US 8212859

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any litigation or CAFC docket activity.

Let me check specifically for any litigation or CAFC docket activity involving this patent.

Search results: US 8,212,859

Scope note on the "CAFC 2026 docket" request: I searched for "8,212,859" in combination with Federal Circuit / appeal / litigation terms. I found no litigation, IPR/PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal naming this patent. The only Apple patent matters my searches surfaced were unrelated: Taction Technology v. Apple (San Diego jury verdict, U.S. Pat. Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117 — haptics/Taptic Engine), Masimo/Cercacor v. Apple (C.D. Cal.), Powermat v. Apple (W.D. Tex., 7:26-cv-00045), and TOT Power Control v. Apple (D. Del.). I cannot confirm a clean bill of health here — my search was a general web search, not a direct PACER/CAFC docket query, so this is a "not found," not a verified negative. There is also a date inconsistency in the material I retrieved (some items are dated September 2026 while you state today is April 26, 2026); I am flagging rather than resolving it.

Bibliographic data (from Google Patents full text and uspto.report)

Patent family / continuations (per Google Patents):

• PCT/US2007/081308 → WO 2008/046075 A2
• TW 096138511 A → TWI407783B
• US 13/488,296 (continuation, filed 2012-06-04) → US 9,383,582 B2 (granted 2016-07-05)
• US 15/201,859 (filed 2016-07-05) → US 10,823,965 B2

Co-pending sibling cross-referenced in the specification: Ser. No. 11/580,580, "Enhanced Image Display in Head Mounted Displays" (incorporated by reference; later published as US 2017/0353713 A1).

Abstract (verbatim)

"Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for projecting a source image in a head-mounted display apparatus for a user. A first display projects an image viewable by a first eye of the user. A first peripheral light element is positioned to emit light of one or more colors in close proximity to the periphery of the first display. A receives data representing a source image, processes the data representing the source image to generate a first image for the first display and to generate a first set of peripheral conditioning signals for the first peripheral light element, directs the first image to the first display, and directs the first set of peripheral conditioning signals to the first peripheral light element. As a result, an enhanced viewing experience is created for the user."

(The "A receives data…" phrasing is an apparent typographical omission of "processor" in the granted abstract; I am quoting literally rather than correcting it.)

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Head-mounted display apparatus (as granted)

A head-mounted display with two displays and two peripheral light elements, plus a processor that:

1. Receives data representing a source image;
2. Divides the source image into a left image and a right image;
3. Determines periphery colors for each of the left and right images;
4. Combines the left image with its determined periphery colors by driving the first peripheral light element to display those colors only in a peripheral region of the first image, and likewise for the right;
5. Projects the combined left image only to the first display and the combined right image only to the second display, creating an enhanced viewing experience.

Key limitations that define the granted scope:

• "viewable only by a first eye" / "viewable only by a second eye … independent of the first image" — i.e., separate per-eye channels, not a single shared display.
• Peripheral colors are displayed "only in a peripheral region" of the respective image — the peripheral light must not intrude on the central image area.
• The right-eye image is independent of the left-eye image.

Claim 17 — Computer-implemented method

Substantively the method counterpart of claim 1, with the same core steps (receive source image → divide into left/right → determine periphery colors → combine by directing peripheral light elements to display those colors only in a peripheral region → project combined left image only to the first display and combined right image only to the second display).

Notable drafting observations (flagging, not correcting):

• Claims 7–10 and 13 recite "the first set of peripheral conditioning signals," but granted claim 1 recites "periphery colors" — an apparent antecedent-basis gap. Similarly, the claim 17 preamble recites only a first display and first peripheral light element, while the body recites a second peripheral light element. These are the kind of defects typically addressed in the continuation/child (US 9,383,582), whose claim 1 was rewritten in broader single-display terms ("a display … viewable by a user").

What the specification actually discloses (context for the claims)

• Problem: Non-see-through HMDs fill central but not peripheral FOV, producing a "box/tunnel" effect and, because peripheral vision detects motion, potential motion sickness. (Specification, Background.)
• Solution: Treat the peripheral area so it is color-coordinated with the currently displayed image, dynamically, to make the peripheral area "converge" with the display area.
• Peripheral light element implementations: larger secondary displays; discrete-color or RGB LEDs; electroluminescent displays (ELDs); side-emitting optical fibers (nicked cladding); light pipes / prism light guides. LEDs may sit behind translucent/diffusing material. Peripheral elements may also be placed elsewhere along the optical path between display and eye, not just adjacent to the display.
• Periphery-color determination options (FIG. 4, step 406): divide frame into central + left/right/top/bottom sections and take predominating color per section; a single predominating color for the whole frame; separate top-half/bottom-half colors (sky/field example); average color gamut; dominant color (sky, ocean, forest); or pixel/pixel-group matching to a pixelated peripheral element. User-selectable modes via a menu.
• Optics surveyed: LCD/OLED/LCoS/MEM-laser architectures; aspherical (coaxial lenses, concave mirror, free-form prism); diffractive (LOE, BLOE, wedge display); MEM-laser raster scanning.
• Stated advantages: increased viewing comfort, reduced motion-sickness likelihood, individual interpupillary adjustment, greater immersion, larger virtual FOV, increased overall brightness.
• Applicant's own closing caveat: the periphery displays could also create blurred images, non-active frame-like images, or even "anti-periphery" images/colors — expressly noted as within the scope of the claims.

Prior art cited on the face of the patent

US 6,064,353 (Hoshi); US 6,185,045 (Hanano); US 6,657,602 (Endo); US 7,938,546 (Blonde); US 2004/0036700 (Kashio); US 2005/0255912 (Love); US 2006/0081793 (Nestorovic); US 2006/0120247 (Noda); US 2007/0046776 (Yamaguchi); US 2009/0175536 (Gutta); EP 0 640 859; GB 2 308 036; GB 2 317 528; JP 04-106668. Also: International Search Report and Written Opinion dated May 8, 2008 (sic, as printed) for PCT/US2007/081308.

Google Patents lists 197 citing documents, including Osterhout Group US 9,400,390 "Peripheral lighting for head worn computing" — a direct downstream citation worth noting if you are assessing the patent's influence on later peripheral-lighting HMD art.

Explicit uncertainties

1. No litigation/CAFC activity confirmed. I found no case, IPR, or appeal involving 8,212,859. Treat as unverified rather than as a definitive negative.
2. Claim text source. The granted-claim text above matches the Google Patents full-text claim set and the uspto.report grant record. Note that the pre-grant publication US 2008/0088936 A1 carried materially broader claims (claim 1 recited a single display and simply "generate a first set of peripheral conditioning signals," with no "only by a first eye" or "only in a peripheral region" limitations). The granted claims are meaningfully narrower than the published application.
3. Expiration date. "2031-05-02" is Google Patents' adjusted-expiration field (filing date + 20 years + PTA). I have not independently verified the PTA certificate; if you need the term for a diligence or FTO purpose, pull the face of the patent / PAIR.
4. Date conflict noted at the top regarding retrieved 2026-dated search results versus your stated current date.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8212859 specifically.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation-specific sources.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859

Patent identified: U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859 B2 — "Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays"

• Assignee: Apple Inc. (originally Apple Computer, Inc.)
• Inventors: John G. Tang; Anthony M. Fadell
• Application No.: 11/580,774 | Filed: October 13, 2006 | Granted: July 3, 2012
• Status: Active (adjusted expiration listed as 2031-05-02)
• Family: Continuation US 9,383,582 B2 (app. 13/488,296); continuation US 10,823,965 B2 (app. 15/201,859); plus foreign counterparts WO 2008046075 A2 and TWI407783B

Finding on litigation

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859 was found. After searching litigation-oriented and general sources for this specific number, I located no district court complaint, ITC action, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or Federal Circuit appeal in which the '859 patent is the asserted or challenged patent.

I want to be transparent about the limits of this search: I was not able to return a structured docket hit from the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or a Docket Alarm/Law360 case page tied to this number. Many of those portals are also gated or require direct queries. So this is a negative search result based on the sources reached, not a certification that no case exists. Any party relying on this should confirm against PACER/Docket Alarm and the USPTO PTAB docket directly.

Important distinction — speculation vs. actual litigation

A large volume of 2012 press coverage discussed this patent, but it is commentary, not litigation. To avoid conflating the two:

• The Verge (July 5, 2012) — "Apple's patent on Google's Project Glass that wasn't" — analyzed the issued claims and concluded the '859 patent would not be used against Google's single-display Project Glass. No suit was reported. (theverge.com)
• DecryptedTech — predicted Apple "will probably line up to sue Google," explicitly speculative. (decryptedtech.com)
• heise.de — factual grant announcement; no litigation. (heise.de)
• International Business Times / The Free Library — grant coverage; no litigation.

None of these report an actual filed case involving the '859 patent.

Why the "no litigation" result is plausible

The '859 patent claims are narrow — they require two displays, each projecting an image only to one eye independently, plus divided left/right images, periphery-color determination per image, and peripheral light elements emitting only into the peripheral region. As The Verge noted, Apple emphasized the two-display independent-eye construct during prosecution to distinguish prior art. A claim this specific has limited assertion value against single-display AR eyewear, which helps explain the absence of enforcement activity even as Apple's AR/VR competitors proliferated.

What I could not verify

• Whether any sealed or unreported case exists.
• Whether the '859 patent has been asserted as a defensive counterclaim or in a protective order/confidentiality posture.
• Whether US 9,383,582 or US 10,823,965 (same family) or sibling application US 2017/0353713 A1 ("Enhanced Image Display In Head-Mounted Displays") were involved in enforcement — these are different patent numbers and are outside the scope of your request; I did not find litigation on them either, but flag them as the family members most likely to be asserted.

Bottom line: Based on the sources reached, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859. The extensive 2012 media coverage was anticipatory commentary about a possible Apple–Google dispute, not a report of filed litigation. Recommend direct confirmation on PACER, Docket Alarm, and the Unified Patents litigation portal before relying on this negative result.

I'll start by checking the structured record and then searching for any PTAB activity not captured by the ODP ingest.

Let me cross-check for any proceeding against the patent or its continuations, and for assertion history that could have triggered a petition.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 8,212,859: 0. Breakdown by status: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to work with. This patent has not "survived" IPRs — it has never been subjected to one. That is a materially different posture. You get no free § 315(e)(2) estoppel leverage, no petitioner-funded claim-construction record, and no FWD canceling claim 1 for you to wave at opposing counsel. What you do get is an untested patent, which means the invalidity case is yours to build from scratch, and the strongest early leverage is likely to come from the patent's own prosecution history and the crowded pre-2006 HMD art rather than from a Board decision.

Verification note. I sourced the proceedings list from the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest: no AIA trial proceedings). I then ran independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM and ex parte reexamination activity on the '859 patent and its two continuations and found none. I could not query PTAB E2E or Docket Navigator directly from this environment, so treat "zero proceedings" as high-confidence but not independently re-derived from the Board's docket.

Proceeding-by-proceeding detail

No proceedings to enumerate

There is no IPR, PGR, or CBM number to report for US 8,212,859 — and per the operating rules I will not manufacture one. For completeness, here is the negative result of the checks I ran:

Adjacent facts that shape the defensive posture

These are not proceedings, but they are the things a defendant's outside counsel will ask about in the first 48 hours.

Patent identity and term. US 8,212,859 B2, "Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays." Inventors John G. Tang and Anthony M. Fadell. Assignee Apple Inc. Filed and priority-dated 2006-10-13; granted 2012-07-03. Google Patents reports status "Active, expires 2031-05-02" (an adjusted expiration implying a substantial patent term adjustment beyond the nominal 2026-10-13 twenty-year date). That reported date is worth verifying against the printed face of the patent and the USPTO maintenance-fee record before you rely on it for a damages or § 315(b) analysis — I am reporting it as Google Patents states it, not as an independently confirmed term.

Family. Three US family applications share the 2006-10-13 priority date: the '859 patent; continuation US 13/488,296, which issued as US 9,383,582 (granted 2016-07-05); and continuation US 15/201,859, which issued as US 10,823,965. Foreign counterparts: PCT/US2007/081308 (WO 2008046075 A2) and TW 096138511 (TWI 407783 B). A sibling Apple application filed the same day, "Enhanced Image Display in Head-Mounted Displays," Ser. No. 11/580,580 (published as US 2017/0353713 A1), is incorporated by reference into the '859 specification. Practical point: a validity attack on the '859 patent should be scoped to the whole family. If you knock out the '859 claims and Apple simply asserts the '582 or the '965, you have bought nothing.

Claim set (all 25 claims untested). Two independent claims — claim 1 (apparatus) and claim 17 (computer-implemented method) — plus dependents 2–16 and 18–25. Both independents require the same core sequence: receive a source image; divide it into a left image and a right image; determine periphery colors for each; and "combin[e] ... by directing the [corresponding] peripheral light element to display the determined ... periphery colors only in a peripheral region" of the respective image, with each combined image projected only to the corresponding display.

Prosecution-history estoppel is the real asset here. Reporting on the patent's issuance (The Verge, 2012-07-05) records that in response to a Patent Office rejection Apple expressly argued the claim "requires that the source image be divided into left and right images which are then processed separately and ultimately displayed separately to a left eye and a right eye independent of each other." That is a prosecution disclaimer you can hold Apple to under Phillips / Thorner: the claim scope is tethered to a genuine two-display, independent-image architecture. A single-display HMD (even one with peripheral lighting) should fall outside the literal claim, and Apple should not be permitted to recapture it in an infringement theory. Verify the disclaimer against the actual file wrapper — the news account is a lead, not evidence.

A § 112 vulnerability that PTAB cannot reach. Claim 7 (and claim 9, and method claims 20/22) recites "the first set of peripheral conditioning signals," a term that has no antecedent basis in independent claim 1 — claim 1 recites determining "periphery colors," not a "set of peripheral conditioning signals." That is a textbook indefiniteness candidate. Critically, § 112(b) is not an available ground in an IPR (35 U.S.C. § 311(b) limits IPR to § 102/§ 103 on patents and printed publications), and PGR is unavailable here because this patent's effective filing date (2006-10-13) predates the 2013-03-16 AIA first-inventor-to-file cutoff, and because the PGR window (§ 321(c)) closed nine months after the 2012-07-03 grant. CBM is likewise foreclosed — beside the fact that this is not a financial-services patent, the CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16. So the indefiniteness argument must be litigated in district court, at the ITC, or in a Markman/Nautilus posture. Do not let a PTAB petition carry it.

Only one AIA vehicle remains open. With PGR and CBM off the table, IPR is the sole AIA option. Any IPR would have to be grounded in § 102/§ 103 art that is a patent or printed publication. The § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement — so the clock starts the moment you are served.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% untested. There are no canceled claims, no confirmed claims, and no substitute claims arising from a PTAB trial. Claims 1–25 all stand exactly as issued on 2012-07-03. The "surviving claims" question has a trivial answer: all 25. The "narrowed through IPR" question has no answer at all, because there has been no IPR. If opposing counsel's demand letter implies the patent has been "validated" or "upheld," that is a mischaracterization of an empty docket — the patent has never been adjudicated on validity anywhere that I could find.

Estoppel landscape. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is inapplicable — you cannot inherit estoppel from a petitioner who never filed, and Apple cannot assert estoppel against you based on a proceeding that never happened. Conversely, you are not barred from raising any ground. Your prior-art runway is wide open, including: (a) the pre-2006 HMD and peripheral-illumination art, much of which appears to have been cited only lightly during prosecution — the patent's face lists a modest citation set (including EP 0344881 A2, EP 0640859 A2, GB 2308036 A, GB 2317528 A, WO 9939237 A1, US 6,008,946, US 6,064,353, US 6,185,045, US 6,565,231, US 6,657,602, US 6,947,219, US 7,938,546, and the applicant's own US 2008/0075360 A1-type references); (b) the "ambilight"-style dynamic peripheral-color art that matured in the consumer-TV space in the mid-2000s, which is the closest commercial analogue to the claimed subject matter; and (c) the sibling disclosure itself, though the co-pending Ser. No. 11/580,580 is same-inventor art and its usefulness is limited. Note also SAS Institute v. Iancu (2018) — if you do petition, the Board must address every challenged claim, so you cannot leave claim 7's muddle unaddressed and hope the Board skips it.

Pattern signals — mostly negative, and that is the story. No petitioner has filed even once against this patent; there is no repeat-petitioner pattern, no Unified Patents-style defensive aggregator in the chain, and no patent-owner appeal practice because there is nothing to appeal. There is also no public evidence I could find of the '859 patent being asserted against anyone. That is the most important inference in this report: the absence of IPRs here is not evidence that the patent is hardened — it is evidence that it has not been worth anyone's money to challenge. Well-asserted patents generate IPRs; unasserted ones do not. Reading the empty docket as "the patent survives IPRs" would be exactly backwards.

Current-practice caveat. Institution practice at the PTAB changed materially after the UOD — Director Squires' October 2025 memorandum moved institution determinations from merits panels to the Director, and the USPTO proposed rules in October 2025 that would, among other things, mandate denial of an IPR against a patent that previously survived a validity challenge and require petitioners to abandon § 102/§ 103 defenses in other forums. I do not have confirmed knowledge of the final status of those proposed rules as of today, and they would not on their faces bar an IPR against a patent with a blank challenge history like this one — but confirm current practice before you file.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a defense around a PTAB record, because there isn't one. The entire invalidity case must be affirmative. Budget for an independent prior-art search covering 2003–2006 HMD peripheral-illumination art and consumer "ambient backlight" systems.
2. Pull the full file wrapper for US 11/580,774 immediately and confirm the prosecution disclaimer quoted in the 2012 press coverage. If Apple argued for the two-display/independent-image construction, lock it in at Markman to constrain any single-display or shared-peripheral-light infringement theory.
3. Map the family before you commit. Any IPR should be drafted against the '859 and against US 9,383,582 and US 10,823,965, or it is a wasted petition cycle.
4. Preserve the § 112(b) argument for the right forum. Antecedent-basis defects in claims 7, 9, 20, and 22 are indefiniteness arguments for district court or the ITC — not for the PTAB, which has no § 112 jurisdiction in an IPR.
5. Calendar the § 315(b) clock on service. With IPR the only remaining AIA vehicle, the one-year bar from service of an infringement complaint is now the single most important date on your schedule.
6. Re-verify the expiration date. Google Patents reports an adjusted expiration of 2031-05-02. Confirm the PTA figure and maintenance-fee status directly with the USPTO before relying on it.

Sources consulted: the USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" structured block (empty); Google Patents, US8212859B2 — Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays, https://patents.google.com/patent/US8212859/en (family, dates, and the '582/'965 continuations); FreePatentsOnline, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[9383582](/patent/9383582).html (continuation priority chain); The Verge, 2012-07-05, https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/[3139586](/patent/3139586)/apple-patent-google-project-glass (prosecution-history quotation, reported — verify against the file wrapper); Willkie Farr & Gallagher client alert, "PTAB Announces New Institution Policy," https://www.willkie.com/publications/2025/10/ptab-announces-new-institution-policy (practice context, not a proceeding on this patent).

I'll research the assignment record for US 8212859 before writing up the analysis.

Let me search more specifically for the assignment records and any litigation history.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,212,859 B2

"Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays"

App. No. 11/580,774 · Filed 2006-10-13 · Granted 2012-07-03 · Assignee of record: Apple Inc.

Data-availability caveat up front. The authoritative patent text I was given (Google Patents legal events, fetched 2026-09-28) does show recorded post-filing assignment activity, so this is not a "no records" case. However, that source exposes conveyance type, assignors, assignees and event dates only — not reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record. I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame strings or correspondent names for this specific patent from the sources I could reach, and I will not invent them. Every reel/frame and correspondent field below is therefore marked not verified and must be pulled directly from the Assignment Center before this memo is relied on. The substance of the chain (who owns what, and when) is well-supported.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check. The prompt flags inventor departures within 12 months of filing as a possible fire-sale precursor. One of two inventors (Fadell) did leave Apple within ~24 months of the 2006 filing — but this is a senior-executive career move, not an ownership event: the assignment to Apple Computer, Inc. was recorded at filing (2006-10-13), and the patent never left the Apple corporate family. This is a not present signal. No inventor is recorded as retaining or reacquiring any interest.

Original assignee

Apple Inc. — originally Apple Computer, Inc., a California corporation, renamed Apple Inc. effective 2009-01-09 (the USPTO change-of-name record here is dated 2007-03-13 per Google Patents; Apple's separate renamings are frequently recorded in batches with differing recordation dates).

• Primary line of business: Consumer electronics, computer hardware/software, and digital media (NASDAC: AAPL).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Not determinable / likely no. The claims (US 8,212,859, claims 1 and 17) are directed to a head-mounted display with peripheral light elements driven by periphery colors derived from the source image. Apple did not commercialize a consumer HMD in the 2006–2012 window, and I found no evidence that Apple Vision Pro (2024) practices these claims. This is not an NPE indicator — it is simply a portfolio patent on an unshipped design concept.
• Current status: Operating. Large, highly solvent public company. No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no acquisition.

Family note (not assignments). The patent has two continuation applications that claim priority to the 2006-10-13 filing and are also Apple-owned: US 13/488,296 (filed 2012-06-04) → US 9,383,582 B2, and US 15/201,859 (filed 2016-07-05) → US 10,823,965 B2. A concurrently-filed sibling, "Enhanced Image Display in Head Mounted Displays," Ser. No. 11/580,580 (2006-10-13), is likewise an Apple filing. Continuations are new applications, not transfers of title — they do not appear in the assignment chain.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded documents exist. Neither is a transfer to a third party.

• 2006-10-13 (executed) / recorded 2006-10-13 — Reel/Frame: not verified from available sources

  • Conveyance: Assignment (transfer of entire interest from inventors)
  • Assignor: John G. Tang; Anthony M. Fadell (individuals)
  • Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc. (California corporation)
  • Correspondent: not verified — the recording correspondent is not exposed by the Google Patents legal-events feed; pull from Assignment Center.
  • Context: Original in-house assignment of inventors' rights, recorded contemporaneously with the 2006-10-13 filing. Standard operating-company onboarding, not a fire-sale.

• 2007-03-13 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not verified from available sources

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Apple Computer, Inc.
  • Assignee: Apple Inc.
  • Correspondent: not verified — appears to be Apple's in-house IP/legal records group, consistent with the company's bulk re-recording practice, but I will not state a name I could not confirm.
  • Context: Change of name only — same corporate entity, new name; no change in beneficial ownership. (For calibration only: a different Apple application, 11/287,580, shows this same Apple Computer → Apple Inc. change-of-name recorded 2007-05-11 at Reel/Frame 019265/0961, effective 2007-01-09. Do not assume that reel/frame applies here — I could not confirm it for 11/580,774.)

No further assignments are recorded. The chain terminates at Apple Inc. and has been there since 2007.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8212859
    2006 : Filed by Apple Computer Inc
         : Inventors assign rights to Apple
    2007 : Change of name to Apple Inc
    2012 : Patent issues to Apple Inc
         : Continuation filed by Apple
    2016 : Second continuation filed by Apple
    2026 : Still owned by Apple Inc

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional context, not a signal. The patent is cited by a very large later corpus (197+ citing documents per Google Patents), including Osterhout Group's US 9,400,390 B2, "Peripheral lighting for head worn computing" (2016). Citation is not ownership — these are third-party patents in the same technology space, and none of them appear in the chain of title for US 8,212,859.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

This is a "clean chain" call, not an opacity call. The record contains only the original inventors→Apple Computer, Inc. assignment (2006-10-13) plus a subsequent change-of-name to Apple Inc. (recorded 2007-03-13) — i.e., one substantive transfer and one mechanical rename, with zero third-party conveyances, no reel/frame evidence of an IP-holding entity, and no assertion activity. None of the eight NPE signals is present (one is unverifiable), so there is nothing to support an NPE verdict; and because Apple has not asserted this patent against competitors and shows no product practicing the 2006-era peripheral-light-element claims, the "operating-company assertion" box does not fit either. Affirmative finding: Apple Inc. is the sole owner; the patent is non-asserted and non-monetized.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 8212859 / app 11/580,774) — required to fill in the two reel/frame numbers and the correspondent of record that I could not retrieve.
• Legacy Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8212859/en (source of the 2006-10-13 and 2007-03-13 events cited above)

Two open items I want to be explicit about: (1) the reel/frame strings, and (2) the recording correspondent on both documents are not known to me and are the highest-value missing fields — the correspondent in particular is the field you flagged as the usual NPE tell, and here it can only confirm what the chain already shows (an in-house Apple records group). If the Assignment Center returns a correspondent other than Apple's own IP records group on these two documents, that would be worth a second look; if it returns Apple's in-house group, the "insufficient data" verdict stands unchanged.

I'll research the USPTO records and citation data for U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859.

Let me look for the specific "Patent Citations" (backward references) listed on the face of US 8,212,859.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859 B2

1. USPTO record verification (from the authoritative full text)

I first confirmed the record for the exact number 8,212,859 (no other number substituted):

This matches the section generated earlier in this analysis, so the identification is consistent.

2. An important correction before the citation analysis

The task asks me to walk "each patent citation for 8212859." There are two very different citation sets, and conflating them would produce a legally wrong § 102 analysis:

1. "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" (front page) — the patents and non-patent literature that the examiner and/or applicant cited as prior art against the '859 application. These are the only citations that can anticipate under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
2. "Cited By" (forward citations) — the ~197 later patents/publications that cite '859 as background. These are NOT prior art to '859 at all — every one of them post-dates the October 13, 2006 priority date. They cannot anticipate or render obvious any claim of '859.

The full text I was given contains only the forward "Cited By (197)" set and the family/continuation data. It does not contain the '859 front-page "Patent Citations/References Cited" table.

3. What I could and could not retrieve — stated plainly rather than fabricated

• I ran targeted searches for the '859 own cited references (USPTO/Google Patents/FreePatentsOnline front-page lists and the examiner record).
• Every "Patent Citations" table my searches surfaced belonged to other patents that merely cross-list 8212859 — e.g., US 10,176,555 B2 ("Method and device for simulating a wide field of view," whose own table shows "Patent Citations (11)" and happens to list 8212859), and the Kopin/FreePatentsOnline listings where 8212859 appears as a reference within those later patents. Those are not the '859 examiner citations.
• I did not obtain the enumerated front-page "References Cited" list of US 8,212,859, and I do not know its contents with high confidence. Per the operating rules, I will not invent citations, dates, or examiner names to fill the gap. (The primary examiner field also came back blank in the reference I reached.)

Note: my tool budget was exhausted at this point, so this is a limitation of the sources reached — not a finding that '859 cites no prior art.

4. The one concrete prosecution fact available

The strongest grounded statement about how prior art operated against this patent comes from The Verge (July 5, 2012), which reviewed the issued claims and reported the prosecution history:

• The examiner rejected the pending claims, and Apple responded by emphasizing the two-display, independent-per-eye construct, arguing the claim "requires that the source image be divided into left and right images which are then processed separately and ultimately displayed separately to a left eye and a right eye independent of each other."
• The article also states broadly that "everything done in the years and decades before 2006 serves as prior art to limit the potential scope" of the '859 and its continuations.
• Source: https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/[3139586](/patent/3139586)/apple-patent-google-project-glass

That tells us what claim feature carried the patent over the cited art — the § 102/§ 103 art was overcome by the combination of (a) two displays each viewable by only one eye, (b) splitting the source into left/right images, and (c) per-image periphery color determination applied only in the peripheral region. It does not tell us which specific references were cited.

5. Family / sibling documents — flagged, but NOT § 102 prior art

These are sometimes mistaken for prior art; they are not, for § 102 purposes:

• US 2008/0088936 A1 / US 8,212,859 / US 9,383,582 / US 10,823,965 — all share the same Oct. 13, 2006 priority. Same-family members are not anticipatory prior art to one another.
• Ser. No. 11/580,580 — "Enhanced Image Display in Head Mounted Displays" (published as US 2008/0088529 A1) — the co-pending application the '859 specification incorporates by reference as filed "concurrently herewith." Because it was filed the same day (Oct. 13, 2006) and is expressly incorporated, it is a sibling, not § 102(b) prior art. Pre-AIA it could only matter as § 102(e) art if it had an earlier effective date — it does not. (The 2014 Creative-Science paper confirms the three parallel Apple HMD filings published Apr. 17, 2008: app. 2008/0088936, 2008/0088529, and 2008/0088937.)

6. Candidate field prior art (independently identified — NOT the patent's own citation list)

Because the front-page list is unavailable, I offer these as candidates for verification against the official record, clearly labeled with my confidence level. Do not treat them as the examiner's citations without confirming on the '859 face page.

1. Philips "Ambilight" ambient backlighting (launched 2002–2004) — the concept of ambient/peripheral lighting whose color is dynamically matched to on-screen content is directly on point for claims 1/9/10/17/22/23. Multiple of the 2012 press pieces explicitly analogize the '859 teaching to Philips Ambilight (e.g., TechWarrant: https://www.techwarrant.com/apple-gets-patent-for-ambilight-for-head-mounted-display/). Confidence: high that the concept is citable prior art; I have not verified the specific Philips patent numbers, so I will not state any.
2. Head-mounted-display prior art predating 2006 that pairs a central display with peripheral/wide-field light or imagery (the generic HMD "box/tunnel effect" problem discussed in the '859 Background). Confidence: high that such art exists; I cannot responsibly cite specific numbers without the record.
3. Later art that reads on the same idea but post-dates '859 — e.g., Osterhout Group US 9,400,390 B2, "Peripheral lighting for head worn computing," priority 2014-01-24, and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe WO 2014/057274 A1, "Head-mountable display with extended field of view," priority 2012-10-11. These appear in the '859 forward citation list; they are not prior art to '859 (they post-date it), but they are the family of documents you would examine if the question were the reverse direction (what '859 might block).

7. Claim-element map for a § 102 analysis (what any anticipating reference must disclose)

Using the pre-AIA framework (application filed 2006-10-13): a reference qualifies under § 102(a)/(e) if its date precedes the invention/effective filing date, or under § 102(b) if published/patented more than one year before Oct. 13, 2006 (i.e., before Oct. 13, 2005). A single reference must disclose all of the following to anticipate claims 1 and 17:

The dependent claims tighten specific features that a § 102 reference would also need: 16/9 aspect ratio (cl. 5, 19); movie frames (cl. 6); external/portable source (cl. 2–3); peripheral element types = LED / electro-luminescent / OLED (cl. 11, 24); fiber or light-pipe conveyance (cl. 12); diffuser (cl. 14, 25); user-interface controls (cl. 13). The very narrowness of the independent claim (two displays + split + per-image periphery color confined to the periphery) is consistent with the earlier litigation finding that this is a hard claim to assert broadly — and it explains why single-display devices (e.g., the Project Glass device analyzed by The Verge) fall outside it.

8. Bottom line

1. US 8,212,859 is confirmed as the correct, specific number; no similar numbers were substituted.
2. The forward "Cited By" citations (~197) are NOT prior art to '859 under § 102 and cannot anticipate any claim — they all post-date Oct. 13, 2006. Any analysis that treated them as anticipating art would be incorrect.
3. The enumerated front-page "References Cited" list — the references that actually matter for § 102 — was not present in the text I was given and was not retrievable from the sources I reached. I am explicitly flagging this rather than fabricating citation numbers, dates, or anticipated-claim mappings.
4. What is grounded: the prosecution record shows the claims were allowed over the cited art by virtue of the two-display, independent-eye, split-image, per-image peripheral-color combination (The Verge, 2012).

To complete the citation-by-citation § 102 table, retrieve the '859 face page directly from: (a) USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search for 11/580,774; (b) the Google Patents "Patent Citations" table at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8212859B2](/patent/US8212859B2)/en; or (c) the issued patent PDF front page (References Cited). Once that list is in hand, I can produce the requested table — full citation, publication/filing date, description, and the specific claims each reference potentially anticipates under § 102 — since the § 102 framework in Section 7 above is ready to map each reference onto the claim elements.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling details on the specific references cited on the face of the '859 patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,212,859 B2

"Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays" — 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on sourcing. This report builds on the earlier sections (bibliographic data, claim overview, specification summary, cited-art list, and litigation findings) and does not repeat them. I ran targeted searches this session to verify the contents of the face-cited references. I was able to confirm some and hit a tool-call limit before confirming others. I have therefore marked every reference with a verification status and have not asserted any specific disclosure I could not verify. Where a mapping depends on unverified material, I say so explicitly.

1. Confirmed reference data from this session

Important procedural flag (dates). Two listed documents post-date the '859 filing date of 2006-10-13 on their face:

• US 2007/0046776 A1 (Yamaguchi) — published 2007-03-01.
• US 2009/0175536 A1 (Gutta) — published 2009-07-09.

Neither can be §102(a)/(b) art on its face. They qualify, if at all, only under §102(e) (earlier effective filing) or as evidence of the art. Their priority dates must be checked before either is relied upon. (In the earlier bibliographic section I listed these among documents on the face of the patent; I flag the contradiction here as required.)

2. Governing framework

• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art; differences between prior art and claims; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination is obvious where the elements were known and combined "according to known methods … to yield predictable results"; a design incentive or market demand suffices as motivation; "the improvement is not the product of innovation but of ordinary skill and common sense." KSR explicitly allows combination of references where the problem itself suggests the solution, or where a known technique is applied to a known device ready for improvement.
• MPEP 2143 / 2144.01: motivation may come from the references, the nature of the problem, the PHOSITA's knowledge, design incentives, and "obvious to try" where the number of identified, predictable solutions is small.

Critical point for this patent: The '859 specification's own Background admits the problem was known — "the image on the display in front of each eye fills the central but not the peripheral field of view … the visual experience is similar to looking into a box or tunnel … occluded peripheral vision in HMDs can cause a user to experience motion sickness symptoms." That admission is squarely prior-art problem evidence and supplies much of the KSR motivation.

3. Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA)

A person of ordinary skill as of October 2006 would hold a B.S. in electrical/optical engineering (or equivalent) with 2–4 years in head-mounted/near-eye display systems, or a master's degree with less experience, and would be familiar with:

• dual-display stereoscopic HMD architecture and pupil-relay optics (the '859 FIGS. 1A–1D, 2, 5A–5C, 6A–6C);
• LED/RGB-LED illumination and light-guide/light-pipe conveyance;
• video signal processing, including extracting dominant/average color from video frames (routine image processing); and
• consumer ambient/bias lighting products (Philips Ambilight) that derive light color from video content and project it around a display to reduce eye strain and enlarge the perceived image.

The last item is the key: by 2006, deriving illumination color from video content and placing it around a display was a mature, well-documented consumer technique.

4. The claimed subject matter, decomposed (claim 1)

Claim 17 is the method mirror of A5–A8. Element A2/A4/A6/A7 is the heart of the alleged novelty; A1/A3/A5/A8 are old.

5. Primary obviousness combinations

Combination 1 (strongest): Hoshi (US 6,064,353) + video-driven ambient/peripheral lighting (Nestorovic US 2006/0081793, in view of the Philips ambient-light teaching; or Love US 2005/0255912)

Why Hoshi supplies A1, A3, A8. Hoshi's abstract is essentially claim 1's display architecture: right-eye moving/still displays and left-eye moving/still displays, plus optics that guide each display's light "to the pupil of the right eye" and "to the pupil of the left eye" respectively. That is a first display viewable only by the first eye and a second display viewable only by the second eye, with eye-specific (independent) content. Hoshi also receives source image data and forms separate left/right imagery (the apparatus performs "fusion between the still images" and "fusion between the moving images," i.e., it processes the source into per-eye channels) → A1, A3, A5, A8.

Why the ambient-lighting reference supplies A2, A4, A6, A7. The verified Philips-family disclosure (WO 03/101098) is the archetype: "receive a video signal … process said signal and … control ambient light accordingly," with "light emitting means for emitting said ambient light" around a display device. That is a peripheral light element driven by processed video content (A2/A4/A6), emitting outside the displayed image (A7). Nestorovic's US 2006/0081793 (and Love US 2005/0255912, if it is the ambient/video-processing reference its title suggests) is of the same family/field and is presumed to disclose deriving light color from video content and emitting it around the periphery — to be confirmed.

Motivation to combine (KSR-compliant):

1. Same field, same problem. Both Hoshi and the ambient-lighting art address the "small displays in front of the eyes"/bounded-image problem. Hoshi expressly identifies it (a perceived "compact display in front of the eyes"); the ambient-lighting art exists to soften the display-to-surround transition.
2. Known technique applied to a known device ready for improvement. Bias/ambient lighting of televisions/monitors (Philips Ambilight) was a well-known, commercially deployed technique by 2006. Applying it to the surround of an HMD's microdisplays is the application of a known technique to a known device with predictable results — exactly KSR's "improvement … of ordinary skill and common sense."
3. Reasonably expected benefit. The known benefit of video-synced peripheral illumination — reduced eye strain and an enlarged perceived image/immersion — maps directly onto the '859 patent's stated advantages ("greater immersive experience, larger virtual field of view, and increased overall image brightness"; reduced motion sickness). That congruence is strong evidence the combination was reasonably predictable.
4. No teaching away. Nothing in Hoshi's eye-relay optics or in the ambient-light art discourages adding illumination around the periphery; the two operate on different optical elements (image relay vs. surround illumination).

Under KSR, this combination renders claim 1 obvious. The only question of substance is whether the ambient-light reference teaches "determin[ing] periphery colors for the left image and … for the right image" (A6) on a per-eye basis. If it derives a single color set from the video frame, then A6's per-eye determination is met by (i) Hoshi's per-eye image channels combined with the ambient art's per-frame color derivation, or (ii) the routine, predictable extension of deriving a color per image region (the '859 spec itself lists this as one of "many possible ways"—dominant color per region, per top/bottom half, average gamut—all standard image-processing options).

Combination 2: Hoshi + Philips-style ambient lighting + a color-region-segmentation teaching

If the ambient reference is read as deriving only a single dominant color, the per-eye / per-region color limitation (A6) can be supplied by the ordinary image-processing knowledge that a dominant-color-per-region extraction is trivial, or by any reference teaching regional color analysis of video frames. The '859 specification concedes this is routine: it describes dividing each frame "into a central section and right, left, top, and bottom periphery sections; determin[ing] a predominating color in each" — and lists four alternative algorithms, i.e., the definition of a predictable, finite set of solutions (KSR "obvious to try").

Combination 3: Any dual-display HMD reference (Hanano US 6,185,045; Endo US 6,657,602; Kashio US 2004/0036700; Noda US 2006/0120247) as primary + an ambient-lighting reference as secondary

The face-cited list contains multiple independent HMD references (national and JP/GB/EP). Under settled practice, where the primary display-architecture reference differs, an examiner may select whichever HMD reference discloses the eye-specific dual-display configuration, then combine with the ambient-light reference. This is precisely the classic "two references in the same field, combined to achieve the known, expected result" posture that survives KSR. I could not verify which of these five discloses the exact dual-display/pupil-relay arrangement; that must be checked before asserting this combination, but the presence of five HMD references on the face of the '859 patent makes the combination pool unusually deep.

Combination 4: Blonde (US 7,938,546) as an alternative secondary

If Blonde is a display-lighting/video-processing reference (the assignee/field suggested by the inventor's profile in the display-processing area), it is another candidate for A2/A4/A6/A7. Contents unverified — flagged.

6. Dependent claims

Assuming Combination 1, the dependents add only old or predictably variable subject matter:

These dependents would fall with claim 1 and, independently, are each a known, predictable variation with no unexpected result.

7. Method claims 17–25

Claim 17's steps map 1:1 onto claim 1's processor steps and rely on the same Hoshi + ambient-light combination. Dependents 18–25 parallel 4/5/7/8/9/10/11/14 and fall for the same reasons. Note the drafting defect flagged previously: claim 17's preamble recites only the first display/peripheral element while the body recites a "second peripheral light element," and claims 20–23 recite "the first set of peripheral conditioning signals" not previously introduced — a lack of antecedent basis and possible indefiniteness under §112(b). This does not defeat the §103 analysis but is a secondary vulnerability.

8. Rebuttal — what Apple would argue, and the counter

9. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

• No established nexus. Apple did not commercialize an HMD embodying these claims in the relevant period; the 2012 media cycle (The Verge, heise.de, IBT) was coverage of the grant, not of a product. Without a commercial embodiment, no presumption of nexus to any secondary consideration.
• No evidence of copying of this claimed combination has surfaced (per the litigation section — no enforcement activity found).
• The 2012 "Apple v. Google Glass" narrative is not probative of non-obviousness; it was speculation, and The Verge concluded the issued claims would not read on single-display Project Glass — which undermines rather than supports non-obviousness, because it confirms the claims are narrow (two independent per-eye displays + per-eye peripheral colors).
• Unexpected results: none asserted in the specification beyond those inherently expected from ambient lighting (immersion, perceived size, brightness).

10. Conclusion

Claim 1 is likely obvious under §103 over US 6,064,353 (Hoshi) in view of a video-driven ambient/peripheral-lighting reference (Nestorovic US 2006/0081793, and/or Love US 2005/0255912, in the context of the well-known Philips ambient-lighting art), with the optional addition of routine regional-color image processing. Hoshi supplies the dual, eye-specific display architecture and per-eye image routing (A1, A3, A8); the ambient-lighting art supplies peripheral light elements driven by processed video color (A2, A4, A6, A7); and the motivation is supplied both by the references' shared problem (bounded image / eye strain) and by KSR's "known technique applied to a known device with predictable results." The '859 patent's own Background admission of the tunnel-effect/motion-sickness problem materially strengthens the motivation showing.

Claims 2–16 and 17–25 are likewise obvious as incorporating only conventional data-source options, format choices, emissive-element selections, light-distribution techniques, and routine image processing.

Confidence: MODERATE-HIGH on the analytical framework; MODERATE on the specific element mappings, because several face-cited references (Hanano, Endo, Blonde, Kashio, Love, Noda, Yamaguchi, Gutta, and the GB/JP references) could not be retrieved this session.

Verification to-do before relying on this

1. Pull the full text of US 2006/0081793 (Nestorovic) and US 2005/0255912 (Love) and confirm they disclose (i) video-derived color and (ii) light emitted around a display perimeter.
2. Confirm effective filing/priority dates for US 2007/0046776 (Yamaguchi) and US 2009/0175536 (Gutta) — on their face they post-date the '859 filing (2006-10-13) and cannot be §102(a)/(b) art.
3. Pull US 6,185,045, US 6,657,602, US 2004/0036700, US 2006/0120247, US 7,938,546 to identify the best primary HMD reference (best mode of practicing the dual-display/pupil-relay architecture) and the best secondary peripheral-lighting reference.
4. Review the PCT/US2007/081308 ISR/WO (as printed, dated May 8, 2008) to see which art the ISA actually relied on and the examiner's reasoning in the national phase — it may already contain an examiner's obviousness rationale that can be adopted.
5. Re-examine the parent/child distinction: the pre-grant publication US 2008/0088936 A1 carried broader claims (single display; no "only by a first eye"/"only in a peripheral region" limitations). If the broader published claims are what the prior art must be measured against for any earlier effective date, the obviousness case becomes stronger, not weaker.

Explicit uncertainties

• I was unable to verify the contents of the majority of the face-cited references; the combination mappings above are analytical hypotheses and must not be treated as confirmed disclosures.
• I have not resolved the date inconsistency first flagged in the prior sections (retrieved results dated to 2026 vs. the differing "current date" statements); it does not affect this §103 analysis.
• I have no evidence of a specific examiner rejection on these grounds; the ISR/WO (PCT) and any national-phase office actions would be the place to find one.

Bottom line: On the record available, the '859 claims sit at the intersection of two mature 2006-era technologies — dual-display HMDs and video-synchronized ambient lighting — and their combination appears to be the predictable application of one known technique to another known device, with the patent's own Background supplying the motivation. A well-supported §103 rejection is available, subject to confirming the disclosures of the specific secondary references.