summary

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5. Contradictions, limits, and caveats

1. The face citations are not the litigation art. Anyone researching "prior art for 7014299" from the printed citation list alone will miss the references that actually mattered — Torgerson US 6,478,404 and Mitani US 5,821,960. The examiner's three references (US 5,016,023; US 5,030,971; US 6,267,468) are background; none produced a rejection that survived into the issued claims as a §102 case.
2. No adjudicated invalidity exists for any claim. IPR2020‑01086 settled on 2021‑03‑29 before any final written decision. Any statement that claims 1–5 are "anticipated" or "invalid" would be unsupported.
3. "US 5,030,971 B1" is not separate art. It is the reexamination certificate (Reexam 90/005,335, requested 1999‑04‑20, certificate issued 2000‑11‑28) for the same Drake disclosure. Counting it as an independent reference double‑counts the citation.
4. Two family citations are clearly IDS noise — US 5,967,208 (rotary cutting of wood veneer, Calvert Manufacturing) and GB 2,113,447 (Casio electronic musical instrument tone generation). Neither has any bearing on claims 1–5; do not treat them as art.
5. Anticipation vs. obviousness framing. Because the '299 claims contain a geometric centroid limitation (claim 1) that no reference expressly addresses, the examiner‑cited art supports §103 combinations far better than §102 anticipation. I have flagged each instance where an inherency theory would be required, and inherency cannot be established by "probabilities or possibilities" (Continental Can v. Monsanto, 948 F.2d 1264).
6. Search-completeness limits. This pass verified the three distinct face citations and the IPR ground structure. Three additional verification lookups I attempted this round — US 6,478,404 (Torgerson), US 6,443,564 (Asymmetric fluidic techniques), and US 5,317,346 (Compound ink feed slot) — did not complete before my tool budget was exhausted, so for those three I am relying on the patent's own citation listing and the IPR petition's characterization, not on a fresh inspection of the reference documents. Their descriptions above should be treated as provisional.
7. Date note. The task states today is April 26, 2026. The previously generated section records a session-context date of 2026‑09‑30 and flags a retrieved CAFC item dated 2026‑04‑23 concerning US 7,195,341 (not '299). Nothing in this prior‑art analysis depends on that discrepancy; no 2026 appellate activity touches the '299 patent.

Bottom line for the prior‑art question you asked: the most relevant references for US 7,014,299 are, in order: (1) Torgerson US 6,478,404 and Mitani US 5,821,960 — the art HP actually asserted, with Mitani being the sole §102 anticipation theory, against claims 4 and 5; (2) US 6,267,468 B1 — the strongest of the examiner‑cited references, directly disclosing a single‑sided ink feed slot and a three‑slot substrate (claims 4 and 5); (3) US 5,030,971 (Drake) — a strong §103 reference for multi‑slot, silicon‑conserving heater‑plate layouts; and (4) US 6,443,564 B1 on asymmetric fluidic techniques, as the best face‑of‑family evidence that asymmetry itself was old. No reference, cited or asserted, cleanly anticipates claim 1's centroid limitation.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page before constructing the § 103 combinations.

Let me verify the two remaining examiner-cited references and the closely-related HP tri-color slot art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,014,299 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the "US 7,014,299 B2 — Verification Summary" section above. Also note the standing date discrepancy flagged there (prompt says 2026‑04‑26; session context 2026‑09‑30). It is immaterial here: no 2026 appellate activity touching the '299 patent exists in anything I could retrieve, and the '299 patent expired 2022‑12‑30, so this is a retrospective validity analysis relevant mainly to past damages.

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1. Governing standard and legal frame

Claim element decomposition (from the "Plain‑language overview" above, restated compactly):

Two construction points a PHOSITA/analyst must fix before assessing § 103:

1. "Long ends" vs. "long sides." The '299 specification uses "long 341 and short 343 ends" for the rectangle's edges (Fig. 3) yet Fig. 6 speaks of vias "disposed asymmetrically closer to a single end of the chip, such as long end 641‑R," where the trio runs along the chip. Read literally with claim 3 ("vias … substantially parallel to said two long ends"), the trio runs lengthwise and is offset laterally toward one long edge — the Fig. 6 geometry. I analyze under that reading (Reading 1) and flag the alternative (Reading 2: offset along the length) where it changes the result.
2. The word "asymmetric" never appears in the claims. As the summary above notes, offset position is captured only by the centroid limitation (claim 1) and the "closer to one long end" limitation (claims 2, 4, 5). This matters: § 103 is measured against the claims, not the specification's characterization of the invention.

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2. The prior art of record (the "Prior Art" section of this page)

2a. References cited on the face of the '299 patent (examiner‑cited)

2b. References cited in the family ("Family Cites Families (21)") — most relevant subset

2c. Prior art surfaced in the co‑pending IPR record (outside the page's own Prior Art section — flagged as such)

• Kaneko, "liquid ejecting recording head and liquid ejection recording apparatus," published 2002‑01‑24 → §102(a) art against the 2002‑12‑30 priority date. In the IPR over sibling US 7,244,015, HP's declarant opined Kaneko anticipates claims 1–6 of that sibling. Same PTAB document URL as above. ⚠️ I have not verified the reference number or figure content myself.
• US 5,648,804 (HP, filed Oct. 1994) — bi‑color die with two slotted ink vias asymmetrically arranged on a rectangular chip. Same source. ⚠️ Unverified as to number/text.
• HP Journal, June 1997 — technical description of the DeskJet 820C tri‑color printhead (introduced April 1996): three ink vias asymmetrically arranged on the chip, two heater columns per color. This is a printed publication → §102(b). Same source. ⚠️ Secondary source (HP's IPR declaration); I did not pull the HP Journal issue itself.
• US 6,478,404 (Torgerson, HP) — three columns of heaters beside three elongate ink supply vias asymmetrically arranged on the chip. Same source. ⚠️ Unverified; and note the '299 family does not list it in its citation list, so I would not lead with it.

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3. Ground 1 (claims 1, 4) — Torgerson '468 in view of Drake '971

This is the cleanest § 103 ground because both references are already of record on the '299 face and both are in the identical art (slot‑fed thermal‑inkjet heater substrates).

Claim chart — claim 4

Claim chart — claim 1

Claim 1 additionally requires the chip centroid to fall between the middle via's boundary and the middle heater column. On a mirror‑symmetric layout like '468's (circuit regions placed between slot 71/group 62 and slot 73/group 63), the centroid would likely land inside slot 72 — so '468 alone does not meet the limitation. But the moment the three‑via set is offset toward one side of the die — the very thing '971 shows and the very thing '468's stated purpose ("reduce printhead substrate size") motivates — the chip centroid necessarily migrates off the via set and into the strip of silicon between the middle via's edge and its heater column. '468 + '971 thus renders claim 1 obvious.

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4. Ground 2 (claims 2, 3, 5) — Torgerson '468 in view of Drake '971

• Claim 3 (vias parallel to the long ends) is met by '468 alone: slots 71–73 are "aligned with the reference axis L," which is parallel to the longitudinal edges 51/52. Subject to the standing § 103 rule that a dependent claim containing an additional limitation is not separately patentable where the independent claim is obvious, claim 3 falls with claim 1.
• Claim 2 adds only "disposed closer to one of said two long ends" to claim 1. Claim 5 is the same limitation without the centroid and without the heater‑column requirement — i.e., the broadest claim in the patent.
• For both, the '468 + '971 combination supplies the offset: '971's parallel feed slots are disposed off the plate centerline, and the '299 specification itself supplies the design rationale for the offset (see § 5).
• Alternative/simpler ground for claim 5: because claim 5 recites no centroid and no heater‑column element, a rectangular multicolor slot‑fed die with three parallel slots offset to one side is squarely a predictable design variation over '468 (which already teaches three parallel slots on a rectangular die for the express purpose of reducing substrate size) or over '971 (three parallel slots, off‑center). Either alone, or the two together, renders claim 5 obvious.

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5. Motivation to combine — the KSR/MPEP § 2143 rationales

(A) Combining known elements by known methods → predictable result. Slot‑fed printhead dies, elongate ink vias, single‑sided feed channels, and multi‑slot color layouts were all known. Placing three known slots (with their known heater columns and known bond pads) on a known rectangular die is assembly, not invention.

(B/C/D) Known technique, same field, same improvement. '468 is not merely analogous art — it states the same objective the '299 patent claims as its contribution: "ink feed slots configured to reduce printhead substrate size" and "a need for an improved inkjet printhead that is compact." Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious." '468's three‑slot, single‑side‑fed, size‑reducing die is the device "ready for improvement" by simply shifting the via set off‑center.

(E) Finite number of predictable solutions. Given a rectangular die carrying three parallel vias, the via set can be (i) centered, or (ii) offset toward one long edge, or (iii) offset toward the other. That is a closed, two‑alternative design space with a predictable consequence (silicon consumed on one side vs. the other). KSR squarely covers "choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions."

(F) Design incentives / market forces — and the patent's own admissions. The '299 specification itself spells out the constraint that makes the offset the natural answer: the wiper must sweep the nozzle face but must not sweep the bond pads, so a minimum distance (d₁, d₂ ≈ 880 µm between heater columns and bond pads; ≈ 600 µm from via side to chip periphery) is only required where nozzles actually exist. Once a via is single‑sided (as in '468 slots 71 and 73), the un‑nozzled side of the via needs no wipe clearance, so carrying that silicon is pure waste. This is a design incentive recognized in the field, recited and relied on by the applicant — strong evidence that the offset was an obvious engineering response rather than an inventive insight.

(G) Teaching/suggestion in the art. Independent of '468, the art already taught asymmetric multi‑via color dies: Drake '971 (three/four parallel feed slots, off‑center), the HP DeskJet 820C tri‑color printhead described in the June 1997 HP Journal (three asymmetric ink vias), and US 5,648,804 (two asymmetric slotted vias) per the IPR record. Any one of these supplies the suggestion to offset, and each is combined with '468's express silicon‑saving motivation.

Reasonable expectation of success. The modification is a layout change on a silicon die: no new materials, no new process steps, no unpredictable fluidics. Ink‑feed pressure equalization, heater‑to‑feed‑edge distances, and bond‑pad routing are all governed by known relationships ('468 discusses staggered pitches P1, P2 and composite spacing PC for exactly these reasons; '481 discusses equalizing pressure drops). A PHOSITA would expect the offset die to print as well as the centered die, with less silicon.

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6. Dependent claims 2 and 3

Both add only a placement/orientation feature to claim 1 and are obvious for the same reasons plus:

• Claim 3 is additionally disclosed outright by '468 (slots aligned with reference axis L, parallel to the longitudinal edges).
• Claim 2 is the offset‑direction limitation already analyzed.
  Neither dependent claim recites a structural or functional consequence not already present in the claim‑1 combination, so neither can carry patentability independently.

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7. A relevant prosecution‑history datapoint (and its limits)

In the prosecution of the sibling patent (US 7,244,015, child of the '299), the Examiner rejected claim 1 as anticipated by Drake '971, finding "at least three substantially parallel ink vias (feed slots 20M, 20C, 20Y)." The applicant overcame it only by counting: "[o]ne or two cannot anticipate three or more" … "only 'two' feed slots, not three, are closer to any of the short ends." That is a § 102 argument. It does not answer § 103: a second reference (or ordinary design choice) can supply the third via or the offset, and the applicant's own specification concedes that one‑column, off‑center chips (Fig. 7B and the prior art discussed at col. 1) were known.

⚠️ Caveat: this excerpt is from the '015 file, not the '299 file, and comes from an HP IPR exhibit rather than from the '299 PatentCenter record. I did not independently pull the '299 prosecution history in this session.

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8. Objective indicia (secondary considerations)

• No evidence retrieved. I found no commercial‑success, unexpected‑results, copying, licensing, or long‑felt‑need evidence tied to the claimed features (three parallel vias with a specified via offset / centroid location) in anything I retrieved. There is no presumption of nexus; the burden would rest on the patent owner.
• Weak nexus even if commercial success were shown. The commercial driver on this platform (Lexmark's single‑column 1/600‑dpi chips, later Funai/Slingshot printheads) is more plausibly tied to cost/wafer yield generally than to the specific three‑via, centroid‑located geometry of claims 1–5.
• Litigation/PTAB posture. IPR2020‑01086 (HP v. Slingshot) was instituted 2021‑01‑14 on claims 1–5 and then terminated as settled 2021‑03‑29. Institution means the Board found a reasonable likelihood that HP would prevail on at least one claim — supportive, but not a merits holding, and it creates no estoppel or final adjudication either way. This is consistent with the litigation/PTAB record summarized in the earlier section.

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9. Anticipated patent‑owner rebuttals, and why they are weak

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10. Where I am uncertain (stated explicitly)

1. The "closer to one of said two long ends" limitation is the load‑bearing one for claims 2, 4 and 5, and the '299 specification's own use of "long/short ends" is internally inconsistent. Under Reading 1 (trio offset laterally toward one long edge), no single reference I verified discloses it literally; it is met by the '468 + '971 combination. Under Reading 2, the analysis is materially the same.
2. I did not retrieve the figure sets of '468, '971, '564, or the '299 patent itself. Element placements I attribute to '468 come from its written description (quoted above); the precise as‑filed geometry of Drake '971's slots relative to long/short ends comes from a prosecution excerpt in the sibling's IPR exhibit, not from my own inspection of the '971 drawings.
3. US 6,443,564, US 5,648,804, US 6,478,404 and Kaneko are unverified by me beyond titles/dates/secondary descriptions. I would not put them in a primary ground without pulling their texts. Kaneko (published 2002‑01‑24) is the most potentially significant of these because it is § 102(a) art against the '299 priority date and was HP's primary reference against the sibling.
4. The instituted ground in IPR2020‑01086 is unknown to me. I know the petition was filed 2020‑06‑15, institution issued 2021‑01‑14 and the proceeding settled 2021‑03‑29 — but not which references HP relied on for the '299 claims. That ground, if it exists in the public docket, would be the single most probative corroboration of this analysis.
5. No PACER/CM‑ECF or PatentCenter file‑history pull was performed; conclusions about the '299 prosecution record are inferential.

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11. Bottom line

• Claims 1–5 of US 7,014,299 are, on this record, vulnerable under pre‑AIA § 103(a), and the strongest ground is US 6,267,468 B1 (Torgerson et al.) in view of US 5,030,971 (Drake et al.), optionally augmented by US 6,443,564 for the asymmetry teaching and US 5,016,023 / US 4,683,481 / US 5,317,346 for the die‑area‑minimization and slot‑geometry context.
• '468 supplies nearly every structural element: rectangular die with long/short ends; three parallel elongate ink vias; single‑sided via with a heater column exclusively on one side; plural heater columns parallel to the long edges; plus the same stated purpose — reduce substrate size.
• '971 supplies the off‑center, three‑parallel‑slot, multi‑color layout that moves the chip centroid off the middle via and between the middle via boundary and its heater column (claim 1), and places the via set closer to one long end (claims 2, 4, 5).
• The motivation is documented in the references themselves ('468's compactness objective) and in the '299 patent's own admissions about wiper clearance and bond‑pad keep‑outs — a classic KSR design‑incentive/"obvious to try" fact pattern built on a closed set of predictable layout alternatives.
• Claim 5 is the most exposed (broadest; no centroid or column limitation), and claims 2 and 3 add nothing of independent patentable weight.
• Confidence: moderate‑to‑high for claims 1, 4 and 5; high for claim 3; moderate for claim 2 — contingent on (i) resolving the "long ends" construction, (ii) inspecting the '468/'971 drawings, and (iii) confirming the primary reference(s) actually used in the instituted IPR2020‑01086 ground.