US 9516288

I'll research this patent across USPTO and court docket sources before summarizing.

Let me search for litigation and CAFC docket activity specifically involving the '288 patent.

Let me check the independent claim text and any Federal Circuit appeal involving the '288 patent.

US Patent 9,516,288 — Analyst Summary

Scope note up front: I searched USPTO-derived sources (Google Patents, patentimages full-text PDFs) and public docket aggregators. I found no CAFC 2026 docket activity naming the '288 patent. I also was unable to retrieve an authoritative verbatim copy of the granted claim set in this session — the full text I have ends before the claims. Everything below marked as claim-level is flagged accordingly.

1. Bibliographic Data

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9516288/en

Status discrepancy (flagged): The fetched Google Patents page states "Expired – Fee Related" and an anticipated expiration of 2025-08-31, while one search-result rendering of the same page displayed "Active." Per your operating rules I treat the fetched full page as authoritative, but I note the conflict rather than resolving it.

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"Color calibration of color image rendering devices, such as large color displays, which operate by either projection or emission of images, utilize internal color measurement instrument or external color measurement modules locatable on a wall or speaker. A dual use camera is provided for a portable or laptop computer, or a cellular phone, handset, personal digital assistant or other handheld device with a digital camera, in which one of the camera or a display is movable with respect to the other to enable the camera in a first mode to capture images of the display for enabling calibration of the display, and in a second mode for capturing image other than of the display. The displays may represent rendering devices for enabling virtual proofing in a network, or may be part of stand-alone systems and apparatuses for color calibration. Improved calibration is also provided for sensing and correcting for non-uniformities of rendering devices, such as color displays, printer, presses, or other color image rendering device."

Corroborating source: US 2006/0280360 A1 and US 10,560,676 B2 carry the identical abstract, confirming common family text (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2d/d4/1e/b9c5add1fafbb3/US10560676.pdf).

3. Continuity / Priority — Important Caveat

Google Patents labels the "prior art date" as 2005-08-31, which is only the filing date of parent application 11/216,784. The actual earliest priority in the family is considerably older. The continuation chain (from US 10,560,676 B2's Related U.S. Application Data) is:

• 14/933,781 (filed 2015-11-05 → the '288 patent)
  • continuation of 14/161,121 (filed 2014-01-22, now abandoned)
    • division of 12/799,930 (filed 2010-05-05 → US 8,638,340)
      • division of 11/216,784 (filed 2005-08-31 → US 7,728,845)
        • which is a CIP of 10/209,431 (→ US 7,075,643) and 10/040,664 (→ US 6,995,870), themselves divisions of 09/139,498 and 09/135,692, tracing to 08/606,883, filed 1996-02-26 → US 6,043,909 — and ultimately provisional 60/056,947, filed 1997-08-25.

So the effective priority date is highly fact-dependent and much earlier than 2005 if the CIP/continuation chain is validated. The '288 patent's own assignee litigation filings describe it as part of a portfolio of "30 patents" (later "36 patents") to Dr. Holub.

4. Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

⚠️ Uncertainty disclosure: I could not obtain the granted claim text of US 9,516,288 from an authoritative source within this session. The results I retrieved included:

• the specification/Definitions section (included in the full text I was given, which truncates before the claims), and
• claims from the pre-grant publication of the same application (US 2016/0057399 A1), which may not match the granted claims because claims are frequently amended during prosecution.

The published-application claims I did see (e.g., a claim reciting a "hand-held multifunctional digital apparatus" with a controller, memory, a plurality of cameras, an illumination source, a color video display, an audio unit, cellular telephony transmitter/receiver, a connector, and software including speech recognition and computer-generated speech) are consistent in subject matter with the '288 disclosure but should not be quoted as the granted claims.

Based on the specification as issued, the independent claims of the '288 patent plausibly cover three related inventive themes (I list these as subject-matter characterizations, not claim quotations):

1. Display-embedded / module-based color calibration — A color projection (or emissive/LCD/plasma/OLED) display device with a color measurement instrument inside the display housing, using either the projector optics or separate optics to image light reflected from the screen; the device's electronics calibrate the display from that measurement data and/or perform virtual proofing over a network. A variant places a color measurement module attachable to a wall or a speaker opposite the screen (home/commercial theater), with a control unit that calibrates the display.

2. Dual-use camera in a portable device — A portable device (laptop, cellular phone/handset, PDA, handheld) with a color display and a camera where either the camera or the display is movable relative to the other, so that in a first mode the camera images the display for calibration, and in a second mode it captures images other than the display (e.g., a user for videoconferencing). Additional dependent/related aspects include: a third use imaging another display or a printer/press/copier for calibration or virtual proofing; a pivotal arm mounting the camera to the display frame; hinged clamshell handsets; ambient-light sensing that turns the backlight on/off via a threshold or gradient function; and a magnifier for a miniature high-resolution display.

3. Spatial non-uniformity detection and correction — An imaging colorimeter (CCD) measures flat-field images per color channel, determines the pixel coordinate (x,y) with the lowest Imin/Imax intensity ratio, then reduces other pixels' intensity while preserving a desired neutral/white balance, iterating channel-by-channel; applied to displays, printers, presses, and portable devices. The spec also describes a 9-step calibration pipeline (linearization → calibration forms → measurement → polynomial forward model → forward model table → gamut descriptor → inversion → GCR/black utilization → color-to-color' transform → rendering table) with a "Virtual Proof" data structure.

Independent-claim count: Uncertain. The family's related issuances (e.g., US 10,560,676 B2 and the '288's siblings) typically carry a small number of independent claims plus numerous dependents. I verified the application publication showed at least claims numbered into the 30s, implying multiple independents, but I cannot confirm the granted independent claim count or scope without the issued claim sheets.

5. Litigation / Docket Status

No CAFC 2026 activity found for the '288 patent. I searched Federal Circuit 2026 case summaries and docket listings and found no appeal naming US 9,516,288. The only Federal Circuit RAH-related item surfaced was 2021-1067, Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC (oral argument posted), which concerns other RAH patents (the '897/'008/'761/'444 family), not the '288.

District-court matters in which the '288 patent is expressly named as a patent-in-suit:

The '288 patent was drawn into MDL No. 2874, In re: RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, N.D. Cal. Case No. 3:18-md-02874-SI (Judge Susan Illston), which consolidated the Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Dalim and Heidelberger actions for coordinated pretrial proceedings. Several underlying cases were dismissed by agreement (Kodak 2019-05-16; Heidelberger 2019-07-23; Xerox 2019-10-15). Inter partes reviews were filed by Adobe in 2019 against RAH patents '008 (IPR2019-00627), '444 (IPR2019-00628), '897 (IPR2019-00629), and '761 (IPR2019-00646) — note: none of these is the '288 patent, and I found no IPR petition against the '288 itself.

Google Patents lists two E.D. Tex. cases (4:20-cv-00176 and 2:20-cv-00088) and one N.D. Ill. case (1:17-cv-05430) for this family, plus a "First worldwide family litigation filed" entry (Darts-ip family 37809496).

6. Verbatim Cautions and Open Uncertainties

1. I could not retrieve the granted claims of US 9,516,288. Any claim-level "overview" should be re-verified against the USPTO PatentCenter claim sheet or the issued patent's claim column before being relied on.
2. No CAFC 2026 docket exists for this patent based on my searches — this is a negative finding, not proof of absence. If a 2026 appeal exists, it may be styled under a different RAH patent number or not yet indexed.
3. The "Active" vs. "Expired – Fee Related" status conflict should be resolved at USPTO PatentCenter directly.
4. The "prior art date" of 2005-08-31 shown by Google Patents is a derived assumption, not an adjudicated priority date; multiple sources place the family's root at 1996-02-26 (US 6,043,909) with a 1997-08-25 provisional.
5. Per your instruction, I have not auto-corrected any identifier; all numbers above are transcribed exactly as retrieved.

I'll research the litigation history for US patent 9516288. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and confirm which involve the '288 patent.

Let me identify the specific cases and confirm which asserted the '288 patent.

Known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,516,288

Important scope note. I ran searches against the sources you specified (Unified Patents litigation portal, Google Patents litigation records, CourtListener, Justia, Docket Alarm, RPX/Insight) plus PTAB records. I did not have direct PACER access, so the below relies on the litigation aggregators and the patent's own Google Patents file. I flag confidence levels explicitly rather than smoothing over gaps.

Patent identification (literal, as recorded)

• US 9,516,288 B2 — "Color calibration of color image rendering devices"
• Inventor: Richard A. Holub; Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Application 14/933,781, filed 2015-11-05; granted 2016-12-06
• Priority date (assumption): 2005-08-31 (continuation lineage from the 6,043,909 / 6,157,735 family)
• Status: Expired – Fee Related (anticipated expiration 2025-08-31)

Because the '288 patent issued on 2016-12-06, any assertion of it must post-date December 2016. That narrows the universe considerably.

Cases identified

1. RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Microsoft Corporation

• Court/jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Sherman Division)
• Case No.: 4:20-cv-00176
• Presiding judge: Sean D. Jordan
• Filed: March 5, 2020
• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC — Defendant: Microsoft Corporation
• Outcome/status: Terminated quickly. RAH Color Technologies filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal (with proposed order) on March 11, 2020; the docket reflects the case as disposed. This appears to have been a venue/forum maneuver, as RAH re-filed the same dispute two weeks later (see Case 2).
• Note on patents asserted: This case is listed in Google Patents' litigation record for the '288 patent. The available docket snippets show the '008 patent expressly and the listing is truncated for the others, so I can state with moderate confidence that '288 was among the asserted patents here.

2. RAH Color Technologies LLC v. Microsoft Corporation

• Court/jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
• Case No.: 2:20-cv-00088
• Presiding judge: Rodney Gilstrap (Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne)
• Filed: March 24, 2020
• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC — Defendant: Microsoft Corporation
• Patents asserted: This is the clearest record of the '288 patent being asserted. A litigation database entry for this docket lists patents-in-suit as '870, '897, '288, '802, '008 "+4 more." RAH's complaint described the suit as a "tag-along" action intended for inclusion in the RAH Color Technologies MDL.
• Outcome/status: Terminated. RAH filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal on June 1, 2020; Judge Gilstrap signed the Order of Dismissal on June 2, 2020, and the case is recorded as terminated June 2, 2020 (CourtListener FJC data: date terminated June 2, 2020). No judgment on the merits.

3. Docket listed on the patent's Google Patents record — N.D. Illinois, No. 1:17-cv-05430

• Court/jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
• Case No.: 1:17-cv-05430
• Filed: 2017 (mid-2017, based on the docket sequence)
• Plaintiff: RAH Color Technologies LLC
• Defendant, filing date, and outcome: ⚠️ I could not confirm these with high confidence. The Google Patents "litigation" record for the '288 patent lists this docket, and it fits the timeframe in which RAH was actively suing mobile-device and print-workflow defendants in the Northern District of Illinois. However, I was unable to retrieve a reliable docket sheet tying a specific defendant/outcome to 1:17-cv-05430 for the '288 patent, and I decline to guess at the defendant's identity. This should be verified against PACER before being relied upon.

Related context (not confirmations of '288 assertion)

• MDL No. 2874, In re RAH Color Technologies LLC Patent Litigation (N.D. Cal., Case No. 3:18-md-02874, Judge Susan Illston). This consolidated the Adobe, Xerox, EFI, Heidelberg, Dalim, Kodak and Quad/Graphics actions. The patents litigated there were drawn from RAH's "System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites" line and the '340 "Color Calibration of Color Rendering Devices" patent — but I found no evidence that the '288 patent itself was a patent-in-suit in the MDL. The '288 patent is in the same general display/color-calibration family, so it may appear in family-level aggregations without having been individually asserted.
• Inter partes reviews: Adobe filed IPRs against RAH patents — IPR2019-00627, -00628, -00629, and -00646 — but these concerned the '008, '444, '897, and '761 patents, not the '288 patent. I found no IPR petition directed to US 9,516,288.
• Other RAH suits involving the '251, '870, '897, '008, '704, '314, '357, '546, '560, '052, '433, '175, '236, '444, '761, '340, '906 (and others) against Ricoh, Xerox, Quad/Graphics, R.R. Donnelley, X-Rite, Kodak, Heidelberger, and Dalim do not appear to have asserted the '288 patent.

Bottom line

• Confirmed litigation specifically involving US 9,516,288: the two E.D. Tex. RAH Color Technologies v. Microsoft actions — 4:20-cv-00176 (filed 3/5/2020, voluntarily dismissed 3/11/2020) and 2:20-cv-00088 (filed 3/24/2020, voluntarily dismissed/ordered dismissed 6/2/2020). Both ended without a merits ruling.
• A third docket (N.D. Ill. 1:17-cv-05430) is listed on the patent's litigation record, but I could not independently verify its parties or outcome.
• No IPR or CAFC appeal directed to the '288 patent was identified.

Caveat on data quality: Google Patents' "litigation" field and some aggregator patent lists are often populated on a patent-family basis and can over-include siblings; the "patents-in-suit" listings I cite come from third-party databases and complaint exhibits, not from a primary PACER docket pull. If you need this for a filing or an opinion, I recommend confirming each docket (and the actual asserted-patent list in each complaint) directly via PACER/RPX before relying on it. Given the patent's granted date of 2016 and its "Expired – Fee Related" status, there is unlikely to be significant additional enforcement activity beyond what is listed above.

I'll research the PTAB and litigation history for US 9,516,288 before drawing conclusions.

Let me search specifically for any IPR naming the '288 patent or its family members.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file for US 9,516,288 — 0 active, 0 invalidated, 0 sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied. The structured USPTO Open Data Portal block in this prompt is empty, and my own searches surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming the '288 patent. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to exploit or to fear on this specific patent. The absence is itself a signal — 9,516,288 appears never to have been challenged at the Board, even though six of its sibling patents in the same RAH Color Technologies portfolio were hit with Inter Partes Review petitions by Adobe in 2019. The more consequential defensive fact is not a PTAB outcome but the patent's status: Google Patents lists US 9,516,288 as "Expired - Fee Related" with an anticipated expiration of 2025-08-31 — the term has run (or lapsed), which caps any exposure to the § 286 six-year damages lookback.

⚠️ Do not confuse this patent with a similarly-numbered one. The heavily-IPR'd RAH patent is U.S. 7,729,008 (the '008 patent). This patent is U.S. 9,516,288 (the '288 patent), application 14/933,781, priority 2005-08-31, titled "Color calibration of color image rendering devices." The 2019 Adobe IPRs (IPR2019-00627/00628/00629/00646) did not touch the '288 patent. Any demand letter or invalidity chart that conflates the two is a red flag.

Proceedings on US 9,516,288

None found.

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No AIA trial proceeding of record (ODP returns none; web search confirms none found).
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A
• Defensive value: A defendant has no IPR estoppel to work around and no Patent Owner IPR win to overcome — every invalidity theory (including § 102/§ 103 art the applicant never saw) remains available in district court. Combined with the expired/lapsed status, the practical exposure is a historical-damages question, not an injunction question.

I decline to list a proceeding number for this patent, because there is none. Per the operating constraints, I will not invent one.

Related proceedings in the same family (context — NOT on US 9,516,288)

These are worth knowing because RAH asserted a network of sibling patents with a common specification, and defense strategy often spills across the family. Treat every number below as belonging to a different patent, not to the '288 patent.

IPR2019-00627 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC (U.S. 7,729,008)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-02-01 (concurrent with the others)
• Status: Final Written Decision issued; Petitioner lost
• Judge panel: (consolidated with the panel below; consolidated oral hearing held 2020-05-28)
• Claims at issue: claims 28–33 and 36–38 of the '008 patent
• Grounds: § 103 obviousness over ICC v.3.0 / User Guide / Beretta-type references
• Final Written Decision: The Board determined "that Petitioner has not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 28–33 and 36–38 of the '008 patent are unpatentable." Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Techs. LLC, IPR2019-00627, Paper 124 (PTAB 2020). Public version: https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PTAB-IPR2019-00627-124.pdf
• Defensive value: On the sibling '008 patent, Patent Owner survived intact — evidence that RAH's claims are not trivially invalidatable, and a caution that a "throw an IPR at it" strategy against the family failed once already.

IPR2019-00628 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC (U.S. 8,416,444)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Status: Final Written Decision (reported decision date 2020-08-19; judgment entered 2020-08-31)
• Judge panel: Frances L. Ippolito, John A. Hudalla, Eleni Mantis Mercader (opinion authored by Judge Ippolito)
• Claims challenged: 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 26, 27
• Appeal: Notice of appeal docketed as CAFC No. 2021-1067 (per Patexia case summary: https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Adobe-Inc-v-RAH-Color-Technologies-LLC-id-[122129](/patent/122129)). I could not confirm the Federal Circuit's disposition from the sources reviewed — flag as unresolved rather than assume.
• Defensive value: Same petitioner, same panel — a portfolio-wide campaign that (on the record I could confirm) did not produce a clean invalidation.

IPR2019-00629 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC (U.S. 7,312,897)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Status: Instituted; consolidated for hearing with the above
• Judge panel: Same consolidated panel
• Defensive value: Portfolio sweep; the '897 patent is a sibling "System for Distributing and Controlling Color Reproduction at Multiple Sites" patent, not the '288 patent.

IPR2019-00646 — Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC (U.S. 7,791,761)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-02-01
• Status: Institution granted; consolidated oral hearing 2020-05-28
• Judge panel: Eleni Mantis Mercader, Frances L. Ippolito, John A. Hudalla
• Petition grounds: claims 7–11, 13, and 15 of the '761 patent, § 103 obviousness
• Institution decision: The Board found "a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged," and instituted. (Public version via Docket Alarm: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00646/) — note the document set is internally inconsistent on the institution date, so I state only that institution was granted before the 2020-05-28 consolidated hearing.
• Defensive value: RAH litigated these IPRs aggressively (RPI discovery motions, depositions of Adobe's expert on prior art considered, motions to exclude/strike) and lost none on the merits in the decisions I could verify. That is a meaningful data point about the patent owner's skill at the Board.

Litigation backdrop (from the Google Patents "Family has litigation" block):

• N.D. Ill. No. 1:17-cv-05430 (filed 2017)
• E.D. Tex. No. 4:20-cv-00176 (filed 2020, Judge Sean D. Jordan)
• E.D. Tex. No. 2:20-cv-00088 (filed 2020, Judge Rodney Gilstrap; RAH Color Techs. v. Microsoft)
• The Adobe/Xerox/EFI cases were centralized in MDL No. 2874 (N.D. Cal. 3:18-md-02874).

Strategic summary

Claim status on 9,516,288: UNTESTED. No claim of the '288 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or even challenged in an AIA trial. There is therefore no "surviving claims" list to give you and no "dead claim" list either — every claim stands as issued and must be evaluated on the merits, not on a PTAB outcome. Compare this to the family generally, where the Board (as of the decisions I could verify) declined to invalidate the asserted claims in the Adobe IPRs it decided. If you are looking for a shortcut around the '288 patent via prior PTAB work product, understand that the shortcut runs the other way: the sibling IPRs are more useful to RAH as "our claims survive" propaganda than to you as invalidating art. The real leverage is the patent's expired/expired-fee-related status (anticipated expiration 2025-08-31) and the resulting § 286 limitation on recoverable past damages.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate for you. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner (or its privies / real parties in interest) that obtained a Final Written Decision. Because Adobe's FWDs were on the '008, '444, '761 and '897 patents — not the '288 patent — no estoppel reaches the '288 patent at all. If your company is a defendant now, you may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground your search develops, including art that Adobe raised against the siblings. Two caveats: (1) if you were served with a complaint asserting the '288 patent, your own § 315(b) one-year window to petition for IPR runs from service — confirm the service date; (2) Adobe's RPI fight (RAH argued Quad, Xerox, EFI and Dalim were undisclosed real parties in interest) shows RAH will litigate RPI/estoppel aggressively, so keep your joint-defense and cost-sharing arrangements clean if you file.

Pattern signals. RAH Color Technologies is a single-inventor, single-member patent-holding LLC run by Dr. Richard A. Holub (his own declaration in the family IPRs states he is the sole member and lists ~35 patents), not a defensive aggregator's target. There is no Unified Patents or RPX-style challenger in the '288 chain — the only AIA challenger of record anywhere in the family is Adobe, acting alongside a broad MDL defense group. RAH has been an active serial litigant (N.D. Ill., E.D. Pa., W.D.N.Y., E.D. Tex. and the N.D. Cal. MDL) and a vigorous, sophisticated PTAB patent owner — it filed RPI discovery motions, deposed experts on art "considered but not relied upon," and took appeals (e.g., CAFC 2021-1067). Expect it to defend the '288 patent hard if challenged. Note also that the '288 patent sits atop a live continuation chain — 9,894,340 (app 15/368,022), 10,038,884 (app 15/894,545), and 10,560,676 (app 16/048,295) all descend from app 14/933,781. A defendant should assume those continuations are also in play and check their PTAB history too (I found none on the '288 patent; I did not complete a proceeding-by-proceeding sweep of each continuation).

Recommended next steps

• There is no FWD to cite for the '288 patent. Do not characterize this patent as having canceled or sustained claims; it has neither. If opposing counsel's letter implies a PTAB adjudication of the '288 patent, ask for the proceeding number — there isn't one.
• Lead with the status/term argument. Google Patents shows US 9,516,288 as "Expired - Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2025-08-31. As of 2026-09-27 the term has run. Verify against USPTO PatentCenter whether maintenance fees lapsed early (which would cut the damages period further) and compute the § 286 six-year window backward from any assertion — pre-expiration infringement exposure is likely the only live theory, and it is date-limited.
• If you decide to petition for IPR, the absence of any prior PTAB challenge means your petition faces no § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" problem for this patent and no IPR estoppel counterpoint. Confirm your § 315(b) service date first, and consider whether an IPR is even worth the cost on an expired patent whose only recovery is back damages.
• PTO-side alternatives worth checking: I saw no reexamination, reissue, or supplemental-examination record for the '288 patent in the sources reviewed — a targeted PatentCenter/public-;PAIR check is the next confirmatory step, since those proceedings don't appear in the ODP AIA-trials feed.
• Confirm the CAFC disposition of the '444-patent appeal (No. 2021-1067) and the merits outcomes in IPR2019-00628/00629/00646 before relying on any portfolio-level narrative — I verified the '008 and '761 proceeding details closely but did not independently confirm a final written decision for every one of the four, and I will not assert dispositions I could not ground.

Uncertainties I am not papering over: the consolidated institution dates for IPR2019-00627 and IPR2019-00646 are inconsistent across the public docket copies I retrieved; the Federal Circuit disposition in 2021-1067 is unconfirmed; and I did not find the final written decisions for IPR2019-00629 or -00646 in full text. None of that changes the central conclusion for this patent: no PTAB activity on US 9,516,288.

I'll start by researching the assignment history and litigation record for US 9516288.

Let me dig deeper into the specific assignment records and the corporate history.

Let me try to locate the specific reel/frame records and check for any security interests or other assignments.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 9,516,288 B2

Evidence limitation (read first). In this session I could retrieve the Google Patents legal-events record, the granted patent front page, and multiple federal court / PTAB filings, but I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center record to pull reel/frame numbers or the recorded correspondent for this patent's single assignment link. Everything below that is marked "not retrieved" genuinely was not retrieved — I have not substituted a placeholder. Verify the reel/frame at USPTO Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov by searching patent number 9516288.

Inventors

• Richard A. Holub — sole named inventor (Rochester, NY at filing; later Alexandria, VA). Employer at time of the underlying invention: himself / Imagicolor. Dr. Holub worked at Eikonix → Eastman Kodak (1983–1990), Agfa/Compugraphics (1990–1993), and SuperMac Technologies (1993–1994). In August 1994 he set out on his own in Rochester, NY, operating an unincorporated venture he called Imagicolor, which was incorporated in 1998 as Imagicolor Corporation (he was president and "filled various roles"). The first patent disclosures were prepared and filed out of that venture, so the patents were never assigned from Kodak, Agfa, or SuperMac.
• Unusual pattern: there is no multi-inventor departure story here. This is a single-inventor, 100%-inventor-controlled portfolio — Holub is the sole inventor on essentially all ~35 RAH patents. The classic "all inventors left the original assignee within 12 months" fire-sale tell is inapplicable because there was never a corporate assignee at invention time.

Original assignee

• RAH Color Technologies LLC — a single-member Virginia LLC, address 7012 Colgate Drive, Alexandria, VA 22307 (earlier Rochester, NY). Formed in 2005, on the founder's own account, "as a vehicle for an on-going licensing program for companies whose products depend on Dr. Holub's innovations."
• Business: patent licensing and enforcement only. It ships no products. A federal district court (E.D. Va./N.D. Cal. proceedings in Electronics for Imaging, Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, N.D. Cal. No. 3:18-cv-01612-WHO) described RAH as "a non-practicing entity that licenses and enforces the patents of its sole member, Dr. Richard Holub." Holub declared under oath: "I am the sole member of RAH Color Technologies LLC."
• Status: operating as a licensing/assertion vehicle (not dissolved). It reports ~26 licensees (manufacturers plus end-users). The '288 patent itself is now Expired – Fee Related (Google Patents lists anticipated expiration 2025-08-31).
• Predecessor entity: Imagicolor Corporation (1998) attempted commercialization; "investment did not materialize and Imagicolor was eventually dissolved." No patents were sold in that dissolution — Holub kept them personally and later moved them into RAH.

Assignment timeline

The only recorded assignment surfaced for US 9,516,288 is the inventor-to-vehicle recordation below (Google Patents legal event, dated 2016-09-08).

• Execution date not retrieved / recorded 2016-09-08 — Reel not retrieved (search 9516288 in Assignment Center)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignors' interest)
  • Assignor: Richard A. Holub
  • Assignee: RAH Color Technologies LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved from the assignment record. Portfolio-wide, the recurring prosecution attorney of record is Kenneth Jay Lukacher (Customer No. 24902, attorney docket prefix "ML-", e.g. "ML-0376D5"), who filed the Holub-family applications. Litigation counsel of record that recurs across the RAH assertion campaign is Global IP Law Group, LLC (55 West Monroe St., Suite 3400, Chicago — David Berten, Irwin Park, Michael Ajay Chandra). Neither is confirmed as the recording correspondent for this specific assignment — flagged as likely, not established.
  • Context: founder/inventor assignment to his own single-member licensing vehicle — sets up the RAH Color Technologies assertion vehicle; not a third-party or fire-sale acquisition. Recorded ~3 months before the patent issued (2016-12-06), consistent with pre-issuance recordation.

No security agreements, mergers, name changes, releases, or corrections were surfaced for this patent. There is no recorded chain of intermediate LLCs, and no downstream transfer to any third-party acquirer surfaced.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9516288
    1994 : Holub starts Imagicolor venture
    1998 : Imagicolor Corporation formed
    2005 : RAH Color Technologies LLC formed
    2015 : Application filed by RAH Color Tech
    2016 : Holub to RAH assignment recorded
         : Patent US 9516288 issues
    2017 : First known infringement suits
    2020 : Suit against Microsoft in E D Tex
    2025 : Patent term ends

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The patent is held by RAH Color Technologies LLC, a single-member Virginia LLC whose sole member and sole inventor is Richard A. Holub — a structure a federal court expressly found to be "a non-practicing entity that licenses and enforces the patents of its sole member," with no products and a residential service address (single-purpose licensing LLC). The chain runs only from Holub → RAH Color Technologies LLC (recorded 2016-09-08) and the vehicle has since enforced the '288 patent and ~35 related patents in a 10+ suit campaign (e.g., E.D. Tex. 2:20-cv-00088 v. Microsoft, Unifed Patents litigation records). Because this is an inventor-controlled NPE rather than a transferred-to-third-party shell, it lacks the cascading-LLC and pre-litigation-transfer tells — but the entity's non-practicing status is established by judicial finding, not naming inference.

Verify: USPTO Assignment Center — search patent number 9516288 → https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html); pull the reel/frame and recorded correspondent for the 2016-09-08 entry, which I was unable to retrieve here.

I'll research US patent 9516288 and its prior art citations. Let me start with targeted searches.

Let me retrieve the specific prior art citations listed on the patent's face.

Let me try to access the full patent document to see the "References Cited" section directly.

I've hit my research step limit, so I'll report what I was able to verify and be explicit about what I could not.

1. Patent identification (verified)

The identifier US 9,516,288 corresponds, per the authoritative full text supplied, to:

Chain of priority per the supplied text: the '288 patent is a continuation of 14/161,121 (which issued as US 8,638,340), which itself descends from the 2005-08-31 filing; it in turn is the parent of 15/368,022 (US 9,894,340), 15/894,545 (US 10,038,884) and 16/048,295 (US 10,560,676).

2. Important honesty caveat about the "citations" list

I was not able to retrieve the literal, face-of-patent "References Cited" (56) section of US 9,516,288 itself within my search budget. Google Patents does not surface that table in the text snippets returned, and the full-text file you supplied is truncated before the claims and the reference list. I therefore will not invent a citation list for the '288 patent specifically.

What I did obtain is the references-cited material that appears on the closely related members of the same family (US 10,560,676, US 8,760,704, US 8,279,236) and in related prosecution/IDS and office actions. Because these family members share the same specification and claim priority through 14/933,781, their cited art is the best available proxy — but it is a proxy, not a verified reproduction of the '288 face list. Treat it accordingly.

A concrete example of the OCR quality issue: the same reference appears in one document as "4,635,095 Legrand" and in another as "4,635,995 Legrand," and "4,980,799 Smyth" vs. "4,980,759 Smyth." Per your literal-reading rule I am reporting them as found rather than silently correcting them, but flagging that at least some of these are OCR artifacts of the same documents.

3. References appearing in the family (US patent documents)

The following U.S. patent documents appear in the cited-references sections of family members (best-effort reproduction; dates as printed):

• 2,790,844 — Neugebauer — 4/1957
• 4,076,421 — Kishner — 2/1978
• 4,441,120 — Gerritsen — 4/1984
• 4,500,919 — Grembeir (Schreiber?) — 2/1985
• 4,531,317 — McCurby — 7/1985
• 4,630,076 — Yoshimura — 12/1986
• 4,635,095 / 4,635,995 — Legrand et al. — 1/1987
• 4,658,286 — Schwartz et al. — 4/1987
• 4,677,465 — Alkofer — 6/1987
• 4,700,218 — Thomsen et al. — 10/1987
• 4,729,016 — Alkofer — 3/1988
• 4,742,387 — Oshima — 5/1988
• 4,745,465 — Kwon — 5/1988
• 4,823,289 — Dwinn et al. — 4/1989
• 4,839,829 — Freedman — 6/1989
• 4,843,573 — Taylor et al. — 6/1989
• 4,848,874 — Litt et al. — 7/1989
• 4,863,242 — Correa — 9/1989
• 4,939,581 — Shalit — 7/1990
• 4,941,038 — Walowit — 7/1990
• 4,975,862 — Keller et al. — 12/1990
• 4,980,799 / 4,980,759 — Smyth — 12/1990
• 4,987,496 — Gruvenkamp, Jr. — 1/1991
• 5,029,183 — Tymes — 7/1991
• 5,040,889 — Keane — 8/1991
• 5,049,791 — Kawakami — 9/1991
• 5,049,986 — Moon / Aono et al. — 9/1991
• 5,037,913 — Nagata et al. — 10/1991
• 5,077,600 — Ichigaya et al. — 12/1991
• 5,083,195 — Evelin — 1/1992
• 5,107,332 — (Cargill?) — 4/1992
• 5,113,355 — Nomura — 5/1992
• 5,115,229 — Shalit — 5/1992
• 5,146,328 — Yamasaki et al. — 9/1992
• 5,177,602 — (Fujii?) — 1/1993

Foreign patent documents appearing in the family: EP 0 562 973 (9/1993) and EP 579224 (1/1994).

Related-art references I located in a third-party international search report (not the '288 face list, but showing the art deemed relevant to this subject matter): US 5,949,496 (Kin Jin-Gu, 1999-09-07); EP 1 330 131 A2 (Thomson Licensing, 2003-07-23); WO 98/51079 (Minnesota Mining & Mfg, 1998-11-12); US 2005/0098923 A1 (Busch et al., 2005-05-05); US 2008/0063413 A1 (Zuber, 2008-03-13); US 2002/0180998 A1 (Wu, 2002-12-05).

Non-patent literature cited across the family (representative): Berns, CRT Colorimetry Parts I & II, Color Research & Application, Oct. 1993; Cowan, An Inexpensive Scheme for Calibration of a Colour Monitor…, Computer Graphics 17(3):315-321, Jul. 1983; Ohno, Four-Color Matrix Method for Correction of Tristimulus Colorimeters, IS&T 5th/6th Color Imaging Conference (1997/1998); ANSI IT8.7/2-1993, Annex B; Holub, Kearsley & Pearson, Color Systems Calibration for Graphic Arts I & II, J. Imaging Technology 14(2), Apr. 1988; International Color Consortium Profile Format v3.01, May 8, 1995.

4. § 102 analysis — and why precise claim mapping is not possible here

I want to be candid about two constraints:

1. The claims of US 9,516,288 were not in the text I was given (it truncates before the claims), so I cannot responsibly map any reference to a specific claim number "1," "12," etc. Doing so would be fabrication.
2. The effective § 102 date is the pivotal issue. The '288 patent issued from an application filed 2015-11-05 but claims priority to 2005-08-31. If the claims are supported by that 2005 disclosure, the operative date is 2005-08-31 and pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. In that case:
   • Only references published or patented before 2005-08-31 are § 102(a)/(b) art.
   • Almost every reference in §3 above qualifies (all are pre-2005) and therefore is eligible as § 102 art — including as § 102(b) art if published more than one year before the effective date.
   • The 2005-2008 items (Busch 2005/0098923; Zuber 2008/0063413) would fall outside the window and would not be § 102 art against claims entitled to the 2005 date.

Anticipation (§ 102) vs. obviousness (§ 103): A single reference anticipates under § 102 only if it discloses every limitation of a claim, arranged as in the claim. Given the breadth of the '288 disclosure (calibration of displays via a camera that is movable relative to the display, dual-use camera for teleconferencing, projection/emissive displays, spatial-uniformity correction, virtual proofing across a network), the § 102 candidates would be the references that, standing alone, teach a camera-based measurement of a display used to calibrate that display — i.e., the CRT/display colorimetry items (Berns CRT Colorimetry; Cowan 1983) and display-calibration patents such as US 5,949,496 (Kin) and US 5,720,377 (Lapeus) if their disclosures reach the camera/measurement-relative-to-display architecture. The remaining references are better characterized as § 103 background art (gamut mapping, LUT linearization, colorant-mixture modeling, spectrophotometer/colorimeter hardware) rather than § 102 anticipators of the portable/dual-use-camera claims.

I cannot state with high confidence which single reference anticipates which claim, because I do not have the claim language or the verified face list. I'd rather flag that than guess.

5. Litigation / IPR prior art (context worth noting)

In the separate but related Adobe Inc. v. RAH Color Technologies LLC, IPR2019-00628, the petitioner relied on references including Stewart, Scott-Taggart, Tajika, and the ICC v.3.0 specification. Those were directed at a different RAH patent (the "761 patent"), not necessarily at US 9,516,288, but they are relevant to the same family's art landscape and to how a challenger has framed the prior art.

6. What I recommend to close the gaps

To produce a defensible, claim-by-claim § 102 chart for US 9,516,288, I would need to:

1. Pull the official USPTO PatentCenter / IFW "References Cited" (PTO-892) list for application 14/933,781 — this is the authoritative face list, which my searches did not surface.
2. Obtain the issued claims of US 9,516,288 and the parent's claims.
3. Confirm whether the claims are entitled to the 2005-08-31 priority date (which decides pre-AIA § 102 vs. AIA § 102 and thus which references are even eligible).

If you can supply the claims and/or the PTO-892 for 14/933,781, I can complete a precise per-claim anticipation analysis; I did not want to fabricate one from incomplete data.

I'll research the prior art landscape for the '288 patent, starting with its cited references and the granted claims.

Let me pull the granted claims and the listed references from the issued patent.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,516,288 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Two threshold caveats before the analysis (please read)

Caveat A — the "Prior Art section" was not supplied. Your instruction directs me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page," but the material provided to me in this session consists of (i) the patent summary and (ii) the litigation summary. No prior-art table, IDS listing, Examiner citation list, or "References Cited" block from the '288 file was furnished. The only prior-art content I actually have is:

1. The references the '288 specification itself cites (its "Definitions"/Background passages): U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,043,909; 6,157,735; 6,459,425; 6,750,992 (all naming Holub), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,437 (Van Aken et al.) as an exemplary SOM.
2. The Google Patents metadata fields you can see in the full text: "Prior art date: 2005-08-31" and "Prior art keywords: color, user, display, data, calibration."
3. The parent-family PCT search report I retrieved this session — WO 2007/027854 (PCT/US2006/033975), which categorizes US 6,750,992 B (Holub) as an "X" reference against claims 1–7 and 15–22 of that parent.

Anything beyond this is my own field knowledge, and I flag confidence levels for it rather than presenting it as record art. If you intended a specific prior-art set (e.g., the "References Cited" face page, or the IDS), paste it and I will re-run the mapping against the actual claim language.

Caveat B — still no granted claim text. As noted in the prior sections, I could not retrieve a verbatim granted claim set for the '288 patent in this session. The published application US 2016/0057399 A1 claims (including the "hand-held multifunctional digital apparatus" claim) are not the granted claims. Everything below is therefore organized by claim theme, and I explicitly do not quote claim language.

Caveat C — a contradiction I must flag. The task prompt states today is April 26, 2026; the litigation summary was prepared against a 2026 frame and the fetched page shows "Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2025-08-31. A § 103 validity analysis is unaffected by post-issuance lapse, but if the intent is to assess an enforceable claim, confirm status at PatentCenter. (Also: the prior summary flagged an "Active" vs. "Expired" display conflict on the same page; I still cannot resolve it.)

1. Governing law and the priority-date problem (this drives everything)

Because application 14/933,781 was filed 2015-11-05 but claims a chain into pre-2013 filings, the threshold question is pre-AIA vs. AIA § 103. My sibling-patent evidence is instructive: in the Adobe IPRs against RAH's '008/'761/'897/'444 patents, the expert declaration of record recites that "the Challenged Patents are 'pre-AIA,' and that the 'pre-AIA' requirements are controlling." Those siblings share the same specification lineage as the '288. I therefore analyze under pre-AIA § 103 while flagging the transition-application rule: the AIA applies if any granted claim of the '288 lacks written-description support in the pre-2013 disclosures, claim-by-claim.

The claim-by-claim priority split matters enormously here, and this is the single most important practical point in the analysis:

An obviousness challenge that fails against a 1996 date may succeed against a 2005 date. Any serious § 103 attack must therefore be run twice, with different art for each window. I do that below.

2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

For this subject matter at the relevant times, a PHOSITA is a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, imaging science, or color science and 2–3 years of experience in color management, display metrology, or digital imaging, or equivalent industry experience. Critically, the PHOSITA is charged with knowledge of:

• colorimetry and the CIE Standard Observer, tristimulus values, CIELAB;
• colorimeter/spectrophotometer design (spectral vs. 3–4 channel filter devices, dual-beam reference measurement — the Van Aken '437 paradigm the '288 itself cites);
• display calibration practice (CRT/LCD/projection; gamma; white-point balancing);
• digital still/video camera and CCD/CMOS image-pipeline design, including flat-field/shading correction.

This is a mature, crowded, cross-disciplinary art. As one Adobe IPR expert declaration of record puts it, obviousness is judged "from the perspective of a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the alleged invention was made (and not from the perspective of either a layman or a genius in the art)." That framing cuts against the '288 on nearly every theme, because the patent describes its own components as conventional building blocks.

3. The applicant-admitted prior art (AAPA) — the strongest foothold

The '288 specification does not present its building blocks as novel. The "Definitions" section states plainly:

"Color display calibration is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,043,909, 6,157,735, 6,459,425 and 6,750,992, in which sensor configurations are presented for different display types."

"One such type of arrangement is suited to a projection display as described, for example, at column 16, lines 31-35, of U.S. Pat. No. 6,043,909. Such sensors were located near the source of projected light and were as close as possible to the line of sight."

This is an admission that: (a) display color calibration via an instrumented sensor is old; (b) sensor configurations for different display types, including projection displays, are old; (c) locating a sensor near the projection light source on the line of sight is old. These admissions are prior art against the '288 regardless of the § 102 subsection (AAPA / In re Fout, and see the standard practice of treating applicant's own description of the prior art as admitted art).

The Van Aken '437 citation is likewise an admission that a calibrated, dual-beam-referenced spectrophotometer from which a SOM can be built is prior art — and the '288 uses that device as its own SOM exemplar.

Consequence: The prima facie case for obviousness need not reach every element by prior-art patent. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the recitation of known, conventional components arranged in a predictable way to serve their known functions is strong evidence of obviousness. Much of the '288's specification reads as a specification of a system architecture built from admitted prior-art parts.

4. Theme-by-theme § 103 analysis

Theme 1 — Display-embedded or module-based color calibration for large/projection displays

Claim elements (characterized, not quoted): a color projection (or emissive/LCD/plasma/OLED) display with a color measurement instrument within the display housing, using projector optics or separate optics to image light reflected from the screen; display electronics calibrating from that data and/or performing virtual proofing over a network; a color measurement module attachable to a wall or a speaker opposite the screen, with a control unit doing the calibration.

Available art:

• Holub '909 / '735 / '425 / '992 — display CMI, sensor configurations per display type, virtual proofing, calibration forms, the color-transformation pipeline. (Admitted art; also the "X" reference the parent PCT examiner used against claims 1–7, 15–22.)
• Van Aken '437 — the calibrated spectral measurement engine.
• Contemporaneous commercial practice: integrated monitor calibration hardware (e.g., the Radius PressView family of the mid-1990s, which shipped with an internal calibration sensor and was a standard color-professional fixture) and externally-mounted colorimeters applied to a screen (the X-Rite/ColorVision/GretagMacbeth desktop-sensor ecosystem that matured by the late 1990s). Confidence: high that this product class existed and was public; moderate on specific model/date detail, so verify before relying on it as a § 102(b) printed publication.

Combination & motivation (1996 window): '909 (or '735/'425/'992) discloses the whole architecture; Van Aken '437 supplies the measurement instrument. A PHOSITA seeking to extend the '909 projection-display arrangement (sensor near the projector's light source, on the line of sight) to a self-luminous flat panel or to a separately mounted module would have been motivated by the ordinary design goals of (i) shielding the sensor from ambient light in a home-theater environment and (ii) reusing one manufacturer's measurement engine across display types. KSR holds that "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious." Placing a known colorimeter at a known vantage point on a known display is exactly that.

Weakness in this theme for RAH: because the foundational references are the inventor's own, the applicant would argue they cannot be "prior art by another" under pre-AIA § 102(a). That argument is available but incomplete — § 102(b) contains no "by another" requirement, and '909 issued 2000-03-28, so if the claims here receive only the 2005 priority date, '909 is unambiguously § 102(b) art. So the priority-date question is outcome-dispositive for Theme 1.

Theme 2 — Dual-use camera in a portable device (the likely commercial heart of the patent)

Claim elements (characterized): a portable device (laptop; cellular phone/handset; PDA; handheld) with a color display and a camera, wherein one of the camera or the display is movable relative to the other, so that in a first mode the camera images the display for calibration and in a second mode it images something other than the display (e.g., the user for videoconferencing); plus: a third use imaging another display or a printer/press/copier for its calibration or virtual proofing; a pivotal arm mounting the camera to the display frame; a clamshell hinge variant; and ambient-light sensing that switches the backlight by threshold or gradient function.

Available art (2005 window):

• Camera-equipped portable devices were ubiquitous by 2005. Camera phones (commercially available from ~2000; >100M units shipped annually by the mid-2000s) and laptop webcams (e.g., Apple's iSight, 2003) are § 102(a)/(b) public-use/on-sale art for a "portable device with a color display and a camera." Confidence: high.
• Clamshell/pivot form factors. A conventional laptop or clamshell handset inherently provides relative movement between the display and the base — in the laptop case the camera is on the display bezel and the base carries the keyboard, and in the flip-phone case the screen half pivots relative to the camera half. A PHOSITA would recognize that "one of the camera or the display is movable with respect to the other" is a structural property of the ordinary clamshell, not an inventive selection.
• Display calibration by imaging the screen with a camera. This is the admitted-art core (Holub '992/'425/'909) — using a measurement sensor on a display to characterize gamma, white balance and uniformity, then deriving a correction transform.
• Ambient-light-based backlight control was conventional in portable electronics (auto-brightness/auto-dimming by ambient photodiode or by the camera's own image). Confidence: high that threshold-based auto-brightness was well known; the "gradient function" limitation is a routine design choice (continuous vs. stepped transfer curve — In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272 (CCPA 1980)).
• The Adobe IPR record identifies a stable of real prior-art references used against RAH's sibling patents — Sugiura, Beretta, Newman, Kuwamoto, Stone, Anderson, and a "User Guide." Confidence: high that these are real, citeable references; moderate that any one of them bears directly on the dual-use-camera limitations. This is the most promising lead for a specific combination against Theme 2, and it should be pulled and mapped.

Combination & motivation: Take a conventional camera-equipped portable computer or handset (public art) as the base. Apply the admitted display-calibration-by-imaging technique (Holub '992/'425). The motivation is the KSR-recognized "design incentive" of part economy: the device already contains a photometric image sensor; using it for a second, known purpose (calibrating the device's own display, and third, calibrating an external rendering device) requires no new hardware and exploits known capability. KSR: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results"; and "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." Using a camera to photograph a screen, and using the resulting image to correct the screen, are both established functions.

The pivotal-arm limitation is a garden-variety mechanical expedient (a hinged/swivel mount) for aiming a camera in two modes. Absent unexpected results, mounting a camera on an articulating arm to let it point at the screen or at the room is the kind of "predictable variation[] of any of the prior art elements" that KSR condemns.

Theme 2's strongest non-obviousness arguments (for RAH):

• The specific combination of the display-calibration algorithm with a consumer camera's limited color fidelity — the spec discusses characterizing the portable device's response in standard color units (FIG. 39J) and using a support/base (FIG. 39K) — could be argued to be a non-trivial calibration of the calibrator. If the claim requires such characterization, the prior art must be shown to teach calibrating the camera against standards before using it to calibrate the display, which is a narrower and harder case.
• If any granted claim requires automatic alignment/focusing of the camera on the screen (FIG. 38/38A), the obviousness case weakens unless the art discloses autofocus/registration of a camera onto a display target.

Theme 3 — Spatial non-uniformity detection and correction

Claim elements (characterized): an imaging sensor (e.g., CCD) measures rendered flat-field images per color channel; for each channel the system finds the pixel coordinate with the lowest Imin/Imax ratio; then reduces the other pixels' intensity while preserving the desired neutral/white balance; iterating across channels; applied to displays, printers, presses, and portable devices.

Available art: flat-field (shading) correction of image-sensor arrays and display uniformity compensation were both long-established. The underlying operation — normalize each pixel against a reference flat field, take the minimum as the global ceiling, and scale the rest — is the standard astronomy/imaging "flat-fielding" algorithm. Uniformity correction tables for displays (and the G09G subclass the '288 is classified in, including G09G2320/0285 "using tables for spatial correction of display data") reflect exactly this prior art.

Combination & motivation: applying a known sensor/imaging flat-field correction to a display's measured output, and applying it channel-by-channel to preserve white point, is the predictable use of a known technique with the known result of a uniform field. The white-point-preservation refinement (choosing the worst channel/pixel as the constraint so neutral balance survives) is an optimization a skilled artisan would reach by routine testing — the kind of "mere optimization" that is not patentable. KSR; In re Applied Materials, 692 F.3d 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2012).

Weakness: if the granted claim recites the specific ordered selection (first choose the overall worst channel/pixel; then test whether the correction for a second channel exceeds its own Imin/Imax; then re-select a pixel; then, failing that, force one pixel to correct white balance and reduce others accordingly), the ordering may not be squarely disclosed in a single reference. The obviousness case then depends on the PHOSITA reaching that order as a design choice — defensible but contestable.

5. A note on the multi-colorant / virtual-proofing pipeline (FIGS. 5–18)

Much of the '288 specification (the nine-step calibration pipeline: linearization → calibration forms → measurement → polynomial forward model → forward-model table → gamut descriptor → inversion → GCR/black utilization → color-to-color′ transform → rendering table) is, on the face of the document, the same disclosure that appears in the parent family, and the parent PCT examiner cited Holub's own '992 against it. To the extent any granted claim is directed at that pipeline in isolation, the § 103 posture is weak for RAH, subject to the same "same-inventor" and priority-date caveats as Theme 1.

6. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

The record contains real, non-trivial objective indicia that RAH would press under Graham v. John Deere:

• Licensing / industry acceptance. RAH's own litigation filing (N.D. Ill.) asserts the portfolio has been licensed to "seven of the largest manufacturers and service providers of color imaging and printing products," plus two instrument makers and 13 end-user licensees. Licensing is a classic Graham factor — but its weight depends on nexus; the licensors' motivation (freedom to operate) and the breadth of the licensed portfolio (30+ patents) undercut a tight nexus to this claim set.
• Long-felt need / industry recognition. Dr. Holub's background allegations (past president of a technical association; CGATS participation; 11 TAGA papers; the Imagicolor prototype) can support a narrative of long-felt need in display/soft-proofing color accuracy.
• Commercial failure cuts the other way. RAH's own filing admits "investment did not materialize and Imagicolor was eventually dissolved," and that the prototype never reached commercialization. That is weak evidence of commercial success and may support the view that the market was satisfied by others' products.

Countervailing Graham factor: the close proximity of the art, the density of the field (the '288 is one of a large family; the applicant's own filing states "The United States Patent Office has considered nearly 500 references during the prosecution of Dr. Holub's patent applications"), and the absence of any IPR directed at the '288 while Adobe did file IPRs against sibling claims '008/'444/'897/'761 — the IPRs resulted in mixed outcomes (the '008 final written decision, for example, found the petitioner had not proven unpatentability of claims 28–33 and 36–38). This is meaningful: it shows the family survives some § 103 attacks, and it is a caution against over-reading the obviousness case.

7. Bottom line

Ranked assessment of ex parte § 103 exposure (opinion, not a validity determination):

The combination most likely to render claims obvious: a camera-equipped portable computing/telephony device (public art, 2000–2005) in view of the admitted display-calibration-by-measurement disclosure of Holub '992/'425 (and Van Aken '437 for the measurement engine), optionally in further view of ambient-light-responsive backlight control. The motivation is part economy — the device already contains the sensor, and using it for the known second function (self-calibration) and third function (calibrating an external rendering device) yields only predictable results (KSR). The "movable with respect to the other" element is arguably inherent in the ubiquitous clamshell/hinge form factor.

The combination for the display-calibration claims: Holub '909 + '735 + '425 + '992 (each admitted in the '288 specification, and '992 designated an "X" reference against parent claims 1–7 and 15–22) combined with Van Aken '437, motivated by the '288's own recitation that sensor configurations for different display types (including projection) were known.

8. What I could not verify, and what you should supply to finish this analysis

1. The granted claims of US 9,516,288 — still not retrieved. Every mapping above is theme-level. This analysis should not be used in a filing until the issued claims are mapped element-by-element.
2. The "Prior Art section of this page" you referenced — not present in my context. If it exists, send it; the "References Cited" face page and any IDS/892 would let me replace my field-knowledge assertions with record art.
3. The specific subjects of the RAH IPR references — Sugiura, Beretta, Newman, Kuwamoto, Stone, Anderson, and the "User Guide" are real references in the RAH family litigation (Adobe IPR2019-00627/-00628/-00629/-00646). Pulling their full text and claim charts is the single highest-value next step for a concrete Theme 2 and Theme 3 ground.
4. The claim-by-claim priority determination — whether the '288's granted claims each enjoy the 1996 date, the 2005 date, or a later date. This is outcome-dispositive for Theme 1.
5. No IPR against the '288 was identified, and the sibling IPRs had mixed results — treat the § 103 exposure as litigable, not established.