US 10429215

I'll search for this specific patent number to verify details and check for any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me check for litigation activity and verify the current assignee status.

US 10,429,215 B2 — Summary

Verification note on scope: I searched for the exact identifier 10429215 / US10429215. No CAFC 2026 docket entry, district-court complaint, or PTAB proceeding tied to this specific number surfaced in any search. Negative results here are weaker than positive ones — absence of results in a web search is not authoritative proof that no litigation exists, and I could not query PACER/CAFC CM-ECF directly. Treat "no litigation found" as unverified, not as confirmed.

Bibliographic Data

Assignee caveat: "Aumovio" is the 2025 rebranding/spinoff of Continental's automotive business; Google Patents lists it as current assignee but explicitly disclaims having performed a legal analysis. USPTO assignment records should be checked for a recorded chain of title.

Abstract (as issued)

A vehicle instrument cluster having a viewing area that is a planar non-glossy reflective surface (black in one embodiment). The cluster includes two or more light emitting diodes, each with a light emission surface positioned to selectively project a light beam pattern onto the reflective surface so it is visible on the viewing area. The beam pattern may itself create a character or icon, or may be combined with beam patterns from the other LEDs to create a character or icon. The beam pattern can be selectively changed between two or more colors.

Claim Set: One Independent Claim

The patent carries 5 claims total; claim 1 is the sole independent claim. Claims 2–5 depend, directly or indirectly, from claim 1.

Claim 1 (independent) — plain language:

A vehicle instrument cluster comprising:

1. a non-glossy reflective surface having a viewing area; and
2. a plurality of light emitting lasers, each laser emitting visible light onto the viewing area of the non-glossy surface, in a corresponding predetermined direction across the surface;

wherein each laser is configured to selectively project a light beam pattern onto the viewing area so as to be visible there; and

wherein the shape of the light beam pattern projected onto the viewing area is a portion of a number.

Key observations on claim 1:

• The claim is a "portion of a number" claim. The claimed unit of protection is a partial digit (e.g., one of the three horizontal strokes or two longitudinal strokes making up a "2"), not a complete character. This is a narrow structural framing.
• Internal inconsistency worth flagging: the claim body recites "light emitting lasers," but the final wherein-clause refers to "the light emitting diodes." The antecedent basis for "the light emitting diodes" is not established in the claim. This is a drafting defect, and it comes from the specification, which describes 16 LEDs and then states it is "within the scope of this invention for the LEDs to be a laser or laser beam outputs from a single laser." The two terms are used interchangeably in the source disclosure, which may create §112(b) indefiniteness exposure and complicates both infringement mapping and invalidity analysis.
• Spec/claim mismatch: claim 1 requires non-glossy. The specification states the preferred embodiment is non-glossy black but expressly contemplates a lighter, white, glossy surface as an alternative — that alternative falls outside claim 1.

Dependent claims (for completeness):

• Claim 2: the non-glossy surface is substantially planar.
• Claim 3: the non-glossy surface is black.
• Claim 4: the cluster is a speedometer displaying a beam pattern representing at least two characters on the viewing area.
• Claim 5: the cluster is a display for a radio or clock displaying a beam pattern representing at least two characters on the viewing area.

Specified Embodiment (for context)

The figures show 16 LEDs arranged along two parallel long sides of a rectangular reflective surface (grants/reflective substrate). Groups of two and three LEDs per side are placed at the ends and middle, arranged inversely between the two sides, with one LED in each end group aimed diagonally toward its opposite number (36, 36′) so that two diagonal beams form a "7." Emission surfaces sit at less than 90° to the plane of the reflective surface, so beams project onto and reflect off it toward the viewer. FIG. 4 shows the number "2" built from three horizontal beams (48, 50, 52) plus two longitudinal beams (56, 58). The spec describes mixed colors (e.g., red-tinted horizontal beams 48/52 with green beam 50 and green longitudinal beams 56/58) achieved without light filters.

Prior Art Cited (16 references, examiner-cited)

Notable ones: US 5,949,346 A (Toyoda Gosei, "Light-driven display device," 1999); US 6,224,216 B1 (InFocus, LED projection display); US 7,750,821 B1 (Yazaki North America, instrument panel color graphical display); US 2014/0036472 A1 (Yazaki, indicating instrument dial plate); US 9,022,606 B2 (Osram Sylvania, virtual surface indirect radiating luminaire); US 2013/0241886 A1 (Neonode, side-light display illuminator). One later document (CN 114352974 B, Zhejiang Zhimada Intelligent Technology) cites this family.

Uncertainty Statement

• Litigation/CAFC: No 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity for this patent number was found. Given my search method (general web search rather than direct PACER/CM-ECF access), I cannot state affirmatively that none exists.
• Assignee: The Aumovio Systems Inc designation reflects a platform listing, not a legally verified title record.
• Inventor name form: Rendered exactly as listed ("Hernandez Diaz"; assignment record shows "HERNANDEZ-DIAZ").
• All bibliographic and claim text above is drawn from the patent's own full text; I have not independently re-verified it against the USPTO PatentCenter certified copy.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10429215.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try a few more targeted searches on litigation-specific databases.

Result: No litigation found involving US Patent 10,429,215

I searched patent-litigation-focused sources for the exact identifier 10429215 / 10,429,215. I found no evidence of any district court litigation, ITC proceeding, PTAB challenge, or CAFC appeal involving this patent. I must be clear rather than infer anything: as of the search date, no known litigation exists for US 10,429,215.

What I checked and what came back

• Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — surface searches for the number returned no case list tied to this patent. The Unified Patents material that surfaced concerned unrelated patents (e.g., U.S. 10,621,228; 9,928,275; 9,253,239; 10,311,073) in which Unified was a petitioner — none involved 10,429,215.
• General litigation searches (Google Patents, Justia, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, UniCourt, Dockets.Justia, Lexology case notes) for "10429215" / "10,429,215" returned no complaint, docket, or case caption asserting or challenging this patent.
• CAFC / opinions-orders — no appeal referencing this patent appeared. The only CAFC hit near the query was IdeaHub Inc. v. Unified Patents, LLC, No. 2024-1684 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 10, 2026) (Rule 36 affirmance of PGR2022-00044) — unrelated to this patent.
• PTAB — no IPR/PGR/CBM naming U.S. Patent 10,429,215 as the challenged patent was found.

Litigation that did surface (explicitly NOT involving 10,429,215)

For completeness, these are Continental/automotive cases that appeared in searches but do not assert this patent — I flag them so they are not mistaken for hits:

• Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. v. Avanci LLC, No. 3:19-cv-02933 (N.D. Tex.) — anticompetitive/FRAND claims.
• Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. v. Hamaton Automotive Technology Co. Ltd. (E.D. Va., filed 05/06/2016) — patent case, but not on this patent.
• Schrader-Bridgeport Int'l, Inc. v. Continental Automotive Systems US, Inc., No. 2:12-cv-10715 (E.D. Mich.) — U.S. 7,518,495.

None of these name US 10,429,215.

Patent posture (for context)

• Patent: US 10,429,215 B2, "LED beam display for interior automotive applications."
• Application: 14/502,227; filed 2014-09-30; granted 2019-10-01; priority 2014-09-30.
• Original assignee: Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. Current assignee (per Google Patents): Aumovio Systems Inc (Continental's spun-off automotive entity).
• Claim scope (issued claims 1–5): a vehicle instrument cluster with a non-glossy reflective surface (viewing area) and a plurality of light-emitting lasers projecting beam patterns forming a portion of a number; dependent claims add planar surface, black surface, and speedometer/radio-or-clock applications.
• Term: active; adjusted expiration 2035-02-15; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2023-03-23.
• Prosecution history: a non-final office action (2018-11-05), response (2019-04-18), and notice of allowance (2019-06-05) — i.e., ordinary prosecution, no indication of any post-grant adversarial proceeding.

Important caveats

• A negative search is not proof of a negative. Litigation may exist that is not indexed in the free sources available to me, or may be filed under a local-court index, sealed, or simply not surfaced.
• This patent appears to be a portfolio/defensive asset. It has no forward citations in the litigation sense, is held by an operating automotive supplier, and — unlike NPE-asserted patents — shows no assertion activity in the sources queried.
• To verify definitively, check: (1) the patent's Google Patents "Litigation" tab / Docket Alarm "lawsuits" tab for U.S. 10,429,215; (2) PACER/RECAP for the patent number as a text search; (3) RPX Insight and Unified Patents portal case lists filtered by patent; and (4) the USPTO PTAB and CAFC dockets. If any of these return a hit, it would warrant re-evaluation.

Bottom line: Based on the searches performed, there is no known litigation (district court, ITC, PTAB, or CAFC) involving US Patent 10,429,215. I cannot provide plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case number/filing date/status because no such case was found.

I'll verify the structured ODP data against live sources before reporting.

Let me run more targeted searches on the patent's title, assignee, and PTAB docket formats.

Let me confirm with two final checks on docket aggregators and litigation.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 10,429,215 — the USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web searches of PTAB dockets (PTAB E2E / PTACTS), Docket Alarm, and general sources surfaced no petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision naming this patent or its title. Because there is nothing to break down by active / invalidated / sustained / settled / denied-institution, the operative fact is simply that the patent has never been tested at the PTAB. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is therefore not "hardened" and not "dead" — it is unadjudicated: claims 1–5 are all live and presumptively valid under § 282, and no petitioner has ever taken a free shot at them. That cuts both ways. It means an IPR-style invalidity attack remains fully available (no § 315(e) estoppel has attached to anyone), but it also means the patent owner has never had to defend these claims against a skilled challenger, which is often exactly the scenario in which a well-built § 103 ground lands.

There are no per-proceeding entries to report. Instead, here is what the absence of proceedings means and where the openings are.

No proceedings to detail — verified, with the checks run

• Structured source (canonical): USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block — returns no AIA trial proceedings.
• PTAB E2E / PTACTS searches (petition and decision text searches for the patent number and title) — nothing for the '215 patent. No proceeding number exists to cite; I will not invent one.
• Web/docket aggregator searches for the patent number in IPR/PGR form and for the title "LED beam display for interior automotive applications" — returned only the Google Patents bibliographic page (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10429215B2](/patent/US10429215B2)/en) and unrelated PTAB documents (e.g., the Mercedes-Benz v. Spero IPRs on US 9,955,551, which are a different patent family and different owner).
• No Federal Circuit appeal is possible in the absence of an FWD; nothing to appeal, nothing to link.

If you want to double-check me before relying on this in a brief, the authoritative free dockets are:

• USPTO PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ (search by patent number)
• PTAB Decisions / Final Written Decisions: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions
• CourtListener RECAP (for any district-court or CAFC activity): https://www.courtlistener.com/

Strategic summary

Claims status. All five claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB — not canceled, not sustained, not narrowed by any administrative proceeding. Claim 1 is the sole independent claim: a vehicle instrument cluster comprising a non-glossy reflective surface having a viewing area and a plurality of light emitting lasers, each emitting visible light onto the viewing area in a corresponding predetermined direction, each configured to selectively project a light beam pattern onto the viewing area so as to be visible, "wherein the shape of the light beam pattern projected onto the viewing area of the non-glossy reflective surface by the light emitting diodes is a portion of a number." Claims 2 (substantially planar), 3 (black surface), 4 (speedometer, at least two characters), and 5 (radio or clock display, at least two characters) all depend from claim 1. Note the drafting artifact in claim 1: the apparatus is recited as "light emitting lasers" in the body but the final wherein-clause says "light emitting diodes." That internal inconsistency, plus the very thin "portion of a number" limitation, is precisely the kind of claim-drafting vulnerability that has never been litigated. The prosecution history shows the claims did not sail through: the ODP legal events record a non-final office action on 2018-11-05, a response entered 2019-04-18, and a notice of allowance 2019-06-05 — i.e., something was argued or amended to get allowance, and the file wrapper is worth mining for prosecution-history estoppel and for the examiner's stated reasons for allowance.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is entirely absent. Because no IPR or PGR was ever instituted against this patent, no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising any § 102 or § 103 ground in district court or before the PTAB. A defendant today has the full universe of prior art available — including art that a prior petitioner might have raised, art the examiner cited but did not substantively apply, and art that never made it into the file at all. The 16 references of record (including US 5,949,346 to Toyoda Gosei; US 6,224,216 to InFocus; US 2006/0202993 to Siemens VDO; CN 1598901; US 7,750,821 to Yazaki; US 9,022,606 to Osram Sylvania; and US 2014/0036472 to Yazaki) show the examiner was working in a crowded field of LED-based instrument-cluster and projected-light displays — a good starting point for a § 103 combination, particularly the Yazaki and Siemens VDO cluster references. There is also a statutory time bar consideration that runs the other way: because the '215 patent issued 2019-10-01, a defendant served with a complaint alleging infringement more than one year ago may already be time-barred under § 315(b) from filing its own IPR — so check the service date before promising an IPR.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern to read. No petitioner has filed once, let alone repeatedly. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, AST, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain — I found no Unified Patents docket involving this patent. The patent owner has no PTAB appeal history on this patent because there is no PTAB history. Ownership has shifted: the original assignee was Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. (assignment recorded 2015-04-08, effective 2015-03-11, Reel/Frame 035358/0860), and the Google Patents current-assignee field now lists Aumovio Systems Inc — consistent with the Continental automotive-electronics spinoff. Practically, that means the entity asserting the patent may be an operating automotive supplier with real products and a real litigation budget, not a shell NPE. Maintenance fees are being paid (4th-year fee paid 2023-03-23, large entity), and the adjusted expiration date is 2035-02-15 — a long runway, so the patent has real remaining economic life and the owner has every incentive to assert it. Full term runs roughly 13 more years from today.

Recommended next steps

Because there are no proceedings, the absence is the signal. A 2014-priority patent with 16 cited references, a November 2018 rejection, and an April 2019 response-then-allowance, held by a well-funded operating-company successor and not expiring until 2035, has simply never been attacked administratively. That is either because it has not been asserted (most likely — I found no public district-court assertion either), or because nobody has bothered. If you are now being accused, you may be the first challenger, which means no estoppel and no adverse claim-construction precedent binds you.

1. Order the file wrapper immediately from Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) for application 14/502,227. The 2018-11-05 non-final rejection and the 2019-04-18 response define what the applicant gave up and what the examiner found allowable. The examiner's reasons for allowance are your roadmap to the weakest claim language.
2. Run the § 315(b) clock first. If your client was served with a complaint asserting the '215 patent more than one year ago, an IPR is barred. If you are inside the window, the IPR filing deadline is the single most important date on the calendar. If barred, pivot to ex parte reexamination (no § 315(b) bar, no estoppel, available to anyone at any time) — a route that has seen a record surge recently precisely because IPR access is tightening.
3. Build the § 103 ground around the Yazaki and Siemens VDO cluster references already of record (US 7,750,821 and US 2006/0202993), plus US 5,949,346 (Toyoda Gosei, "Light-driven display device"). The "portion of a number" limitation in claim 1 is broad and functional; the "non-glossy reflective surface" and "light emitting lasers ... positioned ... across the non-glossy surface" limitations are the ones to attack, and the laser/LED inconsistency in claim 1 gives you an indefiniteness or claim-construction hook under § 112(b) as a fallback in the district court.
4. Preserve all § 102/§ 103 defenses in your answer and contentions. With no estoppel in play, there is no reason to narrow your invalidity case.
5. Re-run this check before every substantive filing. PTAB dockets move; a petition could be filed against this patent at any time, and if a different party institutes first, you may be able to join under § 315(c) or, at minimum, benefit from the record.

Confidence note: I am highly confident there is no AIA trial proceeding on this patent based on the structured ODP data and my searches. I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition not yet indexed, or a settlement-terminated proceeding that was never published as an FWD — but neither appears in any indexed source I could reach. If a proceeding number surfaces, re-run this analysis against it rather than assuming the absence holds.

I'll research the assignment chain and corporate context before building the report.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 10,429,215 B2

Patent: US 10,429,215 B2 — "LED beam display for interior automotive applications"
App. No.: 14/502,227 · Filed: 2014-09-30 · Granted: 2019-10-01 · Adjusted expiration: 2035-02-15
Source of record: Google Patents legal-events feed for US10429215B2; cross-checked against USPTO Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search endpoints.

Sourcing caveat up front: The Google Patents legal-events feed for this patent exposes one and only one recorded assignment (Reel 035358/0860). I could not retrieve, from the live sources available to me, the correspondent of record on that entry, nor any second or later reel/frame. Everything below is confined to what the record actually shows; where I could not verify, I say so rather than fill the gap.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• All three inventors are the sole assignors, and all three executed the assignment on the same date (2015-03-11) — a routine employer-take assignment, not a partial/staggered transfer.
• The naming convention and the assignee (Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., Auburn Hills, MI) are consistent with Continental's Mexican engineering footprint (Guadalajara / Querétaro / Ciudad Juárez), but I have no direct evidence of the inventors' specific employer entity and will not assert it.
• No departure pattern is determinable. The record contains no inventor-side assignments, no subsequent transfers, and no litigation naming them, so the "all inventors exit within 12 months → fire-sale precursor" tell cannot be evaluated. That is a data gap, not a negative finding.
• None of the three inventors appears among the heavily-repeat inventors on Continental's Auburn Hills filings (Deniau, Farrell, Chiou, McIntyre, etc.), consistent with a single-filing engineering-team contribution rather than a portfolio-building program.

Original assignee

Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., 1 Continental Drive, Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326 — a U.S. subsidiary of Continental AG (Hanover, Germany), Tier-1 automotive electronics supplier.

• Shipped a product embodying the claims? The claimed subject matter (instrument-cluster viewing area with selectively projected LED/laser beam patterns forming characters) is squarely in Continental's instrument-cluster and display product line, and the patent's own FIG. 1 depicts a speedometer/tachometer application. However, I found no evidence of a specific commercial product marketed under or marked with this patent — so "ships an embodiment" is plausible but unproven. Treat as unconfirmed.
• Primary line of business: automotive electronics — instrument clusters, displays, sensors, braking and body systems, infotainment.
• Current status: Operating. Continental's Automotive group sector was spun off as an independent, Frankfurt-listed company on 2025-09-18 under the brand AUMOVIO (AUMOVIO SE; ~€3.5–3.7B debut market cap; ~86,000 employees). The U.S. operating entity is AUMOVIO Systems, Inc., 1 Continental Drive, Auburn Hills, MI — the direct successor to the Continental Automotive Systems U.S. business. Continental AG is not in bankruptcy; it is not a Kodak/Nortel-style fire-sale originator.

Assignment timeline

2015-03-11 (executed) / recorded 2015-04-08 — Reel 035358 / 0860

• Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
• Assignor(s): Bravo Solis, Maria Nohemi; Hernandez-Diaz, Manuel; Ruiz Larios, Carlos Ivan (all three, jointly)
• Assignee: Continental Automotive Systems, Inc. (Michigan)
• Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources I could access. The Google Patents legal-events entry records the reel/frame, the parties, and the effective date, but does not expose the recording correspondent. This is a genuine gap, not a "no correspondent" finding. Because there is only one recorded transfer in the entire chain, the "repeat correspondent" tell is un-evaluable here regardless.
• Context: Original employer-take assignment (inventors → company). Routine; this is the foundational link, not an acquisition, reorg or securitization.

No further recorded assignments exist in the chain. No transfer to any IP-holding vehicle, LLC, licensing entity, or aggregator. No security agreement, merger, release, or correction recorded.

Important nuance on "Aumovio Systems Inc" as current assignee. Google Patents now displays Aumovio Systems Inc as the current assignee. In the legal-events feed this appears as a consequences of Continental's 2025 spin-off/rebranding of the Automotive group sector — it is not accompanied by a distinct recorded assignment reel/frame in the feed I retrieved. I therefore cannot state with confidence whether a separate USPTO Change of Name or Assignment record was filed to reflect the Aumovio entity, or whether this is an algorithmic successor-name mapping. This should be verified in the Assignment Center's "Assignment Abstract of Title" for App. 14/502,227 before being relied on as a conveyance. It is not, on its face, an NPE signal either way — the chain would terminate at an operating supplier under either reading.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10429215
    2014 : Filed by Continental Automotive Systems
    2015 : Inventors assign to Continental
    2019 : Patent issued as US 10429215
    2023 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid
    2025 : Automotive unit spun off as Aumovio

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Additional neutral facts of record: Patent is Active, with the 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2023-03-23 (large entity, M1551). Prosecution history shows one Non-Final Action (2018-11-05), a response (2019-04-18), and allowance (2019-06-05) — an ordinary prosecution, no reissue/reexam or PTAB activity found. Zero forward citations from unrelated asserting entities were surfaced.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records beyond the original assignment).

The entire recorded chain is a single employer-take assignment: the three named inventors to Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., executed 2015-03-11 and recorded 2015-04-08 at Reel 035358/0860. There is no post-issuance transfer, no shell vehicle, no asserter, and no litigation; the patent simply remained inside Continental's corporate perimeter and now sits within the spun-off Aumovio operating business after the 2025-09-18 Frankfurt listing. On the record I could retrieve, no NPE signal is present, and I am expressly not treating the "Aumovio Systems Inc" current-assignee label as a recorded conveyance, since it is not evidenced by a distinct reel/frame in the legal-events feed and should be confirmed in the Assignment Center before reliance.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Patent Assignment Search (search App. 14/502,227 or Patent 10429215): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10429215B2/en

Open verification items (I could not close these):

1. The correspondent of record on Reel 035358/0860.
2. Whether a separate Change of Name or successor Assignment record (Continental Automotive Systems → Aumovio Systems) exists post-2025, and its reel/frame.

I'll verify the patent and research the cited references to build an accurate prior-art analysis.

Let me research the remaining cited references for accurate descriptions.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,429,215 B2

Patent under analysis: US 10,429,215 B2, "LED beam display for interior automotive applications"; App. No. 14/502,227; filed 2014‑09‑30; granted 2019‑10‑01; assignee Continental Automotive Systems / Aumovio Systems Inc.

Scope note & method caveat: You asked me to search USPTO for "10429215" and analyze each cited reference. I confirmed the patent text (Google Patents rendering of the USPTO record, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10429215B2](/patent/US10429215B2)/en) and researched the cited references via web search. I was cut off before finishing every full-text pull, so for several references my description is drawn from the title, abstract, and representative passages returned in search — not from a line-by-line read of each reference's complete specification. I flag confidence for each entry. I did not find any prior art in the reference set that is dated after the 2014‑09‑30 filing (i.e., none of the 16 are non-qualifying), and I did not auto-correct any identifier.

§102 framework: Because the effective filing date is 2014‑09‑30 (after the AIA's 2013‑03‑16 changeover), AIA 35 U.S.C. §102 governs. The relevant prior-art categories are:

• §102(a)(1): a U.S. patent, printed publication, or public use/on-sale before 2014‑09‑30.
• §102(a)(2): a U.S. patent or U.S. application publication naming another inventor and effectively filed before 2014‑09‑30.
• §102(b)(1)–(2) grace-period exceptions do not apply here (no apparent inventor-originated prior disclosure).

Anticipation standard: For §102 a single reference must disclose every limitation of the claim. Claim 1 elements are: (A) a non-glossy reflective surface having a viewing area; (B) a plurality of light emitting lasers; (C) each emitting visible light onto the viewing area in a corresponding predetermined direction across the surface; (D) each selectively projecting a light beam pattern onto the viewing area so as to be visible; and (E) the shape of the beam pattern is a portion of a number. Note the internal drafting defect flagged earlier: the body recites "lasers" but the final wherein-clause refers to "the light emitting diodes."

Master table of the 16 examiner/third-party citations

Not prior art: CN 114352974 B (Zhejiang Zhimada Intelligent Technology) appears only as a later, forward citation of this family — it post-dates the patent and cannot be §102 art against it.

Detailed §102 roll-up by claim

Claim 1 (independent). No single one of the 16 references, as I can assess from abstracts/excerpts, appears to disclose all of elements (A)–(E). The two limiting features that defeat a clean §102 anticipation across the set are:

1. "light emitting lasers" (element B). Every substantive reference here describes LEDs / solid-state light sources, not lasers. (The specification itself conflates the two — "it is within the scope of this invention for the LEDs to be a laser" — which creates an internal inconsistency and a potential §112(b) issue; see the earlier summary.) This conflation makes the "laser" limitation a genuine §102 gap unless one argues an LED reads on a "laser," which is a factual dispute.
2. "a portion of a number" (element E). The references that hit (E) — CN 101950517 A (8-segment numerals) and CN 1598901 A (projection digital display) — do not disclose the non-glossy reflective side-projection architecture; conversely, the references that hit the architecture (US 9,022,606 B2; US 2011/0156588 A1; US 5,949,346 A) do not disclose building numerals from beam-pattern portions.

Accordingly, the cited art reads far more naturally as §103 obviousness combinations than as §102 anticipation. The closest single reference is US 9,022,606 B2 (element-for-element the best structural match for A–D), with CN 101950517 A supplying (E).

Claims 2–5 (dependent).

• Claim 2 (planar surface): US 9,022,606 B2 (flat top side), US 5,949,346 A and US 2011/0156588 A1 (planar panels) each show a substantially planar illuminated surface — potentially relevant if combined with an anticipating base reference.
• Claim 3 (black surface): No cited reference clearly discloses a black non-glossy viewing surface; the closest is the diffuse/white reflecting surface of US 9,022,606 B2 (which is diffusely reflecting, but not stated black) and the dark/masking layers of US 2014/0036472 A1. This dependent claim appears not anticipated by any single cited reference.
• Claim 4 (speedometer, ≥2 characters): US 5,949,346 A (vehicle LED indicator), US 2010/0064962 A1 (cluster telltales), US 2009/0219730 A1 and US 7,750,821 B1 (cluster displays) establish vehicle-cluster character/icon display, but none show the claimed side-projected laser beam that is "a portion of a number."
• Claim 5 (radio/clock, ≥2 characters): No cited reference squarely discloses a radio/clock application; weakest-mapped dependent claim.

Most relevant prior art (ranked)

1. US 9,022,606 B2 — Osram Sylvania "Virtual surface indirect radiating luminaire" — the single most structurally relevant reference: side-mounted solid-state sources directing light across a cavity onto a non-glossy (diffusely reflecting) surface, with the reflected light visible through a viewing window and color blended from multi-wavelength clusters. Best §102(a)(2) candidate for elements A–D.
2. US 2011/0156588 A1 — Brant (Vehicle lighting display system) — describes side-mounted LEDs indirectly producing a viewable illuminated pattern on a faceplate with user-selectable/mixed colors in a vehicle — strong for elements B–D and the color-change concept.
3. CN 101950517 A (8-segment LED display) and CN 1598901 A (projection digital display) — best support for element (E) "portion of a number."
4. US 5,949,346 A — Toyoda Gosei "Light-driven display device" — likely the examiner's primary reference; LED light redirected off a reflection surface to a viewer in a vehicle indicator. Best §102(a)(1) primary-reference candidate when combined with a numerals teaching.
5. US 2007/0274102 A1 (GM HUD) — projected, viewable image onto a reflective surface in a vehicle (elements A/D context, but specular/glossy, so arguably outside the "non-glossy" limitation).

Bottom line

• All 16 cited references qualify as prior art under AIA §102(a)(1) (and US 9,022,606 B2 additionally/alternatively under §102(a)(2)); none post-dates the 2014‑09‑30 filing except via US 9,022,606 B2's later grant date, which is cured by its 2012 effective filing date/2014 publication.
• No single cited reference appears, on its face, to anticipate all limitations of claim 1, chiefly because of the "light emitting lasers" limitation and the specific non-glossy reflective-surface + side-projection + "portion of a number" combination. The set is best characterized as §103 obviousness art, not §102 anticipation art.
• The strongest §102 candidate is US 9,022,606 B2 for claim 1's structural elements, supplemented by a segment/projection-numeral reference (CN 101950517 A / CN 1598901 A) for element (E). Independent claim 3 (black surface) is the least anticipated.

Caveats / recommended verification: (1) My descriptions of the two Chinese references and several U.S. publications rely on titles/abstracts — pull full texts (and certified translations for the CN documents) before relying on any §102 conclusion. (2) Confirm the "laser" limitation's scope against the prosecution history (non-final office action 2018‑11‑05; response 2019‑04‑18; allowance 2019‑06‑05) — it is plausible the "light emitting lasers" wording was introduced to distinguish the all-LED cited art, but I have not verified the amendment history, so treat that as an inference, not a finding. (3) I could not complete a line-by-line read of every reference within the search budget; anything above marked low/medium confidence should be re-checked against the reference's own disclosure.

I'll research the key prior-art references from the patent's citation list to ground an obviousness analysis.

Let me research the remaining key references in parallel.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,429,215 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note: This is a technical/analytical assessment of validity risk, not a legal opinion. All claim language and reference metadata are taken from the patent's own text (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-24) and from the "Prior Art" / "Citations (16)" section of that page, supplemented by live retrieval of the references themselves. Where I could not retrieve a reference's full text, I say so explicitly rather than assume.

I build on the previously generated sections and adopt their claim construction observations — in particular, (a) the "portion of a number" limitation is the narrowest structural hook, and (b) claim 1 contains an internal antecedent-basis defect ("light emitting lasers" in the body vs. "the light emitting diodes" in the final wherein-clause). I found no contradiction between the prior sections and the authoritative full text.

1. Legal framework applied

• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of claims; differences from prior art; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination is obvious where prior-art elements work according to known methods to yield predictable results; where a technique improves one device and a POSITA would recognize it would improve similar devices the same way; and where there is a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions."
• In re Keller / In re Merck: a combination is not rendered non-obvious merely because the references are drawn from different secondary fields, so long as they are reasonably pertinent to the problem.
• Non-analogous art defense: I therefore weight in-field references (vehicle instrument cluster / dial plate) more heavily below.

Level of ordinary skill (proposed): a bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical, or optical engineering (or equivalent), plus ~2–5 years' experience designing LED illumination or display systems for automotive instrument clusters, and familiarity with 7-/8-segment digit generation, LED drive/color control, and reflective/indirect optical surfaces.

Claim construction touchstones:

2. Element-by-element mapping of independent claim 1

Claim 1 requires four things: (A) a vehicle instrument cluster; (B) a non-glossy reflective surface with a viewing area; (C) a plurality of light emitters, each emitting visible light onto the viewing area in a corresponding predetermined direction across the surface, each selectively projecting a beam pattern visible on the viewing area; and (D) the shape of the beam pattern is a portion of a number.

Gap analysis — what no single reference squarely shows: a vehicle instrument cluster that projects segment-level beam patterns onto a non-glossy reflective viewing surface. That gap is exactly what a § 103 combination closes.

3. The combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination 1 (strongest — all in-field or closely analogous)

US 5,949,346 (Toyoda Gosei) + US 7,750,821 (Yazaki) + CN 101,950,517 (Hebei Polytechnic, 8-segment display) + US 2014/0036472 (Yazaki dial plate)

1. Toyoda Gosei supplies the vehicle instrument cluster with LEDs and a reflective display housing (element A, and the "light projecting across a surface toward a viewer" concept).
2. CN 101,950,517 supplies the digit-as-segments concept — teaching that a numeric character is composed of individually energizable portions, which is precisely "a portion of a number" (element D).
3. Yazaki '472 supplies the non-glossy viewing surface — a vehicle-dial substrate with a hairline/matte-treated surface that diffuses external light to prevent glaring. This is exactly a "non-glossy" surface in a vehicle instrument cluster, which defeats any non-analogous-art argument.
4. Yazaki '821 supplies selective illumination and multi-color control of arrays of LEDs in an instrument panel without filters.

Motivation: (i) all four are in the same field of endeavor — automotive instrumentation and its illumination; (ii) the common, articulated problem in the art was eliminating filters while achieving color variation and blending (spec Background; Yazaki '821: "it would be desirable to provide an economical graphical message center … in one or more colors"); (iii) replacing a transmitted-segment display with a reflective/indirect one was a known design choice aimed at reducing glare and component count; (iv) a POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success because each element is a routine, predictable optical/electrical building block.

Combination 2 (indirect-reflection-focused)

US 9,022,606 B2 (Osram) + CN 101,950,517 + US 7,750,821

Osram's "virtual surface indirect radiating luminaire" is the closest single reference to the core optical architecture of claim 1: light sources are not directly viewed; instead they beam onto a diffusely reflecting (non-glossy) top surface, and the reflected light forms the viewed image through a window. Osram also discloses clusters of first- and second-wavelength LEDs producing distinct/blended color — corroborating the color-changeability objective. Substituting a vehicle dial plate for the luminaire housing top side, and driving each source to draw a segment of a digit (CN '517), is a predictable recombination.

Motivation: Osram itself frames the invention around uniform, glare-free, dark-stripe-free illumination. Glare control is a recognized problem in automotive interiors, so a POSITA would look to an indirect "virtual surface" architecture when designing a cluster display. § 103's "predictable results" prong is satisfied.

Counter-argument to anticipate: Osram is a general-illumination luminaire, arguably a different field. This is why Combination 1 (Yazaki '472 as the non-glossy surface) is the more robust pleading: it stays inside the instrument-cluster field.

Combination 3 (perimeter-emitter arrangement, addresses "predetermined direction across the surface")

US 2013/0241886 A1 (Neonode) + US 5,949,346 + CN 101,950,517 + Yazaki '472/'821

Neonode teaches plural LEDs arrayed at the perimeter of a display, each directing light beams across the surface in a defined direction to illuminate a region of the screen — structurally analogous to the patent's LEDs arranged along the long sides 24, 24′. This reference is directly on point for element (C)'s "corresponding predetermined direction across the … surface."

Combination 4 (substitution of laser for LED — addresses "light emitting lasers")

US 6,224,216 B1 (InFocus, "System and method employing LED light sources for a projection display") + any of the above

Claim 1 recites "light emitting lasers," yet the specification equates LEDs with "a laser or laser beam outputs from a single laser." Laser and LED projection sources were well-known substitutes in projection displays by 2014. Under KSR, substituting a known light source (laser diode) for another known light source (LED) to obtain the same predictable beam-projection function is obvious. However, patentee may argue "lasers" is a meaningful structural limitation; the more likely outcome is that the intrinsic-record inconsistency makes the limitation weak or indefinite rather than a saving grace.

4. Dependent claims

None of the dependent claims introduces an unexpected structural or functional difference; each is a design-parameter or field-of-use variation entitled to little patentable weight. In re Applied Materials, 692 F.3d 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (design choice); KSR (predictable uses).

5. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

On the face of the record, there is no evidence of:

• Unexpected results — the claimed reflection geometry behaves as predicted from the cited optics references.
• Teaching away — nothing in Toyoda Gosei, Osram, Yazaki, or Neonode disparages projecting segment-level beams onto a non-glossy reflective surface; Osram affirmatively praises indirect, glare-free reflection.
• Commercial success / long-felt need / industry praise — no nexus evidence appears in the patent or in the prosecution history summary (single non-final action 2018-11-05; response 2019-04-18; allowance 2019-06-05). Absent a demonstrated nexus, such evidence would not rebut obviousness anyway (In re GPAC).
• Licensing/assertion activity — the prior sections found no litigation, consistent with a defensive portfolio asset rather than a commercially prized, validating invention.

6. Overall strength assessment (analyst opinion)

Key vulnerabilities that help a challenger:

1. The "portion of a number" limitation is narrow but well-trodden — 8-segment/LED segment displays are the canonical prior art for "a portion of a number."
2. The "non-glossy" limitation is expressly described as optional in the specification (glossy/white alternative), weakening any argument that it is a critical, non-obvious feature.
3. The "lasers" vs. "diodes" inconsistency in claim 1 creates § 112(b) exposure and undermines the argument that the emitter type is a distinguishing limitation.
4. The prior sections confirm the patent issued after a single office action with no post-grant adversarial testing, so the examiner's allowance is not a strong signal of non-obviousness against a newly curated combination (particularly one pairing references the examiner cited but did not combine, e.g., Osram '606 with the Hebei Polytechnic segment-display references).

Key defenses the patentee retains:

1. A non-analogous-art argument against Osram '606 (lighting fixture vs. instrument cluster) — partly blunted by pairing it with Yazaki '472, which is a vehicle dial plate.
2. Arguing that no reference teaches beam patterns (not backlighting) that are individually shaped as digit segments and viewed as a reflection — a combination-only showing that requires a clean motivation articulation.
3. Arguing the "lasers" recitation requires coherent/monochromatic projected beams, which the cited LED references do not squarely disclose.

7. Bottom line

US 10,429,215 B2's independent claim 1 is vulnerable to a § 103 challenge built from the patent's own cited art. The most defensible combination is US 5,949,346 (Toyoda Gosei) as the vehicle-cluster base, CN 101,950,517 (8-segment display) for "a portion of a number," US 2014/0036472 (Yazaki dial plate) for the non-glossy reflective viewing surface, and US 7,750,821 (Yazaki) for selective, filter-free multi-color LED control — with US 9,022,606 (Osram "virtual surface") as the closest single reference to the reflective architecture and US 6,224,216 (InFocus) addressing the "laser" emitter language. The motivation is supplied by the shared field (automotive instrumentation illumination), the art's own articulated goals (glare reduction, removing color filters, color blending), and the predictable, finite nature of the design choices. The dependent claims add only planar/black/location-of-use variations that carry little patentable weight.

Caveats: (1) I could not retrieve the full text of every cited reference (e.g., CN 1598901, CN 101950517, US 2006/0202993, US 2010/0064962, US 2011/0156588, US 2011/0044021, US 2011/0032214, US 2007/0274102, US 2009/0219730, US 6,671,008), so element-by-element mappings for those rely on their titles/metadata and should be confirmed against the full documents before any formal use. (2) A definitive invalidity position also requires the full prosecution history (the 2018 non-final rejection's art and the applicant's arguments) and any commonly-owned family members, which are not in the supplied record. (3) This is analytical input, not a legal conclusion.