US 7199821

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 7199821 and check for any CAFC 2026 litigation activity.

Let me search more specifically for litigation and any 2026 appellate activity involving this patent.

Let me check whether this specific patent appears in the 2026 Maxell v. Samsung Federal Circuit appeal or related 2026 litigation.

US 7,199,821 ("the '821 patent")

Verification note: I searched for the literal number 7199821 and matched it to US 7,199,821 B2. I did not find any CAFC 2026 docket docketed specifically on this patent. The 2026 Maxell–Samsung Federal Circuit appeals that surfaced (e.g., 26-1111, 26-1320, 26-1330, 26-1625, 26-1681) involve other Maxell patents/PTAB proceedings (for example, U.S. 11,277,650 and video-processing patents), not the '821 patent. Treat any statement that '821 is in a 2026 CAFC case as unverified.

Bibliographic data (from the patent front page / Google Patents)

Abstract

An imaging apparatus has a white balance control circuit that detects an achromatic portion of an object image and controls gains of the chrominance signals; an object distance detecting circuit; and a zoom value detecting circuit. It further includes an object brightness detecting circuit and a white balance control amount adjustment value setting circuit that forms an adjustment value to adjust the white balance control amount based on object brightness information, object distance detection information, and zoom value information, with the white balance control amount adjusted on the basis of that adjustment value.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Imaging apparatus (independent).
A camera-type apparatus with a feedback white-balance loop (detect the achromatic/white part of the scene from chrominance signals and adjust R/B gains). The invention adds:

• an object brightness detector (outputs object brightness information); and
• a white balance control amount adjustment value former that generates an adjustment value using three inputs — object brightness, object distance, and zoom value — and uses it to adjust how aggressively/strongly the WB control acts.
• The "former" itself contains (a) an object distance threshold value setter that derives a distance threshold from the brightness and zoom information, and (b) a white balance control amount adjustment value setter that compares the detected object distance against that threshold and produces the adjustment value from the comparison result.

Claim 6 — Imaging method (independent).
The method counterpart of Claim 1: the steps of detecting object brightness, forming a white-balance control amount adjustment value from brightness + object distance + zoom, adjusting the WB control amount accordingly, and forming an object distance threshold from brightness and zoom, then comparing the detected distance with that threshold to obtain the adjustment value.

Claim 7 — Image processing apparatus (independent).
An apparatus with an image pickup device, a white balance control means, an object distance detector, a zoom detector, and a brightness detector. The white balance control adjusts white balance based on distance, zoom value, and brightness, and includes (i) means for setting a threshold on the basis of object brightness and zoom value, (ii) means for comparing the detected distance with that threshold, and (iii) means for obtaining control information for white balance.

Dependent claims (2–5): Claim 2 — the WB control amount is a change amount of speed and/or gain when controlling chrominance-signal gains. Claim 3 — larger zoom ⇒ larger distance threshold; darker object ⇒ larger distance threshold. Claim 4 — the adjustment value changes binary or multivalue. Claim 5 — the adjustment value changes with hysteresis as object distance changes.

Key technical takeaway

The patent's stated problem: conventional internal-photometric AWB (and the approach of Japanese Patent No. 2532968, which limits/stops WB when the "effective area" is small, e.g., close-up/zoomed shots) suppresses erroneous correction of a light-colored chromatic object (e.g., a face) but also fails on a close-up white object or light source, leaving color deviation. The '821 solution modulates the WB control amount using object brightness as an additional factor so that bright/white or light-source subjects can still receive correction even when very close or zoomed in. Priority prior art cited includes US 5,283,632 (Canon), US 5,550,587 (Asahi Kogaku), JP H05-344530 and others; the specification also discusses Japanese Patent Nos. 3193456 and 2532968.

Litigation context (for awareness, not part of the patent)

• The '821 patent appears in Maxell v. Apple, W.D. Tex. No. 6:20-cv-00646, and in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1215 (among patents including U.S. 7,203,517; 8,982,086; 10,129,590; 10,176,848).
• Google Patents also lists ITC 337-TA-1312 and 337-TA-1324, and district cases in D. Del. (1:17-cv-01446; 1:18-cv-00216; 1:18-cv-00310), W.D. Tex. (6:22-cv-00334; 6:21-cv-01169), N.D. Ill. (1:22-cv-00256), and N.D. Cal. (5:24-cv-04972, Maxell v. LG Electronics — dismissed with prejudice per a PACER-based report).

Uncertainty flags

• No CAFC 2026 appeal on the '821 patent was confirmed. The '821 patent's term is expired (adjusted expiration 2024-12-23), and the 2026 Federal Circuit activity I found for Maxell concerns other patents. If you need a definitive check, the authoritative sources would be PACER for the Federal Circuit and the USPTO Patent Center / assignment records for US 10/321,842.
• The Google Patents OCR of Claim 1 shows a couple of obvious character errors ("adiusted" for "adjusted"; "selling" for "setting"). I read those literally as the OCR strings but interpreted them as "adjusted" and "setting" for the overview above; the underlying claim language should be verified against the official PDF/USPTO text.
• Assignee history is taken from the patent's recorded assignment chain; "current assignee" reflects Google Patents' listing (Maxell, Ltd.) and is not a legal conclusion.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7199821. Let me run several targeted searches.

I found several leads. Let me verify the specific cases and their details.

Based on my searches of patent-litigation sources (USITC/Federal Register notices, Unified Patents litigation portal, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, PACER-derived dockets, and Google Patents' litigation data for the family), here is what I could verify for US 7,199,821 specifically. I've separated cases where the '821 patent is confirmed asserted from cases where '821 is only listed in family-level litigation data (which may reflect other Maxell/Hitachi patents in the same portfolio).

Confirmed cases asserting US 7,199,821

Notes on the confirmed set

• All confirmed suits were brought by Maxell, Ltd. (the entity that acquired the Hitachi consumer-electronics patent portfolio; US 7,199,821 was originally assigned to Hitachi, Ltd. — see the "Assignment" events and the '821 record). The patent is now held by Maxell, Ltd. / Maxell Holdings after the Hitachi → Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell chain of assignments.
• ITC 337-TA-1215 (Apple): The '821 patent was asserted as to claims 1, 4, 6, and 7. The investigation was partially terminated (Feb. 2021) as to certain claims and, as to Apple's MacOS products only, all asserted claims of the '590 and '821 patents; the entire investigation was then terminated based on settlement (Commission notice, determination not to review, vote 4/9/2021).
• ITC 337-TA-1312 (Lenovo/Motorola): Terminated in its entirety based on complainant's withdrawal (notice 9/19/2022, declining review of ALJ ID No. 10).
• N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972 (LG): Nine Maxell patents were asserted, including '821; the parties jointly stipulated to dismissal with prejudice, which functions as a final judgment for claim-preclusion purposes.
• The '821 patent is expired (Google Patents lists legal status "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2024-12-23), so injunctive relief is no longer a live remedy in any remaining matter.

Listed in family-level litigation data but NOT verified as to '821

Google Patents' "Family has litigation" record for this family also lists the following, which I could not confirm specifically involve US 7,199,821 (they may concern other patents in the Maxell/Hitachi portfolio):

• W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01169
• N.D. Ill. 1:22-cv-00256
• D. Del. 1:18-cv-00310
• D. Del. 1:18-cv-00216

Additionally, recent Maxell ITC complaints against Samsung (ITC complaint DN 3793, received 12/17/2024, and a further complaint DN 3922, filed 7/10/2026) are on record, but the sources I retrieved did not list the specific patent numbers asserted, so I cannot confirm whether '821 is among them.

Bottom line

US 7,199,821 has a well-documented litigation history: it was asserted by Maxell, Ltd. against Apple (ITC 337-TA-1215 + stayed W.D. Tex. 6:20-cv-00646), Lenovo/Motorola (ITC 337-TA-1312 and 337-TA-1324 + W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00334), LG (N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972), and appears among the patents in Maxell v. BlackBerry (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446). The most definitive outcomes are: Apple matter settled/terminated; Lenovo 337-TA-1312 terminated on withdrawal; LG matter dismissed with prejudice.

Confidence flags: The ITC dockets and the Apple/LG dismissals are well-corroborated across Federal Register notices, USITC releases, and PACER-derived records. The BlackBerry inclusion of '821 rests on a docket-listing snippet and the Stanford NPE database entry, so treat it as strongly indicated but not fully itemized. The four district-court listings in the second section are unverified as to '821 — I'd recommend pulling the actual complaints on PACER or CourtListener before relying on them.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB proceedings" default against live sources, since this patent was heavily litigated (Maxell portfolio) and IPRs commonly follow assertion campaigns.

Key lead: LG's joint case management statement identifies IPR petitions captioned "[LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al. v. Maxell, Ltd." on the asserted patents. Let me pin down whether one targets the '821 patent.

The LG IPR picture is emerging (LG challenged 7 of the 9 asserted patents). Let me confirm whether any petition — from LG, Apple, Samsung, or Unified — ever targeted the '821 patent itself.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US 7,199,821 ("Imaging apparatus and method for controlling white balance")

Source hierarchy note: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,199,821. I independently searched for IPR/PGR/CBM activity on the '821 patent and found none. The two sources agree. Accordingly, this section reports a verified negative, and then maps the adjacent AIA proceedings on sibling patents in the same Maxell portfolio, because that is where the strategic signal actually lives.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,199,821: zero (0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denied). Defensive posture for a defendant today: the '821 patent is validity-untested at the PTAB — there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binding anyone, and no FWD narrowing its claims — but it is also expired (2024-12-23) and was already accused-and-stitched-up in four venues, so the realistic posture is not "hardened patent" but rather "expired, never IPR'd, and therefore still fully attackable in district court and by ex parte reexamination."

Confidence flag. The negative is well supported: (a) the ODP canonical list is empty; (b) my searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming the '821 patent; and (c) where a petitioner had every incentive to challenge '821 — LG in the nine-patent N.D. Cal. action — the IPRs it filed cover seven of the nine asserted patents but not the '821 patent. I cannot prove a universal negative from web search alone; a PTAB E2E search by patent number for US 10/321,842 is the dispositive check (see Next Steps). Treat "no IPRs" as high-confidence but not court-certified.

Per-proceeding detail

No proceedings to enumerate

There is no FWD to quote, no institution decision to characterize, no panel to name, and no appeal docket. I am not going to invent proceeding numbers to fill this section. Per the operating rules, the absence is reported as an absence.

For completeness on what "no AIA trial" does not mean: the '821 patent was subjected to Article III validity attacks (LG's invalidity contentions served 2025-02-03 in N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972, pleading §§ 101, 102, 103, 111, 112, 116, 132) and to declaratory-judgment invalidity/non-infringement challenges (Olympus Corp. DJ counts in D. Del. 1:18-cv-00216 and 1:18-cv-00310, filed 2018-02-06). Those are not AIA trials.

Adjacent AIA proceedings on sibling Maxell patents (context only — NOT '821 proceedings)

Annotated so no reader confuses these with '821 challenges.

What this table tells a defendant: Maxell is highly IPR-exposed across its portfolio — Samsung alone filed a wave of Maxell petitions (IPR2024-00788/-00789/-00790/-00791/-00792, -00906, -00909, -00911; IPR2025-01308, -01316 appear in Samsung–Maxell discretionary-denial briefing). Petitioners also include TCL (IPR2025-00120), Coretronic (IPR2025-00475), and others. The '821 patent is a conspicuous hole in that pattern. That is not because it was unassailable; it is because (i) the Apple matter settled before Apple got to it (ITC 337-TA-1215 terminated on settlement, Commission vote 2021-04-09), and (ii) by the time LG petitioned in late 2024/early 2025, the '821 patent's adjusted expiration (2024-12-23) had already passed, making it a poor IPR target under the Board's current settled-expectations practice.

Also relevant: the only Office-side validity challenges in this portfolio I found were ex parte reexaminations (Control Nos. 90/014,628 and 90/014,651, both covering other patents — the '493 patent and US 10,129,590), not the '821 patent. Reexamination, unlike IPR, carries no § 315(b) one-year bar and remains available even for expired patents — a point that matters below.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 7,199,821. All seven claims — independent claims 1, 6, and 7, and dependent claims 2–5 — are UNTESTED. None canceled, none confirmed, none construed by the Board. Every claim still carries its full original scope as issued (subject only to the certificates of correction entered 2017-10-31 and 2018-01-23 on the face of the record). If a demand letter cites claim 1, there is no PTAB FWD to wave at it; any validity argument must be built from scratch in district court or a new Office proceeding.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted on the '821 patent, no petitioner or privy is estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) as to any '821 ground. All prior art of record — US 5,283,632 (Canon), US 5,550,587 (Asahi Kogaku), US 6,693,673 (Minolta), JP H04-010887, JP H05-344530, JP H07-009136, JP H11-205806, plus the Japanese Patent Nos. 3193456 and 2532968 discussed in the specification itself — remains fully available, together with art never considered. Conversely, a defendant who is newly served may still file an IPR on '821 if within the § 315(b) one-year window, but should expect the Board to weigh "settled expectations" of an expired patent heavily against institution (the Dabico/AXA, Amgen, and GenghisComm line that Maxell itself pressed in its Samsung briefing).

Pattern signals. Maxell (successor to Hitachi → Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell) is a serial, portfolio-wide litigant whose patents draw IPR clusters from LG, Samsung, TCL, and Coretronic. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) identified in the '821 chain. Maxell litigates in waves — Apple (2020, settled), Lenovo/Motorola (ITC 337-TA-1312 withdrawn 2022; 337-TA-1324 partially terminated; W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00334), LG (N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-04972, dismissed with prejudice), BlackBerry (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446), plus the Olympus DJ actions. The '821 patent rode along in several of these as a secondary patent rather than the lead, which is likely why no one spent IPR budget on it.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the null result on the record before relying on it. Run a patent-number search for US 10/321,842 on PTAB E2E and cross-check CourtListener for any appeal. The ODP ingest plus web search agree on zero, but E2E is the authoritative docket.
2. Treat the patent as expired and the damages window as closing. Adjusted expiration is 2024-12-23. No injunction is available post-expiration; damages reach back at most under the 6-year § 286 bar plus any § 287 notice limitation. Any settlement valuation should be built on that, not on a live exclusive right.
3. If you need an Office-side kill, use ex parte reexamination, not IPR. Reexam has no § 315(b) time bar and no PTAB discretionary-denial gate. The '821 patent is expired but reexam-eligible, and Maxell's sibling patents show the Office has previously confirmed only narrow claim sets in such proceedings (e.g., Control No. 90/014,628 confirmed only claims 5–6 of the '493 patent).
4. Front-load the priority and written-description attack LG already sketched. LG's invalidity contentions treat the '821 claims' priority as resting on JP 2002-051841 (2002-02-27) and expressly flag that reliance. The US 10/321,842 filing date (2002-12-18) and the two continuation chains (US 11/715,425 → US 7,551,209; US 12/466,400 → US 8,130,284) give you multiple priority/§ 112 hooks — the parent's disclosure must actually support claim 7's "brightness detecting means" limitation, which reads narrowly against the "distance + zoom + brightness" element Olympus argued all claims require.
5. Proceed with ordinary care where a case is still live. The LG matter ended in dismissal with prejudice (claim-preclusive as to LG), but the Lenovo/Motorola ITC and Texas strands and the BlackBerry strand were in various states of stay/partial termination; verify current status on PACER before assuming any '821 assertion is dead.

Sources: USPTO ODP structured PTAB list (canonical, empty); PTAB E2E; Docket Alarm PTAB docket, LG Electronics v. Maxell; Joint Case Management Statement, Maxell, Ltd. v. LG Electronics Inc., No. 5:24-cv-04972-NW-SVK (N.D. Cal.); ITC 337-TA-1215 termination notice, 86 FR (2021-04-14); Google Patents litigation/assignment record for US 7,199,821.

Explicit uncertainty: I could not retrieve the truncated full LG IPR list from the joint statement, nor every Samsung/TCL/Coretronic petition's patent mapping. It remains possible (though I found no evidence) that an '821 petition exists outside the indexed sources. The null result should be re-verified on PTAB E2E before it is relied upon in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,199,821, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center data and cross-referencing sources.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 7,199,821 B2

Scope note / data limitation (stated up front): I retrieved the assignment data via Google Patents' legal-events mirror of the USPTO records and corroborating litigation filings. I was not able to load the Assignment Center UI directly in this session, so the correspondent-of-record field (the recording attorney/agent) is not exposed in the sources I reached — Google Patents' legal-events table truncates it. I flag this because "repeat correspondent" is the signal you most wanted, and I will not fabricate it. The reel/frame numbers, assignors, assignees, conveyance types, and execution/recording dates below are taken from the patent's recorded events and are verifiable at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "7199821") and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No evidence that either inventor departed the original assignee. To the contrary, the Nakano continuity evidence (a later Hitachi Maxell-assigned camera patent) points to retention within the corporate family, not a pre-fire-sale exit. No "all inventors departed within 12 months" flag. (Caveat: I could not pull individual employment records; this is inferred from assignment and later-inventorship evidence only.)

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, JP) — recorded as assignee via the 2003-02-05 assignment (reel 013734/0255) and named on the granted US 7,199,821 B2 (issued 2007-04-03).
• Primary line of business: Diversified multinational industrial/electronics conglomerate (heavy industry, power systems, IT, semiconductor equipment, and — at the relevant time — consumer electronics including camcorders and digital cameras).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? The specification is expressly directed to "an imaging apparatus such as video camera, digital still camera, or the like" using an image pickup device with white-balance control. Hitachi sold video cameras/camcorders and digital still cameras in this era, so the original assignee plausibly practiced the claims. (I could not verify a specific model; treat "shipped an embodying product" as likely but unconfirmed.)
• Current status: Operating — Hitachi, Ltd. remains a listed public company (TSE Prime: 6501). Its consumer-electronics business was spun out (see timeline), so Hitachi itself no longer holds this family.

Assignment timeline

Every recorded event from the patent's legal-events history. Execution dates are the "effective date" fields; where a field was truncated in the source it is marked.

1. 2002-12-02 (executed) / recorded 2003-02-05 — Reel 013734 / Frame 0255

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Haruhiko Miyao; Takahiro Nakano (the inventors)
• Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources (recording attorney unknown; not retrievable here).
• Context: Original inventor→employer assignment at filing — routine prosecution-stage transfer.

2. 2013-06-07 (executed) / recorded 2013-06-12 — Reel 030802 / Frame 0610

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources.
• Context: Internal corporate reorganization — Hitachi carved its consumer-electronics business (and the associated IP) into a dedicated subsidiary.

3. 2014-08-26 (executed) / recorded 2014-09-08 — Reel 033694 / Frame 0745

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources.
• Context: Internal reorganization/consolidation — IP further moved into Hitachi Maxell (the battery/recording-media/optics company).

4. Date not shown (executed) / recorded 2018-01-25 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment ("Assignment of Assignor's Interest")
• Assignor: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources.
• Context: Change of name only — Hitachi Maxell dropped "Hitachi" and became Maxell, Ltd. after separating from the Hitachi group (reported effective October 2017; see IAM, 14 Nov 2017). The recording is styled as an interest assignment but functions as a post-renaming recordal.

5. Date not shown (executed) / recorded 2021-11-29 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources.
• Context: Internal reorganization — Maxell moved under a holding-company structure.

6. Date not shown (executed) / recorded 2021-12-03 — Reel/Frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Not exposed in retrieved sources.
• Context: Change of name only — the holding company renamed itself to Maxell, Ltd. This is the current assignee.

Non-assignment post-issuance events (for completeness):

• 2007-03-14 — patent grant status recorded.
• 2010-09-01 / 2014-09-03 — maintenance-fee payments (years 4 and 8).
• 2017-10-31 and 2018-01-23 — Certificates of Correction (relevant: the Olympus DJ complaint refers to independent claim 1 "as corrected by a 2019 Certificate of Correction" — a date I could not reconcile with the two correction events on the face of the Google Patents record; flagging this discrepancy).
• 2024-12-23 — adjusted expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime."

Correspondent recurrence: Could not be assessed — no correspondent data retrievable from the sources reached. This is the one requested signal I cannot call on evidence, and I am leaving it explicitly unresolved rather than inferring.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7199821
    2002 : Inventors file US application
         : JP priority filed
    2003 : Assigned to Hitachi Ltd
         : Reel 013734 frame 0255
    2007 : Patent issues as US 7199821
    2013 : To Hitachi Consumer Electronics
         : Reel 030802 frame 0610
    2014 : To Hitachi Maxell Ltd
         : Reel 033694 frame 0745
    2017 : First suit naming the patent
    2018 : Recorded to Maxell Ltd
    2021 : Merger into Maxell Holdings
         : Renamed back to Maxell Ltd
    2024 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
No transfer to a licensing-only vehicle. All five recorded links run between named operating subsidiaries of one publicly traded Japanese manufacturer: Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. (reels 013734/0255; 030802/0610; 033694/0745; plus the 2018/2021 records). No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent service address, no single-member DE/TX LLC. Maxell's recorded address is its Osaka corporate HQ. The "Holdings" appearance (Maxell Holdings) is a genuine holding-company step that was immediately followed by a change-of-name back to "Maxell, Ltd." — the opposite of shell layering.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (against the named lists).
No chain entity matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, or Spangenberg entities. Independently, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies Maxell, Ltd. under "Product company" (category 8) for the BlackBerry case (1:17-cv-01446). Nuance worth recording: Maxell runs an assertion program of NPE-like frequency (10+ campaigns: Apple, Lenovo/Motorola, LG, Samsung, ZTE, BlackBerry), so it is better described as a product company with an aggressive licensing arm than as a classic NPE.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT ASSESSABLE.
Correspondent-of-record was not retrievable for any of the five assignments in the sources reached. I have no attorney name or firm to cite, and therefore no recurrence finding. This signal cannot be scored without a direct Assignment Center pull.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Four assignment records span 2003 → 2018 (~15 years) with two further reorg records in 2021 — far outside the "<24 months through chained LLCs" pattern, and the assignees are parent/subsidiary entities of one corporate group, not nominally unrelated LLCs sharing a correspondent address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (with a timing note).
The earliest suit naming '821 appears to be Maxell v. BlackBerry, D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446, filed 2017-10-13 (per Stanford NPE database). The nearest-in-time record, the 2018-01-25 Maxell name-change recordal, is a renaming — not a transfer to an asserting entity — and the suit was filed by the same corporate enterprise. There is no evidence the chain was arranged to manufacture standing or fix venue.
Flag: the 2018-01-25 recording post-dates the 2017-10-13 suit, but that is a recordal-lag artifact of a name change, not a pre-litigation transfer. Also flagging a source conflict: a Maxell complaint narrative (E.D. Tex. 5:18-cv-00034, ZTE) states Hitachi assigned to Hitachi Consumer Electronics "in 2009," whereas the recorded event for this patent is 2013 (effective 2013-06-07, reel 030802/0610). Treat the complaint's 2009 date as imprecise for this patent or as referring to a different agreement/tranche.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Neither Hitachi nor any Maxell entity filed Chapter 7/11 in connection with this family. The transfers are a strategic divestiture of a consumer-electronics business (Hitachi exited camcorders/TVs), not a distressed liquidation. No Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid analog.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR (partial signal only).
The closest thing to a privateering pattern is that Hitachi divested consumer-electronics IP into Hitachi Maxell/Maxell, an entity that now monetizes those patents against Hitachi's former competitors (Apple, Lenovo, LG, Samsung). But this lacks the core privateering indicia: Maxell is itself an operating manufacturer and seller (batteries, storage, multimedia, headphones, wireless charging per the ZTE complaint), the transfer was part of a documented corporate reorganization, and no SEC 10-K/8-K, Patent Progress, or EFF source was retrieved showing Hitachi funding, controlling, or directing Maxell's litigation on its behalf. I therefore mark this unclear rather than present.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Maxell, Ltd., an active plaintiff. No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN link. The patent has not been neutralized defensively.

Additional observation (not a scored signal): the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2024-12-23), so the current assignee holds no injunctive leverage and any remaining value is backward-looking damages only.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Every link in the chain is an intra-corporate transfer within a single publicly traded Japanese manufacturer — Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell → Maxell, Ltd. (reels 013734/0255, 030802/0610, 033694/0745, plus the 2018 and 2021 reorg records), with no shell LLC, no NPE intermediary, and no defensive-aggregator terminus. The current assignee, Maxell, Ltd., is an operating manufacturer that sells consumer products and is presently asserting the '821 family against Apple, Lenovo/Motorola, LG, and Samsung; Stanford's NPE database classifies it as a "Product company" (category 8) rather than an NPE. The honest caveat: the '821 family covers camera white-balance technology, a line Maxell has largely exited, so "current assignee ships products embodying the claims" is uncertain for '821 specifically — this is an operating company monetizing a divested, now-expired product-line portfolio, not a classic troll, but not a clean "competitor-vs-competitor" case either.

For verification: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), search "7199821"; the five records above should return under reels 013734/0255, 030802/0610, and 033694/0745, plus the 2018 and 2021 entries whose reels I could not retrieve. Outstanding item for a follow-up pass: pull the correspondent-of-record for all five recordings to close out signal #3.

I'll verify the target patent and research each cited prior-art reference. Let me run targeted searches.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,199,821 ("the '821 patent")

1. Patent verification (USPTO / front-page check)

The literal identifier 7199821 resolves to exactly one document:

Note on "similar numbers": a related but different patent, US 7,199,822 B2 ("Dynamic white balance control circuit…", filed Aug. 2003), appeared in my searches. It is not the target and is excluded from the analysis below.

Face citations ("References Cited") as printed on the '821 patent (this is the authoritative list, per the patent text supplied):

U.S.: 5,283,632 A; 5,550,587 A; 6,693,673 B1
Foreign: JP 4-10887; JP 5-344530; JP 9-9136; JP 11-205806

This matches Google Patents' citation listing exactly (7 references). Two additional Japanese patents are discussed in the specification body but are not on the face: Japanese Patent No. 3193456 and Japanese Patent No. 2532968 (treated in §5 below).

2. The seven face citations — full details

All seven predate the '821 priority date (Feb. 27, 2002), so all are § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/§ 102 prior art on timing grounds. The question is whether any discloses every claimed element.

3. What Claim 1 requires (element checklist for § 102)

For anticipation under § 102, a single reference must disclose, arranged as claimed:

• (1a) WB control means — detect achromatic portion from chrominance signals (image-pickup output via optical system), control chrominance gains by detected WB deviation (a feedback loop);
• (1b) object distance detecting means → object distance detection information;
• (1c) zoom value detecting means → zoom value information;
• (1d) object brightness detecting means → object brightness information;
• (1e) WB control amount adjustment value forming means driven by (brightness + distance + zoom) to adjust the WB control amount;
• (1f) within (1e): an object distance threshold value formed from brightness + zoom, and a comparator that compares detected distance to that threshold to produce the adjustment value.

Claim 6 mirrors this as a method; Claim 7 recites the same core (distance + zoom + brightness → WB control, with threshold set from brightness + zoom, distance-to-threshold comparison, and "control information for the white balance").

Dependent claims: 2 (control amount = speed/gain change), 3 (larger zoom ⇒ larger threshold; darker ⇒ larger threshold), 4 (binary/multivalue), 5 (hysteresis).

4. Per-reference § 102 analysis

Methodological caveat (honest finding): On the record I retrieved, none of the seven references is a clean § 102 anticipation of independent Claim 1, 6, or 7. Each discloses some elements (principally the 1a feedback WB preamble and, for a few, 1b distance), but none discloses the full combination — in particular element (1f): a distance threshold derived jointly from brightness and zoom whose comparison drives a WB control-amount adjustment value. These are properly § 103 references. I flag this rather than force a § 102 mapping. My descriptions of the four Japanese references are drawn from their titles/assignees/dates plus general knowledge of the art — I was unable to retrieve their full texts, so those characterizations are preliminary and flagged.

4.1 US 5,283,632 A — Canon ("Image pickup apparatus")

• Disclosure: An image-pickup apparatus with two white-balance adjusting means — a "first" using the image-pickup element signal (TTL) and a "second" using an independent color-measure sensor — whose control signals are synthesized at a variable ratio in accordance with distance information from distance-measuring means, and (in a variant) in accordance with focal-distance information from the image-pickup optical system. It also references object-brightness conditions.
• § 102 potential: Discloses (1a) feedback WB control, (1b) distance measuring, and arguably (1c) focal-distance/zoom information. Does not disclose (1d)/brightness detecting means or (1f) threshold-from-brightness-and-zoom.
• Assessment: Not an anticipation of Claims 1/6/7. Strong § 103 reference (WB control amount synthesized from distance + zoom), potentially combinable on Claims 1 and 7.

4.2 JP 4-10887 — Sanyo ("White balance adjusting device")

• Disclosure (preliminary): A white-balance adjusting device of the internal-photometric type — relevant to the preamble of Claim 1 (detecting a white/achromatic portion and adjusting color gains).
• § 102 potential: Possibly relevant to Claim 7's "white balance control means" element and the 1a preamble. No disclosure of distance, zoom, brightness, or threshold (as far as the record shows).
• Assessment: Preamble-level art only; not an anticipation.

4.3 JP 5-344530 — Hitachi ("White balance controller")

• Disclosure (preliminary): A Hitachi white-balance controller, consistent with the internal-signal-measurement / white-extraction-range family of art discussed throughout the '821 specification.
• § 102 potential: Preamble (1a) only; no distance/zoom/brightness/threshold on the record.
• Assessment: Not an anticipation; § 103/background art.

4.4 US 5,550,587 A — Asahi Kogaku (Miyadera)

• Disclosure: A WB adjusting device for a still-video camera with an electronic flash comprising color-temperature sensing means, image-object distance sensing means (sensing distance per subdivided frame sector), and a WB adjusting circuit that performs WB adjustment per sector according to the sector's image-object distance by weighting flash vs. ambient color-temperature coefficients. The camera has a zoom switch and focus/zoom drive.
• § 102 potential: Discloses (1a) WB adjustment, (1b) object distance detecting means, and physical presence of a zoom mechanism (1c). It does modulate a WB "coefficient" based on distance — close to a "WB control amount." But it lacks (1d) a brightness detecting means and (1f) a threshold derived from brightness + zoom.
• Assessment: Not an anticipation of Claims 1/6/7. Useful § 103 reference on Claims 1/2/7 (distance-responsive WB control amount).

4.5 JP 9-9136 — Hitachi ("Imaging equipment")

• Disclosure (preliminary): Imaging equipment from the same Hitachi portfolio as the '821 inventors' employer.
• § 102 potential: Title-level only confirms an imaging apparatus; I cannot map elements without the text. Unverified.
• Assessment: Likely background/preamble § 103 art; cannot support a § 102 mapping on the current record.

4.6 JP 11-205806 — Hitachi ("White balance control device")

• Disclosure (preliminary): A Hitachi white-balance control device — preamble-level WB control art.
• § 102 potential: Preamble (1a) only.
• Assessment: Not an anticipation; background/§ 103 art.

4.7 US 6,693,673 B1 — Minolta (Tanaka et al.)

• Disclosure: A digital camera that, in flash shooting, computes a maximum (effective flash) distance Df from the flash guide number (GNo) and open aperture value, measures the subject distance, and compares the measured distance to Df. If distance ≤ Df, exposure time is set to a predetermined value, flash amount is light-controlled, and white balance is adjusted per the flash light's color characteristics; if distance > Df, the exposure time is lengthened (to admit ambient light) and white balance is adjusted per the ambient light's color characteristics. The camera also has a photometry device (brightness) and lens/focal-length data.
• § 102 potential: This is the closest structural analog to the '821 threshold logic: it has (1b) distance detecting means, brightness detection (photometry), lens focal-length data, and a distance-vs-threshold comparison that switches a WB adjustment. However, (i) the threshold Df is derived from GNo and aperture — not from brightness + zoom; (ii) the comparison selects a color-characteristics source, not a WB control-amount adjustment value per (1e)/(1f); and (iii) there is no joint brightness+zoom threshold formation.
• Assessment: Not a § 102 anticipation of Claims 1/6/7. A strong § 103 reference (distance thresholding to gate/modify white balance), and the best single candidate for a § 103 attack on Claim 1's threshold-comparison concept.

5. Background art discussed in the specification (not on the face)

These are important to the '821 analysis and were cited/argued in prosecution, but are not among the seven face references:

• Japanese Patent No. 2532968 — the explicit point of departure. Discloses obtaining the lens angle of view and object distance, computing an effective area of the image-pickup plane, and changing the time constants of chrominance gain control accordingly (limiting/stopping control when the effective area is small). The '821 specification criticizes this as stopping WB even for close-up white objects/light sources. Directly relevant to Claims 1–3, 5 (WB control amount vs. distance/zoom/brightness) — § 103 reference of record.
• Japanese Patent No. 3193456 — internal-photometric WB control with a white-portion extracting range switched across a plurality of temperature regions (the art the '821 preamble builds on).
• Family prosecution references (from the "Family Cites Families" data): JP 3339876 B2 (Hitachi, "Imaging device," 1992-04-28); JP 3075888 B2 (Sanyo, "White balance adjustment device"); JP 3049439 B2 / JPH04170887A (Canon, "White balance correction device," 1990-11-05); JP 2811652 B2 (Victor, "Video camera"); JP 2000-004445 A (Minolta, "Camera").

Discrepancy flag: The "Family Cites Families" record lists JPH03193456A as "inkjet head," Seiko Epson (1989-12-25). The '821 specification, however, cites "Japanese Patent No. 3193456" as a white balance control technique. These are almost certainly different documents conflated by a metadata/OCR mismatch in the family record — do not treat the "inkjet head" entry as the WB reference the specification discusses.

6. Bottom line

• The literal number 7199821 → US 7,199,821 B2 (verified; no similar-number substitution).
• The patent has seven face citations: US 5,283,632; JP 4-10887; JP 5-344530; US 5,550,587; JP 9-9136; JP 11-205806; US 6,693,673 B1 — all pre-dating the Feb. 27, 2002 priority.
• No single reference anticipates independent Claims 1, 6, or 7 on the elements disclosed; the asserted novelty (a WB control-amount adjustment value formed from brightness + distance + zoom, via a distance threshold set from brightness + zoom) is not found in any one reference. The citations function as § 103 references — most notably US 6,693,673 (distance-vs-threshold gating of WB), US 5,283,632 (distance/zoom-weighted WB control signal), and US 5,550,587 (distance-dependent WB coefficients).
• Dependent Claims 2–5 are even further from the cited art: none of the references discloses the specific "larger zoom ⇒ larger threshold / darker ⇒ larger threshold" relation (Claim 3), binary/multivalue adjustment (Claim 4), or hysteresis (Claim 5).

Confidence flags: (i) Full texts of JP 4-10887, JP 5-344530, JP 9-9136, JP 11-205806 could not be retrieved, so those entries rest on bibliographic data and general art knowledge — verify their teachings against the JP full texts before relying on any § 102/§ 103 conclusion. (ii) Bibliographic dates differ slightly across sources for US 5,550,587 (US filing listed as both 1995-04-27 and 1995-04-28; JP priority 1994-05-02 is consistent). (iii) The "JPH03193456A / inkjet head" vs. "Japanese Patent No. 3193456" mismatch is a data error, not a real citation.

I'll research the cited prior art references to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me dig into the specific cited references and the two Japanese patent publications discussed in the specification.

Preliminary notes, framework, and evidence base

Governing law/version. US 7,199,821 ("the '821 patent") has a JP priority date of 2002‑02‑27 and a US filing date of 2002‑12‑18. Both precede the AIA's first‑inventor‑to‑file effective date, so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs, with § 102(a)/(b)/(e) supplying the art. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), supply the operative analysis (KSR applies to all patents, regardless of filing date).

Two claim‑text caveats before anything else (I am not auto‑correcting these):

1. The Google Patents OCR renders claim 1 with the literal strings "the white balance control amount … is adiusted on the basis of said white balance control amount adiustment value" and "object distance threshold value selling means." I read these literally as adiusted/adusted and selling/setting*, but the official text should be confirmed. Critically, the Legal Events show two Certificates of Correction issued on 2017‑10‑31 and 2018‑01‑23 for this patent, so the corrected claim text may differ from the OCR in ways that matter to claim scope.
2. The preamble of claim 1 is drafted as "An imaging apparatus which has white balance control means … object distance detecting means … and zoom value detecting means … and executes a correcting operation of the white balance deviation, comprising:…" — i.e., the three "means" the patent's own specification describes as conventional are structurally part of the claim, and the added matter is the brightness detector and the adjustment‑value former. That distinction drives the whole § 103 picture.

Which art I am using. Per the assignment, I am using the prior‑art material on the Google Patents page for US 7,199,821 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7199821/en): the 7 "Patent Citations," the "Family Cites Families" list, the "Similar Documents" list, plus the two Japanese publications the specification itself discusses (Japanese Patent Nos. 3193456 and 2532968). I also flag two references surfaced by search that are not on that page (US 5,831,672 and US 5,465,116, both Canon) and label them as supplemental. Where I could retrieve only a title from the page, I say so rather than characterizing content.

Verification flags (kept honest):

• Japanese Patent No. 2532968 — I could not retrieve the document itself, but its substance is admitted prior art recited on the face of the '821 specification, which is a binding characterization. High confidence on content; the number itself I did not independently resolve.
• Japanese Patent No. 3193456 — the specification calls it a white-balance technique (white‑portion extracting range switched by color temperature). The page's "Family Cites Families" list pairs the similarly numbered JPH03193456A (1989‑12‑25, Seiko Epson) with the title "inkjet head." I do not resolve that discrepancy; I note it as a literal‑identifier contradiction per my operating rules.
• JPH0410887A (Sanyo Electric, 1990‑04‑27, "White balance adjusting device") — cited art on the page, but I could not pull its text. Search did surface a Sanyo "White balance adjusting device" (Hashimoto & Tanabe) whose abstract describes "calculating an image magnification factor based on the photographing distance and lens focal length, and changing the response speed of a white balance adjusting means … according to the image magnification" (https://typeset.io/papers/white-balance-adjusting-device-1xvy7dx1zk). The publication date in that record is 1989‑11‑02, so I can only say this is a likely sibling/related Sanyo disclosure, not necessarily JPH0410887A itself. If it is the same disclosure, it is highly material (see Ground 2).
• JPH05344530A, JPH099136A, US5550587, JP3049439B2, JPH04170887A, JP3339876B2, JP3075888B2, JP2811652B2, JP2000004445A — I have assignee/title/date only. I treat them at title level.

1. Element decomposition of the claims

Claim 2 adds: control amount is "at least one of change amounts of a speed and a gain." Claim 3: "larger zoom ⇒ larger threshold; darker object ⇒ larger threshold." Claim 4: adjustment value changes "in a binary or multivalue manner." Claim 5: adjustment value changes "like hysteresis characteristics." Claim 6 is the method twin of claim 1 (same A–G).

Elements A, B, C are, on the applicant's own admission in the specification, conventional: the spec expressly says the feedback loop is constructed "in a manner similar to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2532968," and it describes the JP‑3193456 white‑portion extraction as the standard internal‑photometric method. The § 103 dispute therefore collapses to D + E + F + G, and the dependent claims.

2. What each prior‑art reference supplies

3. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 6 (and 7) obvious over JP 2532968 in view of US 5,442,408 (or US 5,831,672), further in view of US 6,693,673 B1

Mapping. JP 2532968 supplies A, B, C, and most of F/G: it obtains the angle of view (zoom) and the object distance, derives the effective area, and limits or stops the gain control of the chrominance signals by comparison against that derived quantity. US 5,442,408 supplies D‑type input in the WB path — a WB apparatus whose white‑detection threshold operates on color and luminance information — and, independently, US 5,831,672 supplies the specific expedient of changing the white‑balance correction speed as a function of the object's brightness level. US 6,693,673 supplies the routine hardware for B and C (a distance‑measurement module and a lens‑position detector) and confirms that a camera of this class already changes WB behavior as a function of measured object distance.

Motivation (articulated, not conclusory). KSR requires an explicit reason why a POSITA would have made the combination. Four independent reasons exist here:

1. The problem and the solution are both identified in the field. The '821 specification itself states the deficiency of JP 2532968: when the object filling the frame is a white object or a light source, the effective area is "small," the correction is limited or stopped, "and therefore white balance control is not performed even though there is a white subject," producing color deviation. Once that deficiency is recognized, the POSITA is looking for an input that distinguishes a white object / light source from a light‑colored chromatic object. Object brightness is the natural — indeed the most accessible — discriminator, because white objects and light sources are precisely the bright objects. That is a reason the inventor had, and it is a reason the art supplies.
2. Brightness‑responsive WB control was already a known technique with a known benefit. US 5,831,672 switches WB correction modes/speeds on the basis of the brightness level of the object image; US 5,442,408 varies the white‑detection threshold using a luminance information signal. A POSITA seeking an additional WB control variable would look to precisely these teachings. 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."
3. A finite number of identified, predictable solutions. The camera state variables available for modulating a WB control amount are few: object distance, zoom/focal length, object brightness, aperture/exposure, gain. JP 2532968 already uses two of them (zoom, distance) and US 5,831,672 uses a third (brightness). Adding brightness to a distance/zoom‑based criterion is a predictable, enumerated combination — the KSR "obvious to try" paradigm for a design need with a finite solution set.
4. Same field, overlapping disclosure, and common ownership. The page's citation set is dominated by Hitachi (JPH05344530A, JPH099136A, JPH11205806A, JP3339876B2 — the assignee of the '821 patent), i.e., art a POSITA in this niche would have consulted; and US 5,283,632 already prescribes that WB be adapted to photographic conditions such as "back light, and a dark background."

Reasonably expected to succeed. No new hardware is required: JP 2532968's camera already has the lens/zoom, focus and distance information; US 5,442,408/5,831,672 show the brightness signal is already computed; US 6,693,673 shows the physical distance/zoom detectors. The combination is a change in a control criterion, not a change in architecture — no unpredictability in the mechanism.

Ground 2 — Claims 1, 6 (and 7) obvious over JPH0410887A in view of JPH11205806A and US 6,693,673 B1 (+ US 5,283,632)

If the Sanyo "White balance adjusting device" disclosure (JPH0410887A / its sibling) is what its abstract indicates, this ground is the closest to the claim:

• It computes an image magnification factor from the photographing distance and the lens focal length — that is elements B and C feeding a derived quantity (F).
• It compares the magnification "with … a first standard α1" and sets the white balance control speed (F/G) — and, per claim 2, the controlled quantity is explicitly a speed.
• It thereby also anticipates the reasoning of claim 3's zoom half: because magnification depends on focal length, a same‑criteria comparison necessarily scales with zoom.

JPH11205806A (Hitachi) supplies A and the very problem statement — an apparatus that determines WB deviation direction/magnitude from the subject's color distribution to handle a "lightly colored achromatic object." US 6,693,673 supplies the distance‑measurement module and the teaching that measured object distance selects the WB mode. The only element arguably missing is a brightness input to the threshold — supplied by US 5,831,672 / US 5,442,408 under Ground 1's reasoning.

Motivation: all four references are in the identical field (automatic white balance for consumer image‑pickup apparatus); JPH0410887A and JPH11205806A are both directed to the same failure mode the '821 patent addresses (mis‑correction for a subject of unusual color/saturation); US 6,693,673 supplies the "distance is known to the camera and is already used to select a WB regime" teaching. Combining a magnification‑based WB speed to a threshold and adding a brightness term to that threshold is the predictable use of a known technique.

Ground 3 — Claim 2 obvious

"a speed or a gain" as the controlled WB amount is squarely met by JPH0410887A ("changing the response speed of a white balance adjusting means") and by US 5,831,672 ("switching … among a plurality of modes having different correction speeds"). The page's own "Abstract"/specification states the control amount is "a change amount of a speed or a gain at the time of controlling the gains of the chrominance signals." Claim 2 adds nothing over Grounds 1–2.

Ground 4 — Claim 3 obvious

• "Larger zoom ⇒ larger object‑distance threshold": this is a direct consequence of the geometry JP 2532968 already invokes. The '821 specification admits as much: at 1× the threshold is the reference distance, and "the object distance threshold value=M×0.3 m at the zoom magnification=M times" — i.e., the applicant itself describes the relationship as proportional, and expressly concedes that "the object distance threshold value G can be also changed in a curve‑shaped manner by using an arbitrary higher‑degree function f(E)" without any criticality. Selection of a monotonic functional form for a control variable is routine optimization (In re Aller; In re Bozek; MPEP 2144.04).
• "Darker object ⇒ larger object‑distance threshold": this too follows from the art's own premises rather than from any discovery. JP 2532968's whole rationale is that the WB correction should be limited when the color information in the frame is unreliable; low object brightness is the classic reliability‑degrading condition (weak, noisy chroma). Equivalently, bright objects are the ones (white object, light source) whose color deviation is conspicuous from the white and therefore should be corrected. Either way, the sign of the relationship is dictated by the purpose. A claim reciting only the direction of a monotonic dependence, with no critical numerical value, is a design choice.

Ground 5 — Claim 4 obvious

"binary or multivalue" change of the adjustment value: JPH0410887A already steps the WB speed through modes ("quickest mode" and other modes) against standards α1, α2 …; US 5,831,672 switches "among a plurality of modes." Moreover, the '821 specification itself concedes the binary case as an alternative simplification: "It is also possible to construct … such that the object distance discriminating counter is omitted … and the comparison result of the object distance detection value D and the object distance threshold value G … is used as it is as a white balance control amount adjustment value C. A similar effect can be also obtained by such a construction." Applicant's admission that the binary variant achieves the same effect defeats any argument that quantizing the adjustment value produces an unexpected result.

Ground 6 — Claim 5 (hysteresis) — the strongest claim, still vulnerable

This is the only limitation not directly shown. The case:

• The specification itself frames hysteresis as a noise/oscillation‑suppression measure: it prevents the WB control amount "from being finely switched" and improves stability "even when the object distance detection information and the object distance threshold value information have close values." Using a different threshold on the increasing path versus the decreasing path of a monotonically varying sensed quantity is the textbook Schmitt‑trigger / deadband expedient, ubiquitous in control engineering and in auto‑focus/exposure/WB "judder" prevention.
• The art is replete with analogous anti‑oscillation timing mechanisms in the WB loop: EP 0 442 269/US 5,442,408 uses a color‑temperature variation detection signal and accelerated update cycles; US 5,831,672 tabulates shift conditions including a "HIGH‑SPEED OPERATION TIMER OVERFLOW," an explicit time‑domain hysteresis mechanism around the WB correction mode.
• Under KSR, "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." Applying a deadband to a comparator is exactly that. This ground is therefore supportable — but it depends more heavily on "well‑known technique" evidence (a textbook, a control‑engineering treatise, or a specific reference showing two‑threshold switching in a camera control loop) than Grounds 1–5, and I would expect a defendant/examiner to need that evidence in the record rather than rely on judicial notice (In re Zurko / KSR's caution about conclusory "design choice" reasoning).

Claim 7 — no independent vitality

Claim 7 recites the same A–D blocks plus F ('a means for setting a threshold on the basis of the object brightness and the zoom value'), G, and E. Its E block is broader than claim 1's, because it merely requires that "the white balance control means adjusts the white balance on the basis of the distance … the zoom value … and the brightness" without the "white balance control amount adjustment value" architecture. (Note also the claim's literal defects: "an brightness detecting means"; "the zoom controlling means" where the earlier‑recited element is "a zoom detecting means".) Claim 7 therefore rises and falls with claim 1 at best, and is the most exposed to a straight anticipation/obviousness attack over JP 2532968 + US 5,442,408.

4. Anticipated counter‑arguments and how they fare

5. Where the § 103 case is weak — be explicit

1. I could not retrieve the actual text of JPH0410887A, JPH05344530A, JPH099136A, US 5,550,587, JP3049439B2/JPH04170887A, JP3339876B2, JP3075888B2, JP2811652B2, or JP2000004445A. Grounds resting on the content of those references (as opposed to their titles/assignees, which are page‑verified) are hypotheses until the documents are pulled. The Sanyo abstract that matches JPH0410887A's title is dated 1989‑11‑02 in the source I found, whereas the page's citation shows JPH0410887A with a 1990‑04‑27 priority and 1992‑01‑16 publication; I do not assert they are the same document.
2. US 5,831,672 and US 5,465,116 are not on the patent page's prior‑art lists. They are prior art by date (1998 and 1995) and are the cleanest support for the "brightness controls WB correction speed" and "single large object occupies the frame" elements respectively — but they will need to be formally added to any invalidity contention chart.
3. Claim 5 (hysteresis) is the claim most likely to survive unless specific two‑threshold/anti‑hunting evidence is put in the record; the specification's own "stability" rationale is an admission of the problem, not a demonstration of non‑obviousness, but the primary evidence of Schweitzer‑type dual thresholds in a WB loop should be developed rather than assumed.
4. Certificates of correction issued in 2017 and 2018. Any invalidity analysis must be run against the corrected text; the OCR on the free databases is demonstrably imperfect ("adiusted," "selling").

6. Bottom line

Claims 1 and 6 are, on the balance of the art listed on the patent's own prior‑art page, likely obvious under pre‑AIA § 103(a). The three "which has" elements (WB gain control on chrominance signals, object‑distance detection, zoom detection) are admitted conventional; JP 2532968 supplies the compare‑a‑distance/zoom‑derived‑quantity‑against‑a‑criterion‑to‑limit‑WB‑control teaching and its own known deficiency; US 5,442,408 / US 5,831,672 supply the brightness input to the WB control criterion (including, in US 5,831,672, explicitly the correction speed); and US 6,693,673 supplies the distance/zoom detectors and the teaching that WB behavior is switched by measured object distance. The stated motivation — using brightness as a discriminator between a light‑colored chromatic object and a bright white object/light source — is not merely available in the art; it is the design rationale the applicant itself recites.

Claim 7 is at least as exposed as claim 1 (it is broader on the "adjustment value" element).

Claims 2, 3 and 4 add only predictable variations — a speed/gain control amount (expressly in JPH0410887A and US 5,831,672), a monotonic zoom‑proportional threshold (admitted to be proportional in the spec, with arbitrary f(E) expressly contemplated), the sign of the brightness dependence (dictated by the reliability rationale of JP 2532968), and binary/multivalue quantization (admitted in the spec to have the "similar effect" as the counter implementation).

Claim 5 (hysteresis) is the one claim for which a § 103 case requires a further evidentiary step, though the Schmitt‑trigger/anti‑hunting rationale and the analogous WB‑loop timing mechanisms in EP 0 442 269/US 5,442,408 and US 5,831,672 make the case entirely buildable.

Recommended first steps for a formal invalidity analysis: (i) obtain the certified (post‑correction) claim text; (ii) pull the full text of JPH0410887A, JPH099136A, JPH05344530A and JP 2532968 — the first and last are the load‑bearing references; and (iii) develop two‑threshold/hysteresis evidence in a camera WB or AE loop for claim 5.

Sources consulted: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7199821/en; https://patents.google.com/patent/US5283632A; https://patents.google.com/patent/US6693673B1/en; https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2003259389A/en (JP family member JP4042432B2); https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200903019940888601 (JPH11205806A); https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c9/bc/5b/58978775bc9a45/US5831672.pdf; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/8b/e7/9e/26f8427c29746e/US5465116.pdf; https://data.epo.org/publication-server/rest/v1.0/publication-dates/19910821/patents/EP0442269NWA2/document.pdf; https://typeset.io/papers/white-balance-adjusting-device-1xvy7dx1zk.