US 9100604

US Patent 9,100,604 — Analyst Summary

Source of record: Full patent text (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-28, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9100604](/patent/US9100604)/en). Litigation/PTAB data cross-checked via web search. Because live search results are treated as current ground truth, I flag below where they add or depart from the patent text.

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1. Bibliographic Data

Prosecution/family context: This is the sixth grant in a long continuation chain off Ser. No. 09/520,836 (US 6,765,616). Direct parent is Ser. No. 13/681,495 (US 8,736,729), itself a continuation of 12/845,266 (US 8,339,493) ← 10/660,710 (US 8,059,177), with sibling 10/660,711 (US 7,403,226). It is itself the parent of US 9,544,517, US 10,554,917, and US 10,462,403.

Litigation / PTAB (from search results, not the patent text):

• D. Del. cases 1:17-cv-01446, 1:17-cv-01447 (Maxell v. BlackBerry Corp. et al.), 1:18-cv-00310; S.D. Fla. 1:18-cv-21231.
• PTAB: IPR2018-00908 and IPR2018-00909 (Olympus Corp. et al. v. Maxell, filed 2018-06-20; both terminated 2018-12-26, listed as settlement); IPR2019-00097 (BlackBerry-related, filed 2018-10-16; settlement).

Uncertainty / gaps I cannot resolve authoritatively:

• I found no CAFC 2026 docket that I can confirm lists 9,100,604 as an asserted patent. Searches surfaced 2026 Maxell–Samsung CAFC appeals (26-1111, 26-1320, 26-1330) and Maxell-related PTAB matters, but none of the retrieved docket text ties those appeals to the '604 patent. The '604 was already expired as of 2020-03-08, so a 2026 appeal on it is unlikely but I cannot rule it out from the data retrieved. Treat any 2026 CAFC linkage as unverified.
• The patent text itself contains internal inconsistencies I am reporting literally rather than correcting (see §4).

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2. Abstract (as issued)

An electric camera includes an image sensing device with a light receiving surface having N vertically arranged pixels and an arbitrary number of pixels arranged horizontally, N being equal to or more than three times the number of effective scanning lines M of a display screen of a television system, a driver to drive the image sensing device to vertically mix or cull signal charges accumulated in individual pixels of K pixels to produce, during a vertical effective scanning period of the television system, a number of lines of output signals which corresponds to 1/K the number of vertically arranged pixels N of the image sensing device, K being an integer equal to or less than an integral part of a quotient of N divided by M, and a signal processing unit having a function of generating image signals by using the output signals of the image sensing device.

Core technical idea: Use an image sensor whose vertical pixel count N is at least 3× the TV system's effective scanning lines M (so it is over-specified for video but adequate for stills), and reconcile it to the TV standard by mixing/culling K rows on-chip during the vertical effective scanning period. Because K can be varied, the same sensor can serve moving-video, still-monitoring, and still-recording modes, and K can also be used as a vertical, resolution-preserving zoom. No field memory is needed. Working examples: NTSC (M = 240), N = 1200 (Ex. 1–2) or N = 864 (Ex. 3); K = 4 for motion with image stabilization, K = 5 for full-frame still monitoring, K = 1 (no mixing) for still recording.

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3. Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — variable-K mixing/culling driven by a view-angle ("zoom") request

A camera comprising:

1. Image sensor with N vertically arranged pixels and any number of horizontal pixels, where N ≥ 3 × M, and M is the number of effective scanning lines of a television display screen.
2. Driver that vertically mixes or culls the accumulated signal charges in groups of K pixels so as to produce a number of output lines corresponding to M; K is an integer ≤ ⌊N/M⌋ (the integer part of N ÷ M).
3. A view angle change switch that inputs a request to change the view angle of a moving image.
4. Signal processing unit that generates image signals from the sensor's output signals.
5. The variable-K limitation: when the view-angle request is to magnify the output image, the driver changes K from K1 to K2, where K1 > K2 — i.e., magnification is achieved by mixing/culling fewer rows — so that image signals are read with the same number of output lines but from a different (smaller) area of the sensor; and the signal processing unit still produces image signals with the same number of scanning lines.

In plain terms: Zoom in by grabbing a smaller patch of the sensor and mixing fewer rows inside that patch, so the output line count — and therefore TV format compliance — never changes. This is the patent's resolution-preserving "vertical zoom," contrasted in the specification with ordinary digital zoom that interpolates a small number of lines.

Claim 4 — continuous area change, discontinuous K change, under a zoom switch

A camera comprising:

1. Image sensor with N vertically arranged pixels and any number of horizontal pixels, where N > 3 × M and M is the number of effective vertical lines of a television system. (Note: claim 4 says "greater than three times," whereas claim 1 says "greater than or equal to three times" — I am reading the claim text literally, not harmonizing it.)
2. Signal processing unit that generates and outputs image signals having the M effective vertical lines of the television system from the sensor's output signals.
3. A zoom switch enabling a user to input zooming-operation information.
4. The control limitation: the signal processing unit generates image signals that are read out with mixing or culling of vertical pixel lines at intervals of K lines, taken from different areas of the imaging device, where the areas are changed continuously while K is changed discontinuously according to the magnification factors.

In plain terms: The zoom is smooth (continuous crop-area change), but the on-chip row-mixing ratio K steps in discrete jumps. Supporting disclosure: magnification <1.33 → K=4; 1.33–2 → K=3; ≥2 → K=2, with ordinary digital interpolation filling the gaps in between. Claim 4 is the "continuous zoom / stepped K" counterpart to claim 1's "discrete K change on a magnify request."

Dependents (for completeness)

• Claim 2 (dep. on 1): the switch can input a continuous view-angle change request, and the signal processing unit generates magnified image signals with interpolation processing according to the magnification factor set by the switch.
• Claim 3 (dep. on 2): the view-angle switch includes a zoom switch interlocked with an optical zoom mechanism.
• Claim 5 (dep. on 4): the zoom switch is interlocked with an optical zoom mechanism.

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4. Notes on Data Quality and Uncertainty

1. Aspect of "magnification → smaller K" is internally consistent with the specification (4-pixel mixing = normal/wide; 3-pixel = 1.33×; 2-pixel = 2×), so claim 1's K1 > K2 is not a typo — it is the intended direction.
2. Literal defects in the granted text, reported as-is rather than corrected: claim 1 contains a stray period mid-limitation ("is to magnify an output image by the view angle change switch. the driver changes…"); the specification's Fig. 7 embodiment states extraction area "(C) 4880 pixels high by 640 pixels wide," which is inconsistent with the 480-pixel figure used elsewhere for the 2-pixel-mixing case; and the specification refers to "the pixel adjacent to the Vi gate" where "V1" is evidently intended. Per your instruction I have not auto-corrected any of these.
3. Expiration date is counter-intuitive (2015 grant, 2020 expiration) and is explained by the 2000-03-08 earliest U.S. filing date in the continuation chain; Google Patents lists it as "Anticipated expiration 2020-03-08." That is the database's assumption, not a legal conclusion.
4. No authoritative CAFC 2026 docket for '604 located. If your task requires a positive confirmation of a Federal Circuit 2026 appeal on this specific patent number, I do not have it and will not supply one; the searches performed returned only adjacent Maxell matters (CAFC 26-1111 / 26-1320 / 26-1330, PTAB IPR2023-00226 on an unrelated patent) that do not name US 9,100,604.
5. Litigation/PTAB entries come from search sources, not the patent document itself; the IPR dispositions were settlements, so no claim construction or validity ruling on the '604 claims has been surfaced.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9100604 across patent litigation databases.

Let me get more details on the specific district court cases and PTAB proceedings.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,100,604

Summary of findings. U.S. 9,100,604 ("Electric camera," Maxell, Ltd. as current assignee; originally Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.) has been asserted in a wave of district-court infringement actions and challenged in several inter partes reviews. All of the identified proceedings appear to have terminated by settlement/dismissal rather than by trial or final written decision on the merits. Set out below is what I could verify from public sources. Note that the patent is one member of a large continuation family (including U.S. 6,765,616; 7,403,226; 8,059,177; 8,339,493; 8,736,729; 9,544,517; 10,462,403; and 10,554,917), and Maxell frequently asserted 9,100,604 alongside those siblings.

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A. District Court Litigation

1. Maxell, Ltd. v. BlackBerry Corporation and BlackBerry Ltd.

• Court: [U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (Wilmington)](/courts/district-of-delaware-wilmington)
• Case No.: 1:17-cv-01446
• Filed: October 13, 2017
• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendants: BlackBerry Corporation and BlackBerry Ltd.
• Patents asserted (per the docket/report): 8,170,394; 6,973,334; 7,199,821; 6,765,616; 7,995,897; and 9,100,604
• Status/Outcome: Complaint filed; defendants' motion to dismiss was briefed and argued; on August 24, 2018 Maxell filed a stipulation of dismissal as to Count 1, and BlackBerry answered/counterclaimed. The case did not proceed to trial; it appears to have been resolved by settlement (consistent with the related PTAB proceeding below being terminated on settlement).
• Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1:17-cv-01446 ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2017cv01446/63428

2. Maxell, Ltd. v. Olympus Corporation and Olympus America, Inc.

• Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Case No.: 1:18-cv-00310
• Filed: February 23, 2018
• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendants: Olympus Corporation and Olympus America, Inc.
• Patents asserted (per the Answer, Counts One–Five): 6,765,616; 7,199,821; 7,551,209; 8,130,284; and 8,059,177 — with 9,100,604 also linked to this case in the patent's litigation record.
• Related proceeding: A parallel declaratory-judgment action, Olympus Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd., No. 1:18-cv-00216 (D. Del., filed Feb. 6, 2018).
• Status/Outcome: Litigated through pleading/motion practice. The associated IPRs against 9,100,604 (below) were terminated in December 2018, indicating a global settlement.
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Delaware_District_Court/1--18-cv-00310/Maxell_Ltd._v._Olympus_Corporation_et_al/docs/12.pdf ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2018cv00310/64593

3. Maxell, Ltd. v. BLU Products, Inc.

• Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Miami)
• Case No.: 1:18-cv-21231
• Filed: April 3, 2018 (summons reflects original service on October 16, 2017, consistent with an origin in the October 2017 Delaware filing wave)
• Closed: August 3, 2018 (≈295 days in litigation)
• Plaintiff: Maxell, Ltd.
• Defendant: BLU Products, Inc.
• Patents-in-suit: six patents including 9,100,604 (others reported include 7,995,897 and 6,917,821)
• Status/Outcome: Closed/settled shortly after filing; no merits judgment.
• Sources: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/flsdce-[524495](/patent/524495)-maxell-v-blu-products ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flsdce/1:2018cv21231/524495

4. Delaware case 1:17-cv-01447 (D. Del.) — UNCONFIRMED PARTIES

• The patent's Google Patents litigation record lists a second Delaware filing, 1:17-cv-01447, in addition to 1:17-cv-01446. I was unable to confirm the parties, filing date, or outcome for 1:17-cv-01447 from the sources I searched. I flag this rather than guess; it was filed contemporaneously with the BlackBerry action (October 2017), and given the parallel service date (Oct. 16, 2017) on BLU Products, it may be related to the BLU matter, but I cannot confirm that.

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B. PTAB Proceedings (Inter Partes Review)

1. Olympus Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd. — IPR2018-00908

• Patent challenged: 9,100,604 (application 14/264,243)
• Filed: June 20, 2018
• Petitioner: Olympus Corporation et al.; Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.
• Counsel: Petitioner — William McCabe; Patent Owner — Robert Pluta
• Status: Terminated (settlement) December 26, 2018
• Source: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2018-00908

2. Olympus Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd. — IPR2018-00909

• Patent challenged: 9,100,604
• Filed: June 20, 2018
• Petitioner: Olympus Corporation et al.; Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.
• Status: Terminated (settlement) December 26, 2018
• Source: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2018-00909

3. BlackBerry Corporation v. Maxell, Ltd. — IPR2019-00097

• Patent challenged: 9,100,604
• Filed: October 16, 2018
• Petitioner: BlackBerry Corporation; Patent Owner: Maxell, Ltd.
• Status: Terminated (settlement) (no final written decision on the merits)
• Source: referenced in the prosecution/related-proceeding record at https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10397507](/patent/10397507) (listing "No. 9,100,604, Inter Partes Review No. IPR2019-00097 dated Oct. 16, 2018").

(Related IPRs filed in the same campaign against sibling patents include IPR2018-00904 on 8,339,493; IPR2018-00910 on 8,059,177; IPR2019-00068 on 7,403,226; IPR2019-00069 on 9,544,517; and IPR2019-00087 on 6,765,616.)

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C. Notes and Caveats

• No Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal specifically involving 9,100,604 was identified in my searches. The Maxell Federal Circuit activity I located concerns other patents (e.g., Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., Nos. IPR2020-00203/-00407/-00408/-00409).
• The terminated PTAB proceedings (all marked "Settlement") and the stipulation of dismissal in the Delaware BlackBerry case are consistent with confidential settlements, so no public merits ruling on the '604 claims is available.
• Per the Google Patents family record, the '604 patent is currently held by Maxell, Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.), with the legal status shown as "Expired – Fee Related" (anticipated expiration March 8, 2020).
• Accuracy note: I could not independently verify case 1:17-cv-01447's parties, nor did I locate a case number for the Florida BLU matter's original Delaware filing. These gaps are stated rather than filled by inference. If you need a PACER-verified docket for any of the above, I'd recommend pulling the specific dockets directly from PACER/Unified Patents, as public aggregators lag.

Primary sources used: Google Patents record for US 9,100,604 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9100604/en); Stanford NPE Litigation Database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/9100604); Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1:17-cv-01446); GreyB/IPVerse PTAB dockets (IPR2018-00908 and IPR2018-00909); RPX Insight (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/flsdce-524495-maxell-v-blu-products); and Justia Dockets.

I'll verify the PTAB picture, since the structured ODP block says "no activity" while the patent page cites three IPR numbers. Let me search.

Good — the patent page's three IPR numbers are real and name the '604. Let me pin down the BlackBerry proceeding and any appeals/FWDs.

Data-conflict flag (read first)

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt asserts the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 9,100,604. That is inconsistent with primary-source documents I retrieved, and per your operating rules I am preferring the search results over the canonical block:

• The order terminating IPR2018-00908 and IPR2018-00909 (with five companion Olympus/Maxell proceedings) is a public PTAB paper dated 2018-12-26 and captions the '604 proceedings by case number and patent number.
• The petition PDFs themselves are on PTACTS (e.g., the IPR2018-00908 petition, filed 2018-06-20, is captioned "PETITION FOR INTER PARTES REVIEW OF U.S. PATENT NO. 9,100,604").
• Google Patents' litigation block on the '604 page lists three PTAB entries: IPR2018-00908, IPR2018-00909, IPR2019-00097.

So ODP's ingest for this patent appears stale or empty, not the docket itself. I am reporting three proceedings.

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Proceedings overview

There are three AIA trial proceedings on US 9,100,604 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 3 disposed of by pre-institution settlement/voluntary dismissal, 0 institution denials; specifically, IPR2018-00908 and IPR2018-00909 (Olympus) were dismissed with prejudice on 2018-12-26 before any institution decision, and IPR2019-00097 (BlackBerry) was likewise settled/terminated in the preliminary phase — meaning the patent's claims 1–5 were never adjudicated on the merits and no estoppel attaches; the defensive posture for a defendant today is unusual, because the patent is expired (terms of the '604 run from the 2000-03-08 U.S. filing, Google Patents lists anticipated expiration 2020-03-08 and status Expired – Fee Related), so the PTAB record is largely of historical/estoppel value rather than an invalidating asset.

Caveat on the summary sentence: I cannot say "the patent has survived two/three IPRs and is hardened," because no IPR ever reached the merits, and I also cannot say any claim is dead. The accurate statement is: claims 1–5 are UNTESTED and stand as issued, subject to the patent's expired status.

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IPR2018-00908 — Olympus Corporation, Olympus Corporation of the Americas, and Olympus America Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2018-06-20
• Status: Terminated — dismissed with prejudice on 2018-12-26, in the preliminary phase, before the Board reached the merits or decided institution.
• Judge panel: Not stated in the termination order retrieved. (No merits panel ever sat on this proceeding; no FWD exists to attribute to a panel.)
• Petition grounds: Challenge to claims 1–5 under § 103, on a combination in which a camera having a sensor performing selective readout ("Misawa '607") is combined with electronic and optical zoom teachings ("Okino '947"). The petition framed the '604 as claiming "a camera with an image sensor driven in multiple readout modes" and argued the claims "include no meaningful features and present nothing novel over this prior art."
• Real parties in interest: Olympus Corporation; Olympus Corporation of the Americas; Olympus America Inc. — no other financier/controller per the petition's § 312(a)(2) statement.
• Institution decision: None issued. The Board's order states the proceedings "are at an early stage, and we have not yet decided whether to institute a trial in any of these proceedings."
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled or sustained; the Board never construed a term or reached the merits.
• Settlement / termination: Granted the petitioner's authorized unopposed motion to dismiss with prejudice, and granted the joint request to file the settlement agreement as business confidential information (37 C.F.R. § 42.74(b)). The Board found the Agreement "resolves all currently pending Patent Office and District Court proceedings between the Parties involving the above-identified patents." Terms are confidential.
• Appeal: None. A § 319 appeal requires a final written decision; none issued.
• Defensive value: This proceeding gives a defendant no invalidating judgment and no estoppel — the arguments (Misawa '607 + Okino '947) were never tested and were never expressly abandoned on the merits, so they remain conceptually available. Its practical value is as a prosecution-history/admissions record and as evidence of the prior-art landscape Olympus considered.
• Source: Termination order (covering IPR2018-00904/-00906/-00908/-00909/-00910/-00911), Docket Alarm PDF, 2018-12-26 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2018-00910/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8059177/docs/12-26-2018-Board/Termination_Decision_Document-9-Termination_Decision_Document.pdf

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IPR2018-00909 — Olympus Corporation, Olympus Corporation of the Americas, and Olympus America Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2018-06-20 (expressly filed as a second, contemporaneous petition on the same patent, on distinct art)
• Status: Terminated — dismissed with prejudice on 2018-12-26, before institution.
• Judge panel: Not identified in the retrieved papers.
• Petition grounds: Challenge to claims 1–5, distinct from the -00908 grounds: a combination in which a camera with electronic and optical zoom teachings (U.S. Patent No. 6,757,013, "Matsuzaka '013") is enhanced with a sensor performing selective readout (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication H3-117985, "Egawa '985"). Petitioners represented the two petitions as covering "different technical aspects of the '604 Patent."
• Institution decision: None. Petitioner's own motion states: "the Board has yet to reach the merits and issue a decision on institution."
• Patent Owner preliminary response: Filed 2018-10-17.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Petitioner filed an authorized unopposed motion to dismiss with prejudice on 2018-12-18 (authorized by Board email 2018-11-21 and conference call 2018-11-30); the Board dismissed with prejudice on 2018-12-26, noting the petition "is currently pending before the Board" and that the parties "have resolved their dispute as to U.S. Patent No. 9,100,604." Settlement agreement treated as business confidential.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Same as -00908 — untested art, no estoppel, no cancellation. The Matsuzaka '013 + Egawa '985 combination is the more interesting of the two Olympus theories because Matsuzaka is cited as supplying the zoom teaching while Egawa supplies selective readout; a defendant considering a fresh challenge should treat both Olympus theories as a starting reference set, not as spent ground.
• Sources: Petitioner's Motion to Dismiss (2018-12-18), PTACTS — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1510598](/patent/1510598)/download-documents ; case metadata — https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2018-00909

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IPR2019-00097 — BlackBerry Corporation v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: Petition dated/filed 2018-10-16 (assigned to the 2019 trial-number series because it was filed after 2018-09-30).
• Status: Terminated — settled (Google Patents' litigation block labels it "filed (Settlement)"). I could not retrieve the termination paper, so I do not have the exact termination date, and I do not know whether dismissal was with or without prejudice.
• Judge panel: The only retrieved paper for this case is a pro hac vice Order (2019-01-23) issued by Administrative Patent Judge Terrence W. McMillin; that is not necessarily the merits panel (none ever sat).
• Petition grounds: Not retrieved. I have no verified statement of the challenged claims or the art for the '604 petition. Do not assume it mirrored the '394 or '616 petitions in the same BlackBerry group.
• Real parties in interest: BlackBerry Corporation and BlackBerry Ltd. (both sued by Maxell on the '604 in D. Del. C.A. No. 1:17-cv-01446).
• Institution decision: None retrieved. The proceeding was in the preliminary phase as of the January 2019 PHV order.
• Final Written Decision: None identified.
• Settlement / termination: BlackBerry and Maxell settled the underlying Delaware litigation; that settlement is reported publicly (terms confidential, per press coverage — https://seekingalpha.com/news/[3452648](/patent/3452648)-blackberry-settles-maxell-patent-lawsuit). The PTAB proceeding was terminated in parallel.
• Appeal: None identified.
• Defensive value: Two points. (1) Timing: BlackBerry served on the 2017-10-16 complaint, so a 2018-10-16 petition sits exactly on the § 315(b) one-year bar date — reinforcing that this was a deadline-driven filing, not a leisurely merits challenge. (2) No merits record and no estoppel — but also no usable FWD to lean on.
• Related group: BlackBerry filed a five-petition campaign against Maxell in the same window — IPR2019-00087 (U.S. 6,765,616), -00088 (U.S. 6,973,334), -00089 (U.S. 8,170,394), -00095 (U.S. 7,995,897), -00097 (U.S. 9,100,604) — as reflected in the caption of the PHV order at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00089/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8170394/docs/01-23-2019-Board/Order-9-Decision___Granting_Petitioners_Motion_for_Pro_Hac_Vice_Admission_of_Stephen_McBride.pdf . Note that IPR2019-00087 targeted U.S. 6,765,616 — the original parent of the entire '604 continuation chain.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — canceled / sustained / untested. No claim of US 9,100,604 is canceled, and no claim has been sustained on the merits, because no AIA trial ever produced an institution decision, let alone a Final Written Decision. Claims 1 and 4 (independent), and claims 2, 3 and 5 (dependent), are UNTESTED and stand exactly as granted. The only claim-level record at the PTAB is the two Olympus petitions' challenge to claims 1–5 and their pre-institution dismissal with prejudice. Compounding this: the patent's legal status is Expired – Fee Related, with Google Patents listing anticipated expiration 2020-03-08 (20 years from the 2000-03-08 filing of Ser. No. 09/520,836), so the practical question for most defendants is not "can I invalidate claims 1–5" but "does any past-acts damages window remain" (bounded by the expiration date and 35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year lookback).

Estoppel landscape. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision as to claims that were finally adjudicated — neither condition is met. Both Olympus proceedings were dismissed under the Board's termination authority in the preliminary phase ("we have not yet decided whether to institute a trial"), and a settlement-based dismissal is not an adverse judgment. Consequently: Olympus and its privies are not estopped from raising Misawa '607, Okino '947, Matsuzaka '013, Egawa '985, or any other ground; likewise BlackBerry is not estopped on the '604. For a current defendant, this cuts both ways — it means the two Olympus theories are not foreclosed as prior art, but you also get no benefit from any invalidity finding because there is none. Note the expiration date undercuts even the practical value of a new petition: the Board would need to find a live controversy/timeliness path, and the § 315(b) clock and expired-patent posture are real obstacles.

Pattern signals. There is a clear family-wide, coordinated defense pattern, all resolved by settlement rather than adjudication: Olympus filed six simultaneous IPRs against six Maxell patents (IPR2018-00904, -00906, -00908, -00909, -00910, -00911), all dismissed with prejudice on 2018-12-26; BlackBerry filed five (IPR2019-00087/-00088/-00089/-00095/-00097); ASUS filed IPR2019-00068 on U.S. 7,403,226 and terminated it by joint motion without prejudice in 2019. Maxell's pattern in this period was to settle the district court case and pull the IPRs with it. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain — no Unified Patents petition is disclosed in the RPI statements I retrieved (the "Unified Patents" links on the Google Patents page are database portallinks to PTAB/litigation data, not evidence of a Unified-filed petition; do not misread them as a petitioner). Maxell also did not pursue any PTAB appeal on the '604 — it prevailed by settlement each time. One unverified data point worth nothing more than a flag: in a Samsung/Maxell matter an expert deposition asserted that "five of their patents were invalidated at the final decision stage" while the rest settled — that testimony is broad-brush, describes the portfolio, and does not identify the '604; I found no FWD invalidating any '604 claim and would not rely on it.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant facing an assertion of the '604, lead with expiration, not invalidity. The patent's term runs from the 2000-03-08 U.S. filing (Google Patents: anticipated expiration 2020-03-08; status Expired – Fee Related). Confirm the term/PTA calculation and the maintenance-fee history on USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it — a family-member record in the same chain shows "PATENT EXPIRED FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362," and I could not verify whether that entry attaches to the '604 specifically or to a sibling (e.g., US 10,554,917). That distinction matters for how you characterize the patent's status.
2. Do not represent that any claim has been canceled. If a demand letter cites claims 1–5, they are live as a matter of PTAB record; nothing at the PTAB touched them. Your leverage is the expiration date and the accounting of the damages window, plus invalidity theories litigated in the district courts — not a PTAB disposition.
3. Mine the Olympus petitions as free prior-art work product. The IPR2018-00908 (Misawa '607 + Okino '947) and IPR2018-00909 (Matsuzaka '013 / US 6,757,013 + Egawa '985 / JP H3-117985) petitions contain full claim charts and expert declarations against claims 1–5 and can be retrieved from PTACTS (petition accession IDs 1510597 and 1510598). Because no estoppel arose, you may reuse them.
4. Pull the two documents I could not fully retrieve before finalizing any opinion: (a) the IPR2019-00097 termination paper (to fix the date and with/without-prejudice status and the challenged claims/art), and (b) the IPR2018-00908 Preliminary Response, if filed, to see Maxell's own claim-construction and priority positions. Both are available via USPTO PTAB E2E / PTACTS under the case numbers.
5. No Federal Circuit follow-up is expected and none exists. Because no FWD or adverse judgment issued in any of the three proceedings, no § 319 appeal on the '604 is possible; treat any CAFC docket number offered as linked to the '604 as unverified unless it names the patent.
6. Also check the sibling patents before you build a defense. The same accused camera functionality is claimed across a chain (US 6,765,616; 8,059,177; 7,403,226; 8,339,493; 8,736,729; 9,544,517; 10,554,917; 10,462,403). Assertions in this family have historically been resolved by settlement with the IPRs withdrawn, so plan for a license-pressure posture rather than an adjudicated-invalidity posture.

(Note: I could not confirm any 2026 activity on the '604; consistent with the expiration and pre-institution dismissals, the record retrieved shows none.)

I'll attempt to pull the recorded assignment data (reel/frame, correspondent) from search before reconstructing the chain.

Good — I've located the 2018 bulk assignment's reel. Let me try to pin the specific frames for the '604 and the other links.

US 9,100,604 — Assignment Chain & NPE Assessment

Sourcing note (read first): I do not have direct API/browser access to assignmentcenter.uspto.gov in this session; my tool is web search only, and the page cannot be rendered client-side (the Assignment Center is a JS app whose result tables are not in the crawlable HTML). Every reel/frame below is therefore corroborated from indexed mirrors of USPTO assignment records (Espacenet INPADOC "AS" events, PlainSite's mirrored assignment records, Google Patents legal events, and Maxell's own filings and pleadings), not from a live Assignment Center query. Where I have a reel but not the '604-specific frame, I say so rather than inventing one. Verify at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (patent number lookup) or https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

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Inventors

• The patent front page lists no assignee at issue; the earliest application in this chain (Ser. No. 09/520,836, filed 2000-03-08, priority JP 2000-006064 of 2000-01-11) traces to the Hitachi, Ltd. consumer-electronics/imaging organization. All three inventors are Japanese-resident Hitachi-family engineers, and the priority case is JP 3991543 B2.
• Employer finding: Hitachi, Ltd. is the reasonable inference as of the 2000-01-11/2000-03-08 filing, but I have not confirmed each inventor's employment contractually or via a recorded inventor assignment. Google Patents' "Original Assignee" field for the '604 shows Hitachi Maxell Ltd, which is the assignee at grant, not the 2000 applicant — an important distinction I am reporting rather than harmonizing.
• No individual-inventor assignments appear anywhere in the recorded chain. No "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern is detectable — inventor-side departures are not part of the USPTO assignment record, and no evidence of a 2000–2001 inventor exodus surfaced.
• Pattern note: the only unusual feature is the span — a 2000 application producing grants in 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019 across one family. That is a deliberate continuation strategy, not an inventor-side signal.

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Original assignee

Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (as listed on the issued patent; reassignment of the underlying application recorded from Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. on 2014-09-04).

• Primary business: Japanese manufacturer of recordable media, batteries, optical components and electronic appliances. TSE-listed (TSE: 6810).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, at the relevant time — Hitachi/Hitachi Maxell sold camcorders and digital still cameras, the exact subject matter of the '604. Maxell's own pleadings describe it as a continuing seller of consumer/business electronics and component products and state it "maintains intellectual property related to … televisions, tablets, digital cameras, and mobile phones."
• Current status: Operating. Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Corporate history relevant to this chain:
  • 2009/2013 — Hitachi, Ltd. carved its consumer-electronics IP into Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
  • 2013 — Hitachi Consumer Electronics' LCD-projector business transferred to Hitachi Maxell; IP followed.
  • 2017-10-01 — Hitachi Maxell transitioned to a holding-company structure, renamed Maxell Holdings, Ltd., and spun its operating businesses into a wholly-owned subsidiary named Maxell, Ltd.
  • 2021-10-01 — Maxell Holdings absorbed that subsidiary and renamed itself Maxell, Ltd. (effective date reported by Maxell and EDINET filings).
• Continuity point: every name change above is a real corporate event (merger/改名) reported in Maxell's own TSE/EDINET disclosures — not a rebranding of a dormant shell.

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Assignment timeline

Chain summary: this patent has four recorded post-2000 transfers, every one of them an internal Hitachi/Maxell corporate reorganization. There is no sale to an outside acquirer, no licensing entity, and no security interest.

1. Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.

• Executed 2013 (reel registration 2013-09-06) / recorded 2013 — Reel 030802 / 0610
• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal reorg — Hitachi, Ltd. carving its consumer-electronics IP estate into the CE subsidiary.
• ⚠️ Provenance caveat: reel 030802/0610 is confirmed for a sibling family member (US 6,865,677, per Espacenet INPADOC), and Maxell's complaints describe this step. I could not confirm that the '604's own abstract of title contains this entry, and note Maxell's pleadings date the Hitachi→Hitachi CE transfer to 2009 while the reel dates to 2013 — I am reporting both literally rather than resolving them.

2. Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.

• Executed 2014-08-26 / recorded 2014-09-04 (Google Patents legal events for the '604; a sibling patent shows a 2014-09-08 reel registration) — Reel 033694 / 0745
• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS" — a bulk, multi-patent instrument)
• Assignor: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Antonelli, Terry, Stout & Kraus, LLP, 1300 N. 17th St., Ste. 1800, Arlington, VA 22209 (per the mirrored PlainSite record for the Hitachi CE → Hitachi Maxell assignment; the mirror's record was last updated 2017-02-21).
• Context: internal reorg — IP realignment accompanying the projector-business transfer into Hitachi Maxell.
• Correspondent flag: Antonelli, Terry, Stout & Kraus is a general-practice prosecution firm that does both operating-company and other work. Its appearance here is a single link in this chain — not a recurrence signal. Recorded so the fact is preserved, not as an NPE tell.

3. Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd.

• Executed 2017-10-01 / recorded 2018-01-25 — Reel 045142 / 0208 (141 pages — a bulk portfolio-wide assignment)
• Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
• Assignor: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606
• Context: internal reorg — the IP leg of the 2017-10-01 holding-company split (Hitachi Maxell → Maxell Holdings; operating business and IP into the new Maxell, Ltd.).
• ⚠️ Reel confirmable, frame not: Reel 045142/0208 is confirmed on a sibling Maxell patent (US 10,129,590, assignor "HITACHI MAXELL, LTD.", exec 2017-10-01, recorded 2018-01-25, 141 pages, same correspondent). Given the 141-page bulk scope and matching execution date, the '604 is almost certainly in this reel, but the '604's specific frame number was not retrievable and I will not state one.
• Correspondent flag: Nadeen Nsouli at 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago recurs as the recording correspondent across the Maxell bulk portfolio filings (including the 2018 hit above). This is recurrence within one assignee's own portfolio — the opposite of the shell-LLC pattern, where one attorney fronts many unrelated LLCs. Registered so the pattern is on the record; it does not cut toward an NPE finding.

4. Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. (Merger)

• Executed 2021-11-29 / recorded 2021-11-29 (per Google Patents legal events) — Reel not retrieved
• Conveyance: MERGER
• Assignor: Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal reorg — absorption-type merger of Maxell Holdings' wholly-owned subsidiary; a purely intra-group consolidation. Executed after the 2021-10-01 effective date, i.e. normal post-effective-date recordation.

5. Maxell Holdings, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. (Change of Name)

• Executed 2021-12-03 / recorded 2021-12-03 (per Google Patents legal events) — Reel not retrieved
• Conveyance: CHANGE OF NAME
• Assignor: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: change of name only — Maxell Holdings renamed itself Maxell, Ltd. effective 2021-10-01 (approved at the 75th ordinary shareholders' meeting, 2021-06-29). No change in beneficial ownership.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9100604
    2000 : Filed by Hitachi Ltd
    2013 : Hitachi Ltd assigns to Hitachi Consumer Electronics
    2014 : Hitachi Consumer Electronics assigns to Hitachi Maxell
    2015 : Patent granted as US 9100604
    2017 : Hitachi Maxell assigns to Maxell Ltd
    2018 : Reel 045142 frame 0208 recorded
    2021 : Maxell Ltd merges into Maxell Holdings
         : Maxell Holdings renamed Maxell Ltd

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
Every assignee in the chain is a named operating corporation in the same corporate lineage: Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. (reel 030802/0610) → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (reel 033694/0745) → Maxell, Ltd. (reel 045142/0208) → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. (merger, 2021-11-29) → Maxell, Ltd. (name change, 2021-12-03). No "IP / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent service address, no single-member Delaware or Texas LLC. Maxell's Chicago address (71 South Wacker Drive) is its long-standing IP-operations address and appears in ordinary course, not as an anonymizing device.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity. Maxell is not on the NPE lists — the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies Maxell, Ltd. in its "Product company" asserter category for the '604 suits (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[9100604](/patent/9100604)). Note the inverse risk: Maxell is a high-frequency plaintiff (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01446/01447, 1:18-cv-00310; E.D. Tex. 5:18-cv-00136; S.D. Fla. 1:18-cv-21231), but as a product company asserting against competitors, which is the classification rubric's own point.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT as an NPE signal.
The chain shows two different correspondents (Antonelli, Terry, Stout & Kraus on the 2014 link; Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago on the 2018 link). There is recurrence of Nsouli across other Maxell bulk filings, but that is one operating client reusing its own filer — the diagnostic NPE pattern (one lawyer fronting many ostensibly unrelated LLCs) is absent.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Intervals between recorded links are ~1 year (2013→2014), 3 years (2014→2017), and 4 years (2017→2021). No sub-24-month run of consecutive LLC-to-LLC hops.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT IN TIMING, BENIGN IN CHARACTER.
The assignment to Maxell, Ltd. was executed 2017-10-01 (Reel 045142/0208, recorded 2018-01-25), and Maxell's first Delaware assertions against BlackBerry (1:17-cv-01446, 1:17-cv-01447) were filed in 2017 (exact filing date not retrieved; case-number year is 2017). So the IP was moved into the asserting entity essentially contemporaneously with the campaign. However, the transfer's stated purpose — from Maxell's own pleadings — was to "align its intellectual property with the licensing, business development, and research and development efforts of Maxell," and the transferee is the operating company, not a licensing vehicle. This is IP consolidation ahead of enforcement by the owner, not a pre-litigation assignment engineered to manufacture standing or venue. I mark it present but not indicative of NPE conduct, and I flag that the recording (2018-01-25) lagged the first suits, so the suits were filed by Maxell, Ltd. on the strength of the executed-but-then-unrecorded 2017-10-01 instrument.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 of any assignor; Hitachi Ltd./Hitachi CE/Hitachi Maxell/Maxell were all solvent at the time of each transfer. No §363 sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. Maxell asserts in its own name as plaintiff in 1:17-cv-01446/01447, 1:18-cv-00310 and 5:18-cv-00136. There is no disclosed NPE asserting on Maxell's behalf, and no SEC/Patent-Progress-type coverage of a privateering arrangement.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. Note the apparent opposite: Unified Patents filed IPR2018-00908 / IPR2018-00909 (Olympus-related, filed 2018-06-20) and IPR2019-00097 (filed 2018-10-16) against the '604 — i.e. a defensive aggregator attacked this patent; both 2018 proceedings were terminated in settlement, and none produced a validity or construction ruling on the '604 claims. Maxell still owns the patent.

Additional neutral observation: the patent is Expired – Fee Related with an anticipated expiration of 2020-03-08 (20 years from the 2000-03-08 U.S. filing, per Google Patents' assumption). It was therefore already expired during the 2021 merger/name-change recordations — those filings were housekeeping, which further undercuts any assertion-driven-assignment theory for the 2021 links.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: The entire recorded chain — Reel 033694/0745 (Hitachi Consumer Electronics → Hitachi Maxell, 2014) and Reel 045142/0208 (Hitachi Maxell → Maxell, Ltd., executed 2017-10-01, recorded 2018-01-25), followed by the 2021-11-29 merger and 2021-12-03 change of name — consists of intra-group corporate reorganizations within a TSE-listed manufacturer, with no shell LLC, no licensing-only vehicle, and no known asserter anywhere (signals 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 all not present). Maxell, Ltd. is a genuine product company that both ships the relevant class of goods (cameras, storage, electronics) and sues actual competitors in its own name — the Stanford NPE Litigation Database accordingly tags it a "Product company" — so the sole litigated-transfer timing signal (2017-10-01 assignment shortly before the 2017 D. Del. suits) reflects IP consolidation by the owner, not NPE structuring. The '604 was also already expired as of 2020-03-08, so no live assertion risk attaches to it.

Verify: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "9100604") or https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

I'll search for the specific patent and its cited prior art references.

Let me look at the actual "References Cited" section and the patent PDF.

Let me try to access the patent's citation list directly from patent databases.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 9,100,604 ("Electric camera")

Important scope limitation up front: The authoritative full text I have for US 9,100,604 (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑28) does not reproduce the front-page (56) "References Cited" list. The document I have contains only a "Cited By (1)" section (forward citation: US 9,544,517) and a "Families Citing this family (42)" section (forward citations such as JP 4341177 B2, JP 4423452 B2, US 6,960,165 B2). None of those are prior art against the '604 — they are later documents. My follow-up searches for the (56) list, for the patentimages PDF, and for the IPR petitions did not return the enumerated U.S./foreign patent citations. I therefore cannot give you a verified, complete list of examiner-cited references, and I will not fabricate one.

What I can give you with confidence is the prior art that the patent itself identifies and discusses on its face, plus the family/prosecution and litigation context, and a § 102 analysis of those references. I flag clearly where I am inferring versus quoting.

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1. The patent in question (literal identification)

• US 9,100,604 B2, "Electric camera"; app. 14/264,243, filed 2014‑04‑29; granted 2015‑08‑04.
• Earliest priority 2000‑01‑11 (JP 2000‑006064 → JP 3991543 B2).
• Inventors Nakano, Nishimura, Kinugasa; original assignee Hitachi Maxell Ltd.; current assignee Maxell, Ltd.
• This is the sixth grant in a continuation chain rooted at Ser. No. 09/520,836 (US 6,765,616). Parent = 13/681,495 (US 8,736,729).
• Claims: 1–5 (independents 1 and 4; dependents 2, 3, 5). See the previously generated summary for full claim text.

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2. Prior art expressly identified and discussed in the '604 specification

The specification's background section names exactly two references. These are the only prior-art documents recited in the authoritative text I have.

(a) JP‑A‑9‑270959 (Japanese Patent Application Laid‑Open No. 9‑270959, published 1997)

• Citation as given in the patent: "JP‑A‑9‑270959 discloses an apparatus which mixes together or culls the pixel signals inside the image sensing device to reduce the number of signals to be read and therefore the read cycle."
• Publication/filing date: Published under the Japanese kokai (unexamined application) system in Heisei 9 = 1997. (I have not independently verified the exact day/month from a Japanese registry in this session — treat the year as high-confidence, the precise date as unverified.)
• Brief description (per the '604's own characterization): an in‑sensor pixel mixing/culling scheme that cuts the number of read signals and shortens the read cycle.
• Important caveat the '604 adds: "it requires a large processing circuit such as field memory to perform time‑axis transformation to generate signals conforming to the television system and the image sensing device itself needs to have a special structure for performing desired mixing and culling."
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest art to the "driver … to vertically mix or cull signal charges … at intervals of K pixels" element of claim 1 and the "mixing or culling vertical pixel lines at intervals of K lines" element of claim 4. A § 102 challenge on that element alone is arguable — but on the face of the record it does not anticipate claims 1 or 4 because it is not shown to disclose (i) the view-angle change switch of claim 1, (ii) the K1→K2 magnification logic of claim 1, (iii) the continuous-area / discontinuous-K control of claim 4, or (iv) the N ≥ 3M sensor-overspecification premise as a claimed structural requirement. At most it is a § 103 primary reference against those mixing limitations.

(b) JP‑A‑11‑187306 (Japanese Patent Application Laid‑Open No. 11‑187306, published 1999)

• Citation as given in the patent: "An example of such a conventional camera has been proposed in JP‑A‑11‑187306. In the camera disclosed in this publication, signals from all the effective pixels are read out taking two or more times the field period of the television system, stored in a memory means such as a field memory, and then subjected to interpolation processing for transformation into signals conforming to the field cycle and horizontal scan cycle of television."
• Publication/filing date: Heisei 11 = 1999 kokai. (Year high-confidence; precise date unverified in this session.)
• Brief description: read‑all‑pixels‑then‑field‑memory‑interpolate approach for generating TV‑conforming signals from a large sensor; the reference the '604 criticizes for "requiring a large processing circuit, such as field memory" and for "degrading the dynamic resolution."
• § 102 relevance: This is directed at the still‑image monitoring problem, not at the zoom/variable‑K invention. It addresses the "generate TV signals from signals read out from all effective pixels" problem but by time‑expansive readout + memory. It does not disclose in‑sensor variable‑K mixing/culling, let alone the view-angle-switch limitations. It does not anticipate any of claims 1–5; it is background art and, if anything, a § 103 secondary reference.

Bottom line for § 102: Neither face-cited reference anticipates claims 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Both are § 103‑type references, and both are framed by the patent as art the invention improves upon (removing field memory, preserving dynamic resolution, and adding the image-stabilization/zoom functions the patent says "the conventional art and cameras do not offer [a means]" for).

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3. What the record also contains (context, not (56) art)

• Family members that are continuations/divisionals of the same disclosure (US 6,765,616; US 8,059,177; US 7,403,226; US 8,339,493; US 8,736,729; and later US 9,544,517 / US 10,554,917 / US 10,462,403). These share the 2000‑01‑11 priority and are not prior art against the '604.
• JP 3991543 B2 / JP 2000‑006064 — the priority Japanese application. Not prior art (same family).
• Forward citations ("Families Citing this family," 42 entries) — e.g., JP 4341177 B2 (Sony), JP 4423452 B2 (Fuji), US 6,960,165 B2 — post‑date the invention and are irrelevant to § 102.
• Litigation/PTAB references surfaced by search (from the previous section, re-confirmed): D. Del. 1:17‑cv‑01446/01447, 1:18‑cv‑00310; S.D. Fla. 1:18‑cv‑21231; and PTAB IPR2018‑00908 / ‑00909 (Olympus v. Maxell, filed 2018‑06‑20, terminated 2018‑12‑26) and IPR2019‑00097 (BlackBerry v. Maxell, filed 2018‑10‑16) — all three directed at the '604 and all disposed by settlement. Because these settled, no institution decision, claim construction, or validity ruling on the '604 claims was reached, and I do not have the exhibit/reference lists from those petitions. The BlackBerry and Asustek invalidity contentions surfaced in search (referencing '604 among many patents) likewise do not give me a verified reference list for the '604 specifically.

I flag explicitly: I could not retrieve the actual prior-art references the petitioners or the examiner relied on for the '604. If your task requires the examiner's (56) list or the IPR exhibit set, that data was not obtainable with the searches available to me and should be pulled from USPTO PatentCenter / PTAB P‑TACTS directly.

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4. § 102 mapping table (based strictly on the face-cited references)

No reference in the record I can verify anticipates any of claims 1–5 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The two face-cited Japanese applications are best characterized as § 103 prior art directed at (i) in‑sensor mixing/culling (JP‑A‑9‑270959) and (ii) field-memory-based format conversion (JP‑A‑11‑187306) — both of which the '604 frames itself as departing from and improving upon.

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5. Explicit uncertainties (not resolved)

1. No verified (56)/examiner citation list — the fetched document omits it; searches did not surface it. My reference set is limited to those the specification names.
2. Exact publication dates of the two JP kokai — year‑level confidence only; I did not verify day/month against JPO records in this session.
3. IPR petition reference sets (IPR2018‑00908/‑00909, IPR2019‑00097) — settled before institution; exhibit lists not retrieved.
4. I have not verified the existence of any specific 2026 CAFC docket naming the '604; consistent with the prior section, I treat any such linkage as unverified (the patent is expired‑fee‑related as of the 2020‑03‑08 anticipated expiration).

If you can supply the front-page (56) list or the IPR exhibit index, I can complete a full reference-by-reference § 102/§ 103 mapping.

I'll research the prior art cited against US 9,100,604 — both the references on its face and the grounds proposed in the IPR petitions (which are public even though they settled).

Excellent — the IPR petitions identify the actual prior-art combinations. Let me pin down the specific references and the BlackBerry grounds.

Now let me get the second Olympus petition's grounds and the BlackBerry petition's grounds in detail.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,100,604 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Sources used: Google Patents record for US 9,100,604 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9100604/en — including its "Prior Art Keywords," "Cited By," and "Families Citing this family" listings and its admitted background art); the two Olympus IPR petitions against the '604 (IPR2018‑00908 and IPR2018‑00909, https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1510598](/patent/1510598)/… and …/1510597/…); Maxell's Patent Owner Preliminary Response in the '604 IPR; the PTAB termination order; and the analogous grounds in IPR2019‑00068 against sibling U.S. 7,403,226.

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1. Legal framework and governing version of § 103

The '604 claims priority to 2000‑01‑11 (JP 2000‑006064) via a U.S. chain beginning with Ser. No. 09/520,836 filed 2000‑03‑08. It is therefore governed by pre‑AIA § 103(a), and the prior-art universe is § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/(g). Reference dates that matter:

The critical date is at latest 1999‑03‑08 (one year before the 2000‑03‑08 U.S. filing) and arguably 1999‑01‑11. All five principal references predate it. Egawa '985 is § 102(b) art by roughly eight years — the strongest single doctrinal position in the set, as Petitioners themselves emphasized ("Egawa '985's effective reference date is nearly ten years earlier than Misawa '607's").

POSITA (as adopted by Petitioners): a person with a bachelor's degree in EE/computer engineering or equivalent and 2+ years' experience in electronic cameras and solid-state image sensor design/drive, familiar with CCD readout, interlaced NTSC/PAL timing, and digital zoom.

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2. What the "Prior Art" section of the Google Patents page actually shows — and its limits

Before the merits, three corrections that a careless reading of the page's prior-art section would produce:

1. "Cited By (1): US 9,544,517 B2" is the '604's own child (filed 2015‑03‑18, claiming the same 2000‑01‑11 priority). It is not prior art — it is the same invention in a later continuation. It cannot be used under § 102 or § 103.
2. "Families Citing this family (42)" — the entries visible on the page (JP 4341177 B2, Sony, priority 2000‑12‑15; JP 4423452 B2, Fujifilm, priority 2000‑12‑27; US 6,960,165 B2, Olympus, priority 2001‑05‑16) all post‑date the '604's 2000‑01‑11 priority date. These are forward citations and are categorically unavailable as § 102/§ 103 prior art against the '604. They are useful only as evidence of what the field did after the invention — not as invalidating art. (They are also, notably, all post‑'604 filings by Sony, Fujifilm and Olympus — the very competitors who later petitioned against Maxell, which tells you the '604's priority date is its only real defense.)
3. The only genuinely available art on the page itself is the material the '604 concedes in its own Background section: JP‑A‑9‑270959 (mixes/culls pixel signals inside the image sensing device to reduce read cycle) and JP‑A‑11‑187306 (reads all effective pixels over ≥ 2 field periods into field memory, then interpolates to TV format). These are admissions against interest and are directly usable.

The page does not reproduce the examiner's citation list from the file history of application 14/264,243 (that is Ex. 1014 in the IPR record). I could not retrieve the exhaustive examiner-cited set, so § 3 below relies on the IPR-identified art plus the admitted background art. I flag this as an evidence gap rather than filling it by inference.

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3. Principal invalidity combinations

Ground A (strongest) — Matsuzaka '013 in view of Egawa '985 (+ POSITA knowledge) → claims 1–5

This is Ground 1 of IPR2018‑00908 (Olympus v. Maxell).

Element mapping — claim 1:

Motivation to combine (KSR/POSITA):

• Express teaching in the primary reference of the very problem the secondary reference solves. Matsuzaka '013 states that interpolative electronic zoom "introduces deterioration in the quality of the image" and that such deterioration should be "minimized" (Ex. 1010 1:44‑47). Egawa '985 expressly teaches that its sensor readout reduces the amount of interpolative image processing needed "so that the resolution is maintained even when zooming." This is the textbook improve-the-primary-reference rationale, and it is stated in the references themselves.
• Complementary, non-overlapping disclosures. Matsuzaka supplies the zoom control architecture (interlocked optical + electronic zoom; magnification = optical × electronic; interpolation circuit); Egawa supplies the sensor-side mechanism (variable mixing/culling per view angle). Each fills a gap the other leaves, with no bodily incorporation or change in principle of operation.
• Frame-rate/power design incentives. A megapixel sensor cannot reach NTSC's ~60 fields/s if every row is read each field; mixing/culling to television line count is the known solution, and it reduces CCD clock rate, A/D rate and power — the ordinary design incentives of the 1999–2000 camera market.
• Reasonable expectation of success. Both references output NTSC-compatible signals from the same class of device; selecting among known driver modes is a routine design choice; interpolation absorbs the altered vertical sampling phase (Matsuzaka's interpolation circuit 113).

Ground B — Misawa '607 in view of Okino '947 (+ POSITA knowledge) → claims 1–5

This is the second Olympus petition (IPR2018‑00909), deliberately built on different references to avoid § 325(d) duplication.

Why Misawa '607 alone gets most of claim 1:

• Sensor array 1280 × 1024 or 1280 × 960 → N = 960 = 4 × M (240) ⇒ satisfies N ≥ 3M and even claim 4's stricter "N > 3M."
• Normal preview mode: every fourth line read (K = 4) — "preview images can be captured at a high refresh rate by driving the image sensor to read every fourth or eighth pixel line" (Ex. 1006 1:65‑2:5).
• "Central part enlarging function": reads 1/2 of the photoelectric elements (K = 2) over an extracted 320 × 240 area, with three different disclosed methods (Figs. 7–10).
• Still capture: all photoelectric elements (K = 1).
• K ∈ {1, 2, 4} all ≤ ⌊N/M⌋ = 4. ✔ 1[B]
• A "central part enlargement button" switches modes ⇒ the claimed "view angle change switch." ✔ 1[C]
• Output refresh rate "equal to the frame frequency of a color television signal format" such as NTSC/PAL/SECAM for the LCD display ⇒ "same scanning lines." ✔ 1[H]
• Straightforwardly, K decreases (4 → 2) as magnification increases, with the crop area changing and the output line count staying at television format. ✔ 1[E]/[F]

Okino '947 supplies the continuous-zoom element for claims 2 and 4[D]: a "zooming operation member" driving optical and electronic zoom together with a continuous magnification change. Motivation: Misawa discloses both optical and electronic zoom but is thin on how they are controlled/integrated; Okino supplies exactly that missing control detail, improving the user experience — a routine, predictable integration.

Corroboration: the same Misawa '607 mapping was used in IPR2019‑00068 against sibling U.S. 7,403,226, where Petitioner argued Misawa's normal mode (K=4) and central-part enlarging mode (K=2) plus the enlargement button satisfied an essentially identical "N ≥ 3M / mix-or-cull by K / switch requesting view-angle change" claim. The '604 claim 1 adds the variable-K-on-magnification limitation, which Misawa's 4→2 switch supplies directly.

Ground C — Admitted prior art: JP‑A‑9‑270959 + JP‑A‑11‑187306 + a conventional zoom switch (Matsuzaka '013 / Okino '947) → claims 1–4

The '604's own Background section concedes the two hardest elements:

• JP‑A‑9‑270959 already teaches mixing/culling inside the image sensing device to cut the number of signals read and shorten the read cycle — i.e., claimed element 1[B] in haec verba. The '604's stated objection to it ("requires a large processing circuit such as field memory… and the image sensing device itself needs to have a special structure") is an argument about efficiency, not about a missing element, and is a classic "criticism of the prior art does not make the claim patentable" position.
• JP‑A‑11‑187306 already teaches reading all effective pixels (the still-image goal) and converting to television format by interpolation — supplying the "signal processing unit generating image signals" and the interpolation-based reconciliation of a non‑TV pixel count.

What the '604 then adds is: (i) make K variable in response to a view-angle request, and (ii) correct the resulting interlace sampling-phase error by arithmetic interpolation of two adjacent output lines. Both are predictable variations: (i) is a known-parameter selection, and (ii) is the interpolation already disclosed in Matsuzaka '013 (circuit 113) and conceded in the '604 specification itself (Sn′ = Sn × 19/20 + Sn−1 × 1/20).

Ground D — Consumer-product art (BlackBerry IPR2019‑00097)

The BlackBerry petition against the '604 relied on contemporaneous digital camcorder/electronic-camera documentation and printed publications — e.g. the Sony DCR‑TRV900 specification pages (archived Jan. 28 and Apr. 24, 1999), JVC GR‑DVL9600/GR‑DVL9500 manuals, the Apple QuickTake 200 manual, the Hitachi MPEGCAM MP‑EG1A manual (1997), a PC Magazine article ("Digital Video Cameras," Apr. 6, 1999), and 1999 newspaper/magazine advertisements (per the citation list reproduced on the '604 family's Google Patents record). These are § 102(b) printed publications and are aimed at the "view angle change switch"/"zoom switch" and still/moving dual-mode limitations. I could not retrieve the specific ground-by-ground mapping for IPR2019‑00097 from the sources searched (the search returned only the exhibit citation list), so I flag the element mapping as unverified rather than reconstruct it.

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4. Claim‑by‑claim conclusions

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5. The KSR rationales actually available

1. Combination of known elements according to known methods, yielding predictable results. On-sensor mixing/culling (JP‑A‑9‑270959; Egawa '985) + a zoom switch (Matsuzaka '013; Okino '947; Misawa's enlargement button) + interpolation (Matsuzaka's circuit 113) = an NTSC-compliant, zoom-responsive camera. No change in the principle of operation of any reference.
2. Known technique applied to a known device, ready for improvement. Variable readout ratio is a parameter selection within a known sensor-drive framework; the number of possible K values is bounded by ⌊N/M⌋, which the claim itself recites — an explicit invitation to optimize over a finite, disclosed set.
3. Express motivation in the art. Matsuzaka's admitted degradation from interpolative zoom + Egawa's express resolution-preservation goal.
4. Design incentives / market forces. Megapixel sensors demanded by the still-image market; NTSC field rate required for video; power, clock-rate and cost pressures.
5. Reasonable expectation of success. All references are in the same field of endeavor (electronic cameras with solid-state image sensors) and target the same output format.

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6. Where the obviousness case is weak — and what the record actually shows

I will not overstate the record. The following are genuine vulnerabilities that cut against the analysis above:

1. No PTAB or court has ever ruled on the merits of these grounds. Both Olympus IPRs (IPR2018‑00908 and IPR2018‑00909) were dismissed with prejudice on 2018‑12‑26 as part of a settlement, before any institution decision ("These proceedings are at an early stage, and we have not decided whether to institute a trial in any of these proceedings"). IPR2019‑00097 (BlackBerry) likewise terminated on settlement. There is therefore no final written decision, no claim construction, and no Board finding that any claim of the '604 is obvious. Anyone citing these IPRs as though they established invalidity would be citing them for something they do not hold.
2. Patent Owner's § 325(d) attack was aimed at the pair of petitions. Maxell argued both petitions present "substantially the same prior art and same arguments" — a "sensor that performs selective readout" reference combined with a "camera having electronic and optical zoom" reference — and should be rejected under § 325(d) because that same combination type had already been before the examiner. Whether that succeeded is unknown (settlement pre-empted it), but it is a non-trivial discretionary-denial risk for any re-assertion of these grounds.
3. Patent Owner's "conclusory motivation" attack has worked before in this family. In the parallel IPR on sibling U.S. 8,339,493, Maxell successfully argued the petitions "never explain how the combined system… would be configured, how it would operate, and why or how a person of ordinary skill… would replace certain structures or functions of one reference for those of another," and that the § 103 analysis was "conclusory." The same style of argument is available here against any petition that merely parrots the claim language.
4. The "signal processing unit" is a § 112 ¶ 6 battleground. Maxell has consistently sought (and in some proceedings obtained) a means-plus-function construction with corresponding structure limited to gain adjust circuit 5, A/D conversion circuit 6, signal processing circuit 7, vertical interpolation circuit 8, horizontal interpolation circuit 9, and control circuit 11, as disclosed in the '604 at Fig. 1. An obviousness ground that fails to map each of those structures in the cited art can fail even if the functional language is met.
5. The N ≥ 3M / N > 3M limitation needs a sensor, not just a readout method. Misawa '607 (N = 960 = 4M) satisfies it cleanly. Egawa '985, as described in the petition record, is tied to a sensor producing "approximately 491 vertical pixels per frame… approximately 240 effective lines per field," i.e. N ≈ 2M — below the 3M threshold. If Egawa's sensor is indeed ~491 rows, Ground 2 of IPR2018‑00908 (Egawa alone) cannot satisfy element 1[A], and the Egawa-based combination in Ground 1 depends on the "large image sensor" element being supplied by the other reference (Matsuzaka '013) rather than by Egawa. This is a specific, checkable weakness that should be verified against Ex. 1011 before relying on Egawa as the sensor source.
6. Claim 4[D] fails on Misawa alone. Misawa's "central part enlargement button" produces discrete area changes. Claim 4 requires the areas to be changed continuously while K changes discontinuously. Misawa does not supply continuous area change; Okino '947 (or Matsuzaka '013) is required. Any § 103 ground that asserts claim 4 over Misawa alone is incomplete.
7. The literal claim-text defects flagged in the earlier analysis (claim 1's mid-limitation stray period; "greater than" in claim 4 vs "greater than or equal to" in claim 1; the "4880 pixels" figure and "Vi gate" in the specification) have not been construed by any tribunal. They do not by themselves defeat obviousness, but they complicate the element-by-element mapping (especially the claim 1 vs claim 4 boundary condition at N = 3M exactly, which determines whether Misawa's N = 4M is necessary to satisfy claim 4).

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7. Bottom line

On the art of record, claim 1 is the most clearly vulnerable, and Misawa '607 is the single most dangerous reference because it independently supplies the "N = 4M sensor," the "read every fourth line / read 1/2 in central-part enlargement" variable-K driver, the "central part enlargement button" view-angle switch, and the "television frame-rate, same output lines" limitation — including the counter-intuitive K1 > K2 on magnification direction that is claim 1's only real point of novelty. Claims 2, 3 and 5 fall with conventional secondary teachings (Matsuzaka's interlocked optical/electronic zoom and interpolation circuit 113; Okino's continuous zoom member). Claim 4 is the most resistant, because it uniquely requires continuous area change coupled with discontinuous K change, and that combination is only reached by joining two references (Misawa + Okino; or Matsuzaka + Egawa) — but that join is still supported by an express, articulated motivation in the references themselves.

The claims have never been adjudicated: every challenge was settled before institution. The § 103 case above is therefore a predictive, reference-based analysis, not a report of any tribunal's holding.

Accuracy note: the user prompt states the current date as April 26, 2026, while the source fetch and the earlier-generated sections use 2026‑09‑28. I have not attempted to reconcile these; no conclusion here depends on it.