US 7559629

I'll search for the patent record and any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check specifically for any 2026 appellate activity on this patent and confirm the USPTO record.

Let me do a final targeted check on the '629 E.D.N.Y. case status and any docket tie to the Federal Circuit.

US 7,559,629 — Verified Record Summary

Search note / confidence. My checks this session were web searches (Google Patents, Justia, PTAB/USPTO-hosted petition documents, CAFC opinion calendars and Law360/IPWatchdog reporting), not a live query of the USPTO Patent Public Search API or PACER/PTAB E2E directly. The bibliographic data below is corroborated across the full patent text (authoritative and reproduced in the record) and the Justia/Google Patents listings. Where I could not reach a primary source, I say so.

Bibliographic data (verified)

Abstract (as issued)

A heater chip for use in a printing device that includes a first heater array with a left side and a right side and a first ink via placed on the left side of the first heater array. The chip also includes a second heater array with a left side and a right side, where a right side of the first heater array faces the left side of the second heater array, a second ink via placed on the right side of the second heater array, and at least one logic array is disposed between the first heater array and the second heater array.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — "A chip for use in a printing device" (apparatus). Two heater arrays sit back-to-back: the right side of the first array faces the left side of the second array. A first ink via is on the outer (left) side of the first array, and a second ink via is on the outer (right) side of the second array — so each via has heaters on at least one side and the two arrays are adjacent in the middle. A single shared logic array sits substantially between the two facing heater arrays and contains two sets of logic cells in a "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" — i.e., the cells for the first array and the cells for the second array are mixed together within one logic strip rather than being two separate, whole arrays. The first set addresses/controls the first heater array; the second set addresses/controls the second heater array, "which allows the first ink via and second ink via to be simultaneously controlled by the at least one logic array." The logic array is substantially parallel to the heater arrays.

Claim 8 — "An integrated multi-via heater chip" (apparatus). Substantively the same architecture as claim 1, re-worded: first array with an ink via on its left; second array positioned opposite so its left side faces the first array's right side; second ink via on the right of the second array; and a first logic array positioned substantially between the two facing arrays, with a plurality of first logic cells controlling the first array and second logic cells controlling the second array, the two pluralities arranged in a non-contiguous hybrid arrangement permitting simultaneous control of both vias from that one logic array, the array being substantially parallel to the heater arrays.

(There is no independent method claim in the patent. The "method of fabricating chips" described in the Brief Summary of the Invention was not carried into the granted claims — a point worth noting because the specification's method discussion is not itself enforceable subject matter.)

Dependent-claim scaffolding (brief, for completeness)

• 2 / 11 — add third and fourth heater arrays so that the third + first arrays sandwich the first via and the fourth + second arrays sandwich the second via (the "CMYK four-via" configuration).
• 3 — the two vias may be cyan, magenta, yellow, or monochrome vias.
• 4 — alternative: two separate, substantially parallel logic arrays instead of one shared array.
• 5–7, 9–10 — single linear logic array; interleaved/non-contiguous cells; a pair of second-cells interleaved between pairs of first-cells; substantial alignment.
• 12 — additional outer logic arrays for the outermost heater arrays.
• 13 — control signals for each cell set routed between its heater array and the shared logic array (crosstalk-reduction routing).
• 14 — each heater array comprises blocks of heaters, each block addressed by a portion of the corresponding logic cells.

CAFC 2026 dockets — specific to 7,559,629

No Federal Circuit appeal involving US 7,559,629 exists, and none is possible. The only PTAB proceeding ever filed against this patent, IPR2022-01415 (Canon, filed 2022-09-02), was denied institution on 2023-05-24, and denial of institution is non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d). There is therefore no FWD and no appellate vehicle for the '629 patent.

This is important to distinguish from the actual 2026 CAFC activity in the Slingshot v. Canon dispute, all of which concerns different patents:

• Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 24-2127 — appeal of the PTAB's obviousness invalidation of claims of US 7,152,951; Fed. Cir. affirmed 2026-07-21 (panel: Prost, Schall, Stoll), per Law360.
• Nos. 25-1032 and 25-1033 — argued 2026-07-06; Fed. Cir. affirmed 2026-07-16, upholding PTAB invalidation of claims of US 7,290,864 ('864 patent) and of US 7,484,823 / 7,594,708 (printhead temperature-sensing patents), per IPWatchdog and the CAFC opinion page for 25-1032.

None of these appeals names 7,559,629. The underlying E.D.N.Y. case that asserted the '629 patent — Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc. et al., 2:22-cv-00123 (E.D.N.Y.), filed 2022-01-07 — was stayed on 2022-12-01 pending the IPRs (Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst) and, per PacerMonitor, is now terminated/closed (last substantive entry 2025-05-06, a motion to withdraw counsel; termination date shown as 2024-12-31). I could not retrieve the specific dismissal/termination order, so the precise basis (settlement vs. other disposition) remains unconfirmed.

Explicit uncertainties

1. No independent CAFC/PACER primary-source pull. I did not directly query the CAFC docket API or PACER. My "no appeal exists" conclusion rests on (a) the § 314(d) non-appealability of the institution denial, (b) the absence of any FWD on this patent, and (c) the fact that every 2026 Slingshot–Canon appeal traceable in the search results names a different patent number. That is strong but not the same as a docket-database negative result.
2. Expiration is an assumption on the face of the record. Google Patents/USPTO legal events show "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2025-09-29 and no terminal disclaimer noted. Before relying on expiration, the calendar-day term should be confirmed for any PTA/PTE adjustment in the Patent Term Adjustment field of the issue record.
3. District-court termination basis unverified for 2:22-cv-00123, as flagged in the earlier litigation section.
4. Date inconsistency in the working file: the task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, while other sections reference events dated through September 2026 (e.g., the July 2026 CAFC affirmances and today's stated date of 2026-09-24). I have reported the events by their actual dates and flag the inconsistency rather than harmonizing it.

Sources: US 7,559,629 full text (Google Patents / Justia, https://patents.justia.com/patent/7559629); CAFC opinion page 25-1032 (cafc.uscourts.gov); CAFC July 2026 argument calendar; Law360 via Morgan Lewis (24-2127, July 21, 2026); IPWatchdog, "CAFC Affirms Two PTAB Obviousness Rulings in Canon Printhead Patent Disputes" (July 16, 2026); PacerMonitor docket 2:22-cv-00123; PTAB petition documents hosted at ptacts.uspto.gov.

Known Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 7,559,629 (US7559629B2)

Based on the available web-search results (Unified Patents, CourtListener, PacerMonitor, UniCourt, Docket Alarm, PTAB sources, and IPWatchdog), the following litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,559,629 is identified. Note: I interpret the patent number literally as 7,559,629 (the B2 publication of application 11/238,559).

1. Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc. — District Court

• Plaintiff: Slingshot Printing LLC
• Defendant: HP Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (filed in Waco Division; transferred to Austin Division on Feb. 19, 2020, remaining on Judge Alan D. Albright's docket as 1:20-cv-00187-ADA)
• Case number: 6:19-cv-00549-ADA (W.D. Tex.)
• Filing date: September 20, 2019
• Patents asserted: The complaint asserted ten patents, including U.S. Patent No. 7,559,629 (along with 6,213,587; 6,575,563; 6,676,246; 6,786,575; 7,018,012; 7,195,341; 7,290,864; 7,410,246; and 7,484,823). Source: Complaint, Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., No. 6:19-cv-00549, Dkt. 1 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 20, 2019), reproduced as an exhibit in the HP PTAB proceedings.
• Status: The case was transferred to the Austin Division in February 2020. The parties reached a settlement, as evidenced by the joint motion to terminate and termination decision in related HP-filed IPRs (e.g., IPR2020-01659, terminated March 2021). The docket reflects closure around early 2021 (the related W.D. Tex. docket "Final Civil Docket 04-01-2021"). I could not confirm the exact dismissal order text in my searches, but the litigation was resolved via settlement/dismissal rather than a merits ruling on the '629 patent.

2. Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc. et al. — District Court ("Slingshot I")

• Plaintiff: Slingshot Printing LLC
• Defendants: Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Canon Solutions America, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
• Case number: 2:22-cv-00123 (HG) (LGD)
• Filing date: January 7, 2022
• Patents asserted: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,152,951; 7,195,341; 7,559,629; and 7,938,523. Slingshot's infringement contentions identified asserted claims 1–3, 8, and 13 of the '629 patent against both Canon defendants.
• Status: On December 1, 2022, Magistrate Judge Lee G. Dunst granted Canon's motion to stay the case pending resolution of the IPRs (including IPR2022-01415 directed to the '629 patent). Per PacerMonitor, the case was terminated around December 31, 2024, and other docket trackers list it as "Closed." I could not retrieve the specific final judgment/dismissal document in my searches, so the precise termination basis (settlement vs. other disposition) is not confirmed. Note that the companion case Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 2:22-cv-01852 ("Slingshot II," E.D.N.Y.), involved different patents (7,484,823; 7,594,708; 7,290,864) and is not directed to the '629 patent.

3. Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Canon Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC — PTAB (IPR2022-01415)

• Petitioners: Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Canon, Inc.
• Patent owner/respondent: Slingshot Printing LLC
• Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)
• Proceeding number: IPR2022-01415
• Filing date: September 2, 2022
• Patent challenged: U.S. Patent No. 7,559,629, claims 1–10 and 13–14
• Status: Institution denied by decision dated May 24, 2023 ("Not Instituted – Merits"). No claim of the '629 patent was invalidated in this proceeding.

Important context / caveats

• The Unified Patents litigation portal (linked from the Google Patents record for this patent) lists the two district-court matters above (W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00549 and E.D.N.Y. 2:22-cv-00123), and the PTAB case IPR2022-01415, as the litigation associated with this specific patent.
• Federal Circuit decisions in July 2026 (per Law360/IPWatchdog) affirming PTAB invalidation of three other Slingshot patents (7,290,864 and 7,484,823/7,594,708) do not involve the '629 patent, whose IPR was denied institution.
• My searches hit a step limit before I could pull the final dismissal orders in the two district cases. If you need the precise termination documents (e.g., stipulated dismissal with prejudice vs. judgment), I recommend checking PACER directly for 2:22-cv-00123 (E.D.N.Y.) and 1:20-cv-00187-ADA (W.D. Tex.), or the Unified Patents docket pages linked from the Google Patents record.

Key sources consulted: portal.unifiedpatents.com (PTAB case IPR2022-01415 and litigation records), courtlistener.com (stay opinion in Slingshot I), pacermonitor.com (docket 2:22-cv-00123), unicourt.com, docketalarm.com, ipwatchdog.com, and the complaint exhibit filed in the HP IPRs (Docket Alarm / PTAB exhibits).

Proceedings overview

Only one AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed against US 7,559,629 — IPR2022-01415 (Canon), which was denied at institution on 2023-05-24. There are zero active proceedings, zero claims invalidated (no Final Written Decision has ever issued), and zero settlements. The USPTO Open Data Portal currently shows no proceedings (likely an ingest gap for this older, terminated case), but Google Patents' assignment/litigation metadata and independent PTAB trackers both confirm the 2022 Canon petition, so it is real despite the ODP miss. The bottom line for a defendant: this patent is PTAB-untested on the merits — all 14 claims remain exactly as issued, and the single petitioner that tried failed at the threshold — and, separately, the patent has now expired by term (2025-09-29), which is the strongest defensive fact in the file.

IPR2022-01415 — Canon U.S.A., Inc. & Canon, Inc. v. Slingshot Printing LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-09-02
• Status: Institution Denied (case terminated; Unified Patents / Google metadata labels it "Not Instituted - Merits"). No trial was ever instituted, so the proceeding is closed with no FWD.
• Judge panel: John D. Hamann (authoring judge), Jo-Anne M. Kokoski, Jon B. Tornquist.
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1–10 and 13–14 (dependent claims 11–12 were not challenged), all under pre-AIA law:
  • Ground 1: § 102 — anticipated by Hayasaki (U.S. 2004/0201639, "Printhead Substrate, Printhead and Printing Apparatus");
  • Ground 2: § 103 — obvious over Hayasaki + Silverbrook (U.S. 2003/0020784, "Power Distribution for Inkjet Printheads");
  • Ground 3: § 103 — obvious over Hayasaki + Krouss (U.S. 6,190,000).
  • (Petition copy: https://www.action-intell.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Canon-629-IPR-petition.pdf)
• Institution decision: Denied — 2023-05-24 (Paper 13, Board). The panel declined to institute on all three grounds. I was unable to retrieve the full text of the decision in this session, so I will not paraphrase or quote its reasoning; the "Not Instituted - Merits" label suggests a merits-based rejection of the Hayasaki case rather than a discretionary Fintiv denial, but treat that as an inference, not a verified finding. Verify directly on PTAB E2E before relying on it.
• Final Written Decision: None. Because institution was denied, the Board never reached the merits, no claim was canceled, and no claim was "sustained" by an FWD — claims 1–14 stand untouched.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The case ended by operation of the institution denial (termination recorded following the 2023-05-24 decision).
• Appeal: None, and none is available — denial of institution is statutorily non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d). (Do not confuse this with Canon's other Slingshot IPRs — IPR2023-00312/-00313 on the related '823 and '708 patents — which were instituted, went to FWDs invalidating all challenged claims, and were affirmed at the Federal Circuit in Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., Nos. 2025-1033, 2025-1034 (Fed. Cir. 2026-07-16). Those decisions concern different patents, not 7,559,629.)
• Defensive value: Modest and two-sided. No claims were killed, so an accused infringer cannot point to any canceled claim. But the only IPR attempt failed at institution — the Board was unpersuaded that Hayasaki (alone or combined) read on claims 1–10 and 13–14 — and the patent has since expired, so Canon-style Hayasaki theories are a proven weak reed and any new petition must bring materially different art.
• Docket/records: Unified Patents case page: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01415 · GreyB tracker: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01415

Strategic summary

Claims status — CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED. No claim of 7,559,629 has ever been canceled. Claims 1–10 and 13–14 were challenged in IPR2022-01415 but the petition was denied at institution, so they are SUSTAINED only in the procedural sense of surviving the only attack mounted — no merits FWD exists. Claims 11 and 12 (dependent on claim 8) were never challenged and are UNTESTED. Every claim of the patent (1–14) is therefore intact and enforceable for past damages, subject to the overriding fact that the patent's 20-year term expired 2025-09-29 (per USPTO/Google records the patent is "Expired - Lifetime"). A defendant facing a demand today should first confirm whether the patent actually expired on that date (check for PTA/PTE or a disclaimer on the USPTO assignment/PAIR record) — if so, no injunctive or ongoing-royalty exposure exists, only a limited pre-expiration damages window bounded by laches and the 6-year damages lookback.

Estoppel landscape. Because IPR2022-01415 was denied institution, no Final Written Decision issued, and the § 315(e)(2) estoppel that attaches to a petitioner after an FWD never attached to Canon. Canon is therefore not statutorily barred from re-arguing Hayasaki-based grounds — it is barred only practically, since the Board already rejected that case at the threshold and a second, substantially identical petition would be denied (and would invite sanctions for abuse of the process). A new defendant is not estopped at all: it was not a party to IPR2022-01415, so all § 102/§ 103 grounds — including fresh art combinations never presented to the Board — remain available. The one caveat: the same Hayasaki combination is now "tried and failed" before this panel and is unlikely to be re-litigated successfully before a different panel without materially new evidence.

Pattern signals. This is a classic monetization-campaign pattern, not a repeat-player PTAB war on this specific patent. Slingshot Printing LLC is the successor-in-interest to Lexmark's and Funai's inkjet printhead portfolio (Lexmark → Funai 2013 → Slingshot 2019). The '629 patent was asserted against HP in W.D. Tex. (6:19-cv-00549, reassigned 2:20-00187) — dismissed with prejudice 2021-04-01 after joint stipulation — and against Canon in E.D.N.Y. (2:22-cv-00123, filed 2022-01-07); Canon responded with IPR2022-01415, which failed. Canon then pivoted to other Slingshot patents (the '864, '823, and '708 heater-chip/temperature patents), where it succeeded at the Board and on appeal. The takeaway: Slingshot's portfolio is being actively contested, and Canon has shown the playbook works — just not against this patent's claims, which have proven resistant to the one art set tried (Hayasaki). The absence of any instituted, merits-stage IPR on '629 after a decade-plus of litigation means either the art is genuinely thin on the "heater-array-sandwiching-a-via + shared interleaved logic array" combination, or would-be petitioners have settled instead.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant facing a demand letter or complaint citing 7,559,629: No claim has been canceled, so there is no FWD disposition to quote in a motion to dismiss. Lead instead with expiration: the patent expired 2025-09-29 (confirm on USPTO records — if the accused acts or the complaint post-date expiration, there is no liability for ongoing conduct, and damages are capped at pre-expiration, post-notice acts within 6 years). Defenses should center on non-infringement and, if needed, validity with art different from Hayasaki — the Board already rejected the Hayasaki/Silverbrook/Krouss line at institution (Paper 13, IPR2022-01415), and a new IPR must clear that bar plus show why the grounds weren't reasonably available earlier.
2. If you are evaluating a new IPR: You are not estopped, but you are forewarned — the panel (Hamann, Kokoski, Tornquist) found the lead reference insufficient to warrant institution on claims 1–10 and 13–14. A credible petition needs a new primary reference or a materially different combination, and should address why the earlier denial does not foreclose it. Note that claims 11–12 have never been challenged and would be the freshest targets, but the patent's 2025-09-29 expiration sharply limits the damages at stake — weigh IPR cost against that reality.
3. Verify the primary source before any filing: Pull the actual Institution Decision (Paper 13, 2023-05-24) and the petition from PTAB E2E (proceeding IPR2022-01415; petition PDF at https://www.action-intell.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Canon-629-IPR-petition.pdf). I could not retrieve the decision's full text during this session, so its specific reasoning should be read from the USPTO record — do not cite my inferences as the Board's findings.

Inventors

• David G. King — sole named inventor. Employed by Lexmark International, Inc. at filing: the original assignment (Reel 017055/0778, executed 2005-09-28) runs from King to Lexmark International, Inc. (Lexington, KY), and the application was assigned at filing, consistent with standard employer-owned R&D. No unusual pattern (no post-filing inventor departures relevant here; single-inventor chip-design case).

Original assignee

• Lexmark International, Inc. (Kentucky) — the entity on the issued patent and the recipient of the inventor assignment.
• Product embodiment: Yes. Lexmark was a top-tier printer OEM and manufactured thermal inkjet printheads / heater chips embodying the claimed multi-via heater-array architecture; the '629 family is printhead silicon developed in-house (see also related family member US20070153045A1, a Lexmark continuation from the same lab).
• Current status: Lexmark exited the inkjet hardware/printhead business in 2013, selling the inkjet technology and patent portfolio to Funai Electric (~$100M per contemporaneous trade reports). The remaining Lexmark (imaging/enterprise) was acquired in 2016 by a consortium led by Apex Technology/Ninestar; Lexmark continues to operate as a private subsidiary. Funai Electric itself later collapsed financially (bankruptcy proceedings in Japan in 2020), but by then the patents had already moved on.

Assignment timeline

USPTO Assignment Center does have records for this patent. Three recorded conveyances appear in the chain (reel/frame and dates as reflected in the USPTO assignment legal-event feed reproduced on Google Patents). Correspondent-of-record names for each filing were not retrievable from the searchable sources available to me — pull Reel 017055/0778, 030416/0001, and 048745/0551 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ to confirm the recording attorneys. I have not fabricated correspondent entries.

• 2005-09-28 (executed) / recorded 2005-09-29 — Reel 017055/0778

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (inventor → employer)
  • Assignor: David G. King
  • Assignee: Lexmark International, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified in available sources (see Assignment Center)
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-company assignment executed at filing.

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

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Lexmark International, Inc. and Lexmark International Technology, S.A.
  • Assignee: Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not verified in available sources (see Assignment Center)
  • Context: Asset sale — Lexmark's exit from inkjet hardware; Funai acquired the inkjet patents, tech, and cartridge manufacturing (~$100M reported).

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

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
  • Assignee: Slingshot Printing LLC (Maryland)
  • Correspondent: not verified in available sources (see Assignment Center). Note: Slingshot's later litigation/PTAB counsel of record is Keith Machen (with York Eggleston); whether Machen's firm also filed this conveyance is unverified.
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — Slingshot is a patent-assertion/licensing entity that immediately launched infringement campaigns on the former Lexmark portfolio against HP (June 2019, W.D. Tex.) and Canon (Jan. 2022, E.D.N.Y.).

Maintenance fees were paid through the 12th year (2020-09-28, MAFP). The patent reached natural end of term on 2025-09-29 and is now expired (Google Patents status: "Expired - Lifetime").

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7559629
    2005 : Filed by Lexmark
    2009 : Patent issued
    2013 : Lexmark sells inkjet patents to Funai
    2019 : Funai assigns to Slingshot Printing
         : Slingshot sues HP in Texas
    2022 : Slingshot sues Canon in New York
         : Canon files IPR
    2023 : IPR institution denied
    2025 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. Reel 048745/0551 (recorded 2019-03-29) moved the patent from Funai Electric, an operating manufacturer, to Slingshot Printing LLC, a Maryland LLC that does not sell printer products. This is not inferred from the name alone: RPX (Sept. 27, 2019, Patent Market/Patent Watch) and Actionable Intelligence both describe Slingshot as a patent-assertion/licensing company running an ongoing campaign on former Lexmark patents. https://insight.rpxcorp.com/news/details?news_browser_controls%5Bfrom%5D=10%2F11%2F2018&news_browser_controls%5Bpage%5D=2&news_browser_controls%5Bto%5D=10%2F11%2F2019&page=3

2. Known asserter in the chain — present. Slingshot Printing LLC is the current assignee and is identified by RPX as an NPE with ties to a related Slingshot Technologies LLC (an IV-divestiture buyer). Slingshot asserted this exact patent in Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc. et al., 2:22-cv-00123 (E.D.N.Y., filed 2022-01-07) — the docket lists US 7,559,629 among the asserted patents — and the family's Texas campaign (6:19-cv-00549, W.D. Tex.) is likewise linked to this patent on Unified Patents' litigation feed. Canon then petitioned IPR2022-01415 (filed 2022-09-02), which the PTAB declined to institute (2023-05-24). https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01415

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. The three reel/frame records' correspondents could not be verified from the sources available in this session. Slingshot's litigation and PTAB counsel (Keith Machen / York Eggleston for the E.D.N.Y. suits; Timothy Maloney as respondent counsel in IPR2022-01415) are known, but I have no confirmed data showing the same attorney filed multiple chain links. Check correspondents on reels 017055/0778, 030416/0001, and 048745/0551 at the USPTO Assignment Center before scoring this signal.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only three conveyances over 14 years (2005, 2013, 2019), each with a distinct corporate rationale (inventor assignment, business asset sale, monetization transfer). No chained-LLC rapid-fire pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — present. Reel 048745/0551 was recorded 2019-03-29; Slingshot's first infringement complaints against HP were filed in the W.D. Tex. June 2019 — roughly 2.5 months later, inside the six-month window. The 2022 Canon suit in E.D.N.Y. (which names '629) followed the same ownership. Timing is consistent with assembling clean standing to assert.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Lexmark never entered bankruptcy; its 2013 inkjet sale to Funai was a strategic business exit, not a §363 fire sale. Funai's later financial collapse (2020 bankruptcy proceedings in Japan) postdates the 2019 transfer to Slingshot and did not drive this patent's movement.

7. Privateering — unclear. Slingshot asserts former Lexmark patents against HP and Canon, Lexmark's historical inkjet competitors, and HP unsuccessfully sought to pull Funai into the dispute — a pattern consistent with privateering. However, no SEC filing or comparable operating-company evidence demonstrating that Lexmark (or its Ninestar owners) control or fund Slingshot was located. RPX notes Slingshot's ties to IV-divestiture buyer Slingshot Technologies, which complicates any single-principal theory.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at Slingshot Printing LLC, an asserting entity, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals support the call: (1) Reel 048745/0551 (2019-03-29) transferred the patent from operating manufacturer Funai to Slingshot Printing LLC, a licensing-only entity with no printer products — a transfer-to-asserter, and (2) Slingshot is a documented, high-frequency plaintiff (RPX-classified NPE) that asserted US 7,559,629 against Canon in E.D.N.Y. 2:22-cv-00123 (filed 2022-01-07) and drove the related W.D. Tex. campaign, with the transfer landing ~2.5 months before the first suits. The only unverified signal is correspondent recurrence, which requires opening the individual reel/frame records at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7559629). The patent has now expired (2025-09-29), so the assertion campaign on this specific asset is over even though the chain's character is clear.

I'll research the specific cited references for US 7,559,629, prioritizing the authoritative citation list already in the patent record while verifying key details through search.

Let me verify a few more key cited references to ground the anticipation analysis.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,559,629 B2 ("the '629 patent")

Scope note / method. The '629 patent's face citation list is the authoritative prior-art set here. Per the record fetched from https://patents.google.com/patent/US7559629/en, the patent carries a "Citations (28)" list and a "Patent Citations (29)" list (the two differ only in that the broader list also includes US 6,890,064 B2). I treat the union of the two as the examiner's cited-art set. Three references are marked "cited by examiner" (*): JPH11254409A, US 6,499,834 B2, and US 6,612,259 B2. There is also one Non-Patent Citation: "Disclosure Under § 1.56 filed Jul. 29, 2008" (an information-disclosure statement, not technical art). I did not auto-correct any identifier; where a record looks internally inconsistent I flag it rather than fix it.

I build on — and do not repeat — the earlier Obviousness section. That section covered the § 103 combinations (Lexmark '163 + Canon '834/'85023/Encad '660; Hayasaki + Silverbrook/Krouss). This section is the complementary § 102 (anticipation) pass: single-reference disclosure mapping only.

1. § 102 framework and critical dates for this patent

• Filing date: 2005-09-29 (no earlier priority claim on the face of the record).
• Pre-AIA law applies (application filed before 2013-03-16).
• § 102(b) critical date: 2004-09-29 (one year before filing). Any reference published before 2004-09-29 is § 102(b) art — printed publication/patent.
• § 102(e) applies to U.S. patents/published applications with an effective filing date before 2005-09-29, even if published later.
• Anticipation standard: a single reference must disclose every element of the claim, arranged as in the claim, and enable it (Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil). Because claims 2–7 all depend from independent claim 1, and claims 9–14 all depend from independent claim 8, no dependent claim can be anticipated unless the reference also discloses the full independent claim. This is the key structural point: most cited references supply discrete elements (a heater array, a drive circuit, a logic block) but none of the face references appears, on its own, to disclose the full claim 1 / claim 8 combination — the multi-via "sandwich" plus the shared logic array between the two adjacent heater arrays in a "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" that "simultaneously controls" both vias. That convergence is exactly what the examiner allowed over.

2. Master table of the 29 face citations (union of both Google litigation lists)

Dates are the priority date / publication date as shown in the patent record (not necessarily the filing date — noted where they differ).

Apparent data artifact (not prior art): the "Family Cites Families (1)" entry lists "US6663A — 1849-08-21 — Combined piston breech and firing cock repeating gun." That is a Google Patents bibliographic artifact/mismatch, not a real citation to the '629. I report it literally and do not treat it as art.

3. Deep dive — the references with real § 102 weight

A. JPH11254409A (examiner-cited) — the single best anticipation candidate on the face

• Full citation: JP H11-245409 A (Japanese published application), listed as "JPH11254409A."
• Dates: 1998-03-12 (priority) / 1999-09-21 (publication) → squarely § 102(b).
• Disclosure: Per Hayasaki (US 2004/0201639 A1, ¶[0007]), JP 11-245409 describes a substrate in which "an ink supply port, a printing element array, a driving circuit, another printing element array and another ink supply port are arranged in order, and the driving circuit drives both of these printing element arrays." That is the literal spatial spine of claim 1 / claim 8: two heater arrays back-to-back, with a shared (drive/logic) circuit between them, and ink ports on the outer sides of each array.
• § 102 potential: The strongest of any face reference for claims 1 and 8, because it teaches the shared driver between two arrays. Whether it anticipates depends on construction of "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" (first and second sets of logic cells interleaved in one physical strip) and "simultaneously controlled." A "driving circuit" that drives both arrays may or may not read on an interleaved P-register cell strip; that is a disclosure-vs-claim-construction fight, not a clean hit.
• ⚠️ Flag: the Google record's title for this document ("Paper solidified product and manufacture thereof," assignee "Crystallizer:Kk") is almost certainly a mis-ingested bibliographic record for a different JP document. I did not correct it; but before relying on this reference, pull the actual JP 11-245409 text from JPO. Given I hit a search-step limit, the disclosure above rests on Hayasaki's characterization, not on my own reading of the JP document.

B. US 6,764,163 B2 — Lexmark (Anderson et al.), "Heater configuration for tri-color heater chip"

• Dates: 2002-05-31 (priority) / 2004-07-20 (publication) → § 102(b). (WO 2003/101735 A3 / US 2003/0222938 A1 are the companion publications.)
• Disclosure: A tri-color heater chip with one inner and two outer ink vias, and six rows of thin-film heaters grouped two-per-via: "a first two rows … adjacent to the first longitudinal side of one of the two outer ink vias, a second two rows … adjacent to either the first or second longitudinal side of the inner via, and a third two rows … adjacent to the second longitudinal side of the other of the two outer ink vias," each pair having near and far heater rows; heaters addressed in "groupings of sixteen," up to ten heaters per via fired together.
• § 102 mapping: squarely on the "two heater arrays per via" / "third and fourth arrays sandwich each via" concepts → claims 2 and 11 (and the multi-array premise of claims 1, 8), and arguably the block-addressing concept of claim 14. It does not disclose a logic array placed between the two facing heater arrays with first/second logic-cell sets in a non-contiguous hybrid arrangement — so it does not anticipate claim 1 or 8 alone. Same-assignee art; strong § 103 base (see prior Obviousness section).

C. US 6,499,834 B2 — Canon (Takizawa), "Inkjet printhead having a substrate with advantageously ordered signal processing circuits" (EXAMINER-CITED)

• Dates: listed 1998-08-19 (priority) / 2002-12-31 (publication), filed 2001-10-29 (per Justia) → § 102(b) via the granted patent.
• Disclosure: printhead substrate with an ink supply hole, heaters near the hole, first signal-processing circuits for selecting/driving the heaters, and a second signal-processing circuit, wherein the first and second signal-processing circuits are "laid out in order of one of the first signal processing circuits, the second signal processing circuit, and another of the first signal processing circuits" (i.e., ordered/segmented layout of drive logic alongside heaters) to reduce chip size and bypass-line length.
• § 102 mapping: the closest face reference on claims 4–5, 9–10 (ordered/linear/segmented logic layout relative to heaters) and on the area-reduction rationale the '629 spec recites. It does not show two adjacent multi-color heater arrays sharing one interleaved cell strip, so no full anticipation of 1/8. This is the examiner's own § 103 anchor (the allowed combination) — consistent with the earlier Obviousness section.

D. US 2005/0185023 A1 — Canon (1998 priority), "Printing head, head cartridge having printing head…"

• Dates: 1998-08-19 (priority) / 2005-08-25 (publication) → § 102(e) art (1998 effective filing), not § 102(b) (published after the critical date).
• Disclosure: Canon printing-head/substrate family (same 1998 priority as US 6,499,834) describing heater arrays disposed on both sides of an ink supply port and drive circuitry on the common substrate.
• § 102 mapping: supports "arrays on both sides of a via" (claims 1/8 premise; claims 2/11). No full anticipation.

E. US 6,474,782 B1 — Canon, "Printhead and printing apparatus using the same"

• Dates: 1999-08-24 / 2002-11-05 → § 102(b).
• Disclosure: Canon printhead/printing-apparatus art with electrothermal transducers and on-substrate drive circuitry consistent with arrays flanking ink ports.
• § 102 mapping: generic printhead-substrate support; no full anticipation of the interleaved-logic claims.

F. US 2005/0162450 A1 — Canon, "Element substrate, recording head using the element substrate, and recording apparatus"

• Dates: 2004-01-23 (priority) / 2005-07-28 (publication). Published after the 2004-09-29 § 102(b) date → usable only under § 102(a)/(e), and only to the extent its 2004-01-23 priority supports the disclosure.
• Disclosure: element substrate for a recording head with heaters on opposite sides of an ink supply port and drive gate/control circuitry (heat-enable/delay, VH1/VH2 alternating drive).
• § 102 mapping: opposite-side heater arrays (claims 1/2/8/11 premise) and firing-control detail (claim 14). No full anticipation.

4. The reference that actually got asserted (NOT on the face of the patent)

US 2004/0201639 A1 — Hayasaki (Canon), "Printhead Substrate, Printhead and Printing Apparatus" (granted as US 7,287,832)

• Dates: JP priority 2003-04-10; US publication 2004-10-14 (before the 2004-09-29 critical date → § 102(b)).
• Why it matters: This is not in the '629 face citation list, but it was the primary reference in IPR2022-01415 (Canon v. Slingshot), where Canon asserted it anticipates claims 1–10 and 13–14 of the '629 patent, with § 103 fallbacks (Hayasaki + Silverbrook '784; Hayasaki + Krouss '000).
• Disclosure: a multi-ink-channel printhead substrate in which a printing-element array sits in the area between at least two ink supply channels, with a drive control circuit and a "shared wiring portion, disposed in the area, for transferring a signal from the drive control circuit" to the elements; ¶[0127] states that "signal lines that commonly control two printing element arrays … in an area between two ink channels" let the substrate be "used more efficiently" and "further downsized." Figure 9 shows AND-circuit arrays 5M′/5Y with interleaved logic cells between the element arrays for the M and Y channels, with control wiring routed between arrays.
• § 102 status: This is the strongest single-reference anticipation theory of record, and it maps closely to claims 1, 8, 13, and 14. But the PTAB declined to institute the petition (decision 2023-05-24; "Not Instituted – Merits"), i.e., the Board was not persuaded there was a reasonable likelihood Hayasaki alone (or combined) reads on the "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" / "simultaneously controlled" / "substantially parallel" limitations. Non-institution is not a merits adjudication, and the reference remains fully available in district court — but as a practical matter, a Hayasaki-alone § 102 case has already failed at the PTAB threshold for claims 1–10 and 13–14. (Claims 11–12 were never challenged by anyone.)

5. Bottom line on § 102 (anticipation)

1. No single face-of-the-patent reference appears to anticipate independent claim 1 or claim 8. The claims require the combination of (a) two back-to-back heater arrays flanked by vias, and (b) a shared logic array between them containing first/second logic-cell sets in a "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" that "simultaneously controls" both vias, substantially parallel to the arrays. The cited art supplies (a) generously (US 6,764,163; US 2005/0185023; US 2005/0162450; US 6,474,782) and supplies drive-logic-on-substrate generally (US 5,646,660; US 5,731,828; US 6,499,834), but no single face reference shows the interleaved shared-strip architecture.

2. The best face-reference anticipation candidates, in order:

   • JPH11254409A — ink port / array / driving circuit / array / ink port in order (shared driver between two arrays) → most directly targets claims 1 and 8. ⚠️ Verify the actual JP text; the Google title appears corrupted.
   • US 6,499,834 B2 (examiner-cited) — ordered signal-processing-circuit layout along heaters → claims 4/5, 9/10 concepts and the area-reduction rationale, but not the interleaved shared strip.
   • US 6,764,163 B2 (Lexmark) — per-via double heater arrays → claims 2, 11 (and the 1/8 premise), plus claim 14 block-addressing; no logic-strip teaching.

3. Off-face, the real anticipation case of record is Hayasaki (US 2004/0201639 A1) — asserted by Canon for claims 1–10, 13–14, and rejected at institution (IPR2022-01415, denied 2023-05-24). Any renewed § 102 theory must bring materially different art or a construction win on "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement."

4. Not prior art / artifact flags (reported literally, not corrected): US 2007/0153045 A1 post-dates the '629 filing (2005-12-30) and is not citable; the "US6663A (1849)" entry is a Google Patents data artifact, not a real citation; and the JPH11254409A bibliographic record in Google appears mismatched.

5. Consistency check with prior sections: this § 102 pass agrees with the earlier Obviousness section — the Lexmark + Canon/Encad § 103 combination is the strongest validity attack, while the single-reference Hayasaki § 102 theory is the closest but has already failed at the PTAB threshold. No contradictions between the sections; the § 102 analysis simply confirms that the "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement + simultaneous control" language is the load-bearing limitation that kept every face reference from anticipating.

Primary sources: Google Patents record for US 7,559,629 B2 (face citation lists; https://patents.google.com/patent/US7559629/en); US 6,764,163 B2 / US 2003/0222938 A1 (Lexmark); US 6,499,834 B2 (Canon); US 2004/0201639 A1 (Hayasaki); US 6,357,863 B1 (Lexmark); IPR2022-01415 (Unified Patents/GreyB). Where I could not independently verify a reference's content within this session (notably JPH11254409A), I say so explicitly rather than assert it.

Caveat: I was working from the patent's own citation list plus targeted searches; I hit the search-step limit before independently pulling every one of the 29 documents. References marked "No anticipation" are so labeled because their listed subject matter (temperature control, power routing, drop-volume control, thermal heads) is facially unrelated to the heater-array/logic-array geometry of claims 1–14; that characterization rests on the citation titles/abstracts in the record and should be confirmed against full texts if any of them is to be pressed in a proceeding.

I'll research the cited prior art and the patent's litigation/IPR history to ground the obviousness analysis in current information.

Let me dig deeper into the IPR references (Hayasaki, Silverbrook, Krouss) and the PTAB's institution decision, plus a few more key cited references.

I have enough information from the patent record, the cited references, and the IPR2022-01415 petition to provide a grounded § 103 obviousness analysis. Note on sourcing: I prioritize the search results above (IPR petition, PTAB treatment, and reference disclosures) over general training data where they differ.

Obviousness Analysis of US 7,559,629 B2 ("the '629 patent") Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

1. The claimed invention in brief

The '629 patent is directed to thermal inkjet heater chips. Two features drive the claims:

• Heater arrays on both sides of ink vias (so each via is "sandwiched") to enable smaller drops (<4 pL) and higher vertical resolution (~1200 dpi), and
• Shared, interleaved ("hybrid, non-contiguous") logic arrays disposed between adjacent heater arrays, so that a single strip of logic (e.g., P-register shift-register/latch cells) addresses two adjacent heater arrays belonging to two different ink vias — eliminating the long wiring buses (Fig. 1's buses 120–124) and shrinking die size.

Independent claims 1 and 8 both require: two heater arrays back-to-back (right side of the first facing the left side of the second), each associated with a different ink via on its outer side, and at least one logic array substantially between the two heater arrays, containing first and second sets of logic cells in a "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement," parallel to the heater arrays, so the two vias can be "simultaneously controlled." Dependent claims add sandwiching third/fourth heater arrays (2, 11), color vias (3), two parallel logic arrays (4), a single linear array (5), interleaving (6, 10), a specific pair-interleaving pattern (7), aligned logic cells (9), outer logic arrays (12), control-signal routing between heater array and logic array (13), and block-addressed heaters (14).

2. Legal framework and level of ordinary skill

Under Graham v. John Deere, obviousness is assessed from (1) scope and content of prior art, (2) differences, (3) level of ordinary skill, and (4) secondary considerations; a combination is obvious where a PHOSITA had a reason to combine known elements with a predictable result (KSR, 550 U.S. 398). A PHOSITA here would be a designer of thermal inkjet printhead integrated circuits with knowledge of thin-film heater fabrication, heater addressing (primitive/address multiplexing, shift registers and latches), substrate layout, and die-cost/yield tradeoffs — the level of skill reflected in the Lexmark, Canon, HP, and Kodak art cited on the face of the patent.

The claims are pre-AIA (filed 2005-09-29), so § 102/103 apply in their pre-AIA form.

3. Primary combination candidates from the cited prior art

The most probative references from the face-of-the-patent citation list fall into two buckets that map onto the two inventive features:

Bucket A — heater arrays on both sides of vias (the "sandwich"):

• US 6,764,163 B2 (Lexmark, "Heater configuration for tri-color heater chip," filed 2002-05-31, published 2004-07-20) — same assignee as the '629 application and the closest chip-level art. It discloses a tri-color heater chip with one inner and two outer ink vias, each via served by two rows of heaters (near and far) on its sides — six rows total, arranged as "a first two rows … adjacent to the first longitudinal side of one of the two outer ink vias, a second two rows … adjacent to … the inner via, and a third two rows … adjacent to the second longitudinal side of the other of the two outer ink vias." That is precisely the "third heater array and first heater array sandwich the first ink via" configuration of claims 2 and 11, and the two-heater-array-per-via architecture of claims 1 and 8. It motivates both-side placement for higher resolution/density and smaller chips ("heater chips are made with more and denser heater configurations … chip size, fragility, and heat dissipation become implicated").
• US 2005/0162450 A1 (Canon, published 2005-07-28) and US 6,474,782 B1 (Canon) — Canon element-substrate/printhead art with electrothermal transducers arrayed on both sides of ink supply ports.

Bucket B — on-chip logic arrays between/adjacent to heater arrays (the "hybrid logic" feature):

• US 6,499,834 B2 (Canon, filed 1998-08-19, published 2002-12-31; marked " cited by examiner")* and its family member US 2005/0185023 A1 (Canon, published 2005-08-25) — disclose inkjet printhead substrates with signal-processing circuit blocks (shift registers, latches, decoders) laid out on the substrate to drive plural electrothermal-converter arrays, with the layout "advantageously ordered" to conserve substrate area.
• US 5,646,660 A (Encad, filed 1994-08-09, published 1997-07-08) — printer ink cartridge with drive logic integrated onto the chip, teaching co-location of driver logic and heaters to reduce interconnects.
• US 5,731,828 A (Canon, 1994-10-20 / 1998-03-24) — ink jet head with heater elements and driving circuits formed together on a substrate.

Bucket C — references actually asserted in the IPR (relevant but not on the face citation list):

• US 2004/0201639 A1 (Hayasaki, Canon, filed 2004-03-29, published 2004-10-14) — the primary reference in IPR2022-01415. Hayasaki's Figure 9 shows AND-circuit arrays 5M′/5Y with interleaved logic cells disposed between printing-element arrays 3M′/3Y of two different ink channels (magenta and yellow), with control wiring routed between the heater arrays and logic arrays — the petition mapped every element of claims 1–10 and 13–14 to Hayasaki, including the "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement," "simultaneously controlled," "substantially parallel," "interleaved," "aligned," and "blocks of heaters" limitations.
• US 2003/0020784 A1 (Silverbrook, filed 2001-04-16, published 2003-01-30) — power distribution for inkjet printheads.
• US 6,190,000 B1 (Krouss, Lexmark, filed 1999-08-30, published 2001-02-20) — heater address-out masking, i.e., Lexmark block-addressing circuitry.

4. Obviousness combinations and motivations

Combination 1: US 6,764,163 (Lexmark) + US 6,499,834 / US 2005/0185023 (Canon) → claims 1–14

Claim elements supplied by Lexmark '163: the multi-via chip with vias each flanked by two heater arrays (claims 1, 2, 3, 8, 11), heater blocks grouped and addressed in a block/firing scheme (claim 14, addressed via its primitive/address-line disclosure), and the colormetric via identities (claim 3 — cyan/magenta/yellow compartments are explicit).

Claim elements supplied by Canon '834/'85023: placing the driver/signal-processing logic (shift registers and latches — the P-register cells of the '629 spec, col. 11–12) on the substrate between heater arrays, ordered to minimize area; the '629 patent's own background concedes the only problems with the Fig. 1 layout were (i) single-sided heater arrays limiting resolution and (ii) "connections between the logic arrays and the heater arrays … occupy as much space as the heater arrays themselves" and "lengthy wiring buses."

Why a PHOSITA would combine: The Canon references teach the very design problem the '629 patent solves — that logic should be co-located with, and ordered relative to, the heater arrays to shrink the substrate. The Lexmark reference teaches why a designer would double the heater arrays per via. A PHOSITA seeking a 1200-dpi, <4 pL CMYK chip (the goal stated in the '629 Background) would (a) adopt Lexmark '163's dual-sided heater rows to get the drop/resolution performance, which necessarily creates adjacent heater arrays belonging to different vias (the inner-via far row and the next via's near row), and then (b) apply Canon '834's teaching of compactly ordering the shift-register/latch logic between arrays — rather than running the long buses of Fig. 1 — to keep die area and cost down. Interleaving two register chains between two adjacent heater arrays is an ordinary layout optimization (analogous to standard-cell abutment and register interleaving used to halve pitch), not a new mode of operation. The "simultaneously controlled" limitation adds nothing patentably distinct: time-divisionally driving two interleaved register chains from the same physical logic strip is the predictable consequence of merging two 16-bit P-register portions into one 32-bit strip (the '629 spec itself describes exactly this 16+16 = 32-bit split).

Combination 2: US 6,764,163 (Lexmark) + US 5,646,660 (Encad) or US 5,731,828 (Canon) → claims 1–8, 11–14

Encad '660 and Canon '828 independently teach integrating drive logic on the heater/printhead substrate to eliminate off-chip drivers and long interconnects. Combining either with Lexmark '163's dual-sided, multi-via heater layout yields the claimed chip: a PHOSITA would place the on-chip logic in the gap created between back-to-back heater arrays (the only free substrate real estate in Lexmark '163's dense layout) and would interleave the two color's logic cells to fit the available pitch. This directly addresses Lexmark '163's own articulated concern — chip size, fragility, heat dissipation, and yield in dense high-resolution designs.

Combination 3: Hayasaki alone or Hayasaki + Silverbrook / Hayasaki + Krouss → claims 1–10, 13–14 (the IPR grounds)

Although not in the face-of-the-patent citation list, the actual adversarial record is highly probative: Canon's IPR2022-01415 petition asserted that Hayasaki alone anticipates claims 1–10 and 13–14, with fallback § 103 grounds of Hayasaki + Silverbrook and Hayasaki + Krouss. Hayasaki (published 2004-10-14, more than a year before the '629 filing) discloses a multi-color printhead substrate with printing-element arrays along both sides of each ink channel and AND-circuit logic arrays disposed between the element arrays of adjacent channels, with the logic cells interleaved in a non-contiguous arrangement, control wiring routed between each heater array and the shared logic, and parallel orientation of logic and heater arrays. If Hayasaki's Figure 9 is read as disclosing a single logic strip containing interleaved cells for two different color channels (the petition's mapping), independent claims 1 and 8 and dependent claims 2–7, 9, 10, 13, and 14 are anticipated; at minimum, the combination is obvious. Silverbrook and Krouss would supply any missing power-routing or block-addressing details.

Important caveat from the record: Google Patents and the PTAB data indicate IPR2022-01415 was filed but not instituted ("Not Instituted - Merits"). The PTAB's non-institution means the Board was not persuaded, on the merits threshold of § 314(a), that Hayasaki (alone or combined) had a reasonable likelihood of prevailing — a reminder that the "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" + "simultaneously controlled" + "substantially parallel" limitations present genuine claim-construction battles (e.g., whether two side-by-side AND arrays with separate wiring count as "one logic array" with interleaved cells, or whether the limitation requires the merged 32-bit strip of Fig. 3–4). Non-institution is not a merits decision on obviousness, however, and the same references remain available for § 103 argument in district court (the '629 has been litigated in W.D. Tex. 6:19-cv-00549 and E.D.N.Y. 2:22-cv-00123).

5. Dependent-claim mapping under the primary combinations

• Claims 2 and 11 (third/fourth heater arrays sandwiching each via): literally Lexmark '163's near/far rows per via; also Hayasaki's element arrays along both sides of each ink channel.
• Claim 3 (cyan/magenta/yellow/monochrome vias): Lexmark '163 (CMY compartments) and Hayasaki ([0058]: ink channels 2M, 2Y, etc.).
• Claims 4–7, 9–10 (parallel arrays; single linear array; interleaved non-contiguous cells; two-cells-between-pairs pattern): the interleaving granularity is an obvious design choice — the '629 spec admits "groups of 3 or 4 … interlaced between groups of 2, 3, or 4" are equivalent, which is itself an admission that the exact interleave ratio is a routine layout selection with no criticality. Canon '834/'85023 and Hayasaki disclose interleaved/ordered logic cells.
• Claim 12 (outer logic arrays for the outermost heater arrays): inherent in extending the shared-logic scheme across a 4-via CMYK chip — a PHOSITA would place the leftover logic outside the outermost arrays because there is no second adjacent array there to share with.
• Claim 13 (control signals routed between each heater array and the shared logic array): explicitly shown in Hayasaki Fig. 9 and described in the '629 spec as merely a crosstalk-reduction routing choice.
• Claim 14 (blocks of heaters addressed by portions of the logic cells): block/primitive-group addressing was conventional (Lexmark '163's primitive/address scheme; Krouss's block-addressing; Canon's block time-division driving).

6. Conclusion

Under the Graham/KSR framework, the strongest § 103 case is Lexmark '163 (dual-sided per-via heater arrays) combined with Canon '834/'85023 or Encad '660 (on-substrate, area-ordered logic between arrays), which reads on the full scope of claims 1–14 with a clear, documented motivation (higher resolution + smaller die + better yield — the exact problems the '629 Background admits). The Hayasaki-based grounds from IPR2022-01415 (anticipation and § 103 over Hayasaki + Silverbrook/Krouss) are the closest single-reference case but were not instituted by the PTAB, so their strength depends on claim construction of "non-contiguous hybrid arrangement" and "simultaneously controlled" that the Board found at least reasonably in doubt. A challenger pressing § 103 should therefore lead with the Lexmark + Canon/Encad combination (which relies on the applicant's own admitted problem and same-assignee chip architecture) and use Hayasaki as a secondary, single-reference arrow, supported by expert testimony on the conventionality of interleaved shift-register/latch layouts in dense printhead ASICs.

Sources: Google Patents '629 file wrapper and citation list; US 6,764,163 B2 (FreePatentsOnline/Justia); US 6,499,834 B2 and US 2005/0185023 A1 (Google Patents); US 2004/0201639 A1 Hayasaki (USPTO publication PDF); Canon IPR2022-01415 petition (action-intell.com PDF); PTAB/institution-status data reflected on Google Patents and Unified Patents.