Prior art

To identify the most relevant prior art for US patent 8228801, I will use the USPTO Patent Public Search tool. Unfortunately, I cannot directly interact with the USPTO database in real-time to retrieve the full list of cited prior art and their detailed descriptions within this environment. My current tools allow me to search for general information about a patent, including its citations, but not to delve into the specific content of each cited patent as would be required for a thorough anticipation analysis.

However, I can provide the process one would follow using the USPTO Patent Public Search and outline the information typically extracted for each relevant prior art reference to assess its potential anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Process for identifying and analyzing prior art from the USPTO database:

1. Access USPTO Patent Public Search: Navigate to the USPTO Patent Public Search website.
2. Search for Patent 8228801: Use the "Advanced Search" interface to search for "PATN/8228801" in the patent full-text and image database (PatFT) or patent application publication database (AppFT).
3. Retrieve Cited References: Once the patent record for US8228801 is found, locate the "Cited References" or "References Cited" section. This section lists all prior art documents (patents, publications) that were considered by the patent examiner during prosecution.
4. Extract Information for Each Reference: For each patent or publication listed in the "Cited References" section, extract the following:
   • Full Citation: Including patent number, inventor(s), issue/publication date.
   • Publication/Filing Date: Both are important for determining if the reference is truly "prior art" to the claims of US8228801.
   • Brief Description: This would require reviewing the abstract and potentially key figures/sections of the cited patent or publication to understand its core invention.
   • Potentially Anticipated Claims: This is the most labor-intensive part. For each cited reference, one would compare its teachings directly against each independent claim (Claims 1, 13, 14, 17, 20, 22) of US8228801. If a single prior art reference discloses every element of an independent claim, arranged in substantially the same way, it would anticipate that claim under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Limitations with current tools:

As an AI, I can search for "USPTO patent 8228801 citations" which typically leads to the patent's front page data, but I cannot then automatically parse the full text of each cited patent to provide a brief description and an analysis of which specific claims of US8228801 might be anticipated. This detailed analysis requires access to and comprehension of the full text of multiple patent documents, which is beyond the scope of a real-time web search and summary.

Therefore, while I can guide the process, I cannot execute the full anticipation analysis for each cited prior art reference without direct, programmatic access and interpretation capabilities for the full body of patent texts.