US 5160195

I have the authoritative full text of US5160195 in context. Let me check for any current litigation/docket activity before summarizing.

Summary of US 5160195 — "Display panel backlighting system"

Note on scope of verification: I could not confirm a live USPTO PatentCenter or PACER/CAFC docket entry for this patent in the 2026 timeframe. My search of 2026 Federal Circuit materials returned nothing involving patent 5160195. (A 2026 CAFC brief referencing a "'019 application" concerns U.S. Application No. 17/409,019 assigned to Ablynx N.V./Sanofi — an unrelated coincidental digit match, not this patent.) The bibliographic data below comes from the Google Patents record of US5160195A, which is the authoritative text supplied to me.

Bibliographic data

Abstract

A display panel system includes a peripheral frame surrounding a translucent panel and an apparatus for backlighting the translucent panel. The backlighting apparatus includes a support arm hingedly connected to a light source. The support arm includes a gripping member for securing the support arm to the peripheral frame to position the light source to radiate light through the translucent panel. In some embodiments the apparatus further includes a reflector for reflecting stray light toward the translucent panel. The support arm is foldable against the light source to facilitate packing and shipping.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 (an "improvement" claim, written in Jepson-style in the preamble, so the preamble's display system is treated as the environment of the invention):
In a display system having a peripheral frame around a translucent panel with front and back surfaces, the improvement is a backlighting apparatus comprising:

• a light source;
• a support arm hingedly connected to the light source; and
• securing means for releasably securing the support arm to the peripheral frame;
• the support arm is arranged relative to the light source so the light source sits a distance from the panel's back surface, radiating light through the panel to evenly illuminate the front surface; and
• the support arm is foldable against the light source to give a compact structure for storage/transport when not in use.

Two features carry the practical weight: (a) the hinge between arm and light source enabling the fold-flat packing configuration, and (b) the standoff distance that avoids "hot spots." The "securing means" is a means-plus-function-style limitation whose corresponding structure in the specification is the gripping member 28 with upper bracket 28A and lower bracket 28B.

Claim 7 (independent, recast as an apparatus/system claim rather than an improvement claim):
A display panel system comprising a translucent panel having front and back surfaces, a peripheral frame surrounding the panel, and an apparatus for lighting the panel from the back surface comprising a light source, a support arm hingedly connected to the light source, and securing means for releasably securing the support arm to the peripheral frame — with the same standoff-distance, even-illumination, and fold-against-the-light-source limitations as claim 1.

Claim 7 is substantively parallel to claim 1 but claims the assembled system positively rather than as an improvement to an existing system. Claims 2–6 depend from claim 1 and claims 8–13 depend from claim 7; the parallel dependent sets cover (i) the reflector connectable to the peripheral frame, (ii) the reflector as two planar reflective elements hinged along a first edge (tent configuration), (iii) one foldable end member on an adjacent edge of each element, (iv) a second foldable end member, and (v) a second peripheral frame where the securing means can grip one frame individually or both frames collectively (claim 13 adds that the first frame is stacked above the second panel).

Points worth flagging

• The two independent claims differ essentially in claim format (improvement vs. system), which is a classic setup for a same-invention/obviousness-type double-patenting or "two claims to the same invention" concern — but I have no prosecution-history file wrapper in front of me to confirm whether such an issue was raised, so treat that as an analytical observation, not a record fact.
• Claim 1's fold-flat limitation is drafted as a capability ("being foldable against"), which reads on structure rather than a required method step; the specification supports it via hinge 27 and FIGS. 2A/2B.
• I have no authoritative information on whether this patent was ever asserted, licensed, or reexamined beyond the fee-lapse record shown.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5160195 specifically.

Let me search more specifically across litigation databases.

Summary

No litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 5,160,195. I searched multiple patent-litigation and court-record sources for the specific number "5160195" / "5,160,195" and found no district court case, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding in which US 5,160,195 was an asserted patent.

What I searched

• Google Patents / FreePatentsOnline page for US5160195 (litigation and "Cited By" panels)
• Docket Alarm (OCR court-record search)
• CourtListener / RECAP
• Unified Patents PTAB/litigation portal references
• General web queries combining the number with "litigation," "infringement," "lawsuit," "complaint," "TigerMark," and "defendant"

Results

Every hit for "5160195" was a false positive from an unrelated identifier, not this patent. For example:

• A Brazilian appellate case, Apelação Cível nº 5160195-87.2021.4.03.9999 (TRF-3, rural-age pension) — unrelated to patents.
• A Florida LLC FEI number 84-5160195 (MCSQUIRT LLC) and other corporate/registry numbers.
• CourtListener API records (investment/financial-disclosure entries with internal id 5160195) and a Portland, Oregon e-filing record number.

None of these concern US Patent 5,160,195.

Closest relevant record — a PTAB prior-art citation, not litigation

The only substantive legal-proceeding reference to this patent I found is as prior art in an inter partes review:

• IPR2015-00506, Exhibit Ex. 1019 – "US5160195 Miller" (P.T.A.B., petition/exhibit dated Dec. 30, 2014).

This is important to frame correctly: in IPR2015-00506 the '195 patent appears to have been submitted as an exhibit (prior art) by a petitioner challenging a different patent. That is not a proceeding against the '195 patent itself and not infringement litigation. I could not, within this session, confirm the subject patent and parties of IPR2015-00506, so treat the parties/outcome as unverified.

Context that explains the absence of litigation

The patent's own file history supports the conclusion that it was never asserted:

• Patent: US 5,160,195, "Display panel backlighting system"
• Inventor: Eric A. Miller; Original assignee: TigerMark (a Massachusetts corporation)
• Filed: 1992-01-31; Issued: 1992-11-03
• Terminated early: Maintenance fee lapsed — "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" (2004-11-03) and "Patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees" (2004-12-01), confirmed at 2004-12-28.

So the patent was in force for roughly 12 years, was tied to a small display-graphics business (TigerMark), and there is no record of it being enforced. Its later significance is as prior art cited by/against other patents (e.g., it appears in the "Cited By" lists of US 2006/0162202 and WO 2009/109034, and as the IPR exhibit above), not as an asserted patent.

Bottom line / caveats

• Known litigation: none found. No plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case number/outcome can be reported because no such case appears to exist.
• I was unable to complete a full live query of the Unified Patents litigation portal and PACER within this session; those systems, plus a direct Docket Navigator / Lexis CourtLink "KeyCite"-style history check of the patent, would be the authoritative confirmatory sources. Based on the sources actually retrieved, the answer is that no litigation involving US 5,160,195 is known.
• The single related proceeding is the IPR2015-00506 prior-art exhibit; if you need certainty on that proceeding's parties and outcome, it should be verified directly against the PTAB record rather than assumed.

I'll verify the structured data with a few targeted searches before reporting.

Let me run a couple more confirmatory searches on the patent owner and any litigation chain.

PTAB / AIA Trial Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,160,195

Patent: Display panel backlighting system
Inventor: Eric A. Miller · Assignee: TigerMark (A Corporation of MA)
Filed: 1992-01-31 · Granted: 1992-11-03 · Priority: 1992-01-31
Claims: 13 (independent claims 1 and 7)
Status: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees effective 2004-11-03; anticipated term expiry 2012-01-31)

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, and zero CBMs — meaning there is no claim-invalidation, no claim-sustention, no settlement, and no institution-denial outcome to report; the patent's claim set (all 13 claims) is entirely UNTESTED at the PTAB, and the bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "hardened patent" or "dead claims" but something stronger and simpler: the patent lapsed in 2004 and expired 2012-01-31, so no AIA trial was ever possible — the absence of PTAB activity is not evidence of patent strength, it is a byproduct of the patent already being dead by the time the AIA trial regime began on 2012-09-16.

No proceedings to itemize

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied from the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 5,160,195, and independent web searching surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, no PTAB Final Written Decision, no PTAB appeal, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving this patent or its assignee TigerMark that I could identify. I am flagging this rather than treating it as an exhaustive clearance: the USPTO ODP ingest is the closest thing to a canonical list, and it is empty for this patent number. I found nothing that contradicts it.

Why zero proceedings is the expected answer here (timeline arithmetic, not inference about the patent's merits):

The patent's enforceable life had already terminated roughly eight years before the first IPR could even be filed. There was never a live patent to petition against. A petition against an expired, lapsed patent would also have faced dismissal on the ground that the patent owner can no longer amend claims to preserve rights (37 C.F.R. § 42.121(a)(2) mootness concerns under Sony Corp. v. Iancu-era Board practice) and, more fundamentally, no meaningful controversy.

Caveats I will not paper over:

• I did not find any record of a petition to revive the lapsed patent under 37 C.F.R. § 1.378 (unintentional delay) or § 1.377. If one had been granted, the patent could in theory have been revived for the unexpired portion of its term — but the 20-year term from the 1992-01-31 filing date ran out 2012-01-31 regardless, and any revival would have expired with the term.
• No litigation docket for this patent was located either. I cannot rule out an unindexed 1990s-era infringement suit that never produced a published opinion; I found no evidence of one, and I am not asserting one existed.
• The "Cited By" set on Google Patents (7 items, e.g., FR2843224A1, WO2004015658A1, US20060162202A1, WO2009109034A1, US9625633B2, US9983340B2) reflects modern backlit-display art citing the '195 patent as a reference — not anyone challenging it.

Claim status map for US 5,160,195

No claim is "CANCELED." No claim is "SUSTAINED" or "CONFIRMED." Every claim is simply expired and untested. I am stating this explicitly because the request format anticipates invalidation outcomes, and fabricating any would be the single most damaging error in this report.

Strategic summary

1. There is no claim-narrowing to work with, because there was no adjudication. Nothing in the record shows any of claims 1–13 was ever invalidated, amended, disclaimed, reexamined, or reissued. The only event that changed the patent's scope is chronological: it stopped existing. For parallel-art purposes, the prosecutorial record shows the examiner cited two references — US 4,335,421 (Modia, "Light fixture, light aperture and method of uniformly illuminating an optically diffusive viewing area," 1982-06-15) and US 4,404,619 (Ferguson, "Illuminator box," 1983-09-13) — both squarely in the backlit-display/light-box field and both available as prior art in any future dispute.

2. The § 315(e)(2) estoppel landscape is empty — and irrelevantly so. Because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted, no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) or § 325(e)(2). There is no estoppel-shielded art and no estoppel-barred art. Every prior-art ground is technically "still available" — but that framing overstates the value, because there is nothing left to invalidate. A defendant's real position is stronger than an estoppel win: the patent cannot be asserted for conduct after 2012-01-31 (term expiry under 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2), 20 years from the 1992-01-31 filing), and for the period between 2004-11-03 and 2012-01-31 the patent was lapsed for nonpayment under 37 C.F.R. § 1.362, with no revival petition visible in the file. Combined with the six-year damages lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286, any recoverable damages window closed on or about 2010 at the very latest, and realistically in 2004.

3. Pattern signals: none, and none possible. No repeat petitioner, no serial IPR filer, no defensive aggregator (I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar involvement — and none is plausible given the dates), and no PTAB-appeal history for this patent owner. TigerMark is a 1990s Massachusetts display-systems company; the file's only post-issuance activity is the maintenance-fee ledger and one 1992 assignment record (Reel 006000/Frame 0363, ASSIGNOR: MILLER, ERIC A.). The patent's ongoing relevance is entirely as prior art, not as an asserted right — it shows up in the search reports of later applications (e.g., the WO2004015658A1 ISR cites "US 5 160 195 A (MILLER ERIC A), 3 November 1992, abstract; figure 2"), which is exactly what one expects of a lapsed patent in a crowded lighting/displays field.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and someone has asserted US 5,160,195 against you:

1. Do not build an IPR strategy. Build a standing/expiry motion. The patent lapsed for nonpayment of the 11.5-year maintenance fee effective 2004-11-03 and expired at end of term on 2012-01-31. Conduct after those dates cannot infringe a patent that no longer exists, and § 286's six-year lookback forecloses damages in any event. Cite the Google Patents legal-events ledger directly: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5160195/en (see the LAPS/STCH/FP entries of 2004-11-03, 2004-12-01, and 2004-12-28).

2. Ask the asserting party for the revival record. If they claim the patent was revived under 37 C.F.R. § 1.378, demand the petition and the USPTO decision. Absent a granted revival, the lapse period carries no enforceable rights (35 U.S.C. § 41(b), 37 C.F.R. § 1.362).

3. Verify there is truly no PTAB record before you rely on this report. The canonical check is the USPTO PTAB End-to-End (E2E) system at https://ptab.uspto.gov/ and the PTAB API at https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api — search by patent number 5,160,195 and by the parties "TigerMark" and "Miller." For any Federal Circuit activity, search CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%225160195%22. My searches returned nothing; the ODP block returns nothing; treat a null result as confirming, not as a green light to skip the check.

4. If opposing counsel cites claims 1–13 as live, the correct response is not "those claims were canceled" — they were not. The correct response is: "Every one of claims 1–13 is expired; the patent lapsed in 2004 and its term ended 2012-01-31; there has never been a PTAB proceeding because there was nothing left to challenge by the time IPRs existed; and any demand built on this patent is meritless as a matter of arithmetic." An IPR would have been the wrong instrument and would have been dismissed; do not waste the filing fee.

5. Reuse the art, not the verdict. The two examiner-cited references — US 4,335,421 (Modia) and US 4,404,619 (Ferguson) — plus the modern citing family (e.g., US 9,625,633 B2 / US 9,983,340 B2, Rambus Delaware; WO2009109034A1, Rololight) are the useful residue of this patent. If a client sells backlit panel displays and wants defensive coverage, this art is where the invalidity work should be done.

If there is no assertion against you: the only reason to keep this patent on a watch list is as a citation reference. It imposes no freedom-to-operate constraint, no design-around obligation, and no licensing exposure. The absence of PTAB activity is not a signal of a hardy patent here — it is a signal of an abandoned one.

Sources

• Google Patents, US5160195A (bibliographic data, legal events ledger, cited/citing references): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5160195/en
• USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block (supplied in this prompt) — zero proceedings
• FreePatentsOnline mirror, US 5,160,195 (TigerMark): https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5160195.html
• USPTO Patent Public Search PDF of the patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/54/81/e5/5e161871f56bbf/US5160195.pdf
• USPTO PTAB E2E (for independent verification): https://ptab.uspto.gov/
• USPTO PTAB API: https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api
• CourtListener docket/opinion search: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%225160195%22
• 35 U.S.C. §§ 286, 311–319, 325(e)(2); 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.362, 1.377, 1.378

Confidence statement: I am highly confident there are zero AIA trial proceedings on US 5,160,195 — this is the expected result given the patent's 2004 lapse and 2012 expiry, and it is consistent with both the ODP structured data and my searches. I did not locate any litigation or Federal Circuit record either. I have not verified the maintenance-fee ledger against the USPTO PatentCenter fee history page directly, and I have not confirmed the absence of an unindexed 1990s district-court case; if either matters to a filing, pull the PatentCenter transaction history for application 07/828,741 before relying on this report.

I'll research the assignment record and ownership history for US 5160195 before drafting. Let me run several searches in parallel.

The results surfaced something important: US5160195 appears as prior art in 2014–2015 PTAB proceedings, not as an asserted patent. Let me dig into that, TigerMark's corporate history, and any litigation.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 5,160,195 ("Display panel backlighting system")

Bottom line up front: This is an unusually clean, single-link chain. There is exactly one recorded assignment — the founding transfer from the sole inventor to his operating company on the filing date — and no post-issuance conveyances of any kind. The patent lived its entire enforceable life with the original operating-company assignee and died of a maintenance-fee lapse in 2004. There is nothing here that resembles an NPE chain.

Source caveat (read first): I was unable to pull the live Assignment Center record directly — assignmentcenter.uspto.gov is a JavaScript single-page app that the available search tooling cannot render, and my query budget was exhausted before I could retrieve the recorded correspondent field. The chain below is reconstructed from the authoritative Google Patents legal events (included in the supplied patent text), the patent's own front page, and public trademark/business records. I flag every place where a field could not be independently verified.

Inventors

• Sole inventor. The front page lists one inventor only ("Inventor: Eric A. Miller, Allston, Mass."), so there is no multi-inventor departure pattern to evaluate.
• Employment inference: The assignment to TigerMark was executed on the filing date (1992-01-31), the standard signature block for an employee/founder invention-assignment obligation. Miller's residence of record and the assignee's listed address are both Allston, MA, which is consistent with a small founder-led company rather than a large corporate R&D operation. He is almost certainly a founder or key employee, not a rank-and-file engineer in a big portfolio.
• Pattern note: No unusual post-filing departure evidence exists in the record. A single inventor assigning to his own company on day one is the opposite of the "all inventors bail within 12 months" red flag the brief asks about — there is no signal of a distressed-inventor fire-sale.
• Forward-looking detail: An "Eric Miller" appears as the named inventor on a much later published application, US 2017/0178550 ("Backlit display system"), suggesting an individual who remained active in backlit-display design decades later. I could not confirm this is the same person — treat it as a lead for further diligence, not a finding.

Original assignee

TigerMark — a Massachusetts corporation, Allston, MA (the record styles it "TIGERMARK, A CORPORATION OF MA").

• Primary line of business — operating company, and it shipped product. TigerMark held USPTO trademarks on goods, not services:

  • TIGERMARK — Serial 73834197, filed 1989-10-25, covering "lightweight portable exhibit units and accessories, namely shipping containers, frames and shelving."
  • CUSTOM-PORTABLE — Serial 75157768, filed 1996-08-29, covering "portable and adaptable exhibit systems, comprised of frames, shelves, folding panels, walls, and product displays."
  • A further image mark (Serial 75193852), filed 1996-10-25, for the same exhibit-unit goods.

  These are use-based trademark filings on physical goods, which is affirmative evidence of commercial product in the same exhibit/display-systems market the patent addresses. In other words, TigerMark was making and selling portable display systems — the exact field of the patent.

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? The specification is written from an operator's perspective (shipping-case dimensions, hot-spot performance, weight of a 13-lb competitor light box) and the trademark record shows goods in commerce. That is strong circumstantial evidence the claimed backlighting apparatus was commercialized, though the record does not name the specific SKU.

• Current status: Not operating as a going concern, on the evidence available. The trademark activity clusters in 1989–1996; the patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees on 2004-11-03 and was formally expired 2004-12-01 (USPTO legal events, "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362"). A company that abandons its flagship patent and stops filings is typically wound down, sold, or dissolved. I could not locate a dissolution, acquisition, or bankruptcy record for TigerMark within the available search budget, so I do not assert one — I state only that there is no evidence of continued operation after ~2004.

Assignment timeline

Recorded conveyances for US 5,160,195: exactly one.

• 1992-01-31 (executed) / recorded 1992-01-31 — Reel 006000/0363
  • Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.")
  • Assignor: Eric A. Miller (sole inventor, Allston, MA)
  • Assignee: TigerMark, A Corporation of Massachusetts (Allston, MA)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources available. The Google Patents legal-event abstract records the assignor, the reel/frame, and the effective date but not the recording correspondent's name/firm. Because there is only one link in the chain, the "repeat correspondent" test cannot be run even in principle — there is no second document in which a correspondent could recur. A direct pull from the Assignment Center is required to populate this field (see verification link below).
  • Context: Founding employee/founder assignment — the inventor conveyed all right, title and interest to his own operating company on the day the application was filed. Ordinary course, not a reorg, not a securitization, not a transfer to an asserter.

Everything after 1992 is administrative, not conveyancing. The USPTO legal events show only fee/payer activity — no Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, or Release records:

• 1996-06-11 — maintenance-fee reminder; 1996-07-08 — 4-year fee paid with surcharge for late payment; entity status changed to large entity.
• 1999-12-05 — owner ceases to claim small-entity status; entity status large entity.
• 2000-04-28 — 8-year fee paid.
• 2002-12-04 — payer number de-assigned (housekeeping).
• 2004-05-19 — maintenance-fee reminder; 2004-11-03 — lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees; 2004-12-01 — patent discontinued; 2004-12-28 — lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fee. The 12-year fee was never paid.

No post-issuance assignment exists. The chain terminates where it began, with the original 1992 transfer to TigerMark. Google Patents continues to list the current assignee as TigerMark — consistent with there having been no recorded change of ownership at any point.

Cross-reference — unrelated use as prior art (does not bear on ownership): US 5,160,195 was later used as a printed publication/prior-art exhibit in PTAB proceedings:

• IPR2015-00361 (review of US 6,755,547) — Exhibit 1011, filed 2014-12-04.
• IPR2015-00506 — Exhibit 1019, filed 2014-12-30.

These are citations against TigerMark's patent by third-party petitioners challenging later patents. They are evidence that 5,160,195 was treated as old art in the public domain, not as an assertion asset. They do not affect the ownership chain, and I could not confirm the identity of the owner of the challenged patents (US 6,755,547 et al.) within the available steps — do not read those proceedings as an ownership event for 5,160,195.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5160195
    1992 : Filed by Eric A Miller
         : Assigned to TigerMark
         : Patent issued as US 5160195
    1996 : Four year maintenance fee paid
    2000 : Eight year maintenance fee paid
    2004 : Lapsed for nonpayment of fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Named-entity check for completeness: TigerMark is not the watermarking/authentication company of a similar name that appears in the search results (US 6,999,959, "TigerMark Database Module" — an unrelated digital-watermarking product). Conflating the two would be an error; the USPTO records here tie US 5,160,195 to TigerMark, the Allston, MA portable-exhibit manufacturer.

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The record contains exactly one recorded conveyance — Eric A. Miller → TigerMark, Reel 006000/0363, executed and recorded 1992-01-31 — with no subsequent assignment, security interest, name change, or transfer of any kind. All eight NPE signals score not present: no shell entity, no known asserter, no cascading or pre-litigation transfers, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. The chain instead ends at the original operating-company owner, which let the patent lapse for nonpayment of maintenance fees on 2004-11-03 (expired 2004-12-01). In substance this is a clean, non-asserted, expired patent — the "insufficient data" label reflects only that a single-link chain generates no assignment activity to score, not any genuine ambiguity about ownership.

Verify:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "5160195" or 828741)
• Legacy Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5160195/en
• TigerMark patent portfolio — https://patents.justia.com/assignee/tigermark
• TigerMark trademarks — https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/tigermark-corporation-[483750](/patent/483750)/

Two residual gaps to close if this memo is used for diligence: (a) the correspondent of record on Reel 006000/0363 — unverified here, and only obtainable from the Assignment Center PDF; and (b) any state corporate record (MA Secretary of State) showing whether TigerMark was dissolved, acquired, or otherwise wound down after 2004. Neither gap changes the verdict, since there is no second assignment for a correspondent to recur across.

I'll research US5160195 and its cited prior-art references.

Identification of the patent (no auto-correction applied)

The searched identifier resolves literally to:

US 5,160,195 A — "Display panel backlighting system"

• Application No. US 07/828,741; filed 1992‑01‑31; granted/published 1992‑11‑03
• Inventor: Eric A. Miller; Original assignee: TigerMark (A Corporation of MA)
• CPC: F21S 6/004, F21V 21/08, G09F 13/04
• Status: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed 2004‑11‑03 for failure to pay maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362)
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5160195/en

Note on method: the tools available to me return the Google Patents record (which mirrors the USPTO front page) rather than a direct USPTO PatentCenter query. I have not auto‑corrected any number. Where the record and a secondary source disagree on a date, I flag it rather than silently choosing one.

Prior art cited on the face of US 5,160,195

The patent lists exactly two references under "Patent Citations (2)," both marked cited by examiner (i.e., applied during prosecution, presumably under §102/§103):

Reference 1 — US 4,335,421 A

Brief description. A light fixture for uniformly illuminating the viewing area of an optically diffusive element using conventional fluorescent tubes. It comprises an optically diffusive element with a viewing area; a light source spaced from that element; a reflector spaced from the light source so the light source sits between the reflector and the diffusive element; and a translucent "light aperture" (substrate) mounted between the light source and the diffusive element. Portions of the aperture reflect incident light back to the reflector and other portions transmit light onto the viewing area, dividing illumination into direct and indirect components. Claim 1 recites the diffusive element, spaced light source, spaced reflector, and interposed translucent substrate.

Stated objects include uniform illumination with conventional fluorescent tubes, partial heat shielding of the viewing area, and minimizing overall physical dimensions — i.e., it addresses the same "hot spot / uniform backlighting" problem discussed in US 5,160,195.

Potentially anticipates under §102? — No. It does not anticipate any claim of US 5,160,195.

• Claim 1 (and independent claim 7) require: (a) a support arm hingedly connected to the light source; (b) securing means for releasably securing the support arm to the peripheral frame; (c) the arm arranged so the light source sits at a distance from the panel's back surface; and (d) the arm being foldable against the light source. Modia's fixture is a self‑contained, essentially permanent illumination unit — it discloses none of the hinged arm, the releasable frame‑securing means, or the fold‑to‑compact feature.
• Dependent claims 2–5 and 8–11 add reflector limitations (two planar reflective elements hingedly connected to one another along a first edge, plus foldable end members) and "connecting means for connecting to the peripheral frame." Modia's reflector is a single reflector behind the lamps, not two edge‑hinged planar elements, and has no means for connecting to a display‑panel peripheral frame. So even these claims are not anticipated.

Modia is therefore better characterized as §103 obviousness art for the "reflector + spacing to avoid hot spots / even illumination" concepts (relevant to claims 2–5 and 8–11 in combination), not as §102 anticipatory art.

Reference 2 — US 4,404,619 A

Brief description. A light box / light table for x‑ray reading, graphic arts, parts inspection, photography. It has a light‑tight enclosure with a translucent screen on one face; two sets of fluorescent bulbs mounted against a light‑colored, highly reflective supporting wall; and control switches to selectively energize bulbs of different intensity/color, giving variable illumination intensity and blended colors. Claim 1 recites a housing, translucent screen, at least two sets of illuminating means each operable to illuminate the entire screen, at least two different illumination sources per set, and control means for selectively energizing them.

Potentially anticipates under §102? — No. It does not anticipate any claim of US 5,160,195.

• It does disclose a light source behind a translucent panel (the general environment of claims 1 and 7) and a reflective wall (tangential to the reflector of claims 2/8). But it contains no support arm hingedly connected to a light source, no securing means for releasably securing an arm to a peripheral frame, and no folding of the source/arm assembly against the light source for shipping. Claims 1, 6, 7, 12 and 13 (and the arm‑independent portions of the dependents) all turn on those missing elements.
• Its inventive point is variable intensity/color via switched bulb sets — orthogonal to the foldability/compact‑shipping and frame‑mounting problems solved by US 5,160,195.

Ferguson is likewise best treated as §103 background art (a backlit translucent screen with a reflective backing), not §102 anticipation.

Context: documents citing US 5,160,195 (not prior art against it)

These are later publications that cite US 5,160,195 — they are cited by, so they are not §102 prior art and I list them only for completeness of the record:

• FR 2,843,224 A1 (Homdec S A, 2004‑02‑06) and WO 2004/015658 A1 (Homdec SA, 2004‑02‑19) — backlit shop‑window display units
• US 2006/0162202 A1 (Robert Landry, 2006‑07‑27) — illuminated foldable module and display system
• EP 1,759,146 A4 (Gary Regester, 2007‑05‑30) — light with flexible reflector and clear support
• WO 2009/109034 A1 (Rololight Corporation, 2009‑09‑11) — backlighting system for display
• US 9,625,633 B2 and US 9,983,340 B2 (Rambus Delaware LLC) — light emitting panel assemblies

I also note that US 5,160,195 itself appears as an exhibit (Ex. 1019, "US5160195 Miller") in IPR2015‑00506, i.e., it was used as prior art in a later proceeding — the reverse direction from this analysis.

Bottom line on the §102 question

Applying the claims as written and the references as disclosed:

• US 4,335,421 (Modia): anticipates no claim. Missing the hinged support arm, the releasable peripheral‑frame securing means, and foldability.
• US 4,404,619 (Ferguson): anticipates no claim. A fixed light box; missing the same arm/hinge/securing/folding elements.

Both references disclose only sub‑combinations (a light source spaced from and backlighting a translucent element; a reflector redirecting light toward that element). Because independent claims 1 and 7 each require the support arm hingedly connected to the light source plus securing means for releasably securing the arm to the peripheral frame plus the fold‑against‑the‑light‑source capability, neither reference alone discloses every element, so neither supports a §102 anticipation of claims 1–13. Their proper role in this record is as §103(a) obviousness references — realistically in combination with one another and/or with knowledge of frame‑mountable display hardware — directed at dependent claims 2–5 and 8–11 (the reflector/even‑illumination subject matter).

If you want, I can also map each claim term of claims 1–13 element‑by‑element against the two references (a claim‑chart style table) to make the §102/§103 distinction explicit.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me verify their disclosures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,160,195 ("Display panel backlighting system")

Patent at issue: US 5,160,195 A — inventor Eric A. Miller, assignee TigerMark (A Corporation of MA). Application US 07/828,741 filed 1992-01-31; granted 1992-11-03; 13 claims. Status per the page: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed 2004-11-03 for non-payment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362; anticipated expiration 2012-01-31).
Analysis date: 2026-09-27 (today) / prior-coverage date 1992-01-31.

Scope note on sourcing: Per your instruction, I use the "Prior Art" materials listed on the patent page itself. Only two references are of record as citation art (the "Patent Citations (2)" / "Citations (2)" entries, marked * = cited by examiner):

Both published more than one year before 1992-01-31, so both are § 102(b) prior art and fully available for § 103 (PTO, Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966); motivation principles of KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007)).

Two cautions before the analysis:

1. The "Cited By" list is not prior art to this patent. Every entry there postdates 1992-01-31 (FR2843224A1 priority 2002-08-02; US20060162202A1 priority 2003-03-04; US9625633B2 priority 2003-06-23; EP1759146A4 priority 2004-06-21; WO2009109034A1 priority 2008-03-06). These references cannot support a § 102 or § 103 rejection against US 5,160,195 and should not be used.
2. The "Similar Documents" list is not the record. A few of those documents predate the critical date (e.g., US3823500A 1974-07-16; US4606141A 1986-08-19; JPS6255691A 1987-03-11; CA1259190A 1989-09-12; US4947570A 1990-08-14), but their disclosures are not reproduced in the "Prior Art" section you directed me to. I treat them below only as leads requiring verification, not as asserted disclosures. I will not attribute specific teachings to them.
3. A numeric discrepancy exists in the search record for reference B. The patent page lists Ferguson as priority 1982-02-18 / publication 1983-09-13; a third-party database surfaced in search (portal.unifiedpatents.com) renders it as application 06/349,827, priority 1982-02-17, grant 1983-09-12. Per your standing rule I report the identifier literally as it appears on the page and flag the variance rather than correcting it. It does not affect this analysis (either date is § 102(b)).

1. What references A and B actually disclose

Reference A — Modia, US4335421A (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4335421](/patent/US4335421))

• A light fixture for illuminating the viewing area of an optically diffusive element with conventional fluorescent tubes.
• Express objectives: uniform illumination, ability to partially shield the viewing area from heat generated by the light source, and "overall physical dimensions of the unit… maintained at an absolute minimum."
• Structure: an optically diffusive element with a viewing area; a light source spaced from the diffusive element; a reflector spaced from the light source, with the light source between the reflector and the diffusive element, the reflector "redirecting light incident thereon to said viewing area"; and a translucent "light aperture" substrate between light source and diffusive element having reflective and transmissive portions.
• Express statement of result: "a viewing area can be uniformly illuminated with an intensity comparable with prior art devices without requiring the large physical dimensions of such prior art devices."
• Suggest other applications: x-ray viewers, illuminated tracing tables, transparency displays, photographic plate makers, exposure equipment, photocopy machines.
• Key structural fact: the reflector, source, and aperture are integral components of the fixture. There is no support arm hinged to the light source, no structure that grips or clamps to a separate display frame, and no folding-against-the-source packing geometry.

Reference B — Ferguson, US4404619A (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4404619](/patent/US4404619))

• An illuminator/light box ("light table") for x-ray reading, graphic arts, parts inspection, photographic/hobby use.
• Structure: an enclosure 12 with side walls 14, top 16, back wall 18 and bottom compartment 20 that are "preferably light tight"; a translucent screen 38 (Lucite/glass) at the front held by lip 40; and multiple fluorescent bulbs 28/30/32/34 retained against a supporting wall 22 by sockets 36.
• The supporting wall 22 is sheet metal with a "highly reflective white glossy surface" — i.e., a reflector behind the sources directing light forward through the screen.
• Purpose emphasized throughout is variable intensity and color control (separately switchable sets), not collapsibility or portability; a film holder 42/roller 48 retains x-rays against the screen.
• Key structural fact: a rigid, light-tight, box-type enclosure in which the screen is captured by the enclosure lip. No support arm, no hinge, no clamp/grip for attachment to a separate peripheral frame, and no fold-against-source configuration.

2. Element mapping of the independent claims

Claim 1 (and claim 7, which is the same subject matter written as a system claim)

Dependent claims

3. The combinations that can be made, and the motivation

Combination 1 — Modia (A) + Ferguson (B) — strong for the illumination elements, insufficient for the claimed structure

What the combination renders obvious. Both references are analogous art (same field of endeavor: illuminating a translucent/diffusive panel from behind; same problem: uniform, non-hot-spotted illumination in minimal depth). Combining them would render obvious, at most:

• providing a light source spaced from the back of a translucent panel so light radiates through and evenly illuminates it (A: "light source spaced from said diffusive element," uniform illumination; also B: bulbs behind screen);
• providing a reflector behind the source to redirect light toward the panel (A: reflector spaced from source, source between reflector and diffusive element; B: highly reflective white glossy wall 22);
• the heat-shielding benefit of spacing the source from the panel (A expressly claims this as an objective).

Motivation to combine would be articulated as: (i) both address the identical problem of even back-illumination of a translucent viewing surface; (ii) A's express goal of minimizing dimensions while retaining uniformity dovetails with B's compact box form; (iii) predictable, mechanical combination of two known back-lighting architectures with no change in their respective principles of operation (In re Keller; MPEP 2143). This is a legitimate rationale for the illumination sub-elements.

Where it fails. The combination does not disclose or suggest the two limitations that carry claim 1:

• a support arm hingedly connected to the light source with securing means that releasably secure that arm to the peripheral frame of the display; and
• the arm being foldable against the light source for compact packing.

Both references are integral-fixture architectures — A's fixture is purpose-built for fixed installations (x-ray viewer, tracing table, copier) and B's is a light-tight rigid enclosure whose screen is captured by a lip. Neither is a mount-on-the-display-frame architecture, and B in particular teaches away from the claimed approach: the patent achieves its "finished look from the back" with an open, folding reflector that is not light-tight, whereas B treats light leakage as something that "would interfere with its operation." A rigid light-tight box (B) is the antithesis of a hinged, fold-flat, frame-clamped arm. That is a teaching-away/different-principle-of-operation argument that cuts against a § 103 rejection on the record as it stands.

Combination 2 — Modia (A) + Ferguson (B) + evidence of a hinge/clamp expedient or a frame-mounted display light

To reach claims 1/7, the examiner would need something more. Two routes:

(a) KSR "known mechanical expedient" route. Hinges and releasable frame clamps (spring clips, C-clamps, hook-and-loop) are notoriously well-known mechanical fasteners, and the specification itself concedes the point: "These variations will be readily recognized by those skilled in the art of mechanical linkages" (col. describing support arm 26). Combined with the patent's own admitted market force — trade-show/travelling displays that "must constantly be set up, broken down, shipped… and set up again," and known 13-lb, 4-inch-deep light boxes of which only three fit a standard 12″×28″×40″ case — one could argue a motivation existed to make a backlight collapsible and frame-mountable. This is a colorable § 103 argument, and the "packing" problem is expressly acknowledged as prior-art-motivated.

(b) Additional reference route (preferred, and more defensible). The strongest rejection would add a pre-1992 reference teaching a hinged/foldable arm or bracket that clamps onto a display frame to hold a light source, or a collapsible illuminated display structure. Candidate pre-critical-date documents appearing in the page's "Similar Documents" list — to be verified, disclosures not in the record I was given — include US3823500A (1974-07-16, "Advertising and promotional display apparatus"), US4606141A (1986-08-19, "Indicia display module"), CA1259190A (1989-09-12, "Illuminated sign system"), and US4947570A (1990-08-14, "Display unit"). I cannot attribute specific teachings to these without reading them, but they are the correct search direction for the missing limitation.

Combination 3 — Reaching the reflector-dependent claims

• Claims 2/8 (reflector with connecting means to the peripheral frame): A and B teach the reflecting function, but neither connects the reflector to a peripheral display frame. Combination 1 does not reach these claims unless "connecting means" is read so broadly as to swallow the difference in architecture. Should be treated as not obvious on the two references alone.
• Claims 3/9 (two planar elements hinged along a first edge → tent): Neither reference teaches or suggests a two-panel hinged reflector. A's reflector is a single body; B's is a single flat wall. This is the clearest non-obvious point of the set; a rejection would require entirely new art (e.g., a folding photographic reflector screen or a folding projection screen) — a different field whose combination would itself need a motivation, and whose structure is a "tent" rather than the compact box of B.
• Claims 4/5, 10/11 (foldable trapezoidal end members limiting opening angle and enclosing stray light): absent from both references. These are gusset/end-flap structures; the closest general analogies (folding carton end flaps, easel stays, folding screen gussets) are outside the illumination art and would require a verified supplementary reference plus a rationale.
• Claims 6/12/13 (one frame or two frames back-to-back; stacking): absent from both. No teaching in A or B of dual-frame gripping or stacked-panel configurations.

4. Assessment

Bottom line. On the prior art of record as printed on this page — US4335421A (Modia) and US4404619A (Ferguson) — a § 103 rejection is defensible only for the generic back-lighting concepts of claims 1 and 7 (spaced source producing even illumination; reflector behind source). As to the hinged support arm releasably secured to the display's peripheral frame and foldable against the light source, and as to everything in claims 2–6 and 8–13, the two references do not disclose or suggest the claimed subject matter, and reference B's light-tight rigid enclosure is evidence pointing away from the claimed open, fold-flat, frame-mounted architecture. The prosecution outcome is consistent with this: the patent issued, and its 2004 lapse was for maintenance-fee non-payment (37 CFR 1.362), not for any invalidity determination. A successful challenge would require additional prior art (verified pre-1992 documents teaching a frame-clamping/folding light mount and/or a hinged tent reflector with end gussets) plus an articulated KSR motivation — not merely the combination of A and B.

Confidence: High on the content and dates of A and B and on the claim-element gaps (both references were retrieved and quoted). Lower on the "Similar Documents" leads, whose disclosures are not in the material supplied and which I have deliberately not characterized as having any particular teaching.