US 4602280

I'll search for authoritative information on US 4602280 and any litigation/docket activity.

US 4,602,280 A — Search Summary

Important scope note: I searched for the literal number 4602280 and filtered out unrelated hits (the number 4602280 also appears as a municipal ID number in Spanish/Portuguese municipal records and as a German media-catalog index, which are not patent documents and were disregarded).

Bibliographic data

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4602280/en and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4602280

Abstract (verbatim)

"A weight and/or measurement reduction preview wherein a first image of a person is recorded. The person's desired proportions are entered into the computer and the recorded image is reproportioned based on the desired proportions, and the original image and the recreated image are displayed side-by-side."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 (system/apparatus). A "before/after" body-reproportioning system made up of: (a) means to record the customer's body as a first image; (b) means to store that image as horizontal raster lines; (c) means to enter the customer's actual body proportions; (d) means to enter the desired body proportions; (e) means to reproportion the pixels along the horizontal axis of each raster line by applying a stretch-or-shrink factor, where the factor is derived from the difference between the actual and desired dimensions, producing a reproportioned raster line; (f) means to build a reproportioned figure from those raster lines; (g) means to produce a new image from the reproportioned original; and (h) means to display the reproportioned image.

Claim 6 (method). The same concept framed as a method of displaying the effect a weight/measurement reduction would have on a customer's body: recording a first image; storing it in horizontal raster lines; entering actual proportions; entering desired proportions; reproportioning the pixels along the horizontal axis by applying a stretch/shrink factor to each raster (the factor being a function of the difference between actual and desired dimensions) to form a reproportioned raster line; creating a reproportioned figure from those lines; producing a new image based on the reproportioned original; and displaying the reproportioned image.

Dependent claims (for context, not independent): claims 2–5 add raster repartitioning using fractional pixels, low-pass filtering/sampling for new pixel spacing, video-camera capture with raster-by-raster storage, and side-by-side display of the before/after images via a video screen and frame grabber. Claims 7–15 mirror these limitations in method form (digitizing, raster-by-raster memory storage, horizontal stretch/shrink, adjacent display, fractional-pixel repartitioning, filtering/sampling, video-camera recording, video-screen display).

Notable context from the specification

• The patent describes itself as an improvement on the same inventor's earlier work: Ser. Nos. 366,372 (now US 4,467,349) and 466,973 (now US 4,486,774), which in turn improved US 4,261,012 (issued Apr. 7, 1981). It names Dyson, US 4,232,134, as the most relevant prior art.
• Prior art cited against/of record: CA 1020276 (Ryan), US 4,232,334 (Revlon), US 4,261,012 (Maloomian), US 4,276,570 (Burson), US 4,297,724 (Dainippon Screen), US 4,467,349 and US 4,486,774 (both Maloomian).
• Hardware examples named in the specification: JVC KY1900CH camera, Datacube 150 frame grabber/image buffer, DSD 880 memory, DEC LSI 11/23 CPU, Conrac 5711 video screen. Claim language, however, is generic "means" language, not tied to these specific components.

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket check — uncertain

I must be explicit here rather than fabricate:

• The Google Patents page for this family (Family ID 24226738) carries the banner "First worldwide family litigation filed" with a link to a Darts‑ip global litigation dataset. That banner is a generic templated link and, in the page as fetched, does not identify a specific case, court, party, or date. It is therefore weak evidence that at least one suit somewhere in this family was docketed historically, but I cannot confirm any particular case from it.
• My searches returned no CAFC 2026 docket entry, no Federal Circuit appeal number, and no 2026 district-court case involving US 4,602,280. Searches for "4602280" mixed with litigation terms surfaced only unrelated matches (including an unrelated CourtListener API record where 4602280 is a financial-disclosure investment row ID, not a patent docket).
• I could not directly query USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system through the available tools; I only have web-search results.
• Practical caveat: this patent expired 2003‑12‑05, over two decades ago. A newly filed 2026 CAFC appeal on this patent would be unusual (though not impossible for revived/old infringement matters). I found no evidence of one.

Bottom line on the litigation question: treat any 2026 CAFC activity for US 4,602,280 as unverified. The only litigation-adjacent signal is the boilerplate Darts‑ip "family has litigation" link, which is not authoritative as to specifics. Verification would require a direct USPTO PatentCenter / PACER / CAFC docket lookup by the exact number 4,602,280 (and the application number 06/557,750).

I'll search litigation-focused sources for this specific patent number.

Let me check litigation-specific databases and docket sources directly.

Litigation Search — US Patent 4,602,280

Bottom line

No litigation involving US Patent 4,602,280 (Maloomian, "Weight and/or measurement reduction preview system") is known or verifiable.

Because there are no cases, I cannot populate the six requested data fields (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, status). Supplying any values would be fabrication.

What I actually searched and what came back

Sources queried (via web search): Unified Patents patent/litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-4602280-A), Google Patents (family page + cited‑by/citing lists), FreePatentsOnline, USPTO.report, Justia, CourtListener, Darts‑ip references, and general litigation-term queries combining "4602280" / "4,602,280" with "litigation," "lawsuit," "CAFC," "case."

Result: every hit for the bare string "4602280" that was not this patent was a false positive — the same numerals appear as (a) a German media-catalogue film-index entry (e.g. 4602280(59) in the kmz-vaihingen and kreis-hz Medienkatalog PDFs, indexed to "Identitätsfindung"), (b) a Brazilian municipal/judicial registration ID (4602280 ALINE CASAROTTO, jucisrs.rs.gov.br), and (c) a CourtListener financial-disclosure investment row ID (investments/4602280, a Berkshire Hathaway corporate bond entry). None of these are patent dockets. Per the operating rule to interpret identifiers literally, I excluded them rather than treating them as litigation.

The one litigation-adjacent signal, and why it does not answer the question

1. Darts‑ip banner. The Google Patents family page (Family ID 24226738) displays the templated banner "First worldwide family litigation filed" linking to the Darts‑ip dataset. As fetched, this banner names no case, court, party, or date. It is a generic template link and is not authoritative as to any specific proceeding. It cannot be used to state that a case exists, let alone its parties or outcome.

2. Maloomian references cited as prior art in someone else's case. A Justia filing from E.D. Tex. Case No. 2:2013cv00235 (an apparel/image-composite patent dispute involving a "customer image" + "apparel style image" database claim, decided on claim-construction/disclaimer grounds) quotes prosecution and ex parte reexamination argument distinguishing "Maloomian." Separately, the front matter of US 5,986,718 lists 4,602,280 7/1986 Maloomian among its references, and the PCT/GB90/01058 international search report cites US-A-4602280 as an "A" category document.

   Important caveat: in those instances US 4,602,280 (or a Maloomian sibling) appears as prior art cited against other patents — the opposite of the patent being asserted. I could not confirm that the specific reference litigated in 2:2013cv00235 was 4,602,280 rather than one of the inventor's other patents (US 4,261,012 / 4,467,349 / 4,486,774, all also "Maloomian"). This is not litigation involving US 4,602,280 as a cause of action, and I am flagging it only so the record is complete.

Independent corroborating indicators of no enforcement activity

• Assignment history is a solo inventor, never a litigating entity. The patent was filed by and remained with an individual; the "Cited By" list references it as a foundational academic-style citation (e.g., US 4,670,781 to L'Oréal; US 4,730,260 eyewear simulation; US 5,064,850 aesthetic-imaging systems; US 5,853,490; and later weight-loss visualization patents), consistent with a cited reference rather than an asserted patent.
• No continuation/divisional family. The family consists of the single application 06/557,750 with no non‑US members in the family application list — there is no family of continuation patents in the US or abroad to support a multi-patent enforcement campaign.
• Expired 2003‑12‑05, more than two decades before the current date, with the last fee payment recorded for year 12 (1998‑01‑12). A patent that has lapsed for lack of maintenance fees and expired by term generates essentially no prospective damages, which is why old patents of this vintage are rarely the subject of new filings.

Why this differs from a "there must be something" expectation

A patent with 146 forward citations and a mention in a global litigation dataset naturally raises suspicion of enforcement. But forward citations are a measure of technical relevance, not litigation. Here the technical citations cluster in image-morphing, virtual try‑on, and photo‑booth art — and those later patents (not this one) are the ones with enforcement histories (e.g., the Photostar/Imageware and Bet Funding LLC lineages visible in the "Cited By" list). This patent sits upstream of that enforcement wave as background art.

Recommended verification steps I could not complete with the available tools

To convert "no litigation found" into a definitive negative, a direct docket pull is required — web search alone cannot exhaust these systems:

• USPTO PatentCenter / Public PAIR for application 06/557,750 and patent 4,602,280 — check the "Litigation" and assignment tabs for any recorded infringement suits (these are thin but occasionally present).
• PACER full-text case search (all districts) for "4,602,280" and "4602280"; also the Federal Circuit (CAFC) docket, since any appeal of an infringement judgment would land there.
• Unified Patents litigation caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — searched, and no entry for US‑4602280‑A appeared; the portal entry for the patent is an analytics page, not a litigation record.
• Darts‑ip / Clarivate by family ID 24226738 (the source behind the Google Patents banner) to see the specific proceeding(s), if any, the banner is keyed to.

Two meta-notes for the file: (1) the current date given in this task (April 26, 2026) differs from the system's stated date (2026‑09‑27); either way it is ~21 years post‑expiration. (2) This analysis is consistent with — and does not contradict — the earlier-generated summary section, which likewise recorded the litigation question as unverified and identified the Darts‑ip banner as non‑specific boilerplate. No contradiction between sections exists.

If you can supply the Darts‑ip case list or a PACER/PatentCenter extract for family 24226738, I can turn the "unverified" finding into either a confirmed case table or a documented negative.

I'll verify the canonical ODP "no proceedings" result against public PTAB/CAFC sources before writing.

Let me run a few more targeted checks (PTAB E2E-style docket queries, litigation, and CAFC).

One more round to check adjacent Maloomian-family patents and any ex parte reexam trail, so the "no AIA trials" conclusion is properly scoped.

PTAB proceedings on file — US 4,602,280 (Maloomian)

Bottom line up front: there are no AIA trial proceedings on this patent. The canonical structured block ("USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest") is corroborated by my independent web checks — no IPR, PGR, CBM, or derivation petition naming U.S. Patent No. 4,602,280 or application 06/557,750 surfaced anywhere. What I found instead were three similarly numbered different patents that generate false positives in keyword searches (catalogued below so you don't chase them).

Proceedings overview

Total count: 0 proceedings — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. No petition has ever been filed against US 4,602,280 at the PTAB.

For a defendant, the bottom line is not "the patent is hardened" and not "the claims are canceled" — it is that the PTAB question is moot because the patent expired in 2003 (Google's recorded "Anticipated expiration: 2003-12-05"; the pre-URAA 17-year term from the 1986-07-22 grant would have run to 2003-07-22 — either way, the term ended in 2003, and the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year damages lookback closed no later than mid-2009). No live damages theory can rest on claims 1–15, so there is nothing left for an IPR to invalidate. An IPR petition today would be a solution in search of a problem.

Two cross-checks from the earlier section that I am not able to resolve with the tools available, and which I flag rather than paper over:

• The prior section noted the Darts-ip "First worldwide family litigation filed" banner on the Google Patents page (Family ID 24226738). That is a litigation signal, not a PTAB signal, and it identifies no case. Nothing in it suggests an AIA trial. Family 24226738 contains only the single U.S. application 06/557,750, so there are no foreign counterparts feeding foreign proceedings either.
• Legal-status events in the file show maintenance fees paid only through the 12-year payment (1998-01-12, "Year of fee payment: 12"); consistent with a term that ran out in 2003.

Independent AIA-trial tracks — what exists and why, per track

Since there are no dockets to report, here is the equivalent per-track answer, because each statutory track fails for a different reason. This is the substance a defendant actually needs.

IPR — 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319 — available in theory, pointless in fact

• Status (verbatim from structured data): "no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest."
• Filed: N/A — no petition ever filed.
• Why no petition: § 311(a) permits any non-owner to petition, and the PTAB has never read patent expiration as a bar to institution (it does change the claim-construction standard — for expired patents the Board applies Phillips rather than the broadest reasonable interpretation, per Wasica Finance GmbH v. Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., 853 F.3d 1272 (Fed. Cir. 2017)). So the mechanism is legally open; the economics are not. Absent a live district-court assertion, no petitioner has an incentive to spend $300k–$500k invalidating already-expired claims.
• Defensive value: If a demand letter or complaint citing US 4,602,280 ever lands, the correct first response is a § 286/expiration and standing check, not an IPR budget. Confirm the assertion is not actually directed at a later, unexpired patent in the family line (e.g., US 4,467,349; US 4,486,774; US 4,261,012 — all also long expired) before doing anything else.

PGR — 35 U.S.C. §§ 321–329 — legally unavailable

• Status: No PGR on file; none possible. Post-grant review is limited to patents "subject to the first-inventor-to-file provisions" (AIA § 6(c)(2)(A); 35 U.S.C. § 321). US 4,602,280 issued 1986-07-22 from a 1983-12-05 pre-AIA application, so it is categorically outside PGR reach. The § 321(c) 9-month window is not the obstacle — the eligibility bar is.

CBM — AIA § 18 — legally unavailable

• Status: No CBM on file; none possible. The transitional CBM program sunset for petitions filed after 2018-09-16. Independently, this patent claims image reproportioning, not "a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service" (AIA § 18(d)(1)) — it would fail the covered business method threshold as well. (The CBM hits that surface in "280" searches belong to ContentGuard's US 7,774,280 — see the false-positive table.)

Derivation — 35 U.S.C. §§ 135, 316 — no activity

No derivation proceeding on file, and none is conceivable 40+ years after the 1983-12-05 filing date.

Near-miss candidates — rejected (do not conflate these with US 4,602,280)

These are the reason a naive "280" search looks like it produced results. None involve this patent:

I found no ex parte reexamination file on US 4,602,280 itself; I could not query the USPTO reexamination database directly with the tools available, so treat that particular negative as unverified rather than confirmed.

Strategic summary

Claims status. All 15 claims — independent claim 1 (system) and independent claim 6 (method), plus dependents 2–5 and 7–15 — are UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been canceled by the Board, no claim has been sustained by the Board, and no substitute claim has been added. They survive today only in the ordinary sense that an expired patent's claims are never invalidated by the passage of time; they simply stopped being enforceable. Because no final written decision exists, there is also no statutory disclaimer, no certificate of cancellation, and no Board claim construction you can point to. (For contrast: a CBM like CBM2015-00040 produces a paper trail you can work with; here there is none.)

Estoppel landscape. This is the cleanest part of the analysis: there is no estoppel. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel and § 325(e)(2) estoppel attach only to a petitioner (or real party in interest/privy) that obtained an institution decision. With no petitioner and no institution, no one is barred from anything. Every prior-art ground that ever existed remains available to a defendant — including the art of record in the patent itself: CA 1020276 (Ryan), US 4,232,334 (Revlon), US 4,261,012 (Maloomian), US 4,276,570 (Burson), US 4,297,724 (Dainippon Screen), and the two Maloomian siblings US 4,467,349 and US 4,486,774, plus Dyson US 4,232,134 as named in the specification. If you are litigating a later patent in this technology space, US 4,602,280 is itself a § 102(b)/§ 103 prior-art reference — it is cited in the "Cited By" lists of 146 later documents, including the weight-loss-visualization line (Bravomalo's US 6,643,385; Kriger's US 6,816,807; Posa's US 2003/0108851 A1). That is this patent's real modern role: it is a shield, not a sword.

Pattern signals. None of the usual patterns are present. There is no repeat petitioner, no serial-filing campaign, no PTAB appeal by the patent owner, no defensive aggregator in the chain. The Unified Patents patent page for US-4602280-A exists in their database, but that is an indexing page, not an evidentiary signal of a Unified-filed challenge — I checked, and no Unified petition naming this patent appears. The absence of IPRs here is unsurprising and, per the earlier search summary, consistent with a patent that was never a high-value assertion target. One honest caveat: I cannot directly query PTAB E2E or the CAFC docket system; my conclusion rests on the ODP structured data plus web corroboration, and the residual risk is a very old, thinly indexed, pre-2012 proceeding.

Recommended next steps

1. If a defendant/assertion target: treat the demand letter as suspect on its face. US 4,602,280 expired in 2003 (recorded anticipated expiration 2003-12-05), so no § 284 damages and no § 283 injunction are available. Verify whether the letter actually names 4,602,280 or a reissue/continuation-style sibling; the enumerated false positives above show how easily "280" numbers get crossed.
2. If you nonetheless need a Board record: run PTAB E2E at https://ptacts.uspto.gov by patent number 4,602,280 and, separately, by application number 06/557,750, and search PTAB Decisions at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions. My search found nothing, and I would expect you to confirm the same.
3. If your interest is validity of a newer patent: the productive move is the reverse of a typical PTAB study. Pull the US 4,602,280 specification (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4602280/en) for its raster-by-raster stretch/shrink disclosure — claims 1, 6, 10, and 11 in particular recite fractional-pixel raster repartitioning and low-pass filtering/sampling to new pixel spacing, which is strong § 102/§ 103 material against later "before/after body image" claims. No IPR estoppel, no Fintiv problem, and no § 315(b) time bar apply to using an expired patent as art.
4. If an IPR were ever contemplated anyway (e.g., a live state-law or contract dispute that turns on claim meaning): remember the Board applies Phillips construction to expired claims (Wasica), and expect the Director's discretionary-denial framework to weigh settled expectations heavily given a 1983 priority date. Expect a hard conversation about whether the fee is worth the certificate.
5. Follow up on the one loose end carried over from the prior section: the Darts-ip "family has litigation" banner. A PACER/CourtListener search on the patent number and on "Maloomian" as plaintiff is the way to close it — I could not, and it does not change the PTAB answer either way.

Confidence statement: High confidence that there are no AIA trial proceedings on US 4,602,280. Medium-to-high confidence about the PGR/CBM unavailability conclusions (they follow from statutory text and the 2018-09-16 CBM sunset). Lower confidence on two negatives I could not query directly: any ex parte reexamination file on the '280 itself, and any 2026 CAFC activity (consistent with the prior section's "unverified" finding).

I'll verify the assignment record before writing the analysis.

Let me probe the Assignment Center and the sibling Maloomian patents directly.

Assignment Chain Analysis — US 4,602,280

Methodology caveat (read first). USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) is an interactive JavaScript application and is not directly queryable with the tools available to me; a plain search on the patent number returns no static, indexable assignment record for this patent. I therefore reconstructed the chain from (a) the Google Patents Legal Events table, which mirrors Assignment Center records as AS / ASAP / ASPC event codes when they exist, (b) the "Current Assignee / Original Assignee" fields on the same page, and (c) web searches against assignment aggregators. This limitation matters for the verdict below and is flagged there.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — no trigger. There is only one inventor, so none of the classic patterns (co-inventor attrition, all-inventors-depart-within-12-months, corporate-inventor fire-sale precursor) can be evaluated or are present. The relevant observation is the opposite of the usual one: this inventor is not an employee-inventor at all. The specification describes the invention in the context of selling it into weight loss clinics and figure salons — i.e., Maloomian appears to be an independent entrepreneur/inventor building a single-inventor portfolio, not a corporate R&D staffer.

Maloomian is a serial single-inventor filer in the same narrow art: US 4,261,012 (filed 1979-06-18, issued 1981-04-07), US 4,467,349 and US 4,486,774 (both filed 1982-04-07, the two applications the instant patent describes itself as improving on), and US 4,602,280 itself. Every one of these is recorded as owned by Maloomian individually, with no corporate assignee on any of them.

Checked and ruled out: Florida Sunbiz records show a LGM INTERESTS, LLC (document no. L15000154439, principal address 32284 Lakeshore Drive, Tavares, FL 32778) whose manager and registered agent is Laurence G. Maloomian at the same residential address. This is Maloomian's own personal holding entity, not an anonymous shell, and — critically — there is no recorded conveyance of US 4,602,280 to LGM INTERESTS, LLC or to any other entity. I am not treating this LLC as a link in the chain.

Original assignee

Nobody. The issued patent names no assignee — the front page reads "Assignee: Individual," and Google Patents lists Original Assignee: Individual and Current Assignee: Individual.

• Entity type: Natural person (the inventor). Under USPTO convention, a patent issued to an unassigned inventor is displayed this way.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Not established by the patent record. The specification describes the system as intended for deployment as an in-clinic kiosk ("a system when used in a weight loss clinic," "a system when used in a figure salon") built from named off-the-shelf parts — JVC KY1900CH camera, Datacube 150 frame grabber/image buffer, DSD 880 memory, DEC LSI 11/23 CPU, Conrac 5711 video screen. That is a systems-integration disclosure, not a manufacturing disclosure. No evidence of a commercial product, trademark, or SEC-registered entity was found.
• Primary line of business / current status: No corporate entity to assess. No bankruptcy, no acquisition, no dissolution — because there was never a company in the chain.
• Small-entity status: The 1988-11-02 legal event (FEPP, "ENTITY STATUS OF PATENT OWNER: SMALL ENTITY") confirms the owner was still claiming small-entity status two years post-issuance, which is consistent with individual ownership and inconsistent with the patent having been transferred to a large corporate portfolio by that date.

Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center has no recorded post-issuance assignments for US 4,602,280. This is the decisive finding, so per the task rules I state it plainly rather than padding the section.

The complete set of legal events on record is maintenance-fee and administrative activity only:

• n/a / recorded 1986-05-22 — STCF — Information on status: patent grant. Free format text: PATENTED CASE. (Not a conveyance; grant-of-patent annotation.)
• n/a / recorded 1988-11-02 — FEPP — Fee payment procedure. Free format text: PAYOR NUMBER ASSIGNED (ORIGINAL EVENT CODE: ASPN); ENTITY STATUS OF PATENT OWNER: SMALL ENTITY. (Not a conveyance. "Payor number assigned" is an administrative billing-account annotation for maintenance fees, not an assignment. This is the event most often misread as an assignment by automated parsers — it is not one.)
• n/a / recorded 1989-12-15 — FPAY — Fee payment, year of fee payment 4.
• n/a / recorded 1994-01-05 — FPAY — Fee payment, year of fee payment 8.
• n/a / recorded 1998-01-12 — FPAY — Fee payment, year of fee payment 12.
• n/a / recorded 2003-12-05 — Anticipated expiration; status Expired – Lifetime.

There is no reel/frame entry of any kind. No Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction has ever been recorded against application 06/557,750 or patent 4,602,280.

Correspondent of record: Because no assignment was ever recorded, there is no post-issuance recording correspondent to capture — no attorney name, no firm, no street address. This is itself diagnostic: the repeat-player-attorney signal that normally survives shell-entity anonymization has no foothold here. (The prosecution attorney of record sits in Patent Center's application data, which I could not query directly; I am not going to guess at a name.)

Litigation notes gathered while checking for a pre-litigation transfer:

• The Google Patents page for family ID 24226738 carries the boilerplate banner "First worldwide family litigation filed" linking to the Darts‑ip global litigation dataset. That banner is a generic template link; the fetched page identifies no case, court, party, or date. It is not evidence of a specific suit.
• A pre-litigation-transfer cannot be dated here because there was no transfer and because I could not confirm any suit naming US 4,602,280.
• Separately, US 4,602,280 surfaces as prior art, not as an asserted patent: the EPO search report for EP 0856814 A1 (Casio) cites it as [X], and WO 1991/001032 A1 (Seconde Opinions Ltd.) lists it in its search-report table with "None" for family members.
• Maloomian's earlier patent US 4,261,012 appears extensively as a prior-art reference in the claim-construction opinion in N.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. No. 2:2013cv00235, an apparel virtual-try-on dispute over a patent numbered '843. That is a different patent, a different owner, and a different defendant set — it is context on how the Maloomian art is used defensively, not an assertion of US 4,602,280.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 4602280
    1983 : Filed by Laurence G Maloomian
         : Unassigned individual filing
    1986 : Patent issued
         : Assignee of record is Individual
    1988 : Small entity status recorded
    1989 : Maintenance fee paid year 4
    1994 : Maintenance fee paid year 8
    1998 : Maintenance fee paid year 12
    2003 : Patent expired
         : No assignment ever recorded

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Note on a near-miss misread: The 1988-11-02 FEPP event ("PAYOR NUMBER ASSIGNED") is the single entry on this patent that a keyword search for "assigned" will surface. It is a maintenance-fee billing-account annotation, expressly tagged "ENTITY STATUS OF PATENT OWNER: SMALL ENTITY." It contains no assignor, no assignee, and no reel/frame. Do not treat it as a conveyance.

Verdict

Insufficient data — more precisely, insufficient data because there is nothing to analyze: this patent has no recorded assignments at all.

US 4,602,280 was filed 1983-12-05 by Laurence G. Maloomian, issued 1986-07-22 with "Individual" as both original and current assignee, and carried only five legal events in its entire life — one grant annotation and four maintenance/billing entries (1988-11-02 FEPP, 1989-12-15 FPAY yr 4, 1994-01-05 FPAY yr 8, 1998-01-12 FPAY yr 12) — before expiring 2003-12-05. With no reel/frame of any conveyance type ever recorded, every one of the eight NPE-pattern signals is not present by construction rather than by negative inference, and there is no correspondent of record to fingerprint. A finding of "no recorded post-issuance assignments" here is substantive: it means the inventor-owner held this patent personally from grant to expiration, and no NPE ever acquired it.

This verdict remains open to correction on one point only: I could not directly query Assignment Center or Patent Center. If a manual Patent Center lookup on application 06/557,750 surfaces a recorded assignment absent from the Google Patents legal-events mirror, that would supersede this section — please re-run and flag it.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search/result?q=4602280 and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 4602280, or by application 06/557,750)

I'll research each of the cited references for US 4,602,280. Let me start with parallel searches.

Now let me research the remaining references: CA 1020276 (Ryan), US 4,232,134 (Dyson), and the Maloomian family members.

Prior Art Analysis for US 4,602,280 A

Scope note / cross-check. Building on the earlier section (which confirmed the document as US 4,602,280 A, App. No. 06/557,750, filed 1983‑12‑05, granted 1986‑07‑22, inventor Laurence G. Maloomian, "Weight and/or measurement reduction preview system"), I examined each of the seven references on its face and did not substitute any similar number. Because the application was filed 1983‑12‑05, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs.

Threshold legal point that drives the whole analysis (pre‑AIA): § 102 is an anticipation statute — a single reference must disclose every limitation of a claim, arranged as in the claim. Separately, § 102(e) (and, as generally applied, § 102(a)/(b)) requires the reference to be by another relative to the inventive entity. Three of the seven cited references are the applicant's own earlier applications, which materially affects whether they are § 102 art at all. These are legal conclusions and are flagged as such; they are offered as analysis, not as a legal opinion.

1. The seven references of record (Google Patents "Patent Citations (7)")

Source for the citation list: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4602280/en

A reference the Specification names but which is not in the citation table: US 4,232,134 ("Dyson") — addressed in §3 below.

2. Reference-by-reference: description and § 102 mapping

Recall the two independent claims. Claim 1 (system) requires, inter alia: recording a first body image; storing it in horizontal raster lines; entering actual body proportions and desired body proportions; reproportioning the pixels along the horizontal axis of each raster line by a stretch/shrink factor derived from the difference between the actual and desired dimensions; building a reproportioned figure/new image; and displaying it. Claim 6 is the method mirror of claim 1. Claims 2–5 and 7–15 are dependent and incorporate all of claim 1/6.

A. CA 1020276 A — Ryan, "Identification of faces" (pub. 1977‑11‑01)

• Description: A facial-identification reference (per the record title). Its subject matter is recognizing/identifying faces, not simulating a changed body.
• § 102 mapping: Anticipates no claim. It is not tied to body-measurement input, raster-line storage, or measurement-driven pixel reproportioning. At most it is a general background reference on locating/identifying facial features. I could not retrieve its full text, so I am deliberately not asserting details beyond the record title/family data.

B. US 4,232,334 A — Revlon, "Cosmetic apparatus and method" (filed 1979‑05‑22; issued 1980‑11‑04)

• Description (from the document): A beauty adviser's console in which a video camera images the customer's face; the face outline is converted to electronic signals (e.g., via a light pen); the system stores a number of reference face patterns and electronically compares the customer's outline signals to those sets to select the closest match; and it displays the customer's face image with an overlaid make-up pattern, where "at least one of the displayed image of the customer's face and the displayed make-up pattern [is] scaled to the size of the other."
• § 102 mapping: Anticipates no claim. It discloses a video camera, digital storage, matching, overlay display and scaling of one image to another — but it does not disclose entering the subject's actual and desired body proportions, or reproportioning pixels along the horizontal axis of each raster line by a stretch/shrink factor derived from the actual-vs-desired difference. Because the dependent claims (e.g., 4/12 video camera; 5, 9, 14, 15 display) incorporate all of claim 1/6, a reference lacking the claim 1/6 core cannot anticipate them either. Its real value here is as § 103 material (video capture + stored patterns + scaled overlay), not § 102.
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4232334 ; https://FreePatentsOnline.com/[4232334](/patent/4232334).html ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4232334

C. US 4,261,012 A — Maloomian, "System and method for composite display" (filed 1979‑06‑18; issued 1981‑04‑07)

• Description: The applicant's own earlier composite-display system (recorded in the 4,602,280 Specification as the base patent of the inventor's family). The 4,602,280 text states it is an improvement over this and over Ser. Nos. 366,372 / 466,973.
• § 102 mapping: Not available as § 102 art — anticipates no claim. Same sole inventive entity (Maloomian), so it is not a reference "by another" for § 102(e), and its use as § 102(a)/(b) art against the same inventor's later application is generally improper. (I flag this as a legal conclusion that would need to be confirmed against the actual prosecution record.) Its practical role is background / possible double-patenting consideration only.

D. US 4,276,570 A — Burson & Schneider, "…image of a person's face at a different age" (filed 1979‑05‑08; issued 1981‑06‑30)

This is the strongest true third‑party reference. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4276570A](/patent/US4276570A)/en ; PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/09/b8/0c/c8a22b4fc12bc2/US4276570.pdf

• Description: A vidicon/digitizing camera captures a face; the digitized image is stored as M×N pixels, 8 bits per pixel, in a memory under a processor (e.g., Interdata 732). The system computes coordinate transformations (triangular "maps")/image warping, adds or subtracts stored "difference" images, and displays the result on a video monitor/graphics terminal. It expressly notes that "Lenses which can stretch or compress an image along one axis are well known," and that two such lenses in series (one vertical, one horizontal) can match one image to another.
• § 102 mapping: Anticipates no claim, but it is the closest art on the image‑processing mechanics: digitized body/face image + memory + transformation + display, plus axis-selective stretching. It still does not disclose: (i) entering the subject's actual and desired body proportions (bust/waist/hip/weight, etc.); (ii) storing the image as horizontal raster lines with per-line reproportioning; or (iii) applying a stretch/shrink factor derived from the difference between actual and desired dimensions to form each reproportioned raster line. Those are the limitations that distinguish claims 1 and 6. It is, however, the most useful § 103 reference for the claim-1/6 sub-features and for dependent-claim sub-features such as axis-directed stretching (potentially relevant to claims 2/3 and 8–11 conceptually).

E. US 4,297,724 A — Dainippon Screen Seizo K.K. (Masuda et al.), "Method and machine for trying on a hair form in image" (US filed 1980‑01‑23; JP priority 1979‑01‑24; issued 1981‑10‑27)

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4297724A](/patent/US4297724A)/en ; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=[4297724A](/patent/4297724A)&KC=A&FT=D ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[4297724](/patent/4297724)

• Description: "Try-on" simulation: a video camera photographs a face shape and a hair pattern; a masking signal is generated and combined (electronically and/or optically via a half-silvered mirror) so the hair pattern is masked onto the face, and the composite face-plus-hair is displayed on a CRT. Claims 4 and 5 recite that the camera includes a zoom lens and an anamorphic lens (an anamorphic lens stretches/compresses one axis).
• § 102 mapping: Anticipates no claim. It discloses video acquisition, electronic masking/combination and CRT display of a modified person image, plus (in dependent claims) axis-distorting optics. It does not disclose measurement entry (actual vs. desired), raster-line pixel reproportioning, or a stretch/shrink factor computed from the difference between actual and desired body dimensions. Again, dependent claims 4/12 (camera) and 14/15 (video display) cannot be anticipated where the parent claim 1/6 limitation set is absent. Value here is § 103 (video-based appearance simulation), not § 102.

F. US 4,467,349 A — Maloomian, "System and method for composite display" (filed 1982‑04‑07; issued 1984‑08‑21)

G. US 4,486,774 A — Maloomian, "System and method for composite display" (filed 1982‑04‑07; issued 1984‑12‑04)

Source: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[4486774](/patent/4486774)

• Description: The applicant's own companion applications, named in the 4,602,280 Specification. US 4,486,774 in particular describes a system that is substantively very close to 4,602,280: video camera (JVC KY 1900 CH) → frame grabber (Datacube 150) → CPU (DEC LSI‑11/23) → memory (DSD 880) → image buffer → video screen, and it states that "the whole X and/or Y and/or any portion or different portions of the X and/or Y can be scaled… accomplished by stretching and/or shrinking rasters, horizontally and/or vertically, based on a calculated stretch and/or shrink factor… I can scale the model which is stored in memory to the bust, hip, waist, and height measurements of the customer."
• § 102 mapping — important contradiction to flag: These two are not § 102 prior art against 4,602,280 for two independent reasons:
  1. Same inventive entity (Maloomian) → not "by another," so § 102(e) fails and § 102(a)/(b) misuse is improper; and
  2. Their issue dates (1984‑08‑21 and 1984‑12‑04) postdate the 4,602,280 filing date of 1983‑12‑05, so they are not § 102(a)/(b) patents or publications either.
• Despite that, note the practical risk: because 4,486,774's disclosure is nearly identical to 4,602,280's (raster stretch/shrink of a stored body image based on the customer's bust/hip/waist/height), it functions as the most technically on-point document in the family and a likely subject of obviousness-type double patenting or of an interference/derivation-type concern — not § 102 anticipation of 4,602,280.

3. The "Dyson" reference named in the Specification — unresolved discrepancy, flagged

The 4,602,280 Specification states: *"The prior art discussed in that patent pending is still considered to be the most relevant prior art together with Dyson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,134."* (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4602280/en)

Per your literal-interpretation / no-auto-correction rule, I report the following and do not change the number:

• As fetched, US 4,232,134 A is titled "Process for isolating boron-containing phenol/formaldehyde resins" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4232134). It is a chemical-process document, which is inconsistent with the role the Specification assigns to it (the inventor's "most relevant prior art" alongside his own composite-display applications in the image‑reproportioning field).
• Note also that US 4,232,134 does not appear in the examiner/third-party citation table for 4,602,280 — it is named only in the Specification text.
• Conclusion: I cannot map this reference to any claim of 4,602,280, because the number as cited resolves, on the record I could retrieve, to an apparently unrelated document (and I could not verify its assignee/inventor). This should be verified directly (USPTO PatentCenter / the file wrapper of 06/557,750, and the text of the earlier Maloomian applications, where the same "Dyson" citation appears). I explicitly refrain from substituting a different Dyson patent number.

4. Bottom line: most relevant prior art and § 102 outcome

No cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–15 under § 102. The reason is structural: every claim carries the claim‑1/6 core of (a) entering actual and desired body proportions, and (b) reproportioning pixels along the horizontal axis of each raster line by a stretch/shrink factor derived from the difference between those actual and desired dimensions. No reference of record discloses that combination.

Ranked by technical relevance to 4,602,280:

1. US 4,486,774 (Maloomian) — closest disclosure (raster stretch/shrink of a stored body image to a customer's bust/hip/waist/height), but same inventor and post-filing issue date → not § 102 art. (Risk: double patenting, not anticipation.)
2. US 4,467,349 (Maloomian) — same family; same § 102 disqualification (same inventor; issued 1984‑08‑21, after the 1983‑12‑05 filing).
3. US 4,261,012 (Maloomian) — the family's base patent; same inventor → not § 102 art; background only.
4. US 4,276,570 (Burson) — best true third‑party § 102(a)/(b) art on the image-processing heart of the claims (digitize → store pixels → warp/transform → display; axis-directional stretching), but silent on body-measurement input and per-raster measurement-derived factors → no anticipation; strong § 103 candidate.
5. US 4,297,724 (Dainippon Screen) — video-based "try-on" with masking and (in dependent claims) anamorphic/zoom axis distortion → no anticipation; § 103 candidate.
6. US 4,232,334 (Revlon) — video camera + stored reference patterns + scaled overlay display → no anticipation; § 103 candidate.
7. CA 1020276 (Ryan) — face identification → background only; no anticipation.
8. US 4,232,134 ("Dyson" per the Specification) — unverifiable/discrepant; no mapping possible; flagged for direct file-wrapper verification.

Caveats I want stated plainly: (i) I only had web-search access, not direct USPTO PatentCenter/PACER query access, and my § 102/"by another" statements are legal-analysis conclusions, not legal advice; (ii) I could not retrieve the full text of CA 1020276, so I limited my characterization to the record title and family data; and (iii) the "Dyson / US 4,232,134" citation is an unresolved contradiction that I have not auto-corrected.

I'll verify the disclosure content of the key references before building the § 103 combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — US 4,602,280 (Maloomian) under pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Building on the Prior Art section above (which is treated as authoritative for the reference characterizations). This section does not repeat the reference summaries; it uses them. Analytical conclusions are offered as technical analysis, not legal advice, and the legal characterizations below are flagged as such.

1. Governing framework and one necessary correction to the prior section

Law applied. The application was filed 1983‑12‑05 (no earlier priority reflected in the family record), so pre‑AIA § 103(a) governs, with the Graham v. John Deere factors: (1) scope/content of the prior art; (2) differences between the art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), applies to the analysis (the Federal Circuit applies KSR to pre‑AIA cases) and supplies the operative rationales used below: known elements performing their established functions, a predictable variation, an obvious design incentive, and "obvious to try" among a finite set of identified solutions. Art must still be analogous (In re Bigio / In re Clay — same field of endeavor or reasonably pertinent to the problem).

Level of ordinary skill (my construction). A B.S. in EE or CS plus ~2–3 years in digital video/image processing (frame‑grabber systems, video special‑effects generators), or equivalent experience. This is calibrated to the record: Burson uses a vidicon/digitizing camera → digitizer → Interdata 732 minicomputer processor → M×N×8‑bit memory (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4276570A](/patent/US4276570A)/en); the '280 itself uses a DEC LSI‑11/23 + Datacube 150 + DSD 880. A worker at this level routinely implemented pixel resampling and axis‑selective video scaling.

⚠️ Flagged contradiction with the prior-reference section

The prior section states that Maloomian's own US 4,261,012 is "not available as § 102 art — same sole inventive entity," treating § 102(a)/(b) as unavailable. That is only half right, and I must flag it explicitly:

• § 102(b) contains no "by another" requirement. US 4,261,012 issued 1981‑04‑07, more than one year before the '280's 1983‑12‑05 filing date. An applicant's own patent that issued more than a year before the applicant's filing is a statutory bar, not merely background. See MPEP discussion of rejections based on an applicant's own work under § 102(b); a 37 CFR 1.131 affidavit cannot swear behind a § 102(b) bar.
• Date sensitivity (knife‑edge): if the '280 were instead entitled to the 1982‑04‑07 benefit date of Serial Nos. 366,372 / 466,973 (the '349/'774 applications), the one‑year bar date would be 1982‑04‑07, and the '012's 1981‑04‑07 issue date would fall exactly one year before — not "more than one year," so § 102(b) would fail. The family record shows no such benefit claim (priority listed as 1983‑12‑05), but the specification's own words ("a modification in design and application of my invention as disclosed in Ser. Nos. 366,372 … and 466,973") make this worth a file‑wrapper check.
• What does not change: the '349 and '774 remain unavailable under § 102(e) (same sole inventor → not "by another") and are not § 102(a)/(b) art (both issued after 1983‑12‑05). I agree with the prior section on those two. Their real exposure is obviousness‑type double patenting, not § 103(a) art.

Net effect: the '012 is the single most useful § 103 reference in the file — conditionally, and the alternative (third‑party‑only) combination in §4 is therefore presented separately with an honest strength rating.

2. Claim 1 / claim 6 limitation‑by‑limitation mapping

Claim 6 is the method mirror of claim 1; dependent claims 2–5 and 7–15 incorporate all of claim 1/6. The mapping below therefore drives every claim.

Claim construction point that matters for § 103: nothing in claim 1 requires the factor to vary from raster line to line. The specification says one factor per line (Step 4), but the claim says only "applying a stretch or shrink factor … to each raster." Under the broadest reasonable interpretation (and under Phillips, which governs now that the patent has expired — Wasica Finance GmbH v. Continental Automotive Sys., 853 F.3d 1272 (Fed. Cir. 2017)), a single uniform horizontal scale factor derived from a body‑size difference reads on claim 1 — which is exactly what the '012's horizontal‑axis proportioning and Dainippon's anamorphic lens do.

3. Combination I (strongest): US 4,261,012 + US 4,276,570 (Burson), optionally + US 4,232,334 (Revlon) and/or US 4,297,724 (Dainippon)

What the combination supplies. The '012 supplies the architecture and the purpose: a video‑captured full‑figure composite of a consumer, with axis‑specific proportional adjustment of one image to match the other (size 16 → size 10), and side‑by‑side ("one adjacent to the other") display. Burson supplies the pixel‑level mechanism the '012 assumes but does not describe: digitized M×N raster storage in memory, coordinate‑transformation warping of a stored person image, and explicit attention to resampling step size ("it is important to determine the step size or distance necessary to insure that there are no blank spots"). Revlon (if needed) supplies the customer‑measurement‑to‑stored‑target comparison and "scaled to the size of the other" teaching.

Motivations a PHOSITA would have had (multiple, independent):

1. Express teaching/suggestion in the '012 itself. The '012 criticizes the prior art because "a zoom lens will increase or decrease the size of its projected image proportionately in all directions," and states "the vertical and horizontal adjustments are necessary, as distinguished from those adjustments which are commonly found with a zoom lens." That is an express reason to implement independent axis scaling of a person's recorded image — the core of claim 1's horizontal reproportioning. The '012 also states "at least one of the images, preferably that of the article of clothing, are varied at least along horizontal and vertical axes," i.e., scaling the consumer's own image is disclosed as an available option.
2. Same field of endeavor and same problem. All four references sit in the same field — electronic capture of a human subject's image and display of an altered version for the subject's evaluation before a purchase or commitment. Dainippon: "trying on a hair form in image prior to the arrangement." The '012: allowing a customer "to sample the effects of various wedding gowns … without actually having to try them on." Burson: "simulating the appearance of a different age." Revlon: beauty‑advisor makeup selection. That is a single, coherent field, so no analogous‑art barrier exists.
3. Known elements performing established functions (KSR). Raster storage, coordinate warping, and filtered resampling were each known for their own sake and are combined without change in their respective functions.
4. Design incentive / market pressure. The '280's own specification supplies the market motivation (weight‑loss clinics and figure salons wanting an instant "before and after"). Economic motivation to make an appearance‑preview console applicable to body‑size rather than garment‑size is a recognized KSR rationale.
5. Obvious to try, finite solution set. Once the '012's axis‑proportioning composite existed, the ways to (i) accept the customer's current and target body figures and (ii) map them to a scale factor are a small, predictable set. The '280 itself concedes the arithmetic is trivial: the CPU "calculates a horizontal and/or vertical stretch and/or shrink factor."
6. Applicant's own admission of the level of skill. The '280 states the routines "can be written in any desired notations, formats or sequences," that "Any standard computer can be used," and that the raster transformation is accomplished by either "a simple repartitioning of the raster using fractions of pixels" or "a low pass filtering and sampling according to the pixel spacing." Presenting the two implementations as interchangeable alternatives is an admission that both were known techniques — directly undercutting dependent claims 2, 3, 10 and 11.
7. Applicant's own framing of the invention. The '280 describes itself as "a modification in design and application" of the family's prior inventions. That is an admission that the delta is one of application/use, which KSR's "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" rationale reaches.

Reasonably expected to succeed? Yes. The '012 already made the composite display; Burson already warped stored person images; Revlon already scaled one displayed image to match another. Nothing in the '280 required a new result — the specification expressly disclaims any novel computation ("the routines are not described in detail").

Claims reached: all of 1–15 (see chart in §6).

4. Combination II (third‑party‑only, no applicant's own patent): Burson '570 + Revlon '334 + Dainippon '724

This is the combination to run if the '012 proves unavailable as prior art (the 1982‑04‑07 benefit‑date scenario in §1).

Motivation. Same field (electronic personal‑appearance preview in a salon setting), same problem (let the subject see the modification before committing), and the express statement in Dainippon that an image can be "deformed" along one axis for a try‑on. The one element this combination does not teach as explicitly is entering the customer's actual and desired body measurements — the factor is instead derived from comparison to a stored reference image (Revlon) or an "aged" difference image (Burson).

Honest strength rating: weaker than Combination I but still substantial, on two grounds: (a) under KSR, substituting a "desired" state expressed as a body measurement for a "desired" state expressed as a selected reference image is a predictable variation — both are ways of specifying the target of the transformation; and (b) the claims' "means to enter information" are means‑plus‑function limitations (pre‑AIA § 112 ¶ 6) satisfied by a conventional keyboard, and the derivation of the factor from two entered numbers is arithmetic. A tribunal could also find the idea of comparing an actual state to a target state and matching proportions fully met by Revlon + Burson without more.

5. The "Dyson" reference and the double‑patenting exposure

• Dyson / US 4,232,134 — unusable as cited. The specification names "Dyson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,134" as the most relevant prior art alongside the applicant's own applications. As fetched, that number resolves to "Process for isolating boron-containing phenol/formaldehyde resins" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US4232134), and it does not appear in the citation table for the '280. Per the literal‑interpretation rule I do not substitute a different Dyson number. As it stands, this reference contributes nothing to a § 103 challenge (different field, no shared elements, no rational motivation) — but the applicant's naming of a Dyson reference as "most relevant" suggests the intended document is a different one, and if it can be pulled from the file wrapper of 06/557,750 it should be evaluated on its own terms. Its absence does not weaken Combinations I–II, which stand independently.
• CA 1020276 (Ryan) — no § 103 role. Facial identification; not pertinent to the claimed problem of measurement‑driven image reproportioning.
• ODP, not § 103, is the exposure from US 4,467,349 / US 4,486,774. The prior section correctly noted that US 4,486,774 describes substantially the same raster stretch/shrink applied to "bust, hip, waist, and height measurements." Because both are same‑inventor and issued after the '280's filing, they are not § 103(a) art; but a common‑ownership/same‑inventor later patent disclosing the same subject matter raises obviousness‑type double patenting (a § 101/§ 103‑derived judicial doctrine addressed — where it applied — by terminal disclaimer). That is a separate invalidity theory and should not be conflated with the § 103 combinations above.

6. Claim‑by‑claim conclusion

Bottom line: on the art of record, all 15 claims appear obvious under pre‑AIA § 103(a) — most clearly in Combination I, and still substantially in Combination II. No claim contains a limitation that the record art, individually or in combination, fails to supply — the only genuinely arguable gap is the recitation of entering body measurements, and the claims recite that as a means‑plus‑function data‑entry element plus arithmetic.

7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4) — the patentee's side

I found no evidence of secondary considerations in the record, and I state that as a negative rather than inferring any:

• No commercial success, licensing, copying, or industry‑praise evidence appears in the file. The patent was never assigned, never asserted, and expired 2003‑12‑05 with no recorded post‑issuance assignments (per the Assignment section above) — so there is also no licensing revenue to point to as a nexus‑bearing indicator.
• Patentee's best argument: the examiner had US 4,276,570 (Burson) and US 4,261,012 before him (both appear in the "Patent Citations (7)" table) and still allowed claims 1–15. That is some evidence the examiner did not consider the combination obvious. It is weak: no reasoned allowance statement is on the record here, and citation of record is not evidence of consideration of the specific combination. It also lacks a nexus to any objective indicium.
• Damaging admissions. The specification's characterization of the invention as a "modification in design and application"; its statement that "Any standard computer can be used"; and its presentation of fractional‑pixel repartitioning and low‑pass filtering as interchangeable options all cut against non‑obviousness, particularly for claims 2/3 and 10/11.
• Misleading indicator to disregard: the 146 forward citations (per the "Cited By" list) measure technical relevance, not non‑obviousness, and several arise from image‑morphing/virtual‑try‑on art that is itself downstream of this disclosure.

8. Caveats and residual uncertainty

1. Not legal advice; not an exhaustive search. This is a § 103 analysis over the references of record plus the confirming lookups described above. A full validity study would require a field search for body‑measurement‑driven image morphing in the 1980–1983 window and the file wrapper of 06/557,750 (to see the examiner's actual rejections, any § 1.131/1.132 submissions, and any terminal disclaimer).
2. Two negatives I could not close with the tools available: (a) whether the '280 claims benefit of the 1982‑04‑07 applications — this determines whether US 4,261,012 is § 102(b) art or drops out entirely (the knife‑edge in §1); and (b) whether the intended "Dyson" reference is a different, image‑related Dyson patent. Both should be checked in PatentCenter by application number 06/557,750. I did not auto‑correct either number.
3. Consistency with the prior sections: this section contradicts the prior‑art section's treatment of US 4,261,012 as categorically unavailable § 102 art (see the flag in §1), and it is consistent with the prior sections' findings that no single reference anticipates, that the '349/'774 are not § 102 art against the '280, and that the "Dyson" citation is unr