US 5497853

I'll search for the specific patent number as requested.

Let me run targeted searches for USPTO records and any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

US Patent 5,497,853 — Summary

Identification (verified against the patent text)

Authoritative source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5497853/en (and the USPTO PDF at patentimages).

Abstract (verbatim)

"A labor-saving consolidated checkout system which requires a single store employee and which is suited for self-service and full-service operation. The system includes first and second joined checkout counters which include first and second terminals at one end of the counters. The checkout counters may additionally include first and second conveyor belts. Each terminal has an optical scanner and a magnetic stripe reader which are accessible to a customer. Each terminal also includes a keyboard and a cash drawer. The store employee monitors self-service customers to ensure that all merchandise items are scanned and payment is made and assists full-service customers with scanning and payment."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 11 claims; claims 1, 7, 8, and 11 are independent (claims 2–6 depend from claim 1; claims 9–10 depend from claim 8).

Claim 1 — The apparatus (two joined checkout counters).
A checkout system made of two checkout counters joined together. Each counter has one integrated terminal at one end. Each terminal contains an optical scanner mounted within the counter and positioned on the counter's outer side (customer side), and a keyboard on the inner side (employee side). The key limitation: those two scanners are the only optical scanners on the two counters, and each is usable either by a self-service customer standing at the outer side or by a store employee standing at the end of the counter serving a full-service customer. In other words, one scanner per lane serves both modes.

Claim 7 — The apparatus, with all the hardware spelled out.
Essentially claim 1 with the full component list recited: each counter has a conveyor belt on top; the integrated terminal includes the mounted optical scanner (outer side), a keyboard on the inner side adjacent the scanner, a magnetic stripe reader on the outer side, a cash drawer at the counter end, a writing table on the outer side facing that counter's aisle, and a vertically oriented customer-viewable display. A wall separates the two counters. As in claim 1, both scanners are operable by either a self-service customer or a store employee for a full-service customer.

Claim 8 — The method (self-service lane + employee oversight).
A checkout method using the two joined counters with their integrated terminals, scanners (mounted within the counters), and magnetic stripe readers. Steps: (a) the customer scans items with the first scanner without employee assistance; (b) the customer swipes a card through the first magnetic stripe reader to pay, without assistance; (c) the customer removes the items from the store without assistance; and (d) the store employee monitors the scanning and payment to confirm all items were scanned and paid for. The claim requires that the two scanners are the only optical scanners at the two counters.

Claim 11 — The method (two simultaneous self-service customers).
A checkout method where the two joined counters/terminals with scanners and card readers are accessible to first and second self-service customers plus a store employee; the two scanners are the only scanners in the system. Steps: station the employee at or adjacent the common end of the two counters; the two customers independently scan their own items to determine amounts due; the two customers independently pay by swiping payment cards through the respective magnetic stripe readers; and the employee scrutinizes both customers during scanning and paying to ensure everything is scanned and paid.

Dependent claims add: vertical customer display (2), writing table (3), magnetic stripe reader at the counter end (4), magnetic stripe reader within the writing table (5), cash drawer at the counter end (6), employee-assisted scanning plus keyboard entry of payment info (9), and a second fully self-service lane with monitoring (10).

Note on prior art cited on the face of the patent

US 4,353,564 (Joseloff); US 4,236,604 (Tri-Tronics); US 4,676,343 (Humble et al., Checkrobot — "Self-Service Distribution System"); US 4,775,782 (NCR — checkout counter with remote keyboard/writing pad/display); US 4,964,053 (Checkrobot — self-checkout of produce); US 5,178,234 (Tokyo Electric — checkout apparatus). The specification distinguishes Humble et al. as self-service-only, with the scanner on the opposite side of a gate from the associate, and with spread-apart lanes that create security problems.

On the requested litigation / CAFC 2026 docket check — important caveat

I searched for "5497853" in connection with Federal Circuit and 2026 docket activity. I found no evidence of any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket in 2026 (or any litigation) involving US 5,497,853. The search hits for "5497853" outside the patent record were unrelated coincidental identifiers (e.g., a Florida corporate FEI number, a Brazilian company registration, a citation "2012 WL 5497853").

Two reasons this is expected, and my confidence level:

• The patent's recorded legal status is Expired – Lifetime, with anticipated expiration March 12, 2013 — over 13 years before the current date. An expired patent generally cannot support an infringement action, so 2026 appellate activity would be unusual.
• I do not have authoritative, complete access to PACER/CAFC docket databases through these searches. My statement that there is no 2026 CAFC docket is based on negative search results, not a definitive docket query. Treat it as "no evidence found," not as a certified absence.

One further caveat on the assignee field: the Google Patents "Current Assignee" line shows NCR Voyix Corp, which is a present-day corporate-name mapping of the original NCR Corporation assignee. That should not be read as evidence of a separate later assignment event in the record; the recorded assignment in the file is from the inventors to NCR CORPORATION (reel/frame 006180/0315, execution dates June 1–2, 1992).

If you need a definitive litigation history, the authoritative checks would be the USPTO Patent Center/Assignment records for application 07/898,648, and a direct PACER docket search for both "5,497,853" and "5497853."

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5497853 specifically.

Let me search litigation-specific databases and for infringement complaints citing this patent.

Let me check dedicated patent litigation trackers directly.

Conclusion: No litigation found

I searched for litigation specifically involving US Patent 5,497,853 ("Labor-saving consolidated checkout system," NCR Corp., inventors Donald A. Collins Jr. and Andrew B. Nye III, filed 1992‑06‑15, granted 1996‑03‑12). I found no evidence of any lawsuit, ITC action, PTAB proceeding, or appeal involving this patent. If litigation exists, it is not surfaced in publicly indexed sources I could reach.

What I searched and what came back

I ran targeted queries against the patent number and litigation-oriented terms (including "5497853", "5,497,853", unifiedpatents.com litigation, docketalarm, and NCR/checkout subject matter). Every hit was a false positive matching the digit string rather than the patent:

Corroborating context (from the authoritative patent record)

Two independent indicators support the "no litigation" conclusion, though neither is dispositive:

1. The Google Patents page for US5497853A lists six cited references and 34–42 citing documents (mostly later NCR self‑checkout patents), but no litigation section entries — no "Litigation" tab, no "Cited By" court documents referencing this patent as an asserted patent.
2. The patent expired on 2013‑03‑12 (statutory term, 20 years from the 1992‑06‑15 filing). Google Patents records the legal status as "Expired – Lifetime," with maintenance fees paid at the 4‑, 8‑, and 12‑year marks (1999, 2003, 2007). An expired, pre‑AIA patent that was never asserted is a plausible reason for the absence of any docket trail. Notably, its claims were drafted in the pre‑In re Beauregard era and the system claims (claims 1–7) are largely apparatus/configuration claims, while claims 8–11 are method claims — a combination that historically made such patents less attractive to assert.

Caveats and how to verify definitively

• I could not directly open the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or Docket Alarm case pages; results returned from general web search may have missed paywalled or unindexed docket records.
• Patent litigation from the 1990s–2000s is often not fully digitized in free databases, so a null result from a search engine is not proof of zero suits.
• Recommended authoritative checks (which I could not complete): search PACER (all district courts) and Docket Alarm / Unified Patents litigation by the exact patent number "5497853"; also check the USPTO Patent Assignment and Reexamination records for any past reexam or interference that might reference litigation, and CourtListener/RECAP for any appellate mention.

Bottom line: Based on the sources I could reach, no litigation is known involving US Patent 5,497,853. I am stating this as a negative finding with the confidence limits above rather than asserting it as a verified certainty.

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

Let me run a few more targeted checks — including pre-AIA reexamination, which would not appear in the AIA-trial ODP feed.

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — U.S. Patent No. 5,497,853

Patent: Labor-saving consolidated checkout system
Patent Owner (current assignee of record): NCR Voyix Corp (originally NCR Corp)
Application: US 07/898,648 · Filed: 1992-06-15 · Granted: 1996-03-12 · Anticipated expiration: 2013-03-12
Legal status (per source record): Expired – Lifetime
Independent claims: 1, 7, 8, 11 (11 claims total)

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 5,497,853: 0 — the structured USPTO Open Data Portal feed returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding, and independent web searching surfaced none. Breakdown by status: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated by PTAB, 0 claims sustained by PTAB, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "the claims are canceled" — it is that the patent has never been tested at the PTAB and expired on 2013-03-12. A defendant's real posture today rests on expiration and the damages limitations of 35 U.S.C. § 286, not on PTAB estoppel or claim cancellation. I verified this against public sources rather than relying solely on the feed, and I found no contrary evidence (see the caveats below).

False-positive warning: Search engines return a heavy volume of PTAB material referring to "the '549 patent." Those hits — e.g., HP Inc. v. MCM Portfolio LLC, IPR2013-00247, Fed. Cir. No. 2014-1716 — concern U.S. Patent No. 6,575,549 (Silverbrook / Memjet Technology), a flash-memory-card-reader patent. That is a different patent with a coincidentally similar short form. Do not let a cite to "the '549 patent" in an IPR brief migrate into a memo about US 5,497,853. No proceeding number can be attached to the '853 patent on this record, and I have not invented one.

No proceedings to itemize

Because the canonical list is empty, there is no "most-impactful-first" ordering to produce. The proceeding template (### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner}) has no entries. Reporting anything here would require fabrication, which I will not do.

What I checked and what I did not:

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 5,497,853 has been canceled, amended, or confirmed in any AIA trial. Claims 1–11 are all UNTESTED at the PTAB — not "sustained," which would imply the Patent Owner won a trial, and not "canceled." The distinction matters: an untested claim is not validated, it is merely unchallenged administratively. All four independent claims (1, 7, 8, 11) remain as issued in 1996. Note also that the patent contains no later-filed continuation family in the record — the "Cited By" list is entirely third-party and NCR follow-on work, not a priority-chain family — so there is no sibling patent carrying the same disclosure that a defendant might have to confront in addition to the '853 patent.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to work with, and none to fear. No IPR reached a final written decision under § 318(a), so no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from raising any ground. Conversely, a defendant gets no free ride from someone else's prior IPR — there is no petitioner-side invalidity work product to borrow, no institution decision to lean on, and no claim construction from a PTAB panel. Every prior-art ground under §§ 102/103, and every § 112 ground available in district court, remains fully available to the first challenger. Also note that the AIA trial toolkit is effectively exhausted as a practical matter: CBM review sunset on 2020-09-16 under AIA § 18, and PGR is unavailable because US 5,497,853 is a pre-AIA patent (filed 1992-06-15, well before the 2013-03-16 AIA cutoff). That leaves only IPR — and for an expired patent the only realistic relief is a confirmatory validity ruling that kills a damages theory, since there is no live claim to enjoin.

Pattern signals. None of the usual markers are present. There is no repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner at all), no Patent Owner appeal activity to the Federal Circuit, and no defensive aggregator — Unified Patents or otherwise — in the chain. That silence is itself diagnostic. US 5,497,853 was an early self-checkout architectural patent asserted to have no litigation or PTAB footprint across a 21-year term, which is consistent with a patent that was licensed or cross-licensed in the ordinary course of NCR's OEM business rather than weaponized. The absence of IPRs is not evidence that the claims are strong; on this record it is evidence that nobody with a litigation budget ever needed to attack them.

Timing. The patent expired on 2013-03-12 and is past its entire 20-year term. Defensively, expiration is a far more decisive fact than any PTAB outcome could be: an expired patent cannot support an injunction, and the § 286 six-year damages lookback means that a complaint filed today (2026) could reach back only to roughly 2020 — a window in which the patent had already been expired for seven years and during which no infringing activity could occur. Any realistic damages theory would have to reach infringement from 2007–2013, which is now far outside the six-year bar. This is a § 286 / expiration defense, and it is close to dispositive.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving a demand letter today:

1. Do not litigate this as a PTAB story. There is no IPR to cite, no FWD to quote, and no canceled claim to point at. There is nothing to link at USPTO PTAB E2E (https://e2e.uspto.gov/) or on CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/) for this patent, because no such proceeding exists. A memo promising "claims 1–5 have been canceled" would be false here — claims 1–5 remain as issued, and there are five of them, not a matched set of IPR outcomes.

2. Lead with expiration and the § 286 time bar. The patent expired 2013-03-12 (Google Patents record). Confirm the maintenance-fee history — the record shows the 4-, 8-, and 12-year fee payments (1999-04-02, 2003-05-09, 2007-08-03), which is why the patent ran to full term rather than lapsing early for non-payment. That means there was no lapse theory to exploit, but it also means expiration is clean and documented. Demand damages for the pre-expiration period and you are outside the six-year lookback.

3. If a plaintiff nonetheless presses, keep your non-PTAB defenses alive. Because no IPR FWD exists, you face no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, but you also carry no estoppel benefit. Inequitable conduct, § 112 written-description/enablement challenges, on-sale and public-use art (unavailable at the PTAB anyway), and the 1996-era claim-construction fight over "the only optical scanners" recitations in claims 1, 8, and 11 are all untouched ground.

4. If a demand is threatened on a live patent in the same NCR portfolio, re-run this analysis. NCR holds a dense follow-on family in this space — e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,213,395 (movable scanner), 6,286,758, 6,390,363, 6,598,549, and 8,985,444 (barcode reader on a bagging end) — many of which were also cited as forward citations of the '853 patent. Those are unexpired or comparatively recent and would warrant a fresh PTAB check. Do not assume this "no proceedings" finding carries over to the siblings.

5. If you want the negative finding hardened for a client memo, run the two checks I could not complete: (a) the USPTO Patent Center / reexamination record for ex parte and inter partes reexamination filings (not covered by the AIA-trial ODP feed); and (b) a district-court docket sweep across all venues for the '853 patent number, since unreported settlements would never surface in the PTAB system.

If no PTAB activity exists — it plainly does not here — say so plainly, as above. The absence is itself a signal: a patent that was never IPR'd across a full 21-year term either was licensed quietly or was never worth attacking. Either way, it gives you no PTAB-based leverage and no PTAB-based exposure.

I'll research the assignment record and enforcement history for this patent.

Let me dig deeper on enforcement history and the specific assignment record.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 5,497,853

Patent: Labor-saving consolidated checkout system
App. No.: US 07/898,648 · Filed: 1992‑06‑15 · Issued: 1996‑03‑12 · Anticipated expiration: 2013‑03‑12 · Status: Expired – Lifetime

Sourcing note (read first): I was unable to open a live Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search result for this patent in this session — the retrieval returned unrelated documents. The findings below are grounded in the patent's own front‑page/legal‑events data (as reproduced in the authoritative full text you supplied) and cross‑checks against public litigation and corporate records. Where a field (notably correspondent of record) is not visible in those sources, I say so rather than guess. Verify at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html by searching patent number 5497853.

Inventors

Pattern notes: Both inventors assigned to NCR before the 1992‑06‑15 filing date (signing dates 1992‑06‑01 and 1992‑06‑02 per the recordation's free‑format text), which is the standard "assign‑on‑the‑way‑in" practice at a large corporate filer — not a departure signal. There is no evidence in the record of either inventor leaving NCR within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of any subsequent inventor‑side assignment. Two inventors on a mechanical/POS‑hardware patent, both permanently assigned at filing, is a benign profile. Note also that NCR's 1992 filing occurred while NCR was a subsidiary of AT&T (acquired 1991), a fact relevant to the corporate‑status section below but not to inventor conduct.

Original assignee

NCR Corporation (Ohio), recorded at Reel 006180/0315 — the only recorded assignee in the patent's 34‑year history.

• Business: NCR is a long‑established point‑of‑service/retail‑technology and financial‑self‑service manufacturer — POS terminals, checkout lanes, scanners, kiosks, and ATMs. It is a classic operating company, not a licensing vehicle.
• Product embodying the claims: NCR commercialized self‑checkout lanes (NCR FastLane / later NCR SelfServ Checkout) and dual‑lane assisted/self‑service checkout configurations consistent with the claimed "two joined checkout counters, integrated terminals, scanners operable by customer or employee" architecture. I regard this as a well‑supported inference rather than a documented product‑to‑claim mapping; no NCR product literature was retrieved in this session.
• Litigation posture (useful context): NCR appears in the Stanford NPE litigation database as a practicing entity — e.g. Dovebid, Inc. v. NCR Corp., No. 4:02‑cv‑05909 (N.D. Cal.), where NCR asserted e‑commerce patents (5,699,526; 5,721,906; etc.). NCR has thus occasionally asserted patents, but no suit naming US 5,497,853 was surfaced, and the patent expired in 2013.
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded. On 2023‑10‑16/17 NCR Corporation spun off its ATM business as NCR Atleos Corporation (NYSE: NATL) and the parent renamed itself NCR Voyix Corporation (NYSE: VYX). This is a corporate name change, not an assignment. (Low‑confidence addendum: I have an unverified recollection of a 2025 NCR Voyix divestiture of its Digital Banking unit to a private‑equity buyer; I could not confirm this from retrieved sources and it does not affect this patent, which expired in 2013.)

Important false‑positive flag: Google Patents lists the "Current Assignee" as NCR Voyix Corp. That is Google's entity‑resolution mapping of the 1992 NCR Corporation assignee onto NCR's present corporate name. No reel/frame exists for it. Do not record this as an assignment.

Assignment timeline

Detailed entry:

• 1992‑06‑01 / 1992‑06‑02 (executed) — recorded 1992‑06‑15 — Reel 006180/0315

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (USPTO code AS)
  • Assignor: Donald A. Collins, Jr.; Andrew B. Nye, III
  • Assignee: NCR Corporation, Ohio
  • Correspondent: not determinable from retrieved sources — no recurrence can be assessed, so the "repeat correspondent" tell is inapplicable to this chain (there is only one link).
  • Context: In‑bound employee invention assignment at filing (neither acquisition, fire‑sale, reorg, securitization, nor transfer‑to‑asserter).

• No further assignments are recorded. The legal‑events record contains, after the 1992 assignment, only: grant notice (1996‑02‑29 STCF / issuance 1996‑03‑12); maintenance‑fee payments at 4, 8, and 12 years (1999‑04‑02, 2003‑05‑09, 2007‑08‑03); and anticipated expiration 2013‑03‑12. Maintenance fees paid to the 12‑year window are themselves inconsistent with abandonment or a distressed sale.

Bottom line for this section: This patent has exactly one recorded assignment — the original one, and it ran to an operating company, not away from one. That is itself the finding: the original assignee (and its name‑changed successor) retained ownership for the patent's entire enforceable life.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5497853
    1992 : Filed 1992-06-15 by NCR Corporation
         : Inventors assign to NCR Reel 006180/0315
    1996 : Patent issued 1996-03-12
    1999 : Maintenance fee paid at 4 years
    2003 : Maintenance fee paid at 8 years
    2007 : Maintenance fee paid at 12 years
    2013 : Patent expired 2013-03-12
    2023 : NCR renamed NCR Voyix unrecorded
         : No assignment recorded

NPE / troll‑pattern signals

Additional context that cuts against any assertion theory: US 5,497,853 expired 2013‑03‑12 (a pre‑URAA case, so the term is the greater of 17 years from issue or 20 years from filing — 2013‑03‑12 governs). The patent is publicly cited as prior art by later filings, e.g. WO 2017/137898 (Peoplepos Ltd., "Dual checkout system"), where it is cited in the X category against claims 1–47, and EP 1 482 462 A1. Third‑party citation is evidence of technical relevance, not of ownership activity.

Verdict

Insufficient data — no records beyond the original assignment; that absence is the substantive finding.

Justification: the entire recorded chain consists of one entry, Reel 006180/0315, executed 1992‑06‑01/02 and recorded 1992‑06‑15, conveying the inventors' rights to NCR Corporation — an operating POS/ATM manufacturer. There is no shell‑entity transfer, no NPE in the chain, no cascading LLC conveyances, no bankruptcy sale, no privateering, and no defensive‑aggregator termination. The one apparent ownership change (NCR → NCR Voyix in October 2023) is a corporate name change that produced no recorded assignment, and the patent expired 2013‑03‑12, leaving nothing to assert. Every NPE/troll indicator is therefore not present, and the correct characterization is a single‑owner, practicing‑company patent with a thin but clean record rather than evidence of an assertion vehicle.

Verification: Search patent 5497853 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — expect a single "Assignment of Assignors Interest" hit at Reel 006180/0315 and nothing after 1992. If the Assignment Center instead returns post‑2013 entries, treat that as a material correction to this analysis, since it would contradict the legal‑events record relied on here.

I'll verify the patent and its prior-art citations against live sources before analyzing.

Let me verify the details of the six cited references individually.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,497,853

1. The patent under analysis (verified)

Live sources confirm this record and the full claim text (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5497853](/patent/US5497853)/en; FreePatentsOnline, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5497853.html; uspto.report, https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5497853). I did not retrieve a separate USPTO PatentCenter image; the Google Patents full text supplied in the task is authoritative and matches these mirrors.

Important distinction: The patent record lists two separate sets. The "Citations (6)" are the references cited against 5,497,853 — i.e., the actual prior art considered by the examiner, which is what you asked for. The "Cited By (34/42)" set (e.g., US 6,286,758; US 6,598,791; US 5,978,772) are later documents citing 5,497,853 and are not prior art to it. I analyze only the six cited references below.

2. Reference-by-reference analysis

R1 — U.S. 4,353,564 (Joseloff)

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,353,564, "Supermarket counter construction and method of using same," Stanley Joseloff.
• Dates: Filed/priority 1977-09-23; granted 1982-10-12. (Pre-dates the 1992-06-15 filing.)
• Description: A supermarket checkstand construction in which counter elements are arranged so customers form a queue and are tallied at one of two adjacent counters by a single cashier; a rotating/cooperative counter and cart arrangement is used to speed tallying. It concerns counter geometry and labor deployment, not optical scanning or self-service. (https://patents.justia.com/patent/4353564)
• § 102 relevance: Only to the general concept in the preambles of claims 8 and 11 of "joined checkout counters" and one employee serving two counters. It discloses no optical scanner, no magnetic stripe reader, no keyboard on an inner side, no self-service scanning, and no payment terminal. It therefore cannot anticipate any claim; at most it is background art on dual-counter/single-employee layouts.

R2 — U.S. 4,236,604 (Tri-Tronics Company, Inc.)

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,604, "Start/stop control of conveying means," Tri-Tronics Company, Inc.
• Dates: Filed/priority 1979-03-30; granted 1980-12-02.
• Description: A control for automatically starting and stopping a conveyor (article/object-detection based conveyor control). It is a conveyor-control reference, not a checkout-system reference; it has no scanner, terminal, payment, or customer/employee architecture. (Title as listed in the 5,497,853 citation record.)
• § 102 relevance: Maps only to the generic "conveyor belt" element recited in independent claim 7. It lacks every other limitation and cannot anticipate any claim; its citation appears to be cursory/art-recognition for the conveyor element.

R3 — U.S. 4,676,343 (Humble et al. / Checkrobot Inc.) — the primary reference

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,343, "Self-Service Distribution System," Humble et al., Checkrobot Inc.
• Dates: Filed 1984-07-09; granted 1987-06-30.
• Description: A plurality of separate self-service checkout counters, each with an optical scanner and a self-service customer display at a first end and a bagging area at the other end; security via gates between counters and tunnels over the conveyors; a retail terminal and a single store employee located separately from the counters, providing payment assistance for four checkout lanes.
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest prior art and is expressly discussed and distinguished in the 5,497,853 specification ("suffers from the disadvantage that it is suited for only self-service customers… the scanner is located on the opposite side of the gate from the store associate… the store associate is located at a retail terminal away from the bagging end"). It discloses the idea of many lanes watched by one employee, but it lacks: (i) joined first/second counters with integrated terminals at one end adjacent each other; (ii) the keyboard located on an inner side of each counter; (iii) the store employee positioned at the same end as the terminals serving full-service customers; and (iv) the "only optical scanners" and customer-usable magnetic stripe reader limitations. It therefore does not anticipate claims 1, 7, 8, or 11 (each requires joined/integrated structure not shown). It is the strongest § 103 combination anchor.

R4 — U.S. 4,775,782 (Mergenthaler et al. / NCR Corporation) — closest for the dependent claims

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,782, "Checkout counter with remote keyboard writing pad and display," NCR Corporation (same assignee family as the patent under analysis).

• Dates: Filed 1987-09-30; granted 1988-10-04.

• Description: A checkout counter housing an optical scanner in the counter with a writing-pad support member mounted on the counter's front edge comprising: a horizontal writing surface for checks, a twelve-key keyboard (PIN pad) at one end, a display angled ~20° to the writing surface showing item price/total, and a magnetic stripe card reader (slot) in the support member. (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4775782A](/patent/US4775782A)/en)

• § 102 relevance: This reference maps almost element-for-element onto dependent claims 3, 4, and 5 and partially onto claim 2:

  • Claim 3 (writing table on the outer side) — disclosed (writing-pad support member at the counter front edge).
  • Claim 4 (magnetic stripe reader at the one end) — disclosed (card reader 46 in support member 34).
  • Claim 5 (writing table including a magnetic stripe reader) — disclosed (reader 46 within the writing-pad support member).
  • Claim 2 (display oriented vertically) — only partially: the display is inclined at about 20° to the writing surface, not clearly "vertically oriented."

  However, because claims 2–5 are dependent on claim 1, they incorporate all of claim 1's limitations (joined counters, keyboards on inner sides, self-service or full-service operation). US 4,775,782 is a single-lane, cashier-operated station and shows none of claim 1's joined/dual-terminal architecture, so it cannot anticipate claims 2–5 as a whole. It is, instead, the single most damaging § 103 reference for the writing-table/magnetic-stripe-reader/display features.

R5 — U.S. 4,964,053 (Checkrobot, Inc.)

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,053, "Self-checkout of produce items," Checkrobot, Inc.
• Dates: Filed 1988-04-22; granted 1990-10-16.
• Description: A self-service checkout arrangement directed to checkout of produce (non-bar-coded) items, using a scanning/weighing self-service terminal with a produce look-up/entry procedure. (Citation record and title as listed for 5,497,853.)
• § 102 relevance: Relevant only to the self-service scanning by an unassisted customer concept found in the method claims 8 and 10 and in claim 11. It contains no joined dual-counter island, no inner-side keyboard, no customer-operable magnetic stripe reader at the end of a counter, and no single-employee dual-lane monitoring as claimed. Cannot anticipate any claim; at most a § 103 secondary reference on self-service produce handling.

R6 — U.S. 5,178,234 (Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd.) — structurally closest to claim 1's "two counters, one operator" idea

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,234, "Checkout apparatus," Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd.
• Dates: JP priority 1990-03-15; granted 1993-01-12 (i.e., issued after the 5,497,853 filing date of 1992-06-15, so it is not § 102(a)/(b) art by publication date, but its earlier U.S. filing makes it potential § 102(e) art).
• Description: "Two checkout lanes 2A and 2B disposed in parallel on both sides of a settlement section 1" with a single POS terminal 70 in the settlement section; each lane has a reading section (bar-code reader/operation panel), a feed-in conveyor, a weight-measuring device, a distributing section, feed-out conveyor, stock section, and packaging section, with weight verification against stored article weights. (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5178234](/patent/US5178234); corollary EP 0 446 929, EP 0 557 921.)
• § 102 relevance: This is the most structurally relevant reference to the "first and second joined checkout counters serviced by one terminal/operator" concept of claim 1 and to the conveyor/dual-lane recitations of claim 7. But it does not disclose: (i) scanners mounted in the counter and located on an outer side with the keyboard on an inner side; (ii) magnetic stripe readers accessible to a customer; (iii) a writing table facing an aisle; or (iv) an employee who both monitors self-service customers and performs full-service scanning at the same end as the terminals. Its two lanes share a central settlement section, not a pair of integrated terminals at one end. It therefore cannot anticipate any claim; it is, however, a significant § 103 reference against claims 1 and 7 given the near-identical "two lanes, one attendant/terminal" architecture.

3. Summary table

4. Bottom line on anticipation (§ 102) versus obviousness (§ 103)

• No single cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–11. Each independent claim (1, 7, 8, 11) contains the conjunctive limitations of joined first/second counters with integrated terminals at one end adjacent each other, optical scanners as the only scanners, mounted in the counter on an outer side, a keyboard on an inner side, a customer-operable magnetic stripe reader, and operation by either a self-service customer OR one store employee — no one reference discloses all of these.
• The closest prior art is US 4,676,343 (Humble et al.), which the specification itself distinguishes; it teaches multi-lane self-service with a single employee but places the employee and terminal away from the counters and separates (rather than joins) the lanes. US 5,178,234 (Tokyo Electric) is the closest on the dual-lane/one-terminal structure, and US 4,775,782 (NCR) is the closest on the writing table/keyboard/display/magnetic-stripe-reader-in-counter features.
• The realistic challenge to this patent is a § 103 combination — e.g., US 4,676,343 + US 4,775,782 (multi-lane self-service + integrated counter-mounted scanner/writing pad/keyboard/mag-stripe reader), optionally with US 5,178,234 for the two-lane/one-attendant geometry and US 4,964,053 for unassisted self-checkout — not any single-reference anticipation. That combination theory is also consistent with the patent's subsequent heavy citation by later NCR self-checkout/conversion patents (e.g., US 6,286,758; US 6,210,395; US 6,598,791).

Confidence note: The descriptions for R1, R4, R6 and R3 are grounded in retrieved full text/abstracts; R2 and R5 are characterized from the citation record and titles only (full specifications not retrieved in this session), so their element-level mapping should be re-verified against the actual documents before being relied on in any validity opinion. This is a technical prior-art survey, not a legal conclusion of validity or infringement.

I'll ground the analysis by pulling details on the six references cited on the patent page, then build the § 103 combinations.

Let me pull the two remaining references — Joseloff and Tri-Tronics — since Joseloff in particular looks like it may bear on the dual-lane/single-operator concept.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,497,853 ("Labor-Saving Consolidated Checkout System")

Ground rule applied: The application was filed June 15, 1992, so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs (the AIA first‑inventor‑to‑file provisions do not apply). All reference titles, numbers, and dates below are reproduced as they appear on the patent page; I have not auto‑corrected anything. Where I could not retrieve or verify a reference's full text, I say so.

1. The invention and the claims at issue

U.S. 5,497,853 (Collins & Nye, NCR Corp.) claims a checkout island in which two counters are joined side‑by‑side, each with an integrated terminal at one end, each terminal having:

• an optical scanner mounted within the counter on the outer (customer) side,
• a keyboard on the inner (employee) side,
• plus (in the dependent claims) a vertically oriented display, a writing table, a magnetic stripe reader, and a cash drawer;

the two scanners being the only scanners in the counters and operable either by a self‑service customer (outer side) or by a store employee (at the counter end) for a full‑service customer. Claims 7 (apparatus) and 8/11 (methods) add conveyor belts, a separating wall, and the "one employee stationed at the end supervising two self‑service customers" method. patent page

The specification itself frames the problem: labor is "as much as eighty percent of the cost of completing a sale," and the admitted prior art (Humble et al., U.S. 4,676,343) is criticized only for (a) being "suited for only self‑service customers," (b) putting the scanner on "the opposite side of the gate from the store associate," and (c) locating the associate away from the counter end, with "checkout lanes… divided, and spread apart."

2. The six references of record (the "Prior Art" section of the page)

Caveat on US 5,178,234: its publication date (1993‑01‑12) post‑dates the '853 filing (1992‑06‑15), so it cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art on its face. It is available only if its U.S. filing date preceded 1992‑06‑15 (its EP counterpart EP 0 446 929 was filed 1991‑03‑14), which I could not verify from the page. I therefore treat '234 as a secondary/accumulating reference and flag it as requiring verification. EP0446929 bibliographic data

3. Level of ordinary skill in the art (Graham factor 2)

A person having ordinary skill would be a retail point‑of‑service systems designer (mechanical/fixture layout plus POS terminal integration) with roughly 2–4 years of experience in supermarket checkout lane design, familiar with both conventional cashier lanes and the then‑emerging self‑checkout art (Humble/Checkrobot, NCR). All references are in the same field and are reasonably pertinent to the problem the inventor addressed.

4. Claim‑by‑claim combinations

Claim 1 (independent apparatus claim)

Proposed combination: Joseloff '564 (primary) + Humble '343 or '053 + NCR '782.

Motivation to combine (KSR/TSM):

1. Same field, same problem, articulated in the references themselves. Joseloff states the invention provides "a single bay… for the accommodation of a single cashier or checker, with no need for other store personnel." Humble '053 states a "single cashier and cashier register may be provided for groups of check‑out counters, each group having two or more counters." Both expressly motivate consolidating two lanes under one employee — precisely the '853 objective ("about a third less floor space," labor savings).
2. The '853 specification's own characterization of the problem is the roadmap. The spec criticizes Humble '343 for (i) being self‑service only and (ii) placing the associate away from the counter end/scanner. Framing those as the deficiencies to be cured supplies the design incentive to (a) locate the terminal at the shared end and (b) preserve full‑service capability — the two things claim 1 recites. This is the classic KSR "design incentive / market demand / known problem" rationale.
3. Predictable result, no new function. Each element does what it already did: the scanner scans items from whichever side it is presented; the keyboard keys in data on the operator side; joining two counters under one associate had been done by Joseloff a decade earlier. In re Keller / In re Nievelt: references need not be bodily combinable; it suffices that the claimed combination as a whole was suggested.
4. NCR's own '782 reference supplies a complete counter‑end integrated terminal, showing the applicant's own assignee already knew how to integrate a scanner, a customer‑viewable display, a writing surface, a PIN keyboard, and a card reader within/at a checkout counter end — reducing claim 1 to a predictable layout choice at a shared end of a twin‑counter island.

Claims 2–6 (dependent apparatus claims)

These add conventional, individually known elements; each is obvious over the same or fewer references. Under KSR's "simple substitution"/"known element performing its known function" rationales:

• Claim 2 (vertically oriented customer display): NCR '782 (display 40 mounted at an angle to surface 36, customer‑viewable, showing price/total/instructions); Humble '343 (display screen prompts the customer); Humble '053 ("customer viewable display"). Note a possible claim‑construction dispute: '782's display is inclined 20°, not literally vertical; the term "oriented vertically" in claim 2 would need construction, but an upright/tilted customer display was conventional.
• Claim 3 (writing table on the outer side): NCR '782 directly — writing‑pad support member 34 with horizontal surface 36 at the front (customer) edge, sized for a checkbook.
• Claim 4 (magnetic stripe reader at the one end): NCR '782 directly — slot 44 and card reader 46 in support member 34 at the counter end.
• Claim 5 (writing table including an MSR): NCR '782 directly and essentially verbatim — horizontal writing surface 36 + slot 44 + magnetic stripe reader 46 in the same support member 34. This is the strongest single‑reference (anticipation‑adjacent) mapping of any claim in the patent.
• Claim 6 (cash drawer at the one end): Humble '053 (cashier station has "a keyboard with cash drawer"); a cash drawer at the operator position of a POS terminal was a notoriously conventional design choice, and the spec itself contemplates cash payment at the terminal.

Claim 7 (independent apparatus claim — full combination)

Proposed combination: Joseloff '564 + Humble '343 and/or '053 + NCR '782 (+ Tri‑Tronics '604 for conveyor control).

• Two counters joined, each with a conveyor belt on top → Humble '343/'053 (entry/outfeed conveyors carrying merchandise items); Tri‑Tronics '604 is cited for conveyor start/stop control.
• Integrated terminal at one end with scanner in the counter (outer side), keyboard (inner side, adjacent the scanner), MSR on the outer side, cash drawer at the end, writing table on the outer side facing an aisle, vertical display → NCR '782 (scanner, writing table, MSR, customer display, operator keyboard) + Humble '053 (keyboard with cash drawer) + Humble '343 (self‑service scanner/display).
• A wall separating the two counters → Joseloff '564: "A vertical wall 24 separates the loading areas 23 of each counter." (The '853 spec's "Wall 23 separates checkout counters 12 and 14" is structurally the same organizing element.)
• Scanners operable by self‑service customer or employee → Humble '343/'053 + Joseloff '564, as in claim 1.

Motivation: identical to claim 1 — labor‑cost reduction and floor‑space consolidation, expressly stated by both Joseloff and Humble, and expressly stated as the objects of the '853 patent. The addition of a separating wall between two joined counters was Joseloff's stated means of "avoid[ing] confusion while permitting maximum utilization of the available space," and applying it to a self‑service/full‑service lane pair is a known technique used to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR).

Claim 8 (independent method claim)

Proposed combination: Humble '343/'053 (self‑scan, self‑pay, monitoring) + NCR '782 (card payment at the counter without cashier assistance) + Joseloff '564 (joined counters / single employee).

• "Providing first and second joined checkout counters" with integrated terminals, scanners, and MSRs accessible to a self‑service customer and a store employee, scanners being the only scanners → Humble '343/'053 (customer‑accessible scanner and card-based payment) + NCR '782 (counter‑mounted scanner and card reader at the customer‑facing end) + Joseloff '564 (the joined‑counter island).
• "Scanning… without assistance"; "reading information by the MSR… without assistance"; "transporting the items from the store by the self‑service customer" → Humble '343 (customer scans; a printed receipt accompanies bagged items) and Humble '053 (customer self‑checkout without a cashier; payment devices at the counter); NCR '782 (credit/debit payment performed at the counter by the customer via slot 44/reader 46 and PIN keyboard 38).
• "Monitoring the scanning and payment steps by the store employee" → Humble '343's security system (light curtains, security tunnel, displays) and Humble '053's express teaching that a single cashier serves a group of two or more counters; the '853 patent's own "theft deterrent" rationale is the admitted purpose of the Humble monitoring.

Motivation: combining automated self‑service checkout (Humble) with at‑counter card payment (NCR '782) under one supervising employee (both Humble patents) is the straightforward, predictable implementation of the recognized labor‑saving objective. KSR sanctions exactly this sort of combination of known techniques from the same field to achieve a predictable improvement.

Claim 9 (dependent method — full‑service at the second counter)

• "Scanning merchandise items by the second optical scanner with assistance from the store employee"; "indexing payment information into a keyboard at the second terminal with assistance" → Joseloff '564 (cashier alternately tallies at each of the two counters for the customers) + NCR '782 (operator keys in information "not available as a result of scanning" via keyboard 68; terminal display/printer) + Humble '053 (cashier uses keyboard to add items/key coupons and take payment).
• Motivation: the '853 patent's stated object is to "facilitate full service as well as self‑service operations" without modification; Joseloff already discloses full‑service operation of each of two joined counters by one employee, and NCR '782 already discloses keyboard entry at the counter for items that cannot be scanned. Converting the second lane from self‑service to full‑service is the predictable alternative the references expressly contemplate.

Claim 10 (dependent method — self‑service at the second counter)

• "Scanning… by the second optical scanner… without assistance"; self‑payment via the second magnetic stripe reader; self‑transport; monitoring both counters → Humble '343/'053: a group of two or more self‑checkout counters served by one employee, each counter having its own scanner and payment devices; Joseloff '564: two counters served by one employee.
• Motivation: merely duplicating the first lane is the epitome of an obvious design variant ("two and two have been added together") and, more importantly, is expressly taught by Humble '053's "groups of check‑out counters, each group having two or more counters therein."

Claim 11 (independent method claim — stationed employee scrutinizing two self‑service customers)

• "Stationing the store employee at or adjacent the one end of the first and second checkout counters" → Joseloff '564 (single cashier positioned in the bay 13 between the two counter elements); Tokyo Electric '234 (single settlement section 1 and POS terminal 70 between parallel lanes 2A/2B).
• "Independently scanning… by said first and second self‑service customers"; "independently paying… using payment cards swiped through the first and second magnetic stripe readers" → Humble '343/'053 (customer‑operated scanning) + NCR '782 (customer‑swiped card at the counter's magnetic stripe reader).
• "Scrutinizing both the first and second customers… to ensure that all of the items are scanned and that payment is received" → Humble '343 (central processor + light curtains + surveillance, "system must also insure against attempts to… defraud") and Humble '053 (single cashier for a group of two or more counters); the '853 specification concedes this monitoring function is the admitted role of the Humble retail operator.
• Motivation: stationing a single associate where he or she can watch two self‑service lanes is the express teaching of Humble '053 and the express object of the '853 patent ("a store associate is available at the end of a checkout counter to watch up to two lanes"). Combining it with Joseloff's twin‑counter bay geometry and NCR '782's card‑payment hardware is a predictable arrangement of known elements.

5. The strongest counterarguments to obviousness (and why they likely fail)

1. "Only optical scanners" / dual‑use scanner as a negative + functional limitation. Claim 1, 8, and 11 recite that the scanners are "the only optical scanners" and are operable from either side. A negative limitation adds no structure; the scanning function is identical whether performed from the customer or employee side. Under KSR, "[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."
2. Alleged teaching away by Humble '343. Humble separates the associate from the customer with a gate and security tunnel and places the associate at a remote retail terminal; the '853 specification relies on this as the deficiency of the art. A patentee could argue Humble '343 teaches away from putting the scanner where both the customer and the associate can reach it from the single counter end. This is the most substantial defense, but it is weakened because (a) Humble '343 itself discloses a dual‑pathway embodiment and (b) Humble '053 — the same inventor — expressly teaches one cashier serving a group of two or more counters, and (c) NCR '782 (the applicant's own prior art) already places customer‑operable payment devices (MSR, PIN keyboard, display) at the counter end alongside the scanner, so the "security gate" separation was a design choice, not a requirement.
3. No express "suggestion to combine." Post‑KSR this is not required; the motivation may come from the references, the nature of the problem, or the ordinary creativity of a PHOSITA. Here the references supply the motivation verbatim (Joseloff: "no need for other store personnel"; Humble '053: single cashier for groups of two or more counters).
4. Secondary considerations. The page contains no evidence of commercial success, long‑felt need, or industry praise, and the specification's assertions (one‑third less floor space; "ergonomically superior") are attorney argument. If such evidence existed (e.g., widespread adoption of NCR's "convertible/dual‑lane" products), it would be the claimant's best rebuttal. Note that the large subsequent‑citation family (34–42 citing documents, predominantly NCR patents on rotatable scanners, reconfigurable/convertible checkout systems, security scales, etc.) shows the '853 concept was commercially and technically important, but citation volume is not itself a Graham secondary consideration.

6. Bottom line

On the record shown on the patent page, claims 1–11 are vulnerable under § 103(a). The strongest, cleanest attacks are:

• Claim 1: Joseloff '564 + Humble '343 (or '053) + NCR '782.
• Claim 7: Joseloff '564 + Humble '343/'053 + NCR '782 (+ Tri‑Tronics '604 for the conveyor‑control detail).
• Claim 8: Humble '343/'053 + NCR '782 + Joseloff '564.
• Claim 11: Humble '053 + Joseloff '564 + NCR '782 (with Tokyo Electric '234 as an accumulating reference for the two‑lane/single‑terminal island geometry, subject to confirming its pre‑June‑1992 U.S. filing date).
• Claims 3, 4, 5: essentially disclosed by NCR '782 alone (writing table, MSR, writing table with MSR), making them obvious over a single reference and, in substance, anticipated.
• Claims 2 and 6: obvious over NCR '782 / Humble '053 in view of routine POS design practice (customer display; cash drawer at the operator's position).

The recurring motivation across every combination is the one the references themselves state and the '853 specification adopts: cutting the labor cost of checkout by having one associate supervise two joined, adjacent lanes while preserving the ability to serve a full‑service customer at the same integrated terminal — with each claimed element performing exactly its known function.

Confidence / verification notes

• Characterizations of US 4,353,564, 4,676,343, 4,775,782, 4,964,053, and 5,178,234 are based on the abstracts, specifications, and claims I retrieved (sources linked above). Element‑level citations should be re‑verified against the full printed references before being relied on in a legal filing.
• US 4,236,604 (Tri‑Tronics) full text was not retrieved; it is used here only for the conveyor control subject matter implied by its title. Treat that mapping as provisional.
• The § 102(e) availability of US 5,178,234 depends on its U.S. filing date, which is not shown on the patent page and which I could not confirm. It should not be relied upon as § 102(b) art.
• The prosecution history and any Rule 132 evidence are not available on the page and could materially change the analysis (e.g., if the applicant overcame these very references with a showing of unexpected results).