US 7841712

I'll search for the patent and any 2026 CAFC docket activity involving it.

Let me check specifically whether 7841712 appears in any PTAB proceeding or 2026 CAFC docket, since the Slingshot/Canon patents-in-suit list didn't include it.

Summary: US Patent 7,841,712 (US7841712B2)

Bibliographic data

Sources: Google Patents US7841712B2, Justia, Patents-Review (US20090167819).

Abstract (as published)

A system and method for automatically determining the appropriate printhead/ink tank installation position to move a carrier transporting the printhead/ink tanks for a printing device. The carrier moves along a carrier frame and is covered by a protective cover. Once the protective cover is raised, the status of the ink tank is sensed. Based on the ink tank status, the carrier is moved to the appropriate printhead/ink tank installation position. In one embodiment the ink tank status is determined using an ink presence sensor; in another, using near-field wireless communication with the ink tank's memory.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (independent). A method of installing either a printhead or an ink tank in a printer, comprising four steps: (1) raising the printer's protective cover; (2) sensing the ink tank's status by determining whether a predetermined amount of ink is present (or not) in the tank; (3) sensing whether the printhead is present on the carrier along the carrier frame; and (4) automatically moving the carrier — which transports both the printhead and the ink tank — to one of two different installation positions along the carrier frame, chosen based on the combined results of the two sensing steps. The first position is for installing the ink tank; the second is for installing the printhead.

Claim 9 — Printing device (independent). An apparatus claim covering a printing device with: (a) a carrier that transports at least one semi-permanent printhead and at least one ink tank, moves along a carrier frame, and is configured to stop at either a first or a second of two different positions during printhead/ink-tank replacement or installation; (b) a first sensor that determines a status of the ink tank; (c) a second sensor that determines presence (or not) of the printhead; and (d) a processor that picks the appropriate one of the two installation positions based on the ink-tank status and printhead presence.

Dependent claims: 2–4 (wireless/RFID sensing of ink-tank memory; moving carrier to an ink-sensing position); 5 (move to printhead position if neither tank nor printhead present); 6 (move to ink-tank position if both present); 7 (prevent unlatching the printhead while in the ink-tank position); 8 (multiple tank and printhead install positions); 10–11 (ink presence sensor, e.g., optical); 12–13 (wireless/RFID); 14 (latch mechanism preventing printhead removal while in the tank-install position).

CAFC / USPTO 2026 docket check for this specific number

I searched for 2026 Federal Circuit and PTAB activity tied specifically to 7,841,712 and found none. A few precision points:

• The 2026 Slingshot Printing v. Canon Federal Circuit appeals do not involve 7,841,712. Those 2026 decisions concern different patents: 7,152,951 (e.g., appeal No. 24-2127, affirmed July 21, 2026, per Morgan Lewis/Law360) and 7,484,823 / 7,594,708 (Nos. 25-1032, 25-1033, 25-1034; opinion July 16, 2026, CAFC), plus No. 24-2132 (Rule 36 affirmance, May 7, 2026, CAFC PDF).
• The patents asserted in Slingshot's district-court campaigns (v. HP and v. Canon) are 7,152,951; 7,195,341; 7,559,629; 7,484,823; 7,594,708; 7,290,864; and 7,938,523 — 7,841,712 is not among them.
• Google Patents' "family has litigation" module for this family does link a Texas Western District Court case, 6:19-cv-00364 (Unified Patents portal). I could not verify from the retrieved material that 7,841,712 itself was asserted in that case, so treat that link as unconfirmed as to this patent specifically.

Explicit uncertainty: I have no authoritative confirmation of any 2026 CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR), or new litigation naming 7,841,712. The 2026 Slingshot/Canon appellate activity is real but centers on other patents in the same former-Lexmark portfolio. If a 2026 docket for 7,841,712 exists, it did not surface in my searches.

I'll research litigation involving US 7841712. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the specific case and parties.

Let me verify whether '712 was specifically asserted, and check other potential suits.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" default with targeted searches before finalizing.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 7,841,712 ("Automatic printhead and tank install positioning")

Note on sourcing: The canonical structured block ("PTAB proceedings on file") returns an empty list for this patent, and I independently web-searched for any petition naming the patent. Both sources agree. I did not locate any proceeding, and I have not invented any numbers below.

Proceedings overview

Zero. US 7,841,712 has never been the subject of an AIA trial proceeding: 0 IPRs, 0 PGRs, 0 CBMs — 0 instituted, 0 invalidated claims, 0 sustained claims, 0 settlements, 0 institution denials, 0 FWDs, 0 appeals. The defensive bottom line is therefore not "the patent survived IPRs and is hardened" and not "claims 1–5 are canceled" — it is the third, less common outcome: nobody ever bothered to attack this patent at the Board, and the patent then killed itself by lapsing for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2022-11-30. For a defendant today, the operative defense is the expiration date and the § 286 damages window, not a Board decision. The upside of the empty PTAB docket is that there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binding anyone, so every prior-art ground remains available in district court.

Proceedings on file

None — no IPR, PGR, or CBM has ever been filed against 7,841,712

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: N/A — no petition has been accorded a filing date. This is meaningful, not merely an absence of data: PTAB dockets retain petitions even when institution is denied (e.g., a § 314(a)/Fintiv denial) or when a proceeding is terminated pre-institution by settlement or dismissal. A zero count therefore means no petition was ever filed and docketed, subject only to indexing lag in the Open Data Portal.
• Judge panel: N/A — no panel has ever been assigned.
• Petition grounds: N/A — no claims of this patent have been challenged on § 102, § 103, or § 112 grounds at the Board.
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no claim of 7,841,712 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. Claims 1–14 remain exactly as issued on 2010-11-30. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise; there is no FWD to cite.
• Settlement / termination: N/A at the PTAB. (The district court case did settle — see below — but that produced no Board paper.)
• Appeal: N/A — nothing to appeal. The 2026 Federal Circuit activity in Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A. (Nos. 24‑2127, 25‑1032/33/34, 24‑2132) concerns the '951, '823, '629, and '708 patents, not the '712.
• Defensive value: There is no PTAB outcome to leverage and no estoppel to exploit — but also no need to buy an IPR. Any invalidity theory you develop is untested at the Board, and the patent is expired, so an IPR would buy you nothing an expiration defense does not already give you for free.

Why was this patent never IPR'd despite being asserted? This is worth understanding, because it explains the empty docket. The '712 was asserted — I confirmed the assertion (see the flagged correction below) — in Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., No. 6:19‑cv‑00364 (W.D. Tex.), where the complaint lists U.S. Patent Nos. 6,485,124; 6,666,449; 6,773,088; 7,311,385; 7,819,498; 7,841,712; and 8,113,618 as the patents-in-suit (complaint reproduced as an exhibit in IPR2020‑01084; corroborated by contemporaneous reporting listing 7,841,712 among the 16 patents in the June 2019 filings, The Recycler). HP did mount a large mid-2020 IPR campaign against that portfolio — the retrieved record shows, e.g., IPR2020‑01084 on U.S. 6,394,593 and IPR2020‑01086 on U.S. 7,014,299 — but no petition against 7,841,712 appears anywhere, and the ODP list confirms none. Plausible (unverified) explanations: the '712 claims were not the commercially significant ones, HP elected to litigate them, and the Slingshot–HP dispute was resolved by a Settlement, Release and License Agreement with dismissal with prejudice in early 2021 (dismissal order in Slingshot v. HP, No. 1:20‑cv‑189‑ADA, signed 2021‑03‑24, reproduced in an IPR2023‑00313 exhibit). I flag these as inferences, not findings.

Procedural ceilings that were never used (relevant to whether an IPR is even available now):

• PGR — unavailable: the 9-month window on this 2010‑11‑30 grant closed on 2011‑08‑30.
• CBM — unavailable: this is an inkjet carrier-positioning patent, not a "covered business method" patent, and the CBM program sunset on 2020‑09‑16 in any event.
• IPR — this was and remains the only AIA vehicle for this patent. There is no § 315(b) problem for a defendant never served by Slingshot, but note that a defendant served with a complaint asserting the '712 would have one year to petition.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All of claims 1–14 are UNTESTED — none canceled, none confirmed, none construed by the Board. Claim 1 (the method claim: raise cover → sense ink presence in the tank → sense printhead presence → automatically move the carrier to one of two install positions) and claim 9 (the apparatus claim) stand exactly as issued. There is no narrowing disclaimer, no adverse judgment, and no IPR-driven prosecution history to argue around. Anyone representing that the '712 has been invalidated at the PTAB is wrong.

Estoppel landscape. Because no petition was ever filed, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to any party, and no third party is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court — including art the examiner already considered during prosecution (US 6,003,985; US 6,938,976; US 7,128,408; US 6,802,602; US 6,902,256, plus the two 2001 Epson R800 web-page citations). Conversely, there is no Shaw/SAS estoppel puzzle to navigate and no petitioner-privity trap. HP's IPRs against sibling patents ('593, '299, and others) create zero estoppel effect as to the '712.

The real asset/liability picture — expiration vs. term.

• Per Google Patents, the "Adjusted expiration" field shows 2029‑02‑28 (20 years from the 2007‑12‑31 filing, plus PTA). That is only the maximum possible term.
• The operative fact is "LAPS" / "FP" — patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective 2022‑11‑30, with the 11.5-year fee never paid after the 2022‑07‑18 reminder. The patent is dead. No injunction is available, no ongoing royalties accrue, and the maximum recovery is past damages for pre-2022‑11‑30 conduct, further cut by the § 286 six-year lookback measured from any complaint. Note the term/lapse discrepancy explicitly — it is the single most exploitable fact about this patent.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has ever filed a first (much less successive) IPR against this patent. Slingshot, as patent owner, is a very experienced PTAB litigant — it has litigated IPRs on the sibling '951, '823, '629, and '708 patents all the way through Federal Circuit appeals, including a Rule 36 affirmance (No. 24‑2132, 2026‑05‑07) and affirmance of invalidity on the '951 (No. 24‑2127, 2026‑07‑21). That is a signal that Slingshot shows up and fights. It also means Slingshot knows the '712 has never been adjudicated and has no established validity posture either way. No defensive aggregator appears in the chain for this patent; the Google Patents "family has litigation" link to the W.D. Tex. case is simply the HP suit, not a Unified Patents challenge.

Practical posture. Because the patent expired in 2022, an IPR filed today would be an expensive way to defeat a past-damages-only claim, and under the Director's 2025‑10‑16 institution memorandum, the Director now decides institution in all IPR/PGRs (with the proposed rules then pending that would, if finalized, bar IPR of a patent that had already survived a validity challenge — not applicable here, since nothing has ever been adjudicated). A district-court invalidity defense or an expiration/§ 286 damages argument is almost certainly the cheaper path. Confirm current Director policy before relying on any of this, as it is in flux.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. A demand letter citing 7,841,712 for conduct occurring on or after 2022‑11‑30 is legally unenforceable — the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees. Ask the sender to identify (a) the accused acts, and (b) their dates. Link and quote the Google Patents legal-events record (LAPS 2023‑01‑02; FP effective 2022‑11‑30): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7841712B2/en.
2. If any pre-2022‑11‑30 damages claim is asserted, impose the § 286 six-year lookback from the date of the first complaint asserting the '712 (the earliest identified assertion being the June 2019 W.D. Tex. filings) and demand the priority/ownership chain (Lexmark → Funai 2013 → Slingshot 2019).
3. Do not reflexively file an IPR. No PTAB record exists, so there is no FWD to cite and no estoppel benefit to harvest; the patent is expired; and the Board's institution practice changed materially on 2025‑10‑16. If an IPR is nonetheless contemplated (e.g., a live pre-expiration damages claim large enough to justify it), the one-year § 315(b) clock runs from service of the complaint on your client, and the petition must be grounded in § 102/§ 103 art only, since the '712 has no relevant post-AIA-eligible window.
4. Fact-check any "PTAB history" your adversary or a vendor docket report pushes at you against the PTAB decisions portal and PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov; decisions at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions). There is nothing to find for this patent.

⚠️ Flagged contradictions with the previously generated sections

1. Litigation summary error (needs correction). The prior section state that 7,841,712 "is not among" the patents asserted in Slingshot's campaigns and that its link to case 6:19‑cv‑00364 was "unconfirmed." This is now contradicted by direct evidence: the complaint in Slingshot Printing LLC v. HP Inc., No. 6:19‑cv‑00364 (W.D. Tex.), expressly lists U.S. Patent No. 7,841,712 among the seven patents-in-suit, and the June 2019 press reporting lists it among sixteen. The patent was asserted; the Google Patents family-litigation link is confirmed, not merely plausible. (The prior section's statement was accurate as to the Canon campaign, which does not include the '712.)
2. Expiration contradiction (needs emphasis). The prior section correctly notes the lapse but lists "adjusted expiration 2029‑02‑28" alongside it. Read together these can mislead: 2029‑02‑28 is not the enforceable term — 2022‑11‑30 is. Any damages analysis must run from the lapse date.
3. No contradiction on PTAB status — the prior "PTAB proceedings on file" block (empty) is confirmed by independent search, with the caveat that ex parte reexamination filings are not covered by that block; I found no evidence of one either, but I cannot affirmatively rule it out from the retrieved material.

I'll research the assignment record, correspondents, and NPE signals for US 7,841,712.

Good leads. Let me dig into the correspondents, the Funai–Lexmark deal, and Slingshot's NPE profile.

Let me identify Slingshot's principals, address, and any NPE-directory listings.

Assignment-record reconstruction — US 7,841,712 B2

Scope note / evidentiary caveat. The assignment links below are drawn from the patent's own Google Patents legal-events record and from the USPTO-recorded reel/frame citations that appear in the patent text (authoritative source provided). The USPTO Assignment Center exposes the correspondent of record on each recorded assignment; that field is not mirrored in the Google Patents legal-events table I could retrieve. Direct Assignment Center retrieval by patent number at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) was not available to me in this session, so I could not verify the recorded correspondent for any of the three links in this chain. Where I have indirect correspondent evidence (PTAB/power-of-attorney filings), I say so explicitly and label it as not-the-same-field.

Inventors

• Both inventors conveyed to Lexmark twelve days before the 2007-12-31 filing date — the standard "assign-before-file" pattern at an operating company with an in-house IP department, not a distressed-out inventor pattern.
• Unusual-pattern check: no evidence found of either inventor departing Lexmark within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of inventor-side retention of rights. I have no employment-change data for either inventor; the 2013 portfolio sale (below) was a corporate asset transaction, not an inventor-driven one. Treat "inventors still at Lexmark in 2008" as unverified rather than confirmed.

Original assignee

Lexmark International, Inc. (Delaware corporation; Lexington, Kentucky).

• Shipped a product embodying the claims: yes (high confidence). The patent is directed to inkjet printers with semi-permanent printheads and on-carrier ink tanks — Lexmark's own platform (the specification describes the invention as addressing Lexmark-style install requirements). Lexmark was a first-tier inkjet OEM at filing. I did not attempt to map the claims to a specific model number and will not assert one.
• Primary line of business: printing hardware/supplies and, increasingly, managed print and enterprise software services.
• Current status: operating, but not in inkjet. Lexmark announced its exit from inkjet in August 2012 and completed the divestiture of inkjet assets in 2013 (below); it was subsequently taken private in a 2016 acquisition by an Asia-based investor consortium (Apex/Ninestar and PAG Asia Capital). The 2016 buyout is well documented but I did not re-verify it against the SEC filing in this session — treat the year as high-confidence, the buyer list as paraphrase.
• Ownership of this patent today: none. Lexmark's interest ended with Reel 030416/0001.

Assignment timeline

Three recorded conveyances. All three are Assignment conveyance types (no Security Agreement, License, Merger, Change of Name, or Release appears in the chain as retrieved).

1. 2007-12-19 (executed) / recorded 2007-12-31 — Reel 020363/0979

• Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST"
• Assignor: MUYSKENS, ROBERT; WOODS, GREGORY S.
• Assignee: LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC. (Kentucky)
• Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record. This is the link where the correspondent is most predictable (Lexmark's in-house IP Law Department, 740 West New Circle Road, Lexington KY 40550), but I am not asserting it as the recorded correspondent without a Reel/Frame view.
• Context: standard pre-filing inventor-to-employer assignment; not a distress transfer.

2. 2013-04-01 (executed) / recorded 2013-05-14 — Reel 030416/0001

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignors: LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC.; LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, S.A.
• Assignee: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD. (Japan)
• Correspondent: not exposed in the retrieved record. Indirect, non-equivalent evidence: in a separate Funai-held inkjet patent (US 7,410,246), Funai's power-of-attorney correspondence of record as of 2014 is Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP, 90 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. That is a PTO correspondence address, not an assignment correspondent, and it postdates the recording by ~1 year — do not treat it as confirmed for Reel 030416/0001.
• Cross-check that strengthens this link: a Funai 37 CFR 3.73(b) statement in the USPTO record cites the chain "Lexmark International, Inc. → [Funai]" at Reel 030416, Frame 0001 for another former-Lexmark inkjet patent, confirming 030416/0001 is a portfolio-level record covering the ~1,500 patents, not a patent-specific document.
• Context: strategic divestiture, not a fire-sale. The 2013-04-01 Master Inkjet Sale Agreement (Lexmark 8-K filed 2013-04-08, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/[1001288](/patent/1001288)/000100128813000010/form8-k.htm) sold the inkjet business and ~1,500 patents/applications for $100M cash ($95M at closing), with a 5-year non-compete on inkjet printers/cartridges. Funai had manufactured inkjet hardware for Lexmark since 1997 and bought the portfolio to launch its own inkjet brand (Funai press release 2013-04-02, https://beauty-origin.funai.jp/en/news/detail.php?pk=1384733665; DC Advisory deal note, https://www.dcadvisory.com/news-deals-insights/deal-announcements/dc-advisory-advised-funai-on-the-acquisition-of-lexmark-international/). No insolvency, no bankruptcy proceeding.

3. 2019-04-19 (executed) / recorded 2019-05-14 — Reel 049165/0996

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
• Assignee: SLINGSHOT PRINTING LLC (Delaware LLC; principal place of business 10015 Old Columbia Road, Suite B215, Columbia, Maryland 21046)
• Correspondent: not verified for this Reel/Frame. Adjacent, non-equivalent evidence: Slingshot's PTO power-of-attorney correspondence of record as of 2020 is Goldberg Segalla LLP, 711 3rd Avenue, Suite 1900, New York, NY 10017 (ipdocket@goldbergsegalla.com), filed on forms signed by Keith Machen, President, Slingshot Printing LLC (July 25, 2020), appearing in Slingshot's PTAB papers (e.g., IPR2020-01086 mandatory notices; IPR2022-01414/01541 exhibits, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01541/). One firm appearing on prosecution/PTO correspondence is not, by itself, recurrence evidence — I flag it as the best available pointer to who was running Slingshot's filings in this period, not as the confirmed recorder of Reel 049165/0996.
• Context: transfer to a licensing-only asserter. Slingshot's own complaint states: "Slingshot is in the business of licensing patented technology. Slingshot is the assignee of the Patents in Suit." (Slingshot Printing LLC v. Canon U.S.A., Inc., No. 2:22-cv-00123 (E.D.N.Y.), https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/New_York_Eastern_District_Court/2--22-cv-00123/). Same three-link chain (Lexmark → Funai → Slingshot) is pleaded for the sibling patents in that complaint.

Subsequent events that terminate the chain:

• No assignment to RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The chain ends at Slingshot.
• 2022-11-30: patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees (USPTO "LAPS"/37 CFR 1.362 entry; Google Patents status "Expired – Fee Related"), ~9 months before Slingshot's fee-payment failure was recorded 2023-01-02.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7841712
    2007 : Inventors assign to Lexmark
         : Application filed 31 Dec
    2010 : Patent issued 30 Nov
    2013 : Lexmark sells inkjet IP to Funai
         : 1500 patents for 100M dollars
    2019 : Funai assigns to Slingshot Printing LLC
    2022 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (strong).
The patent moved from an operating OEM (Funai, a consumer-electronics manufacturer with its own inkjet hardware business) to Slingshot Printing LLC, a Delaware LLC whose principal place of business is a suite address in Columbia, Maryland and which states in a federal complaint that it "is in the business of licensing patented technology." Reel 049165/0996, executed 2019-04-19, recorded 2019-05-14. That is a party admission of no-products/licensing-only status — the tell the instruction asks for, and stronger than naming alone. What I could not verify: whether 10015 Old Columbia Rd., Suite B215 is a registered-agent/mail-drop service, and the LLC's membership. I am not inferring shell status from the name "LLC."

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (moderate).
Slingshot does not appear on the named lists in my brief (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg). It is surfaced as a high-frequency patent plaintiff/patent owner in Unified Patents' litigation data: Google Patents' family-litigation module for this family links Texas Western District Court case 6:19-cv-00364 via the Unified Patents portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A19-cv-00364). Slingshot also appears as Patent Owner in multiple IPRs (e.g., IPR2020-01086 over US 7,014,299 against HP; IPR2022-01414 over US 7,195,341 and IPR2022-01541 over US 7,152,951 against Canon) and as plaintiff in Slingshot v. HP (W.D. Tex. Nos. 6:20-cv-00048 / 1:20-cv-00184, dismissed with prejudice 2021-03-24/04-01 under a settlement) and Slingshot v. Canon (E.D.N.Y. No. 2:22-cv-00123). Categorized as "high-frequency plaintiff" per Unified Patents' data, not per one of the enumerated NPE registries.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (no recurrence established).
Goldberg Segalla LLP appears on Slingshot's PTO correspondence post-2019 (power of attorney filed 2020-07-25, signed by Keith Machen, President). Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP appears as Funai's correspondence on an unrelated Funai patent in 2014. I found no single attorney/firm recurring across two or more of Reels 020363/0979 → 030416/0001 → 049165/0996, and the Assignment Center correspondent field itself was not retrievable. Marked unclear rather than present — the instruction is explicit that a single appearance is not a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Only three links, and the two post-filing links are six years apart (2013-04-01 and 2019-04-19). No sub-24-month LLC-to-LLC daisy chain, no shared correspondent address among successive assignees. The 2013 link is a documented portfolio-wide OEM asset sale (Reel 030416/0001 covers ~1,500 patents, corroborated by a Funai 3.73(b) statement citing that same Reel/Frame for a different Lexmark-origin patent), which is inconsistent with a shell-entity laundering pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — UNCLEAR.
Execution date 2019-04-19, recording 2019-05-14. The only pre-2020 Slingshot case surfaced for this family is the Unified-Patents-linked 6:19-cv-00364 (filed 2019), which would fall within roughly six months of the assignment. However, I could not verify that 7,841,712 was among the patents asserted in that case, and this is consistent with the earlier section of this analysis, which found that '712 is not among the patents identified in Slingshot's verified HP/Canon suits (7,152,951; 7,195,341; 7,559,629; 7,484,823; 7,594,708; 7,290,864; 7,938,523; plus 6,243,115; 6,394,593; 6,817,707; 7,258,434 per the AO-120 filings). Flagged consistency issue: the family-level litigation link (6:19-cv-00364) is the only thing tying '712 to a lawsuit, and it remains unconfirmed as to this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
Lexmark was solvent and executing a planned exit from inkjet (announced Aug. 2012) when it sold the portfolio for $100M in cash. No Chapter 7/11, no §363 sale, no court-supervised auction. Funai's later 2019 divestiture of the inkjet IP to an asserter is consistent with a monetization exit, but I could not retrieve Funai's contemporaneous financial documents in this session and therefore do not characterize Funai's 2019 state as distressed.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT / UNCLEAR.
Classic privateering requires the operating company to retain a stake or benefit from the NPE's assertions against competitors. Here the transfer appears to be an outright assignment: (i) Lexmark had covenanted not to compete in inkjet for five years (expiring ~2018), so it had no inkjet product to protect by 2019; (ii) no back-license or retained-interest document appears in the chain as retrieved. I cannot rule out an unrecorded economic participation agreement (those are not recordable), so this is not present on the record, not disproven.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Slingshot Printing LLC. No RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN link. The patent has not been neutralized defensively; it was instead abandoned for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2022-11-30.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals are documented at specific reel/frame entries: (i) a transfer to a licensing-only LLC — Reel 049165/0996, executed 2019-04-19 / recorded 2019-05-14, moving the patent from operating manufacturer Funai to Slingshot Printing LLC, which pleads that it "is in the business of licensing patented technology"; and (ii) a repeat-player assertion entity as current owner, appearing as plaintiff in Slingshot v. HP (W.D. Tex., dismissed by settlement 2021) and Slingshot v. Canon (E.D.N.Y. No. 2:22-cv-00123) and as Patent Owner in at least four IPRs (IPR2020-01086, IPR2022-01414, IPR2022-01541, IPR2023-00313). The chain is also a textbook operating-company-to-NPE divestiture path: Lexmark's 2013-04-01 Master Inkjet Sale Agreement (Reel 030416/0001, ~1,500 patents, $100M) followed by Funai's 2019 harvest sale to Slingshot.

Two patent-specific qualifications that cut against an aggressive reading of this patent: the earlier section of this analysis found 7,841,712 is not among the patents Slingshot actually asserted against HP or Canon, and the patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2022-11-30 — i.e., in this instance the NPE chain acquired the asset and then let it die rather than asserting it. NPE ownership pattern: high confidence. NPE assertion of this patent: not established.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 7,841,712, then open each record to capture the correspondent of record for Reels 020363/0979, 030416/0001, and 049165/0996. The correspondent fields are the one datum I could not retrieve, and they are the highest-value remaining open item in this chain.

I'll research each cited prior-art reference for US 7,841,712. Let me start with parallel searches.

I have good data on all five patent citations. Let me gather two more pieces: the Epson R800 non-patent citation and the prosecution history/rejection grounds.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,841,712 B2 ("Automatic printhead and tank install positioning")

Date note (flagging a conflict)

The authoritative Google Patents fetch for US7841712B2 is timestamped 2026-09-30, which matches the system date. The current task header says April 26, 2026. The two cannot both be today; I am treating the 2026-09-30 fetch as current and flagging the discrepancy rather than silently reconciling it. Nothing in the prior-art dating below turns on this (all references pre-date the 2007-12-31 priority date by years).

Patent identification (interpreted literally)

Per the authoritative text, 7841712 = US 7,841,712 B2, application US 12/006,190, filed/priority 2007-12-31, granted 2010-11-30, inventors Robert Muyskens / Gregory S. Woods, original assignee Lexmark International, Inc. No other number was substituted. Because the '712 application was filed before 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies (the AIA first-inventor-to-file regime does not).

All five patent references below were published more than one year before the 2007-12-31 filing date, so each qualifies as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(b) (printed publication/patent statutory bar). Whether any anticipates is a separate question, addressed per reference.

The five patent citations (as listed on the face of '712)

1) US 6,003,985 A — Canon, "Ink jet recording apparatus"

• Citation: US 6,003,985 A, Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, issued 1999-12-21; appl. 08/677,202, filed 1996-07-09; priority 1991-12-11. (Google Patents; FPO)
• Description: An ink jet recorder in which the ink tank and recording head are separable and individually mountable on a carriage. It has a liquid-passage coupling for attaching/detaching the tank to/from the head, a holding portion that guides/positions the tank on the head, and an electrical/mechanical connector between head and mounting portion. It emphasizes one-way mounting-direction control to avoid mis-installation, and improved head/carriage positioning.
• § 102 analysis: This is the closest reference to the environment of '712 — a carrier transporting a separable/semi-permanent printhead and on-carrier ink tank, with anti-mis-mount features. However, it contains no sensing of ink status, no printhead-presence sensing, and no automatic movement of the carrier to a selected one of two different install positions. It therefore does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 9 (each requires the combined sensing + automatic two-position selection). Its realistic role is background / a § 103 component showing a two-part separable head+tank carriage with mis-mount prevention (relevant to the "printhead install vs. ink-tank install" premise and to dependent claim 7/14's latching concept, though '985 teaches mounting-direction control rather than a latch that locks out printhead removal in a tank-install position).

2) US 6,938,976 B2 — Eastman Kodak, "Printer and method therefor adapted to sense data uniquely associated with a consumable loaded into the printer"

• Citation: US 6,938,976 B2, Eastman Kodak Co., issued 2005-09-06; appl. 09/334,375, filed 1999-06-16; Int. Cl. B41J 29/393. (Siwinski, Robinson, Spurr, Tredwell.) (Google Patents; US6938976 PDF)
• Description: An inkjet printer that senses data about a loaded consumable (receiver media, inks, printhead, cleaning fluid) via a transponder + memory attached to the consumable, polled by an in-printer transceiver over an RF, contactless link; read/write of manufacturing, usage and processing data. Explicitly touts avoiding an electrical connector and enabling ~backward-compatible consumable packaging.
• § 102 analysis: This maps directly onto the wireless/RFID memory-sensing limitations of claims 2, 3, 4, 12, 13 ("sensing … by wireless communication with memory of the ink tank," "radio frequency identification," "moving the carrier to an ink sensing position … to determine if at least one ink tank is present"). But it is directed to consumable identification/authorization and data logging, not to selecting between two installation positions based on sensed tank status + printhead presence. It therefore cannot anticipate claim 1 or 9 (missing the automatic two-position install selection), and because dependency claims incorporate the independent claim, it cannot anticipate claims 2–4 or 12–13 as whole claims either. Best characterized as a § 103 reference supplying the RFID-memory sensing element.

3) US 7,128,408 B2 — Seiko Epson, "Printing apparatus and ink cartridge therefor"

• Citation: US 7,128,408 B2, Seiko Epson Corp., issued 2006-10-31; appl. 10/607,215, filed 2003-06-27; priority 2000-12-05. (Continuation family incl. US 6,585,345 B2; inventor Kosugi.) (Google Patents; FPO)
• Description: A printer with a cartridge mounting portion for multiple ink cartridges each having a writable memory element; an accumulating unit that counts ink discharge per cartridge; and a writing member that writes information into a selected cartridge's element. Notably, it describes a carriage operation sequence when a transmitter-receiver reads ID/other information stored in the cartridge elements (FIGS. 7–8) — i.e., moving the carriage to a position where it can communicate with cartridge memory.
• § 102 analysis: Discloses (i) ink cartridges with memory that the printer reads/writes via a carriage-mounted transceiver, and (ii) carrier movement to a sensing/communication position — relevant to claims 2–4 and 12–13, and to claim 4's "moving the carrier to an ink sensing position." It does not disclose a protective-cover trigger, printhead-presence sensing, or automatic selection between exactly two different install positions. No anticipation of claim 1/9; § 103 reference for the wireless-sensing sub-features.

4) US 6,802,602 B2 — Seiko Epson, "Ink cartridge and ink jet record apparatus using ink cartridge"

• Citation: US 6,802,602 B2, Seiko Epson Corp., issued 2004-10-12; priority 2001-11-26. (Corresponds to EP/JP family, e.g. EP1332876.) (Google Patents)
• Description: An ink cartridge with an internal liquid-level / residual-ink sensor (a sensor-accommodation area and sensor attached to the cartridge), memory means, and a record apparatus where ink cartridges are detachably placed on a carriage with the record head on the carriage underside.
• § 102 analysis: Most relevant to the "sensing a status of the ink tank by ascertaining a presence or not of a predetermined amount of ink" step of claim 1, and to claims 10–11 ("first sensor is an ink presence sensor … optical sensor") — the cartridge-mounted residual-ink sensor is an ink-presence-detection teaching. It does not disclose using that sensed status (plus printhead presence) to automatically choose between two install positions, nor cover-raise triggering. So no anticipation of claim 1/9; a § 103 reference for the ink-sensing element (and arguably the ink-tank/semi-permanent-head-on-carriage architecture).

5) US 6,902,256 B2 — Lexmark, "Ink jet printheads"

• Citation: US 6,902,256 B2, Lexmark International, Inc., issued 2005-06-07; priority 2003-07-16. (Same assignee as '712.) (Google Patents)
• Description: A printhead architecture patent — semiconductor substrate, insulating/resistive/conductive layers, a diamond-like-carbon (DLC) protective layer over the ink ejector, aimed at faster, more reliable, more energy-efficient thermal printheads. Mentions a printer cartridge with printhead on a carriage and an off-carriage/refillable ink supply.
• § 102 analysis: This is the least relevant of the five on the inventive concept. It is a printhead-structure reference with no installation-positioning, sensing, or cover-trigger teaching. It cannot anticipate any claim of '712. Its likely citation purpose is to show the printhead / on-carriage cartridge context (and the common-assignee relationship), i.e., background art at most. No § 102 anticipation; no meaningful § 103 addition to the positioning claims.

Non-patent citation

• Citation: Epson Stylus Photo R800 support documentation, http://files.support.epson.com/htmldocs/r800-/r800-rf/ink-1.htm, dated 2001 (listed twice in the '712 record — once with hyphens, once with OCR-substituted long dashes).
• Description (based on the R800 product/UX context): end-user instructions for the R800's ink-cartridge replacement — open the printer cover and the ink-cartridge holder/carriage automatically moves to the cartridge-replacement position, where the user installs the on-carriage ink cartridges (the R800 uses individual cartridges with a non-disposable printhead).
• § 102 analysis: This is the most thematically on-point piece of cited art for the "raise cover → carrier automatically moves to an install position" behavior of claim 1. Caveat: I could not retrieve the live page content (search budget exhausted), so I am reasoning from the R800 platform's known behavior and the document's title/path — treat the substantive description as unverified. Even crediting it, a cover-triggered move to a single cartridge-replacement position does not disclose selecting between two different positions based on sensed ink-tank status + sensed printhead presence, so it would not anticipate claim 1. It is a strong § 103 springboard that the examiner or a challenger would combine with the RFID/ink-sensing references.

Synthesis — what is "most relevant," and the § 102 vs. § 103 reality

Most relevant references, ranked by proximity to the claimed invention:

1. Epson R800 NPL (2001) — automatic carriage movement to a cartridge-install position on cover opening (the "automatic move" premise). Unverified content.
2. Kodak US 6,938,976 — RF/transponder memory communication with a consumable (claims 2–4, 12–13).
3. Epson US 7,128,408 — carriage moves to read/write ink-cartridge memory elements (claims 2–4, 12–13; claim 4).
4. Epson US 6,802,602 — cartridge-mounted residual-ink sensing (claim 1's ink-status step; claims 10–11).
5. Canon US 6,003,985 — separable printhead + on-carriage ink tank with anti-mis-mount/mounting-direction control (background; claim 1/9 architecture; claim 7/14 latch context).
6. Lexmark US 6,902,256 — printhead structure only (background; no § 102/§ 103 weight on the positioning claims).

Clean § 102 anticipation: none. No single cited reference discloses all of (a) protective-cover raise, (b) ink-tank status sensing (predetermined-ink presence), (c) printhead-presence sensing, and (d) automatic selection of one of two different installation positions based on the combined (b)+(c) results. Claim 1 and independent claim 9 therefore are not anticipated by any cited reference. Because a dependent claim incorporates its parent, no claim 2–8 or 10–14 is anticipated either on the cited art.

The cited art supports, at most, a § 103 obviousness combination: R800/NPL (cover-triggered carriage move to install position) + Kodak '976 and/or Epson '408 (contactless/RF memory sensing of the cartridge) + Epson '602 (cartridge ink-level sensing) + Canon '985 (separable head/tank with mis-mount prevention), with '256 supplying printhead context. The non-obvious kernel the '712 patent appears to rest on — using the sensed ink-tank status and sensed printhead presence to decide which of two distinct install stations to drive the carrier to — is not taught by any one reference.

Uncertainty / caveats:

• The Google Patents "Citations (5)" list is a bare citation list; it does not record which reference the examiner applied against which claim, and rejections/allowance grounds are not in the retrieved material. The claim mappings above are my analytical inferences from each reference's disclosure, not record facts.
• I could not verify the Epson R800 NPL content (page not retrieved); its description above is inferred and should be confirmed before relying on it.
• I found no 2026 CAFC or PTAB activity naming 7,841,712 and no confirmation that it was asserted in the Texas W.D. case 6:19-cv-00364 linked in its Google Patents "litigation" module (see the litigation section above). This prior-art analysis is independent of that.

Sources: Google Patents US7841712B2; US6003985; US6938976; US7128408; US6802602; US6902256.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art references actually listed on the patent page, enriching where I can with targeted lookups.

Key supplemental find worth verifying before I build the combination analysis:

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,841,712 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Two flags before the analysis

(a) Date inconsistency in the task framing. The strict-rule block states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the system context says today is 2026-09-30, and the authoritative fetch timestamp for the patent page is 2026-09-30T05:32:15.955Z. Moreover, the previously-generated summary cites CAFC activity from July 16 and July 21, 2026 — i.e., events after April 26, 2026. Those materials cannot coexist with an April 26, 2026 "current date." I treat the April 26, 2026 string as stale/erroneous and use 2026-09-30 as the operative date. This does not affect the § 103 analysis, which is keyed to the 2007-12-31 priority date.

(b) Governing law. Application 12/006,190 was filed 2007-12-31 — pre-AIA. Pre-AIA § 103(a) applies, and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (Apr. 30, 2007) was controlling law eight months before filing. That timing matters: the "predictable combination of known elements" and "obvious to try" rationales are fully available against these claims.

1. The prior-art set actually on the page

The "Prior Art" section of the Google Patents page consists of five examiner citations plus two NPL items. I use these as the primary set, and I flag one supplemental reference I surfaced in research (not on the page's list).

Supplemental reference (NOT on the page's Prior Art list): in the course of research I retrieved text of US6739692B2 (Seiko Epson) — an "ink jet recording apparatus of recording head/ink tank separate exchanging type" that expressly claims "an ink tank exchanging position which is a position of the carriage where the ink tank is to be exchanged, and a recording head exchanging position which is different from the ink tank exchanging position," and states the problem as: "the user who wished to exchange the ink tank may dismount the recording head erroneously or the user who wishes to exchange the recording head may dismount the ink tank erroneously." That is, almost verbatim, the problem statement in column 1 of the '712 patent. I was cut off by a tool-step limit before verifying its exact filing/publication dates, so I use it only as corroboration of motivation, not as a formal anticipation reference. It should be verified independently.

Note on the "Cited By" entries: the Hewlett-Packard "logic circuitry" family (US10875318, US11250146, etc., priority 2018-12-03) and US11858277 (2019-04-29) postdate the '712 priority date and are therefore not § 103 prior art against '712. They appear on the page as later citing documents only. Do not use them in this analysis.

2. What has to be shown

The independent claims require a closed-loop, two-input → two-position decision:

• Claim 1: (a) raise cover → (b) sense ink-tank status by ascertaining presence/absence of a predetermined amount of ink → (c) sense printhead presence → (d) automatically move the carrier to one of two different positions (tank-install vs. head-install) based on both sensed inputs.
• Claim 9: same concept in apparatus form — carrier stoppable at either of two positions; first sensor for tank status; second sensor for head presence; processor selecting the position from both inputs.

The `712 specification itself concedes three of the four pillars are old:

• "Printhead presence can be accomplished via the normal printhead sensing methods as is known in the art" (col. — Description).
• The latching mechanism "may be implemented in any of a number of ways and… embodiments of the present invention are not limited to a particular printhead latching mechanism."
• The background admits printers "may only be required to move the printing device carrier… to the appropriate installation location along the carrier frame."

These are applicant-admitted prior art / admissions about the level of ordinary skill, which under KSR narrow the remaining inventive space to the automatic selection logic — and that is exactly where the cited art lands.

3. Primary combination: A + B + C (optionally + D, + US6739692)

3.1 Mapping claim 1

3.2 Mapping claim 9

• Carrier moving along a frame, stoppable at two positions → A (carrier 102, window 605) + US6739692 (two different exchanging positions).
• First sensor for tank status → B (RF transceiver/transponder polling) or D (liquid level sensor).
• Second sensor for printhead presence → B (printhead memory/ID read only when installed); applicant concession for the "normal" methods.
• Processor selecting position from both inputs → A's carrier controller + B's "control logic processing unit."

3.3 Why a POSITA would have combined them (the motivation)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. All are ink-jet printers addressing replacement of an ink tank and a printhead on a scanning carriage. Canon A already automates carriage movement to a service window upon an operator command; Kodak B already automates consumable identification; Epson C already moves the carriage to a predetermined positional relationship to read the tank's memory non-contactly. Combining "when is the carrier moved" (A, C) with "what is present, determined without user input" (B, D) is the assembly of known elements according to known methods.

2. Explicit motivation in B to eliminate the manual step. Kodak B's stated advantages are precisely the ones the '712 claims deliver: it "obviates the need for manual entry," it "allows control logic… to determine the type of consumable that is loaded," and it removes reliance on manual/mating electrical contacts that "break, collect dirt, corrode, or become misaligned." Substituting B's sensed data for Canon A's manual changeover switch 607 is the classic KSR substitution of one known input for another to obtain a predictable result.

3. Explicit motivation in US6739692 (and in A) about user error. Canon A already provides single-direction mounting "to avoid making any mistakes," and US6739692 states the head/tank mis-dismount problem in the same terms the '712 patent uses as its reason for existing. Where the prior art identifies the very defect the patent purports to solve, that is strong motivation. (Caveat: US6739692 is not on the page's citation list; verify before relying on it formally.)

4. C teaches the exact sub-step. Claim 4's "moving the carrier to an ink sensing position along the carrier frame" is squarely met by Epson C's disclosure that the carriage is driven to a predetermined positional relationship for non-contact writing/reading, with Figs. 7–8 showing the carriage operation sequence for reading cartridge IDs.

5. Design/engineering incentive. The '712 background itself describes the two-step, error-prone install procedure as the problem to be solved; that is a recognized, articulated need in the art — the "design need or market pressure" prong of KSR.

4. Claim-by-claim disposal table

5. Where the analysis is genuinely contestable

I want to be candid about the soft spots rather than overstate the case.

5.1 The narrowing in claim 1(b) is real. Claim 1 does not claim generic "ink tank status" sensing; it claims sensing "by ascertaining a presence or not of a predetermined amount of ink in the ink tank." That is an ink-level/threshold determination, not a mere cartridge-ID interrogation. If the patentee argues that B's RFID identification reads only identity/type and not an ink amount, then the claim-1 mapping must run through D (liquid level sensor) and/or C (stored "used amount or residual quantity of ink"). Both are available on this page, so the combination still works — but the office action / invalidity contention should be built on D + C, not on B, for this limitation. Note that dependent claims 2–3 and 12–13 sweep the wireless embodiments back in, and they are met by B directly.

5.2 Canon A's manual switch cuts both ways. A POSITA could argue A teaches away from automation because Canon deliberately interposed an operator changeover switch 607 to select head-vs-tank replacement. The better reading is that switch 607 is a mode selector for an automated carrier move — it tells the machine where to go, not whether to automate. It is not a statement that automatic determination is inoperable or inferior. Under KSR, a mere disclosed manual alternative does not foreclose an obvious automated substitution, especially when B supplies the automation and states the benefit of removing manual input.

5.3 Claim 6's "both present → tank position" is the least well-met. The specific tie-break logic in claims 5–6 (and step 230/240) is not spelled out in A, B, C, or D. Epson US6739692 supplies the two positions but not, as far as I retrieved, the sensor-driven selection rule. This limitation is best attacked as an obvious design choice given (i) the conceded install ordering ("printheads need to be installed before the ink tanks") and (ii) the conceded higher turnover of ink tanks. It is not a strong standalone anticipation.

5.4 Secondary considerations. None are apparent. The patent lapsed for non-payment effective 2022-11-30, so there is no live infringement recovery and, correspondingly, no well-developed commercial-success record with a nexus to these claims. It is also worth noting that the asserted Slingshot patents (7,152,951; 7,195,341; 7,559,629; 7,484,823; 7,594,708; 7,290,864; 7,938,523) do not include '712 — consistent with, though not proof of, a weaker perceived validity position. I state that as an observation, not evidence.

5.5 Reference E (Lexmark US6902256) is weak for this purpose. Its retrieved disclosure is about printhead microstructure (DLC protective layers, heater chips) and a background taxonomy of disposable/on-carrier/off-carrier systems. It supports the general level of skill and the existence of on-carrier printhead systems, but it does not contribute to any limitation of claims 1 or 9. Do not build the combination on E; its role is background.

6. Explicit uncertainty statement

• I did not retrieve the full text of the five cited references; my mapping rests on abstracts, claim sets, and the passages quoted in the search results above. Specific paragraph/column citations for a formal office action would need to be verified against the full documents.
• NPL-1/NPL-2 (the Epson R800 support pages, dated 2001) are potentially the single most on-point item for claim 1's "raise the cover → carrier moves to install position" step, because Epson's R800-class procedure has the carriage move to the ink-cartridge replacement position when the cartridge cover is opened. I was unable to fetch and verify that text (tool-step limit), so I have not relied on it. Confirm before citing.
• US6739692B2 is the strongest motivational reference I found for the "two different exchanging positions" limitation, but it is not on this page's Prior Art list and I could not complete verification of its bibliographic data. Treat as provisional.
• My earlier section's caveat stands: the Google Patents "family has litigation" link to Texas W.D. Tex. case 6:19-cv-00364 does not establish that '712 itself was asserted there. That link should not be used as evidence of the patent's commercial importance.

Bottom line: Claims 1–14 of US 7,841,712 are, on the reference set cited by the examiner, vulnerable to a § 103(a)/KSR challenge. The strongest primary combination is US6003985 (A) + US6938976 (B) + US7128408 (C), supplemented by US6802602 (D) for the ink-level limitation of claim 1(b), with US6739692 (verify) supplying the two-distinct-positions limitation and the express motivation. The weakest link in the case is the specific tie-break logic of claims 5–6; the strongest is the RFID/wireless dependent claims 2–3 and 12–13, which fall to B alone.