US 8279236

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including any CAFC 2026 activity.

Let me retrieve the actual claim set for this specific patent number, since the provided text cuts off before the claims.

I ran targeted searches and cross-checked them against the authoritative full text you supplied. Here is the summary, with explicit flags on what is and is not confirmed.

1. Search scope and number hygiene

• I searched for the literal identifier 8279236 / US 8,279,236 B2 only, and discarded same-digit non-patent collisions that appeared in results (e.g., FDA FAERS case #8279236; the unrelated Japanese patent number JP 2011-074873 references). I did not fold in neighboring numbers such as US 8,279,203.
• I searched USPTO/PTAB and Federal Circuit sources for 2026 activity. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, appeal, or Rule 36 judgment involving US 8,279,236. Everything recent that surfaced concerned other patents in the RAH Color family (see §5).

2. Bibliographic data (from the patent text and Google Patents)

Abstract (verbatim): "Improved methods are provided for calibrating color on a color display coupled to a computer, which are useful for obtaining calibrated data in a virtual proof network for enabling different color devices to render consistent color. Methods involve user interactions with screens on the display to set color display parameters. An apparatus is also provided for calibrating a sensor which may be used for measuring color of a display in one or more of these methods."

The specification (FIGS. 1–16) is the "Virtual Proof / lumeter" disclosure: teaching a color sensor a subjectively chosen white balance (FIG. 3); setting contrast near max and brightness to ~50–60% so the display satisfies superposition (linear additive color mixture); increment/decrement visual threshold psychophysics to estimate absolute luminance, gamma and ambient backlight (FIGS. 4–6); annular film color‑matching to verify white point (FIGS. 7–8); gray‑scale film wedge for tone reproduction (FIG. 10); network/WWW gamut strategies (FIGS. 11–12); dual‑channel sensor and calibration of the sensor against a reference instrument via a monochromator (FIGS. 13–16).

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

⚠️ Important uncertainty first. The authoritative text you supplied truncates before the claim set, so I could not read the issued claims of 8,279,236 second-hand either. What I can retrieve is the claim set published for the same application (13/136,919) as US 2011/0298837 A1, which carried three independent claims (published as claims 7, 20 and 32; claims 1–6 were cancelled). The issued patent almost certainly renumbers these to 1 onward, and the language may have been amended during prosecution. Treat the following as the published-application claim set of this application number, not as verified issued claim text.

• (Published claim 7 — computer‑readable storage medium) A storage medium encoded with a program that: (a) displays screen(s) at a client computer to collect data characterizing at least the effects of viewing conditions on color reproduction by that client's rendering device; (b) uses that data to compute a first gamut for the device; and (c) provides software comparing the first gamut with a second gamut of colors to be reproduced, where the second gamut is supplied by a server using a network protocol. Plainly: the user's machine figures out what colors its monitor can actually show (accounting for ambient light etc.) and compares that with the colors the remote site wants to send it.
• (Published claim 20 — system) A color‑processing system: a server with a network interface to at least a client computer, plus software executable across networked computers and data. The data comprise calibration data for the client's rendering device(s) and first‑gamut data reflecting viewing conditions; the software compares that first gamut against a second gamut provided by the server for reproduction on the client device. Plainly: the same idea expressed as a client–server system.
• (Published claim 32 — method) Displaying screen(s) on a client computer to collect the viewing‑condition data; computing a first gamut from that data; and comparing it with a second gamut of one or more colors provided by a server using a network protocol for reproduction by the rendering device. Plainly: the method form of the same three steps.

The remaining published claims were dependents covering: rendering via the second gamut, an enlarged first gamut, or gamut scaling; warning/notifying the user of inaccurate color; ambient illumination and measured calibration; distributed processing across multiple processors; standard human‑vision units; a network database of device capabilities, calibration dates/times; and use of instrumental or subjective visual measurement. Verification needed: confirm the granted 8,279,236 claim numbers and wording against the official USPTO full-text/PDF before relying on them.

4. Why the claims sit where they do in the family

The parent US 7,102,648 (app. 09/832,553) claimed the white‑point subject matter — e.g., its claim 1 was "A method for measuring a user established white point balancing multiple color channels of a color display …" with steps of providing a physical white reference, visually matching the display white to it, and then measuring the adjusted white with a sensor; and claim 16 was a second independent method reciting user interface/software‑aided channel adjustment. The '236 divisional, by contrast, was published with claims directed to gamut comparison between a client rendering device and a server over a network. This is consistent with the family strategy of carving different claim sets out of one long specification.

5. Litigation / CAFC 2026 status

• Google Patents lists only district‑court matters for this patent: W.D. Mich. 1:14‑cv‑00638 and N.D. Ill. 1:17‑cv‑05430. No PTAB or Federal Circuit record is attached to this patent number.
• Family‑level activity I did find is for other RAH Color patents: IPR2019‑00646 (Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies, US 7,791,761), Final Written Decision 2020‑10‑08 holding claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 unpatentable; parallel IPRs 2019‑00627 (US 7,729,008), 2019‑00628 (US 8,416,444) and 2019‑00629 (US 7,312,897); and district cases including RAH Color v. Xerox (W.D.N.Y. 6:18‑cv‑06746) and Electronics For Imaging v. RAH Color (E.D. Va. 1:18‑cv‑01436).
• No 2026 Federal Circuit appeal or docket entry naming 8,279,236 was found. Given that the patent is recorded as expired as of 2021‑04‑11, new appellate activity on it would be unusual (though an appeal over pre‑expiry damages/validity is not categorically impossible).

6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Issued claim text of 8,279,236 was not directly retrievable — my claim overview is drawn from the pre‑grant publication US 2011/0298837 A1 of the same application 13/136,919. Claim numbering and possibly wording differ in the grant.
2. Assignee "current" status may be stale: databases list RAH Color Technologies LLC (Rochester, NY in older records, Alexandria, VA in newer family members), while the Google Patents record lists RAH Color Tech LLC as original assignee with a 2013 merger reassignment.
3. Expiry is the databases' anticipated expiration (2021‑04‑11); I have not independently verified any patent‑term adjustment, terminal disclaimer, or fee‑related lapse date.
4. I did not confirm any CAFC 2026 docket from the Federal Circuit's own docket system (PACER/CM‑ECF); my CAFC conclusion rests on absence of evidence across the sources searched, not on a negative docket query.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8279236. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific cases identified and search for the '236 patent specifically in the RAH Color litigation campaign.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,279,236

Patent: U.S. 8,279,236 B2 — "Methods and apparatus for calibrating a color display" (inventor Richard A. Holub; assignee RAH Color Technologies LLC). It is titled "Methods and Apparatus for Calibrating a Color Display" and is one of the Holub/RAH Color Technologies color‑management family (related to U.S. 6,043,909 and application Ser. No. 09/139,498). The Google Patents record for this number lists two U.S. district court actions, which I have corroborated below from complaint filings.

Based on the search results, I identified two district court lawsuits in which the '236 patent was asserted as one of the patents‑in‑suit. I did not find any IPR or other PTAB post‑grant proceeding naming the '236 patent specifically (the RAH/Adobe IPRs involved other family members — '008, '444, '897, and '761).

Case 1 — RAH Color Technologies LLC v. X-Rite, Inc.

Source: docket (Justia / UniCourt, 1:14‑cv‑00638); the X‑Rite complaint filed as an exhibit in RAH/Adobe IPR proceedings (Docket Alarm, Exhibit 2222 to IPR2019‑00628), which quotes U.S. 8,279,236 as one of the ten Patents‑in‑Suit and charted the '236 allegations at ¶¶ 111–118.

Case 2 — RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Source: Complaint, N.D. Ill. No. 1:17‑cv‑05430 (filed 7/25/17), as filed in the RAH/Adobe IPR record.

Important boundary notes (so the list is not overstated)

1. The '236 patent was NOT asserted in the other RAH Color Technologies lawsuits that appear in the same campaign. I checked the patents‑in‑suit from those complaints:
   • RAH v. Ricoh USA (E.D. Pa. 2:15‑cv‑05203) — asserted '870, '251, '008, '546, '444, '704, '314 (and '909) — no '236.
   • RAH v. Xerox (N.D. Ill. 1:17‑cv‑06813 / W.D.N.Y. 6:18‑cv‑06746) — '909, '870, '251, '897, '008, '444, '357, '704 — no '236.
   • The Adobe, EFI, Kodak, Dalim, and Heidelberger actions (consolidated in In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, MDL No. 2874, N.D. Cal. 3:18‑md‑02874‑SI) — these surfaced in the IPR record but the retrieved materials do not show the '236 patent being asserted against those defendants.
2. PTAB proceedings. The RAH IPR cases I found were Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies: IPR2019‑00627 ('008), IPR2019‑00628 ('444), IPR2019‑00629 ('897), and IPR2019‑00646 ('761). None challenged U.S. 8,279,236. So the '236 patent does not appear in any post‑grant PTAB proceeding on the record retrieved.
3. Patent status. The '236 patent is recorded on Google Patents as "Expired – Fee Related," with an anticipated expiration date of April 11, 2021 (priority date April 11, 2000; filed Aug. 15, 2011; granted Oct. 2, 2012). Google Patents also flags "Family has litigation," which is consistent with the two cases above.

Caveats on confidence

• The X‑Rite case details (parties, court, case number, June 16, 2014 filing, March 2015 dismissal) are well corroborated across the docket and the complaint exhibit.
• The Samsung case parties/court/number/filing date are corroborated (N.D. Ill. 1:17‑cv‑05430, filed July 25, 2017), but I could not confirm its final disposition from the retrieved sources — treat the outcome as unresolved pending a PACER check.
• If your goal is a litigation-clean opinion, I recommend re‑checking the live dockets for 1:14‑cv‑00638 (W.D. Mich.) and 1:17‑cv‑05430 (N.D. Ill.), plus the MDL 3:18‑md‑02874‑SI docket, since search‑engine snapshots can lag. I found no evidence of a CAFC appeal specifically involving the '236 patent.

I'll start by verifying the structured ODP data against web search, then dig into any proceedings I find.

Let me search specifically for any IPR targeting the '236 patent, and check Unified Patents' activity.

Let me check the Docket Alarm PTAB docket for the '236 patent directly, and look for any reexam or PGR activity.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,279,236

Note on methodology: I ran the canonical structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block against independent web searches of PTAB filings, Docket Alarm PTAB dockets, CourtListener, and the RAH Color Technologies MDL record. I hit a tool-call ceiling before I could exhaustively page through Docket Alarm's patent:(8279236) PTAB filter and PTAB E2E; that residual gap is flagged below. Nothing in any search returned a proceeding number whose patent is 8,279,236.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,279,236: zero (0). Breakdown by status: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my searches surfaced none.

Bottom-line defensive posture: the '236 patent is untested, not hardened, at the PTAB. Do not read the absence of an IPR as a merits vindication — no petitioner has ever put the '236's claims in front of an APJ panel, so there is no Final Written Decision to lean on and no estoppel to exploit. The real signal runs the other way: the '236's siblings in the same Holub family were IPR'd by Adobe starting 2019, and several were narrowed or wiped out. A defendant's best PTAB story here is borrowed family precedent plus fresh art, not an existing '236 outcome. (Compare the framing "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened" — that framing does not apply, because there were no IPRs.)

Per-proceeding detail

There are no proceedings to detail. To avoid the reader mis-attributing the well-known RAH Color PTAB activity to this patent, the sections below identify what that activity actually covers — none of it is the '236.

(no proceeding) — no petitioner has challenged US 8,279,236

• Type: n/a
• Filed: n/a
• Status: n/a
• Judge panel: n/a
• Petition grounds: n/a
• Institution decision: n/a
• Final Written Decision: n/a — no FWD exists for the '236; I have not found a PTAB decision addressing a single claim of this patent.
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: n/a
• Defensive value: The absence is the story. There is no PTAB record to cite, no claim-level cancellation to hang an invalidity defense on, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel constraining your grounds — unless you are a privy of a prior petitioner (see estoppel discussion below).

Family-context proceedings (⚠️ NOT on the '236 — do not cite as '236 outcomes)

These are the IPRs that a keyword search will surface, and every one of them targets a different RAH Color Technologies patent. I flag them because a defendant's counsel could easily conflate them:

• All four filed 2019-02-01 by Adobe against the four RAH patents RAH asserted against Adobe in RAH Color Techs. LLC v. Adobe Inc., N.D. Cal. 3:18-cv-03277-SI. Petitions/records: IPR2019-00646 institution decision, Adobe petition for the '897 patent.
• Panels included APJs Eleni Mantis Mercader, Frances L. Ippolito, and John A. Hudalla (e.g., IPR2019-00646 Decision Granting Institution, Paper 34, entered 2019-09-04).
• Outcomes as recited by the district court in the MDL claim-construction order (In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, N.D. Cal. 3:18-md-02874-SI, Doc. 120, filed 2021-01-22, CourtListener):
  • IPR2019-00627 ('008) and IPR2019-00628 ('444): PTAB "found that Adobe had not demonstrated" unpatentability — patent owner prevailed (see also the IPR2019-00627 FWD public version: "Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 28–33 and 36–38 of the '008 patent are unpatentable").
  • IPR2019-00646 ('761): "the PTAB found that Adobe had not demonstrated that claim 15 was unpatentable but that the remaining challenged claims (claims 7-11 and 13) were unpatentable."
  • IPR2019-00629 ('897): "the PTAB determined all challenged claims were not patentable" (challenged claims were 32, 33, and 37).
• Appeals: Adobe noticed appeals only as to the '008 and '444 decisions; RAH did not appeal the '897 loss; "[t]he parties have identified three terms requiring claim construction" in the '870 and '444 patents, and the court noted Adobe did not appeal the '761 FWD as to claim 15. I did not confirm the Federal Circuit docket numbers or dispositions — that is a gap I am not going to fill by guessing.

Decoy warning (do not auto-correct these): searches for "8291236"/"8279236" surface US 8,291,236 (VideoLabs; e.g., IPR2025-00305/-00306, Asustek v. VideoLabs), US 7,881,236 (Evolve Wireless; IPR2016-01345), and an FCC document ID "8279236" — all unrelated to this patent. None is US 8,279,236.

Strategic summary

Which claims of the '236 are canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. All claims of US 8,279,236 are UNTESTED in any AIA trial. Zero claims are canceled; zero claims are sustained by a PTAB panel. There is therefore no "surviving claim" list to hand a defendant — and equally, no claim list the patent owner can point to as PTAB-blessed. The '236 is a pre-AIA patent (priority 2000-04-11; filed 2011-08-15 as a divisional of 12/661,663), so PGR is unavailable (PGR requires an effective filing date on/after 2013-03-16); IPR under §§ 102/103 is the only realistic AIA vehicle, and CBM is dead (sunset 2020-09-16) barring a narrow savings argument.

Estoppel landscape. Because no petitioner has ever obtained an FWD on the '236, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent for any party other than a petitioner/privy of some other proceeding. Practically: Adobe's estoppel from the IPR2019-0062x/-00646 FWDs attaches to the sibling patents it challenged — it does not bar grounds against the '236. For a defendant newly accused on the '236, the full field of § 102/§ 103 art remains available, subject to § 325(d) (art already before the examiner) and the § 315(b) one-year bar from service. Note the RPI/privy fight RAH litigated in the Adobe IPRs (motion for additional discovery, Paper on RPI/privity) — if your client is coordinating with an MDL co-defendant that was already served, expect the patent owner to probe privity to import a time bar.

Pattern signals. (1) Same-petitioner pattern: Adobe filed four IPRs on the RAH portfolio in one day (2019-02-01) — a coordinated portfolio attack, not a one-off; it did not include the '236, because Adobe was not accused of the '236. (2) Patent-owner posture: RAH litigates broadly — the X-Rite complaint alone lists ten asserted patents including the '236 (complaint excerpt), and the MDL (3:18-md-02874-SI, N.D. Cal.) consolidated Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Dalim, and Heidelberger. (3) No defensive aggregator in the '236 chain that I could confirm — the 2014 W.D. Mich. and 2017 N.D. Ill. suits are documented in the structured litigation links (Michigan W.D. 1:14-cv-00638; Illinois N.D. 1:17-cv-05430); the family also shows a Darts-IP worldwide-family litigation entry. Unified Patents' involvement appears as a litigation-data portal, not as a petitioner on the '236.

Recommended next steps

1. State the negative plainly in any opinion letter. There is no FWD for US 8,279,236 and no institution decision. Do not let a demand letter or an internal memo imply otherwise.
2. Do not borrow the sibling outcomes. IPR2019-00629 killed claims 32/33/37 of the '897; IPR2019-00646 killed claims 7-11 and 13 of the '761 while sparing claim 15. If a plaintiff asserts the '236, those dispositions are irrelevant to the '236's claims and citing them as if they disposed of '236 claims is a credibility risk.
3. Run a fresh prior-art search against the '236's actual claim set (I could not verify the claim set from the provided patent text — the fetched Google Patents page omits a claims section). Prioritize § 102/§ 103 art, and cross-check what was already before the examiner to manage § 325(d). The related-patent IPRs give you a ready-made POSITA/claim-construction record and Adobe's expert work product (e.g., Poynton, Vrhel, Green declarations) as a starting roadmap.
4. Check your § 315(b) clock before anything else. If your client was served more than one year ago on the '236 (as X-Rite, Samsung, and the MDL defendants were), an IPR is time-barred, and the realistic defenses are district-court invalidity, § 101, and non-infringement — not a PTAB petition.
5. Close the two research gaps I could not: (a) run PTAB E2E / Docket Alarm filtered on patent:(8279236) to confirm zero petitions, including any denied or terminated-before-institution filings that never produced a public FWD; and (b) if you intend to brief family history, pull the Federal Circuit dockets for the Adobe appeals of IPR2019-00627/-00628 to get docket numbers and dispositions. I declined to state those from memory.

Confidence statement: High confidence that no instituted AIA trial has produced an FWD on US 8,279,236. Moderate-to-high confidence that no IPR petition at all has been filed on it. I could not achieve exhaustive coverage of denied/withdrawn petitions or of post-2021 non-ODP activity before hitting my search limit — treat the "zero" as strongly indicated, not independently exhaustively verified.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for US 8279236 before reconstructing the chain.

I have the litigation and entity picture. Now let me pin down the recorded assignment chain (reel/frame), the correspondent of record, and the first suit dates.

Scope note: My available tooling is web search, not a direct session against the USPTO Assignment Center UI. I could not open the reel/frame detail view for this patent, so reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondent are flagged below as unretrieved rather than guessed. Everything else is grounded in the patent front matter, Google Patents legal events, and litigation pleadings/orders.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Single-inventor, self-owned portfolio. There is no co-inventor team and no corporate assignee at birth — the classic "all inventors leave the assignee within 12 months" fire-sale precursor does not apply, because there was never a corporate owner to leave. The invention was self-funded through a failed startup (Imagicolor) rather than made inside an operating company.
• Priority/invention date well before the filing date. The claimed subject matter traces to work done ~1994–1996; the statutory chain runs 2000-04-11 (provisional 60/195,837) → 2001-04-11 (09/832,553) → 2006-05-30 (11/442,882, now 7,710,433) → 2010-03-22 (12/661,663, now 8,009,175) → 2011-08-15 (13/136,919, the '236 patent).
• The patent is one of ~35 assets all invented by Holub and all held by his single-member entity (per his own declaration in IPR2019-00646: "I am the sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC").

Original assignee

RAH Color Technologies LLC — a Virginia limited liability company, office at 7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA 22307. On the face of the patent the assignee is variously rendered "RAH Color Tech LLC" (Google Patents) / "RAH Color Technologies LLC."

• Line of business: patent licensing and enforcement only. Google Patents classifies the current assignee as RAH Color Tech LLC; the N.D. Cal. court in Electronics For Imaging, Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, No. 18-cv-01612-WHO, found: "RAH is a non-practicing entity that licenses and enforces the patents of its sole member, Dr. Richard Holub."
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No. The commercialization attempt was the predecessor Imagicolor Corporation (1998), which built a "first product prototype" combining automatic display-calibration instrumentation with soft-proofing software. Per RAH's own complaints, "investment did not materialize and Imagicolor was eventually dissolved." RAH Color Technologies LLC was formed in 2005 explicitly "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program."
• Current status: operating as a licensing entity (not dissolved, not in bankruptcy). Patent US 8,279,236 itself is Expired – Fee Related (anticipated expiration 2021-04-11).

Assignment timeline

Important limitation: the Assignment Center holds at least one recorded event for this patent (shown below from Google Patents legal events), but I could not retrieve the reel/frame, execution date, or correspondent of record for it, nor confirm whether an earlier inventor→LLC assignment is separately recorded. Those fields must be pulled from assignmentcenter.uspto.gov (search by patent number 8,279,236) to complete the chain. I am not inventing a reel/frame to fill the gap.

• Date not retrieved / recorded (not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inferred but not verified)
  • Assignor: Richard A. Holub (and/or Imagicolor Corporation) — unverified
  • Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — cannot run the repeat-correspondent test.
  • Context: inventor-to-own-licensing-vehicle transfer. Listed as "inferred" because I could not confirm a recording; the issued patent simply names the LLC as assignee.

• 2013-05-14 (executed date not retrieved) / recorded 2013-05-14 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Merger ("MERGER (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC
  • Assignee: RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg / change of name only — an intra-Holub merger of entities, not a transfer to a third party. Recorded on Google Patents legal events and flagged by Unified Patents ("First worldwide family litigation filed").
  • Note: the assignor and assignee rendering identically is characteristic of a name/entity merger within the same ownership group, not an arm's-length acquisition.

No other post-issuance assignments appear in the public legal-event record. There is no evidence of any transfer of US 8,279,236 to Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, or any listed aggregator — nor to any defensive aggregator.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8279236
    1998 : Imagicolor Corporation formed
    2000 : Provisional application filed
    2001 : Parent application filed
    2005 : RAH Color Technologies LLC formed
    2011 : Divisional application filed
    2012 : Patent US 8279236 issued
    2013 : Merger recorded to RAH Color Technologies
    2014 : First suit filed against X-Rite
    2017 : Second suit filed against Samsung
    2021 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present (qualified). There is no operating-company assignee that sold the patent; instead the inventor's own failed startup path (Imagicolor, dissolved) was replaced by a purpose-built licensing-only single-member LLC (RAH Color Technologies LLC, Virginia, formed 2005) that has never shipped a product. This is the substance of signal 1 (no products in commerce + single-member LLC), but the atypical feature is that the inventor himself is the licensing entity, not a buyer. Address is a residential/office address (7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA), not a registered-agent service.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Present (via RPX/Unified surfacing), not on the named "big-NPE" lists. RAH Color Technologies does not match Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, or Spangenberg entities. However, it is a documented high-frequency plaintiff surfaced on RPX insight and the Unified Patents litigation portal (Google Patents lists two "Family has litigation" cases plus "First worldwide family litigation filed," sourced to Darts-IP/Unified): the EFI order records "RAH has filed at least 10 lawsuits to enforce its patents," and Adobe/Xerox/EFI/Heidelberger/Dalim/Quad were consolidated into MDL No. 2874 (N.D. Cal.). That satisfies the "surfaced by Unified/RPX as a high-frequency plaintiff" prong.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear. The recording correspondent is the single most diagnostic field for this family and I could not retrieve it (no Assignment Center reel/frame detail). Cannot be scored. (Litigation counsel seen in the record — e.g., David Berten, IL Bar No. 6200898, appearing in the Adobe v. RAH IPR — is litigation counsel, not the assignment correspondent, and should not be conflated with this signal.)

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One recorded intra-group merger (2013-05-14) and no chained LLC-to-LLC assignments. No shared-correspondent-address pattern is observable on the public record.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present / unclear. The only recorded event is the 2013-05-14 merger; the first suit naming this patent (X-Rite, W.D. Mich. 1:14-cv-00638) was filed in 2014, more than 6 months later. No assignment dated within 6 months of a suit is visible.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 assignor in the chain. (Imagicolor's dissolution was a wind-down of a never-commercialized startup, not a court-supervised patent sale.)

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating company transferred the patent to a proxy to assert on its behalf; the inventor is the asserter.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain terminates in the same private licensing LLC that is currently asserting; it was not neutralized by RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Driven by two independent, concrete facts rather than naming: (a) a court finding in EFI v. RAH Color Technologies, No. 18-cv-01612-WHO (N.D. Cal.), that "RAH is a non-practicing entity that licenses and enforces the patents of its sole member, Dr. Richard Holub" — the assignee of this patent shipped no product, its predecessor Imagicolor having been dissolved after the prototype never commercialized (per RAH's own complaints); and (b) a high-frequency asserting record — RAH maintains the '236 patent in a portfolio asserted in 10+ suits consolidated into MDL No. 2874, with the '236 patent specifically asserted against X-Rite (1:14-cv-00638, 2014) and Samsung (1:17-cv-05430, 2017). The 2013-05-14 recorded Merger to RAH COLOR TECHNOLOGIES LLC is an intra-group reorg, not a third-party acquisition, so it neither strengthens nor weakens the NPE call. Caveat: the reel/frame and recording-correspondent fields remain unverified; confirm them at the USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 8,279,236) before relying on the repeat-correspondent signal.

I'll research the prior art citations for US patent 8,279,236. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me get the specific front-page citation lists for the '236 patent itself.

Let me locate the actual front-page "References Cited" list for the '236 patent.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,279,236 B2

Method, scope, and an important boundary note

I searched for the front-page (56) "References Cited" list and the granted claim set of US 8,279,236 B2 specifically. Two things must be flagged before the analysis:

1. The authoritative full text supplied for this analysis (the Google Patents copy) does not include the '236 front-page (56) "References Cited" list, nor its granted claims. The fetched document ends in the Detailed Description at FIG. 10; the abstract and classification are present, but the (56) citations and the claims are not. I therefore cannot give you the '236's own verbatim citation list from the authoritative source, and I was not able to complete a second targeted retrieval before the tool limit was reached.
2. The '236 is a divisional in a specification family, so its disclosure is essentially identical to its close relatives: it is a division of App. 12/661,663 (now US 8,009,175), which is a division of App. 11/442,882 (now US 7,710,433), which is a division of App. 09/832,553 (now US 7,102,648), claiming benefit of Provisional 60/195,837 (Apr. 11, 2000). The references cited in those same-specification siblings are the best available proxy for the '236's own (56) list, and the references the '236 itself discusses by name in its Background are certain.

Below I separate (A) art cited inside the '236 specification itself (highest confidence — quoted by the patent), (B) the same-family front-page patent citations (documented for the siblings; expect substantial overlap with the '236's own list but verify), and (C) the cited non-patent literature. I then give a § 102 mapping against the claim categories this family is known to claim, with the caveat that I do not have the '236's verbatim claims. Because the effective priority date is April 11, 2000, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs.

A. Prior art expressly identified in the '236 specification (highest confidence)

These are named in the '236's own Background/Description and are therefore unquestionably on the record for this family. (Paragraph numbers below are the corresponding published-application paragraphs for the shared specification.)

Boundary caveat on A7/A8: these are the inventor's own earlier disclosures expressly incorporated into the '236. They should not be treated as § 102 anticipation against the '236's own claims; treat them as part of the '236's effective disclosure.

B. Front-page (56) patent citations documented across the same specification family

The '236's siblings share the specification (and largely the same citation set). The lists below are documented for US 7,102,648 (and the child US 9,500,527), which is the closest available proxy. Expect the '236's own (56) list to substantially overlap, but confirm the '236 front page before relying on any item. Dates are the granted-issue dates as printed in the family lists.

B1. Most relevant to the '236's display-calibration subject matter

B2. Additional '648 front-page U.S. patent documents (examiner-cited)

These are all pre-2000 and therefore § 102(a)/(b) eligible; several are color-management/network-distribution references. Full citation = U.S. Patent No.; issue dates as printed in the family list:

• U.S. 4,630,076 (Yoshimura) — Dec. 16, 1986
• U.S. 4,677,465 (Alkofer) — Jun. 30, 1987
• U.S. 4,700,218 (Thomsen et al.) — Oct. 13, 1987
• U.S. 4,729,016 (Alkofer) — Mar. 1, 1988
• U.S. 4,745,465 (Kwon) — May 17, 1988
• U.S. 5,048,? / U.S. 5,049,986 (Aono et al.) — Sep. 17, 1991
• U.S. 5,083,195 (Evelin) — Jan. 21, 1992
• U.S. 5,115,229 (Shalit) — May 19, 1992
• U.S. 5,177,602 (Fujimori) — Jan. 5, 1993
• U.S. 5,212,546 (Arazi et al.) — May 18, 1993
• U.S. 5,231,481 (Eouzan et al.) — Jul. 27, 1993
• U.S. 5,278,641 (Sekizawa et al.) — Jan. 11, 1994
• U.S. 5,305,? / U.S. 5,309,257 (Bonino et al.) — May 3, 1994
• U.S. 5,345,315 (Shalit) — Sep. 6, 1994
• U.S. 5,414,538 (Eschbach) — May 9, 1995
• U.S. 5,416,890 (Beretta) — May 16, 1995
• U.S. 5,426,517 (Schwartz) — Jun. 20, 1995
• U.S. 5,428,720 (Adams, Jr.) — Jun. 27, 1995
• U.S. 5,444,556 (Ito et al.) — Aug. 22, 1995
• U.S. 5,495,428 (Schwartz) — Feb. 27, 1996
• U.S. 5,532,848 (Beretta) — Jul. 2, 1996
• U.S. 5,539,539 (Fujimoto et al.) — Jul. 23, 1996
• U.S. 5,544,258 (Levien) — Aug. 6, 1996
• U.S. 5,596,416 (Barry et al.) — Jan. 21, 1997
• U.S. 5,604,596 (Ukai et al.) — Feb. 18, 1997
• U.S. 5,668,890 (Winkelman) — Sep. 16, 1997
• U.S. 5,680,333 (Jansson) — Oct. 21, 1997
• U.S. 5,745,657 (Barry et al.) — Apr. 28, 1998
• U.S. 5,751,965 (Mayo et al.) — May 12, 1998
• U.S. 5,806,081 (Swen et al.) — Sep. 8, 1998
• U.S. 5,809,165 (Massen) — Sep. 15, 1998
• U.S. 5,812,286 (Lin) — Sep. 22, 1998
• U.S. 5,828,793 (Mann) — Oct. 27, 1998
• U.S. 5,859,711 / U.S. 5,940,186 (Barry et al.) — Jan. 12, 1999 / Aug. 17, 1999
• U.S. 6,018,361 (Fujii et al.) — Jan. 25, 2000
• U.S. 6,035,103 (Zuber) — Mar. 7, 2000
• U.S. 6,097,471 (Buhr et al.) — Aug. 1, 2000 (post-priority — relevant only under § 102(e) if effective as of an earlier U.S. filing)

(Note: several of the numbers/dates above appear in the retrieved family tables with minor OCR inconsistencies; verify each against the printed front page before citing.)

C. Non-patent literature cited in the family (printed publications — § 102(a)/(b))

These appear in the family's "Other References" (corresponding to the '236's NPL list).

§ 102 summary (by claim category)

Because I do not have the '236's verbatim claims, this is mapped to the claim categories this specification family is known to contain (e.g., the "user-established white point + sensor measurement" independent claim; the network-sharing dependent claims; the brightness/contrast-superposition claims; and the sensor-calibration claims). Verify against the actual granted claims — in particular claim 5, which the litigation section notes was asserted against Samsung mobile devices.

• Visual white-match to a physical reference + sensor measurement → A1 (Engeldrum '117) is the closest anticipatory-type reference; C10 (Photoshop guide), C12 (Radius manuals), and C1 (Cowan) are § 103 supports.
• Setting brightness/contrast for linear (superposition) operation → A2 ('809 McLaughlin) and C1 (Cowan); A3–A6 (beam-current/aging compensation) for the drift/re-calibration aspect.
• Sensor/colorimeter calibration (monochromator + reference sensor; spectral-response convolution; traceable to a standards lab) → C2/C3 (Ohno four-color matrix), C4/C5 (Brown/NIST), and patent refs B2 (Vincent '518), B3 (Ohno '197); WO 99/10866 (B6) and A8 ('425) as incorporated/background.
• Network distribution / shared profiles / virtual proof → B4 (Bonino '257), C11 (ICC spec), and the incorporated A7 ('909)/A8('425)/B6; note these same-family items are disclosure, not art.
• Ambient-illumination / gamut compensation → C6 (Cornsweet), C8 (Bartleson & Breneman), and general color-appearance references in the cited NPL.

What I could not verify (recommended follow-ups)

1. The '236's own front-page (56) list and its granted claims were not in the authoritative text I was given, and I was unable to complete a second retrieval. Pull the front page of US 8,279,236 B2 (USPTO PatentCenter / Google Patents "Citations" tab) to confirm the exact (56) set — the family proxy above is expected to overlap but is not a substitute.
2. Claim-number-level § 102 mapping cannot be finalized without the '236 claims. The category mapping above should be re-run claim-by-claim once the claim set is in hand (especially independent claim 1 and claim 5).
3. OCR-affected dates/numbers in the family tables (Section B) should be checked against printed front pages before being cited in any opinion.
4. Cross-reference: the previously generated litigation section established that the '236 was asserted in RAH Color Technologies v. X-Rite (W.D. Mich. 1:14‑cv‑00638, dismissed Mar. 5, 2015) and RAH Color Technologies v. Samsung (N.D. Ill. 1:17‑cv‑05430), that it was not among the patents challenged in the RAH/Adobe IPRs (IPR2019‑00627/‑0628/‑0629/‑0646), and that it is recorded as expired (anticipated Apr. 11, 2021). Those facts are assumed correct here and are not repeated; if any contradicts the front-page (56) data you retrieve, flag it.

I'll ground this analysis by searching for the issued claim text and the prior-art references applicable to US 8,279,236.

Let me look for the issued claim text and the prior-art references cited on the face of the patent.

Let me pin down the granted claim text and a few concrete prior-art references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,279,236 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold notes on what I could and could not use (please read first)

0.1 The "Prior Art section of this page" was not provided to me. Your instruction says to use "the results from the Prior Art section of this page," but the material supplied in this session contains only (a) the full text of US 8,279,236 and (b) the two previously generated sections (summary and litigation). No prior-art table, IDS, examiner citation list, or third-party-art section was included. I therefore built the analysis two ways, and I label each item by provenance:

0.2 Claim text discrepancy — must be resolved before any opinion is relied upon. The previously generated section correctly flagged that the granted claims were not retrieved. I can now add one hard datum: the printed patent states "36 Claims, 17 Drawing Sheets" (US 8,279,236 B2, face page, per patentimages PDF). The pre-grant publication US 2011/0298837 A1 shows claims numbered 7–36 (30 claims), because claims 1–6 were cancelled by preliminary amendment without renumbering. So the 36-claim face-page count does not reconcile with the 30 published claims — meaning six claims were added during prosecution, most plausibly apparatus/method claims drawn to the FIGS. 15–16 monochromator/reference-instrument sensor-calibration disclosure, which is fully described but had no counterpart claim in the publication.

All conclusions below are keyed to the published claim set plus that inference, and every claim-number reference is marked ⚠️ until verified against the USPTO full-text or PDF.

0.3 Governing law. The '236 issued from application 13/136,919 (filed 2011-08-15) as a divisional of 12/661,663 → 11/442,882 → 09/832,553 (filed 2001-04-11), claiming benefit of provisional 60/195,837 (2000-04-11). Because the application chain predates 16 March 2013, pre-AIA § 102/§ 103 govern, with a critical date of no later than 2001-04-11 and presumptively 2000-04-11 for art applied against subject matter supported by the provisional. Practically, any reference published before April 2000 is safe art; references between April 2000 and April 2001 need § 102(e)/(g) analysis.

0.4 Practical relevance. The patent is recorded Expired – Fee Related (anticipated term end 2021-04-11). An obviousness opinion on it is therefore only monetizable as to pre-expiry periods/back damages, not prospective injunctive relief.

1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

Drawing from the art itself and from the Board's and parties' treatment in the sibling IPRs:

A POSITA is a person with a B.S. in electrical engineering, computer science, or imaging science (or equivalent) and 2–4 years' experience in digital color management, color measurement instrumentation, or graphic-arts prepress/workflow software; or an M.S. in a related field plus comparable experience. The POSITA is familiar with the CIE colorimetry system, the color-mixture (3×3 matrix) model of additive displays, device color profiles (ICC), gamma/TRC characterization, gamut boundary computation and gamut mapping, and the use of colorimeters/spectrophotometers to calibrate displays and printers. The POSITA is also a competent applications programmer (Dr. Vrhel conceded in the '761 IPR that any team designing such a system would need programmers — [IPR]).

Everything in the '236 claims was, at the critical date, squarely within that skill set. This matters because the Federal Circuit has repeatedly held that where the architecture is conventional and only the application of it to color is at issue, the claims must identify something more than the generic arrangement of known components (see § 6.3).

2. The claims to be analyzed (grouped by subject matter)

Because the analysis is a § 103 analysis, I group claims by inventive core rather than by number.

Group I — Networked gamut comparison (the commercial heart of the patent). ⚠️ Published claims 7–19 (storage medium), 20–31 (system), 32–36 (method). Core steps:

1. Display screen(s) at a client computer to collect data characterizing the effects of viewing conditions on color reproduction by the client's rendering device;
2. use that data to compute a first gamut for the device;
3. compare the first gamut to a second gamut of colors provided by a server employing a network protocol;
4. (dependent) render by selecting the second gamut / an enlarged first gamut / a scaling of the second gamut; indicate that colors are reproduced inaccurately (out-of-gamut warning); alert the user that viewing conditions should be changed;
5. (dependent) viewing conditions = ambient illumination; measuring rendered colors with an instrument; computing transformations responsive to the measurement;
6. (dependent) standard units based in human color vision (CIE); a device calibrated to provide colorimetric data; substitution of a viewing illuminant for the measuring illuminant;
7. (dependent) distributed processing over multiple processors; a network database of device capabilities / calibration dates.

Group II — Screen-based visual calibration and display setup (specification FIGS. 3–10). Present in the specification; likely carried in some claim(s) of the granted 36.

Group III — Sensor calibration apparatus (FIGS. 15–16): reflector + monochromator with computer-controlled waveband + reference instrument + sensor-under-test, with verification by convolving the sensor's measured spectral response against the display primaries' measured emissions. ⚠️ Probably the six extra claims.

3. The prior-art reference set

3.1 Applicant-admitted art inside the '236 (strongest § 103 ammunition — it appears on the patent's own face/text)

3.2 Gamut computation / gamut mapping art (third party)

3.3 Networked image delivery / remote proofing and annotation

3.4 Sensor-calibration art (Group III)

4. Ground-by-ground § 103 analysis

GROUND 1 — Group I claims are obvious over Stone (1988) + US 5,721,572 + a network-content/proofing reference (Scott-Taggart or Stewart) + the applicant's own admitted FIG. 11 architecture, optionally with Giorgianni for the viewing-condition element.

Element mapping

Motivation to combine (specific, articulated, KSR-compliant)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution vocabulary. Both Stone and the Holub '909 frame the identical problem — a color specified on one device cannot be reproduced on another device of smaller gamut, and the remedy is to compute both gamuts and map. Stone ¶¶ ~71–79 (as quoted in the IPR: "transforming input RGB color values into a device-independent color space, applying gamut mapping, and then transforming the mapped values to CMY").
2. The network element is a pure substitution of known infrastructure for a known purpose. Once color management is client/server (which the '236's own specification concedes was the art: FIG. 11), moving the source gamut descriptor alongside the image is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417). No new function is obtained by where the second gamut physically resides; the comparison operation is identical.
3. Express design incentive. The applicant's own specification states the business motivation: a clothier posting garments on the Web wants the consumer's browser to compare "recommended" viewing conditions/gamut to local conditions and "modify … the local monitor profile" — i.e., the motivation is stated in the specification itself, which is an admission that a POSITA would have wanted exactly the claimed architecture.
4. Reasonable expectation of success. Every constituent had been reduced to practice: gamut boundary descriptors (US 5,721,572), gamut mapping (Stone), device-independent encoding and rendering intents (ICC), and client/server delivery of image data with profiles (Scott-Taggart/Stewart/'236 FIG. 11).

Strongest counter-argument (Group I). The applicant will argue that no reference transmits the source gamut itself (as opposed to the image, or a profile of the sending device) to the client for a client-side gamut-to-gamut comparison, and that the claim's "second gamut of colors provided by a server using a network protocol" is therefore a new data-flow. This is a narrow distinction: a source device profile received from a server inherently defines the source gamut in the ICC model, and the Board has repeatedly rejected this kind of "the reference doesn't use the word X" argument where the POSITA's background knowledge supplies X (DyStar, 464 F.3d at 1367; Randall Mfg. v. Rea, 733 F.3d 1355, 1362–63). Expect this to turn on claim construction of "second gamut of colors" (gamut-as-volume vs. gamut-as-the-set-of-specific-colors-to-be-rendered — note the specification itself uses both senses, e.g. "said second gamut comprises one or more colors to be rendered").

GROUND 2 — The "viewing conditions → device gamut" claims are obvious over Giorgianni + ICC/rendering intents + the lumeter ambient-sensing disclosure.

Where Ground 1's network element is contested, this ground attacks the distinguishing element directly: "first gamut data comprising at least the effects of viewing conditions" (⚠️ cl. 20/24, 7/13–14) and "alert the user if viewing conditions should be changed" (⚠️ cl. 19).

• Giorgianni teaches that appearance mismatches arise because "for each type of media, the viewing conditions may differ (e.g., the white point used, the amount of flare)" and that compensation is required — the identical insight claimed here, merely relocated into a "gamut" rather than an "appearance transform."
• The patent itself concedes that ambient reflected light "add[s] with that emitted by the monitor, decreasing the dynamic range and the saturation of colors" — a gamut reduction. A POSITA seeking to represent that effect computationally would naturally express it as a gamut modification (or, equivalently, as an ambient-adjusted TRC), because the ICC model had no other slot for it. That is the classic "obvious to try within a finite set of identified, predictable solutions" situation (KSR, 550 U.S. at 421).
• The '236's own statement of the object — "which accounts for the influence of ambient illumination on color reproduction of display" — is an admission of the goal.

GROUND 3 — Group II (screen-based visual calibration / threshold / film matching) is obvious over US 5,638,117 + Cornsweet's Visual Perception (1970) + Weber's-law psychophysics + the standard film step-wedge comparison practice.

• US 5,638,117 already teaches visual calibration of a display against a reflector/card reference.
• The '236's own background criticizes US 5,638,117 as incomplete for network purposes — which is an admission that the difference over that reference is the network/proof-sharing feature, not the visual methodology.
• Increment/decrement threshold measurement at a display is a textbook application of Cornsweet, Visual Perception (1970) — cited by the applicant himself ("pp. 475") — and Weber's law; oscillating a spatial square wave at 5–10 Hz to enhance threshold detection is standard psychophysics. The claimed "reliability check" (asking the user to report stripe orientation/color) is an obvious anti-carelessness measure of designing a psychophysical test.
• Annular film color-matching to the Standard Observer is the historical method by which the CIE Standard Observer itself was defined (the applicant concedes "not unlike those performed in order to define the Standard Observer") — i.e., the claim's method is a re-performance, on a monitor, of a 1931 protocol.

GROUND 4 — Group III (monochromator/reference-instrument sensor calibration) is obvious over the commercial "mini-chrom" monochromator admission + standard traceable-reference spectroradiometry + the display-primary convolution verification.

• The specification admits the monochromator/lamp/stepper/controller assembly was an off-the-shelf Elimund Scientific product "adequate for the purposes described here." Under § 103 that is a direct admission of the hardware element.
• The remaining steps — insert a traceable reference instrument into the illuminated field; step the waveband 380→720 nm; record test-sensor and reference responses; derive the test sensor's relative spectral response; verify by convolving that response with the measured spectral power of each display primary and comparing predicted to measured responses — are the ordinary practice of optical metrology. The applicant's own verification logic (equation (2): normalize by the CIE ȳ(λ) response) is a restatement of known spectroradiometric calibration.
• Motivation: a sensor vendor calibrating a low-cost filter-based instrument against a stable, traceable reference instrument has the obvious incentive of accuracy transfer; the specification states precisely that goal ("The goal is to transfer its calibration to the newly manufactured instrument").

GROUND 5 (mop-up for the dependent claims)

• ⚠️ cl. 8/22 (select among second gamut / enlarged first gamut / scaling) — Stone's scaling/clipping; '909's gamut mapping strategies.
• ⚠️ cl. 9/23 (warn of inaccurate reproduction) — Stone/'909 gamut filters; '236 FIG. 11 admission.
• ⚠️ cl. 10/24 (ambient illumination; measurement of rendered colors) — '09/139,498 lumeter; '909 sensor; US 5,638,117.
• ⚠️ cl. 11/25 (compute transforms responsive to measurement) —/the entire '909 profile-generation disclosure.
• ⚠️ cl. 12/26 (distributed processing across processors) — client/server split is the premise of the claim itself; trivial.
• ⚠️ cl. 13/27, 14/28, 15/29 (CIE units; colorimetrically calibrated device; substituting viewing illuminant for measuring illuminant) — ICC/specification-level, ubiquitous. Illuminant substitution (adapting measured values to the viewing illuminant) is standard CIE colorimetry and is expressly discussed in Giorgianni.
• ⚠️ cl. 16–18 (database of device capabilities/calibration dates; color-value-in/out-of-gamut data structure) — the '909 Virtual Proof data structure and node database; routine data-processing limitations (see § 6.3).
• ⚠️ cl. 31 (instrumental or visual measurement) — both taught (US 5,638,117 visual; '909/09-139,498 instrumental).

5. Consolidated motivation framework (why the combinations are legitimate under KSR)

1. Identical field of endeavor and identical problem — Holub's own '909 specification frames the problem for the POSITA: "printed color varies … from site to site because there have been only limited means of coordinating control of product appearance among sites" (as quoted in IPR2019-00627 FWD). Every reference in Grounds 1–2 was directed at that problem.
2. Stated, documented design incentive, not hindsight. The '236's own FIG. 11 paragraphs articulate the exact claimed workflow. Using the patentee's admissions of what the art taught is the surest route to a § 103 conclusion.
3. Predictable use of known elements — a gain-of-function argument is unavailable to the patentee: putting the source gamut on a server instead of in a local file changes nothing about the comparison operation.
4. Finite set of identified, predictable solutions — the gamut-comparison toolkit as of 1998–2000 was essentially: clip, compress/scale, or warn. The patent claims all three (⚠️ cl. 8/9). KSR forecloses the "but which one to pick?" argument.
5. No criticality in any numerical range — the only numerical limitations are in the specification (50–60% brightness), not (as far as the record shows) in the claims.
6. Teachable context from the family's own PTAB history. In IPR2019-00646, the Board found claims 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13 of the sibling US 7,791,761 unpatentable (FWD 2020-10-08), on grounds built from Stone, Scott-Taggart, Stewart and Giorgianni-type art. The '236 shares the same specification and much of the same conceptual content. Conversely, in IPR2019-00627 the Board found Adobe had not proven claims 28–33, 36–38 of US 7,729,008 unpatentable — which is the cautionary lesson: the Board decides claim-by-claim on the specific language, so the "obviousness of the patent" is not a global conclusion but a claim-set-specific one.

6. Where the obviousness case is weakest / where the patentee will push back

6.1 The "second gamut supplied by a server using a network protocol" data-flow. This is the single best nonobviousness argument. If the Board or a court construes "second gamut" as a transmitted gamut descriptor (rather than an image plus a profile), some references stop disclosing the limitation outright, and the petition must build it from the POSITA's knowledge plus an express teaching that a source device's gamut is transmitted — e.g., using US 8,760,461-type disclosures in which a sink is told "what color gamuts it supports" and the source/sink exchange gamut-support descriptors over a network. Those are post-2000 ('461 has a 2010-era priority), so they cannot be used against the '236 — but they confirm the industry's later convergence on the same idea, which cuts both ways.

6.2 § 101. Group I claims are, on their face, the classic Alice step-two profile: comparing a client gamut to a server-supplied gamut over a network, with the "inventive concept" arguably being nothing more than applying generic computer/network functionality to the long-known idea of gamut mapping. I flag this as a likely stronger invalidity vehicle than § 103 for the Group I claims, but it is outside the scope you set.

6.3 Claim-drafting exposure. "Provide a data structure having inputs which are color values and outputs indicating whether said color values are in or out of … said gamuts" (⚠️ cl. 18) and "distributed processing" (⚠️ cl. 12/26) are functional/architectural limitations that the Federal Circuit has treated as conventional or as covering any and all ways of achieving the result. Expect these dependents to fall first.

6.4 Secondary considerations in this record. RAH amassed 17 licensees of the family, including large vendors. But the IPR record contains direct testimony (Poynton 3rd Supp. Decl., IPR2019-00628, Ex. 1071) that: only 5 of 17 licensees were accused of infringing a challenged claim; 4 of those 5 licenses expressly recited that the licensee took the license to avoid litigation costs; most licenses were under $1M and many "in the low-to-mid five figures"; and licenses covered many patents besides the one challenged. On that record, the nexus required by In re GPAC / WMS Gaming is very hard to establish, and the licensing evidence is unlikely to overcome a clean KSR prima facie case. The 14-year lag between issuance (2012) and the asserted campaigns, together with the patent's 2021 expiry, also undercuts nexus and commercial-success arguments.

7. Bottom line

Confidence levels. High confidence on: the identity and content of the applicant-admitted art, the group structure, the KSR motivations, and the weakness of the licensing-based secondary considerations. Low-to-moderate confidence on: (i) the exact granted claim language and numbering of the 36 claims of US 8,279,236; (ii) the bibliographic details (numbers, assignees) of the reference referred to as "Scott-Taggart," the reference referred to as "Stewart," and US 5,721,572; and (iii) whether six claims were in fact added during prosecution and, if so, that they are the FIGS. 15–16 sensor-calibration claims.

Recommended verification steps before relying on any of this: (1) obtain the granted claim set from USPTO PatentCenter or the patentimages PDF for US 8,279,236 and compare against US 2011/0298837 A1; (2) pull the file wrapper to identify the six added claims and any examiner § 103 rejections and the art applied; (3) confirm the bibliographic details of Scott-Taggart, Stewart, and US 5,721,572; (4) if a validity opinion is the goal, note that the patent is expired — the exposure is historical damages only, and the more pressing issue is likely § 101 rather than § 103.