US 10739200

I'll search for this specific patent number in litigation and docket sources.

Let me run a few more targeted docket searches to confirm whether any litigation or appeal exists.

I ran the docket/litigation searches first, then compiled the bibliographic summary. Note on method: I do not have direct credentialed access to USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system; I searched the open web (which surfaces Google Patents' litigation/PTAB panels and mirrors of court filings). Results below.

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1. Identification

Literal-reading flag (do not auto-correct): the granted title reads "Paint switch test device and method." Its own specification, abstract, and family members (US 8,646,326 B2; WO 2012/018660 A2; US 2014/0113256 A1) all read "paint swatch test device and method." I am reporting the title exactly as it appears; the "switch" spelling in the title field appears to be a typographical error carried in the printed patent, but I am not substituting "swatch."

2. Abstract (verbatim substance)

A paint swatch test device includes a transparent or translucent substrate, such as a sheet of polymeric material, and a plurality of different primer coating patches on the substrate. The patches preferably form a grayscale series of neutral white and gray primer patches with stepwise increments in light reflectance values, and may also be on an opaque substrate. Color suitability and/or hiding power of a topcoat paint for a surface can be determined by coating the topcoat on at least part of the transparent/translucent substrate, providing a grayscale patch series between the paint coating and the surface to be painted, and observing the appearance where patches are beneath the coating and where they are not.

3. Independent claims — plain language

The patent has 21 claims and exactly one independent claim: claim 1. Claims 2–21 are all dependent (2–17 and 21 depend from claim 1; 19 and 20 depend from claim 18, which depends from claim 1).

Claim 1 — summarized in plain language: It claims a combination of two things:

1. A wall, having a surface color; and
2. A transparent or translucent sheet placed adjacent that wall surface, where the sheet carries a paint coating of one or more coats applied by brush or paint roller, and the paint coating is a different color than the wall.

Additional elements/limitations:

• A plurality of different primer coating patches located between the wall and the paint coating, the patches being selected from the group consisting of white and gray primer coatings;
• The sheet provides insufficient opacity to block the wall's surface color, so at least some of the wall color bleeds through at least some of the sheet; and
• The primer patches must be effective to let an observer located adjacent to the wall visualize the paint coating's color both (1) over each primer patch, and (2) over the bare wall surface color (i.e., where no patch intervenes).

Practical reading: the claim protects the real-world end-use configuration — a test film brushed/rolled with the user's actual paint, stuck on a wall of a different color, with a white/gray grayscale primer strip interposed, so the user can see the paint's color and hiding power both over primer and over the existing wall color showing through the clear film. Note the claim is drafted as an apparatus/combination requiring the wall itself and requiring the applied paint coating, rather than claiming the bare test device; that is a meaningful scope choice (the device per se is the subject of the earlier family member, US 8,646,326).

Dependent claim highlights:

• Sheet of polymeric material (2); colorless/substantially colorless (3); transparent (4)
• Patch coverage ≥80% of a front/back surface (5); ≤50% (6); ≤25% (7)
• Layer of releasable, repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive (8)
• Patches substantially neutral white and substantially neutral gray (9)
• Patches printed or coated on the sheet (10, 14); or fixed on a second sheet adjacent the transparent/translucent sheet (11, 12)
• Sheet located between wall and paint coating (15)
• Flexible PVC sheet (16); PET sheet (17)
• Sheet has a first surface with a frosty or translucent appearance, paint coating on that surface (18); surface is very finely textured to promote wetting and adhesion (20)
• Claim 19 (the narrowest, combining many features): single brush-applied coat; patches ≤25% coverage; sheet fixed to wall by releasable repositionable PSA; sheet between wall and coating; patches fixed on a second sheet between the wall and the transparent/translucent sheet
• Paint coating is a single paint coat (21)

4. Family, prosecution, and prior art

• Family: continuation of US 14/143,653 (abandoned, pub. US 2014/0113256 A1), which was a continuation of US 13/191,812 → US 8,646,326 B2 ("Paint swatch test device and method," Patented 2014-02-11, now expired — fee related). International counterpart WO 2012/018660 A2/A3 (PCT/US2011/045605) — ceased/not active.
• Examined/considered references of note: US 4,546,007 (Abe, multi-layer coating based on spectral reflectance of white or gray colors) and US 5,700,515 (DuPont, optimizing gray primer in multilayer coatings) — both cited in the specification as background; US 5,217,744 and US 5,217,377 (Little Jr., paint color testing method/kit); US 7,014,466 (Sherwin-Williams, primer selection for architectural coatings); US 4,459,518-/US 4,379,696-family and US 6,416,612 (Color Communications swatch products); US 2009/0017425 A1 (Colwell, repositionable color chips); US 2009/0210182 A1 (Orica, opacity optimisation for topcoat/undercoat combination).
• Prosecution: non-final action mailed 2019-11-18; notice of allowance mailed 2020-05-11; issue fee paid 2020-07-02; granted 2020-08-11. No post-grant proceedings surfaced in the data.
• Citing documents (later art of interest): US 8,597,752 B1 (Hersh, repositionable self-stick paint swatch); US 10,124,623 B2 (Harris Research, flexible translucent color matching apparatus); WO 2015/120212 A1 (3M); US 2014/0127646 A1 (Valspar color selector); EP 3,921,376 A1 (PPG, peelable swatches); US 11,887,509 B2 (Kaplan, color comparison method).

5. Litigation / CAFC search results

• No district-court litigation, no IPR/PGR, and no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal or 2026 CAFC docket entry referencing US 10,739,200 was found in my searches. I also found no CAFC appeal for related US 8,646,326.
• Confidence: moderate. I could not directly query Docket Navigator, PACER, or the CAFC docket feed; my searches covered open-web sources only, and I hit a search-step limit before exhausting additional queries (e.g., CourtListener/Justia docket sweeps, PTAB API, and True Hue as plaintiff). Absence of results here is therefore consistent with, but not proof of, there being no such proceeding. Treat "no litigation found" as provisional.
• Important identifier caution: searching "10739200" returns EP application No. 10739200.3 (granted as EP 2,393,538 B1, "Devices for cleaning endotracheal tubes," Endoclear LLC, inventors Vazales et al., lapsed for non-payment of year-12 renewal fee). That is an unrelated European application number, not US Patent 10,739,200, and must not be conflated with it. Likewise, "US 10,739,200" and "US 15/804,328" are distinct identifiers from the parent's "US 13/191,812 / US 8,646,326."

6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Inventor/assignee data above is from the patent's own front page (Google Patents mirror); I did not independently verify current recorded ownership in USPTO Assignment records, so a later assignment may exist.
2. "Adjusted expiration 2032-03-27" is Google Patents' computed estimate including any terminal disclaimer/PTA; I have not verified the PTA figure against the face of the printed patent. Treat as an estimate.
3. The number of independent claims (one) and the dependency structure are read from the claim set as published; confirm against the official USPTO copy if this matters for an infringement/invalidity analysis.
4. Title spelling "switch" is reported literally; I have not confirmed whether a Certificate of Correction changed it.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10739200 across patent litigation sources.

The initial searches returned irrelevant results. Let me search patent litigation databases directly.

Those are patent citations, not litigation. Let me search litigation-specific databases.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 10,739,200

No litigation, PTAB proceeding, ITC investigation, or CAFC appeal involving U.S. Patent No. 10,739,200 was found.

I searched for this specific patent number and related party names (True Hue LLC; inventors Jamie B. Peltz and Robert F. Golownia) across general web indexes, Google Patents' litigation-related data, PTAB-related document repositories (ptacts.uspto.gov / Docket Alarm), and Unified Patents portal content that surfaced in results. Nothing matched the '200 patent as an asserted patent.

What I did NOT find

I will not fabricate a case caption, docket number, or filing date, since none appeared in the returned data. Any case number I invented would be false, and you instructed me to interpret identifiers literally rather than assuming them.

Important caveats about the scope of this search

1. Search tool limitations. My retrieval steps were capped before I could exhaustively query the Unified Patents litigation case-list URL you provided, PACER directly, or paid dockets (LexisNexis, Docket Navigator). So this is a "not found," not a certified "none exists."

2. Distinguish the patent family. The '200 patent (app. 15/804,328, filed 2017-11-06, granted 2020-08-11, priority 2010-08-04) is a continuation in the same family as:

   • US 8,646,326 B2 (app. 13/191,812) — status: Expired-Fee Related
   • US 2014/0113256 A1 (app. 14/143,653) — status: Abandoned
   • WO 2012/018660 A2/A3

   If you are checking for a broader assertion campaign, you should also search US 8,646,326 and WO 2012/018660. A suit asserting only the parent would not appear under the '200 number.

3. Number-format traps. The Google Patents family table itself mislabels the '200 patent's title as "Paint switch test device and method" (vs. "swatch"). Databases keyed on that typo, or on the WO/EP family members, could return hits under a different title string. I did not treat "paint switch" as authoritative.

4. No third-party assertions of similar numbers. My search for "10739200" returned unrelated content (e.g., Caltech v. Broadcom/Apple, case 2:16-cv-03714, which concerns U.S. 7,916,781 and 7,421,032 — a different patent entirely). I excluded those per your instruction not to return similar-number results.

Suggested next steps for a definitive answer

• Query portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation filtered by patent number 10,739,200 (the URL you gave renders case lists; a direct filtered lookup is needed).
• Run PACER Docket Search (Civil) on "10,739,200" and on assignee "True Hue."
• Check USPTO Patent Center → "Litigation" / "Foreign Priority" tabs and the patent's Assignment history for any change of ownership that might post-date the data I retrieved (the record shows True Hue LLC, small entity, 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2024-02-12, adjusted expiration 2032-03-27).
• Search US 8,646,326 separately, as noted above.

Bottom line: Based on the sources reached, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,739,200. I flag this as a negative finding subject to the coverage limits above, not as confirmation that no case exists.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" finding with targeted web searches before finalizing.

Searches returned unrelated matters. Let me run a couple of final targeted checks.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 10,739,200 B2

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (zero). Breakdown: active — none; claims invalidated — none; claims sustained — none; settled — none; institution denied — none.

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest) returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 10,739,200, and my independent open-web verification searches (2026-09-29) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming this patent or its owner, True Hue LLC. There is no per-proceeding analysis to write — there is nothing to report, and I will not manufacture a proceeding number, panel, or disposition to fill the template.

Defensive posture: the patent is completely untested at the PTAB. It is not "hardened" — hardness is a function of having survived adversarial review, and this patent has never been through any. The correct read is the opposite of hardened: every claim, including claim 1, is unadjudicated and fully exposed. No prior petitioner has taken the art-development cost on, so the field is clear for a first petitioner, and no § 315(e)(2)/§ 325(e)(2) estoppel constrains anyone.

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Why the count is zero (evidentiary basis for the negative finding)

Family cross-check: I also looked for PTAB activity on the parent US 8,646,326 B2 (app. 13/191,812) and the international counterpart WO 2012/018660 A2/A3 — none found. So there is no risk that a proceeding "rolled up under the parent number" and was missed.

Caveats on coverage (do not read this as certified absolute)

1. My web-search budget was exhausted; I did not query the PTAB E2E docket UI, the PTAB API, or CourtListener's docket search directly. "Not found" ≠ "does not exist" — treat as a strong, verified-across-two-sources negative finding, not a certified null.
2. The structured ODP block is the canonical source per the task setup, and it is unambiguous. That is the basis on which I state the count as zero.
3. Search-string trap (cross-reference to the earlier bibliographic section): the granted title reads "Paint switch test device and method" while the specification, abstract, and all family members read "swatch." A docket search keyed only to the word "swatch" can miss entries recorded under the printed "switch" title. This is a live risk for a search string, not a license to assume a proceeding exists. I did not find a proceeding under either spelling.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — all 21 claims are UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,739,200 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. Claim 1 — the sole independent claim, drafted as a combination that affirmatively requires the wall itself plus a brush- or roller-applied paint coating of a different color — remains in its as-granted form. Claims 2–17 and 21 depend from claim 1; claims 19 and 20 depend from claim 18, which depends from claim 1. If you are a defendant, nothing about this patent has been nullified for you by anyone else. You do not inherit a dead claim; you inherit a fully live claim set and the choice of whether to attack it.

Estoppel landscape — clean, both ways. Because no petitioner has filed, no § 315(e)(2) / § 325(e)(2) estoppel exists against anyone. Any prior-art ground that is reasonably available today — § 102 or § 103 over the references cited on the face of the patent, over art of record in the parent's file history, or over art never considered by the examiner — remains available to a first petitioner. The correlative is that the patent owner also has no adverse PTAB record to defend against; if you file, you are creating the first validity record on this patent, and a loss hands the owner a confirmed claim set plus a favorable estoppel ruling to quote in the district court.

Timing gates. The patent issued 2020-08-11.

• PGR: the 9-month post-grant window closed 2021-05-11. Separately, PGR eligibility turns on whether the patent is an AIA first-inventor-to-file patent — relevant here because this is a continuation chain running back to a 2010-08-04 priority date (US 61/370,644) and a parent filed 2011-07-27, all pre-dating the 2013-03-16 AIA transition. If all claims are supported by that chain, the patent may be a pre-AIA patent, which would independently foreclose PGR. PGR is not an available vehicle regardless of which reason applies.
• CBM: the transitional CBM program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16; CBM is not available.
• IPR: available under 35 U.S.C. § 311(c) at any time, subject only to the § 315(b) one-year bar if your client has been served with a complaint alleging infringement (and the § 315(a) bar if you filed a DJ first). IPR is your only AIA-trial vehicle.
• Expiry: Google Patents estimates adjusted expiration at 2032-03-27 (PTA-inclusive estimate; not independently verified against the printed face — cross-reference the flagged uncertainty in the bibliographic section). There is meaningful remaining life, so an IPR is not a moot exercise on timing grounds alone.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, no serial filings, no PTAB appeal activity, and no defensive aggregator in the chain — I found no Unified Patents or similar filing. Combined with the prior litigation finding (no district-court suit, no ITC investigation, no CAFC appeal located for either the '200 patent or the parent '326 patent), the picture is a consistently non-asserted patent, not a hardened one. The absence of IPRs is therefore uninformative about claim strength: well-asserted patents attract IPRs, and this patent has not been asserted in the sources reached. Do not infer from the clean PTAB record that the claims are strong; infer only that no one has yet paid to find out.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant considering an IPR:

• There is no FWD to link to and no prior disposition to quote — the PTAB docket for US 10,739,200 is empty. Any representation by opposing counsel that this patent "has been validated by the PTAB" is false; it has never been before the PTAB.
• Because no estoppel attaches, the full universe of art is open, including art cited during prosecution of the abandoned intermediate application US 14/143,653 and the parent US 13/191,812. Pull both file histories before scoping the petition.
• Confirm the effective filing date question (pre-AIA vs. AIA) before drafting. Claim 1's sole independent claim reaches back to 2010/2011 subject matter — if the claims are entitled to that date, pre-AIA § 102/103 and pre-AIA § 102(g) prior-invention practice apply, which changes the art-qualification analysis materially. Verify against the priority chain rather than assuming either regime.
• Note claim 1's structural oddity for both invalidity and § 112 workup: the claim recites a wall and a user-applied brushed/rolled paint coating as combination elements. That creates a non-trivial apparatus vs. product-by-use question and a potentially narrow infringement theory — worth raising in claim construction before committing to a full IPR budget.

If you are the patent owner:

• The complete absence of AIA trials and of any located litigation across a 16-year family (2010 priority → 2032 expiry) means the remaining exposure is prospective. The first IPR petition will be the first adversarial validity test this family has ever faced.

To close the residual verification gap:

• Query PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the PTAB API filtered on 10,739,200, and separately on 8,646,326, under both title spellings ("swatch" and "switch").
• Run a PACER civil docket search on "10,739,200," "8,646,326," and "True Hue," and check CourtListener for any CAFC appeal — the earlier litigation section flagged its own search-budget limit on these.

Sources: PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ | USPTO PTAB Decisions — https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions | CAFC — https://cafc.uscourts.gov | CourtListener — https://www.courtlistener.com | Patent — https://patents.google.com/patent/US10739200/en | Parent — https://patents.google.com/patent/US8646326/en

I'll research the assignment chain for US 10,739,200 across USPTO assignment records and related sources.

Important scope note before the findings

I was unable to retrieve the USPTO Patent Assignment Center reel/frame records in this session. The searches I could run surfaced patent citations and family data, not the assignment abstracts (reel/frame, execution date, recording date, correspondent). The one nominally matching "10739200" hit was EP application 10739200.3 → EP 2,393,538 B1, "Devices for cleaning endotracheal tubes," Endoclear LLC — an unrelated European application number that must not be conflated with US 10,739,200 (consistent with the identifier caution already flagged in the summary section).

Everything below is built from the patent face, the machine-readable legal-events panel, and family/publication records. No reel/frame, execution date, recording date, or correspondent of record is asserted, because I did not obtain them. I am not going to invent reel numbers to fill the template.

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Inventors

Pattern note — deliberately not over-read: the specification's worked example uses Glidden Gripper White Primer No. GL3210-1200 and Glidden Gripper Grey Primer No. GL3250, both "made by ICI Paints, Strongsville, Ohio 44136," and describes estimating CIELab L* values against a GretagMacbeth ColorChecker. These are materials-of-construction references for the primer patches, not evidence of the inventors' employer. I am not treating them as an employment signal — that would be exactly the kind of inference-by-naming the task prohibits.

Departure pattern: No evidence surfaced of either inventor departing an assignee within 12 months of filing, and no such inference is possible without personnel or assignment records I could not reach. Unclear.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: True Hue LLC — listed on the '200 face as both Original Assignee and Current Assignee (i.e., no change of assignee entity is reflected in the Google Patents legal-events panel).
• Same entity across the family: True Hue, LLC is the listed assignee on US 8,646,326 B2, on US 2014/0113256 A1, and on the pre-grant publication US 2012/0031540 A1. Justia also maintains a "Patents Assigned to TRUE HUE, LLC" page. This is a single-assignee family, not a re-assignment chain.
• Primary line of business / product: The patent describes a consumer paint swatch test film — clear PVC sheet (Ritrama Part No. 3-5424-10004, FRCLR VINYL 48*64 90) with release liner and repositionable adhesive. Whether True Hue LLC shipped a product embodying claim 1 is not established by the sources reached; claim 1 as granted is drafted to a combination including the wall itself and the applied paint coating, which is a consumer end-use configuration, so "product embodying the claims" would be ambiguous in any event. Mark: unclear.
• Current status: Live patent; small-entity status; 4th-year maintenance fee paid 2024-02-12; Google Patents shows an adjusted expiration of 2032-03-27. No evidence of acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy surfaced in the record reviewed.

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Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center returned no records I could verify for this patent. Stated plainly, per the task instruction: I have no recorded-assignment entries to list — no reel, no frame, no execution date, no recording date, and no correspondent of record. I will not fabricate them.

What the record does establish, and the inference it supports:

• The '200 patent was filed 2017-11-06 by True Hue LLC as a continuation of US 14/143,653 (abandoned), itself a continuation of US 13/191,812 (→ US 8,646,326 B2, expired-fee-related).
• Both the '200 patent and the '326 patent name True Hue LLC as original assignee. For a small entity to appear as original assignee on the face of an issued US patent, the USPTO must have been given an ownership basis — typically an inventor→company assignment recorded under 37 CFR 3.11, or an assignee-filed application under 37 CFR 1.46. So at least one pre-issuance inventor→True Hue LLC assignment very likely exists in the Assignment Center, but I could not retrieve its reel/frame or correspondent. Treat that as an explicit gap to be closed, not a finding.
• No post-issuance assignment to any third party (NPE, aggregator, or otherwise) appears anywhere in the material I retrieved. The legal-events panel shows only fee/status events after grant.

Because I cannot positively confirm the Assignment Center is empty, I am not invoking the "stop after this section" rule — the fallback finding (original assignee still owns it) is the most likely state, but it is unverified.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10739200
    2010 : Provisional filed by inventors
         : Priority date 2010-08-04
    2011 : Parent app filed by True Hue LLC
         : PCT filed as WO 2012/018660
    2014 : US 8646326 issued to True Hue
    2017 : Continuation filed by True Hue
         : App 15 804 328
    2020 : US 10739200 issued to True Hue
    2024 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
         : No recorded change of assignee

Event text deliberately omits commas, slashes and parentheses. Note the "2011 / parent app filed by True Hue LLC" entry reflects the assignee designation on the filing, not a reel/frame I verified.

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — with the affirmative sub-finding that no NPE signals are present.

Justification: the record shows a single-assignee family in which True Hue LLC is both the original and current assignee on the '200 patent face (and the assignee on US 8,646,326 B2 and pre-grant publication US 2012/0031540 A1), with no post-issuance conveyance to any third party, no known asserter, and no litigation or PTAB proceeding found. That is a non-NPE-shaped record — but I cannot upgrade it to "Operating-company assertion" because that verdict requires a current assignee who ships products embodying the claims and is suing actual competitors, and neither is established. The one thing blocking a clean call is my failure to retrieve any reel/frame or correspondent from the Assignment Center.

To close this out, verify directly:

• USPTO Assignment Center — search by patent number 10739200, and separately by application 15/804,328, 13/191,812, and 61/370,644 (the inventor→True Hue assignment, if recorded, is most likely attached to the 2011 parent filing).
• Assignment Search (legacy index) — same query, and search assignor name Golownia and Peltz to capture any job-related prior obligations.
• Confirm whether a Certificate of Correction ever addressed the "Paint switch test device and method" title on the face, which is the identifier trap already flagged in the summary section and could affect assignment lookups keyed on title.

Do not treat this section as a verified assignment reconstruction. No reel, frame, execution date, recording date, or correspondent is reported because none was obtained.

I'll search for the USPTO record of this patent and then work through its cited references individually.

Let me now examine the key individual references, especially the ones closest to the claimed subject matter.

Let me get details on the Little Jr. patents (closest art) and the Orica and Malone references.

I've hit the search-step limit. Here is my analysis built on the authoritative citation list contained in the patent's own text you provided, plus the targeted searches I completed.

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Prior-art analysis — US 10,739,200 B2 ("Paint switch test device and method")

0. Record confirmation and method note

The patent record I matched is the correct one and no similar-number record is used:

Method limitation (stated up front): I could not directly query USPTO PatentCenter / the Examiner's "References Cited" field, because that requires an authenticated session and my retrieval steps were capped. The citation list I analyze below is therefore taken from the patent's own front page (Google Patents mirror of US 10,739,200 B2, "Patent Citations (34)"), which I treat as authoritative over any secondary source. Where a citation's own bibliographic detail is drawn from a search hit rather than the patent's face, I say so. The publication/filing dates below are the ones listed in the patent's own citation table unless noted.

Important structural point that governs the entire § 102 analysis: every one of the 21 claims is a combination claim that includes (a) the wall, (b) a transparent/translucent sheet carrying a brushed/rolled paint coating of a different color, and (c) the wall color bleeding through the sheet. A single reference can anticipate a dependent claim only if it discloses all of claim 1's limitations, because every dependent claim incorporates them. As shown below, no reference in the citation list discloses all of these elements, so no cited reference is a clean 35 U.S.C. § 102 anticipation of any claim. The cited art is relevant under § 103 (obviousness), and I have flagged the closest references accordingly. I do not manufacture a § 102 rejection where the elements are absent.

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1. The examination / considered citations, reference by reference

A. Swatch-manufacture and color-chip art (structural, substrate-level)

B. Multi-layer coating / hiding-power art cited in the specification

C. Paint-color testing art (closest to the method of the patent)

D. Swatch-card / color-card art

E. Visualization / design-simulation art

F. Repositionable / reusable swatch art

G. Post-2010 art listed in the table (not § 102 prior art to the 2010 priority)

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2. Bottom-line § 102 conclusion

No reference in the US 10,739,200 B2 citation list anticipates any of the 21 claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The reason is structural, not a matter of degree: claim 1 is a combination requiring, simultaneously,

1. a wall with a surface color,
2. a transparent or translucent sheet adjacent that wall,
3. a paint coating on the sheet applied by brush or paint roller and of a different color than the wall, and
4. a plurality of different white/gray primer patches between the wall and the coating,
5. with the sheet providing insufficient opacity so the wall color bleeds through.

No cited reference discloses element (2)+(3)+(5) together (the transparent/translucent, brushed/rolled, bleed-through sheet on a wall). The Little Jr. references (US 5,217,744 / 5,217,377) come closest on the "different primers under applied paint" idea but use opaque testing members. The Abe and DuPont references (US 4,546,007 / 5,700,515) come closest on the white/gray primer-series-under-a-low-hiding-topcoat idea but locate it in a paint-shop multilayer coating method, not a repositionable consumer swatch over a wall. The Boney/Knicava and Malone references come closest on "sheet applied to a wall to visualize a finish," but lack the white/gray primer-patch series.

Most relevant prior art, ranked (§ 103 significance):

1. US 5,700,515 (DuPont) — a claimed group of ~5–20 gray/white primers of different lightness under a topcoat → the "plurality of different white/gray primer patches" element and claim 9.
2. US 4,546,007 (Abe) — low-hiding topcoat over white/gray/black contrast backgrounds, reflectance/show-through → the "grayscale series + hiding-power show-through" concept.
3. US 5,217,377 / US 5,217,744 (Little, Jr.) — different primers with paint applied over them, then color-compared → the "apply your paint over a primer patch and evaluate" method.
4. US 7,014,466 (Sherwin-Williams; published as US 2004/0052936 A1, 2004-03-18) — a panel of gray-shade primers of incrementally increasing reflectance with the topcoat drawn down over them for visual comparison; note the '466 spec and the '200 spec are close cousins, and '466 was examiner-cited. This is the most on-point single reference for the "series of gray primer patches with the paint overlaid, compared visually" concept and would be a lead § 103 reference.
5. US 2008/0014561 A1 / US 7,914,285 B2 (Boney/Knicava) and US 2008/0092457 A1 (Malone) — sheet/apparatus on a wall surface for visualizing finishes.

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3. Forward/other art (not § 102 prior art, listed for completeness)

The patent's "Families Citing this family (17)" list is forward art (it cites the '200 family) and includes post-2010 documents such as US 10,124,623 B2 (Harris Research, flexible translucent color matching apparatus), US 8,597,752 B1 (Hersh, repositionable self-stick paint swatch), WO 2015/120212 A1 (3M), EP 3,921,376 A1 (PPG, peelable swatches), and US 11,887,509 B2 (Kaplan). These cannot be § 102 prior art against the '200 patent's 2010 priority and should not be cited as such.

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4. Explicit uncertainties (so nothing here is over-read)

1. Source of the citation list. Taken from the patent's own front page (Google Patents mirror); the "References Cited" field in USPTO PatentCenter was not directly queried. If the official copy differs (e.g., additional examiner-cited references added during the 2019-11-18 non-final action), that list should be substituted.
2. Unread references. I retrieved descriptions, not full claim text, for US 2008/0092457 A1 (Malone), US 2009/0210182 A1 (Orica), US 2004/0067350 A1 / US 6,982,108 B2 (3M), and US 7,914,285 B2 (Boney/Knicava). These four are the ones most likely to contain a contemplated or comprising disclosure that could approach § 102; they must be read claim-by-claim before any § 102 statement is finalized. My "None" for them is provisional.
3. Citation-marker semantics. The Google Patents table marks some rows with an asterisk and defines both "* Cited by examiner" and "† Cited by third party." I could not resolve within the step budget which of the six asterisked rows (3M, Orica, Malone, Colwell, Valspar, Liberty) are examiner cites versus third-party IDS submissions. This affects only the weight you give them in a validity opinion, not the § 102 conclusion.
4. Priority-date entitlement is assumed but not adjudicated. My "post-2010, not prior art" treatment of Valspar (US 2014/0127646) and Liberty Hardware (US 2015/0090624) assumes the '200 claims are entitled to the 2010-08-04 priority for the relevant subject matter. If any claim were held not entitled to that date, these two (and the Harris Research '623 art) would become available as § 102(a)(2) prior art and would need fresh analysis.
5. No litigation found remains a provisional negative finding, as flagged in the earlier section.

I'll ground the analysis by pulling details on the key references in the patent's own prior-art citation list.

§103 Obviousness Analysis — US 10,739,200 B2

Building on the identification, claim-summary, and family/prosecution sections above. The claim text, specification, and prior-art citation lists from the patent page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10739200/en) are treated as authoritative. Where I rely on a reference's title/abstract only (because I could not retrieve its full text), I say so explicitly.

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1. Gating issue first: which prior-art statute applies, and as of what date

Before reaching any combination, two threshold determinations drive everything else. I flag these as the most likely place an invalidity case is won or lost.

1.1 Pre-AIA vs. AIA. The '200 patent issued from an application (15/804,328) filed 2017-11-06, but it is a continuation of a continuation of US 13/191,812 (filed 2011-07-27), which claims the 2010-08-04 provisional (US 61/370,644). If claim 1 is entitled to the 2010-08-04 priority date, the pre-AIA §102/§103 regime governs (effective filing date before 2013-03-16). If it is not so entitled, the AIA regime governs and a materially larger body of intervening art (2011–2017) becomes available — including publications of the patentee's own family and of third parties such as The Valspar Corporation and Harris Research.

1.2 Why the priority claim is vulnerable for claim 1 specifically. Claim 1 was drafted in a form fundamentally different from the parent. The parent ('812 / US 8,646,326) claims "A paint swatch test device comprising a transparent or translucent substrate and a plurality of different primer coating patches…" — a bare article. Claim 1 of the '200 instead recites:

"A combination comprising a wall and a transparent or translucent sheet, the wall having a surface color, the sheet being located adjacent the surface color of the wall, the sheet being provided with a paint coating, the paint coating being one or more coats of a paint applied by brush or paint roller…"

The "wall" as a claimed element and the "applied by brush or paint roller" limitation are the kinds of added limitations that invite a §112 ¶1 written-description challenge to the priority claim. The specification does describe walls ("painting project surface (wall, ceiling, floor, door, table, cabinet, fence, etc.)") and brushes/rollers ("brushes, paint rollers, paint pads, sponges, sprayers"), so I would expect the priority claim to hold — but the point is contested, not automatic. If priority is lost, the analysis below gets much easier for a challenger, because the '200's own earlier family publications (US 2012/0031540 A1 and WO 2012/018660 A2, both published 2012-02-09) and later third-party art move into the window.

I proceed below on the assumption most favorable to the patentee — that 2010-08-04 priority holds — and note where the analysis strengthens if it does not.

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2. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1 to the cited art

Observation that matters for the whole analysis: There is no single reference in the patent's own citation list that discloses all elements of claim 1. But there is also no element of claim 1 that is not squarely taught somewhere in that list. That is the classic fact pattern for a KSR combination case.

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3. Combination 1 (primary): Hersh '752 + Little '377/'744 + DuPont '515 (or Abe '007) + Colwell '425

This is the combination I would lead with.

3.1 The references

(a) US 5,217,377 / US 5,217,744 — Little Jr. (two patents, one specification; both cited on the face of the '200)

• Claim 1 of the '377 patent: "a kit for testing the color of a first paint to be applied to a painted surface having a second paint and an underlying primer thereon… said kit comprising a plurality of testing members each having thereon as the outer coating a predetermined paint primer, each of said testing members being constructed to allow a selected first paint to be applied thereto to indicate the resulting color interaction between the selected first paint and said primer thereon such that a painted testing member with the same primer as that of the painted surface can be moved to a position adjacent the painted surface to compare the colors thereof, each of said testing members having a different predetermined primer thereon corresponding to those used on different painted surfaces."
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5217377 and https://patents.google.com/patent/US5217744
• Little's stated problem: repeated spray-testing on the actual body "result[s] in a build-up of numerous layers of paint," so the paint "is first applied to one of the testing members… The painted testing member then is positioned adjacent to the painted surface."

(b) US 5,700,515 — DuPont (Rodrigues). Cited on the face of the '200, and cited by the '200's own specification as background.

• Claim 1: method of applying a primer and then "a top coating that matches the color of the painted substrate at less than complete hiding," using "a gray or white primer composition at complete hiding having a reflectance in its dried state which is essentially the same as the top coating measured at the wave length of minimum absorption."
• Claim 2: "a group of about 5-20 gray or white primer compositions each of a different lightness" from which the correct primer is chosen.
• URL: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[5700515](/patent/5700515) ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5700515A](/patent/US5700515A)/en

(c) US 4,546,007 — Abe. Cited on the face of the '200 and cited by the '200's specification.

• Claims a method of forming a multi-layer coating by applying a topcoat "at incomplete hiding" over an intercoat "selected from white or gray colors" whose spectral reflectance approximates that of the fully hiding topcoat, thereby producing a color "very similar to that of a top coat applied at complete hiding."
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4546007A](/patent/US4546007A)/en

(d) US 8,597,752 B1 — Hersh (Myra Hersh). Not cited on the face of the '200, but listed on the page as citing the '200's family.

• Title literally: "Repositionable self stick paint swatch for testing samples of paints on a wall." Priority 2010-03-02.
• ⚠️ Verification flag: I did not retrieve the '752 full text in this session; I rely on its title and its placement in the family citation list. If a challenger uses the '752 as a primary reference (and I think they should), the claim chart must be built against the actual specification.

(e) US 2009/0017425 A1 — Colwell Industries, "Repositionable Color Chips." Published 2009-01-15, more than one year before the 2010-08-04 priority → available as pre-AIA §102(b) art. Directly relevant to claim 8 (releasable/repositionable adhesive).

(f) WO 2006/089372 A1 — Orica Australia, "Opacity optimisation for paint topcoat/undercoat combination," published 2006-08-31 (the PCT parent of US 2009/0210182 A1). Publication more than one year before the 2010-08-04 priority → clean pre-AIA §102(b) art. This is the strongest date-clean teaching of the topcoat/undercoat opacity interaction principle. URL for the US counterpart: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090210182

3.2 The combination and the motivation

The combination would be: Hersh '752 (or Little '377/'744) as the primary "test swatch viewed adjacent to a wall" reference, plus DuPont '515 or Abe '007 for the graded white/gray primer series and the incomplete-hiding principle, plus Colwell '425 for the repositionable adhesive.

Motivation, in the order I would argue it:

1. Same field of endeavor. All of these references are in paint color evaluation / hiding-power assessment for architectural or refinish coatings. Little, Abe, DuPont, Orica, Colwell, and Hersh are all cited in the same classification neighborhood (US 5,217,377 is classed in 434/103–105 and 427/140–142; US 2009/0210182 in B44D 3/00 — the same IPC subclass as the '200).

2. Same problem, articulated identically. The '200's stated problem is that a user cannot predict, from a mass-produced color chip, how a low-hiding topcoat will look once it is over the user's actual wall color. Little states the identical problem in the refinish context: applied paint "adversely affect[s] the appearance" and the color does not match. Abe and DuPont both address exactly the question of what a low-hiding topcoat looks like over a substrate of a given color. There is no shift in problem.

3. The references teach that the primer shade should be selected from a series and tested. DuPont '515 claim 2 literally claims a group of about 5–20 white/gray primers each of a different lightness from which the correct one is chosen — this is the "plurality of different primer coating patches" of claim 1, and it is the "grayscale series" the '200's own specification describes (L* = 95, 80, 67, 55). A PHOSITA reading DuPont claim 2 and Little claim 1 together would arrive at a test member bearing a series of different white/gray primers, painted over with the candidate topcoat, and held adjacent the wall. That is claim 1.

4. Reasonable expectation of success — indeed a predetermined result. This is the strongest KSR argument available here and it comes from the patentee's own specification. The '200 states that Abe '007 and DuPont '515 "further teach that the most effective shade of gray chosen for the primer to be used with a specific topcoat color is determined by mathematically comparing spectral reflectance curves." A PHOSITA who is told (by Abe and DuPont) that the outcome is computable in advance cannot credibly argue that combining those teachings with an ordinary test swatch involves an unpredictable art. This is the KSR "predictable results" / "obvious to try" posture.

5. Art-recognized reason to test on the actual surface. Both Little ("moved to a position adjacent the painted surface to compare the colors thereof") and Hersh (title: "testing samples of paints on a wall") supply the reason to place the test article against the real wall rather than on a benchtop. The motivation is not merely "would be nice" — it is the stated purpose of the references themselves.

3.3 Anticipation-adjacent argument: the final "wherein" clause is a non-differentiating intended use

Claim 1's terminal clause — "wherein the presence of the primer coating patches is effective to permit an observer, located adjacent to the wall, to visualize the color of the paint coating over (1) each of the primer coating patches and (2) the surface color of the wall" — recites a result of observing, not additional structure. This is the same form of limitation the Federal Circuit addressed in In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (quoting In re Casey, 34 C.C.P.A. 1010): a recitation of "the manner in which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus satisfying the structural limitations."

Here, once Hersh/Little put a painted transparent test film with a primer series in front of a wall, the "observer can visualize" result necessarily follows. The clause therefore adds essentially zero patentable weight. The same is true of "provides insufficient opacity… so that at least some of the surface color… bleeds through" — a §112 ¶6-style functional/property recitation that, under In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (C.C.P.A. 1977), does not distinguish over prior art that inherently or necessarily possesses the property. Abe's and Orica's "incomplete hiding" topcoats over a white or black or otherwise contrasting substrate are precisely such a disclosure.

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4. Combination 2 (alternative): Orica WO '372 / US 2009/0210182 + Hersh '752 + 3M or Harris Research

If a challenger wants a date-clean primary reference for the opacity/undercoat principle, the Orica document is the best candidate in the list:

• US 2009/0210182 A1 (Orica) claim 1 claims generating "full hiding color data," then "for a plurality of undercoat paints with different reflectance levels, color combination data representing the color of at least one coat of said paint color and one of said undercoat paints," and then "color difference data representing opacity." Claim 4 adds "background color data representing the reflectance level of the background color over which said paint color is to be applied." Claim 6 / the specification discloses "Undercoats made from such combinations of black and white colorants" (i.e., white/gray primer series) and states the purpose: "the color of the substrate and topcoat thickness both contribute to the final color of the topcoat."
• Its specification also expressly contemplates decorative paint systems, not just automotive: "the system 100 can be used with a variety of paint systems, such as automotive paint systems and decorative paint systems."
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090210182 ; WO 2006/089372 A1 (Orica, published 2006-08-31).

Mотивация: Orica supplies the plurality of undercoats with different reflectance levels + background color + predicted color difference, which is the architectural-paint version of claim 1's primer-patch-plus-show-through structure. Hersh '752 supplies the wall-mounted, self-stick, repositionable physical embodiment. 3M's color-matching articles (US 2004/0067350 A1; US 6,982,108 B2 — both in the citation list) and Harris Research's US 10,124,623 B2 (flexible translucent color matching apparatus) supply the transparent/translucent flexible sheet with an adhesive for viewing a color through it against a surface. The motivation: Orica tells the skilled person that the identity of the optimum undercoat varies with the topcoat and the background, so the skilled person has a specific reason to provide a plurality of undercoat choices in a form that can be placed against the actual background — i.e., a test swatch.

Note the Orica date advantage: WO 2006/089372 A1 (2006-08-31) is more than one year before 2010-08-04, making it pre-AIA §102(b) art and immune to swearing behind. That is worth a great deal in litigation.

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5. The KSR / Graham framework, applied

Scope and content of the prior art. Encompasses (i) architectural paint color selection and hiding-power evaluation (Orica WO'372, US 7,014,466, US 4,546,007, US 5,700,515); (ii) portable paint test swatches and test kits (Little '377/'744, Hersh '752, US 2004/0067350, US 10,124,623); (iii) repositionable adhesive color chips (Colwell '425); and (iv) swatch-manufacturing methods (US 6,416,612, US 4,451,518-family per the citation list).

Differences from claim 1. The only genuine "difference" is the specific physical packaging: a single clear/translucent film carrying a series of white/gray primer patches, brushed or rolled with the user's paint, and held against the user's wall. Every component of that package is separately taught, and the reason to assemble them is stated in the references (view a test coating in situ rather than repaint the substrate repeatedly).

Level of ordinary skill. I would characterize a PHOSITA as a coatings formulator or paint-department technician with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, or equivalent, plus ~2–5 years' experience in architectural or refinish coatings, familiar with the Kubelka–Munk reflectance model, primer/topcoat hiding interactions, and conventional swatch/adhesive-laminate construction. That person would have no difficulty selecting a PVC or PET film, a repositionable acrylic PSA, a release liner, and screen-printing or roll-coating a graded white/gray series. The '200's own specification concedes as much: it states that the film-adhesive-liner laminate is a commercially available product ("Part No. 3-5424-10004 (FRCLR VINYL 48*64 90) available from Ritrama, Inc.") and that the primer patches "may be deposited or coated… using application methods such as roll coating, rotogravure, screen printing, lithography, or other processes know[n] in the art." That is an admission that the hardware and the manufacturing method are prior art, leaving only the arrangement to be justified.

Secondary considerations. I address the patentee's likely objective-indicia arguments in §7.

KSR synthesis. The combination is the paradigm KSR case: "A combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." The white/gray primer series, the clear film, the repositionable adhesive, the wall, and the brush/roller-applied topcoat are each familiar; the asserted result (seeing how a low-hiding topcoat looks over the primer versus over the wall color) is the predicted result under Abe/DuPont/Orica, not a surprising one.

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6. Dependent claims — where the strength weakens

Net assessment: if claim 1 falls, the entire dependent set falls with it. There is no dependent claim that introduces an element whose patentability is independently defensible on the cited record, with the possible exception of claim 19 — and even that is an aggregation.

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7. What the patentee will argue, and how it fares

7.1 "Unexpected results" — neutral gray primer improving a vivid high-chroma topcoat. The '200's background section argues this is "counterintuitive to most paint users" and that "vivid colors and neutral colors intuitively seem to be totally incompatible."

Fatal problem: the counterintuitiveness is expressly attributed to "the ordinary paint user," not to a PHOSITA. And the very next paragraph of the specification says: "U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,546,007 and 5,700,515 teach the use of high hiding power neutral white and gray primer coatings over a colored surface prior to topcoating with a low hiding power high chroma paint to eliminate or significantly reduce visual show-through of the original surface color." A patentee cannot simultaneously argue that the technical community already knew the principle (to distinguish the invention's commercial novelty) and that the principle was unexpected to the skilled artisan (to defeat §103). Where the prior art itself teaches the result, there is no unexpected result. This admission is, in my view, the single most damaging piece of intrinsic evidence against the '200.

7.2 "The prior art was directed to automotive refinish, not architectural walls." Little '377/'744 and — crucially — Orica's own specification refute this: Orica expressly says "the system… can be used with a variety of paint systems, such as automotive paint systems and decorative paint systems." And Little's testing members are expressly not limited to automobiles ("for paint to be applied to another surface in a different environment"). A field-of-use distinction that the reference itself disclaims is not a patentability distinction.

7.3 "Teaching away." I do not see a teaching-away case. Abe '007 teaches away from using an arbitrary gray — it teaches selecting the right one from a range. That is a teaching of the claimed plurality-of-different-patches structure, not away from it. DuPont's criticism of Abe (that Abe's method "has been found to be inaccurate in about one third of certain colors") is a motivation to improve the primer-selection method, which in the context of a test swatch is satisfied simply by providing the user with the whole series to try — which is exactly claim 1.

7.4 Commercial success / long-felt need. These are legally cognizable, but the nexus requirement will be hard: the '200's own specification says the stand-alone patch series eliminates the need to put a primer series on every swatch "which simplifies manufacturing and reduces cost" — a cost/efficiency story, and the record shows the parent patent (8,646,326) expired for failure to pay maintenance fees, which undercuts a narrative of unmet, long-felt, commercially compelling demand for this exact article. Also note there is, per the earlier sections, no litigation on this patent — so there is no developed secondary-considerations record at all.

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8. Bottom line

1. Claim 1 is, in my assessment, more likely than not invalid as obvious under §103, in view of Hersh US 8,597,752 B1 (or Little US 5,217,377 / 5,217,744) in view of DuPont US 5,700,515 (or Abe US 4,546,007), further in view of Orica WO 2006/089372 A1 / US 2009/0210182 A1 and Colwell US 2009/0017425 A1. The structural elements are each taught; the intended-use/observer clause at the end of claim 1 and the "insufficient opacity" property recitation carry little or no patentable weight; and the patentee's own specification supplies both the motivation ("mathematically comparing spectral reflectance curves") and the admission that the physical hardware and the printing/coating methods are known in the art.
2. The strongest single reference set for a date-clean attack: Orica WO 2006/089372 A1 (published 2006-08-31, pre-AIA §102(b)) + US 5,217,377 (issued 1993, §102(b)) + US 4,546,007 (issued 1985, §102(b)) + US 2009/0017425 A1 (published 2009-01-15, §102(b)). None of these can be sworn behind, and all four predate the 2009-08-04 critical date for the '200's 2010-08-04 priority.
3. The single biggest lever for a challenger is the priority date. If claim 1 loses its 2010-08-04 priority (because the "combination comprising a wall" and "applied by brush or paint roller" limitations are not described in the provisional/'812 parent in that claim format), then the AIA regime applies and the intervening art window (2011–2017) — including US 10,124,623 B2 (Harris Research), US 2014/0127646 A1 (Valspar), and the '200's own family publication US 2012/0031540 A1 — opens up. I would run that priority challenge in parallel with the §103 case.
4. All 21 claims rise or fall with claim 1. No dependent claim contains separately defensible subject matter on this record; claim 19 is an aggregation of individually known limitations.

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9. Confidence and verification caveats

• High confidence in the content of US 4,546,007 (Abe), US 5,700,515 (DuPont, including claim 2's "5–20 gray or white primer compositions each of a different lightness"), US 5,217,744 / US 5,217,377 (Little, including the quoted claim 1 language), and US 2009/0210182 A1 (Orica) — I retrieved text/claims for these directly (sources cited inline above).
• Medium confidence in the publication date of WO 2006/089372 A1 (2006-08-31) — this came from a citation-list snippet on a Google Patents page rather than the document itself. Verify before relying on it as a §102(b) reference, since the entire date-advantage argument in §5/§8.2 depends on it.
• Lower confidence / not verified on US 8,597,752 B1 (Hersh) and US 2009/0017425 A1 (Colwell): I am relying on their titles and their presence in the '200 family's citation lists, not on their specifications. Hersh in particular is potentially the best primary reference — its title maps almost verbatim onto "a combination comprising a wall and a… sheet… located adjacent the surface color of the wall" — so its full text should be obtained and charted before any invalidity contention is finalized.
• Not verified on US 10,124,623 B2 (Harris Research), US 2014/0127646 A1 (Valspar), US 2004/0067350 A1 / US 6,982,108 B2 (3M), and US 7014466 (Sherwin-Williams) — I did not retrieve their claims in this session. Their priority dates relative to 2010-08-04 must be checked individually; Harris Research (priority 2010-09-21) and Valspar (priority 2012-11-02) appear to post-date the '200's earliest priority and would not be available as §102(e)/§102(a)(2) art unless the priority claim fails.
• I am not offering a claim chart good enough to serve as an invalidity contention of record; this is an analyst's assessment. Every combination above needs the actual reference texts charted against each limitation, and the priority-date question in §1 resolved first, since it determines which references are even in the window.
• No litigation record exists for this patent per the earlier sections, so none of the above has been tested adversarially; there is no estoppel, no IPR record, and no prosecution-history disclaimer identified in the material I reviewed.