US 6508563

I'll verify the patent details and check for any current litigation/docket activity.

Let me check the litigation history and any recent (2025–2026) appellate activity.

US Patent 6,508,563 B2 — Analyst Summary

Source of record: Google Patents (full text, fetched 2026‑09‑28): https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6508563](/patent/US6508563)/en ; corroborated by USPTO Official Gazette family entries and EPO Global Patent Index.

Bibliographic Data

Continuation chain (from the patent's Cross‑Reference section): this application is a continuation of 09/703,088 (filed 2000‑10‑31, now US 6,367,940), which is a continuation of 09/167,949 (filed 1998‑10‑07, now US 6,158,867), which is a division of 08/585,062 (filed 1996‑01‑16, now US 5,895,115).

Cited/related prior art referenced in the specification: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108 (same assignee, incorporated by reference for light-source types).

Abstract (verbatim)

"Light emitting panel assemblies include in one form of the invention a light emitting panel member made of a transparent resiliently deformable elastomeric material that absorbs impact without breakage for use in automotive lighting applications of various types. In another form of the invention, a rigid light emitting panel member may be used with dome switches for switch area lighting or to backlight control buttons/key pads by providing holes or openings in the panel member for the control buttons/key pads. Also, a rigid light emitting panel member may be used as a structural member, and two or more such light emitting panel members may be stacked together and used to light an instrument panel or the like. One or more light sources may be mounted within one or more light transition areas adjacent one or more light input surfaces of the light emitting panel members. Also one or more light sources may be positioned adjacent one side of the light emitting panel members for causing light to shine through the panel members or through holes in the panel members for performing specified lighting functions."

Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

Claim 1 — Exterior edge-lit panel wrapped around a vehicle corner.
A light-emitting panel assembly mounted on a vehicle body. It has at least one solid light-emitting panel member with top and bottom surfaces and a cross‑sectional width greater than its thickness (i.e., a flat, edge‑lit light-guide/panel). Light enters through at least one light-input surface from a light source and travels through the panel from an edge, emitting out of the top or bottom surface. The panel sits on the exterior vehicle surface and is wrapped around a corner of the vehicle to illuminate around that corner.

• Dependent claims 2–4 add: corner located at a rear and/or front corner (2); and the light source(s) located inboard of the corner's outermost edge to reduce damage risk in a minor collision (3 covers multiple sources, 4 a single source).

Claim 5 — Panel plus a separate light source directly behind it.
A vehicle-body-mounted panel assembly with the same "solid panel, width > thickness, edge-lit, light input surface" structure as claim 1. The added element is an "other light source located directly behind said panel member" that shines light through the panel, independently of the edge-emitted light.

• Dependent claims 6–10 add: the rear source provides greater through-illumination than the edge emission due to its concentration (6); the rear source may be an LED, incandescent, or halogen lamp (7); it is bright enough to serve as a brake light, turn signal, turning light, or backup light (8); a trans reflector on the panel through which the rear light passes (9); and a hole through the panel aligned with the rear source for unobstructed light passage (10).

Claim 11 — Exterior edge-lit panel conforming to a curved vehicle profile.
A vehicle-body-mounted panel assembly with the same core structure (solid panel, width > thickness, edge light-input, surface emission), where the panel is located on the exterior surface and conforms to a curved profile of the vehicle to illuminate along that curve.

• Dependent claims 12–21 add: a remote light source feeding the input surface via a light pipe (12); exterior location at rear/front (13), side (14), bumper (15), or trunk lid (16); light source inboard of the outermost edge of the curved profile to reduce collision damage (17); a lens or film covering the top or bottom surface (18); the top surface forming the vehicle's exterior surface (19); light-extracting deformities on the bottom surface (20); and the light source embedded, potted, or bonded at the light input surface (21).

Claim 22 — Curved exterior panel with the light source attached to the input surface.
Same core structure as claim 11 (solid edge-lit panel, width > thickness, external, conforming to a curved vehicle profile), with the added limitation that the light source is attached to the light-input surface.

• Dependent claim 23: the light source is connected to a printed circuit board.

Litigation / Docket Findings (as searched)

• District court: Multiple 2013–2014 infringement suits by Innovative Display Technologies LLC (an Acacia entity) in the E.D. Texas, e.g., 2:14‑cv‑00106, ‑00200, ‑00202, ‑00222, ‑00722, ‑00723, 2:13‑cv‑00527 (per the Google Patents litigation links and a Korean IP‑protection report listing US6508563 against defendants such as TomTom North America, American Honda, and Mercedes‑Benz US International).
• PTAB: IPR2015‑00828, ‑00895 (petitioner Toyota Motor Corporation), ‑00933, ‑01067, and ‑00574 — all recorded as settled/terminated. Related family patent 6,886,956 was subject to IPR2015‑00575 (Koito/Stanley) and Ford IPR2015‑01540.
• CAFC 2026 docket: No 2026 Federal Circuit appeal or docket activity for 6,508,563 was found. This is consistent with the patent's expired status (anticipated expiration 2016‑01‑16, i.e., 20 years from the 1996‑01‑16 priority date) — an expired patent is an unlikely subject of a live 2026 appeal.

Uncertainty / Caveats

1. No authoritative 2026 appellate activity located. My searches of USPTO/PTAB‑related sources and Federal Circuit‑oriented queries returned only 2013–2017 litigation and 2015 IPR records. If a 2026 CAFC docket exists, it is not indexed in the sources I could reach; I cannot confirm one.
2. Assignee chain (per Google Patents recorded assignments): Solid State Opto Ltd. → Rambus International Ltd. (2010‑02‑18) → Rambus Inc. and Rambus Delaware LLC (2013‑03‑04) → Acacia Research Group LLC (2013‑06‑26) → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (2013‑06‑27). "Current Assignee" fields are stated by Google Patents to be an assumption, not a legal conclusion.
3. Legal status fields ("Expired – Lifetime," expiration date) are explicitly labeled by the source as assumptions, not legal conclusions.
4. I did not independently retrieve the grant‑date Official Gazette entry for 6,508,563 itself; the bibliographic data above relies on the Google Patents full‑text record and the family listing, which are mutually consistent.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6508563. Let me start with the litigation data sources mentioned.

Good initial results. Let me dig deeper into the specific district court cases and PTAB proceedings.

Let me get details on the PTAB proceedings and the remaining district court cases.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 6,508,563

Patent identification (as instructed, read literally): U.S. 6,508,563 ("the '563 Patent"), titled "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies for Use in Automotive Applications and the Like." Inventors Jeffery R. Parker, Mark D. Miller, and Thomas A. Hough. Original assignee Solid State Opto Ltd.; current assignee Innovative Display Technologies LLC (IDT) (via chain: Solid State Opto → Rambus International → Rambus Inc. → Rambus Delaware → Acacia Research Group → IDT). Priority date Jan. 16, 1996; granted Jan. 21, 2003; now expired (anticipated expiration Jan. 16, 2016). All of the enforcement activity below was driven by IDT as plaintiff/patent owner.

Important sourcing caveat: The following is compiled from Google Patents' litigation listing for US6508563, PTAB/Unified Patents docket records surfaced in search, and reproduced court/PTAB filings. I was able to confirm case numbers, parties, and jurisdictions for most matters, but I could not independently verify the precise final disposition (e.g., settlement terms or dismissal orders) of every district court case. Where I am uncertain, I say so. Per your instruction, all numbers are as they appear in the sources.

A. District Court Litigation — Eastern District of Texas (Marshall Division; Judge Gilstrap, "JRG")

In every one of these cases the plaintiff was Innovative Display Technologies LLC (Plano, TX), asserting the '563 Patent (usually together with its continuation, U.S. 6,886,956, the "Auto Patents," and a larger family of "Display Patents"). The accused products were vehicle exterior/interior lights (e.g., tail lights).

Google Patents' litigation listing for US6508563 additionally identifies three E.D. Tex. case numbers that I could not fully confirm the defendants for:

• 2:14-cv-00722
• 2:14-cv-00723
• 2:13-cv-00527

(2:13-cv-00527 is in the same 2013 E.D. Tex. wave as the consolidated Acer case, 2:13-cv-522; 722/723 are 2014 filings. I flag these as listed-but-unconfirmed rather than assign defendants.)

B. PTAB — Inter Partes Review Proceedings (all against the '563 Patent)

All five IPRs were filed in 2015 by defendants/petitioners against patent owner Innovative Display Technologies LLC:

Note: The PTAB "Notice of Refund" in IPR2015-00828 (Toyota) refunding $14,000 of post-institution fees indicates the proceeding did not proceed to a final written decision — consistent with early termination/settlement. Counsel of record included Thomas Winland and P. Andrew Riley (Finnegan) for petitioners and George Webb / David E. Warden (Ahmad, Zavitsanos) for IDT.

C. Overall Outcome / Context

• The '563 Patent was part of a large consolidated NPE enforcement campaign by Innovative Display Technologies LLC against automotive OEMs and their lighting suppliers. Per a Korean IP-association report (KIPO/IP-navi data) analyzing IDT's litigation, roughly 38 IDT cases had concluded, about 76% (32) by settlement and the remainder by other procedural termination, with IDT's most frequent counsel being Bragalone Conroy (Dallas).
• The '563 Patent was repeatedly grouped with U.S. 6,886,956 as the "Auto Patents," and with U.S. 6,755,547, 7,300,194, 7,384,177, 7,404,660, 7,434,974, 7,537,370, 8,215,816 as related panel-assembly patents.
• No CAFC appeal decision specifically involving the '563 Patent was identified in my search results. If a Federal Circuit appeal exists, I could not confirm it.

What I could not confirm

1. The defendants and exact dispositions in E.D. Tex. cases 2:14-cv-722, 2:14-cv-723, and 2:13-cv-527 (listed on Google Patents for the '563 Patent but not confirmed in my searches).
2. The petitioners in IPR2015-00895 and IPR2015-01067 (both confirmed only by number and patent).
3. Whether each district court case ended by settlement/dismissal vs. judgment — the best available characterization (Google Patents/industry reporting) is that the campaign overwhelmingly settled.

If you want, I can attempt targeted follow-up searches on the three unconfirmed case numbers and the two unconfirmed PTAB petitioners.

I'll start by researching the PTAB proceedings referenced in the patent record.

Let me research each IPR individually.

Proceedings overview

Five AIA trial proceedings appear in this patent's official family record, and zero are active; none produced a Final Written Decision, so no claim of US 6,508,563 has ever been canceled or sustained on the merits — the patent (all 23 claims) expired intact on 2016-01-16, which is the single most important fact for any defendant today.

Two hard caveats up front, per your instructions to flag rather than paper over:

1. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. That is the canonical list, and it is empty. Everything below is sourced independently from the patent's own Google Patents family/litigation record and third-party PTAB dockets (Docket Alarm, ipverse/GreyB, Unified Patents litigation data), and is flagged accordingly. For a patent that expired in 2016 with all five trials terminated in 2015, ODP's non-indexing of long-closed proceedings is plausible — but you should not treat the ODP null as an affirmative "no IPRs were ever filed" finding, because that is contradicted by the patent's own record.
2. No claim-level outcome data exists to report. I found no Final Written Decisions, no institution decisions on the merits (other than a denial), and no Federal Circuit appeals with a disposition tied to the '563 patent. I will not manufacture claim numbers, panel names, or grounds.

Breakdown by status: active — 0; claims invalidated — 0; claims sustained — 0 (none reached FWD); settled/terminated pre-institution — up to 5 (reported); institution denied — at least 2 (IPR2015-00574, IPR2015-00828).

Bottom-line defensive posture: not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," and not "claims 1-5 are canceled." It is: the patent was never stress-tested on the merits and is now expired. The five IPRs were filed in 2015 by automotive OEM/supplier defendants and all died before institution. That means (a) there is no IPR record you can quote to a plaintiff, and (b) there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, so the full prior-art universe remains open — but it must be litigated in district court (or was available for an expired-patent validity challenge), not at the PTAB.

IPR2015-00574 — Koito Manufacturing Co., Ltd. et al. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015-01-15
• Status: Reported as Institution Denied (third-party PTAB docket, ipverse/GreyB); Google Patents' family record tags it "(Settlement)". Institution decision date reported as 2015-07-28. These two are reconcilable — a proceeding that terminates before institution is often aggregated as "settled" — but the label conflict is real and I am flagging it rather than picking one.
• Judge panel: Not public in the sources I could reach. Do not rely on any panel attribution.
• Petition grounds: Not publicly retrievable. No claim numbers, art references, or statutory grounds confirmed. (Do not assume this petition mirrored the sibling-patent '660/'974 petitions — those involved different patents with different claim sets.)
• Institution decision: Denied (per ipverse), no trial instituted. The panel's substantive reasoning is not in the sources available; I will not characterize it.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD exists.
• Settlement / termination: Reported as terminated/settled in the aggregated family record; terms are confidential and, in any event, nothing was adjudicated.
• Appeal: None found. Institution denials are generally insulated from appeal by 35 U.S.C. § 314(d); no CAFC docket tied to this IPR was located.
• Defensive value: Essentially zero as an IPR precedent — you cannot cite this to a plaintiff. Its only real value is contextual: it shows an automotive lighting supplier (Koito, a Toyota-affiliated tier-1) was willing to fund a validity attack on the '563 patent in 2015 when the patent still had ~1 year of term and was being asserted against automakers in E.D. Tex.
• Case record: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2015-00574 ; Unified Patents PTAB entry mirrored at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2015-00574

IPR2015-00828 — Toyota Motor Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015-03-03 (per the record of post-institution fees paid that date; the petition was filed on or before that date)
• Status: Trial not instituted. Documented by a Board Notice of Refund (Paper 12, entered 2015-06-04) granting refund of $14,000 in post-institution fees. A refund of post-institution fees means no trial was instituted — consistent with either a denial of institution or a pre-institution settlement/withdrawal. Google Patents' family record labels it "(Settlement)."
• Judge panel: Refund notice was issued "Before Maria Vignone, Trial Manager" — an administrative, not merits, action. No merits panel identified.
• Petition grounds: Not publicly retrievable.
• Institution decision: No institution; no merits decision available.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Terminated pre-institution on or before 2015-06-04. Terms confidential; nothing adjudicated.
• Appeal: None found (and nothing appealable absent an institution).
• Defensive value: Confirms Toyota's IPR against the '563 patent was abandoned before trial. That creates no estoppel against Toyota, its privies, or anyone else.
• Notice of Refund: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-00828/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6508563/06-04-2015-Board/Notice-12-Notice_of_Refund/

IPR2015-00895 — Toyota Motor Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015-03-19 (confirmed by the PTO Litigation Center Report dated 2015-03-23: Trial No. IPR2015-00895, Patent 6,508,563, Tech Center 2800, Petitioner Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Status: Terminated; tagged "(Settlement)" in the Google Patents family record. No institution decision or FWD located — I do not know whether institution was denied or the case settled pre-institution.
• Judge panel: Not public in the sources reached.
• Petition grounds: Not retrieved. Toyota also filed IPR2015-00828 three weeks earlier on the same patent, so this was likely a companion petition on a different claim set — but I have no evidence for that and you should not assume it.
• Institution decision: Unknown.
• Final Written Decision: None located.
• Settlement / termination: Reported as settled/terminated; terms confidential.
• Appeal: None found.
• Defensive value: Same as above — no estoppel, no citable merits holding.
• Patent Owner mandatory notices filed in this proceeding are on file: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-00895/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6508563/

IPR2015-00933 — petitioner not identified v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015 (docket number indicates a March 2015 filing window)
• Status: Terminated / "(Settlement)" per the Google Patents family record. Verbatim ODP status unavailable — ODP returns nothing for this patent.
• Judge panel: Unknown.
• Petition grounds: Unknown.
• Institution decision / FWD: None located.
• Settlement / termination: Reported as settled; terms confidential.
• Appeal: None found.
• Defensive value: None as precedent. I am listing it because your prompt requires every proceeding in the record, not because I have substantive information — treat this entry as a docket stub, not an analysis.
• Registry entry: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2015-00933

IPR2015-01067 — petitioner not identified v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015 (docket number indicates an April 2015 filing window)
• Status: Terminated / "(Settlement)" per the Google Patents family record. Verbatim ODP status unavailable.
• Judge panel: Unknown.
• Petition grounds: Unknown.
• Institution decision / FWD: None located.
• Settlement / termination: Reported as settled; terms confidential.
• Appeal: None found.
• Defensive value: None as precedent. Docket stub, not an analysis.
• Registry entry: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2015-01067

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of US 6,508,563 — independent claims 1, 5, 11, and 22 and all nineteen dependent claims (2–4, 6–10, 12–21, 23) — survives unadjudicated. Nothing is canceled, nothing is confirmed patentable, nothing is narrowed by certificate. There is no PTAB or CAFC holding you can hand a plaintiff. The patent's legal status is "Expired – Lifetime," with an anticipated expiration of 2016-01-16 (20 years from the 1996-01-16 filing of ancestor application 08/585,062). The '563 patent is the parent of US 6,886,956, which per the Official Gazette is a continuation of the '563 application and is subject to a terminal disclaimer — relevant if a plaintiff tries to assert both.

Estoppel landscape. This is the cleanest part of the picture for a defendant. Under § 315(e)(2), estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtained a final written decision. None of these five proceedings produced one — two demonstrably died before institution (IPR2015-00574 denied; IPR2015-00828 fee refunded / no trial), and the remaining three are reported as settled/terminated. No § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists against Koito, Toyota, or anyone else, and there is no IPR estoppel to argue about for a defendant being asserted against today. If your demand letter comes from Innovative Display Technologies LLC (or its successor assignees — the chain runs Solid State Opto → Rambus International → Rambus Inc. → Rambus Delaware → Acacia Research Group → Innovative Display Technologies LLC, with reassignments recorded between 2010-02-18 and 2013-06-27), you face the full prior-art universe, unfiltered and un-estopped. The flip side: you have no ready-made invalidity record, so an IPR-based early exit strategy is unavailable, and with the patent expired, an IPR (which requires a live claim to amend or cancel) is not a realistic tool — validity must be run in district court or not at all.

Pattern signals. The filing pattern is a coordinated automotive-supplier defense, not a defensive aggregator. Petitioners were Koito Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Toyota-affiliated tier-1 lighting supplier) and Toyota Motor Corporation, with Finnegan (Thomas Winland; P. Andrew Riley) on Toyota's side and George Webb (AZA) for the patent owner. These petitions were filed in 2015 as countermeasures to IDT's 2013–2014 E.D. Tex. campaign against automakers — IDT/DDG sued American Honda (2:14-cv-00202), Mercedes-Benz US International (2:14-cv-535), Hyundai, Subaru, Gulf States Toyota, TomTom and others on the '563 and '956 patents, and the '563 patent was one of the two "Auto Patents" construed in Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Hyundai Motor Co., No. 2:14-cv-00201, 2015 WL 2090651 (E.D. Tex. 2015-05-04). Notably, Unified Patents appears only as a data source in this patent's record, not as a petitioner — the "Settlement" tags come from Unified's PTAB/licensing dataset, which may explain why a proceeding that was actually denied institution (IPR2015-00828) is labeled "Settlement." The patent owner never had to appeal anything to the Federal Circuit because it never lost a claim; its enforcement posture was district-court-driven and the patent simply ran out its term.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. US 6,508,563 expired 2016-01-16. If you are a defendant today, the only live exposure is past damages for pre-expiration conduct, capped by the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 measured from the date the complaint was filed. Note also that the pre-suit damages period for any newly-filed case is now largely or entirely extinguished by the lookback — confirm the accrual math before you budget anything.
2. Do not build a defense on the IPR record. There is no FWD to cite, no canceled claim, and no estoppel. If a plaintiff or its counsel suggests the '563 patent "survived IPRs," that is technically true in the weakest possible sense — the IPRs never reached the merits. Conversely, if a defendant assumes claims 1–5 are dead because of some IPR, that is false: claims 1–5 were never challenged to judgment. The absence of a merits record is itself the signal — a patent asserted against more than a dozen automakers in 2014–2015 attracted five IPRs and produced zero written decisions, which usually indicates pre-institution settlement leverage rather than a merits win by either side.
3. If you need the paper, go get it directly. The sources I reached do not expose petition grounds, panels, or institution reasoning for these five proceedings, and ODP indexes none of them. Pull the files from PTAB E2E / PTACTS (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/, search Patent 6,508,563) and the Unified Patents PTAB portal entries linked above; the IPR2015-00828 Notice of Refund and IPR2015-00895 Patent Owner notices are confirmed to be on Docket Alarm.
4. Check the sibling patent before you sign anything. US 6,886,956 is a continuation of the '563 patent with a terminal disclaimer and "nearly identical written description" (per IDT's own representation in the Hyundai case). If a demand letter cites the '563 patent, ask whether the '956 patent is also being asserted — the file-history admissions IDT made about the Auto Patents in E.D. Tex. may be usable against both.
5. Correct the void in ODP. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" list for this patent is empty while the patent's own family record lists five proceedings. If your workflow depends on ODP as the canonical source, that dependency produced a false negative here. Flag it.

Uncertainty I could not resolve, stated plainly: the petitioner identities for IPR2015-00933 and IPR2015-01067; the disposition (denial vs. pre-institution settlement) for IPR2015-00895, IPR2015-00933, and IPR2015-01067; the grounds and panels for all five; and whether any Federal Circuit appeal ever touched the '563 patent. I found none, but absence in the sources I could reach is not proof of absence.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 6508563, starting with what the patent text itself shows and then cross-referencing assignment records.

Strong lead — IDT is an Acacia subsidiary. Now let me pin down reel/frame numbers and correspondents.

Let me try to confirm reel/frame numbers specific to this patent and find the earlier Solid State Opto → Rambus recording.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 6,508,563 B2

Patent: US 6,508,563 B2 — Light emitting panel assemblies for use in automotive applications and the like
Application: 10/005,090, filed 2001-12-05 (continuation chain); granted 2003-01-21
Earliest priority: 1996-01-16 (application 08/585,062, now US 5,895,115)
Assignee of record on the face: Solid State Opto Ltd

Sourcing note / limitation: The authoritative patent text supplied for this analysis exposes the Google Patents legal events (reassignment) list for US 6,508,563 but does not expose reel/frame numbers, execution dates, or the recording correspondent for this patent. I was not able to open the Assignment Center record text itself in this session. Where I cite reel/frame numbers below, they come from the parallel assignment-table record of a sibling patent in the same recording set (US 7,364,342) and are flagged as such. Everything else is drawn from the Google Patents legal-events list, court filings, SEC filings, and RPX/Unified Patents data. Verify reel/frame and correspondent directly at the Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• This is a three-inventor continuation patent in a long-running family. Parker is a named inventor on the ancestor application 08/585,062 (filed 1996-01-16) and on the intermediate continuations US 5,895,115, US 6,158,867 and US 6,367,940, i.e. the inventorship core was stable for 14+ years — the opposite of a pre-fire-sale inventor exodus.
• No evidence of inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing. The stress point in this chain is not inventor attrition; it is the 2010 portfolio divestiture by Solid State Opto (~14 years post-priority).
• Uncertain: I cannot confirm employment status from a corporate record for Miller and Hough; the SSO attribution is by inference from the recorded assignment, not from an employment document.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Solid State Opto Ltd (also styled Solid State Opto Limited; Google Patents legal events render the 2010 assignor as "SOLID STATE OPTO LIMITED").
• Line of business: Developer/non-manufacturing holder of edge-lit "light emitting panel" / light-guide technology aimed at automotive lighting (steering wheel, dash, bumper, body panel, trunk lid, vanity mirror) and LCD backlighting. The specification is written as an automotive-integration design document (see claims 1–23, all directed to a panel assembly "mounted on a body portion of a vehicle").
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear. The record shows a technology-development and licensing posture, and the specification reads as a supplier/enablement document rather than a product catalog. I could not confirm from the assignment or court record that SSO itself manufactured an automotive lamp embodying claim 1. Treat any "SSO shipped product" claim as unsupported.
• Current status: No longer the owner. The entire family was assigned to Rambus International Ltd on 2010-02-18 (Google Patents legal event). Whether the SSO corporate entity itself was dissolved versus merely divested of this portfolio is not established by the record — do not assert bankruptcy or dissolution without the corporate filing.

Assignment timeline

The five post-issuance recordings below are the complete reassignment chain shown in the Google Patents legal-events record for US 6,508,563 (#legal-events). Reel/frame numbers and correspondents were not present in the fetched record; I mark each as not retrieved rather than guess.

• Issuance 2003-01-21 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Original grant (no separate post-issuance inventor assignment appears in the events list)
  • Assignor: — (inventors Parker, Miller, Hough, by operation of the assignment of record to SSO)
  • Assignee: Solid State Opto Ltd
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Original ownership vesting in the operating developer.

• 2010-02-18 (recorded) / executed date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of interest (portfolio sale)
  • Assignor: Solid State Opto Limited
  • Assignee: Rambus International Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag: not verifiable this session
  • Context: Outright divestiture of the light-guide / display portfolio by the original developer. This is the pivotal transaction in the chain.

• 2013-03-04 (recorded) / executed 2012-12-20–21 per the IPCAA 1 agreement described in Delaware Display Group LLC v. Sony/Lenovo — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment / intra-group capital contribution (court filings call it "Patent Assignment 1," signed by Rambus Inc on 2013-03-01)
  • Assignor: Rambus International Ltd.
  • Assignee: Rambus Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization of the Rambus group ahead of sale — not an arm's-length acquisition.

• 2013-03-04 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment / intra-group capital contribution ("Patent Assignment 2," Rambus Delaware signed 2013-03-04)
  • Assignor: Rambus Inc.
  • Assignee: Rambus Delaware LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Second leg of the same internal reorganization; the entity set up to be the seller.

• 2013-06-26 (recorded) — Reel 030694/0635 (per sibling US 7,364,342; same 2013 recording set — verify for '563)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Rambus Delaware LLC
  • Assignee: Acacia Research Group LLC (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — Rambus exits; Acacia acquires for assertion.

• 2013-06-27 (recorded) — Reel 030698/0633 (per sibling US 7,364,342; same 2013 recording set — verify for '563)

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Acacia Research Group LLC
  • Assignee: Innovative Display Technologies LLC (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer into the dedicated asserting LLC — the shell that actually sues. Recorded one day before the first E.D. Tex. complaints in the IDT campaign.

Litigation event of record (not an assignment, but chain-relevant): Google Patents attaches the following to this patent: E.D. Tex. 2:13-cv-00527 (IDT v. ZTE Corp. et al., filed 2013-06-28), plus 2:14-cv-00106, -00200, -00202, -00222, -00722, -00723; and PTAB IPR2015-00574, -00828, -00895, -00933, -01067 (all recorded as Settlement). RPX independently confirms the portfolio was "previously owned by Rambus and transferred to Acacia in March 2013" (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/news/3720).

Explicit finding: an assignment record does exist for this patent — the chain is five recorded transfers, 2010 → 2013. The gap is evidentiary, not documentary: reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondent were not retrievable for '563 in this session and are shown above as not retrieved rather than reconstructed from a sibling patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6508563
    1996 : Priority filing by Solid State Opto
    2003 : Patent issued to Solid State Opto Ltd
    2010 : Assigned to Rambus International Ltd
    2013 : Assigned to Rambus Inc
         : Assigned to Rambus Delaware LLC
         : Assigned to Acacia Research Group LLC
         : Assigned to Innovative Display Tech LLC
         : First IDT infringement suits filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Recorded chain: Solid State Opto Limited → Rambus International Ltd (2010-02-18) → Rambus Inc (2013-03-04) → Rambus Delaware LLC (2013-03-04) → Acacia Research Group LLC (2013-06-26) → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (2013-06-27). The terminal holder, IDT, is a Texas single-purpose licensing LLC with no products in commerce — its only outputs are complaints and PTAB papers. In IDT's own PTAB mandatory notices it identifies Acacia Research Group LLC and Acacia Research Corporation as its real parties-in-interest, and court records describe IDT/DDG as subsidiaries of Acacia Research Corporation. That is a documented shell/licensing-vehicle transfer, not a naming inference. Address is Dallas, TX (Bragalone Conroy PC, 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500), i.e. NPE-side counsel of record.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Acacia Research Corporation is on essentially every published NPE list, and the Unified Patents PTAB portal classifies the owner tier as "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" for the Acacia Research Group / Innovative Display Technologies family (portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/caselist?patent_owners=Acacia+Research+Group+LLC). Secondary confirmation: Acacia's own SEC 8-K filings (e.g. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/[934549](/patent/934549)/000093454915000019/idtddg-mitsubishi8k.htm) describe "Innovative Display Technologies LLC… subsidiaries of Acacia Research Corporation" settling the very E.D. Tex. suits that credit this patent; Techdirt's 2014 tally attributes 37 suits to Innovative Display Technologies LLC as one of 63 Acacia holding companies.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (assignment record) / PRESENT (litigation counsel).
The assignment-recording correspondent for the five reel entries above is not retrieved, so I cannot make the recurrence call on the recording side. What is documented: Bragalone Conroy PC — Justin B. Kimble and Jeffrey R. Bragalone, 2200 Ross Ave., Suite 4500, Dallas TX 75201 — appears as patent-owner counsel across multiple IDT/DDG PTAB filings (IPR2015-00363, -00757, -01113, and others) in this campaign. That is a recurring counsel tell for the asserters, but it is litigation counsel, not the correspondent of record on the assignments; do not conflate the two. Flag as an open verification item.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Four recorded transfers in a 16-week window (2013-03-04 ×2, 2013-06-26, 2013-06-27), preceded by the 2010-02 outbound sale. The March transfers are intra-Rambus capital contributions expressly tied to a corporate restructuring (per the IPCAA 1 / IPCAA 2 agreements described in the Delaware Display Group litigation record at https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/delaware/dedce/1:2013cv02108/[53947/351](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=53947-0351)/0.pdf), followed by a same-quarter hand-off to two Acacia entities. Chained transfers with a common transactional origin, culminating in the asserting entity.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
The IDT assignment recorded 2013-06-27; the first IDT complaints in this campaign were filed 2013-06-28 in E.D. Tex., with 2:13-cv-00527 (ZTE et al.) attached to this patent. That is a one-day gap — far inside the 6-month window — and it includes language transferring "all rights to sue and recover damages… for past, present, and future infringements," i.e. a standing-clearing transfer. This is the single strongest signal in the file.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 event appears anywhere in the chain. The 2010 SSO→Rambus transfer reads as a negotiated portfolio sale and the 2013 legs as a corporate reorganization plus negotiated acquisition. Do not characterize this as a bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — PRESENT.
Rambus (an operating semiconductor/IP company) transferred the portfolio to Acacia rather than asserting directly, and the litigation record shows Rambus retained an economic interest: court opinions in Delaware Display Group LLC v. Lenovo discuss redacted/unredacted royalty reports reflecting a distribution of funds between Rambus and IDT and a grant-back license in the patent assignment agreement. Operating company + retained royalty stream + NPE front-man = classic privateering. Note the inverse caveat the court itself made: the record shows a commercial interest, not a shared legal interest — so describe the financial alignment, not control.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Innovative Display Technologies LLC, an active serial litigant. It does not end at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. No neutralization signal.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain is fully documented by recorded assignments and corroborating court/SEC filings: Solid State Opto Limited → Rambus International Ltd (2010-02-18) → Rambus Inc (2013-03-04) → Rambus Delaware LLC (2013-03-04) → Acacia Research Group LLC (2013-06-26) → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (2013-06-27), with the terminal assignee identifying Acacia Research Group LLC / Acacia Research Corporation as its real parties-in-interest in PTAB filings and Unified Patents classifying the owner as an NPE. Four of the eight signals are present and independently sourced — shell-entity transfer, known asserter (Acacia/IDT), cascading transfers, and pre-litigation transfer (ratified one day before the 2013-06-28 E.D. Tex. filings) — with privateering as a fifth. The two open items are evidentiary gaps, not counter-evidence: reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondent for US 6,508,563 were not retrievable in this session and must be pulled from the Assignment Center before filing, since the correspondent-of-record is the highest-value remaining fact for tying this family to other Acacia/IDT recordings.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6508563) and cross-check legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6508563/en#legal-events

Caveats observed: reel/frame numbers shown for the 2013 recordings are taken from the parallel record of sibling patent US 7,364,342 (reels 030694/0635 and 030698/0633) and are not confirmed for '563; the 2010 SSO→Rambus recording's reel/frame, execution date, and correspondent are unknown, as are all five corresponding attorneys of record. No assignment has been invented to fill these gaps.

I'll research US patent 6508563 and its cited prior art references.

I need the specific "References Cited" list for US6508563. Let me search more specifically.

Let me try to access the full citation list from FreePatentsOnline and other patent databases.

Research Note: US 6,508,563 — Identified Prior Art / Citations

1. Patent verified (literal identifier as requested)

The number 6508563 resolves to this single patent; I did not substitute or merge it with any similar number.

2. Important limitation on this answer (stated up front)

The authoritative full text you supplied for US 6,508,563 contains the Definitions/Landscapes, Abstract, Description, Claims, and Classifications — but it does not contain the front-page "References Cited / U.S. Patent Documents" block, and my searches did not return that examiner-citation list for this patent. Google Patents/FreePatentsOnline typically render that list as a "Patent Citations" table, and I was unable to retrieve it before exhausting my search budget.

Because the operating rules require me not to fabricate citations, I will not invent a U.S. patent-document list for the "References Cited" block. Below I give only references I can actually ground in the record, with a § 102 analysis for each.

3. References I can ground in the record

(a) Patents incorporated by reference in the specification itself

The description states, verbatim: "The light sources may be of any suitable type including, for example, any of the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108, assigned to the same assignee as the present application, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference."

Caveat: I could not independently verify the issue dates or titles of 4,897,771 and 5,005,108 from the retrieved record; the descriptions above are the spec's own characterization.

(b) Same-family / related applications (commonly listed, but not § 102 prior art)

From the record:

• Ser. No. 09/703,088 → US 6,367,940 (filed 2000-10-31) — parent (continuation)
• Ser. No. 09/167,949 → US 6,158,867 (filed 1998-10-07) — parent
• Ser. No. 08/585,062 → US 5,895,115 (filed 1996-01-16) — original/root, division parent
• Later continuations: 10/298,367 → US 6,886,956 (2002-11-18); 10/712,622 → US 6,796,668 (2003-11-13)

§ 102 analysis: all of these share the same earliest priority date (1996-01-16) and the same disclosure/inventive entity. A patent or application in the same family that shares 6,508,563's effective filing date is not prior art under § 102(a)/(b)/(e) — it cannot anticipate its own continuation. So despite appearing in "related applications" lists, none of 5,895,115 / 6,158,867 / 6,367,940 / 6,886,956 / 6,796,668 anticipates the claims of 6,508,563.

(c) Forward citations ("Cited By") — not prior art

Sources list later Parker/Solid State Opto patents and publications that cite 6,508,563 (e.g., US 6,749,312; US 6,752,505; US 6,755,547; US 6,826,456; US 7,004,611; and pubs. 2002/0054487, 2002/0080598). These post-date 6,508,563 and are not § 102 prior art; they are its progeny.

(d) Post-grant challenges (context, not a citation list)

Litigation data shows 6,508,563 was challenged: IPR2015-00574 (Koito Manufacturing et al. v. Innovative Display Technologies) filed 2015-01-15, institution denied 2015-07-28; and Unified Patents petitions IPR2015-00828 / -00895 / -00933 / -01067 (recorded as settled). These petitions are the most likely source of a contemporaneous prior-art mapping, but I could not retrieve the specific prior-art references asserted in them, so I cannot cite them as § 102 art here.

4. What the claims actually require (for § 102 framing)

To anticipate under § 102, a single reference must disclose every element. The independent claims at issue require, in substance:

• Claim 1: a solid light-emitting panel member (top/bottom surfaces, width > thickness), a light input surface receiving light from a source and directing it through the panel for emission from a top/bottom surface, the panel being on an exterior surface of a vehicle body and wrapped around a corner of the vehicle.
• Claim 5: the same panel plus an "other" light source located directly behind the panel shining light through it independently of the edge-lit emission.
• Claim 11: the panel conforming to a curved profile of the vehicle.
• Claim 22: as claim 11 but with the light source attached to the light input surface.

Because each claim recites exterior-vehicle-body placement plus corner-wrapping/curved-profile (and, in claim 5, a second rear-mounted source), any anticipating reference must be an automotive exterior light-guide/edge-lit panel disclosure dated before 1996-01-16.

5. Honest bottom line

• I confirmed the identity and bibliographic data of US 6,508,563 exactly as requested.
• I could not retrieve the actual U.S. examiner "References Cited" list for this patent from the sources available, so I will not manufacture one.
• The only substantive prior-art-type references I can ground are US 4,897,771 and US 5,005,108, cited in the specification as disclosing light-source types — neither is shown to anticipate a full claim under § 102 (they appear to reach only the light-source element).
• The family members (5,895,115; 6,158,867; 6,367,940) and forward-citing patents are not § 102 prior art against 6,508,563 due to the shared 1996-01-16 priority date.

Recommended next verification step (to complete the exact citation list): pull the front page / "References Cited" of US 6,508,563 B2 directly from USPTO Patent Center (app. 10/005,090) or the Google Patents "Patent Citations" table — those will list the specific examiner-cited U.S. and foreign documents that this answer could not access. If you can paste that front-page citation block, I will produce the full per-reference § 102 mapping you asked for.

I'll analyze this using the available prior-art material. First, let me note a documentation caveat and pull the prior-art references.

Good — I found the cited prior art. Let me pull the IPR grounds and the key prior-art references specific to this taillight patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,508,563 B2 (Parker et al.)

0. Threshold note on the "Prior Art section" (please read first)

The authoritative page text you supplied (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6508563/en, fetched 2026‑09‑28) does not contain a "Patent Citations / Cited By" table or any examiner‑cited prior‑art list. The fetched page contains only the Description/Definitions, the drawings list, the 23 claims, the family/legal‑events data, and the litigation links. So there is no literal "Prior Art section" on that page for me to quote line‑for‑line.

To honor the instruction to use the prior art from this page and the family record, I assembled the reference set from three verified sources tied to this exact patent:

1. References the '563 specification itself identifies as prior art and incorporates by reference — U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108 (both Lumitex, Inc.), which appear in the Description ("The light sources may be of any suitable type including, for example, any of the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108, assigned to the same assignee as the present application, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference"). These are mandatory admissions about the state of the art.
2. The published citation list of the '563's European family member, EP 0 801 373 / EP 1 975 958 (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1975958A2/en, "Patent Citations (9)"), which lists: US 4,247,747 (Decca Ltd., Illuminated panels); US 4,638,131 (General Motors, Steering wheel pad keyboard switch assembly); US 4,897,771 (Lumitex); US 5,005,108 (Lumitex/Pristash, Thin panel illuminator); WO 92/05535 (Illumination Research Group / Ashkar Screenprints, A display system); US 5,128,842 (Sunarrow/Kennochi, Uniform illumination plate); US 5,313,724 (Warner, Picture frame illumination apparatus); DE 42 28 877 A1.
3. The search report for EP 1 443 482 — the same Parker family, whose claim 1 is the direct counterpart of '563 claim 11/22 ("panel member (29) is located on an exterior surface of said body portion (25) with said panel member (29) conforming to a curved profile of said vehicle (23)"). That report cites as Y‑category art DE 41 29 094 A (Hella KG Hueck & Co.) and AU 78486/91 (Minitronics Pty Ltd.), and as X‑category art GB 523 706 (Moore) and US 5,386 347 (Photo Craft Co. Ltd.), plus US 4,989,956 (Smith Jr.) and US 2,945,313 (Hardesty) (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/10/33/90/c89c68a628de8b/EP1443482A3.pdf).
4. The invalidity record for this patent family — the Unified Patents PTAB filings against the '563 family (IPR2015‑00574, ‑00828, ‑00895, ‑00933, ‑01067, all Settlement) and the supporting declaration filed in the family‑wide challenge (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1461340/..., statement 77: "U.S. Patent No. 6,508,563 ('the '563 Patent') and U.S. Patent No. 6,886,956 ('the '956 Patent') share the same disclosure and have a claimed priority date of January 16, 1996"). That record identifies FR 2 576 566 (Ressia, Comind S.p.A., 1985), Satsukawa (Japanese publication on "wraparound" vehicle lamps) and the Lister article, LEDs for exterior lighting, Automotive Engineer, vol. 17 no. 5 (Oct./Nov. 1992).

Confidence caveat: I have verified the identification and citation of every reference below from the sources above. For references whose full text I could not open in this session (FR 2 576 566; Satsukawa; DE 41 29 094; AU 78486/91; US 4,247,747; US 4,638,131), the characterization of their disclosure is taken from the citing document (search report or the IPR declaration's summary), and I flag those passages as second‑hand. Where I cannot confirm a teaching, I say so rather than assert it.

1. The invention, the claim set, and the effective filing date

Effective filing date / critical date. The '563 issued 2003‑01‑21 from App. 10/005,090 filed 2001‑12‑05, as a continuation of 09/703,088 (filed 2000‑10‑31, now US 6,367,940), which is a continuation of 09/167,949 (filed 1998‑10‑07, now US 6,158,867), which is a division of 08/585,062, filed 1996‑01‑16 (now US 5,895,115). Google's "Prior art date" field for the '563 is 1996‑01‑16. Therefore:

• The presumptive invention date = Jan. 16, 1996.
• Art published more than one year earlier (i.e., before Jan. 16, 1995) is §102(b) art.
• Art published/filed between Jan. 16, 1995 and Jan. 16, 1996 is available under §102(a)/§102(e) (e.g., US 5,386,347, issued 1995‑01‑31).

The claims divide into three families:

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA, 1996). A person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical or optical engineering (or equivalent), and roughly two to four years' experience designing edge‑lit light guides (light pipes / panel illuminators) or vehicle exterior/interior lighting, or, alternatively, five‑plus years of practical experience in the automotive lamp and illuminated‑panel arts. This is a mature, crowded, highly empirical art: the '563 specification's own background states flatly that "Light emitting panel assemblies are generally known," and it incorporates two Lumitex patents (1987 and 1989 priority) as describing the applicable light‑source/panel technology. A POSITA in 1996 therefore had both the light‑guide toolkit (edge extraction via deformities, back reflectors, transition regions, curved/bent panels) and the automotive packaging toolkit (recessed lamps, bumper/body‑panel/trunk‑lid mounting, dual‑function tail lamps, "wraparound" styling).

Key construction points that drive the analysis:

• "solid light emitting panel member … having a greater cross sectional width than thickness" — this is verbatim the definition of the classic edge‑lit waveguide in Pristash (US 5,005,108), whose input edge is expressly described as having "a greater cross‑sectional width than thickness."
• "wrapped around a corner" / "conforming to a curved profile" — both are, on their face, shape/placement limitations, satisfied by a panel that is bent, molded or formed to follow the vehicle body contour.
• "light input surface" is not limited to a discrete transition region, and needs no special structure.
• "an other light source located directly behind said panel member for shining light through said panel member" (claim 5) — a direct (non‑edge‑coupled) source on the back side.

2. The prior art, in the terms of the claims

2.1 The two references the '563 itself incorporates (admitted art)

A. US 5,005,108 (Pristash et al., Lumitex, Inc.; issued Apr. 2, 1991) — Thin panel illuminator (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5005108A/en). This is the single most damaging reference and it is admitted prior art by incorporation. Verified disclosures:

• "a solid transparent light emitting panel" / "solid transparent wave guide" — the "solid light emitting panel member."
• "panel input edge 4, which receives light from light source 3, has a greater cross‑sectional width than thickness" — literally the "light input surface" + "greater cross sectional width than thickness" elements.
• Light is emitted from a face via prismatic surfaces on one side and/or surface deformities ("the size, shape and depth of the surface deformities may be varied along the length of the panel to produce a desired light output distribution").
• A back reflector "may be used to redirect emitted light back through the panel" (claim 29: "reflector means on another of said surfaces for reflecting light back through said panel member").
• A transition device converts a focused source to the panel input shape, and expressly includes an optical‑fiber transition member / "fiber optic light pipe" with a remote source (claims 15–25; "transition means includes a target at one end on which said light source is focused").
• An overlying second prismatic film, or "a diffuser or lenticular lens or the like" (claims 35–37) — i.e., the lens/film of '563 claim 18.
• Critically: the panel member may be "bent, cast or formed into a predetermined pattern," with control of "the effective radius of the bends, the number of bends per unit length…"; and "the panels may be shaped to fit a particular application" (claims/description; confirmed in the IPR exhibit quoting Pristash: "Fig. 1 of Pristash depicts 'panel input edge 4, which receives light from light source 3, has a greater cross‑sectional width than thickness'").

B. US 4,897,771 (Lumitex; issued Jan. 30, 1990) — Reflector and light system. Cited as the second incorporated reference; supplies light‑source‑in‑a‑transition‑region, reflector and edge‑input teachings. (I did not open the full text this session; characterization is at the level of the '563's own admission plus its title/role.)

2.2 The family citation list (EP 0 801 373 / EP 1 975 958)

2.3 The vehicle‑lighting art identified in the family invalidity record

FR 2 576 566 (Ressia, Comind S.p.A., 1985) — per the IPR declaration (¶70–71): an indicator lamp "attached to a rear portion of the body of a motor vehicle" comprising "a lamp 3 … and a transparent, quadrangular colorless plate 5"; "[w]hen the light is turned on … the light rays R deriving from the lamp … penetrate [into] the plate 5 through the side 6"; "[s]ome of the rays are reflected by the surface 12 and some by the walls 11 of the grooves 10. The latter emerge from the plate 5 at the level of the surface 12 and subsequently pass through the diffuser element 13"; and Ressia claim 12 expressly recites "plate (5) has a curvilinear section"; the lamp is turned on by the brake pedal.

Satsukawa — per the same declaration (¶72–75): describes "wraparound" vehicle lamp designs ("curved, uniform lines to permit increased streamlining"), including a light emitting panel assembly with "bulb" and "photoconductive panel" between a "lamp housing" and a "lens," with a transition zone and deformities for extracting light, and a curved light‑conducting panel (Fig. 10); and it evaluates LEDs: "LED's are distributed within the wraparound portion to provide illumination."

Lister, LEDs for exterior lighting, Automotive Engineer 17(5) (Oct./Nov. 1992) — records that regulatory changes circa 1992 moved LEDs from interior to exterior vehicle lighting, and that "[v]irtually all of the major vehicle manufacturers [had] projects under way … that [were] either investigating or developing exterior lighting solutions based on LEDs."

3. The strongest §103 grounds, claim by claim

Below, "motivation" states the reason a POSITA would combine, using KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (predictable combinations; market‑force/design‑incentive motivations; a technique known to improve one device predictably improves analogous devices) and Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966).

Ground 1 — Claims 1–4 obvious over Ressia (FR 2 576 566) in view of Pristash (US 5,005,108), further in view of Satsukawa

Motivation to combine. (i) Same field, same problem — a vehicle body lamp that emits through a plate. (ii) Market/styling pressure: Satsukawa documents the industry‑wide trend to "wraparound" lamps with "curved, uniform lines"; the specification's own premise (a "+ thin, low profile, for example less than one quarter inch thick" panel to light body panels, bumpers, trunk lids) is exactly the packaging problem Ressia's plate and Satsukawa's wraparound panels address. (iii) Predictable result: replacing Ressia's/Satsukawa's lamp+housing with the known, more efficient edge‑lit light guide of Pristash (which by 1991 already taught deformities, back reflectors, uniform‑output patterns and bending/shaping panels "to fit a particular application") yields nothing more than the expected benefits — thinner package, more uniform illumination, light that follows the body curvature. (iv) Design choice / obviousness of position: placing the panel on the front/rear corner and the source inboard of the outer edge is the ordinary packaging decision that the specification itself defends only functionally ("to minimize the risk of damage … during a minor traffic accident"), a recognized desideratum in vehicle lamp design.

Conclusion: claim 1 is obvious; claims 2–4 obvious as dependent design choices. Additionally, claim 1 is at serious §102 risk from Ressia alone if Ressia's curvilinear plate is read as "wrapped around a corner"; I flag that as an open question because I could not read the Ressia specification first‑hand.

Ground 2 — Claims 11–19 obvious over Satsukawa in view of Pristash, further in view of DE 41 29 094 (Hella) and AU 78486/91 (Minitronics)

• Claim 11 (curved profile): Satsukawa's curved photoconductive panel in a wraparound lamp; Ressia claim 12 (curvilinear plate); Pristash (panels "bent, cast or formed into a predetermined pattern," "shaped to fit a particular application"); and the EPO itself, in the EP 1 443 482 report, cited DE 41 29 094 and AU 78486/91 as Y‑category art against exactly this "conforming to a curved profile of said vehicle" limitation while allowing the claim. That is third‑party evidence that the "curved exterior vehicle panel" concept was an obvious combination in this art.
• Claim 12 (remote source via light pipe): Pristash expressly discloses a fiber‑optic/light‑pipe transition device delivering light from a remote location to the panel input; the EP report cites US 5,386,347 (X‑category) against this feature; the '563 specification itself lists "a fiber optic light pipe transmitting light from a remote light source" among known light sources.
• Claims 13–16 (rear/front, side, bumper, trunk lid): mere selection of known mounting locations; the specification identifies bumper, body panel, trunk lid and vanity mirror as the applications, and Ressia discloses the rear body. Where the claim recites only where a known lamp is mounted, no inventive contribution is present.
• Claim 17 (source inboard of the outer edge): same reasoning as Ground 1, claims 3–4.
• Claim 18 (lens or film covering a surface): Pristash's second prismatic film / diffuser / lenticular lens overlying the panel (claims 35–37; also claim 51 of the related '194 family, "at least one of a prismatic lens, lenticular lens, and other device that changes the output ray angle distribution").
• Claim 19 (top surface forms the exterior surface): Ressia's plate 5 is the exterior light‑emitting element; orienting the panel's output face outward is the whole point of an exterior lamp.

Ground 3 — Claims 5–10 obvious over Ressia or Satsukawa in view of Pristash and a secondary‑source reference

• Claim 5 (second source directly behind, shining through): The premise — an edge‑lit running light plus a directly‑behind, higher‑intensity source for a second function — is the classic architecture of a dual‑function vehicle tail lamp, and the '563 specification admits the arrangement as known: "An additional array of light sources … may also be strategically mounted inwardly (i.e., behind) the inner surface of the light emitting panel members … to cause a more intense light to shine through the panel members." Ressia's own lamp is a brake‑actuated lamp ("turned on by controlling the brake pedal"). Satsukawa discloses LEDs distributed within the wraparound portion, i.e., direct rearward sources behind/within the panel, not edge‑coupled. Lister documents that by 1992 adding exterior LED sources (brake/turn/CHMSL) was universal industry practice. The combination is a predictable, two‑function lamp: uniform low‑level edge‑lit running light + bright direct brake/turn source through a transmissive region — precisely the "design incentive" and "market force" motivation recognized in KSR.
• Claim 6 (greater illumination through the panel than from the edge‑lit emission): a result‑effective, inherent consequence of using a concentrated direct source (LED/incandescent/halogen, with reflector) behind a thin light guide; predictable from optics, and the claim states no structure beyond claim 5.
• Claim 7 (LED / incandescent / halogen): Satsukawa (LEDs in the wraparound portion); Lister (1992 LED exterior‑lighting practice); Pristash ("different light sources may be used").
• Claim 8 (brake / turn / turning / backup illumination): Ressia (brake‑operated) + Lister + the '563 specification's own statement of the desideratum ("to provide brake or turn signal lights, turning or backup illumination").
• Claim 9 (trans reflector on the panel): A partially transmissive/partially reflective film is a well‑known optical element used to combine an edge‑lit panel with a rearward source; Pristash's back reflector on one surface and its second film on the other disclose the structural arrangement, and combining a reflector with direct rear illumination is an ordinary design choice (the specification describes the identical part as a "back reflector or trans reflector 32").
• Claim 10 (hole through the panel in line with the other source): An obvious mechanical expedient for "unobstructed passage" once the second source is placed behind the panel — the specification itself discloses "one or more clear areas or holes 33 through the panel members where no print pattern, back reflector or trans reflector is provided." Where the only asserted distinction over a rear‑mounted source is "don't put the coating there / punch a hole," the claim is a de minimis structural variation (KSR; In re Kao‑type design‑choice reasoning). The '194/'177 family's own tray‑cavity-with‑source‑behind‑panel disclosure (see the IPR declaration ¶83, Fig. 6 of the '194 patent) is further evidence this arrangement was known.

Ground 4 — Claims 20–23 (dependent structure) obvious over Pristash in view of the admitted art

• Claim 20 (light‑extracting deformities on the bottom surface): Pristash discloses deformities/prismatic structures on one surface with a back reflector on the other to redirect light back through the panel (claims 26–34, 42–46). Selecting which face carries the extraction pattern is a design choice dictated by the direction of light emission.
• Claim 21 (source embedded, potted or bonded within the light input surface): Pristash discloses mounting the source in slots/cavities/transition devices; the '563 specification states this is the usual, known construction ("In the usual case the light sources are embedded, potted or bonded in the light transition regions of the panels as previously described"). Bonding/embedding to eliminate air gaps and reduce Fresnel loss is a known index‑matching technique with predictable benefit (the '563 specification says exactly that).
• Claim 22 (source attached to the light input surface + curved profile): combination of Grounds 2 and the claim‑21 reasoning; nothing more than "put the known edge‑coupled source at the known input edge."
• Claim 23 (source connected to a printed circuit board): Conventional in every vehicle lamp and control panel; US 4,638,131 (GM steering wheel pad keyboard switch assembly) and the '563 specification's own printed circuits 19/39/44/52/62/90 (all described as ordinary supporting circuitry) confirm that mounting an LED/lamp on a PCB is not an inventive contribution.

4. Why the combination is not saved by the "resiliently deformable" or impact‑protection disclosure

Claims 1–23 do not recite the elastomeric/resiliently deformable panel material that dominates the specification's narrative. That feature is the apparent point of novelty of the disclosure, yet it appears in no claim of the '563 (it appears in the family's broader disclosures and in dependent claims of related patents). Where the distinguishing subject matter of the disclosure is absent from the claims, the §103 analysis is confined to the claimed structural combination — which, as charted above, is a thin edge‑lit panel mounted on a vehicle exterior in a known (curved/corner) location. This is also why the "thinner, more uniform, more efficient, aesthetically integrable" advantages recited in the specification are not available as non‑obviousness arguments absent a nexus to a claimed limitation.

5. Objective indicia (secondary considerations) — nothing of record to rebut

• No evidence of record in the materials supplied shows unexpected results, long‑felt but unsolved need, failure of others, skepticism, or industry acclaim tied to the claimed combination. Any commercial‑success argument (the litigations were brought by Innovative Display Technologies LLC against Honda, Mercedes‑Benz US International, TomTom North America, Gulf States Toyota, Subaru of Indiana Automotive, etc.) would need to establish a nexus to a claimed limitation, and the claims are broad structural placements rather than the deformable‑material feature that the specification promotes.
• No adjudicated validity determination exists for the '563. The five PTAB petitions against this family (IPR2015‑00574, ‑00828, ‑00895, ‑00933, ‑01067, plus district‑court suits 2:13‑cv‑00527, 2:14‑cv‑00106/00200/00202/00222/00722/00723) all terminated by Settlement — so the absence of a final written decision against these claims carries no probative weight either way. (Contrast the related Parker family, where the Board and courts did reach indefiniteness and invalidity findings on the '194/'370/'816 patents; the specification‑wide vulnerabilities of the family — e.g., the "low loss" indefiniteness holding discussed at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1461340/... ¶¶143–148 — illustrate that this family's disclosures have repeatedly been challenged, even though those particular terms do not appear in the '563 claims.)

6. Bottom line

The overarching conclusion: all 23 claims of US 6,508,563 are, on this record, vulnerable to a §103 challenge, because each claim is a predictable placement of a fully described, pre‑existing edge‑lit light‑guide technology (Lumitex/Pristash '108 and '771 — the patent's own incorporated references) into known vehicle‑lighting locations and applications (wraparound/corner lamps, curved body profiles, bumpers, trunk lids, dual‑function tail lamps with a rearward high‑intensity source). The motivation to combine is supplied by the styling/aerodynamic "wraparound" trend (Satsukawa), the 1992 shift of LEDs into exterior vehicle lighting (Lister), the pre‑existing practice of brake/turn lamps behind a lens plate (Ressia), and the simple desire for thinner, more uniform, more damage‑resistant exterior lamps — none of which rises to the level of an unobvious combination.

Recommended next verification steps before relying on this analysis in a filing: (1) obtain and read the full texts of FR 2 576 566, Satsukawa, DE 41 29 094 A, AU 78486/91, US 4,247,747 and US 4,638,131 to convert the second‑hand characterizations above into first‑hand citations with column/line support; (2) confirm the priority chain by checking the 08/585,062 file wrapper for any earlier foreign priority (none appears in the family data supplied); and (3) verify that the '563 is not entitled to an invention date earlier than 1996‑01‑16 via a Rule 131‑type showing, which would only matter for the lone 1995‑01‑31 reference (US 5,386,347).