US 7791761

I'll research this patent across multiple sources before summarizing.

Let me dig into the specific claims and any appellate activity.

US Patent 7,791,761 B2 — Analyst Summary

Scope note: I searched for the literal number 7791761 (and its B2 publication), not similar/neighboring numbers. The bibliographic and procedural data below come from the Google Patents record, the PTAB file for IPR2019‑00646, the Darts‑IP/Unified Patents litigation listings surfaced there, and sibling family documents (US 8,760,704; CA 2,247,005). Where I could not retrieve authoritative text, I say so explicitly.

1. Bibliographic data

Family position (from the sibling US 8,760,704 front page): app. 11/452,879 (the '761 patent) is a continuation of 11/246,813 (now US 7,830,546), which is a continuation of 10/040,664 (now US 6,995,870), which is a division of 09/229,002 (abandoned), which is a division of 08/606,883 (now US 6,043,909). A later division of the '761 is 12/802,609 (now US 8,416,444). Earliest priority traces to the Feb. 26, 1996 filing of 08/606,883.

2. Abstract (family abstract, as published)

"The system provides for controlling color reproduction of input color image data in a network having nodes (or sites). The system distributes the input color image data from one of the nodes to other nodes, and provides data structures in the network. The system has means for providing color calibration data at each node characterizing output colors (colorants) of the rendering device of the node, and means for producing at each node, responsive to the color calibration data of the rendering device of the node, information for transforming the input color image data into output color image data at the rendering device of the node. The rendering device of each node renders a color reproduction responsive to the output color image data, wherein colors displayed in the reproduction at the rendering device of each node appear substantially the same within the output colors attainable by the rendering devices."

The specification describes a data structure called the "Virtual Proof" (VP) — a compact, dynamically updatable file that carries color-transformation information (shared + node-local components) across network nodes, so that image data can be distributed separately from the color transforms. It distinguishes prototype nodes (proofing, soft proof, design) from production nodes (presses), and frames color around the CIE Standard Observer, uniform color spaces (CIELAB), colorant/gamut concepts, GCR/UCR black utilization, and instrumentation classes SOM (standard observer meter, unitary/spectral colorimeter) and imagical (imaging colorimeter).

3. Independent claims — plain language

Important limitation on this section: The full "Claims" section of the '761 patent was not contained in the text I retrieved (the Google Patents dump I have truncates before the claims). The only independent claim for which I have verbatim, authoritative text is claim 7, reproduced in the PTAB Final Written Decision (Paper 119, Oct. 8, 2020, IPR2019‑00646). The Board expressly stated: "Claim 7 is the only independent claim challenged in this proceeding and is illustrative of the claimed subject matter."

Claim 7 (verbatim, from the '761 patent at 48:61–49:5)

"7. A method of color rendering on a printer having a plurality of non-neutral colorants and a plurality of neutral colorants, comprising the steps of:
transforming input color image data into output color image data in units of said non-neutral colorants and said neutral colorants with the aid of a processor, in which said input color image data is expressible in device independent units of color, wherein at least one of said neutral colorants is at least partly exchangeable with one or more of said non-neutral colorants or other of said neutral colorants; and
transmitting said output color image data to said printer."

Plain-language overview of claim 7:

• Environment: a printer (not limited to four colorants) equipped with multiple non‑neutral colorants (e.g., CMY and possibly others) and multiple neutral colorants (e.g., two or more black/gray inks of different density).
• Step 1 – transform: a processor converts input image data into output data expressed in terms of those colorants. The input must be expressible in device‑independent color units (e.g., CIE XYZ/Lab), i.e., not tied to one device's raw codes.
• Key limitation: at least one neutral colorant must be at least partly "exchangeable" with a non‑neutral colorant or with another neutral colorant. In practice this reads on processes such as GCR/UCR-style substitution and on dark/light black (K↔K′,K″) exchange — the PTAB treated "exchangeable" as encompassing GCR behavior.
• Step 2 – transmit: send the transformed output color data to the printer.

Other independent claims

I cannot authoritatively enumerate or quote the other independent claims of the '761 patent from the sources retrieved. The Board's phrasing ("the only independent claim challenged in this proceeding") implies the patent likely contains at least one further independent claim (claims 1–6 were not challenged in the IPR), but I do not have their text and will not reconstruct them. Treat any reconstruction of claims 1–6 as unverified.

Challenged claims and their dependencies (from IPR2019‑00646): claims 7–11, 13, and 15 were challenged; claims 8–11, 13 and 15 depend from claim 7 or other dependent claims, so claim 7 was the sole independent claim at issue. Claims 9 and 15 were not held unpatentable in the Final Written Decision; claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 were held unpatentable.

4. Procedural / litigation posture

PTAB — IPR2019‑00646, Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies, LLC (P.T.A.B.)

• Petition filed Jan. 31 / Feb. 1, 2019; instituted on claims 7–11, 13, 15 (Decision granting institution, Paper 34; also logged as Paper 35/74 public version). Consolidated oral hearing May 28, 2020 (with IPR2019‑00627, ‑00628, ‑00629).
• Final Written Decision, Paper 119, Oct. 8, 2020: "Determining Some Challenged Claims Unpatentable" — Petitioner proved by a preponderance that claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 are unpatentable; Patent Owner's and Petitioner's motions to exclude and Patent Owner's motion to strike were denied.
• Grounds involved combinations including Giorgianni + Tajika, Stewart + Tajika, and Stone + Tajika, with the "exchangeable" limitation read on GCR/UCR or dark/light-black substitution.
• URL: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00646 ; FWD: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7791761/

Related district-court matters surfaced for the '761 family (from the FWD and the Google Patents litigation block):

• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe — N.D. Cal. 3:18‑cv‑03277‑SI (and MDL No. 2874, N.D. Cal. 3:18‑md‑02874)
• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corp. — W.D.N.Y. 6:18‑cv‑06746; v. Kodak — W.D.N.Y. 6:19‑cv‑06112
• Electronics For Imaging, Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC — E.D. Va. 1:18‑cv‑01436
• v. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen — N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00193; v. Dalim Software GmbH — N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00275
• New York W.D. 6:10‑cv‑06710; Michigan W.D. 1:14‑cv‑00638; Illinois N.D. 1:18‑cv‑00733
• RAH Color Technologies LLC v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) — E.D. Tex. 4:20‑cv‑00176; and 2:20‑cv‑00088 (E.D. Tex.)

CAFC 2026 docket search — negative result: I searched for a 2026 Federal Circuit appeal/docket referencing patent 7,791,761 and found no CAFC 2026 docket for this patent. The reported activity for this number is the 2019–2020 PTAB proceeding and the older district-court cases above. This is consistent with the patent's recorded status of Expired – Fee Related with an adjusted expiration of November 28, 2017. If you have a specific 2026 CAFC appeal number in mind, please supply it and I will verify — I do not want to assert an appellate record I could not find.

5. Uncertainty flags

1. Claims completeness. Only independent claim 7 is quoted from an authoritative source. I could not retrieve the full claim set (notably claims 1–6) and therefore cannot give verified plain-language summaries of every independent claim.
2. Abstract attribution. The abstract quoted is the family abstract (matching the sibling US 8,760,704 front page and the CA 2,247,005 abstract, which share the same disclosure). I did not see a separately labeled abstract block in the '761 dump I hold; the content is consistent across the family.
3. Filing date. The operative record gives the '761 application filing date as 2006‑06‑14 with earliest priority 1996‑02‑26; I did not independently re-verify the continuation chain against USPTO PatentCenter.
4. No 2026 CAFC activity found. Absence of a hit is not proof of absence; confirm against the Federal Circuit's own docket if appellate activity is material to your analysis.

Primary sources used:

• Google Patents, US7791761B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7791761/en
• IPR2019‑00646 Final Written Decision (Paper 119): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7791761/
• CAFC scheduled-cases list (July 2026): https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/home/oral-argument/scheduled-cases/

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7791761 specifically. Let me run several searches.

Let me gather more detail on specific cases.

Below are the results of my searches. I focused strictly on U.S. Patent No. 7,791,761 ("the '761 patent" — System for distributing and controlling color reproduction at multiple sites, Richard A. Holub, assigned to RAH Color Technologies LLC, expired/expired-fee-related as of 2017‑11‑28). I did not roll in results for the many sibling patents (e.g., 7,312,897; 7,729,008; 8,416,444; 6,995,870; 7,710,433; 8,009,175; 8,537,357), except where a single case asserted several patents at once including the '761.

Preliminary note on the source set

The Google Patents page for US 7,791,761 itself lists four district‑court matters and one PTAB matter as the litigation touching this specific patent:

• W.D.N.Y. 6:10‑cv‑06710
• W.D. Mich. 1:14‑cv‑00638
• N.D. Ill. 1:18‑cv‑00733
• N.D. Cal. 3:18‑cv‑03277
• PTAB IPR2019‑00646

I confirmed parties/status for most of these; one (the N.D. Ill. entry) I could not fully identify. Details and caveats are flagged below.

Known litigation and proceedings involving US 7,791,761

1. RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp., et al.

• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Defendants: Seiko Epson Corp.; U.S. Epson, Inc.; Epson America, Inc.; Epson Portland, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Western District of New York
• Case No.: 6:10‑cv‑06710 (Judge Charles J. Siragusa — docket styled 6:10‑cv‑06710‑CJS)
• Filing date: December 21, 2010 (Justia docket; one aggregator shows December 20, 2010)
• Outcome/status: Terminated/closed. Counterclaims were filed by defendants (answers docketed April 2011). The specific disposition (settlement, dismissal, etc.) was not confirmed from my sources. Source: dockets.justia.com; Unified Patents litigation portal.

2. RAH Color Technologies LLC v. X-Rite Incorporated

• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Defendant: X-Rite Incorporated (Michigan corporation, Grand Rapids, MI)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan
• Case No.: 1:14‑cv‑00638
• Filing date: 2014 (exact docket date not confirmed in my searches)
• Outcome/status: Not confirmed from my sources.
• Basis for linking the '761 to this case: the W.D. Mich. case is the one listed on the '761 patent page, and a RAH complaint against X‑Rite (filed in the MDL record as an exhibit) expressly lists U.S. Patent 7,791,761 among ten patents‑in‑suit (7,312,897; 7,710,433; 7,729,008; 7,791,761; 8,009,175; 8,416,444; 8,537,357, etc.). Caveat: I could not independently match the complaint to docket 1:14‑cv‑00638 in a single source — verify in PACER.

3. In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation (MDL No. 2874)

• Consolidated/coordinated pretrial proceedings: U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, Case No. 3:18‑md‑02874‑SI (Judge Susan Illston)
• JPML initial transfer order: December 6, 2018
• Individual cases centralized (per the '761 mandatory notices and PTAB decisions):
  • RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Adobe Inc., N.D. Cal. 3:18‑cv‑03277‑SI — the '761 was asserted here (along with '897, '008 and '444). Complaint filed January 31, 2018; served February 1, 2018.
  • RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Xerox Corp., W.D.N.Y. 6:18‑cv‑06746 (asserted '870, '444, '704 — not '761)
  • Electronics For Imaging, Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, E.D. Va. 1:18‑cv‑01436 (asserted '870, '704)
  • RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Eastman Kodak Co., W.D.N.Y. 6:19‑cv‑06112 (asserted '870, '897, '008, '704, '340)
  • RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00193 (asserted '870, '444, '704)
  • RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Dalim Software GmbH, N.D. Ill. 1:19‑cv‑00275 (asserted '870, '897, '008 — not '761)
• Scope note: In the MDL, only Adobe was accused of infringing the '761 (per the January 21, 2021 claim-construction order: "RAH Color Technologies accuses Adobe of infringing four patents, numbers 7,312,897; 7,729,008; 7,791,761; and 8,416,444").
• Outcome/status: The N.D. Cal. MDL (including the Adobe 3:18‑cv‑03277‑SI and Dalim 3:19‑cv‑00518‑SI cases) was dismissed by joint stipulation — order on stipulation of dismissal entered September 27, 2021 (Dkt. 154/155). Sources: CourtListener/N.D. Cal. dockets; Google Patents litigation list.

4. RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Microsoft Corporation (two E.D. Tex. suits)

• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC; Defendant: Microsoft Corporation
• Court: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas
• Case A: No. 4:20‑cv‑00176 (Sherman Division; Judge Sean D. Jordan) — filed March 5, 2020; voluntarily dismissed March 11, 2020.
• Case B: No. 2:20‑cv‑00088 (Marshall Division; Judge Rodney Gilstrap, Mag. J. Roy S. Payne) — filed March 24, 2020; voluntarily dismissed / order of dismissal June 2, 2020.
• Note on the '761: These two Microsoft suits are indexed under U.S. Patent 7,791,761 by Docket Alarm's patent search (the complaints as excerpted emphasize the '870, '008 and '802 patents). Treat the '761 association as based on the aggregator's patent indexing rather than a claim-by-claim confirmation.

5. PTAB — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies, LLC, IPR2019‑00646 (U.S. Patent 7,791,761)

• Tribunal: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Petitioner: Adobe Inc.; Patent Owner: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Filed: February 1, 2019; instituted September 4, 2019
• Challenged claims: 7–11, 13, and 15
• Final Written Decision: October 8, 2020 — the Board held claims 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13 unpatentable, and found Adobe had not shown claim 15 unpatentable.
• Current status: Final. Adobe did not appeal the '761 FWD as to the claim‑15 finding (per the N.D. Cal. MDL claim‑construction order). Source: IPR2019‑00646 Final Written Decision (Paper 119), Docket Alarm / PTAB records.

Unresolved item

N.D. Ill. 1:18‑cv‑00733 appears on the '761 patent page's litigation list but I could not confirm the parties or that the '761 was actually asserted in it. It is not the Dalim (1:19‑cv‑00275) or Heidelberger (1:19‑cv‑00193) N.D. Ill. cases. I recommend verifying this docket directly.

Important caveats

• Many of the above are drawn from aggregators (Justia, Docket Alarm, CourtListener/unifiedpatents.com, RPX Insight) and from PTAB filings; I recommend confirming case‑by‑case in PACER and the PTAB/PTACTS systems before relying on them for anything consequential.
• Where a case asserted several patents, I identified it only because the '761 is expressly among the patents‑in‑suit; several sibling RAH Color cases (Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Heidelberger, Dalim) did not assert the '761 and are excluded except as MDL context.
• I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal naming the '761 as the patent on appeal; the closest is Adobe's appeal of the related '008 and '444 IPR decisions (not the '761).

If you'd like, I can drill into any single docket (e.g., pull the Seiko Epson or X‑Rite disposition) or check the N.D. Ill. 1:18‑cv‑00733 docket to resolve the open item.

I'll research the PTAB record for US 7791761, starting with the proceeding flagged in the structured data.

Now let me nail down the claim-level outcome, appeal history, and any additional petitions.

Let me pin down the Federal Circuit appeal and check for any second petition on the '761.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US 7791761 using the patent's own legal-events data plus targeted searches of Assignment Center records, litigation dockets, and NPE directories.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records (reel/frame, correspondent) and the original application's prosecution history.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,791,761 B2

Patent: US 7,791,761 B2 — "System for distributing and controlling color reproduction at multiple sites"
App. No.: 11/452,879 · Filed: 2006-06-14 · Issued: 2010-09-07 · Priority: 1996-02-26 (parent App. 08/606,883, issued as US 6,043,909)
Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7791761/en (legal events), corroborated by PTAB and district-court filings.

Data-gap disclosure (important): I could not retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the recording correspondent for the assignment entries below from the sources accessible to me. Google Patents' legal-events feed exposes conveyance type, assignor, assignee and dates but not reel/frame or correspondent. I am not going to invent those fields. Verify them at the USPTO Assignment Center portals before relying on them: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Everything below that is stated is grounded in a cited record.

Inventors

Prior employment (from RAH's own complaints, sworn testimony): Eikonix Corp. (joined 1983; later acquired by Eastman Kodak) → Compugraphics/Agfa–Gevaert (≈1990–93) → SuperMac Technologies (1993–94). He formed Imagicolor Corporation in 1998 to commercialize a color-calibration/soft-proofing prototype; it never got investment and was dissolved.

Unusual patterns: The classic warning pattern — all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months, which precedes portfolio fire-sales — is not present, because there was never a third-party original assignee. This is a single-inventor, inventor-retained portfolio: the inventor and 100% beneficial owner are the same person throughout. That is itself the defining structural fact of this chain (and is adverse to the "abandoned corporate portfolio" narrative — the patents were deliberately held and licensed rather than sold).

Original assignee

RAH Color Technologies LLC (Google Patents lists it in abbreviated form as "RAH Color Tech LLC"). Sibling family patents (e.g. US 8,279,236) list the assignee address as Rochester, NY; by the time of litigation it is pled as a Virginia LLC at 7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA 22307.

• Product embodying the claims: None. RAH Color Technologies is a licensing vehicle. Holub's own pleadings state it was "formed as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program." The only commercialization attempt (Imagicolor, 1998) was dissolved without shipping a product.
• Primary line of business: Patent licensing / assertion in color management, color measurement, remote proofing and print-process control.
• Status: Operating as a licensing entity. The patent itself expired 2017-11-28 (adjusted expiration, fee-related), Google Patents legal status "Expired – Fee Related." Separate adverse development: in IPR2019-00646, Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, the Board's Final Written Decision of 2020-10-08 held claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 unpatentable.

Assignment timeline

Only two post-issuance assignment-side events appear in the recorded legal-events feed. Both are internal to the inventor's own entity — there is no third-party acquisition ever recorded.

2010-10-04 (executed date not exposed; recorded 2010-10-04) — Reel not retrieved / verify at Assignment Center

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
• Assignor: Holub, Richard A. (recorded as "HOLUB, RICHARD A., PHD, DR.")
• Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Correspondent: not exposed in the retrievable record. (Note: prosecution counsel of record on the 1996 parent App. 08/606,883 was Martin LuKacher, Reg. No. 17,788 — a data point, not the assignment correspondent. Confirm the recorder separately.)
• Context: Transfer from the individual inventor to his own wholly-owned licensing LLC. Recorded ~1 month after issuance and ~2.5 months before RAH's first infringement suit (RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Seiko Epson Corp., W.D.N.Y. No. 6:10-cv-06710, filed 2010-12-21) — i.e., done to put a clean record chain of title in place for assertion.

2013-05-14 (executed date not exposed; recorded 2013-05-14) — Reel not retrieved / verify at Assignment Center

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Correspondent: not exposed in the retrievable record.
• Context: Internal reorganization / name-and-entity cleanup. The identical name on both sides is consistent with the Rochester, NY LLC merging into the Virginia LLC that later appears in the complaints (Virginia LLC, Alexandria, VA). Beneficial ownership is unchanged — Holub remained the sole member throughout (sworn: "I am the sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC," Ex. 2121, IPR2019-00646).

If Assignment Center returns no further records for 7,791,761 — that is itself a finding here: it means no shell-to-shell cascade, no third-party buyer, and no defensive-aggregator acquisition ever occurred. The chain terminates at the inventor-controlled LLC.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7791761
    1996 : Priority application filed by Holub
    2005 : RAH Color Technologies LLC formed
    2006 : Application 11 452 879 filed
    2010 : Patent US 7791761 issued
         : Holub assigns to RAH Color Technologies LLC
         : RAH sues Seiko Epson in W D N Y
    2013 : RAH merger recorded at USPTO
    2017 : Patent expires for fee non-payment
    2018 : Multidistrict litigation MDL 2874 formed
    2019 : Adobe files IPR2019-00646
    2020 : Claims 7 8 10 11 13 held unpatentable

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (qualified).
The 2010-10-04 assignment moves the patent from the individual inventor into RAH Color Technologies LLC, an entity that (a) carries a "Holdings/Technologies"-style licensing name, (b) has never shipped a product — its own pleadings admit Imagicolor was dissolved and commercialization "did not come to fruition," and (c) is a single-member LLC headquartered at what appears to be a residential address (7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA 22307). Qualification that matters: this is not a transfer to an unrelated third-party shell — the sole member is the inventor (Holub declaration, Ex. 2121). It is an inventor's own assertion vehicle, not a purchased shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (in a database, not on the named troll lists).
RAH Color Technologies LLC does not appear among the named mass-aggregators you listed (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg). It does appear in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as an asserter, categorized "Individual-inventor-started / Product company" (e.g. https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[7710560](/patent/7710560)). Treat as a named plaintiff of the individual-inventor-started type, not a mass aggregator. The '761 patent specifically was asserted against Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Heidelberg, Dalim, X-Rite and others.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT as to the assignment recordings; UNCLEAR/flagged as to litigation counsel.
No correspondent data was retrievable for either recording, so recurrence on the assignment side cannot be established. Separately, one repeat litigation/licensing advocate recurs across the RAH campaign and is worth noting (this is counsel recurrence, not assignment-correspondent recurrence): David P. Berten, first at Competition Law Group (Jan 2009 license approach to Microsoft; RAH v. Kodak complaint, ¶27) and later at Global IP Law Group LLC (Apr 2015 – Mar 2016 license approaches to Microsoft, RAH v. Microsoft complaint, ¶¶28–31), and as RAH's counsel in the MDL (Exhibit 2012, Joint Preliminary Status Report). PTAB lead counsel for RAH was Irwin Park, Reg. No. 68,865. Flag: a single firm doing licensing demands and litigation for a genuine inventor-holder is not by itself an NPE tell — I am recording the recurrence for your cross-reference, not scoring it as a shell-network indicator.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Two events over three years, both involving the same named entity and the same beneficial owner. No chained LLCs, no <24-month cascade, no shared registered-agent addresses.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (moderate). The 2010-10-04 assignment to RAH Color Technologies LLC sits ~2.5 months before the first family suit, RAH v. Seiko Epson, W.D.N.Y. 6:10-cv-06710 (filed 2010-12-21). The 2013-05-14 merger recording precedes the 2014 W.D. Mich. case (1:14-cv-00638). This is the "clean standing record" arrangement pattern. Caveat: I could not independently confirm that this specific patent ('761) was among the patents asserted in the 2010 Seiko Epson complaint rather than only sibling family patents — confirm the complaint's patent list before treating this as a full-strength signal.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving any assignor or assignee appears anywhere in the chain. (Contrast the Kodak/Nortel-style chains; nothing of the sort here.)

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no operating company transferring patents to an NPE to assert against its competitors. The transfer is inventor-as-individual → inventor's own LLC; the "operating company" is fictional here because no product was ever shipped.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Caution on a tempting misread: the Google Patents "litigation" block shows IPR2019-00646 with a portal.unifiedpatents.com link and the label "Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'." That is a data-source attribution, not the identity of the petitioner. The actual petitioner was Adobe Inc. (Petition for IPR of U.S. 7,791,761, filed 2019-01-31; sole real party-in-interest Adobe Inc.). Do not score this as a defensive-aggregation event.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification (2–3 sentences): Two strong signals co-occur and are documented rather than inferred: (i) the 2010-10-04 assignment conveys the patent from sole inventor Richard A. Holub into RAH Color Technologies LLC, a single-member, product-less licensing LLC whose only member is the inventor himself (sworn declaration, IPR2019-00646, Ex. 2121) and whose commercialization attempt (Imagicolor) was dissolved without shipping anything; and (ii) that entity is a high-volume patent plaintiff — Seiko Epson, Xerox, Adobe, EFI, Heidelberg, Dalim, Kodak, Quad/Graphics, X-Rite, Ricoh — catalogued in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as an individual-inventor-started asserter, with this patent reaching a Final Written Decision holding claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 unpatentable (IPR2019-00646, 2020-10-08). The 2013-05-14 merger recording is internal reorganization (same name both sides, same beneficial owner), not a third-party transfer — so the chain terminates at the inventor's LLC, with no defensive-aggregator neutralization. Confidence is "high" on NPE status; the honest nuance is that this is an inventor-operated NPE built on a genuinely developed technology, not a purchased mass-aggregation shell, and the assignment reel/frame and correspondent fields remain unverified and should be pulled from Assignment Center before filing.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7,791,761) · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · patent record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7791761/en

I'll research US 7791761's citation record. Let me start with several targeted searches.

Let me find the actual "Patent Citations" front-page list for US 7791761.

I have claims and abstract. Now let me pull the citation (front-page references) list specifically.

Prior-Art Analysis: US 7,791,761 B2

1. Patent identification (verified in this session)

Note the exact priority chain in Espacenet lists four parent applications, not one — this matters for §102 (see §5).

2. Scope limitation — please read before relying on the list below

I could not retrieve the USPTO/Google "References Cited" front-page table (the §56 examiner list) for US 7,791,761 in this session. My searches returned the bibliographic record, the abstract, the claims, and the cited-by list, but not the itemized list of U.S. patent documents cited on the face of the '761. I am therefore not going to invent that list.

What I can do authoritatively — and what is in fact the more substantive prior-art record for this patent — is enumerate the references the applicant expressly identified and discussed in the patent's own Background/Definitions, which is the text supplied to me. Everything below is drawn from that text. Where I add a date that is not printed in the fetched text, I mark it [training-data date, not re-verified in this session].

3. Patent-document citations appearing in the '761 specification

4. Non-patent literature expressly relied on / discussed in the '761

These are the substantive prior-art teachings the patent positions itself against. Grouping follows the four calibration areas the patent itself uses.

Instrumentation / measurement

• Kipphan et al. — printed-sheet scanning of margin "color bars" with a spectral colorimeter; CIELAB readings compared to aim values; errors converted to ink-density corrections passed to the offset press ink-preset panel; off-line closed loop; does not read the image area; no calibration self-check. → Claims 5, 6 (and the image-area imaging claims by negative implication).
• Sodergard et al., "On-line control of the colour print quality guided by the digital page description," 22nd Int'l Conf. of Printing Research Institutes, Munich, 1993; and "A system for inspecting colour printing quality," TAGA Proceedings, 1995 — frame-grabbing from the image area of a moving web with stroboscopic illumination and a CCD camera, for color, register, and defect control; newspaper application; patent says it "lacks the necessary precision for high quality color reproduction." → Claims 4, 14, 20-adjacent (image-area color control), but expressly discounted for precision.
• Garini, "Thin-film measurements using SpectraCube™," Application Note, SD Spectral Diagnostics Inc., Agoura Hills, CA — full visible spectrum at each pixel via Fourier spectroscopy. The '761 says the imagical "may employ SpectraCube technology." → Claim 4.
• Eouzan et al. — camera-based control of a projection CRT video display; factory, not field; no colorimetric calibration/control to a colorimetric criterion. → Claims 4, 6 (display path), expressly distinguished.
• Bonino et al. — harmonizing output of color devices, primarily video monitors; per-channel voltage/luminance; adjusts V/L functions to a common maximum; photometric, not colorimetric; assumes identical primary chromaticities. → Claims 10 (viewing conditions) and, by contrast, the colorimetric-criterion claims.

Color-space / modelling / gamut

• Hardy and Wurzburg, "Color correction in color printing," J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 38: 300‑307 (1948) — electronic feedback network solving an inverse model of colorant mixture; 4-colorant reproductions "indistinguishable" from 3-colorant; set point = color of the original. → Claims 1, 7, 17 (inverse model / colorant solutions) — the foundational §102/§103 reference for the transformation steps.
• Pobboravsky, "A proposed engineering approach to color reproduction," TAGA Proceedings, 1962, pp. 127‑165 — regression ("curve fitting") of low-order polynomials between CIE color and colorant amounts. → Claims 17 and the forward-model/polynomial-evaluation subject matter (the '761's Step 4).
• Schwartz et al., "Measurements of Gray Component Reduction in neutrals and saturated colors," TAGA Proceedings, 1985, pp. 16‑27 — iterative inversion of forward models with gradients of color error; GCR; finding colorimetrically equivalent 4-colorant solutions using varying amounts of black. → Claims 1, 7, 15 (neutral/black exchangeability; "darkest color"/neutral definition). This is the most on-point printed art for the neutral-colorant-exchangeability limitation, though only for four colorants.
• Boll, "A color to colorant transformation for a seven ink process," SPIE Vol. 2170, pp. 108‑118 (1994) — separation for seven colorants; "Supergamut" = union of subgamuts of 4-at-a-time colorant subsets; the '761 says this "severely limits flexibility in performing GCR." → The closest single reference to claim 1's "more than four colorants" (and claims 7, 17). Expect a §102/§103 fight here: the '761 claim 1 additionally requires two or more colorants neutral in hue and at least partly exchangeable neutral colorant — verify whether Boll discloses multiple neutral colorants or only one black.
• Neugebauer, "The colorimetric effect of the selection of printing inks and photographic filters on the quality of multicolor reproductions," TAGA Proceedings, 1956, pp. 15‑28 — colorimetric description of printing gamuts. → Claims 11, 16 (gamut operations).
• Gordon et al., "On the rendition of unprintable colors," TAGA Proceedings, 1987, pp. 186‑195 — first descriptions of gamuts in CIE uniform space and the first explicit gamut operators mapping an input gamut to an output gamut. → Claims 11, 12, 16 — the principal reference for the gamut-mapping/out-of-gamut claims; §102 exposure for claim 11 is plausible on its face, since the '761's gamut-operator subject matter is attributed to this paper.
• CIE Publication 15.2, 1986, Central Bureau of the CIE, Vienna — Standard Observer and approximately uniform perceptual color spaces (CIELAB/CIELUV). → Claims 10, 11 (device-independent color); basic background, §102 alone insufficient.
• ANSI IT8.7/2‑1993, "Graphic technology—Color reflection target for input scanner calibration," Appendix B — procedure for calibrating non-linear input devices to a colorimetric standard. → Claims 4, 17.

Calibration/control methodology (by the inventor and others)

• Holub et al., "Color systems calibration for Graphic Arts, Parts I and II, Input and output devices," J. Imag. Technol. 14: 47‑60 (1988) — the four areas: instrumentation for device calibration; imaging colorimetry; rendering transforms for 4-colorant devices; soft proofing. → Claims 4, 5, 17; note this is the inventor's own published work — a potential §102(a)/(b) self-reference depending on date, and a §103 base.
• Gordon and Holub, "On the use of linear transformations for scanner calibration," Color Research and Application 18: 218‑219 (1993); and Holub, "Colorimetric aspects of image capture," IS&T 48th Annual Conference Proceedings, 1995, pp. 449‑451 — the linearity criterion (sensor spectral sensitivities must be linear combinations of human cone functions). → Claims 4, and the linear-characterization machinery.
• Holub and Kearsley, "Color to colorant conversions in a colorimetric separation system," SPIE Vol. 1184, Neugebauer Memorial Seminar on Color Reproduction, pp. 24‑35 (1989) — colorimetric calibration of several presses so upstream viewers see images "substantially as they would in production"; notes static calibration proved inadequate because production equipment changes. → Claims 2, 3, 6, 17.

File-format prior art the patent distinguishes

• Metric Color Tag (MCT) Specification, Rev. 1.1d, 1993, Electronics for Imaging, Inc., San Mateo, CA — definition of data required in data files for color management systems to apply accurate color transformations; the '761 says it "does not provide a file format defining the full specification of color transformations in the context of distributed production and color-critical remote proofing." → Claims 2, 3 (network/proofing), and the Virtual-Proof file-structure claims.
• International Color Consortium (ICC) Profile Format, version 3.01, 1995‑05‑08 — data table for color conversion; provides for embedding profiles with image data (large transfers on profile update); limited to "scnr"/"mntr"/"prtr." → Claims 2, 3, 9, 15; the '761 distinguishes it on extensibility, >3-channel devices, and embedding overhead.
• Johnson and Wichern, Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1992, ch. 8 — principal component analysis used to reduce polynomial terms. → Claim 17 method steps (model-fitting).

The patent also references imagexpo remote-annotation software as background to the conferencing feature (relevant to claims 13 and 14), and Shnitser/Hoyt and Grievenkamp articles on tunable filters / anti-aliasing (relevant to claim 4 instrumentation).

5. Critical-date caveat that materially affects any §102 assertion

Google labels the 1996‑02‑26 prior-art date an assumption, and the actual priority chain includes two later-filed U.S. applications (09/229,002 filed 1999‑01‑12 and 10/040,664 filed 2002‑01‑07) before 11/246,813 (2005) and the '761 itself (2006). Consequences:

1. If any claim of the '761 is not entitled to the 1996‑02‑26 date (e.g., because of new matter added in a later CIP-type filing, or because the claim's subject matter — such as the >4 colorant / multiple neutral colorant limitations of claim 1 — was not supported in the 1996 disclosure), then references dated 1997–1999, notably Boll (1994) aside, become far more dangerous. Boll (1994) is before 1996 in any event.
2. Claim 1 requires a printer with more than four colorants, two or more of which are neutral in hue, with a neutral colorant at least partly exchangeable — this is a narrow, late-arising combination. The strongest §102 candidates for it are Boll (1994) and the Hardy/Wurzburg + Schwartz/Neugebauer lineage for the exchangeability concept; whether any single one of them discloses two or more neutral colorants is the key factual question to verify against the primary documents.
3. For the networking/proofing claims (2, 3), Vincent (5,272,518) is the closest but the '761 expressly asserts Vincent does not teach distributed calibration implementation or verification — so expect these to be §103 disputes rather than §102.

6. What I could not verify (stated plainly)

• The complete USPTO "References Cited" front-page list (examiner-cited U.S. and foreign patent documents) for US 7,791,761 — not retrievable in this session; I have not guessed at it.
• The exact issue dates of the six U.S. patents above are given from training data and marked as such; they were not re-confirmed against the USPTO document images in this session.
• I did not confirm claim-chart-level §102 correspondence for any reference; the claim mappings above are analytic candidates keyed to the actual '761 claim language (claims 1–17 as fetched), not adjudicated findings.
• The search surfaced a list of "cited in the application" documents (US 5,220,149 Neidhardt; US 5,609,781 Kaga; US 5,747,771 O'Neill; US 6,118,097 Kaga; US 6,288,363 Kaga; US 6,376,797 Pimczyk; US 6,423,928 Pimczyk) — but they appeared inside the search report of WO2005053895A1, an unrelated application, so I have deliberately excluded them from the '761 citation list rather than misattribute them.

For adjudicated invalidity contentions on this family, the prior generated PTAB section (IPR2019‑00646, Unified Patents) is the better cross-reference and should be read together with the above.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual claim set and the prior-art record before drawing obviousness conclusions.

Let me pin down the specific prior-art references the PTAB relied on and the full claim set of the '761.

Let me obtain the actual claim text of the '761 and the Board's final conclusion table.

Obviousness Analysis of U.S. Patent 7,791,761 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. "The Prior Art section of this page" is treated here as (a) the prior-art references recounted on the face of US 7,791,761 (Google Patents "Definitions"/Background recitals) and (b) the prior-art references actually assembled against this patent in the PTAB record. Both are used. The single most probative § 103 datum for this patent is not an examiner's rejection — it is the Final Written Decision in IPR2019-00646, which held a majority of the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious. That decision is the backbone of the analysis below; I extend it to the claims it did not reach.

0. Record corrections and contradictions (flagged as instructed)

Flagged contradictions.

1. Petitioner identity. The structured Google Patents data on the page lists the PTAB entry under "Unified Patents PTAB Data," which is a data-source attribution, not the petitioner. The Final Written Decision names Adobe Inc. as Petitioner. If the previously generated "PTAB challenges" section identified Unified Patents Inc. as the petitioner on the '761, that is incorrect. (Unified Patents did appear in the same time frame, but on a different patent — IPR2019-00763, U.S. Pat. No. 10,110,898.)
2. Claim 9 conflict in the secondary sources. The FWD's own introduction states the Board found "claims 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13" unpatentable (consistent with claim 9 and claim 15 surviving). The N.D. Cal. claim-construction order paraphrases this as "the remaining challenged claims (claims 7–11 and 13)," which would include claim 9. These two statements cannot both be right. The primary document (Paper 119) controls: claim 9 was not shown unpatentable, and claim 15 fell with it.
3. Google Patents "Prior art date 1996-02-26" / filing date 2006-06-14. Consistent with a continuation in the family of application 08/606,883. This matters legally: pre-AIA § 103(a) applies, as the Board expressly noted (Paper 119, n.4).

1. Legal framework, the person of ordinary skill, and claim construction

Governing law. Pre-AIA § 103(a) with Graham v. John Deere factors as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The Board applied KSR directly and quoted the operative passage: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416 (quoted in IPR2019-00646 FWD, Ground 1 discussion).

POSITA. Adobe's declarant (Dr. Charles Poynton) and RAH's declarant (Dr. Vrhel) diverged on the framing of the art, but the practical POSITA is a color-imaging/color-management engineer in the graphic arts with knowledge of CIE colorimetry, device profiles, halftoning, and ink/colorant control — the same skill set described throughout cols. 1–8 of the '761. The Board treated the art as a single field of endeavor: it rejected RAH's non-analogous-art argument and held Tajika was "in the same field of endeavor" as the '761, relying on the '761's own broad definition: "Rendering devices in system 100 define any type of system or device for presenting a color reproduction in response to digital color signals" (Ex. 1003, 12:9–11), including inkjet printers both as proofers and as production devices (12:13–16, 12:43–47).

Key constructions the record supplies.

• "colorant" — the specification states: "colorant will refer to particular physical agents, such as dyes, pigments, phosphors, and the like." RAH's expert argued this forecloses reading a digital code value as a "colorant." This was a live dispute, not resolved as a claim construction.
• "exchangeable" — RAH's own position in its Patent Owner Response was that "the 'exchangeable' [element] refers to a process like gray component replacement, or GCR." The Board declined to construe the term because Stone and Tajika taught it even under RAH's implicit construction. This is the single most important tactical holding: the patentee's narrowing gloss did not save the claim.
• "expressible in device independent units of color" — RAH argued RGB spaces don't qualify; Dr. Vrhel conceded that standard RGB color spaces analytically related to CIE spaces do qualify, and the '761 itself (32:5–8, 33:60–34:2) treats such spaces as device-independent. This concession disarmed the "expressible" limitation for the Stewart and Stone grounds.
• Independent-claim boundaries — the FWD expressly notes claim 7 "recites a method of 'color rendering on a printer' that is not limited to a network environment, a plurality of sites, or a plurality of rendering devices," and contrasts it with dependent claim 2 ("plurality of sites," network interface) and claim 14 (annotation exchange "using networked computer systems"). The network/Virtual-Proof framing is in unadjudicated claims, which is where any remaining § 103 defense weakens.

2. The claim architecture (why some claims are conspicuous targets and some are not)

3. The adjudicated § 103 grounds, element-by-element

The Board instituted on all five grounds (Paper 119, § I.E):

3.1 Ground 4 — Stone + Tajika (the cleanest combination)

Claim 7 preamble — "printer having a plurality of non-neutral colorants and a plurality of neutral colorants." Tajika (Ex. 1021, 1:21–33) discloses an inkjet printer with dark and light versions of cyan, magenta, yellow and black — i.e., two neutral colorants (K′ dark, K″ light) and six non-neutral colorants. This is a complete reading of the preamble.

Element [a] — "transforming input color image data … with the aid of a processor … expressible in device independent units." Stone converts RGB input to an intermediate device-independent CIE tristimulus XYZ representation, applies gamut mapping, then converts to CMY and generates black (Ex. 1022 ¶¶ 11, 25–27, Fig. 1). The Board found this satisfied — and importantly, RAH did not contest the evidence and acknowledged that "Stone describes employing a transformation using a device-independent color space" (PO Resp. 32; Ex. 2120 ¶ 165).

Element [a, cont.] — "at least one of said neutral colorants is at least partly exchangeable with one or more of said non-neutral colorants or other of said neutral colorants." Two independent teachings satisfy this:

• Stone describes "black separation" to "replace some percentage of the three primaries" with black: "This required us to substitute black ink for mixtures of cyan, magenta, and yellow, a process called undercolor removal or, in its more general form, gray component replacement (GCR)" (Ex. 1022 ¶ 25). This is literally the patent's own disclosed GCR concept (Ex. 1003, 4:12–33, 29:41–48).
• Tajika's dark/light separation table maps an input K value to K′ and K″: for values 00–150 the dark ink data is fixed at "0" while the light ink ranges 0–255, and above 150 the dark ink ramps up while the light ink ramps down (Ex. 1021, 5:27–34). Adobe's declarant characterized this as the light black being exchanged for dark black as input K increases (Ex. 1009 ¶ 924 region).

The Board addressed RAH's best argument — that "said neutral colorants" (plural) must be supplied by a single reference, and only Tajika teaches multiple neutrals — and rejected it: "[T]he test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested … not what any one reference teaches or suggests in isolation."

Element [b] — "transmitting said output color image data to said printer." Trivially met by the sequential Stone→Tajika architecture.

Motivation / reasonable expectation of success. Adobe's rationale, accepted at institution and carried through, was pure KSR predictability: Stone's system generates CMYK output intended for printing; Tajika is a printer that receives eight-bit CMYK and produces high-resolution, low-granularity output (Tajika, 2:50–51). "Stewart's [Stone's] printing system generates CMYK color coordinate data, just as it did before combination with Tajika[,] and Tajika receives the CMYK color coordinate data and generates a color print therefrom, just as it did before combination." Each element performs its established function, so the combination is obvious absent synergy. RAH's "Tajika is a closed system that cannot be broken apart" argument failed because the claim (as construed) does not require modularity — and the Board noted RAH "does not address any specific gaps or suggest any instances where the proposed combination would fail to operate."

3.2 Ground 1 — Stewart + Tajika

Stewart (US 5,283,671): a printing system in which a calibrated monitor (10:60–63) is used for color decisions, the system being an RGB device (Fig. 1; 4:52–55) that produces CMYK coordinate data for printing. The Board credited Adobe's position that Stewart's monitor being "calibrated" suggests use of a calibrated, standard RGB color space, which is analytically related to CIE — satisfying "expressible in device independent units of color" under Dr. Vrhel's own definition (Ex. 2120 at 70, 188).

Motive: Adobe argued that Stewart expresses a need for a high-quality output printer, and Tajika supplies one with "excellent resolution and color gradation." The Board accepted this as "sufficiently supported" under KSR. The Federal Circuit rule applied by the Board is worth quoting for how it frames the whole document: "[T]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference … Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art."

3.3 Ground 3 — ICC v.3.0 + Tajika

The ICC Profile Format defines (i) device profiles as data structures converting device-dependent color to/from a profile connection space, (ii) the default PCS as CIE XYZ (ICC v.3.0 at 76–77), and (iii) output profiles mapping PCS→CMYK 8-bit signals (id. at 20–21). Tajika's printer accepts 8-bit CMYK (Tajika, 4:23–59, Fig. 1). Motive: interrelated teachings — both concern producing quality color prints from scanned images; the ICC architecture exists to drive output devices like Tajika's.

This ground is materially strengthened by the patent's own admission. The '761 specification discusses the ICC Profile Format (v3.01, May 8, 1995) and the Metric Color Tag Specification (Rev. 1.1d, 1993) as known art, criticizing them only because ICC "provides for embedding profiles with image data," which "generates large data transfers over a network whenever profiles are updated," and because ICC device classes are limited to "scnr," "mntr," and "prtr." That is a § 103 roadmap: the patent concedes the color-transform-in-a-file concept and asserts novelty only in separating the transform file from the image data and extending the device taxonomy. KSR makes such admitted, incremental improvement presumptively obvious.

3.4 Ground 5 — Giorgianni (EP 0624028 A1) + Tajika

Giorgianni teaches a "Transformation of Colorimetry to Writer Code Values" (17:7–8, Fig. 11c element 216) whose parameters are derived from output-device calibration over "image-forming values, chosen to adequately sample and cover the useful range of drive values for the output device/medium" (14:2–4), with "Database Color Encoding" expressed in device-independent domains such as CIE L*a*b*. Adobe's reasoning: to cover Tajika's drive range, Giorgianni's transform must generate a K signal, hence implement UCR — "widely used to generate CMYK coordinates, including in Tajika (Tajika, 4:23–27)." RAH did not dispute Adobe's analysis of claim 7's limitations under this ground at institution.

3.5 Ground 2 — Stewart + Tajika + Scott-Taggart

Adds Scott-Taggart's 1992 article on matching the proof to the press, supplying the remote/proofing motivation. RAH attacked Scott-Taggart on public accessibility (a packaging trade journal, allegedly not meaningfully indexed) — a § 103(b)/authentication fight, not a technical one. The Board found claim 13 unpatentable on Ground 4 in any event, so Ground 2 was not outcome-determinative.

4. The recurring motivation-to-combine rationales (the reusable engine)

Across all five grounds, the same four rationales recur, and they are the ones a POSITA would articulate:

1. Same field of endeavor — graphic-arts color reproduction. Two references cannot be non-analogous when the patent itself claims "any type of system or device for presenting a color reproduction in response to digital color signals" (Ex. 1003, 12:9–11). This defeats the standard non-analogous-art defense.
2. Predictable use of old elements, no change in function (KSR 550 U.S. at 416). Each reference is used for exactly what it discloses; the combination is sequential and additive.
3. Complementary, pre-existing needs — measurement/characterization (Stone, Stewart, ICC, Giorgianni) plus a rendering engine with multiple neutrals (Tajika, Kipphan's press, Chan/Sobol's printer).
4. Applicant's own characterization of the art — the specification's recitation of Neugebauer, Gordon, Vincent, Chan, Sobol, Kipphan, Sodergard, Bonino, Eouzan, the MCT spec, and the ICC profile format supplies the background knowledge and, for ICC/MCT, the admissions that do most of the work.

5. Obviousness of the claims the Board did not reach

5.1 Apparatus claims 1 and 31 — obvious over Stone + Tajika (and/or Stewart + Tajika)

Claim 1 (apparatus: printer + processor) tracks claim 7 minus the network element; the Board itself observed claim 1 "compris[es] a printer and a processor, without reciting a network." Claim 31 recites more than four colorants of which a plurality are neutral — which is precisely Tajika (K′, K″ plus C′M′Y′, C″M″Y″ = eight colorants, two neutral). A § 103 rejection of claims 1 and 31 on Stone + Tajika (or Giorgianni + Tajika) requires no additional reference. This is the strongest, most defensible extension of the FWD.

5.2 Network/multi-site claims 2–6 and 14 — obvious over Vincent or Sodergard + ICC v3.0 + a calibrated rendering device

These are the claims the earlier sections of this analysis identified as untested. They require assembly of a different combination:

• Vincent, US 5,272,518 ("portable spectral colorimeter for performing system-wide calibrations") — cited on the face of the '761 and expressly acknowledged to "mention[] applicability to insuring consistent color across a network," while lacking any teaching of "how distributed calibration would be implemented." A reference that discloses the objective (consistent color across a network) while leaving implementation to routine engineering is a classic § 103 target under KSR ("a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions").
• Sodergard et al., "A general teleproofing system," TAGA 1991 — digitizing a monitor's image for transmission over an ISDN link to a remote display. The '761 criticizes it only for "lack[ing] any provision for calibration or verification of the devices at either end of a link and also lack[ing] data structures needed to support remote proofing and negotiation of color approval." Supplying the calibration element from Vincent (or Chan/Sobol) and the data structure from ICC v3.0 is the obvious completion.
• ICC v.3.0 — supplies the machine-readable transform file separate from image data; the '761's only stated objection (profile embedding causes large transfers) is a motivation to the claimed refinement, not away from it.
• imagexpo (Group Logic) — the '761 admits it provides "interactive remote viewing and annotation" and cites the very article that "acknowledges that extant tools do not enable remote handling of color-critical aspects of proofing." Add it to ICC v3.0 + Vincent/Sodergard and claim 14 (annotation exchange "using networked computer systems") is squarely obvious.

The Virtual Proof shared/local split, the "shared components store color preferences" feature, and "revising color for remote printing without re-transmitting large image data" are all framed in the specification as responses to the ICC profile-embedding problem — an admitted deficiency, not a discovered advantage.

5.3 Claims 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 20 — largely foreclosed by the FWD

Claims 8, 10 and 11 were held unpatentable, so their added subject matter cannot carry the family. Claim 16 (gamut operations) is met by Stone's gamut mapping plus Gordon et al. / the gamut-operator art recited in the '761's own background. Claim 17 (prepare transform by rendering a calibration image) is met by Chan or Sobol (calibration form printed, scanned, correction coefficients generated) or by Giorgianni's calibration procedure ("image-forming values, chosen to adequately sample and cover the useful range of drive values," 14:2–4). Claim 20 (CRM) adds only a statutory category.

6. Where obviousness is genuinely weakest

(a) Claims 9 and 15 survived the IPR. The Board did not hold claim 9 unpatentable, and claim 15 (which depends from 9 and recites that "said preferences include at least one of a neutral definition…") fell with it. The stated reason in the FWD is procedural as much as substantive: Adobe "does not include an analysis of the limitations of claim 9, from which claim 15 depends" (Ground 4 discussion). This is an evidentiary gap, not a holding of non-obviousness — a future challenger with a Bonino US 5,309,257 (harmonizing outputs of multiple color devices) plus Kipphan US 5,182,721 (color-error signals feeding an ink-preset control panel) combination aimed specifically at the user-selectable neutral definition / preference limitation could close it. But the burden is higher, and the presumption of validity attaches to claims that have survived a full IPR. Do not represent claims 9 and 15 as obvious on the current record.

(b) The "appear substantially the same within the output colors attainable by the rendering devices" limitation. This is the appearance-matching language the patent emphasizes (Ex. 1003, Summary; '870 Patent at 8:27–34, as quoted in the N.D. Cal. order), and it is the limitation that connects the network claims to the user-facing purpose. Neither the FWD nor any identified ground was forced to address it as an express claim element. In the MDL, "appear substantially the same" was flagged as a term requiring construction for the '870 patent — and the PTAB decisions construed none of these terms. That untested construction is the best remaining non-obviousness position for the network claims (and it may have a § 112 counterpart).

(c) The 1996 priority date still controls for the network claims. The pre-AIA § 102(b) art actually used against claim 7 (Tajika 1992, Stewart 1994, Stone 1988, Giorgianni published Nov. 9, 1994, Scott-Taggart 1992, ICC v3.0 1994) all pre-dates the critical date, so there is no 1995–96 "gap" to exploit. But any effort to attack the network claims with later art (e.g., post-1996 Web-based proofing tools) fails § 102(b) and would have to rely on the admitted 1995 imagexpo art already in the specification — a narrower evidentiary base than the claim-7 grounds.

7. Secondary considerations

RAH put on evidence of secondary considerations, and the Board considered and weighed it ("including Patent Owner's evidence of secondary considerations") and still found the claim-7 subject matter obvious. Two practical observations:

• No secondary-consideration evidence was tied to the specific exchangeable-neutral-colorant limitation; much of it went to commercial success and copying in the broader remote-proofing market, which is not commensurate with a claim whose scope (per the Board) does not even require a network.
• RAH's licensing/litigation campaign (six-plus district court cases and four asserted patents, per the FWD's Related Matters section) is not itself evidence of non-obviousness; the industry-wide adoption of ICC-profile-based color management is equally consistent with the prior art teaching the same workflow.

8. Bottom line

Claims 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13 are unpatentable under pre-AIA § 103(a) — this is no longer an analytical prediction; it is an adjudicated, unappealed Final Written Decision. The nearest, simplest and most robust combination is Stone (1988) + Tajika (US 5,142,374): Stone supplies device-independent transformation, gamut mapping, and GCR/UCR (the "exchangeable" element); Tajika supplies a printer with two neutral colorants and six non-neutral colorants and a dark/light separation table that exchanges one neutral for another. The Board's holdings that Tajika is analogous art, that "the combined teachings" control, and that the combination is a predictable use of old elements with no change in function, are the load-bearing findings.

On the strength of the same record, claims 1 and 31 are obvious over Stone (or Giorgianni) + Tajika, and claims 2–6, 14, 16, 17 and 20 are obvious over the network/multi-site assembly (Vincent US 5,272,518, or Sodergard's teleproofing, + ICC v3.0 + a measured rendering device), independently corroborated by the '761's own admissions regarding the ICC Profile Format and imagexpo.

The two claims that resist the current record are claim 9 and its dependent claim 15 (user-selectable color preferences / neutral definition), because Adobe never briefed claim 9's limitations and both parties let the FWD stand. Any § 103 challenge to those claims, or to the unconstrued "appear substantially the same" language in the network claims, must be built on a purpose-made combination (e.g., Bonino + Kipphan) rather than on the IPR record, and should be presented as a first-instance argument, not as a settled one.

Confidence: high on the claim-7 family (primary source: Paper 119 and the parties' briefs, quoted above); moderate on my § 103 extension to the unadjudicated network claims, where I am reasoning from the specification's own admissions rather than from an adjudicated element mapping; and low on any assertion that claims 9/15 are obvious, which the record affirmatively contradicts.