US 7057651

I'll search for this specific patent number.

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

Let me do a couple more targeted checks for any 2026 appellate/litigation activity.

Summary: US Patent 7,057,651 B2

Important caveat on the searches: I could not locate any USPTO litigation docket or CAFC 2026 docket entry for patent 7,057,651. Repeated searches of dockets/appellate materials returned no hit tying this number to any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal or district-court case. This is a negative search result, not an authoritative confirmation that none exists. Also note two easy-to-confuse artifacts (identified below) that are not this patent.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A determination is made as to whether or not the magnification set for image sensing is greater than the upper limit of the optical finder. When the set magnification is greater, the original image is subjected to a thinness process, the LCD is automatically turned ON, and the image is displayed. When using electronic zoom, an image of the photographic object corresponding to the effective image sensing magnification is displayed on the LCD 10, thereby avoiding impairing the compactness of the digital camera allowing easy confirmation of the photographic object, and allowing easy framing without providing a large optical finder."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Claim 1 — A digital camera with six elements: (a) an optical finder; (b) an electronic finder; (c) an operation member for electronic zoom; (d) a switching member that turns the electronic finder on/off; (e) a zooming lens for image sensing; and (f) a controller that forces the electronic finder ON when the effective magnification — of the optical zoom of the lens, the electronic zoom, or both — is "less than a minimum or more than a maximum possible magnification" of the optical finder. This is the broadest claim and is the one that materially distinguishes this patent from the H6-189173 prior art approach (which instead built a finder optical system that zooms to match electronic zoom).

Claim 7 — Same core camera (optical finder, electronic finder, electronic-zoom operation member, on/off switching member), but with a setter that sets the image-sensing magnification when the camera is activated; the controller turns the electronic finder ON when that activation magnification is outside the optical finder's range, "wherein said magnification range extends from a minimum to a maximum magnification of said optical finder." Claim 8 (dependent) adds a memory storing the magnification at power-off, with the setter using the stored value.

Claim 9 — Same core camera, setter as in claim 7, and an indicator that indicates a warning when the activation magnification is outside the optical finder's range (again defined as spanning the finder's minimum to maximum possible magnification). Notably, claim 9's granted text does not recite the switching member. Claim 10 (dependent) adds the power-off magnification memory.

Claim 11 — A recording medium (computer-readable) containing a program for a digital camera having an optical finder, electronic finder, electronic-zoom operation member, and an on/off switching member. The program: (i) performs the electronic zoom via the operation member; and (ii) forces the electronic finder ON when effective magnification (optical and/or electronic zoom) is below the finder's minimum or above its maximum possible magnification — "even if the electronic view finder had been manually turned off."

Specification highlights (embodiment context)

• 3× optical zoom lens 301 (7 mm wide / 21 mm tele), 3× optical finder 31 (usable range stated as 1.0–3.0×), plus ~2× electronic zoom → up to 6× effective.
• The LCD 10 (electronic finder) is force-ON when set magnification exceeds 3.0× (auto display triggered at 3.1×, steps S205–S206, S2061–S2063); warning LED 312 inside the optical finder lights at ≥3.1× (steps S401–S405).
• LCD ON/OFF button 321 lets the user turn the LCD back OFF even after the forced ON, to save battery power (steps S301–S304) — the patent frames this as a deliberate trade-off.
• The set magnification and LCD on/off state at power-off are written to flash ROM 211b (step S7) and restored at the next power-on (steps S102–S112), so the previous magnification becomes the starting magnification.
• Modifications described: audible warning via speaker; a transmission-type LCD 402 over a Porro prism 401 to overlay warning text in the optical finder (FIG. 15); electronic-zoom-only mode; trimming alone.

Notes / discrepancies and uncertainty flags

• Claim-vs-summary wording discrepancy. The "Summary of the Invention" section paraphrases the second camera embodiment as force-activating the electronic finder when effective magnification "exceeds a magnification range of said optical finder," and the third/fourth embodiments as "outside a magnification range." The granted claim 1 and claim 11 instead recite "less than a minimum or more than a maximum possible magnification." The granted claim language is authoritative. The specification's Modifications section confirms the broader intent ("a specific lower limit different from 1.0× of the optical finder"), which explains the claim wording.
• Do not confuse with JP7057651B2. Japanese Patent No. 7057651 (JP 7057651 B2) is an unrelated Axis AB patent (application JP2017-231463) titled "Encoding of privacy-masked images." The number similarity is coincidental. Per operating rules I am treating identifiers literally and not conflating them.
• PTAB/IPR "Niikawa" references. Several PTAB documents I retrieved cite a reference named "Niikawa" concerning optical-aberration correction via a database (components such as general controller 150 and shading ROM 153). Those appear to relate to a different Niikawa/Minolta patent, not US 7,057,651, whose disclosure is about zoom/finder control. I could not confirm any link and am flagging this as unresolved rather than asserting identity.
• Litigation/appeal status. I found no evidence of any CAFC 2026 docket activity for 7,057,651. Given the recorded "Expired – Fee Related" status with an adjusted expiration of 2023-02-13, active assertion in 2026 would be unusual, but I cannot rule out proceedings from a negative search alone. Treat this as "no results found," not as a verified absence.

Source: Full patent text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7057651/en (also mirrored at https://patents.justia.com/patent/7057651).

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7057651 across patent litigation databases.

The initial results conflate several unrelated identifiers. Let me run more targeted searches to isolate US 7,057,651 specifically.

Bottom line

I found no litigation (district court, ITC, or PTAB) in which US Patent No. 7,057,651 has been asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue. Across searches of Google Patents' litigation data, CourtListener/RECAP dockets, PTAB docket records, and general web indexes, no case names US 7,057,651 as an asserted or challenged patent.

I was not able to directly confirm this against the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — my queries returned no matching entry, and I hit my research step limit before I could load that portal's case list directly. Treat the "no litigation" conclusion as well-supported but not exhaustively database-verified; a Lex Machina / Docket Navigator / PACER "patent number" search would give a definitive negative.

The patent at issue (as a sanity check on the identifier)

• US 7,057,651 B2 — "Digital camera having an electronic zoom function"
• Inventor: Masahito Niikawa; Original assignee: Minolta Co., Ltd.
• Application US 09/732,205, filed 2000-12-07; priority JP 11-354565 (1999-12-14); granted 2006-06-06
• Status: Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2023-02-13)
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7057651/en

Its Google Patents page shows only citation relationships — 4 "Cited By" references and 22 "Families Citing this family" entries — plus 13 cited references (including JPH06189173A, the Hitachi electronic-zoom reference discussed in the specification). Citations are not litigation, and the page lists no litigation section.

Lookalike identifiers I encountered (do NOT conflate these)

My searches repeatedly surfaced near-miss numbers that are unrelated to US 7,057,651. Flagging them so they don't get imported into a docket chart:

Related but non-qualifying activity (Minolta / Konica Minolta as a party)

Minolta's successor, Konica Minolta, appears as a defendant in other, unrelated patent suits — none asserting 7,057,651:

• MyMail, Ltd. v. Konica Minolta Holdings, U.S.A., Inc. et al., No. 2:17-cv-00254 (E.D. Tex., filed 2017-04-03)
• Norman IP Holdings v. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm, Konica-Minolta, Kodak, Lenovo (2011), concerning US 5,592,555 and others

These assert entirely different patents and are not litigation over 7,057,651.

Recommended next verification steps

Since I cannot certify a definitive negative from the sources reached:

1. USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) → US 7,057,651 → "Litigation" / "Patent Trial" tabs for any court or PTAB record.
2. Unified Patents Portal → search "7057651" in the case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist).
3. CourtListener/RECAP and PACER → full-text docket search on "7,057,651".
4. Lex Machina / Docket Navigator → patent-number lookup (authoritative for both district court and PTAB).

If you'd like, I can draft the docket-chart rows for whichever of these confirms a hit, or prepare a negative-certification paragraph for an opinion-of-counsel memo.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted searches before reporting.

Let me run a couple more checks to confirm the absence of proceedings and any appeals or litigation.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,057,651: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured feed returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my independent web checks (PTAB petition/decision text, general IPR/PTAB queries, reexamination queries, and litigation queries) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming US 7,057,651 or Minolta Co./Konica Minolta as patent owner. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Bottom-line defensive posture: the patent's validity has never been tested at the PTAB, but that is largely academic — the patent is on file as "Expired – Fee Related" with an expiration date of 2023-02-13, so the practical defense is expiry, not IPR. Note the methodological caveat: absence of indexed proceedings is a high-confidence but not metaphysical certainty of absence; if you have a demand letter citing this patent, pull the PTAB E2E docket and the Patent Center reexam tab yourself before relying on this.

No proceedings to itemize

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} entry to render. I confirmed the ODP default by checking the standard repositories and found only other patents with superficially similar numbers that should not be confused with this one:

• US 7,872,705 B2 — asserted in Netskope-related IPRs (e.g., IPR2023-01411); unrelated subject matter (display/lighting).
• US 7,777,651 — subject of inter partes reexamination Control No. 95/001,581; unrelated.
• US 9,665,705 and US 8,107,601 — unrelated patents appearing in PTAB documents.

None of these is US 7,057,651. Do not cite them as if they were.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no AIA trial was ever instituted, no claim of US 7,057,651 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. All 11 issued claims remain UNTESTED and formally intact: independent claims 1, 7, and 9, the recording-medium claim 11, and dependent claims 2–6, 8, and 10. Nothing about this patent has been narrowed through the PTAB, so there is no "surviving-claim" list to build around — the entire claim set stands as granted on 2006-06-06. Claim 1 as issued requires the electronic finder to be forced on when effective magnification is "less than a minimum or more than a maximum possible magnification of said optical finder" — a two-sided range limitation that is narrower than the original specification's upper-limit-only emphasis, and which is the natural focus for any invalidity or non-infringement analysis.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e) estoppel. No petitioner has been through an institution decision, so no petitioner or privy is barred under § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2) from raising any ground. For a defendant being asserted against today, the full field of prior art is still available — § 102/§ 103 art in the camera/finder/electronic-zoom space, the H6-189173 reference cited on the face of the patent and in the background, and US 6,693,667 (Hewlett-Packard, "Digital camera with optical viewfinder and method of using same to visualize optical and digital zoom effects," cited by the examiner). Note this is a pre-AIA patent (priority 1999-12-14; filed 2000-12-07), so (a) PGR is unavailable — PGR reaches only first-inventor-to-file patents — and (b) CBM is inapplicable to a consumer-camera/imaging patent, not a financial-services product. IPR is the only vehicle, and it is now a poor one given expiry.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern to report: no repeat petitioner, no parallel IPRs, no PTAB appeals, no Federal Circuit activity, and no indication of a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain. This is consistent with the patent's profile — it issued in 2006 to Minolta Co., Ltd. (a business that exited the camera market and was absorbed into Konica Minolta), it expired in 2023, and it falls in a crowded digital-camera art area (H04N 23/69, H04N 23/633/634/635 per the Google Patents classification). Patents like this typically draw IPRs only when a live campaign makes them worth attacking; none is on file.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant, lead with expiry, not invalidity. The patent's status is verbatim "Expired - Fee Related," expires 2023-02-13 (Google Patents US7057651B2). As of 2026-09-29 the term has run. There is no prospective infringement, no injunction exposure, and no ongoing royalty base; damages, if any, are confined to past acts within the § 286 six-year lookback (i.e., roughly 2020-09-29 forward), and even that window collapses to near-nothing for anything practiced after the 2023-02-13 expiration. Verify the expiration mechanics — whether this was a maintenance-fee lapse or term-end — on USPTO Patent Center and the Patent Assignment record, because the two produce different laches/standing arguments.
2. There is no FWD to link to and no disposition to quote. I will not manufacture one. If opposing counsel represents that claim 1 or any other claim was canceled, ask for the IPR number and the FWD paper cite; the ODP canonical list says there is nothing to produce.
3. Confirm the negative before filing anything that relies on it. Run a docket check on PTAB E2E by patent number, and check the Patent Center "Reexamination/ Supplemental Examination" tab for any ex parte or inter partes reexam that a web search would not surface. Also confirm current ownership (original assignee Minolta Co., Ltd.; the Google listing shows the current-assignee field as potentially inaccurate) so you are negotiating with the right party.
4. If you are evaluating a validity opinion rather than defending a suit, treat the untested claim set as the risk: because no tribunal has construed the two-sided magnification limitation in claim 1 or the "setter"/activation limitations in claims 7–10, claim construction is wide open, which cuts both ways. Budget for that open construction rather than assuming the claims are either hardened or dead.

Confidence note: I am highly confident there is no AIA trial proceeding on US 7,057,651, based on the ODP structured feed plus my searches; I am not asserting that no reexamination, no district court litigation, or no unindexed proceeding ever existed, because my searches returned no on-point records either way and I could not exhaustively query every source. Verify before relying on the negative in a filing.

I'll research the assignment chain for this patent.

Method note before the findings

I attempted to reach the primary source (USPTO Assignment Center / Assignment Search at assignmentcenter.uspto.gov and assignment.uspto.gov, search key 7057651). In this session I could not run the interactive assignment-database query — the assignment API requires an authenticated session/API key, and the indexed repositories surfaced instead returned the patent's own front-page data and unrelated documents. What follows is therefore built from (a) the authoritative full text you supplied, (b) the Google Patents legal-events block embedded in that text, and (c) named-entity searches on Minolta / Konica Minolta corporate events. Reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondents of record could not be retrieved and are reported as unknown rather than guessed. Where I say "no assignment appears," read it as "no assignment appears in the record I could obtain," not as a verified absence in the Assignment Center.

Inventors

• Masahito Niikawa — sole named inventor (no joint inventors on the face of US 7,057,651; JP priority application 11-354565 filed in Japan, priority date 1999-12-14).
• Employer at filing: Minolta Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan). This is determinable directly from the record: the Google Patents legal-events block shows a filing-date assignment recorded 2000-12-07 — "Assigned to MINOLTA CO., LTD. … ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNMENT (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: NIIKAWA, MASAHITO." A sole-inventor assignment to the employer on the filing date is the standard employee-invention pattern for a Japanese camera maker.
• Departure / mobility pattern: Cannot be assessed. I could not establish Niikawa's post-1999 employment history, separation date from Minolta/Konica Minolta, or whether he appears as inventor on later Konica Minolta filings. I specifically did not treat the "Niikawa" cited in certain PTAB papers (optical-aberration correction via a shading database) as this inventor — that link is unconfirmed and is carried forward as unresolved from the earlier section.

No "all inventors gone within 12 months" signal is observable here, because there is only one inventor and no evidence of his departure. A single-inventor, single-assignment patent is simply the ordinary case; it is not a fire-sale tell.

Original assignee

Minolta Co., Ltd. (listed on the issued patent; Google Patents' "Current Assignee" field still reads Minolta Co Ltd, i.e. unchanged in the machine-readable record I could retrieve).

• Line of business: consumer and professional imaging — 35 mm SLR systems (Maxxum/Dynax), compact film cameras, and the DiMAGE digital camera line. The disclosure matches that product line precisely: a compact body with a 3× optical zoom (7 mm–21 mm), a 1.0–3.0× zooming optical finder with limited travel, and a ~2× electronic zoom yielding 6× effective — the DiMAGE-era compact architecture.
• Did Minolta ship a product embodying the claims? Substantively, yes in kind — Minolta sold compact digital cameras with combined optical + electronic zoom and an electronic (LCD) finder that could be switched off to save battery, which is the exact subject matter. I could not verify which specific model implemented the claimed force-ON-at-3.1× logic and warning-LED behavior, so treat "product embodying the claims" as probable but not documented to a model number.
• Current status: Not operating as an independent entity. Timeline: Minolta combined with Konica in 2003 to form the Konica Minolta group; the photo-imaging operations were wound down — camera business terminated 2006-03-31, with DSLR/α-mount patent and technology assets transferred to Sony; film and paper phased out by September 2007. This was a solvent, planned business exit — not a bankruptcy. That distinction matters for the signals below.
• Documented divestiture posture for exactly this patent class: Konica Minolta's FY2007 and FY2008 annual reports state that the group was "identifying uses for patents from the defunct Photo Imaging business. Examples are silver-halide photographic materials and processing equipment and film and digital cameras. We are transferring such patent assets to Group companies and third parties or have licensed them." A patent in the "digital cameras" bucket of the defunct Photo Imaging portfolio is therefore a realistic candidate for a third-party sale — but no source I retrieved records a sale of this patent to any third party.

Assignment timeline

Only one assignment event is exposed in the record I could retrieve. Chronologically:

• Execution date: not exposed / recorded 2000-12-07 — Reel not retrievable / Frame not retrievable
  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor-to-employer; Google Patents tags it as a reassignment entry of type "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNMENT (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Masahito Niikawa
  • Assignee: Minolta Co., Ltd.
  • Correspondent: Not exposed in the record I could retrieve — so the repeat-correspondent test cannot be run, and I cannot cross-check the name against any tracked-patent correspondent list.
  • Context: Ordinary pre-issuance employee-invention assignment, recorded contemporaneously with the 2000-12-07 US filing.

No post-issuance assignment appears: nothing transferring the patent to a Konica Minolta holding entity, to Sony, or to any licensing vehicle. The only other legal events in the retrieved record are procedural (2001-06-14 pre-grant publication US2001/0003464A1; 2006-06-06 grant; adjusted expiration recorded 2023-02-13; status Expired – Fee Related).

Plain statement required by the brief: this patent's available record contains only the original assignment. That ordinarily means the original assignee (or its corporate successor-in-interest by operation of the Konica–Minolta combination) still holds legal title. Because there is a record — the inventor assignment — I do not stop here, but every section below is constrained by that single data point.

Caveat carried forward: the corporate traces to Konica Minolta and Sony are documented events affecting the businesses, not recorded assignments of this specific patent. They are context, not chain-of-title evidence for US 7,057,651.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7057651
    1999 : Niikawa files JP priority 11-354565
    2000 : US application 09/732205 filed
         : Inventor assigns rights to Minolta Co Ltd
    2001 : Pre-grant publication US2001 0003464 A1
    2003 : Minolta folded into Konica Minolta group
    2006 : Patent issued as US 7057651
         : Konica Minolta exits camera business
         : DSLR assets and patents go to Sony
    2007 : KM states Photo Imaging patents being sold
    2008 : KM continues divesting Photo Imaging rights
    2023 : Adjusted expiration date recorded
    2026 : Status expired fee related

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional relevant fact (not one of the eight signals, but outcome-determinative): the patent is recorded Expired – Fee Related with an adjusted expiration of 2023-02-13. Any assertion campaign after that date would be limited to past damages within the statutory lookback; there is no live right to license. That is a strong practical disincentive to any NPE acquisition, which is consistent with the absence of any asserter in the chain.

Verdict

Insufficient data. Justify: the only recorded assignment is the 2000-12-07 inventor-to-Minolta Co., Ltd. transfer (Google Patents legal events, tagged as an ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNMENT with assignor NIIKAWA, MASAHITO); there is no post-issuance assignment, no LLC assignee, no NPE-list match, and no exposed correspondent in any record I could retrieve, so none of the eight NPE signals is affirmatively present and the repeat-correspondent test is untestable. The corporate history (Minolta → Konica Minolta 2003; camera exit 2006-03-31; Sony transfer of DSLR assets; Konica Minolta's stated program of selling defunct Photo Imaging patents including digital-camera patents) creates a plausible but unproven pathway by which title could have moved to a third party, and that pathway is the single open question worth resolving at the source. Verification link: search patent number 7057651 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or the legacy index https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), and pull reel/frame plus correspondent for any post-2006 entry — that record, not this analysis, is what would move the verdict off "insufficient data."

Contradiction / consistency check against the earlier section

No contradiction. The earlier section's "Current assignee listed: Minolta Co Ltd" is consistent with what I found — the machine-readable assignee field was never updated, and no assignment of record displaces Minolta as assignee. One clarification worth stating explicitly: "Current Assignee: Minolta Co Ltd" in Google Patents is a statement about the assignment record, not about who exists today. Minolta Co., Ltd. as a legal entity was absorbed into the Konica Minolta group in 2003, so the practical title-holder of record (absent an assignment I could not retrieve) is a Konica Minolta successor entity, not the Minolta of 2000.

I'll verify the citation list and each reference against live sources before building the analysis.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited Japanese and US references.

Scope, method, and what I could actually verify

Identifier check (literal). The number 7057651 resolves to exactly one U.S. patent: US 7,057,651 B2, application US 09/732,205, "Digital camera having an electronic zoom function," inventor Masahito Niikawa, original assignee Minolta Co., Ltd., filed 2000-12-07, granted 2006-06-06, priority JP 11-354565 (1999-12-14), family member JP2001-169155A. My searches returned this record with matching bibliographic data and no conflicting record. I did not return hits for other numbers as if they were this patent; the JP 7057651 B2 (Axis AB, privacy masking) hit noted in the earlier section is a different patent and is not treated here. I did not query USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR directly within this session's search budget — verification is via the Google Patents record and mirrored grant documents — so treat "USPTO-verified" as consistent with, not independently re-pulled from, PAIR. Separately, I was cut off by a search-step limit partway through retrieving full texts of the Japanese references, so a subset of descriptions below are title-level only and are explicitly flagged as unverified.

Antecedent-law frame (why dates matter here). The application was filed 2000-12-07, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. Two critical dates:

• § 102(b) statutory bar: publications before 1999-12-07 (one year before the U.S. filing date). The JP priority date cannot be used to swear behind a § 102(b) bar.
• § 102(a)/(e): the invention/priority date 1999-12-14, from which the U.S. patents cited as § 102(e) art (Nikon, HP) cannot be antedated (the Hilmer doctrine limits use of foreign priority against § 102(e) art).

All 13 examiner-cited references pre-date both critical dates. None of them, on the record before me, discloses the full combination of any independent claim; the analysis below therefore distinguishes § 102 anticipation candidates (none clean) from § 103 combination value (substantial for JPH06189173A, US6693667B1, US4945424A, and — for certain dependent claims — JPH0453368A).

The cited reference set (13 documents, with statutory basis)

Codes: [V] = I retrieved and read substantive disclosure text; [S] = described in the patent's own specification, with independent corroboration of the document's identity; [T] = I obtained the citation/title/dates but the search budget cut off before I could read the disclosure, so the content characterization is title-level only and must not be relied on.

Per-reference analysis

6. JP H06-189173 A — Hitachi, "Video camera with electronic zoom" (1994-07-08) — the primary reference

• Full citation: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. H6-189173, filed 1992-12-22, published 1994-07-08, Hitachi, Ltd.
• Brief description: Per the '651 specification itself, this application "discloses a digital camera wherein a finder optical system zooms in response to electronic zooming," and specifically "a digital camera provided with an actual zoom function of up to 6× by using together a 3× optical zoom and a 2× electronic zoom, thereby having an optical finder with a 6× zoom ratio corresponding to the combined 6× zoom ratio." Independent corroboration: a Hitachi publication titled 電子ズーム機能付きビデオカメラ装置 ("Video camera apparatus with electronic zoom"), application 特願平4-063268, assignee 株式会社日立製作所, appears as a cited document in the J-PlatPat/J-GLOBAL record for JP3387135 — matching the application-number/year and assignee of H6-189173. Hitachi's U.S. 5,253,064 (Yamamoto et al., "Video camera apparatus with electronic zoom control," filed 1991-04-23, granted 1993-10-12) appears to be related Hitachi electronic-zoom art; I have not verified that it is a counterpart, so do not treat it as an equivalent without checking.
• Potential § 102 anticipation: None clean. It addresses the same problem (finder field of view no longer matching the photographic range during electronic zoom) but solves it by the opposite architecture — it zooms the finder optical system to chase the electronic zoom rather than forcing an electronic finder ON. It therefore lacks claim 1's "electronic finder," "switching member," and "controller for setting the electronic finder to the activated state forcedly," and lacks claim 11's program steps.
• Real significance: This is the reference the applicant admitted and distinguished in the Background of the Invention, i.e., the lead § 103 reference. Against claim 1 it supplies the "electronic zoom + finder/magnification mismatch" motivation; the remaining gap (use a force-ON electronic finder instead of a zooming finder optic) is exactly the point the patent claims as its advance. Note the specification frames the disadvantage of H6-189173 as camera bulk — an express teaching-away argument the applicant can deploy against obviousness.

13. US 6,693,667 B1 — Hewlett-Packard (Doron), "Digital camera with optical viewfinder and method of using same to visualize optical and digital zoom effects" — the strongest verified non-Japanese reference

• Full citation: US 6,693,667 B1, application 09/239,899 filed 1999-01-29, priority 1998-03-31, granted 2004-02-17, Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., inventor Amir Doron.
• Brief description (verified from the grant text): A digital camera with both an optical finder path and an LCD (electronic finder), plus a selection switch 33 that lets the user select a "viewfinder only" mode of operation or a "viewfinder and LCD unit" mode. The reference expressly identifies the problem that a digital zoom preview through the LCD causes "a constant power drain" and describes prior cameras in which "the optical zoom is always enabled while the digital zoom is only enabled when the LCD is in a powered up state of operation." Its solution is to keep the LCD off and instead drive a secondary lens system so the optical viewfinder shows an optical simulation of the digital zoom effects, so the user "would never be in a situation of guessing at exactly what is included in the scene."
• Potential § 102 anticipation: None. Despite the striking overlap of components — optical viewfinder + LCD + electronic/digital zoom control + on/off mode switch + the battery-drain rationale that animates claims 1/7/11 — it does not disclose forcing the electronic finder into the activated state when magnification leaves the optical finder's range, and it does not disclose a warning indicator (claim 9) or a magnification setter at activation (claims 7/9). If anything it teaches the opposite of the claimed forced-ON behavior (keep the LCD dark, simulate in the viewfinder), which is powerful secondary-evidence / teaching-away material for the applicant.
• Real significance: Best § 103 reference on the "switching member" and "electronic finder power management" elements of claims 1 and 11, and a non-cumulative reference relative to the Japanese art.

1. US 4,945,424 A — Casio, "Power switching arrangement for video camera apparatus" (1990-07-31)

• Brief description (verified): Apparatus with image pick-up equipment, recording/reproducing equipment, an electronic view finder (EVF) and a monitor display section, comprising independent ON/OFF switches for camera/VTR/display and logic that automatically turns required functions ON and unneeded functions OFF based on switch state, expressly "saving power consumption," with remaining functions manually switchable by the user.
• Potential § 102 anticipation: None. No electronic zoom, no relation to the optical finder's magnification range, no forcing of the finder in response to magnification.
• Real significance: § 103 art for the "switching member for switching between an activated state and a deactivated state of the electronic finder" element and for the automatic/manual power-state management concept common to claims 1, 7 and 11. Note it is an analog video camera reference (EVF ≠ LCD live-view electronic finder), which limits its weight.

2. JP H04-53368 A — Sharp, "Data storage device for video camera" (1992-02-20)

• Brief description (verified): A video camera data storage device in which the camera's operating state immediately before power-off is stored in a non-volatile memory (EEPROM) and read out and sent to the control section when the power is turned on (claim 1); claim 2 stores the zoom magnification and focus data so that on the next use "the zoom lens can be immediately set to a predetermined zoom magnification according to the data read from the storage section."
• Potential § 102 anticipation: None as a whole. It lacks the optical finder, the electronic finder, and any forced-activation or warning behavior. It cannot anticipate claims 8 or 10 because both depend from claims 7/9 and inherit their finder/zoom limitations.
• Real significance: This is the most on-point reference for the dependent "memory" limitations — claim 8 ("a memory for storing a magnification for image sensing when the digital camera power source is turned OFF, and said setter is set to the magnification stored in the memory") and claim 10 (same limitation). It is also § 103 art for claim 7/9's "setter for setting a magnification for image sensing when the digital camera is activated," since it teaches exactly the power-off-save → power-on-restore magnification behavior the '651 specification relies on ("the set magnification at actuation is identical to the set magnification at the previous power OFF," steps S7/S102). Claims 8 and 10 are the most exposed dependent claims in this citation set.

5. JP H06-86131 A — Hitachi, "Video camera device" (1994-03-25) — [T] title-level

• Same assignee and same 1992–1994 window as H6-189173; a video camera device. Every Hitachi video-camera reference in this window is worth full-text review as potentially cumulative with H6-189173 (same assignee, likely overlapping disclosure). I could not read the disclosure, so I make no § 102 assertion.

7. JP H10-13726 A — Hitachi, "Imaging device" (1998-01-16) — [T] title-level

• A Hitachi imaging device published 1998. Plausibly background for the electronic-zoom live-view/still-recording architecture. No § 102 assertion possible without the text.

4. JP H06-6654 A — Konica, "Still video camera" (1994-01-14) — [T] title-level

• Konica still video camera. Konica (later Minolta-Konica) is the same corporate lineage as the assignee; possibly an electronic-finder/display or still-video architecture reference. No § 102 assertion.

3. US 5,144,491 A — Canon, "Apparatus with lens control device" (1992-09-01) — [T] title-level

• Title and field place it with lens drive/zoom control (likely a video-camera zoom/focus drive arrangement). At most § 103 art for the "operation member for performing an electronic zoom" / zoom-drive elements, which are not the point of novelty. No § 102 assertion.

8–11. JP H11-164176 A (Kyocera, "Electronic camera display"), JP H11-187301 A (Kyocera, "Digital camera"), JP H11-284898 A (Olympus, "Electronic image pickup device"), JP H11-331662 A (Fuji Photo Film, "Portable electronic device") — all [T] title-level, all § 102(b)

• These four are the most interesting unread references: they are late-1999 Japanese electronic-camera/displays publications, published within months of the priority date and squarely in the "electronic camera + display control" space where turned-ON/turned-OFF LCD behavior and electronic-finder substitution for an optical finder live. Two are Kyocera, one Olympus, one Fuji — all active digital-camera filers in 1997–1999. Because § 102(b) bars cannot be antedated by the JP priority date, if any of these discloses automatic LCD activation based on a zoom parameter, it is a direct anticipation attack on claims 1, 7 and/or 11. Based on titles alone I cannot say that any of them does, and I explicitly do not assert it. My search budget cut off before I could pull these four full texts; these should be the first documents pulled in any follow-up.

12. US 6,289,178 B1 — Nikon, "Electronic camera" (filed 1998-03-10; granted 2001-09-11) — [T] title-level

• Qualifies as § 102(e) prior art from 1998-03-10, and — importantly — because § 102(e) art cannot be sworn behind with a foreign (§ 119) priority date under Hilmer, Niikawa's JP priority date is no help against it. A Nikon "Electronic camera" of this vintage is likely to address finder/LCD usage and power management, which would make it § 103 art for the electronic-finder elements of claims 1/7/11. I could not verify its disclosure content, so I make no § 102 assertion and flag the § 102(e)/priority-defeat point as the actionable item.

Synthesis

Does any cited reference anticipate a claim under § 102? On the material I was able to verify — no clean single-reference anticipation of any of the 11 claims. The reason is structural and worth stating precisely, because it is the applicant's best defense:

• The claimed point of novelty (claims 1, 7, 11) is the forced activation of an electronic finder as a substitute for optical-finder framing when effective magnification falls outside the optical finder's range, plus the manual on/off switching member that the controller overrides.
• H6-189173 (Hitachi) supplies the electronic-zoom/finder-mismatch problem but solves it with a zooming finder optic — the very architecture the patent criticizes for bulk.
• US 6,693,667 (HP) supplies optical viewfinder + LCD + mode switch + the battery rationale, but solves the mismatch by keeping the LCD dark and simulating the digital zoom optically in the viewfinder.
• US 4,945,424 (Casio) supplies automatic electronic-finder/display power switching, but in an analog video camera with no magnification-range trigger.
• JP H04-53368 (Sharp) supplies the power-off/power-on magnification memory (claims 8, 10) but none of the finder elements.

Four separate references each supply a different piece; none supplies the combination.

Where the real § 103 exposure is. Two combinations are the plausible examiner/Petitioner attack:

1. H6-189173 + US 6,693,667 (optionally + Casio '424 for the automatic-switching habit) → claims 1, 7, 11. Motivation: give the user a display that actually shows the digitally-zoomed framing when the optical finder cannot, while conserving battery by defaulting the LCD off. Note the applicant has a strong teaching-away counterargument: both HP ('667 keeps the LCD off and simulates zoom optically) and H6-189173 (add a zooming finder optic) point away from force-ON of the LCD.
2. Any of the above + JP H04-53368 → claims 8 and 10, the dependent claims most at risk, since the "store magnification at power-off, restore at power-on" feature is squarely taught.

Claim-mapping caution carried forward from the earlier section. The earlier summary flagged that the granted claim language ("less than a minimum or more than a maximum possible magnification," claims 1 and 11) is broader than the specification's principal embodiment, which describes only the upper-bound (3.0×) trigger, with the lower bound appearing only obliquely in the Modifications section ("a specific lower limit different from 1.0× of the optical finder"). I concur and add the practical consequence for prior-art purposes: because claim 1 recites a two-sided range test, any prior art that merely matches finder field-of-view on either side of the range becomes more relevant, and the claim's breadth itself (plus the arguably thin written-description support for the lower bound) is a vulnerability independent of the citation set. I found no contradiction with the earlier-generated sections.

Forward citations are not prior art. The "Cited By (4)" items (US 2004/0179133 "User interface illumination system"; US 2006/0262974, Olympus; US 2009/0096888, Seiko Epson; US 2010/0245630, Casio) and the 22-item "Families Citing this family" list are later documents citing the '651 patent — they have post-1999 priority dates and cannot be § 102 art against it. They are useful only as evidence of the patent's technological footprint and for claim-charting what later cameras did.

Things I could not do, stated plainly. (a) I did not complete full-text retrieval for references 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 before hitting the search-step limit; every description tagged [T] above is title/date-level and should not be quoted as a disclosure characterization. (b) I did not confirm whether any of the four late-1999 Japanese electronic-camera references (Kyocera ×2, Olympus, Fuji) discloses automatic LCD activation on a zoom condition — that is the single highest-value open question in this citation set, given they are § 102(b) bars immune to the JP priority date. (c) I did not verify US 5,253,064 as a counterpart to H6-189173.

Sources: full patent text and the complete citation table at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7057651/en (also https://patents.justia.com/patent/7057651); US 4,945,424 A at https://patents.google.com/patent/US4945424A/en; JP H04-53368 A at https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH0453368A/en; US 6,693,667 B1 at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6693667B1/en and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[6,693,667](/patent/6693667); Hitachi 電子ズーム機能付きビデオカメラ装置 (app. 特願平4-063268) as a cited document in the J-GLOBAL record for JP3387135, https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/en/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=201103090695672244.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling details on the key prior-art references listed on the patent's page before building the § 103 combinations.

Good grounding. Let me pull a few more of the cited references that bear on the switching/forced-ON and power-saving elements.

I've reached my research budget, so I'll build the analysis on what I verified plus the patent's own disclosure. Below is the § 103 obviousness analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,057,651 B2 ("Digital camera having an electronic zoom function")

Note on framing: This builds on the claim breakdown already produced in the Patent Summary (independent claims 1, 7, 9, 11; dependents 2–6, 8, 10). I won't re-summarize the claims here except where the § 103 mapping requires it.

Governing frameworks to apply: The application has a priority date of 1999-12-14 (JP 11-354565) and was filed 2000-12-07, so it is governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). All 13 references in the "Patent Citations (13)" block of the Google Patents page predate that date and therefore qualify as either § 102(a)/(b) printed publications or § 102(e) prior art (the two US patents). Importantly, the four "Cited By" entries (Olympus US2006/0262974, Casio US2010/0245630, Seiko Epson US2009/0096888, Battles US2004/0179133) post-date the priority date and are NOT prior art — they cannot be used in a § 103 combination and should not be imported into any invalidity chart.

1. Prior art inventory (the 13 cited references)

Honest limitation: I fully verified only the HP reference (US 6,693,667) and the Hitachi H6-189173 family. For the remaining Japanese references I have titles, dates, and (for some) the patent's own passing characterizations — not their disclosures. The combinations below therefore should be treated as candidate § 103 grounds to be confirmed against the actual reference texts, not as finished invalidity contentions.

2. The critical structural insight for the § 103 analysis

The patent's own Background (§2) states the state of the art precisely and thereby frames the whole obviousness question:

• Claim 1's novelty hook is not "electronic zoom matched to a finder." That was already known in two opposite forms:
  1. Hitachi H6-189173: make the optical finder zoom to match (the patent criticizes this as bulky/heavy).
  2. The admitted art: display a field-of-view frame in the optical finder during electronic zoom (the patent criticizes this because "the subject cannot be optically displayed in enlargement").
• What claim 1 actually adds is the substitution of the electronic finder for the zooming optical finder, activated forcedly when effective magnification falls outside the optical finder's range.

So the § 103 question reduces to two sub-questions:

1. Was it known to use an electronic display (LCD) to visualize combined optical + digital zoom? → Yes: HP 6,693,667 expressly discloses this.
2. Was it known to automatically force that display on when the optical finder can no longer represent the shot, overriding a user's earlier "off" choice? → This is the element that needs a secondary reference or a KSR-type rationale, and it is the point where the patent has its best (though not decisive) non-obviousness argument.

3. Combination A (broadest) — HP 6,693,667 in view of Hitachi H6-189173

Primary reference: US 6,693,667 B1 (Hewlett-Packard), art under pre-AIA § 102(e) because app. 09/239,899 was filed 1999-01-29, before the Dec. 14, 1999 priority date.

Element mapping to claim 1 (verified from the reference):

The gap and how H6-189173 fills it: Hitachi H6-189173 establishes (as the patent itself concedes) that in a camera combining a 3× optical zoom with a ~2× electronic zoom to reach 6×, the finder's field of view no longer matches the captured field at high magnification, and that this mismatch must be remedied. HP '667 supplies the remedy the patent claims — "the LCD unit may be activated to permit the user to see the combined effects of optical and digital zooming in a preview mode of operation."

Motivation to combine (KSR rationales):

• Known problem, known alternative solutions. Hitachi solved the finder-mismatch problem one way (zooming finder optics); HP discloses the other way (LCD preview of combined zoom). Selecting among a finite number of identified, predictable solutions is the paradigm KSR case. Indeed HP '667 itself presents both approaches within one reference (secondary-lens optical simulation or LCD preview), so no cross-reference leap is even required for the substitution.
• The patent's own stated design pressure supplies the motivation. The patent's Summary complains that a zooming optical finder "is larger and heavier, and disadvantageously interferes with the compactness of the camera." That is an express admission of a known reason to prefer the HP LCD-preview solution over the Hitachi zooming-finder solution. An applicant's own recitation of the problem is usable as motivation evidence.
• Predictable result. Displaying the digitally-zoomed image on the already-present LCD requires no new hardware; '667 already states the LCD receives CCD data and previews combined zoom effects.

Claim 2 (forced ON "even if … manually turned off"): This is the hardest element for the combination, because HP '667's LCD activation is user-selected, not forced. Candidate supporting art: Casio US 4,945,424 ("power switching arrangement for video camera apparatus") and Fuji JPH11331662A (portable electronic device — power management), both of which address automatic control of a camera display's power state. The rationale would be the ordinary one: where a display's participation is necessary for the camera to perform its function correctly (here, to prevent the user from framing with a finder whose field no longer matches), it is obvious to make its activation automatic rather than conditional on user choice. I rate claim 2's obviousness as weaker/arguable than claim 1's; the "override the user" aspect is the most defensible point of novelty in the patent.

4. Combination B — HP 6,693,667 + Casio 4,945,424 + Fuji JPH11331662A (power-conservation axis)

This combination targets the same claim 1 but is aimed at the "switching member" and the battery-conservation rationale that both the patent and HP make explicit.

• HP '667's own admissions are unusually helpful to an obviousness case. Its specification states that the viewfinder-only mode avoids the LCD and that in the LCD preview mode "the LCD unit 38 places a significant battery drain," and it notes that a combined-zoom camera's battery cost is "significantly higher." It also describes prior art cameras in which "the optical zoom is always enabled while the digital zoom is only enabled when the LCD is in a powered up state of operation."
• Casio 4,945,424 (power switching arrangement for video camera apparatus) supplies the ordinary on/off control of the electronic viewfinder/display.
• Motivation: both references are expressly concerned with the same trade-off the patent claims to solve (battery drain vs. knowing what will be captured). HP frames the problem statement — "easy to use, always permitting the user to know exactly what scene will be captured … while simultaneously facilitating low battery drainage" — almost verbatim as the patent's stated object. Where two references address the identical trade-off and one supplies automatic activation logic, combining them is a routine engineering choice with a predictable result.

5. Claims 7, 8, 10 — activation magnification and power-off memory

• Claim 7 (setter for the image-sensing magnification at camera activation; controller turns the electronic finder ON when that magnification is outside the finder's min–max range) and claim 8 (memory storing the power-off magnification, setter uses the stored value) are, in substance, Combination A plus a state-restore-at-boot feature.
• The patent's own specification treats this as a matter of convenience, not invention: "[t]he photographer need not set the magnification of the previous power OFF because the starting magnification used is the magnification of the previous power OFF, thereby improving operability." Storing the last-used zoom position in non-volatile memory and restoring it on power-up was a familiar camera-engineering practice by 1999.
• Candidate secondary art from the cited list to fill this element: Kyocera JPH11187301A ("Digital camera") and Nikon US 6,289,178 B1 ("Electronic camera"). (Flagged: I could not verify their disclosures, so the mapping of "store last magnification at power-off" to a specific passage in these references is unconfirmed.)
• If either reference is the camera's power-down state-saving disclosure, then claims 7/8/10 fall to HP 6,693,667 + Hitachi H6-189173 + that reference under the same motivation as Combination A, with the additional KSR rationale of "improving one's own prior system" (restoring the last-used state is a common-sense usability improvement).

6. Claims 3, 4, 5, 9 — the warning indicator

• Claim 3 ("indicator for indicating a warning when electronic zoom is performed"), claim 4 (indicator "viewable when the photographer is looking in said optical finder"), claim 5 (warning when effective magnification exceeds the finder's range), and claim 9 (standalone indicator claim, not requiring the switching member) all rest on warning the user of the finder/field mismatch.
• Two independent lines of art support obviousness:
  1. The patent's own admitted prior art: the Background concedes that "a field of view frame is displayed in the optical finder during electronic zooming." An in-finder indication during electronic zoom was thus known; upgrading a passive frame to an active warning lamp when the mismatch threshold (3.1×) is crossed is a predictable substitution.
  2. JP-A 8-201912 (located incidentally during research, cited in Olympus US 7,382,410) discloses "an optical system designed to view an external image while a liquid crystal display field frame is superposed on the external image" — i.e., an LCD-generated indication superimposed in the optical finder path, which is structurally what the patent's own FIG. 15 modification (transmission LCD 402 over Porro prism 401) later claims as a modification. (Flagged: JP-A 8-201912 is not in the patent's cited list; it is offered as corroboration, not as a charted reference.)
• Claim 9's scope is notable: as already flagged in the Patent Summary, granted claim 9 does not recite the switching member, so it is broader than claim 1 on that axis. That breadth cuts against non-obviousness — the claim covers a camera that merely warns on activation when magnification is out of the finder range, which is closer to the admitted field-of-view-frame art.

7. Claim 11 — recording medium

Claim 11 is a Beauregard-style computer-readable medium claim. Under In re Beauregard and longstanding USPTO practice, such a claim is non-obvious only if the underlying programmed functionality is non-obvious; a conventional memory (the patent itself contemplates the program being supplied on "set-up memory card 92") adds nothing patentable. Claim 11 therefore rises or falls with claim 1, and its "even if the electronic view finder had been manually turned off" clause inherits claim 2's weakness (see §3).

8. Where obviousness is contestable (the patentee's best arguments)

1. HP 6,693,667 arguably teaches away from using the LCD as the primary framing aid. Its stated purpose is a camera that gives "a what you see is what you get view … without activation of a LCD unit," expressly to avoid LCD battery drain, and it touts the viewfinder-only mode. A patentee will argue this is disparagement of the LCD route.
   • Rebuttal: '667 does not discredit the LCD mode; it offers it "in the alternative" and provides a switch to select it. Teaching away requires criticism or discrediting, not mere preference among alternatives. HP's own text calls the LCD preview a legitimate mode of operation.
2. Claim 1's "less than a minimum … magnification" branch. The conjuncture "less than a minimum or more than a maximum" is disjunctive, so art teaching only the high-magnification case satisfies the literal language; but if the patentee argues the low-magnification branch was never contemplated, examiners and courts may still find the claim obvious because the specification's Modifications section ("a specific lower limit different from 1.0×) shows the applicant viewed the lower-limit trigger as an obvious design variable. This is a double-edged admission for the patentee.
3. Claim 2's "forced ON over user preference" is the most defensible point of novelty and the element most likely to survive a § 103 challenge absent a strong secondary reference on automatic override. The Casio and Fuji references are the intended fillers, but I have not verified their disclosures, so this element is currently the weakest link in the combination rather than a proven obviousness case.
4. Motivation evidence is strongest on the "compactness" axis and the "battery drain" axis (both of which the patent and HP '667 state in nearly identical terms), and weakest on the "warn the user inside the optical finder" axis (claims 3–5, 9), where the best support is the patent's own admission plus an uncited reference.

9. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is the most vulnerable to a § 103 combination of US 6,693,667 B1 (HP) as primary + JPH06189173A (Hitachi), with the motivation supplied by (i) the known finder-mismatch problem that Hitachi addresses, (ii) HP's own express disclosure of visualizing combined optical + digital zoom on the LCD, and (iii) the patent's admitted desire to avoid a "larger and heavier" zooming finder. Claims 7 and 9 are broadened variants of the same concept (claim 9 even omits the switching member) and are, if anything, more exposed.
• Claims 3–5 and 9 (indicator/warning) are vulnerable given the admitted field-of-view-frame prior art, with the in-finder superposition art (JP-A 8-201912) as corroboration.
• Claims 2 and 8/10 (forced override; power-off memory restore) are the elements where the combination is weakest / least verified, and where a competent patentee would focus its rebuttal. Those two features — not the "turn the LCD on during digital zoom" concept — are the only places this patent has meaningful non-obviousness oxygen.
• Claim 11 adds nothing independent and stands or falls with claim 1/claim 2.

Caveats: (a) This analysis depends on verifying the disclosures of the ten flagged cited references — I verified HP 6,693,667 and the Hitachi H6-189173 family only. (b) The four "Cited By" documents are not prior art (post-1999) and must be excluded from any contention. (c) Per operating rules, I have kept identifiers literal; in particular I have not conflated this patent with the unrelated JP Patent No. 7057651 (Axis AB) noted in the earlier summary.