US 5537107

I'll search for this specific patent and check for any litigation activity.

Let me check for litigation and docket activity specific to this patent number.

US 5,537,107 — Screening Summary

Search scope note: I searched Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, PACER-derived docket aggregators (PacerMonitor, Justia Dockets, Docket Alarm-type listings), and general web sources for the exact identifier 5537107 / 5,537,107. I found no CAFC docket entry, Federal Circuit appeal, or 2026 appellate activity referencing this patent. Several 2025–2026 patent suits against Sony entities exist (e.g., Ozmo Licensing v. Sony, W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00048; Baker Laser Technology v. Sony, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00895; SensoSure v. Sony Group, E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00177; LearnMaster v. Sony Group, E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00787), but nothing in my search results ties any of them to 5,537,107. Absence of hits is not proof of absence — PACER and the CAFC docket are not fully indexable via open web search, so I cannot rule out an unindexed 2026 filing. Treat the "no litigation found" statement as low-to-moderate confidence.

I also explicitly avoided near-number confusion: US 5,537,106 (Mitsuhashi, "Remote controller," also Sony, also issued Jul. 16, 1996) is a different patent, not this one.

Bibliographic data (from the patent front page and Google Patents)

Primary classifications include H03J 1/0025 (remote-control tuning via microprocessor), H04N 21/42208 (display device on the remote control), and H03J 2200/23 (remote control display showing data to be transmitted).

Abstract (patent's own text)

"A remote control unit for an external video apparatus such as a video camera and a VTR includes an infrared signal receiving section for receiving a video signal as a infrared signal from the video apparatus. A video image depending upon the video signal is displayed on a LCD display together with display information necessary for a remote control in a LCD display. An operator can easily carry out the necessary remote control operation through a key matrix, confirming the result of the operation upon reviewing the video image in the LCD display. The operator's key matrix operation is put into a microcomputer which, in turn, produces a control information for the video apparatus and transmits it to the video apparatus through an encoder and an infrared signal transmitting section. The above-mentioned display information is produced by the microcomputer and input through a character generator to the LCD display. Employing the LCD display increases the amount of information to be displayed, thereby making the remote control unit multi-functional."

Independent claim — plain-language overview

The patent has 2 claims total; only claim 1 is independent.

Claim 1 covers a wireless remote control unit whose whole purpose is to let the user watch the camera's picture on the remote itself while controlling the camera. It recites, as a single integrated handheld assembly built on a common support base:

1. A support base — all the following components are mounted on it, i.e., the unit is one physical handheld device.
2. A wireless video receiver on that base that receives the video signal from the external video camera apparatus, with that signal being infrared.
3. A liquid crystal display on the base, connected to the receiver, that both (a) shows the video image from the received signal and (b) shows character information for the remote-control operation superimposed on that video image.
4. A keypad on the base through which the operator makes key inputs.
5. A wireless control-signal transmitter on the base that sends control information to the camera, again in the infrared region.
6. A controller on the base, connected to the keypad and to the transmitter, that takes the key input, generates the display information corresponding to that key input, and generates the control information fed to the transmitter.
7. A character generator on the base, connected to the controller, that converts the controller's display information into the character information fed to the display — so the characters appear overlaid on the live camera image.

In short: handheld IR-based bidirectional remote = live camera monitor (LCD) + on-screen superimposed status/character overlay + IR command transmitter, all in one unit.

Claim 2 (dependent on claim 1) adds only an encoder that encodes the control information from the controller, with the signal transmitter then transmitting that encoded control information. It adds no independent scope.

Practical / prosecution notes

• The specification describes the preferred embodiment generically (VTR or video camera, 4-inch LCD, key matrix 3, CPU/microcomputer 4, character generator 5, encoder 6, IR transmit section 7, integral base 8), and expressly contemplates wired alternatives and picture-in-picture of multiple video inputs. The claims, however, are narrower than the disclosure: they are limited to a video camera (not a VTR), to infrared wireless transmission, and to character information (not general graphics) superimposed on the video image.
• The two-claim structure and the "video camera apparatus" limitation in claim 1 are worth noting if claim scope is at issue.
• Cited prior art of record: US 4,746,919; US 4,763,291; US 4,907,082; US 4,965,557; US 5,003,396. The patent has an extensive forward-citation trail (70+ citing documents listed, including Evolve Products, Logitech, Flexiworld, and Sony follow-on filings), which is consistent with it being an early reference in the "remote control with built-in display / two-way remote" space.
• The patent was independently cited as an X-category reference against claim 1 of GB 2331650 (Daewoo, VCR with wireless connection to TV), per that application's search report — a data point on how examiners have treated it as prior art.

Confidence and caveats

• Bibliographic data, abstract, and claim text above come from the patent's own front matter and full text (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline) and are high confidence.
• Litigation status is low-to-moderate confidence: I found no 2026 CAFC or district-court docket citing 5,537,107, but I could not exhaustively query PACER/CAFC for this exact number. If a definitive litigation check is required, a direct PACER/CAFC docket query or a commercial patent-litigation database should be run.
• I did not auto-correct any identifier; 5,537,107, 5,537,106, 3-008862, JPH 04252699 A, and JP 3318897 B2 are reported exactly as found.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5537107A](/patent/US5537107A)/en · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5537107.html · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/43/88/2c/e9d46a8571fb65/GB2331650A.pdf (X-citation of US 5537107)

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5537107 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search patent litigation databases more specifically.

Let me try a few more targeted searches on litigation-specific databases.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107

Summary Finding

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107 ("Remote control unit for video apparatus," Sony Corporation) was identified in the sources searched.

I was unable to locate any district court action, CAFC appeal, ITC investigation, or PTAB proceeding in which U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

What the Searches Did Return

To be transparent about the scope of the search, the queries returned the following categories of material — none of which is litigation involving this patent:

Important Caveats

1. Search limitations. I was constrained by a limited number of search steps. I was unable to query the specific databases you named (Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, Docket Alarm, Lex Machina, CourtListener dockets) directly for this patent number. My negative finding is based primarily on general and patent-focused web searches, which are not exhaustive for litigation records. You should independently verify against PACER, Docket Alarm/Lex Machina, and the Unified Patents litigation portal before relying on this as a complete answer.

2. The patent is expired. According to the Google Patents record, U.S. 5,537,107 had an anticipated expiration of July 16, 2013 and its legal status is "Expired – Lifetime." Maintenance fees were paid through the 12-year window (2008), but the record shows a maintenance-fee reminder in January 2008. Because the patent has been expired for over a decade, active enforcement litigation is unlikely, though historical suits are not impossible.

3. No auto-correction applied. I searched for the literal number 5537107 / 5,537,107 and excluded results relating to other patent numbers (e.g., I did not treat ACQIS's "5,537,544" reference as this patent).

Conclusion

As of the search performed, no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107 is known. This is a negative finding subject to the database-coverage caveats above, not a definitive certification that none exists. If you can supply access to PACER/Lex Machina search results or a Docket Alarm report for this patent number, I can analyze those records and produce the case-by-case table (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, status) you requested.

I'll verify the structured block's "no proceedings" default with targeted searches before reporting.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs, active, settled, terminated, or otherwise. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns an empty set, and my independent searches for "5537107" combined with IPR/CBM/PTAB and for Sony-as-patent-owner AIA petitions surfaced nothing on this patent; docket sources such as Docket Alarm's PTAB index and PTAB E2E show no case captioned against U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107. Accordingly there is no claims-invalidated / claims-sustained breakdown to report — the patent has neither been hardened by surviving an IPR nor weakened by one. The defensive posture is not "hardened" or "dead" — it is "expired and unadjudicated." The real defense here is the calendar, not the Board.

---

No proceedings to itemize

I will not manufacture proceeding numbers to fill the template. For completeness on why the docket is empty, and what that means:

• The patent has expired. Per the Google Patents record, the anticipated expiration date is 2013-07-16, and the legal status is "Expired – Lifetime." That date is the 17-years-from-grant term (granted 1996-07-16), which controls because the underlying application chain predates the URAA (original application 07/825,263 filed 1992-01-24; priority 1991-01-29 via JP 3-008862). The last recorded maintenance-fee events are the 4th, 8th, and 12th-year payments (2000-01-13, 2004-01-08, 2008-01-16), with a 2008-01-21 reminder — consistent with the patent running to full term.
• The AIA trial window was only ~10 months wide. IPR/PGR/CBM practice became available 2012-09-16; this patent expired 2013-07-16. An expired patent can still be IPR'd (the Board retains jurisdiction over expired claims for estoppel and related purposes), but a petitioner in that window would have had to act inside ten months, and there was evidently no live assertion campaign creating the incentive.
• No litigation pressure existed to spawn a petition. The cited-by record is 70–152 references of the usual Forward-looking/Rovi/Logitech/Flexiworld lineage — i.e., this patent is cited as background art by later remote-control-UI and wireless-output patents, not asserted. I found no district court assertion campaign naming Sony as plaintiff on the '107 patent.
• No Federal Circuit appeal exists, because there is no Board decision to appeal. Nothing appears on the CAFC docket/CourtListener tied to this patent.

Note one search hit that is easy to mistake for a proceeding: GB 2331650 A (Daewoo) cites US 5,537,107 (Sony) as an X-category reference against claim 1 of that GB application, and the Carleton University prior-art table listing US5537107 is likewise just an IDS-style citation list. These are the '107 patent being used as prior art against others — the opposite of a PTAB challenge to it. Similarly, the US 5,537,107 A (FUNADO SHIGETO) citation in the WO 02/089475 search report is a foreign-office citation, not a proceeding.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status: no claim of US 5,537,107 is canceled and none is confirmed. Claims 1 and 2 (the patent's entire claim set — claim 1 is the sole independent claim; claim 2 depends from it and adds "an encoder adapted to encode said control information from said controller, in which said signal transmitter includes means for transmitting said encoded control information") stand exactly as issued in 1996. There is no IPR certificate, no FWD, no certificate of cancellation, and therefore no narrowed claim set to point to. Every claim is "untested" rather than "sustained" — an important distinction, because untested means no Board has ever construed "a wireless video signal receiver… for receiving a video signal from the external video camera apparatus, said video signal being transmitted in the infrared region," the "support base" integration requirement, or the character-generator-superimposition limitation of claim 1.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is entirely unclaimed territory. Because nobody has ever petitioned, no petitioner and no privy of any petitioner is estopped from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground on these claims. Every printed publication, every prior device, and every combination that would have been available to a hypothetical petitioner on 2012-09-16 remains conceptually available. That said, the practical value of that freedom is close to zero: with the patent expired since 2013-07-16, there is no ongoing infringement to defend, and any damages theory is limited to the pre-2013-07-16 accrual period subject to the six-year bar of 35 U.S.C. § 286 (which, measured from today, 2026-10-01, reaches back only to 2020-10-01 — a period in which the patent was already dead). No damages can have accrued after 2013-07-16.

Pattern signals: none exist. No serial petitioner, because there is no petitioner at all. No defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain — a Unified- or RPX-style challenge would have been a classic fit for a 1991-priority consumer-electronics remote-control patent cited broadly by the wireless remote-control industry, but none was filed. Sony's PTAB activity as a patent owner on its older consumer-electronics portfolio is not visible here; Sony's modern PTAB footprint runs the other direction (Sony as petitioner/appellant in cases like Sony Corp. v. …, and as assignee on recent Sony Corporation v. … TV-remote-display applications such as US 2005/0108751). The absence of any challenge is unsurprising for a patent that died a natural death before it became worth attacking.

---

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant facing a demand letter that cites US 5,537,107: your first and dispositive response is the expiration date. The patent expired 2013-07-16 (Google Patents, "Anticipated expiration," legal status "Expired – Lifetime": https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5537107A](/patent/US5537107A)/en). Absent a § 286 damages window reaching back pre-2013, any demand tied to post-2013 conduct is barred, and any demand asserting claims 1–2 today is asserting claims the patent owner can no longer enforce for new acts. There is no FWD to quote, because none exists — do not let a counterparty imply otherwise.
• Do not expect to find a PTAB record to lean on, and do not represent that one exists. If opposing counsel suggests the patent "survived IPR," that representation is false: no petition was ever filed, so there was nothing to survive. The correct framing is expired and never adjudicated, not validated.
• If you nevertheless want a grounds-based invalidity fallback (e.g., a counterparty argues pre-expiration damages under some theory): the five references cited by the examiner during prosecution are the natural starting point and are all public — US 4,966,557 (Nokia), US 4,763,291 (Project Benjamin), US 4,746,919 (RCA), US 4,907,082 (Thomson), and US 5,003,396 (Goldstar). Because no AIA trial has ever been instituted, no estoppel under § 315(e)(2) attaches to any of them, and you may raise them in district court without restriction.
• Confirm the negative directly before relying on it. The canonical check is the PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board endpoint at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ and the USPTO Patent Center record for application 08/455,595. I also note that no ex parte reexamination or inter partes reexamination record surfaced in my searches, but reexamination was outside my search scope for this task — if a reexamination certificate exists, it would not appear in the AIA-trial data block, and you should run that check separately before filing anything that depends on the claim text being unamended.

Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened patent and it is not a canceled patent — it is a 1991-priority Sony patent that ran its full term and died on 2013-07-16 with a completely clean PTAB docket. The absence of PTAB activity is itself informative: patents that get asserted attract IPRs, and this one never got asserted. Your defense is expiration plus § 286, not an invalidating FWD.

I'll research the assignment record for US 5537107 before building the report.

Let me verify whether there's any litigation or assignment activity tied to this patent.

Ownership Analysis — US 5,537,107

Patent: "Remote control unit for video apparatus" · Inventor: Shigeto Funado · Original assignee: Sony Corp · Grant: 1996-07-16 · Anticipated expiration: 2013-07-16.

Research caveat up front: I ran web retrieval against the Google Patents record for US5537107 and against indexed USPTO assignment documents. I could not open the Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) results page directly — it is an interactive query interface, not a crawlable document — so the findings below rest on (a) the authoritative full patent text, (b) the Google Patents legal-events timeline (which mirrors the recorded-assignment and post-issuance event feed), and (c) targeted searches for any recorded transfer or assertion of this number. No assignment cover sheet, reel/frame, or correspondent for this patent surfaced in any source.

---

Inventors

• Shigeto Funado — sole named inventor. The patent text gives no residential or corporate address for the inventor, and the front page lists no co-inventors.
• Employer at filing: Most consistent with Sony Corporation (Japan), given the JP priority filing JP 3-008862 (1991-01-29) and issuance directly to Sony Corp with no intervening assignment appearing on the record. I could not independently confirm the inventor's employment from a corporate or SEC source; state this as likely, not proven.
• Unusual patterns: None observable. A single inventor, no co-inventor departures, no evidence of an inventor-side transfer. The "all inventors departed within 12 months" fire-sale tell is not applicable / not present — there is only one inventor and no record of any assignment away from Sony.

Original assignee

• Sony Corporation (Tokyo, Japan). Named as both original assignee and current assignee on the Google Patents record; no successor is listed.
• Product embodiment: The patent is a remote-control unit with an on-board ~4-inch LCD that receives an infrared video signal from the camera/VTR and superimposes character/status information (claims 1–2). Sony was an operating manufacturer of video cameras, VTRs, and remote-control accessories in this era, so the claims map to a real commercial product category — but I found no specific Sony model number tied to this patent, so I will not assert a particular SKU shipped.
• Primary line of business: Consumer and professional electronics.
• Current status: Operating. Sony remains an active, listed global electronics/entertainment company; no bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition of the assignee applies.

Assignment timeline

No recorded assignments were found for US 5,537,107.

• The Google Patents legal-events feed contains only prosecution/maintenance entries — STCF (patent grant, 1996-07-08), FEPP (fee-payment entity status, 1999-12-01), and FPAY maintenance-fee payments (2000-01-13, 2004-01-08, 2008-01-16; 4-, 8-, and 12-year fees) plus a 2008-01-21 maintenance-fee reminder. There is no ASGN / assignment event of any kind on the timeline.
• No assignment cover sheet (Form PTO-1595), reel/frame, correspondent, or attorney-of-record document for this patent number appeared in any indexed search.
• No litigation, no ITC action, and no assertion involving US5537107 / 5,537,107 surfaced (citations of the patent — e.g., the GB 2331650 search report and the Justia citation list — are prior-art citations by examiners, not assertion events).

Per the operating rule for this format: the Assignment Center has no post-issuance records for this patent, which itself is the finding — the chain terminates at the original assignee, Sony Corporation, and the patent expired on 2013-07-16 while still held by Sony.

(The only close-but-unrelated hit was a Sony assignment at Reel 050038 / Frames 0062–0071, recorded 2019-08-13, correspondent Toby J. Ligon, Seed IP Law Group LLP, Seattle — but that covers PCT/US2016/019907 / App. 15/553,548 "Water soluble fluorescent or colored dyes," a different patent entirely, and should not be attributed to this chain.)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5537107
    1991 : JP priority filed
         : Shigeto Funado sole inventor
    1992 : US application filed by Sony
    1994 : First continuation filed
    1995 : Second continuation filed
    1996 : Patent issued to Sony Corporation
         : No assignment recorded
    2008 : 12 year maintenance fee paid
    2013 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfer to any IP/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures entity exists on the record. Current assignee = original assignee = Sony Corporation.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignee in the chain matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff list. The only named assignee is Sony.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / inapplicable. There are no recorded assignments, therefore no correspondent of record and no recurrence to measure. (Note: the Seed IP / Toby Ligon 2019 recording referenced above belongs to an unrelated Sony patent and is not part of this chain.)
4. Cascading transfers — not present. No consecutive assignments; the application passed through two continuations (Ser. 07/825,263 → 08/212,642 → 08/455,595) but those are prosecution continuations, not ownership transfers.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No suit exists, so there is no assignment-timing-to-filing event to evaluate.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Sony did not enter Chapter 7/11, and no patent sale in a bankruptcy proceeding covers this number.
7. Privateering — not present. No operating-to-NPE transfer, and no SEC or Patent Progress / EFF coverage of this patent.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at expiry in the hands of the operating original assignee.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

Justification: The Google Patents legal-events timeline for US 5,537,107 shows only grant (STCF 1996-07-08) and maintenance fees (FPAY 2000-01-13, 2004-01-08, 2008-01-16) with no assignment event, and no reel/frame, correspondent, or cover sheet for this patent appeared in any indexed source; the patent expired 2013-07-16 still held by Sony Corporation. With a single inventor, an intact chain from issue to expiry, zero transfers, and zero assertions, none of the eight NPE signals is present — the correct call is insufficient data rather than any NPE classification.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 5537107); cross-check Google Patents legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5537107A](/patent/US5537107A)/en.

I'll search for the specific patent number and its cited prior art references.

Let me gather detailed information on each of the five cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107

(Building on the prior litigation section, which found no litigation and correctly noted the patent is Expired – Lifetime with an anticipated expiration of 2013-07-16. This section addresses the previous task's remaining deliverable: the prior-art references of record.)

1. Confirmation of the target document

Searches against the literal number 5537107 returned only the correct record — no similar-number substitutions were encountered:

• Patent: US 5,537,107 A — "Remote control unit for video apparatus"
• Assignee: Sony Corporation (original and current)
• Inventor: Shigeto Funado
• Application: US 08/455,595, filed 1995-05-31 (continuation of 08/212,642, filed 1994-03-14, itself a continuation of 07/825,263, filed 1992-01-24)
• Priority: 1991-01-29 (JP 3-008862 / JP 00886291A; family member JP 3318897 B2)
• Grant: 1996-07-16; Expired – Lifetime (antic. expiration 2013-07-16)
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5537107A](/patent/US5537107A)/en ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5537107.html

Claims at issue (§102 target): Claim 1 (independent) and claim 2 (dependent, adding an encoder).

2. The prior art of record — the five references cited on the face of '107

The '107 record lists exactly five "Cited Citations" (all marked * cited by examiner). These are the references the examiner considered. (Forward citations—70+ "Cited By"—are later art and cannot be §102 prior art against '107; they are irrelevant to anticipation.)

(Espacenet corroboration for #4: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=[4965557A](/patent/4965557A) ; Google Patents for #1, #5: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4746919A](/patent/US4746919A) , https://patents.google.com/patent/US5003396 )

3. Statutory-date analysis (pre-AIA §102, priority 1991-01-29)

Note on #5: because US 5,003,396 issued after the '107 priority date, it is not §102(a)/(b) art on its face; the examiner could only have relied on it under §102(e) (effective U.S. filing 1988-07-30). Its foreign counterpart (JP H02-176697, published 1990-07-09; see https://www.patenthub.cn/...) would independently qualify as a printed publication.

4. Element-by-element §102 mapping to claim 1

Claim 1 requires, in combination: (a) a support base; (b) a wireless IR video-signal receiver receiving a video signal from the external video camera; (c) an LCD on the base displaying the video image and character information for the remote-control operation superimposed on that image; (d) a keypad; (e) a wireless IR control-signal transmitter; (f) a controller receiving the key input and producing the display information and control information; and (g) a character generator converting display information into the superimposed characters.

5. Conclusion on §102

None of the five references of record anticipates claim 1 (or claim 2) of US 5,537,107 under 35 U.S.C. §102. Each reference, taken alone, lacks at least the core combination that the '107 claims capture:

1. a wireless receiver of an actual video signal from the video apparatus plus an on-board LCD displaying that video image, and simultaneously
2. a character generator superimposing, on that same video image, character information corresponding to the remote-control operation.

• The single most relevant reference is US 5,003,396 (Goldstar) — it supplies elements (a)–(f) including IR video reception and an LCD monitor in the remote — but it is not anticipatory, because it shows a black-and-white picture only and lacks the character generator and superimposition of remote-control characters. It is the natural primary reference for a §103 obviousness attack (e.g., combined with US 4,746,919 or US 4,965,557 for the character-generator/superimposed-display teaching).
• US 4,746,919 supplies the character generator + superimposed character display + IR transmit/receive teaching but shows no video image.
• US 4,965,557 and US 4,907,082 supply only character/display-information generation (on the TV screen).
• US 4,763,291 is the weakest of the five (microcomputer remote display).

This is consistent with the fact that the '107 claims issued over all five references — they were evidently used as background and/or in §103 combinations, not as §102 anticipatory art.

Deference to source rule / cross-check: the earlier litigation section correctly identified these same five references as "prior art cited during prosecution," so the two sections are consistent. I found no contradiction between the authoritative full text and the search results.

6. Caveats and confidence

• High confidence on the citation set, dates, assignees, and titles (taken directly from the '107 face record and corroborating Google Patents/Espacenet pages).
• High confidence on US 4,746,919, US 4,965,557, and US 5,003,396 descriptions (their full texts/summaries were retrieved).
• Lower confidence on the substantive descriptions of US 4,907,082 and US 4,763,291 — the environment hit its search-step limit before I could retrieve their full specifications, so my descriptions of those two rest on their titles, assignees, and dates as recorded in the '107 file plus general knowledge. These two should be verified against their full texts before being relied upon in any validity opinion.
• No auto-correction applied: all patent numbers were treated literally; no results for similar numbers (e.g., other "5537xxx" patents) were substituted.
• I did not locate any §102 anticipatory reference among the forward citations or the "Similar Documents" list; forward-citing patents postdate '107's priority and cannot be §102 art. The UK examiner's use of US 5,537,107 against GB 2331650 A (Daewoo) is a forward citation event and does not bear on '107's own validity.

I'll research the cited prior-art references to ground the obviousness analysis.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Let me examine the remaining cited reference and the prosecution history.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,537,107

Patent: U.S. 5,537,107 — "Remote control unit for video apparatus" (Sony Corp.; inventor Shigeto Funado)
Statutory framework: Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (effective priority 1991‑01‑29, JP 3‑008862; U.S. parent 07/825,263 filed 1992‑01‑24; continuation chain through 08/212,642 and the instant 08/455,595)
Date of analysis: April 26, 2026

Scope note. The prior art considered here is the set the examiner cited on the face of the patent ("Patent Citations (5)"): US 4,965,557; US 4,763,291; US 4,746,919; US 4,907,082; and US 5,003,396. This builds on the earlier litigation section rather than repeating it — that section found no litigation involving this patent and noted it expired 2013‑07‑16, so this is a retrospective, hypothetical § 103 assessment (the kind a PTAB panel or district court would perform), not a report of an actual holding. I was not able to retrieve the full file wrapper; I therefore cannot confirm what rejections or arguments the examiner and applicant exchanged, and I flag that limitation below.

---

1. Legal standard and level of ordinary skill

Standard. Under Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), obviousness turns on (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) the level of ordinary skill, and (4) objective indicia. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination is obvious where the elements are known, the combination is of familiar elements according to known methods yielding predictable results, or where a known technique is used to improve similar devices in the same way. A "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" need not be explicit in the references — it may come from the art, the problem, or common sense/ordinary creativity. A reference is also proper art if it is analogous (same field of endeavor, or reasonably pertinent to the problem). In re Clay; In re Klein.

Note on § 103 date mechanics. Because the patent's effective filing date predates 2013‑03‑16, pre‑AIA § 103 governs and no AIA § 102 prior-art carve-outs (e.g., common-ownership) are in play. All five examiner-cited references have critical dates well before 1991‑01‑29 — except that US 5,003,396 issued 1991‑03‑26 (after the priority date), so it is properly § 102(e) prior art only by virtue of its earlier U.S. filing date of 1988‑07‑30. That distinction matters and I apply it below.

Level of ordinary skill. A bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (or equivalent) with roughly 2–3 years of experience in consumer video equipment and remote-control/display systems, or a comparable combination of education and experience. Critically, that artisan would have been familiar with: infrared (IR) remote control encoding, microcontroller-based key scanning, LCD drive circuitry, and on-screen character generation (OSD) — all in routine use by 1991.

---

2. The cited prior art — what each reference discloses

Side observation for weight: US 4,746,919 was later used as prior art (Exhibit 1021) in IPR2015‑02005 against a third party's patent, evidence that examiners and challengers treat it as strong, broad art in this space. (docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-02005)

---

3. The claims

Claim 1 requires, in a remote control unit for controlling an external video camera apparatus, all mounted on one support base: (a) a wireless video-signal receiver for a signal from the camera transmitted in the infrared region; (b) an LCD showing the video image and character information corresponding to a remote-control operation superimposed on that video image; (c) a keypad; (d) a wireless IR control-signal transmitter; (e) a controller receiving key input and producing both display information and control information; and (f) a character generator converting the controller's display information into the displayed character information.

Claim 2 adds only an encoder between the controller and the transmitter.

---

4. Claim 1 — element mapping

Differences to be bridged. No single reference discloses all elements. The two gaps are (i) overlaying remote-control character information on the video image on a handheld LCD, and (ii) the external apparatus being a video camera. Everything else — the IR video link to a handheld LCD, the IR control uplink, the keypad, the controller, and the character generator — is squarely disclosed, and the "support base" limitation is met by any single handheld housing.

---

5. Combinations that render claim 1 obvious

Combination A (strongest): US 5,003,396 + US 4,746,919

• '396 supplies the wireless IR video receiver, the handheld LCD reproducing the picture, the keypad, the IR control transmitter, and the unified housing — i.e., the entire "video-over-IR monitor built into a remote" architecture.
• '919 supplies the missing overlay element: an LCD on a handheld remote driven by a character generator (124) under a controller (112) to display character information for remote-control operation, together with two-way IR (IR LED 122 + input transducer 126) and an express backdrop in which storing the display information in the remote itself was known (EP 0 120 345).
• Why combine: both references are in the identical field (handheld IR remote controls for consumer video equipment) and address the identical problem — the user's inability to see equipment status/options while operating the remote. The combination is a simple substitution/aggregation of two known handheld display-and-control functions into one housing, producing nothing more than the predictable sum of their parts. KSR, rationales (A) and (C).

Combination B: US 5,003,396 + US 4,965,557

• '396 again supplies the IR-video-to-handheld-LCD architecture; '557 supplies the character generator + superimposed text-page control information and expressly teaches the desirability of leaving the picture visible: "as large a portion of the picture as possible remains visible to permit a check on the adjustment made."
• Why combine: '557 articulates precisely the motivation the '107 patent claims as its advantage — verifying the result of a control operation while viewing the image. That is a teaching/suggestion in the prior art (KSR rationale (G)), not hindsight.

Combination C: US 5,003,396 + US 4,907,082 (+ '557 or '919)

• '082 supplies a character generator that superimposes an OSD menu on the video picture under control-unit direction. Adding that known OSD-superimposition technique to '396's handheld video monitor is "use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way." KSR rationale (C); In re Merck.

Combination D (three-way): US 5,003,396 + US 4,746,919 + US 4,965,557

For the locally generated display information specifically, '919's transmitter already contains a designer-provided ROM (118) control program, and its own background concedes that storing key-function display information in the transmitter was known. '557 shows a controller that produces and superimposes control-oriented text. Together these directly meet the "controller … producing display information … corresponding to said key input" and "character generator … converting said display information" limitations.

On the "video camera" limitation

This is the one limitation with no direct textual support in the five cited references — '396's video source is a television receiver, not a camera. Three points nonetheless favor obviousness:

1. Claim construction. The "for controlling an external video camera apparatus" language reads as a statement of intended use; the patentability-defining elements are the structural/functional components. Under In re Schreiber, intended use generally does not distinguish a structurally complete claim unless it imparts a structural difference. The '107 specification confirms the same hardware serves VTRs, cameras, and projectors — it does not tie any structure to the camera.
2. The specification's own admissions. The '107 background concedes that prior remotes displayed "various characters and graphic information for each operational mode," and the detailed description frames the camera use case as an application of the same disclosed unit (monitoring the viewfinder image to allow remote control/adjustment). The applicant did not present (on the face of the patent) any structural or programming change unique to a camera.
3. Common knowledge / analogous art. Irrespective of the examiner's five citations, remotely monitoring and controlling video cameras was a crowded field by 1990. The patent page's "Similar Documents" listing includes camera-control art: US 4,945,417 (1990‑07‑31), US 4,949,181 (1990‑08‑14), US 4,989,085 (granted 1991‑01‑29), and JP 3315555 B2 "Camera control device." Substituting a video camera for a television as the IR-linked external apparatus — where portable cameras with video-out and remote terminals were ubiquitous — is a predictable substitution of one known video source for another. (Caveat: these camera references are the page's "similar documents," not the examiner-cited art; their dates must be individually verified before reliance, and US 4,989,085's 1991‑01‑29 grant date coincides with the priority date.)

---

6. Claim 2 — the encoder

Claim 2 adds only an encoder to encode the control information before transmission. This is the clearest case of obviousness in the patent:

• US 5,003,396 already converts control signals to a serialized/coded form before IR transmission (parallel/serial converters 109/110 at the set; separator 204, serial/parallel converters 205/206 at the remote — i.e., a coded IR protocol).
• US 4,746,919 composes a "digitally coded remote control message … coupled in serial form to an amplifier … which drives a transducer … an infra-red (IR) light-emitting diode (LED)."
• US 4,763,291 recites "coding the electrical pulses for producing a series of coded infrared pulses."

Encoding control information for IR transmission was the standard, well-known implementation detail of every IR remote; adding an encoder to the Combination A/B/C structures is a combination of familiar elements according to known methods yielding predictable results (KSR rationale (A)). The '107 patent's own FIG. 1 shows encoder 6 as a conventional block. Claim 2 would follow claim 1 into invalidity.

---

7. Motivation to combine — summary of articulated rationales

---

8. Objective indicia (Graham factor 4)

• No commercial-success or industry-praise evidence is available in the material reviewed, and the patent expired in 2013 without (per the earlier litigation section) any identified enforcement.
• Long-felt need cuts both ways. The '107 background recites a genuine unmet need (a camera operator "cannot see an image … at the view finder"; VTR editing "must be made upon displaying a video image on the screen of a television receiver"). But the very solution the '107 claims — a handheld IR-linked LCD monitor — was already taught by '396 in 1988 (filed) and by '291 in 1986. A need that had already been met by the prior art does not support nonobviousness. The '107's marginal contribution reduces to repackaging for the camera use-case plus an OSD overlay.
• No unexpected results, no teaching away. If anything, '557 teaches toward the claimed arrangement.
• Weak "recognition of the problem" argument. Even if one credits the applicant with recognizing the desirability of combining these features, KSR forecloses treating recognition alone as decisive: applying a known improvement technique to a known device is obvious absent a showing the application was beyond the artisan's skill.

---

9. Anticipated counterarguments and responses

1. "No reference discloses character information superimposed on a video image in a handheld unit." True as to any single reference; but the combination of '396 (video-on-handheld-LCD) with '082/'557 (character overlay on video) is a two-reference combination in the same field with an express motivation ('557), not impermissible hindsight. This is the applicant's strongest argument but, standing alone, it is an argument that the references differ, not that the claimed invention is nonobvious.
2. "The '919 display information comes from the controlled device (reverse direction), unlike claim 1's locally produced display information." Rebutted by '919's own background admission that storing key-function display information in a transmitter display memory (EP 0 120 345) was known, and by the routine nature of a microcontroller generating its own status text ('919's ROM 118 control program).
3. "Claim 1 is limited to a video camera, and the art only shows television/VCR." Addressed in § 5 — the limitation appears to be an intended use, the spec ties no structure to it, and camera remote-monitoring art was well known. This is a factual issue on which the record is thinnest and where the analysis is most contestable.
4. Secondary considerations. None of record.

---

10. Conclusion

Claim 1 is most likely obvious under pre-AIA § 103(a) over US 5,003,396 in view of US 4,746,919 (and, more strongly, further in view of US 4,965,557 and/or US 4,907,082). US 5,003,396 alone discloses nearly the entire architecture of a handheld IR remote with a built-in LCD that receives and displays a video signal over IR and transmits IR control signals. The only substantive gap — overlaying remote-control character information on that video image — is filled by '919's transmitter-resident character generator/controller and/or '557's and '082's superimposed control text, with an express motivation in '557 to keep the image visible while displaying control information. The "video camera" limitation is the weakest-supported element and rests on claim-construction (intended use), the specification's own admissions, and common knowledge that remote camera monitoring was routine.

Claim 2 is obvious for the same reasons plus the conventional IR encoder, which is taught or rendered obvious by '396, '919, and '291 alike.

Because both claims are invalid-if-challenged on this record, the patent's evidentiary value in any litigation would be minimal — consistent with the earlier finding that no litigation was ever brought on it, and with its 2013 expiration.

---

Limitations and caveats on this analysis

• This is an analytical opinion of likely obviousness, not a legal opinion, and not a substitute for a validity opinion from counsel. No PTAB or court has rendered this holding on the '107 patent to my knowledge.
• I could not retrieve the file wrapper/prosecution history for the '107 (my final targeted search was cut off), so I cannot state what rejections were made, what arguments or amendments were offered, or whether claim 1 was allowed over these same five references. That record could materially affect the analysis (e.g., if applicant overcame a prior-art rejection with evidence of unexpected results — none is apparent on the face of the patent).
• The "Similar Documents" camera references (US 4,945,417; US 4,949,181; US 4,989,085; JP 3315555 B2) are drawn from the patent page's citation listings, not from the examiner's five cited references, and their dates should be independently verified.
• No auto-correction of patent numbers was applied; all identifiers are reproduced literally from the source. Minor bibliographic discrepancies on the Google Patents page (e.g., US 4,907,082 priority listed as 1988‑05‑03 versus 1988‑05‑02 on Unified Patents) are immaterial to the analysis.