US 5019911

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me run targeted checks for litigation/CAFC activity and the USPTO record.

US Patent 5,019,911 — Summary

Note on search scope: I searched for USPTO records, litigation, and any 2026 CAFC activity tied specifically to the number 5019911. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, no IPR/PGR, and no litigation naming this patent. Results containing "5019911" were unrelated hits (a Brazilian court docket number, a Mexican property folio, an RU patent's Soviet application number SU-5019911, and a Westlaw citation "2014 WL 5019911"). Per your instruction, I am reporting that gap as a gap rather than substituting a similar number.

Bibliographic data (from the Google Patents record, fetched 2026-09-21)

Abstract (as published)

An image pickup apparatus comprising an image pickup element capable of selectively reading an object image in either one of a field image pickup mode and a frame image pickup mode, a light measuring circuit for measuring the object brightness, and a light emitting device, wherein there is provided a control circuit for controlling the exposure amount to a correct value by changing the light measuring characteristic of the light measuring circuit on the basis of the selected one of the field and frame image pickup modes.

Core technical context

The CCD is operated in two read-out modes. In frame mode, odd rows and even rows are read out as separate interlaced fields, giving full vertical resolution. In field mode, two adjacent rows (e.g., A3+B3, A2+B2, A1+B1) are added together and read out, and the pairing is changed field-by-field. The specification states the field mode therefore has half the vertical resolving power but twice the sensitivity of the frame mode. The invention addresses the problem that switching between these modes while using a flash/light-emitting means causes exposure error.

Plain-language overview of each independent claim

Claim 1 — Mode-dependent light metering (the "measurement characteristic" concept).
An image pickup apparatus with: (a) photoelectric converting elements arranged in rows and columns; (b) read control that switches between a first mode combining multiple rows for read-out and a second mode reading each row separately; (c) a separate light-measuring element (not the image sensor itself) that measures object luminance using different light-measuring characteristics for the two modes; and (d) exposure control that sets how much light falls on the image sensor based on that measurement. This is the heart of the patent's title — metering is adjusted depending on which read mode is active.

Claim 5 — Exposure program and emitted light amount, for use with an illuminator.
An apparatus intended for use with an illuminating device (flash), with (a) row/column photoelectric elements; (b) read control switching between a row-combining first mode and a per-row second mode; and (c) emitted-light-amount control means that changes both the exposure program pattern and the amount of light emitted by the illuminator in response to the mode changeover.

Claim 12 — Post-exposure judgment then mode switching.
An apparatus with: (a) row/column photoelectric elements; (b) exposure control that performs the image pickup operation; (c) judgment means that decides, after the exposure, whether the exposure condition was proper; and (d) changeover means that selects the row-combining first mode or the per-row second mode in response to that judgment. This corresponds to the FIG. 3–5 flowcharts, where measured value L1 is compared to a reference L0′ (about 70% of correct value L0), with frame mode chosen if adequate and field mode (double sensitivity) if not.

Claim 22 — Exposure program pattern changeover.
An apparatus with: (a) image pickup means (rows/columns); (b) read control switching between the row-combining first mode and per-row second mode; and (c) exposure program control that changes the exposure program pattern controlling the amount of light converted, in response to the mode changeover. This maps to the FIG. 7/8 embodiment where the guide number G is set to 16 m in field mode or 11 m in frame mode and the aperture is computed as FNo = G/D.

Claim 26 — Exposure program diagram changeover.
Substantively parallel to claim 22 but framed in terms of changing the exposure program diagram (e.g., the aperture-vs-distance program lines A and B of FIG. 8, or the zone-division programs of FIGS. 13–16) in response to the mode changeover.

Dependent-claim scaffolding worth flagging: claims 30–32 are multiple-dependent claims that pull in the interlaced read-out of the second mode, additive reading of every two rows in the first mode, and field-by-field changing of the added row pairing. These track the specification's description of the CCD drive scheme.

Provenance and uncertainty

• All bibliographic and claim text above comes from the patent's own full text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5019911/en (fetched 2026-09-21), corroborated by SumoBrain's claim listing.
• The Google Patents page states legal status as an assumption, not a legal conclusion: expired, anticipated expiration 2008‑09‑06. I have not independently verified the fee/maintenance history through USPTO PatentCenter, and no Certificate of Correction content (a correction was recorded 1993‑03‑09) was available in the material I retrieved — so the possibility of post-issue claim text changes should be treated as unverified.
• I could not locate any CAFC 2026 appeal, district court case, or PTAB proceeding involving this patent. Given the patent expired in 2008, active 2026 litigation is unlikely, but I am stating this as "not found" rather than "confirmed absent."

I'll search multiple sources for litigation involving US patent 5019911.

Let me refine my search — the initial results contain several false positives (Westlaw citations, Brazilian case numbers, and an unrelated "Ozmo '991 patent"). I'll search for litigation specifically naming this Canon patent.

Let me run a few final targeted checks, including the specific docket aggregators.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,019,911

Bottom Line

I found no evidence of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,019,911 ("Image pickup apparatus with mode dependent light measurement," Okino et al., assigned to Canon Inc./Canon Kabushiki Kaisha).

No district court case, ITC action, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal appears to have asserted or challenged this specific patent. As of my searches, the patent's known legal "history" is limited to prosecution and maintenance-fee events.

Patent Identifiers Verified (interpreted literally, no auto-correction)

The early expiration (2008) is itself a strong indicator that this patent was never litigated — as a 1987-priority Japanese-origin filing, its enforceable term ended nearly two decades ago, and Canon's well-known camera/toner enforcement campaigns (see below) do not involve it.

Important: False Positives You Should Not Rely On

Searches for the string "5019911" return many hits that are not this patent. I flag these so they aren't mistaken for litigation against U.S. 5,019,911:

1. Westlaw citation "2014 WL 5019911" — This is a case citation for Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. SunTrust Banks, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02454-WSD (N.D. Ga. Oct. 7, 2014). It appears repeatedly (in stay motions, IPR petitions, etc.) and is entirely unrelated to a patent with that number.
2. Ozmo Licensing LLC v. HP / Acer / Dell — IPR papers refer to a "'991 Patent" (a WPAN/WLAN networking patent) asserted by Ozmo Licensing in W.D. Tex. (e.g., 6:21-cv-00383; 6:21-cv-01225; 6:22-cv-00642). That is a different patent number ending in 991, not U.S. 5,019,911. Do not conflate.
3. Brazilian docket numbers — e.g., "5019911-27.2012.8.27.2729/TO" and "5019911-24.2019.4.03.0000" are Brazilian court case numbers (Tribunal de Justiça / TRF-3), not patents.
4. Soviet/Russian patent SU 5,019,911 / RU 2,049,950 C1 — A pipe-connection invention with the same numeric string under a different numbering system (Soviet application number).
5. Canon's actual U.S. patent litigation campaigns — Canon has been a prolific plaintiff, but the asserted patents in those suits are toner-cartridge/process-cartridge patents (e.g., the '649, '551, '402, '667, '060, '061, '654, '881, '882 patents in In re Canon Patent Litigation, S.D.N.Y. 14 Civ. 537) and printhead patents (e.g., Slingshot v. Canon), not 5,019,911.

Outcome / Current Status Summary

Because no case was identified:

The only recorded legal-status events for 5,019,911 are the USPTO maintenance events listed on the face of the record: a Certificate of Correction (1993-03-09), and maintenance-fee payments (year 4, 1994-11-03; year 8, 1998-11-25; year 12, 2002-11-01), followed by expiration.

Confidence & Caveat

I have moderate-to-high confidence that no litigation exists, based on: (a) the patent's 2008 expiration; (b) the absence of any litigation hit tying this number to a case; and (c) targeted searches of litigation-focused sources returning only the false positives above.

However, I want to be explicit about a limitation: my final confirmatory searches of the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and Docket Alarm/CourtListener were cut short by a tool/step limit and did not complete. Before relying on this for a legal opinion, I recommend running a definitive check via:

• Unified Patents Portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation (search patent 5019911)
• PACER / Docket Alarm — full-text search of the patent number across all district courts
• PTAB (PTActs / Patent Trial & Appeal Board) — confirm no IPR/PGR/CBM
• Lexis CourtLink / Westlaw KeyCite for the patent itself

If any of those return a hit, I would revise this assessment immediately.

I'll start by verifying the canonical PTAB list and checking for any proceedings the ODP may not have indexed.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to rule out any proceeding that ODP might not have indexed, and to verify the patent's status/expiry timeline.

One more targeted sweep to be sure nothing exists under a variant citation.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5,019,911: 0 (zero). The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and independent web searching surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent number — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB-based posture at all to lean on for this patent, but you almost certainly do not need one — US 5,019,911 issued 1991-05-28, carried a priority date of 1987-09-10, and Google Patents records its anticipated expiration on 2008-09-06, roughly four years before the AIA trial provisions took effect (2012-09-16). The absence of PTAB activity is not a "hardened patent" signal; it is an "expired patent" signal.

No proceeding to report

I cannot populate the per-proceeding template because there is no proceeding number to populate it with. Fabricating an IPR number, panel, or FWD here would be the exact failure mode to avoid. What I can report is the negative result and why it is the expected result:

• AIA trial availability window. IPR/PGR/CBM practice before the PTAB began 2012-09-16. By that date this patent had already expired (2008-09-06). Filing an IPR against a long-expired patent to invalidate claims no one can infringe is economically irrational, which is the ordinary explanation for a zero docket rather than any defect in the search.
• Statutory eligibility. PGR is limited to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16 — unavailable. CBM review is limited to covered business methods in the financial-services space — this is a CCD/field-frame-readout camera patent, categorically wrong subject matter. IPR is the only theoretically available vehicle, and it was moot by 2012.
• No § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists. Because no IPR ever reached a Final Written Decision, no petitioner or privy is estopped anywhere.
• Verification links: Google Patents record — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5019911/en ; PTAB E2E/PTACTS search portal — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ ; USPTO Patent Center for the file history — https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/ . Searching PTAB E2E for "5019911" returns no trial documents.

False positives you should actively disregard

My searches repeatedly surfaced other patents whose numbers merely end in "991" or "911." Do not let any of these get attached to a memo about US 5,019,911:

• U.S. 8,740,991 — Freedom Innovations, LLC v. Blatchford Products Ltd., IPR2015-00640 (prosthetic ankle joint).
• U.S. 7,612,805 — Canon Inc. v. Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC, IPR2020-01321 and IPR2020-01322 (digital imaging; note Canon is the petitioner here, not the owner).
• U.S. 6,543,911 — inter partes reexamination 95/001,410.
• U.S. 7,149,511 — ex parte reexamination 90/011,569.
• "Intell. Ventures II LLC v. SunTrust Banks, Inc., 2014 WL 5019911" — that string is a Westlaw citation number, not a patent number. It appears in dozens of stay-motion briefs and shows up in any keyword search for "5019911."
• The Ozmo Licensing " '991 Patent" (Unified Patents petition in W.D. Tex. litigation against HP/Acer/Dell, WPAN/WLAN subject matter) is a completely different, much later patent. It has nothing to do with Canon's 1991 camera patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 32 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB; none canceled, none sustained in a post-grant proceeding. Claims 1–32 (including independent claims 1, 5, 12, 22, and 26) stand exactly as they issued, subject only to a 1993-03-09 certificate of correction recorded in the file history. There has been no IPR cancellation to hand a defendant a clean invalidity story, and equally no PTAB validation of any claim. Critically, all 32 claims are also expired, so the enforceability question is not "are the claims valid" but "can anything still be asserted on them."

Estoppel landscape: empty. Because no petition was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone — no petitioner, no real party in interest, no privy. There is therefore no estoppel map to draw and no "grounds that could have been raised" to reserve. Any invalidity work product is unconstrained by PTAB estoppel, though it is also largely academic given the expiry date. Note that the 1991-era file history and the three references cited on the face of the patent — US 4,603,354 (Canon), US 4,663,669 (Canon), US 4,750,041 (Eastman Kodak, "Apparatus for merged field operation of an image sensor in a still video camera") — are the only intrinsic prior art of record; US 4,750,041 is the most on-point for the field/frame-merge claim family.

Pattern signals: none. No serial petitioner (no Unified Patents, no defensive aggregator, no competitor) has ever targeted this patent at the Board — consistent with the zero-docket result above. There is no patent-owner appeal history because there is no adverse Board decision to appeal. I found no evidence of district court assertion of US 5,019,911 either; that observation is search-based and not a substitute for a PACER/Docket Alarm docket pull if the stakes justify it.

Recommended next steps

• Do not build a defense around an invalidated claim. No claim of US 5,019,911 has been canceled, so there is no FWD to cite and no disposition to quote. Any internal memo asserting "claims 1–5 have been canceled" would be false for this patent.
• Lead with expiration, not invalidity. The patent's anticipated expiration date is 2008-09-06 (priority 1987-09-10; application filed as a continuation 1990-05-18). Damages under 35 U.S.C. § 286 reach back only six years from the filing of a complaint; a suit filed today could not reach pre-expiration conduct. If you receive a demand letter citing US 5,019,911, the threshold response is that the patent term ended nearly two decades ago and pre-suit damages are time-barred.
• Verify the chain before you rely on it. Pull the Patent Center file history (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) and confirm the fee/expiration entries and the 1993 certificate of correction; confirm the assignment record shows Canon Inc. as current assignee (Google Patents lists Canon Inc. for both original and current assignee, and the maintenance-fee events through 2002-11-01 are consistent with lapse-by-term rather than lapse-for-nonpayment).
• If the assertion is real, re-run PTAB E2E contemporaneously. My searches reflect the state of the record as of 2026-09-21. If a petition were filed after the ODP ingest behind the structured block, it would appear at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ under the patent number — check there before finalizing any opinion, and note that an expired patent remains formally eligible for IPR even though no rational petitioner would file one.

Confidence statement: I am highly confident there is no AIA trial proceeding on US 5,019,911 — the structured ODP block says zero, and every web search for the specific patent number returned only unrelated patents sharing a "991"/"911" suffix plus a Westlaw citation collision. I am likewise confident about the 2008 expiration date as recorded by Google Patents. I do not have a verified PACER-level accounting of district court litigation history for this patent, so treat the "no assertion found" point as a search result, not a certified clearance.

I'll start by checking the USPTO assignment record and related sources for this patent.

Let me probe the assignment record more specifically and check for any post-issuance transfers.

Let me confirm whether any post-issuance assignment is indexed and check the certificate of correction.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 5,019,911

Scope note / source limitation. I attempted to pull the recorded-assignment record from USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ / the legacy https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) by patent number. Assignment Center is a JavaScript/session-gated application that my retrieval could not render directly, so I triangulated using: (i) the Google Patents legal-events table embedded in the authoritative full text (which flags record-level events including assignment codes), (ii) the uspto.report/patent/grant/5019911 ownership line, and (iii) targeted searches for any post-issuance transfer. I am reporting the result as "no assignment record found" rather than substituting a similar number or inferring a chain. If you need reel/frame confirmation, that must come from a logged-in Assignment Center query.

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Inventors

• Priority is claimed from two Japanese applications, JP 62‑225375 and JP 62‑225376, both dated 1987‑09‑10, which matured as JP 2552499 B2 and JP 2552500 B2 — i.e., the same inventive pair at the same corporate applicant.
• Unusual-pattern check: I found no evidence that either inventor departed Canon, and no co-inventor drop-off pattern. That check is based on absence of evidence, not positive verification of employment tenure — treat as unclear, not "clean." There is no signal here of the pre-fire-sale inventor-exodus pattern.

Original assignee

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.).

• On the face of the patent: assignee of record is Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, Japan (confirmed by the grant record and by uspto.report/patent/grant/5019911, which states the grant "is currently assigned to Canon Kabushiki Kaisha").
• Line of business: Canon is a large diversified operating company — imaging (cameras, camcorders, still‑video), optical equipment, and office/business machines (copiers, printers). This is a practicing operating company, not a holding vehicle.
• Product embodying the claims: The claimed subject matter (CCD with switchable composite-row "field" readout vs. per-row "frame" readout, with mode-dependent exposure/light-metering control) is directed at solid-state still-video/camera apparatus of the late-1980s. Canon was commercially active in that space in the relevant window (e.g., the RC-series still video cameras). I could not pin the claims to a specific shipped model from the sources available, so "shipped a product embodying the claims" is plausible but unverified — I am not asserting model-level correspondence.
• Current status: Operating. No acquisition, dissolution, or bankruptcy of Canon Kabushiki Kaisha is indicated anywhere in the record.

Assignment timeline

No recorded post-issuance assignment was found for US 5,019,911.

Specifically:

• The Google Patents legal-events table for this patent lists only: STCF (patent grant, 1991‑03‑28), CC (Certificate of Correction, 1993‑03‑09), FEPP (fee-payment/entity-status housekeeping, 1993‑11‑01 and 1998‑11‑01), and FPAY (maintenance fees — year 4 on 1994‑11‑03, year 8 on 1998‑11‑25, year 12 on 2002‑11‑01). There is no AS (assignment) legal-event code at all, which is the tell that USPTO never recorded a change of owner.
• Ownership reporting across uspto.report and Google Patents consistently names Canon Kabushiki Kaisha as current/sole owner.
• No reel/frame entry, conveyance type, assignor, assignee, or correspondent of record is available for a transfer because no transfer was recorded. I will not manufacture a reel/frame.

Per instruction, I state this plainly: the Assignment Center record for this patent appears to contain no post-issuance assignments, which means the original assignee (Canon Kabushiki Kaisha) remained the owner of record throughout the patent's life. The 1993 Certificate of Correction (CC) is a document-correction event, not an ownership event — it does not move title. (Its substantive content was not retrievable in my sources; consistent with the prior analysis section, treat possible post-issue text changes as unverified.)

Note on the requested "stop after this section" rule: because the task also mandated the full section set in a fixed order, I am completing the remaining sections below, but they are populated with "not found" findings rather than the fabricated chain the rule is designed to prevent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5019911
    1987 : Priority filing in Japan
         : Inventors Okino and Ise
    1988 : US application filed by Canon
    1990 : Continuation filed by Canon
    1991 : Patent issued to Canon
    1993 : Certificate of correction
    2008 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The ownership record shows no recorded transfer ever — Google Patents' legal-events table for US 5,019,911 contains grant, correction, and maintenance-fee events but no AS assignment event, and ownership is uniformly reported as Canon Kabushiki Kaisha throughout the patent's life ending with the anticipated 2008‑09‑06 expiration. There are therefore zero NPE signals available to assess; the patent was a captured, never-reassigned operating-company asset. Independent verification of the reel/frame absence should be run against the USPTO Assignment Center patent-number search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 5019911), since my access to that gated application was indirect.

I'll verify the patent record and examine each cited prior-art reference.

I have US4603354. Now let me verify the remaining three cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,019,911 (Image pickup apparatus with mode dependent light measurement)

Verdict up front: the USPTO record for this specific patent lists exactly four examiner-cited U.S. patent references. None of the four, taken alone, cleanly anticipates the five independent claims (1, 5, 12, 22, 26) — the two strongest are US 4,750,041 (Kodak) for the mode-dependent exposure concept and US 4,603,354 (Canon) for the row-combining/frame-vs-field read-out concept. The flash-emission exposure-program subject matter of claims 5 and 22–29 is not disclosed by any cited reference at all, which is where the patent's actual novelty sits. Details below.

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1. Record confirmation (USPTO / Google Patents)

This matches the previously generated summary exactly — no contradiction. One caveat carried forward: a Certificate of Correction was recorded 1993‑03‑09 (Legal Events), and I could not retrieve its content, so the claim text below should be treated as the as-published text pending verification of that correction.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5019911/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5019911](/patent/5019911)

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2. The four cited references at a glance

Note references 2 and 3 are the same family — US 4,780,764 is a later divisional/continuation of US 4,663,669 (identical title, "Image sensing apparatus," overlapping inventors Kinoshita et al., same 1984‑02‑01 priority). They are therefore cumulative as art, not independent teachings.

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3. Reference-by-reference analysis

Reference 1 — US 4,603,354 A · "Image pickup device" · Canon · granted 1986‑07‑29

URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4603354

Brief description. A solid-state (FT‑CCD) image pickup device with a selector for a first mode in which the signal charges of at least two photoelectric conversion cells are read in combination and a second mode in which the charges are read separately for each cell, and which varies the amplification factor of the read signal according to the selected mode. The abstract states this explicitly. The specification discusses a "field mode" (two vertically adjacent cells added) versus a "frame mode" (odd and even cells read separately), and notes that the charge in frame mode is about half that in field mode, i.e., "sensitivity of the camera is one iris step lower."

Claim-by-claim §102 potential:

• Claim 1 — NO anticipation. Discloses elements (a) photoelectric converting means in rows/columns and (b) read-control changeover between a combining mode and a per-row mode. But it lacks element (c) (a light receiving element different from the photoelectric converting means measuring object luminance with different light-measuring characteristics per mode) and (d) (exposure control of incident light). US 4,603,354 compensates mode-to-mode sensitivity by adjusting signal gain, not by metering or by controlling incident light — a real difference from the '911 claims.
• Claims 2, 3, 10, 11, 30, 31, 32 — relevant but not anticipatory standing alone. The two-row combination, the field/frame distinction, and interlaced read-out of the separate mode are all described. Because these are dependent claims inheriting the independent limitations they cannot be fully anticipated by this reference alone.
• Claims 5, 12, 22, 26 — NO. No illuminating device, no emitted-light control, no post-exposure propriety judgment, no exposure program.

Bottom line: This is the best reference for the row-combining / frame-vs-field read-control element of every independent claim, and it is the reference the '911 specification implicitly builds on — but it is a §103 reference at most for the independent claims, not a §102 anticipation.

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Reference 2 — US 4,663,669 A · "Image sensing apparatus" · Canon · granted 1987‑05‑05

URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4663669

Brief description. Concerns blooming suppression by surface recombination in a frame-transfer CCD. It provides a photodetector, a recombination circuit that drains excess charge to the majority carrier, and an instruction circuit that changes over between a still mode (one image signal) and a movie mode (multiple image signals), with a controller altering the recombining capability so that recombination is higher in the still mode than in the movie mode.

Claim-by-claim §102 potential:

• All independent claims — NO anticipation. The reference is directed to charge recombination/blooming and to a still/movie changeover; it contains no light-measuring element, no mode-dependent light-metering characteristic, no emitted-light control, no exposure program, and no post-exposure propriety judgment. It is cited as background showing mode changeover in an image sensor, not as a teaching of the claimed exposure features.
• It is at most a §102(b)/§103 background reference for the general notion of an image sensor having plural selectable operating modes.

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Reference 3 — US 4,780,764 A · "Image sensing apparatus" · Canon · granted 1988‑10‑25

URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4780764

Brief description. Substantively the same disclosure as US 4,663,669 (same abstract, same recombination/still-vs-movie changeover, same specification on surface recombination and AB-pulse driving). Same Canon/Kinoshita family, 1984‑02‑01 priority, filed 1987‑01‑29, granted 1988‑10‑25.

Claim-by-claim §102 potential:

• None — same reasoning as Reference 2. It discloses no metering, no exposure program, no flash control, no post-exposure judgment.
• Its only §102 significance is as a §102(e) reference (its application filing in the same family predates the '911 priority), and it is cumulative with US 4,663,669.

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Reference 4 — US 4,750,041 A · "Apparatus for merged field operation of an image sensor in a still video camera" · Eastman Kodak · granted 1988‑06‑07

URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4750041

Brief description. A still video camera with an interline-transfer sensor operable in frame mode (two fields read separately) or merged field mode (the two fields' charges summed into one field for single-field recording). Critically for this analysis, it discloses that "the appropriate aperture setting of the diaphragm 38 for either the full-frame or merged field mode is determined from the brightness value," where the brightness value comes from an exposure control circuit 16 comprising a separate photodiode 44 and a light integrating circuit 46 (light diverted by the partially transmissive mirror 34). The camera adjusts the amount of image light reaching the sensor according to the selected operational mode (by closing down the aperture or shortening exposure) so the output stays nominally uniform. Claim 1 of this reference recites "means for selecting either frame or merged field operation; means for adjusting the amount of image light received by the sensor according to the selected operational mode."

Claim-by-claim §102 potential:

• Claim 1 — the closest thing to an anticipation among the four, but still short. US 4,750,041 supplies (a) rows/columns photosites, (b) a frame/merged-field changeover (summed combination vs. separate fields), a separate light-receiving element (photodiode 44) measuring object luminance, and (d) exposure control (aperture) set per mode. The one genuine gap is element (c)'s requirement that the measuring means measure "by different light measuring characteristics corresponding to said first and second modes." In US 4,750,041 the metering circuit itself behaves the same; it is the exposure value that is selected per mode. Whether that reads on "different light measuring characteristics" is a §102-vs-§103 fight; a careful examiner would likely call this a §103 combination with US 4,603,354 rather than a clean §102.
• Claim 22 — arguable §102. Claim 22 requires only "exposure program control means for changing an exposure program pattern … in response to changeover between said first and second modes." The statement that the aperture "for either the full-frame or merged field mode is determined from the brightness value" is a mode-dependent exposure program and is a serious anticipation argument for claim 22 (and, by the same language, claim 26).
• Claim 12 — NO. The mode is selected by an external FLD/FRM signal and the exposure determination is an integration/pre-exposure cycle; there is no "judgment means for effecting judgment as to whether an exposure condition was proper … after the image pickup operation" driving the mode changeover.
• Claim 5 — NO. No illuminating device and no emitted-light-amount control.
• Claims 23–25, 27–29 — NO. All require a flash device; this reference has none.

Bottom line: US 4,750,041 is the most material reference for the mode-dependent-exposure concept and the only cited reference with a separate light-measuring element. It bears directly on independent claims 1, 22, and 26, but it does not reach claims 5 (flash emitted-light control) or 12 (post-exposure propriety judgment).

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4. What the citation set does not cover — the gap that defines the invention

Cross-referencing the cited art against the independent claims:

The flash/illumination aspect (claims 5 and 22–29) and the post-exposure-judgment aspect (claim 12, the FIG. 3–5 flowcharts where L1 is compared against L0′ ≈ 70% of L0) have no counterpart in any of the four references. The four references are also all U.S.; the patent's own JP priority applications (JP 62‑225375 / JP 62‑225376, issued as JP 2552499 B2 / JP 2552500 B2) are priority documents, not cited prior art, and should not be counted as §102 references against US 5,019,911.

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5. Honest uncertainty flags

• No §102 "knockout" found. Assigning a single reference as anticipating an independent claim would be overstating the record. The strongest candidates are (i) US 4,750,041 → claim 22/26, and (ii) US 4,750,041 (+US 4,603,354) combination → claim 1; everything else is §103-grade material.
• US 4,780,764 and US 4,663,669 are cumulative (same family), so the citation list contains three distinct technical teachings, not four.
• I did not independently verify the 1993‑03‑09 Certificate of Correction content; if it amended claim text, the claim-mapping above could shift. This is flagged, not resolved.
• All dates above are from the Google Patents/family records; grant-date and §102(e)-date brackets are my statutory analysis, not a USPTO adjudication.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5019911/en · https://patents.google.com/patent/US4603354 · https://patents.google.com/patent/US4663669 · https://patents.google.com/patent/US4780764 · https://patents.google.com/patent/US4750041 · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5019911

I'll pull the four examiner-cited references and any related family/companion art to ground the § 103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,019,911 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / caveat up front: This is a hypothetical validity analysis. The patent is recorded as expired (anticipated expiration 2008‑09‑06 per the Google Patents record), so there is no live infringement posture; the analysis is the sort one would run defensively, for a validity opinion, or for a reexam-style challenge. It uses only the four references appearing on the face of the patent as cited prior art, plus the specification's own admissions. I have not reviewed the 1988–1991 prosecution history, and the substance of the 1993‑03‑09 Certificate of Correction remains unverified (flagged in the previously generated bibliographic section) — if claim text was corrected post-issue, claim numbering/scope below should be re-checked.

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1. Legal framework

• Graham v. John Deere Co. v. Laitram, 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art, differences, level of ordinary skill, secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination is obvious where the elements were known, the combination was of the type suggested by the prior art, and there existed a design incentive or market pressure plus predictable results. "[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
• In re Kahn / TSM: a reasoned motivation need not be explicit in the references so long as it is articulated.
• Presumption of validity + clear-and-convincing burden applies to any invalidity challenge on an issued, now-expired claim.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA). A camera/systems engineer with roughly 2–3 years' experience in solid‑state (interline‑transfer and frame‑transfer CCD) imaging, and working familiarity with (i) field vs. frame integration / merged-field read-out, (ii) automatic exposure control from a TTL or separate AE photodetector, and (iii) guide‑number flash exposure (FNo = GN/D) and series-quench flash control. The prior art itself (four US patents, 1984–1988) demonstrates that this level of skill included the mode/sensitivity relationship — the references discuss it as a known engineering fact.

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2. The four cited references, as actually disclosed

US 4,603,354 — Canon (Hashimoto, Kato, Takayama); prio. 1982‑06‑09; granted 1986‑07‑29

"Image pickup device" (frame‑transfer CCD).

• Discloses a selector for a first mode in which signal charges of at least two photoelectric cells are combinationally read and a second mode in which charges are read separately for each cell, and — critically — "an amplification factor for the read signal is varied in accordance with the mode selected."
• Expressly states the sensitivity relationship: in frame mode the per-cell charge is "approximately one half of those in the field mode in which the signal charges of the two adjacent cells are added. That is, sensitivity of the camera is one iris step lower."
• Source: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-[4603354](/patent/4603354)-A ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US4603354

US 4,750,041 — Eastman Kodak (Vogel, Milton, Nutting); filed 1986‑08‑21; granted 1988‑06‑07

"Apparatus for merged field operation of an image sensor in a still video camera." This is the most damaging reference.

• Discloses an electronic still camera "capable of either frame or merged field modes of operation" with "means for selecting either frame or merged field operation" and "means for adjusting the amount of image light received by the sensor according to the selected operational mode" (claim 1).
• States the purpose and mechanism of the adjustment: merging fields "increas[es], even doubl[es], the apparent 'speed' of the sensor," and "the light received by the image sensor 12 during merged field operation is reduced by closing down the aperture or by shortening the shutter speed (for example, by halving one or the other)," so that nominal output is maintained across modes; this "enables lower-light photography for given aperture/shutter conditions."
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4750041 ; https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US4750041 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/12/7a/8a/28ad522c3fe715/US4750041.pdf

US 4,663,669 and US 4,780,764 — Canon (same family, prio. 1984‑02‑01)

"Image sensing apparatus." These are anti‑blooming patents, but they disclose an instruction circuit for instructing change-over between a still mode, in which only one predetermined image signal is formed, and a movie mode, in which a plurality of image signals are formed, and a controller for switching the recombination capability by the mode. Relevant as secondary evidence that (a) mode change-over of the read/accumulation regime was a conventional camera function in this field and was being driven by mode, and (b) a common-assignee, same-field family of references that a POSITA would consult together.

• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4663669 ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US4780764

Combination predicate established: '354 supplies "mode-dependent sensitivity + mode-dependent signal-level compensation"; '041 supplies "mode-dependent exposure compensation," including the explicit halving of aperture/shutter; '669/'764 supply the general mode-changeover architecture. All four are in the same field (solid-state still/movie video cameras, CCD read-out modes), and three of the four are the patentee's own prior work.

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3. Claim-by-claim analysis

Independent claim 1 (mode-dependent light-metering characteristic + separate meter)

Obviousness argument (moderate–strong): Start from '354, which expressly quantifies the problem — frame mode is one iris step (2×) less sensitive than the added-row mode. '041 then supplies the solution direction: "adjust the amount of image light received by the sensor according to the selected operational mode" and, in a flash/low-light context, the sensor's effective speed must be matched to the chosen mode so the output is "nominally uniform." A POSITA implementing that teaching in a camera that already has an AE photodetector has exactly two equivalent places to inject the mode-dependent 2× correction: (i) in the exposure actuator (aperture/shutter/gain) — which is '041 — or (ii) in the metering path (meter sensitivity/reference/integration constant), so that the AE loop arrives at the correct actuation value. These are functionally identical, predictable alternatives; selecting the metering-side implementation is a design choice with no unexpected result. KSR instructs that such a substitution of one known mechanism for another, where the result is predictable, is obvious. Claim 4 makes the point explicit ("measurement sensitivity … changed depending on said first and second modes").

Rebuttal hook for the patentee: if "different light measuring characteristics" is construed as the meter's inherent transfer function (e.g., switching the integration capacitor of the flash light-metering circuit, Fig. 12 of the patent), the four cited references do not disclose it, and the patentee can argue the prior art taught adjusting exposure (a distinct, downstream variable) rather than the measurement. That is an argument about claim construction and the "different approach vs. teach-away" line — '041's teaching of one route is not a teaching away from the other, so it likely only narrows, not defeats, the obviousness case. Note also that claim 1 requires the meter to be a separate light-receiving element; since I could not confirm from the retrieved text whether '041's exposure control circuit 16 uses a dedicated AE sensor or the imager itself, that sub-element is better admitted as conventional (separate AE sensors were standard in this era) than attributed to a specific reference — I flag that as an evidentiary gap to verify against the '041 specification.

Independent claim 5 (exposure program pattern and emitted light amount, for use with an illuminator)

Obviousness argument (strong): '041's claim 1 is nearly on point for the exposure program half — it changes exposure according to selected mode, and its disclosure of halving aperture or shutter time is a literal "exposure program" shift. The flash‑energy half is supplied by undisputed prior art well outside the four citations (guide‑number automatic flash, e.g., FNo = GN/D, and series‑quench control), and the motivation is supplied by '354: if the mode changes sensor speed by a factor of 2 / one iris step, the photographer must either stop down one step or halve the flash output. Changing the emitted light (halving flash) instead of, or in addition to, the aperture is a predictable equivalent of '041's halving of the aperture, with the added advantage that the flash is a directly controllable energy source. Under KSR, "a technique used to improve one device" (mode-matched exposure) being applied "in the same way" to a flash-equipped device is obvious. Dependent claims 6 (change intensity) and 7 (change emission time) are the two textbook ways to control flash energy — capacitor switching (Fig. 10(a)) and series-quench timing (Fig. 10(b)) — both old in the flash art by 1987. Claim 8/9 (exposure control member = diaphragm or shutter) is literally the '041 disclosure.

Rebuttal hook: claim 5's preamble ("to be used with an illuminating device") raises whether the illuminator is within the claim. If it is, the cited-art combination must include a flash controller — easy to supply from the general flash art, but it means the analysis cannot rest on the four citations alone. If it is not (printed matter / intended use), the flash element must still be supplied by some reference. Either way, flagged as a § 112 boundary issue that affects which art must be brought in.

Independent claim 12 (post-exposure judgment → mode changeover)

Obviousness argument (moderate–strong, with one genuine wrinkle): '041 expressly teaches that merged-field operation increases speed "even doubling" it and thereby enlarges the photographic range in low light. '354 quantifies the same 2× / one-iris-step delta and confirms that frame mode's lower signal is a recognized problem ("the reduction of the S/N ratio by one iris step is not negligible"). A POSITA confronted with an underexposed frame therefore has an express, art-supplied reason to switch to the mode that doubles sensitivity. Automating that switch off the AE comparator output is the kind of routine automation that KSR treats as obvious (a known machine function reduced to an automatic decision). Independent claims 13–17 (flash emitting means, diaphragm, pickup-period control, shutter, "amount of incident light proper") all map to '041/known AE hardware.

The genuine wrinkle — and the patent's best non-obviousness argument: claim 12 requires the judgment to be made after the image pickup operation and the mode selected for that already-exposed frame (Fig. 3: shutter opens S1, flash fires S2, metering S3–S6, shutter closes S7, then judge S8 and select field/frame S9/S10). '041 selects the mode before exposure (a user-selected mode that then sets exposure). Using post-exposure metering to rescue an underexposed frame by choosing a double-sensitivity read-out is a temporal inversion of the prior-art sequence, and I did not find it disclosed or suggested in the four references. The 70 %-of-correct threshold L0′ that creates a deliberate deadband (so a marginal measurement still lands in frame mode) is a further specific design choice not suggested by the art — though the numerical threshold itself is not recited in the claims, so it cannot of itself carry patentability. Note also that the alternative-embodiment analysis in claim 12 is agnostic as to when exposure is measured, which may undercut this hook if the claim is construed functionally (a "judgment … after the image pickup operation" reads on any post-exposure AE evaluation).

Independent claims 22 and 26 (exposure program "pattern" / "diagram" changeover)

Obviousness argument (strongest of the set): Claims 22 and 26 are directed to the same subject matter (pattern vs. diagram is a drafting distinction; they rise and fall together). '041's adjusting element is a mode-dependent exposure program change in all but name. The Fig. 8 "line A / line B" of US 5,019,911 (FNo = G/D with G = 16 m in field mode and G = 11 m in frame mode — a one-step shift of the aperture-vs-distance program) is exactly what '354 supplies the quantity for (2× sensitivity = one iris step = GN ratio 16:11 ≈ √2) and what '041 supplies the concept for (mode-dependent exposure adjustment to keep output uniform). Claims 24 and 28 (program diagram of diaphragm vs. object distance at flash emission) recite the classic guide-number flash program FNo = GN/D, which is admitted prior art. Claims 23/25/27/29 (control at least the flash emitting light amount) is the same guide-number art.

I would expect claims 22 and 26 to be the most vulnerable claims in the set — the combination '354 + '041 (optionally + conventional guide-number flash control) appears to render them obvious with a strong, explicit motivation and a predictable result.

Dependent claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 30, 31, 32 (row pairing / interlacing / additive read)

These are well within the read-out art and add little independent weight; they are the kind of implementation detail a POSITA would supply.

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4. Summary of combinations and relative strength

Motivation-to-combine, consolidated (KSR-compliant):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution shape — all four references concern CCD camera operation in selectable row-combining vs. row-separate modes; three are the patentee's own.
2. Express problem recognition in the art — '354 states the frame mode is one iris step less sensitive and calls the S/N loss "not negligible"; this is a stated deficiency inviting a fix.
3. Express solution teaching in the art — '041's mode-dependent exposure adjustment to keep output "nominally uniform," and its express statement that merged-field operation "enables lower-light photography."
4. Predictability — the correction is a simple, quantifiable 2× / one-step factor, with well-known implementation options (aperture, shutter, gain, flash energy, meter constant). No new principle of operation is required.
5. Design incentive — photographers switching between resolution-priority (frame) and sensitivity-priority (field) modes need exposure continuity in low light and with flash; a camera that silently over- or under-exposes across the mode switch is commercially unusable.

Secondary considerations. I found no evidence of record to support a nexus-bearing secondary consideration (no litigation, no PTAB, no CAFC activity — as reported in the prior section). Any commercial-success argument would need a nexus between the claimed metering-characteristic change and Canon's still-video camera sales, which is unlikely to overcome the strong '041-based prima facie case on claims 22/26. A long-felt need argument has some textual support (the specification's discussion of low-brightness exposure error), but the need was recognized in the art ('354, '041) and partly solved in the art ('041), which weakens it.

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5. Where the obviousness case is weakest — the honest counterweight

1. Claim 1, element (c). No verified disclosure in the four cited references of changing the measuring means' characteristic (as opposed to the exposure actuator) in response to the read mode. The case there rests on a substitution/design-choice argument, not on a reference that literally teaches it. A narrow construction of "light measuring characteristic" (meter transfer function, e.g., the switched integration capacitor of Fig. 12) materially strengthens the patentee's non-obviousness position.
2. Claim 12's post-exposure sequencing. '041 selects mode before exposure; claim 12 (as practised in Fig. 3) judges after. I did not find this inversion in the cited art. The claim language, however, may be read functionally enough to cover pre-exposure equivalents.
3. Verification gaps I am not able to close from the retrieved material — flagged rather than assumed: (a) whether '041's exposure control circuit 16 uses a dedicated AE photodetector; (b) whether '041 expressly alternates the merged row pairing field-by-field; (c) whether '354 discloses any metering (as opposed to read-amplification) response to mode. Each of these should be confirmed against full specification text/figures before relying on the corresponding element of the chart.
4. Non-cited but potentially relevant art. My search surfaced US 4,887,160 (Canon, "Image-pickup device and system capable of outputting either combined (high band) or separate (low band) signals," prio. 1985‑07‑08, granted 1989‑12‑12), which is cited by '764 but does not appear on the face of US 5,019,911. Its priority predates the 1987‑09‑10 priority date, so it may be available as prior art depending on the § 102 subsection applied and on the 1988 vs. 1990 filing dates; it should be evaluated separately. It is not part of my chart above, and I have not read its disclosure.
5. Claim-text integrity. A Certificate of Correction was recorded 1993‑03‑09; its content was unavailable in the material retrieved. If corrected text differs from what is reproduced here, the element-by-element mapping for the amended claims must be redone.

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6. Bottom line

On the four references cited on the face of US 5,019,911, the strongest § 103 challenge runs through US 4,750,041 (mode-dependent exposure adjustment, expressly to keep output uniform across frame/merged-field and expressly to enable low-light shooting) in view of US 4,603,354 (express disclosure of the two row-combining/row-separate modes, the 2×/one-iris-step sensitivity delta, and mode-dependent read-signal compensation), optionally with US 4,663,669 / US 4,780,764 for the mode-changeover architecture and the ordinary guide-number/series-quench flash art for the illuminant-side elements. That combination appears to render claims 22 and 26 (and their flash-program dependents) obvious, and to render claims 5 and 12 (and most dependents) obvious with a well-articulated motivation. Claim 1 is the closest call, because the four references do not literally teach changing a separate light meter's characteristic as a function of the read mode; the challenge there depends on treating the meter-side and exposure-side corrections as predictable equivalents — a strong KSR argument, but one a patentee can contest through claim construction of "light measuring characteristic."

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5019911/en (patent text, claims, cited art); https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-4603354-A and https://patents.google.com/patent/US4603354 (US 4,603,354); https://patents.google.com/patent/US4750041 and https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US4750041 (US 4,750,041); https://patents.google.com/patent/US4663669 and https://patents.google.com/patent/US4780764 (US 4,663,669 / US 4,780,764).