US 7265656

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7,265,656, including any CAFC litigation.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches to check for any litigation involving this specific patent number.

US Patent 7,265,656 — Summary

Bottom line: I found solid bibliographic and claim data for US 7,265,656, but no evidence of any CAFC 2026 docket or Federal Circuit appeal involving this specific patent. See the uncertainty note at the end.

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Bibliographic Data

Priority chain (from the patent text): This patent is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/418,486, filed April 18, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,005,974, which claims priority to provisional applications 60/373,932 (filed April 19, 2002, McMahon, "VEHICLE IMAGING SYSTEM") and 60/376,508 (filed April 30, 2002, Bingle, "VEHICLE LICENSE PLATE BRACKET").

Assignment chain (per Google Patents reassignment records): Donnelly Corporation → Magna Donnelly Corporation → Magna Mirrors of America, Inc. → Magna Electronics Inc.

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Abstract (verbatim)

"A vehicle imaging system includes an imaging sensor, an imaging sensor bracket and an image processor. A vehicle mounting portion of the bracket is configured to mount at a mounting element for a license plate of the vehicle, and a sensor mounting portion of the bracket is angled with respect to the vehicle mounting portion such that the sensor mounting portion extends generally rearwardly when the bracket is fastened at the license plate mounting element. The imaging sensor generates a signal indicative of an image representative of a scene occurring within the field of view. The image processor receives the signal and processes the signal and generates an output signal representative of the imaged scene. The system may include a display, which may display at least one iconistic representation of at least one detected relevant object in response to an output signal generated by the image processor."

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Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

Claim 1 — Camera-on-license-plate system with display

A vehicle imaging system for a vehicle that has a license plate mounting portion at its rear. It requires:

• an imaging sensor (camera) with a field of view;
• an imaging sensor bracket having (a) a vehicle mounting portion configured to mount at the license-plate mounting element, and (b) a sensor mounting portion extending from the vehicle mounting portion and angled so that it extends generally rearwardly when the bracket is fastened at the license plate mounting element;
• the imaging sensor mounted on the sensor mounting portion with a generally downward and rearward field of view exterior of the vehicle, generating a signal representative of the imaged scene;
• an image processor that processes the signal and generates an output signal; and
• a display that displays information in response to the output signal.

Note: a display is affirmatively required by claim 1.

Claim 12 — Camera-on-license-plate system with a cover element

Same general bracket/angle/rearward-mount architecture as claim 1, but the emphasis is on an enclosed camera:

• the bracket includes a cover element that substantially contains the imaging sensor at the sensor mounting portion;
• the cover provides an opening through which the sensor receives light representative of the exterior scene;
• the sensor has a generally downward and rearward field of view through that opening; and
• an image processor generates an output signal representative of the imaged scene.

Note: claim 12 does not itself require a display — the display is added in dependent claim 18.

Claim 19 — Camera-on-license-plate system with trailer-hitch field of view

Directed to a vehicle with a generally vertically oriented license plate mounting portion at the rear. It requires:

• an imaging sensor and a bracket with a vehicle mounting portion (mounts at the license plate mounting element) and a sensor mounting portion;
• the sensor mounting portion angled to extend generally rearwardly and generally horizontally when the bracket is fastened;
• the imaging sensor mounted such that it has a generally downward and rearward field of view exterior of the vehicle that includes a trailer hitch of the vehicle; and
• an image processor generating an output signal representative of the imaged scene.

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Notable Dependent-Claim Features

• Claim 2/3 and 23: bracket cover element substantially containing the sensor; cover aperture for light.
• Claims 7, 17, 20: the output signal comprises at least one iconistic representation of a detected object (the "low-cost dot-matrix / line-art display" concept described in the specification).
• Claims 8–11: field of view including the vehicle's trailer hitch; display showing separate icons for the vehicle hitch and a trailer hitch, with an alignment indication to the driver (specification describes flashing the icons when aligned).
• Claims 5–6, 14–15: mounting to a generally vertical, recessed rear panel, with the sensor mounting portion at an upper region of the recess.

The specification also describes optional edge-detection processing (citing U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,313,454 and 6,353,392) and a distance/height estimation technique based on how fast an object traverses the sensor's field of view relative to vehicle speed.

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CAFC 2026 / Litigation Check

I searched for Federal Circuit and district-court activity referencing 7,265,656 specifically and found no 2026 CAFC docket or appeal tied to this patent.

Context worth noting (and to avoid confusion): this patent is in the same Donnelly/Magna family as 7,005,974 and shares subject matter with Magna's vehicular-vision portfolio, but the patents I could confirm as asserted in Magna Electronics Inc. v. TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., No. 1:12-cv-00654 (W.D. Mich.) and the related IPRs were the '023, '248, '664, '149, '261, '894, '462, '440, '969, '367, '840 and '659 patents — not the '656 patent. I found no record of '656 being asserted or appealed.

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Uncertainty / Confidence Notes

1. CAFC 2026 docket: I could not locate any Federal Circuit docket from 2026 (or any year) involving patent 7,265,656. If you have a specific appeal number, I can look it up — but I will not assert an appeal exists without a source.
2. Current assignee: Google Patents lists Magna Electronics Inc. as current assignee. The reassignment records show a Donnelly → Magna Donnelly → Magna Mirrors of America → Magna Electronics chain, but the Google Patents entries are dated 2013-10-25 (likely a bulk re-recording), so exact dates of each transfer should be verified against USPTO assignment records.
3. Term/expiration: Status is "Expired – Fee Related" with adjusted expiration 2023-04-30. This is Google Patents' legal-status field, which is expressly a non-authoritative assumption; confirm any term/PTA figures in USPTO Patent Center.
4. Data-quality caveat on the source page: the Google Patents "Family Cites Families" list for this record contains obviously unrelated items (e.g., numerous dental implant patents such as "Submergible screw-type dental implant" and "Anatomical restoration dental implant system"). This appears to be a database artifact, not an actual citation relationship, and should not be relied upon.
5. All claim characterizations above are based on the authoritative patent text supplied (23 claims; independent 1, 12, 19), not on secondary summaries.

Sources: Google Patents US7265656B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7265656B2/en); Justia Patents listing citing McMahon et al. (https://patents.justia.com); USPTO PTAB/litigation filings in Magna v. TRW (IPR2014-00298 related-matters notice; W.D. Mich. complaint) confirming which Magna patents were actually asserted.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7265656 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search specific litigation databases.

Let me search more specifically for this patent number being asserted in cases.

Bottom line

Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no litigation that specifically asserts U.S. Patent No. 7,265,656. I could not identify any district court case, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding in which the '656 patent is listed as a patent-in-suit. I want to be explicit that this is a negative finding from limited searching rather than a definitive "no litigation exists" conclusion, and I flag the limits below.

What the patent is

For the record (from the authoritative patent text and Google Patents bibliographic data):

Two points matter for a litigation search:

1. The '656 patent is a continuation in the Donnelly/Magna camera family; the parent is US 7,005,974, and there are many sibling/related Magna patents.
2. It is recorded as expired for failure to pay maintenance fees (adjusted expiration 2023‑04‑30), which is consistent with it never having been a primary assertion vehicle.

What I searched

• General web queries for "7265656 litigation," "'7265656' patent infringement case," "'7,265,656' Magna complaint," and docket-oriented queries.
• Google Patents page for US7265656B2 (source provided), including its "Cited By" / "Families Citing" tables, which typically list follow-on patents rather than litigation.
• Results surfaced from Unified Patents portal references, Docket Alarm, Justia, USPTO PTAB document repositories, and the Federal Register.

None of these returned a case in which US 7,265,656 is named. Google Patents' page for the '656 patent in the material provided does not include a "Litigation" section listing any cases, and the sibling patent US 7,005,974 likewise did not surface as asserted in the results I retrieved.

Litigation that surfaced (related to the assignee, NOT confirmed to involve '656)

These cases appeared in my searches and involve Magna Electronics / Donnelly (the '656 assignee) or the same automotive-camera technology space. I could not confirm that any of them asserts the '656 patent, and I am listing them only so you can verify independently — not as '656 litigation.

1. Magna Electronics, Inc. v. Valeo, Inc., et al.

   • Court: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit)
   • Case No.: 2:13-cv-11376-AC-DRG
   • Filed: 03/28/2013 (Judge Avern Cohn; Mag. Judge David R. Grand)
   • A second Magna v. Valeo complaint appears at Case No. 2:14-cv-10540 (E.D. Mich.).
   • Source: docket excerpts at Docket Alarm (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2014-01204/...) and a public copy of the complaint on Scribd.

2. Magna Electronics, Inc. v. Hyundai Mobis Co. Ltd., et al.

   • Filed: March 29, 2012, in Michigan federal court (reported as concerning rearview backup camera technology).
   • Source: Law360 case page (https://www.law360.com/cases/4f7471ec57b4596bc8004051).

3. TRW Automotive U.S. LLC v. Magna Electronics Inc.

   • Court: U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan
   • Case No.: 1:13-cv-00687 (filed 2013)
   • Patents asserted by TRW: US 6,807,287 and US 8,233,045 (not '656).
   • Source: public copy of the complaint (Scribd, from PriorSmart).

4. Certain Vision-Based Driver Assistance System Cameras and Components Thereof (ITC Section 337)

   • Investigation Nos. 337-TA-899 and 337-TA-907
   • Complainant: TRW Automotive U.S. LLC; Respondent: Magna Electronics, Inc.
   • Notice of investigation published 83 FR (Nov. 14, 2013), citing claims 1, 2, 3 and 8 of the '287 patent.
   • Source: Federal Register 2013-27197 (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2013-11-14/pdf/2013-27197.pdf).

5. Optinvest, Ltd. v. Magna Electronics, Inc.

   • Court: U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
   • Case No.: 1:22-cv-01327 (filed 2022; docket activity continuing into 2026)
   • This is a suit against Magna by a third-party plaintiff; it does not appear to concern the '656 patent (no confirmation).
   • Source: CourtListener docket https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65413217/optinvest-ltd-v-magna-electronics-inc/.

6. PTAB proceedings involving Magna/Donnelly patents (petitioner TRW Automotive US LLC; challenged patents included US 6,097,023; 7,423,248; 7,459,664; 8,203,440; 7,994,462; 7,344,261; 7,339,149; 7,655,894; 8,222,588; 8,386,114; etc., e.g., IPR2014‑00251 through IPR2014‑00266 and IPR2014‑01203/01204/01206/01208). None of the listed challenged patents is 7,265,656.

   • Source: PTAB decisions/notices as reproduced on Docket Alarm.

Caveats and recommended next steps

• PACER was not directly queried. PACER is paywalled and my search returned third-party mirrors. A definitive answer requires a PACER/Reach or Docket Alarm "patent number" search on 7,265,656 (and on the parent 7,005,974), plus a Westlaw/Lexis "patents asserted" search.
• The Unified Patents litigation caselist was referenced in results but I could not retrieve an entry for '656. A direct query at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist filtered by patent 7265656 is the best single check.
• Absence of a "Litigation" tab on the Google Patents page is not dispositive; Google's litigation data is incomplete for older and small-market cases.
• Do not rely on the related cases above as '656 litigation. They are assignee-level/technology-level matches only. I have deliberately not invented case numbers, plaintiffs, or outcomes for the '656 patent.

If you need a court-ready negative assertion, I'd recommend running a certified search in Docket Alarm or LexisNexis TotalPatent One for "7,265,656" or "7265656" across all federal district courts, the ITC, and the PTAB before representing that no litigation exists.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against what's publicly searchable before drafting.

PTAB proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,265,656: 0 — no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions have ever been instituted or even filed on this patent, so there is no breakdown by status (no claims invalidated, no claims sustained on the merits, no settlements, no institution denials) and no AIA estoppel attaches to anyone. The structured ODP block states plainly that "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest"; my independent searches turned up no contrary record. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore unusual for a patent that was asserted-adjacent in a real patent war: the '656 patent is untested at the PTAB, but it is also expired (adjusted expiration 2023-04-30, status on Google Patents: "Expired - Fee Related"), so the absence of IPRs is not a hardening signal — it's a reflection of the patent's age, its terminal position in a continuation chain, and the fact that Magna/Donnelly enforced sibling patents instead.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding template is inapplicable. Below I substitute the closest-adjacent record (clearly labeled as not proceedings on this patent) plus the strategic picture.

(No proceedings on US 7,265,656)

No IPR/PGR/CBM number exists to report. I will not invent one. What follows is the record that a defendant's counsel will inevitably ask about, with the express caveat that none of these proceedings challenged US 7,265,656:

• TRW Automotive US LLC / TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. campaigns against Magna Electronics (2013–2014). Magna's own mandatory notice in IPR2014-00298 (TRW Automotive US LLC v. Magna Electronics Inc., U.S. Pat. No. 8,324,552) describes "[eighteen] petitions (all pending) filed by the related companies TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. or TRW Automotive US LLC, against ten patents owned by Magna Electronics Inc., each of which relate to automobile imaging systems." The ten patents listed are U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,097,023; 7,339,149; 7,344,261; 7,423,248; 7,459,664; 7,655,894; 7,994,462; 8,203,440; 8,222,588; and 8,314,689. The associated trial numbers are in the IPR2014-00251 through IPR2014-00298 range (e.g., IPR2014-00251, -00255, -00256, -00257, -00258 through -00266, -00293/-00294, -00296/-00297). US 7,265,656 is not on that list. Note that US 6,097,023 is on it — that is a patent cited in the '656 specification, not the '656 patent itself. Do not conflate them.
  • Source for the list: Magna Electronics' Mandatory Notices, IPR2014-00298 (filed 2014-01-16).
• Valeo campaign against Magna Electronics (2014). Valeo et al. filed IPR2014-01203, IPR2014-01204, IPR2014-01206, and IPR2014-01208 in the Magna Electronics, Inc. v. Valeo, Inc. litigation (E.D. Mich. No. 2:13-cv-11376-AC-DRG, filed 2013-03-28; litigation stayed on an unopposed motion to stay docketed 2013-12-06). Again, US 7,265,656 is not among the patents shown as challenged.
  • Source: E.D. Mich. docket 2:13-cv-11376, Exhibit 1021.
• ITC side-show. TRW Automotive U.S. LLC filed § 337 complaints against Magna Electronics (Inv. Nos. 337-TA-899 and 337-TA-907), asserting claims 1, 2, 3, and 8 of the '287 patent (U.S. 6,807,287, a TRW patent). The '656 patent is not asserted there either — Magna was the respondent, not the complainant, in that investigation.
  • Source: 83 Fed. Reg. 2013-27197 (Nov. 7, 2013).

Confidence note: I did not query PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions directly (those require interactive search that isn't available here). My checks were the structured ODP block, Google Patents' cited-by and family-citation tables for US 7,265,656 (which list no IPR/PGR/CBM entries), and open-web searches for "IPR" plus the patent number and its assignee lineage. That is strong but not conclusive evidence of a null set. If you need certainty, run a PTAB E2E "Patent Number" search on 7,265,656 and a Docket Navigator / RPX proceeding query; treat a negative result there as final.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 23 claims are UNTESTED, and none is canceled. Claims 1–23 stand exactly as issued 2007-09-04: claims 1 and 12 (system, bracket mounted at the license-plate mounting element with a rearwardly-angled sensor-mounting portion and a downward/rearward field of view) and claim 19 (the same structure plus "said field of view including a trailer hitch of the vehicle"), with dependents covering the cosmetic cover (claims 2, 3, 23), the horizontal extension (4, 13), the recessed vertical-panel mounting (5, 6, 14, 15), the "iconistic representation" display features (7, 17, 20–22), and the trailer-hitch alignment features (8–11). There is no IPR certificate, no reexamination certificate, and no disclaimer on file that I found — so anyone telling you "the claims have been narrowed" or "claim 1 is dead" is wrong. Conversely, nobody has ever validated these claims against art either: they are untested, not hardened.

Estoppel landscape: there is none to exploit, and none to fear. Because no AIA petition was ever filed, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate — no petitioner or privy is barred from raising any ground. That cuts both ways. If you are a defendant, you retain the full universe of § 102/§ 103/§ 112 defenses in district court, with the significant caveat that the patent is pre-AIA (effective filing 2003-04-18 / priority 2002-04-19) so the pre-AIA § 102(e)/(g) framework and OddzOn/pre-AIA § 103(c) practice govern, and the best invalidity art will be 1980s–1990s rear-vision and trailer-hitch-alignment references — the '656 prosecution itself was over a crowded field (the Google Patents citation list for this family includes GB 934,037 (1963), FR 2,241,085 (1975), US 3,947,095, US 4,214,266, US 4,277,804, DE 2,931,368, GB 2,137,573, US 4,626,850, US 4,892,345, US 4,937,796, US 5,121,200, US 5,406,395, US 5,414,461, US 5,786,772, US 5,959,367, US 6,100,795, and US 6,446,999, among others). The most promising attack vectors ar

I'll start by pulling what I can from the authoritative patent text (already provided) and then try to locate reel/frame data and any litigation/asserter context via search.

Good — I have solid corporate-history anchors. Let me dig for the actual reel/frame records for this patent and any Magna Electronics consolidation.

I hit my search budget before I could pull the Assignment Center records directly, so here is what is verifiable from the authoritative sources in hand — with the gaps flagged rather than filled.

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Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No inventor-departure pattern is present, but there is an M&A overlay. Both provisional applications were filed in April 2002; Magna International's acquisition of Donnelly closed 2002-10-01 (Horibe declaration, Dura Automotive litigation, E.D. Mich. 2:07-cv-10945; and Magna Mirrors v. SMR Automotive, W.D. Mich., reproduced in IPR2018-00491 Ex. 1010). So the inventors assigned to Donnelly roughly six months before Donnelly itself was sold. The subsequent re-assignments are corporate name changes and an intra-group transfer — not inventor abandonment. I cannot confirm either inventor's post-2002 employment; treat that as unknown.

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Original assignee

Donnelly Corporation (Holland, Michigan) — the entity named on the issued patent.

• Product shipping: yes. Donnelly was, at the time, the second-largest global supplier of automotive interior/exterior mirror systems, with ~US$850M in 2001 sales, and was actively commercializing mirror-integrated electronics and vehicle vision technology (Magna press release, Magna annuncia l'acquisizione di Donnelly, 2002-06-25). The patent itself (backup/reverse aid with license-plate-mounted camera bracket) is squarely in that product line.
• Primary business: automotive OEM exterior/interior mirror and vision systems; NYSE-listed (DON).
• Current status: acquired. Magna International announced the merger on 2002-06-25 (~US$320M equity consideration plus ~US$95M debt) and closed 2002-10-01. Donnelly was renamed Magna Donnelly Corporation in 2003, then Magna Mirrors of America, Inc. in 2008 (both per the corporate-name history pleaded in Magna Mirrors of America, Inc. v. SMR Automotive Systems USA, Inc., W.D. Mich., IPR2018-00491 Ex. 1010). The patent's current assignee of record is Magna Electronics Inc. (Auburn Hills, MI) per Google Patents and USPTO.report. Magna Electronics Inc. is the entity named as assignee on later Magna vision patents (e.g., US 10,589,678, "Assignee: MAGNA ELECTRONICS INC. (Auburn Hills, MI)").

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Assignment timeline

Important sourcing caveat, stated plainly: Google Patents surfaces four reassignment events for US 7,265,656 but its legal-events module does not publish USPTO reel/frame numbers, and I was unable to complete a direct pull of the Assignment Center records for this patent before exhausting my search budget. I therefore cannot report reel/frame numbers for this patent's four events, and I will not invent them. All four events carry the identical Google date 2013-10-25, which is best read as the recordation/entry date of a batch of confirmatory corporate-name and intra-group filings, not as the execution dates (the underlying name changes occurred in 2003 and 2008). The execution dates below are taken from the independently documented corporate history, not from a reel.

1. 2002/2003 (executed) / entry shown 2013-10-25 — Reel not retrievable from source

   • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of inventors' interest)
   • Assignor: Martha A. McMahon; Robert L. Bingle
   • Assignee: Donnelly Corporation
   • Correspondent: not retrievable from source for this patent
   • Context: original prosecution-stage assignment — the standard inventors-to-employer conveyance.

2. 2003-01-13 (executed per related-family record) / entry shown 2013-10-25 — Reel 32143/0005 on the related family; unconfirmed for this patent

   • Conveyance: Change of Name
   • Assignor: Donnelly Corporation
   • Assignee: Magna Donnelly Corporation (49 W. Third St., Holland, Michigan 49423)
   • Correspondent: GARDNER, LINN, BURKHART & FLORY, LLP, 2851 Charlevoix Dr., S.E., Suite 207, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 — recorded on the sibling family record (USPTO assignment 32143-5, 4 pages, recorded 2014-02-05), reproduced as Exhibit 1019 in IPR2015-00923 concerning US 8,686,840. That single record lists 8 properties; US 7,265,656 is plausibly among them but I could not confirm it. Flag: this is a single appearance by this firm on a Magna family recording — not the "repeat correspondent across unrelated NPE chains" signal, and this Grand Rapids firm is long-standing Donnelly/Magna outside counsel, not an asserter-side filer.
   • Context: internal reorganization / change of name only — no change in ultimate ownership.

3. 2008 (executed per corporate history) / entry shown 2013-10-25 — Reel not retrievable from source

   • Conveyance: Change of Name
   • Assignor: Magna Donnelly Corporation
   • Assignee: Magna Mirrors of America, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrievable from source
   • Context: change of name only (2008 rename, per Magna Mirrors v. SMR complaint para. 2).

4. ~2013 (executed) / entry shown 2013-10-25 — Reel not retrievable from source

   • Conveyance: Assignment (intra-group)
   • Assignor: Magna Mirrors of America, Inc.
   • Assignee: Magna Electronics Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrievable from source
   • Context: internal reorganization — vision/electronics IP consolidated into Magna's electronics subsidiary. Both entities sit under Magna International Inc.; this is not a transfer out of the corporate family.

Net position: four recorded events, all resolving to Magna International Inc. and its subsidiaries. Nothing leaves the family; there is no licensing-only entity anywhere in the chain.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7265656
    2002 : Provisionals filed by McMahon and Bingle
         : Inventors assign to Donnelly Corporation
         : Magna International acquires Donnelly
    2003 : Non-provisional 10418486 filed
         : Donnelly renamed Magna Donnelly Corp
    2006 : Continuation 11361383 filed
    2007 : Patent issues as US 7265656
    2008 : Magna Donnelly renamed Magna Mirrors America
    2013 : Assigned to Magna Electronics Inc

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignee in the chain carries an IP/Patents/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures suffix; every assignee is a named Magna operating subsidiary. The only "LLC-like" tell would be a registered-agent address, and the assignee addresses of record are operating addresses (49 W. Third St., Holland, MI; Magna Electronics at Auburn Hills, MI). No reel/frame supports a shell transfer.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, or any Spangenberg entity. All assignees are Magna International subsidiaries.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not established. The only correspondent I recovered is Gardner, Linn, Burkhart & Flory, LLP on the related-family change-of-name record 32143/0005 (recorded 2014-02-05). That is a single appearance by operating-company outside counsel, which by the user's own rule is not a finding; and it is not confirmed to sit on this patent's record.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. There is one intra-group assignment (event 4) preceded by two pure name changes; the assignors and assignees are successive incarnations of the same corporate line, not a chain of unrelated LLCs sharing a correspondent.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. I found no infringement suit naming US 7,265,656. The nearby Magna assertions (Magna Mirrors v. SMR Automotive, W.D. Mich., IPR2018-00491; the Magna/Ficosa license dispute; the TRW ITC § 337 action in which Magna Electronics was a respondent, 78 FR, 2013-11-14) involve different patents and do not date-anchor a transfer of '656.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Donnelly was acquired in a solvent, board-approved merger (2002-06-25 announcement, 2002-10-01 close); no Chapter 7/11 proceeding appears anywhere in the chain.
7. Privateering — not present. No operating company transferred this patent to an independent assertion vehicle. The 2013 transfer moved the patent deeper into the Magna corporate family, the opposite of privateering.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at Magna Electronics Inc.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Every recorded link resolves to Magna International Inc. and its subsidiaries — Donnelly Corporation (inventors' assignment, event 1) → Magna Donnelly Corporation (change of name, event 2; executed 2003-01-13 per related-family record 32143/0005, recorded 2014-02-05) → Magna Mirrors of America, Inc. (change of name, event 3; executed 2008) → Magna Electronics Inc. (intra-group assignment, event 4). There is no shell entity, no known NPE assignee, no cascading LLC chain, no pre-litigation transfer, no bankruptcy sale, and no defensive aggregator — a zero-signal NPE profile. Magna Electronics is a Tier-1 automotive supplier that commercializes the very camera/vision technology this patent covers, and Magna entities do assert patents against competitors (e.g., Magna Mirrors v. SMR Automotive, W.D. Mich., IPR2018-00491) — hence operating-company, not insufficent-data. Caveat for the file: I could not obtain reel/frame numbers for the four '656 events (Google Patents omits them and my Assignment Center pull was not completed), and I could not tie US 7,265,656 itself to a specific assertion; those two gaps should be closed before this memo is relied on.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 7265656) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — cross-check against the Google Patents legal-events panel at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7265656B2](/patent/US7265656B2)/en and the related-family recording at IPR2015-00923 Exhibit 1019 (USPTO assignment 32143-5, US 8,686,840).

I'll analyze the prior art for US 7,265,656. Let me first verify a few key references and check for any license-plate-camera art not in the citation list.

Let me verify the mounting locations disclosed in several of the closest camera-system references, since that determines whether any could anticipate the bracket claims.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,265,656 B2 ("Vehicle imaging system")

0. Scope, method, and a necessary caveat up front

Search constraint. I do not have a live USPTO Patent Full-Text (PatFT/Patent Center) query tool in this session. I cannot execute a literal "search patent number 7265656 in the USPTO database" and return a certified hit list. What I do have is the complete authoritative patent document for US 7,265,656 (claims, specification, and the front-page reference lists), which is the same data the USPTO record contains. Everything below is anchored to that document. I have not substituted any similar number (e.g., I did not pull 7,265,655, 7,265,657, or 7,005,974's art and relabel it); where the parent 10/418,486 / US 7,005,974 is mentioned, it is only because the '656 text itself discloses that priority relationship.

One structural fact governs almost the entire §102 answer, so I state it before the tables:

Every claim of '656 is either independent (1, 12, 19) or depends from one of them. All three independent claims require the imaging sensor bracket to mount at the license-plate mounting element, with a sensor mounting portion angled relative to the vehicle mounting portion so it extends generally rearwardly when fastened there. Under 35 U.S.C. § 102 a reference anticipates only if it discloses every element of the claim in a single reference. If a cited reference does not disclose the license-plate-mounted, angled bracket, it cannot anticipate any claim of '656 — no matter how much of the camera/processor/display subject matter it shows.

I have reviewed the front-page citations for exactly this gating element. None of the examiner-cited references (or the additional references I located) discloses a camera bracket mounted at the license-plate mounting element with an angled, rearwardly-extending sensor mounting portion.

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1. Legal framework and critical dates for '656

Two practical consequences:

• Some cited references (e.g., US 6,592,230 issued 2003-07-15; US 6,654,670 issued 2003-11-25) published after the '656 priority date but are still available as §102(e) art because their U.S. filing/priority dates precede 2002-04-19.
• Common ownership of several cited references by Donnelly would bear on a §103(c) disqualification analysis, not on §102.

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2. Complete citation list — citation, date, description, and §102 character

The '656 front page identifies 55 examiner/third-party citations ("Citations (55)") and a 66-count "Patent Citations" table. Below is the full 55-entry set with the §102 disposition for each.

Legend for the last column: "Elem." = which '656 claim elements the reference supplies (§103 relevance): E1 imaging sensor/image signal; E2 license-plate bracket mount; E3 angled rearwardly-extending sensor mount; E4 downward+rearward exterior FOV; E5 image processor output; E6 display; E7 cover; E8 iconistic object representation; E9 vehicle trailer-hitch in FOV; E10/E11 separate hitch icons + alignment indication; E12 horizontally-rearward sensor mount; E13 recessed/vertical panel. "Antic." = does it anticipate any '656 claim under §102? (Answer is "No" throughout, and the reason is the missing E2/E3.)

Answer to the literal question "which claim(s) does it potentially anticipate under §102?" — for every one of the 55: none. Each is missing at least E2 and E3, which appear in all three independent claims and therefore in all 23 claims. The cited references are best characterized as §103 obviousness material and background art, not anticipatory art.

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3. The most relevant cited prior art (closest to the claimed subject matter)

Ranked by proximity to the '656 independent claims. For each I map the elements and state precisely where the §102 case fails.

(a) Camera-based rearward viewing with display — closest to E1/E4/E5/E6

• US 4,277,804 — Robison (1978-11-01; issued 1981-07-07). Earliest true "camera + in-cab monitor" rear-view system in the cited set. Supplies E1/E5/E6. Fails E2/E3 entirely — no bracket, no license-plate mounting. Anticipation: none. This is the best §103 "primary reference" for the general camera/rear-view/display concept.
• US 5,680,123 — Lee (1996-08-06; issued 1997-10-21). Three cameras (left/right/rear), multiplexer, controller, in-dash display. Notably, its rear camera is mounted "inside and adjacent to the rear window or near a tail light" — explicitly not the license-plate area. Supplies E1/E5/E6, and arguably E4 only loosely (it is a rearward, not a "generally downward and rearward," view). Fails E2/E3/E7/E8-E11. Anticipation: none. This is an important secondary reference because it affirmatively chose a different mounting location.
• US 5,414,461 — Kishi et al./Nissan (1991-11-15; issued 1995-05-09) and US 5,121,200 — Choi (1990-07-06; issued 1992-06-09). Forward + rearward multi-view imaging with display → E1/E6. No license-plate bracket. Anticipation: none.
• US 6,654,670 — Aisin Seiki (1999-03-31; issued 2003-11-25). Parking assist with rearward camera + display → E1/E5/E6. Camera is a vehicle-integrated unit; no angled license-plate bracket (E2/E3 absent). Anticipation: none. A strong §102(e)/§103 reference for the "backup camera + display" concept.
• US 6,429,789 — Ford (1999-08-09; issued 2002-08-06). Vehicle information acquisition + display assembly → E5/E6.

(b) Trailer-hitch alignment with a display — closest to E9/E10/E11 (claims 8–11, 22)

• US 6,592,230 — Holland Hitch (priority 1997-10-16; filed 2001-04-17; issued 2003-07-15). Discloses a truck rearview-mirror-mounted display that shows whether the towing unit is aligned with the towed unit (coupling-alignment warning system + fifth-wheel monitoring). This is the closest cited reference to claim 11's "alignment indication" concept and claims 9–10's dual-icon concept. However, it uses a laser source + photo-sensors/retro-reflective target, not an imaging sensor generating an image signal; and it has no license-plate-mounted bracket. Supplies E5/E6/E10-type only. Anticipation of any '656 claim: none. Best §103 reference for the "display the alignment of the vehicle with a trailer hitch" aspect (claims 8–11, 22).
• US 6,100,795 — Otterbacher (1999-03-12; issued 2000-08-08). Visor-mounted display screen 28 that "visually indicates the position of the vehicle with respect to the trailer hitch," plus turn-left/turn-right and stop indicators. Supplies E5/E6/E10-type. But it is an RF transmitter/receiver system — no camera, no image signal, no bracket. Anticipation: none.
• US 6,446,999 — Davis, Jr. (2000-04-28; issued 2002-09-10). Removable mirror/rod hitch-alignment aid — mechanical/optical only. No imaging sensor. Anticipation: none.

(c) Donnelly/Magna imaging-system references — closest to E1/E5 and the sensor hardware

• US 5,550,677 (1993-02-26 → 1996-08-27), US 5,796,094 (1993-02-26 → 1998-08-18), US 6,396,397 (1993-02-26 → 2002-05-28), WO 96/38319 (1995 → 1996-12-05), US 6,201,642 (1999 → 2001-03-13), US 6,313,454 (1999 → 2001-11-06), US 6,353,392 (1997 → 2002-03-05), US 5,786,772 (1996 → 1998-07-28), US 2002/0003571 A1 (2000 → 2002-01-10), US 2002/0048086 A1 (1999 → 2002-04-25).
  These supply the imaging-array sensor (E1), image processing (E5), optics, and mirror-hosted display (E6) elements — and are the references the '656 specification itself incorporates by reference for the CMOS/CCD sensor and edge-detection features. None discloses the license-plate bracket (E2/E3) or the iconistic-representation display (E8). Anticipation of any '656 claim: none. They are §102(a)/§103 support for the sensor/processor platform.

(d) Distance / object detection / edge detection — closest to the specification's distance-and-edge-detection passages (not claimed per se)

• US 5,249,027 — Mathur/Rockwell (1992 → 1993) (distance measurement), US 5,535,314 — Hughes (1991 → 1996) (image processor/detector), US 5,406,395 — Hughes (1993 → 1995) (parking assistance), US 4,937,796 — Tendler (1989 → 1990) (backing aid), US 4,626,850 — Chey (1983 → 1986) (collision avoidance). These map to E5 and to the specification's distance/height-estimation discussion, but none is claimed as such, and none has the bracket. Anticipation: none.

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4. The single most prosecution-decisive observation

The examiner's citation set is rich in E1/E5/E6 art and in trailer-alignment-display art, but contains no reference teaching a camera bracket fastened at the license-plate mounting element with an angled, rearwardly-extending sensor mounting portion. That is precisely the feature carried by all three independent claims (1, 12, 19) and by the dependent claims (2–6, 13–15, 18, 23). This is the strongest structural indication that the patentable contribution of '656 over the cited art is the bracket/mount geometry, not the camera-per-se, the processor, or the display.

Best-case §103 combinations (not §102):

• Claims 1/12/19: any of US 4,277,804 / US 5,680,123 / US 6,654,670 (camera + rearview + display) in view of a mounting-bracket reference.
• Claims 7/17/20 (iconistic representation): above + an image-processing/edge-detection reference (US 5,535,314 or the Donnelly imaging patents).
• Claims 8–11/22 (hitch in FOV; separate vehicle/trailer hitch icons; alignment indication): US 6,592,230 and/or US 6,100,795 (alignment display) + a camera reference.
• Claim 3/23 (cover/aperture): none of the cited references discloses the snap-on cosmetic cover of FIGS. 9 / element 122.

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5. Additional art I located that is NOT §102 prior art to '656 (flagged for completeness)

These are the closest "license-plate + sensor" references I could find — and every one of them post-dates the '656 priority date of 2002-04-19, so none qualifies under §102(a), (b), or (e). I list them so you can see the bracket concept was pursued by others after '656:

Note the asymmetry: the Simonazzi license-plate-holder art is later than '656, which is consistent with '656's 2002 provisionals being early in the "sensor at the license plate" timeline.

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6. Data-quality flags (important for anyone relying on the Google Patents page)

1. Artifact in the "Family Cites Families (64)" table. That list contains plainly unrelated items — multiple dental-implant patents ("Submergible screw-type dental implant," "Anatomical restoration dental implant system," etc.). This is a database error; do not treat those as '656 citations.
2. Citation artifact within the 55-entry list itself. Entry JP H03-151829 A (Morinaga & Co.) is listed on the same page with the title "Production of chocolate or the like" — clearly not vehicle art. Treat with suspicion and verify the actual document in JPO/Espacenet before relying on it.
3. "Patent Citations (66)" vs. "Citations (55)." The two counts differ; the front page shown is truncated mid-list (at US 4,892,345). The 55-entry set reproduced above matches the complete "Citations" table in the supplied document. If you need the exact 66-count membership, pull the front page image (US 7,265,656 B2, PDF p. 1) rather than the OCR.
4. Litigation cross-note (consistent with prior sections). No §102 relevant to '656 turns on litigation; and, as noted in the litigation section already produced, I found no case asserting the '656 patent. Its recorded status is "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2023-04-30.

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7. Bottom line

• Search scope caveat: I could not run a literal USPTO database query for 7265656; the analysis is grounded in the authoritative full text of US 7,265,656 supplied here, and I did not substitute any similar patent number.
• Anticipation under § 102: No cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–23, because every claim requires the license-plate-mounted bracket with an angled, rearwardly-extending sensor mounting portion (elements E2/E3), which is absent from the entire cited art set. The cited references are §103 and background material.
• Most relevant cited prior art: US 4,277,804 (Robison), US 5,680,123 (Lee), US 5,414,461 (Kishi/Nissan), US 6,654,670 (Aisin), US 6,429,789 (Ford) for the camera/rearview/display core; US 6,592,230 (Holland Hitch) and US 6,100,795 (Otterbacher) for the trailer-alignment display concept; and the Donnelly imaging patents (US 5,550,677; 5,796,094; 6,396,397; WO 96/38319; 6,201,642) for the imaging-array sensor and image processing.
• Closest non-qualifying art: US 2005/0005484 A1 (Simonazzi / META System) — a license-plate holder with oblique microcamera supports — but it post-dates '656's 2002 priority and therefore is not §102 art against '656.

If you can supply a PACER/Unified Patents/Espacenet export or a certified USPTO front-page image for '656, I can (i) reconcile the 55-vs-66 citation counts and (ii) verify the mounting geometries of the foreign references (items 1–6, 9–11, 13–15, 18–24, 39) so the element mapping becomes fully documentary rather than title-based.

I'll verify the key prior-art references cited on the patent's face before building the § 103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,265,656 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analysis date: April 26, 2026. Building on the bibliographic, claim, and litigation sections previously generated. This section does not repeat that content.

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0. Scope, methodology, and data-quality flags

Prior-art corpus used. Per instruction, I analyzed the prior-art section of the Google Patents record for US 7,265,656 B2 — i.e., the "Patent Citations (66)" / "Citations (55)" lists plus the references the '656 specification itself incorporates by reference (which are also prior art). I did not treat the "Cited By (39)" or "Families Citing this family (305)" tables as prior art: those are later-dated publications and, with the exception of a handful whose own priority pre-dates April 2002, they post-date the '656 priority date and cannot be § 102 art against it.

Three data-quality anomalies the reader must know about before relying on this analysis:

1. "JPH03151829A — Morinaga & Co Ltd — 'Production of chocolate or the like' (1989/1991)" appears in the "Citations (55)" list on the '656 page. This is a confectionery patent. It is not prior art to a vehicle imaging system and must be a database/OCR artifact. I have excluded it and flag it as a contradiction in the source record rather than attempting to correct or reinterpret it.
2. The "Family Cites Families (64)" table on the '656 page contains dozens of dental-implant patents (e.g., "Submergible screw-type dental implant," "Anatomical restoration dental implant system"). This was already flagged in the earlier sections as a database artifact. It is unusable as a prior-art list and I have not drawn on it.
3. A transcribed reference in the parent's (US 7,005,974) "References Cited" table reads "5786722 — Integrated RF switching cell built in CMOS technology — Schofield et al. — 340/903." Patent 5,786,722 is an RF switching cell; the class (340/903) and assignee/inventor indicate the intended reference is US 5,786,772, "Vehicle blind spot detection display system" (Schofield et al.), which is separately cited in the '656 spec. I have treated the intended reference as '772 but disclose the discrepancy rather than silently correcting it.

Confidence convention used below: ★★★ = verified against the reference's own text via the supplied record/search results; ★★ = title/abstract-level verification only; ★ = citation-existence verified, substantive disclosure not verified (I did not fabricate a disclosure).

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1. Governing law and the effective prior-art date

• Statute: The '656 application was filed February 24, 2006 as a continuation of Ser. No. 10/418,486 (filed April 18, 2003). Both filings pre-date March 16, 2013, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103(a) govern. AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) and the "obviousness-type double patenting / first-inventor-to-file" framework do not apply.
• Priority chain (from the patent text): '656 ← 10/418,486 (now US 7,005,974) ← provisionals 60/373,932 (Apr. 19, 2002, McMahon) and 60/376,508 (Apr. 30, 2002, Bingle, "VEHICLE LICENSE PLATE BRACKET").
• Practical prior-art cutoff: For claim elements supported only by the Bingle '508 provisional (the license-plate bracket geometry), the cutoff is April 30, 2002; for the imaging/display subject matter, April 19, 2002. Because every reference in the cited corpus issued or was filed between 1958 and 2001 — and the latest-priority item, US 6,592,230, has an earliest filing of October 16, 1997 — the 11-day difference between the two provisional dates is immaterial. All cited references are § 102(b) art (patents/printed publications more than one year before the earliest priority date) and/or § 102(e) art (US patents/applications with earlier effective filing dates). No reference in the corpus is disqualified by the pre-AIA § 102(b) grace period or by § 102(e)'s "different inventive entity" nuance.

Standard applied: Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; objective indicia), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (a claimed combination is obvious where the improvement is a predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions; "obvious to try"; design incentives and market demand; reject "[a] rigid and mandatory formula" requiring an explicit teaching, suggestion, or motivation). Also: MPEP § 2143 (exemplary rationales) and § 2144 (supporting a rejection); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (test is what the combined teachings would have suggested, not bodily incorporation).

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2. Person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A PHOSITA as of April 2002 would have: (a) a bachelor's degree in electrical, mechanical, or automotive engineering (or equivalent experience); (b) 2–4 years of experience with vehicle camera/vision systems or automotive electrical accessories; (c) working familiarity with CMOS/CCD imaging arrays, video signal processing and edge/feature detection, dot-matrix and LCD/LED driver circuits, and (d) practical familiarity with aftermarket automotive bracket hardware and factory mounting points, including standard license-plate fastener patterns. This is a mechanical/electro-optical integrator, not a research scientist. The '656 specification's own incorporation of Donnelly's camera patents (US 5,550,677; 5,670,935; 5,796,094) and its citation of rain-sensor edge-detection patents (US 6,313,454; 6,353,392) confirms the art unit was populated by such artisans.

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3. Scope and content of the prior art (the four functional clusters)

The '656 claims decompose into four functional problems. The cited corpus supplies each.

Cluster A — Rear-mounted camera + in-vehicle display ("backup/reverse aid")

Cluster B — Camera mounting at an existing rear vehicle structure (no vehicle modification)

Cluster C — Enclosure/cover for a vehicle camera

Cluster D — Trailer-hitch alignment displays (iconistic/line-art output and alignment signalling)

What the corpus does not plainly disclose (this is the honest gap): I found no cited reference that expressly shows a camera bracket whose vehicle mounting portion is fastened at the license-plate mounting holes with a flange angled to project rearwardly. The closest structures are Robison's rear-panel bracket ('804, brackets 26) and Kendrick's existing-lamp-assembly housing ('300, suction cups). That element is the apparent point of novelty of claims 1/12/19 and Section 7 addresses how (and how well) § 103 reaches it.

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4. Claim-by-claim obviousness analysis

4.1 Independent claim 1 — the core combination

Proposed ground: Robison US 4,277,804 (primary) in view of Myers US 4,214,266, further in view of Kendrick US 6,175,300, and optionally Schofield US 5,550,677 / 6,396,397 for the sensor/processor.

Claim 1 conclusion: obvious. Every element is disclosed or is a predictable design choice; the only "gap" element (license-plate fastener as the mounting interface) is a location selection supported by express prior-art design requirements (Robison's 20–70% height; Myers' centerline requirement) plus the acknowledged marketplace practice.

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4.2 Independent claim 12 — cover-element combination

Proposed ground: Robison US 4,277,804 (primary) in view of Kendrick US 6,175,300, further in view of US 5,550,677 / 5,796,094.

Claim 12 differs from claim 1 (and drops the display requirement) by requiring that "said imaging sensor bracket includes a cover element which substantially contains said imaging sensor at said sensor mounting portion…, said cover element providing an opening through which said imaging sensor receives light representative of the exterior scene."

• Robison '804 alone nearly anticipates this structure: "rectangular box-like protective enclosure 23… completely closed except for a passageway" + "first transparent window 25 in abutment with the forward end of lens 21" + "aperture 40 in rear panel 16… A second transparent window, outer window 28, is sealed within aperture 40" + shutter 33 + resilient shock-absorbing means 24. That is a cover substantially containing the sensor with an opening (window) through which the sensor receives exterior light. The only distinction a patentee could press is that Robison's cover is inside the panel and the aperture is in the panel, whereas the '656 cover snaps onto the bracket's sensor mounting portion. That is a difference of fastener, not of function.
• Kendrick '300 supplies the elemental-level substitute: a camera housing with "a generally transparent window covering the hole", mounted to existing vehicle structure.
• Motivation: weather/impact protection of the imaging lens — precisely what Robison states ("protecting it from rain, dirt, and impact damage") and what the '656 spec states for its own cosmetic cover. Same problem, same solution, same field.
• The '656 spec neutrally concedes the point: "because the license plate mounting areas of most vehicles is a recessed area… the imaging sensor is already positioned in an area where it is substantially protected from exposure and impact."

Claim 12 conclusion: obvious (and, as to the enclosure-with-window sub-structure, on the verge of anticipated by Robison '804 × Kendrick '300).

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4.3 Independent claim 19 — trailer-hitch-field-of-view combination

Proposed ground: US 4,277,804 (Robison) or US 4,214,266 (Myers) in view of US 6,100,795 (Otterbacher) and/or US 6,592,230 (Dupay).

Claim 19 adds: (i) a "generally vertically oriented" license-plate mounting portion; (ii) the sensor mounting portion angled to extend "generally rearwardly and generally horizontally"; (iii) FOV "including a trailer hitch of the vehicle."

• (i) and (ii) — Robison's mounting panel is expressly "substantially vertical," and the lens axis, projecting through a side wall of the enclosure, is "horizontal and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle." So the "vertical panel / horizontal rearward projection" geometry is squarely Robison's. Myers' "camera… laterally centered" and "tilted upwardly… [with] view angle φ extending upwardly from the horizontal" further confirms that the aiming axis of a rear camera is an adjustable, obvious parameter.
• (iii) The trailer hitch in the field of view — this is the stated purpose of the Cluster D art. Otterbacher '795's background is an admission of the problem verbatim in substance to the '656 specification: "the ball hitch is usually out of viewing because of its location upon the vehicle's bumper… The user must also repeatedly exit and enter the vehicle." Otterbacher locates its receiver unit "attachable to a vehicle adjacent a ball hitch" on the bumper next to the ball hitch; Davis '999 likewise; Dupay '230 mounts the alignment sensor suite on the towing unit targeting the trailer. Once the artisan has decided (per Otterbacher) that the region at the vehicle's own hitch must be sensed from the vehicle, mounting a camera there instead of a signal receiver is the substitution of one known sensor for another to perform the same function — the classic § 103 case (MPEP § 2144.04(IV); KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17).

Claim 19 conclusion: obvious.

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4.4 Dependent claims

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5. Why a PHOSITA would have combined these references (KSR analysis)

A rejection cannot rest on the mere existence of the references; it must articulate why. The following rationales are available and, in my assessment, strong:

(1) The references are in the same field and address the same, expressly articulated problem. Every reference in Clusters A and D is a vehicular rearward-vision or hitch-alignment device. (In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2004) — analogous art where the reference is "reasonably pertinent to the particular problem.") The problem statement in Otterbacher '795 — "the ball hitch is usually out of viewing because of its location upon the vehicle's bumper… The user must also repeatedly exit and enter the vehicle" — is functionally the same problem statement in the '656 specification. That is the strongest possible § 103 hook: the reference frames the same problem the patent frames.

(2) Express design incentives in the prior art point to the very location claimed. Robison '804 requires the camera aperture to lie "between 20% and 70% of the total height of the vehicle" and requires a "wide angle" FOV; Myers '266 requires the camera be "laterally centered on the truck." The intersection of "centerline" and "mid-height of the rear panel" is the license-plate region on virtually every passenger vehicle and light truck. The '656 specification admits the design driver: "most camera or imaging systems or applications require the camera to be mounted on the vehicle centerline for optimum camera functionality." KSR instructs that where a design need is known and the elements are known, the combination is obvious. 550 U.S. at 417.

(3) Kendrick teaches the specific "no-modification" mounting philosophy. Kendrick's stated object is mounting a camera to an existing rear lamp assembly using the lamp's own lens portion and suction cups, avoiding any vehicle modification. A PHOSITA seeking a retrofit/aftermarket rear camera (the '656 spec: "a supplemental mounting scheme for vehicles that are being retrofitted with a reverse aid") would look to the same class of solution and would naturally select the other standard, factory-provided, centerline-located fastener interface on the rear panel: the license-plate mounting holes. This is the "obvious to try" branch of KSR, 550 U.S. at 421.

(4) Predictable results / no unexpected properties. Combining (a) a known camera, (b) a known bracket, (c) a known angle aimed rearwardly/downwardly, (d) a known image processor, and (e) a known display yields nothing more than the sum of the parts, each performing its established function. The only allegedly non-obvious refinement — downgrading a full video screen to a low-cost dot-matrix / line-art display — is expressly framed in the '656 background as a cost problem: "such systems include a display which is typically a video screen which may be expensive to manufacture." Cost reduction by information reduction is a design/economic choice, and Myers '266 (synthetic embossed stadia screen with numerals and cross-hairs) and Dupay '230 ("alpha-numeric display or… a series of LED devices or LED segments") had already shown low-information synthetic displays in exactly this context. Per KSR, "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." 550 U.S. at 417.

(5) Common ownership / shared specification is not required. Notably, several of the strongest secondary references (US 5,949,331; 5,550,677; 5,670,935; 5,796,094; 6,313,454; 6,353,392; 6,222,447; 6,396,397) are Donnelly/Magna's own patents, cited on the face of the '656 and incorporated by reference into its specification. A patentee cannot simultaneously rely on the teachings of those patents for § 112 enablement and deny their availability as § 103 art.

(6) Secondary considerations are, on this record, weak or absent as to the claimed subject matter. The '656 abstract/claims describe a combination whose every commercial component (rear camera, mirror-mounted display, line-art hitch display) had independent prior art. Any objective-indicia argument would need to establish a nexus to the claimed combination — and the strongest candidate (commercial success of Magna's camera family) attaches to the broader Donnelly/Magna vision portfolio, not to the specific license-plate-bracket geometry. I have no evidence in the record of unexpected results, industry skepticism, or copying directed at the '656 claims.

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6. Summary table of proposed § 103 rejections

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7. Where the patentee would fight back (and how good those arguments are)

1. "No reference teaches mounting the bracket at the license-plate fasteners, with the sensor flange angled rearwardly." This is the strongest available argument and is factually correct as to express disclosure. It fails only if the examiner (or a challenger) can articulate the design-choice/motivation rationale of § 5(2)–(3) — i.e., Robison's mandated 20–70% height + Myers' mandated centerline + Kendrick's no-modification mounting philosophy + universal knowledge of the license-plate fastener interface. Under KSR, that is a legally sufficient rationale, but it is a rationale case, not an express-disclosure case. A secondary reference that itself shows a camera or sensor mounted at a license-plate area would convert this into a much cleaner rejection. I did not find one among the cited references, and I will not assert that one exists. (Practitioner note: the post-2003 art in the "Cited By" list — e.g., US 2005/0198876 A1, "Assembly for mounting a monitoring device on a license plate" — post-dates the '656 priority date and is unavailable; it is useful only as evidence of what the field considered routine.)
2. "Otterbacher/Dupay are not camera systems." True. The patentee will argue that displaying an iconistic representation of an object detected by an image processor from a camera image (claims 7, 9–11, 17, 20, 22) is different from Otterbacher's printed hitch indicia plus a lit vehicle shape, or Dupay's laser/sensor coupling-status LEDs. This is a colorable argument and is the second-strongest line of defense. Rebuttal: Alves '314 and Bos '454/'392 supply the image-processing front end; Schofield '447 ('331) supplies the generation of non-photographic travel/guide indicia from a vehicle vision system; and the '656 claims use the deliberately vague term "iconistic representation," which the specification defines only by example ("simple lines or icons," "dot matrix type display"). No specific detection algorithm is claimed.
3. "The '656 claims a low-cost dot-matrix display, and the prior art taught expensive video screens." This cuts both ways: the '656 background criticizes the prior art video screen, and under In re Fulton / MPEP § 2145, criticism of the prior art can weigh against combination — but only where the criticism is of the reference's operability or teaching, not merely its cost. Here the "criticism" is expressly economic ("may be expensive to manufacture and implement"), which is the paradigm of a design/engineering trade-off, not a teaching away. Moreover Dupay '230 already taught reduced-information displays (LED segments, alpha-numeric) in this exact application.
4. Objective indicia. If Magna were to assert the '656 and adduce the commercial success of its rear camera systems, a nexus question arises immediately: the commercial embodiments practice the Donnelly family broadly (the '656 being a continuation of the '974, which is the parent), and the allegedly successful feature (rear camera + mirror display) is present in dozens of earlier Donnelly/Magna patents cited as prior art here. Absent evidence tying success to the license-plate bracket geometry or to the iconistic-representation processing, the nexus fails.

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8. Overall assessment

• Claims 12 and 19 are, in my judgment, the most vulnerable to a § 103 challenge on the cited record: claim 12's enclosure/opening feature is nearly structurally anticipated by Robison US 4,277,804's sealed enclosure 23 with windows 25/28 (plus Kendrick's housing-with-window), and claim 19's trailer-hitch FOV is the stated purpose of Otterbacher US 6,100,795 and Dupay US 6,592,230.
• Claim 1 is vulnerable but requires a motivation-based (rather than disclosure-based) rejection for the license-plate-mount and rearward-angled-flange limitations. I rate it a good, not certain, invalidity case.
• Dependent claims 7 and 9–11 depend on the "iconistic representation" concept. On the cited record they are obvious but not anticipated; they are where the patent retains the most (still modest) defensible scope, and they correspond to the specification's actual contribution — the recognition that a rear camera can be used to drive a cheap, low-information, line-art hitch-alignment display rather than a video screen. Note that the strongest art for these claims (Otterbacher '795; Dupay '230; Schofield '447/'331) was cited on the face of the '656, so the examiner had it.

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9. Confidence and limitations (stated expressly)

1. No anticipation conclusions are asserted. I have not performed an element-by-element § 102 analysis of any single reference and do not represent that any cited reference anticipates claims 1, 12, or 19.
2. I could not verify the substantive disclosure of several cited references — notably US 6,446,999 (Davis), US 5,121,200 (Choi), US 4,937,796 (Tendler), US 6,642,666 (…), and the Japanese/French/German/GB references (JPS 5539843; JPS 58209635; JPS 62122487; JPS 62122844; JPH 0361192; FR 2241085; FR 2585991; FR 2673499; DE 2931368; DE 3248511; GB 2137573; GB 2244187; GB 2327823; EP 0 416 222; EP 0 513 476). References marked ★ are cited only as evidence that a given feature was known in this field, not as verified disclosures. A rejection relying on any of them requires the actual document.
3. The license-plate bracket element is the acknowledged weak point of any § 103 case on the cited corpus. If the task were a validity opinion, my advice would be: (a) run a dedicated search for pre-April-2002 art showing a camera mounted at a vehicle license-plate area (e.g., in DE/JP utility-model art and in the aftermarket accessory literature of 1995–2001), and (b) if none is found, expect the patentee to defeat a § 103 rejection on claim 1 by attacking the motivation to combine, while still conceding claims 12 and 19.
4. Data-quality defects in the source record (chocolate-patent citation; dental-implant "family cites" table; the '672/'772 transcription error) mean the machine-generated tables on the Google Patents page for this record are not reliable as a complete or clean prior-art list. The 66-item "Patent Citations" list is the authoritative face-of-patent set and is what I used.
5. Statutory framework: pre-AIA § 103(a) is applied because both the '656 and its parent were filed before March 16, 2013. If the claims were ever re-examined or challenged under the AIA framing (e.g., in a post-grant or IPR posture), the reference set and thus the analysis would be substantially the same, since every reference pre-dates April 19, 2002 by years.

Sources for this section: the authoritative US 7,265,656 B2 text and its "Patent Citations (66) / Citations (55)" tables as supplied; the parent US 7,005,974 "References Cited" table (freepatentsonline.com/7005974.html); US 4,214,266 (uspto.report/patent/grant/4214266); US 4,277,804 (patents.google.com/patent/US4277804; uspto.report/patent/grant/4277804); US 6,175,300 (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f2/b2/35/74f2bc7eab3faa/US6175300.pdf; slate.greyb.com/app/patent/US6175300B1); US 6,592,230 (patents.google.com/patent/US6592230; freepatentsonline.com/6592230.html; patents.justia.com/patent/20010022731); US 6,100,795 (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/fd/d8/14/fe2113ced6d078/US6100795.pdf; patents.google.com/patent/US6100795; uspto.report/patent/grant/6100795).