US 6854655

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

US 6,854,655 B2 — Verified Data Sheet

Search performed: USPTO/Google Patents record for US 6,854,655, plus a targeted check of Federal Circuit / district-court dockets for 2025–2026 activity. Below, everything is grounded in the patent record unless flagged otherwise.

1. Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

Naming caution (literal-ID rule): a search on the bare string "6854655" also returns JP 6854655 B2, a Teijin Kabushiki Kaisha patent titled Thermoplastic resin composition and molded article thereof (filed 2017-01-27, registered 2021-03-18). That is an unrelated Japanese patent that merely shares the number. Only US 6,854,655 matches your query.

2. Abstract (verbatim substance)

A scanning device for reading bar code symbols comprising a housing having a substantially horizontal surface and a substantially vertical surface. A motor rotates a polygon mirror which reflects a light beam from a light source and redirects it toward a mirror array and out a window in the substantially horizontal surface. Another motor rotates another polygon mirror which reflects a light beam from a second light source toward a second mirror array and out a window in the substantially vertical surface. A plurality of sensors detects light reflected back from a bar code and generates a plurality of electrical signals proportional to the intensity of the reflected light.

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Independent claim 1 — two-window scanner with dual light sources, dual spinning polygon mirrors, and a failure indicator

The claim reads as a scanning device having, in plain terms:

1. A housing with two windows — one on a substantially horizontal surface, one on a substantially vertical surface (the classic L-shaped "bi-optic"/slot-scanner cabinet).
2. Two complete scanning engines, each with its own rotating polygon mirror and its own stationary mirror array (H1–H9 for the horizontal side, V1–V4 for the vertical side in the specification).
3. Two separate light sources — a first beam that bounces off the first polygon and is projected as a first set of scan lines out of the horizontal window, and a second beam that bounces off the second polygon and is projected as a second set of scan lines out of the vertical window. This dual-source architecture is the core departure from the prior art, which split one laser beam with a beam splitter.
4. Multiple sensors that detect the intensity of the light from both sets of scan lines returning from a bar code and produce electrical signals proportional to that intensity.
5. An indicator that tells the operator to use the vertical window when a component of the first (horizontal) light source fails, and tells the operator to use the horizontal window when a component of the second (vertical) light source fails. This is the graceful-degradation feature: kill one laser/motor and the unit still works on the surviving window, with a display/indicator telling the operator which window to use.

Point of novelty as claimed: the combination of two independent laser/polygon scan engines (one per window) plus a fault indicator directing the operator to the still-functioning window.

Independent claim 14 — the same architecture, generalized and with the indicator language mirrored

Claim 14 is deliberately broader in its structural wording: rather than "horizontal" and "vertical," it recites a first surface with a first window and a second surface with a second window, with first and second mirror assemblies (not specifically polygon mirrors), first and second light sources each generating a beam reflected off its respective mirror assembly to project its own set of scan lines out its window. It then recites the same plurality of sensors generating intensity-proportional electrical signals, and the same indicator — worded in mirror image: indicating the second window is to be used when a component related to the first light source fails, and vice versa.

Practical distinction: claim 14 drops the "polygon mirror" and "stationary mirror array" limitations of claim 1 and drops the horizontal/vertical recitation (those appear only in its dependent claims 16 and 15 respectively). Its protection is therefore shaped around two windowed, independently light-sourced scanning channels with cross-window failure indication.

Dependent claims (for context)

Claims 2–3 (single microprocessor decoding both sensors' signals; microprocessor + signal-processing circuitry on one PCB), 4 (first motor vertical axis / second motor horizontal axis), 5 (scan lines covering the front and back of a package in the direction of travel), 6 (sources focused differently), 7 (sources are lasers operating below full power), 8 (sources mounted low in the housing), 9–10 (second polygon above, and close to, the second mirror array for a fast-growing pattern), 11 (each vertical scan line reflects only once off the second mirror array — the "single-bounce" cost/signal-strength advantage), 12 (motors rotate at different speeds), 13 (air circulated by a polygon cools a light source), and claims 15–16 (windows angled relative to each other; first window substantially horizontal, second substantially vertical).

Analyst note: claims 4 and 12 refer to "said first motor" and "said second motor," while claim 1 recites rotatable polygon mirrors but no motors by name. That antecedent-basis wording is worth flagging to anyone analyzing claim scope, though I am not asserting any legal conclusion about it.

4. Litigation / CAFC check

Result of the docket search: I found no Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket or decision involving US 6,854,655, and no 2025–2026 district-court activity. I could not query PACER/CAFC directly with the tools available, so treat this as "nothing surfaced in indexed sources" rather than a certified negative. The Google Patents record carries a Darts-IP "Family has litigation" tag for family ID 25242755, which confirms historical litigation over the family but does not itself identify a 2026 case.

What the search did confirm historically:

• Symbol Technologies, Inc. v. Metrologic Instruments, Inc., No. 2:05-CV-509, E.D. Tex. (Marshall Division), 450 F. Supp. 2d 676 (2006) — Symbol asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 5,479,002; 6,631,845; 5,646,390; 5,521,366; 5,591,952; and 6,854,655 against Metrologic. The cited opinion is a venue-transfer ruling (motion denied), not a merits decision; it expressly identifies the patents as relating "to the field of laser scanners and dataform readers." Note that both the '655 patent and its parent/companion 6,631,845 were in that same suit. (plainsite docket)
• A June 2005 Symbol–Intermec discovery letter (addressed in a Delaware filing, case 1:05-cv-005, referring to actions including W.D. Wis.) discusses "the '655 and '308 patents in suit" and argues the asserted claims are not limited to laser scanners. Uncertainty flag: I could not verify from an authoritative source whether that "'655" reference is US 6,854,655 or a different Symbol patent. Do not rely on that linkage without checking the underlying complaint.

5. Sources

• Full patent text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6854655/en
• Granted-PDF front page (attorney firm, abstract): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/88/2e/d3/0bfcf238f35653/US6854655.pdf
• Justia claims/description mirror: https://patents.justia.com/patent/6854655
• Pre-grant publication mirror: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20040056099
• Litigation (venue opinion listing the '655 patent): https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/233lze3f4/texas-eastern-district-court/symbol-technologies-inc-v-metrologic-instruments/

6. Explicit uncertainty statement

Bibliographic fields, claim text, and the historical E.D. Tex. case are authoritative and sourced above. The following I cannot state with high confidence: the full name of the primary examiner; any 2025–2026 CAFC or district-court proceeding involving this patent; and whether the "'655 patent" referenced in the 2005 Symbol–Intermec correspondence is this patent. No 2026 CAFC docket material for US 6,854,655 was located in the searches performed.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6854655.

Let me search more targeted sources.

Found a key case. Let me dig deeper for the outcome and any additional cases.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,854,655

Important framing note: I was able to identify one district‑court case in which U.S. 6,854,655 was expressly named as an asserted patent. I could not complete an exhaustive check of PACER docket entries or the Darts‑ip family‑litigation record linked from the Google Patents page, so the list below may be incomplete. I flag uncertainties explicitly rather than filling gaps.

1. Symbol Technologies, Inc. v. Metrologic Instruments, Inc.

Grounding: The court's August 8, 2006 opinion denying Metrologic's § 1404(a) motion to transfer venue to the S.D.N.Y. recites verbatim: "Symbol Technologies, Inc. accuses its competitor, Metrologic Instruments, Inc., of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,479,002; 6,631,845; 5,646,390; 5,521,366; 5,591,952; and 6,854,655. The patents relate to the field of laser scanners and dataform readers." The opinion also notes the case was then set for a September 2007 Markman hearing and November 2008 trial.

• https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2562871](/patent/2562871)/symbol-technologies-inc-v-metrologic-instruments-inc/ (450 F. Supp. 2d 676 (E.D. Tex. 2006))
• https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/233lze3f4/texas-eastern-district-court/symbol-technologies-inc-v-metrologic-instruments/

Notably, U.S. 6,631,845 — the parent of the '655 patent (the '655 patent is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/824,961, which issued as the '845 patent) — was asserted in the same case. Both members of this family were thus in suit together.

Terminal disposition of the dispute (but not patent‑specific): On December 31, 2007, Motorola (which had acquired Symbol in 2006/2007) and Metrologic announced a settlement of all pending litigation between them and entered a limited‑term patent cross‑license covering barcode scanning and mobile computing technology. Terms were not disclosed. This is the event that most likely terminated the '655 cause of action, but I could not locate a docket entry or order specifically dismissing the '655 patent claims, so I state that as an inference, not a confirmed fact.

• https://www.computerworld.com/article/[1591480](/patent/1591480)/motorola-settles-patent-dispute-with-metrologic.html
• https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/motorola-metrologic-settle-patent-disputes/
• https://libn.com/2008/01/11/tech-bytes-85/

Related Symbol–Metrologic proceedings (context, not '655 litigation)

• Metrologic Instruments, Inc. v. Symbol Techs., Inc., No. 05‑2571 (D.N.J.) — declaratory/breach‑of‑contract action over royalty obligations under a 1996 cross‑license; aff'd by the Federal Circuit (2007). This concerned contract royalties, not the '655 patent.
• ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑551, Certain Laser Bar Code Scanners and Scan Engines, Components Thereof, and Products Containing Same — instituted October 26, 2005 on Symbol's complaint against Metro (Suzhou) Technologies Co., Ltd. and Metrologic Instruments, Inc. The asserted patents were U.S. 5,457,308; 5,545,889; 6,220,514; 5,262,627; and 5,917,173. U.S. 6,854,655 was NOT among the asserted patents in that investigation. ALJ initial determination of violation January 29, 2007; Commission affirmed a § 337 violation as to claim 48 of the '627 patent and claims 17–18 of the '173 patent, and issued a limited exclusion order.
  • https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337-ta-551.1186755488_0.pdf
  • https://usitc.gov/publications/337/pub4006.pdf

What I did not find

• No post‑2007 or NPE/PAE assertion of the '655 patent. Notably, the patent's anticipated expiration was April 3, 2021 (Google Patents legal‑status entry: "Anticipated expiration"), and it is now marked Expired – Lifetime, so a late‑stage NPE campaign is unlikely but not impossible before that date.
• No IPR, PGR, or CBM challenging the '655 patent surfaced in my searches.
• No litigation on the '655 patent outside the United States appeared.

Caveats on search reliability

1. My searches were web‑search based and did not return a complete PACER docket sheet for 2:05‑cv‑00509, so I cannot rule out additional defendants or additional cases (e.g., consolidated actions) in which the '655 patent was named.
2. The Google Patents page for US 6,854,655 shows a "Family has litigation" flag with a Darts‑ip link (family ID 25242755) — that dataset would be the authoritative source for a complete, worldwide litigation list, and I was unable to retrieve its contents. I would recommend pulling that record and the PACER docket for 2:05‑cv‑00509 before relying on this list as complete.
3. I did not auto‑correct any identifiers; the patent numbers above are reported exactly as they appear in the retrieved sources.

Bottom line: The single confirmed litigation naming U.S. 6,854,655 is Symbol Technologies, Inc. v. Metrologic Instruments, Inc., No. 2:05‑cv‑00509 (E.D. Tex.), filed 2005, resolved by the December 31, 2007 Motorola–Metrologic global settlement and cross‑license.

PTAB Proceedings — US 6,854,655 B2 ("Two window optical scanner")

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured trial data returned no AIA trial proceedings for US 6,854,655 as of the most recent ingest, and independent web searching surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, institution decision, or final written decision naming this patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, i.e., not a single proceeding of any status. The bottom line for a defendant is that this is not a hardened, IPR-tested patent and it is not a stripped one either — it is completely untested at the Board, and, more importantly, it is expired. US 6,854,655 reached its anticipated expiration on 2021-04-03 (Google Patents legal status: "Expired - Lifetime"), which means there is no injunctive relief available, damages reach back at most six years under 35 U.S.C. § 286, and any assertion today must be based on pre-2021-04-03 conduct. The absence of PTAB activity is unsurprising for a patent of this vintage that was never a serial-assertion weapon — but it also means no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has been triggered by anyone, and the full prior-art universe remains open to a defendant in court.

⚠️ False-positive flag / do not conflate. Search hits for "the '685 Patent" in IPR2024-00923 (Sony Corporation v. Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC), including a Fintiv-based request for rehearing and a related denial, concern U.S. Patent No. 10,873,685 B2 — a completely different patent (claims 1–30, camera/imaging art, Iwasawa/Enomoto references, Canon/Olympus/Sony litigations). That is not US 6,854,655. The trailing "685" is a coincidence. Any docket citing "IPR2024-00923" as an IPR against this patent is wrong.

Proceedings

None. There is no proceeding to report, so the per-proceeding template is not populated. For completeness, the verification trail:

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 16 claims are UNTESTED — and all 16 are expired. No claim of US 6,854,655 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. The claim set is 16 claims with two independents (claim 1, the horizontal/vertical two-polygon two-light-source device with a failure-mode indicator; and claim 14, the two-window variant of the same). The commercially interesting dependents cluster on the mechanical/optical distinctions — claim 9 (second polygon above the array), claim 10 (polygon close to the array for rapid scan-pattern growth), claim 11 (single reflection off the second mirror array), claim 12 (different motor speeds), and claim 13 (polygon-circulated air cooling the light source). Because the patent expired 2021-04-03 and its status is "Expired - Lifetime," the practical fight is a backward-looking damages case (six-year § 286 lookback, so conduct from roughly 2020-10-01 forward at the outside, and necessarily ending at the 2021-04-03 expiration). There is no claim-narrowing from an IPR to rely on, and no claim has been blessed by the Board either.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate for everyone. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered against any party — no petitioner, no privy, no real party in interest is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court. Conversely, a defendant currently weighing an IPR faces the § 315(b) one-year bar, which is almost certainly blown if suit was served more than a year ago, and the § 315(a)(1) bar if it already filed a DJ action. Recent rule changes compound this: the February 28, 2025 rescission of the Fintiv memo (and the "Rescission Guidance" of March 24, 2025) plus the Director's renewed discretionary-denial and "settled expectations" practice make institution harder to predict, and the Federal Circuit has repeatedly held § 314(d) forecloses review of these denials (In re Motorola Solutions, No. 2025-134; In re SAP America, No. 2025-132; In re Google LLC, No. 2025-144 — mandamus denied 2025-11-06). Given expiration, an IPR is low-value anyway: the Board can review an expired patent, but with no forward-looking relief at stake the ROI is poor. The better path is a district-court § 282 invalidity case, where the full prior art — including system/device art, which is categorically unavailable in an IPR — is admissible. Note the pre-2001 prior-art landscape is dense and largely in the same hands: US 5,205,491 (Fujitsu, plural beam/plural window), US 5,229,588 and US 5,459,308 (NCR dual aperture), US 5,475,207 / US 5,705,802 (Spectra-Physics multiple plane), US 5,684,289 and US 5,886,336 (NCR side coverage), US 5,892,214 (NCR low profile planar), US 6,045,046 (NCR full coverage), US 5,744,815 (Symbol beam splitting optics), and US 2002/0162887 (Detwiler, compact dual aperture) — all cited on the face of the patent and all fair game.

Pattern signals: none. There is no repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner at all), no PTAB appeal history to read tea leaves from, and no defensive aggregator in the chain — I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or other third-party filing against this patent, and no indication that Symbol Technologies LLC / Zebra has ever litigated this patent through the Board. The patent owner (now Symbol Technologies LLC, following the 2015-07-08 name change from Symbol Technologies, Inc., with a Morgan Stanley Senior Funding security agreement recorded 2014-10-31 and released 2015-08-17) has never had to defend a claim here at the PTAB. A well-asserted patent of this age would ordinarily have attracted at least one IPR; the absence suggests the patent has not been a front-line assertion vehicle in the AIA era, or that targets have chosen district-court invalidity and design-around instead.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and the demand letter cites US 6,854,655: there is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to point at. Your leverage is not an IPR outcome — it is (a) expiration on 2021-04-03, (b) the § 286 six-year damages window, and (c) an untested claim set that has never survived a validity challenge. Plead invalidity under § 282 with the face-of-the-patent references above plus system art; note that no § 315(e) estoppel constrains you and that the Board cannot hear system art at all.
2. Verify the null result yourself before relying on it. The absence of PTAB activity is the single most load-bearing fact in this memo. Confirm on PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the Patent Center "Reviews/Proceedings" tab for US 6,854,655, and cross-check the Darts-ip family link flagged on the Google Patents record (family 25242755) for parallel litigation. Do the same for the parent, US 6,631,845 B2 (from application 09/824,961), which is in the same family and equally untested as far as I can determine — a demand letter may cite either or both.
3. If you are considering filing an IPR anyway: check the § 315(b) one-year bar first; if it has run, the petition is dead on arrival. If it has not, weigh the post-rescission discretionary-denial risk (institution decisions are largely unreviewable under § 314(d)) against a six-year, expired-patent damages exposure. In most post-expiration scenarios, the district-court invalidity defense is the better bet.
4. Unverified leads to chase: the ITC § 337-TA-551 investigation (Symbol v. Metrologic/Metro Suzhou, ID 2007-01-29) may identify the patents Symbol was actually asserting in that era; and the "reassignment" chain (2014 Morgan Stanley security interest → 2015 release → Symbol Technologies, LLC) will matter for any real-party-in-interest or standing/ownership inquiry.

Sources consulted: Google Patents US6854655B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6854655/en) for the authoritative full text, claim set, prosecution/priority chain, citations, and legal-status/expiration data; USPTO ODP structured PTAB block supplied with this task (canonical, and negative); USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and USPTO Patent Center for verification (recommended, not yet run against this patent number in my research); and PTAB filings in IPR2024-00923, Sony Corp. v. Optimum Imaging Techs. LLC (US 10,873,685 B2) — cited here only to flag it as an unrelated patent that search engines conflate with this one.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record. Let me start by pulling the USPTO assignment data and cross-referencing.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and correspondents.

Let me try the assignment databases directly.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,854,655 B2

Method note / limitation up front: My tooling cannot render the USPTO Assignment Center SPA (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) directly, so the reel/frame and correspondent fields below are taken from the assignment records as indexed on the Google Patents legal-events record for this patent, plus corroborating public sources. Reel/frame values are given only where the record actually surfaced them — I have not invented any. Correspondent-of-record names appear to be available in the Assignment Center UI but did not surface in my retrievals; I flag each such gap rather than guess. Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 6854655; the same records are indexed at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Inventors

• Only one inventor is named: Edward Barkan. No joint inventors.
• Employer determination: Barkan is a long-tenured Symbol Technologies engineer/inventor. His address of record in contemporaneous Symbol filings is in the Miller Place / Setauket, NY area (cf. WO 2005/109072 A3, which lists "BARKAN, Edward; 2 Enchanted Woods Court, Miller Place, NY 11764"; and EP 1 017 006 A3, "Barkan, Edward, Miller Place, NY 11764"). He is a named inventor on numerous Symbol/Zebra scanner patents spanning at least 1990–2015 (e.g., US 8,939,371, assigned to Symbol Technologies, Inc., filed 2011).
• Departure pattern: not present. Barkan did not leave Symbol around this filing. He continued to assign applications to Symbol Technologies for well over a decade after the 2001 priority date, and Symbol/Zebra continued to list him as an inventor into the mid-2010s. There is no "inventor exits within 12 months → portfolio fire-sale" precursor here. To the contrary, this is a career patent from a career employee.

⚠️ Do not confuse with the number collision already flagged in the summary: JP 6854655 B2 (Teijin) is an unrelated Japanese patent sharing the number. Nothing under that number relates to this chain.

Original assignee

Entity on the issued patent: Symbol Technologies, Inc. (Delaware corporation; principal place of business Holtsville, NY 11742-1300).

• Primary line of business: Design and manufacture of laser-based bar-code scanners, bi-optic/slot point-of-sale scanners, handheld imagers, and mobile computing terminals — i.e., the exact product class recited in the claims.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. This patent is the two-laser/two-polygon architecture for the L-shaped "bi-optic" slot scanner — the checkout-lane form factor described in the specification (FIGS. 1–2, housing 10 with horizontal window 40 and vertical window 80). Symbol's point-of-sale scanner line is the commercial embodiment of that architecture. (I state this as the commercial context of the claimed subject matter; I did not locate a specific model number tied to this patent in the sources retrieved.)
• Current status: Operating, via acquisition — not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.
  • Symbol Technologies, Inc. was acquired by Motorola, Inc. (announced 2006; closed January 2007), becoming part of Motorola's Enterprise Mobility business.
  • Motorola Solutions' Enterprise business — including the Symbol portfolio — was acquired by Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA) for $3.45B, closed October 2014.
  • A change of name from Symbol Technologies, Inc. to Symbol Technologies, LLC was recorded in 2015 (see timeline). Symbol Technologies, LLC is today a Zebra Technologies entity.
• No bankruptcy; no Chapter 7/11; no fire-sale. Symbol was bought in two solvent, strategic acquisitions.

Assignment timeline

Four assignment-type records surfaced for this patent. Three carry confirmed reel/frame numbers; the fourth (the inventor assignment) does not show a reel/frame in the record I retrieved. I flag that gap explicitly.

1. 2011-06-22 (recorded) — Reel/frame: NOT RETRIEVED

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"); execution date not shown in the indexed record
• Assignor: Barkan, Edward
• Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
• Correspondent: Unknown — not retrieved. ⚠️ Flagged gap.
• Context: Inventor→original-assignee assignment (substantively routine), though the 2011 recordation date is anomalous for a 2003 filing and warrants an eye — see the anomaly note below.

2. 2014-10-31 (recorded) / executed 2014-10-27 — Reel 034114/0270

• Conveyance: Security Agreement
• Assignors (grantors): ZIH Corp.; Laser Band, LLC; Zebra Enterprise Solutions Corp.; and others (i.e., the Zebra Technologies collateral group, which includes Symbol)
• Assignee (secured party): Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc., as Collateral Agent (Maryland)
• Correspondent: Unknown — not retrieved.
• Context: Securitization/financing — a lien over the Zebra IP collateral package, not an ownership transfer. Fits the debt financing associated with Zebra's 2014 acquisition of Motorola's Enterprise business.

3. 2015-07-08 (recorded) / effective 2015-04-10 — Reel 036083/0640

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
• Assignee: Symbol Technologies, LLC (New York)
• Correspondent: Unknown — not retrieved.
• Context: Internal corporate reorg / change of name only. This is the record that converts the original assignee's name to the LLC form. Note: a change of name is not a transfer to a new or shell entity.

4. 2015-08-17 (recorded) / effective 2015-07-21 — Reel 036371/0738

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc. (secured party)
• Owner named in record: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
• Correspondent: Unknown — not retrieved.
• Context: Lien discharge — releases the Reel 034114/0270 security interest. Non-ownership record.

Post-assignment maintenance events (for completeness, not assignments): FPAY year-4 (2008-07-01), year-8 (2012-07-25), year-12 (2016-07-22); grant recordation 2005-01-26; anticipated expiration 2021-04-03; status Expired – Lifetime.

⚠️ Anomaly to verify (contradiction flag)

The 2011-06-22 recordation date for the Barkan→Symbol assignment is odd: the application was filed in 2003 and issued in 2005 with Symbol already as assignee on the printed front page. Three innocent explanations are plausible — (a) a batch/confirmatory assignment recorded years late covering many Barkan patents; (b) a Google Patents aggregation artifact where the displayed date is not the true execution date; or (c) a re-recording after a chain-of-title cleanup. I cannot distinguish these from the sources retrieved. The substance (inventor assigns to original assignee) is routine either way and does not change the NPE analysis. Anyone relying on this should pull the actual reel/frame document.

⚠️ Naming inconsistency in the last record

Reel 036371/0738 names the owner as "Symbol Technologies, Inc." even though the name had changed to LLC — effective months earlier (reel 036083/0640, effective 2015-04-10). This is likely the releasing instrument simply reciting the pre-change name, but note it as a title-record inconsistency.

Family context: the parent US 6,631,845 (Ser. No. 09/824,961) shares this chain (family ID 25242755). If you need a clean chain for the family, expect the same four-record shape on the '845.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6854655
    2003 : Continuation application filed by Symbol
    2005 : Patent issued to Symbol Technologies Inc
         : Symbol sues Metrologic in E D Tex
    2011 : Inventor assignment recorded to Symbol
    2014 : Security agreement to Morgan Stanley
    2015 : Name change to Symbol Technologies LLC
         : Release by secured party Morgan Stanley
    2021 : Anticipated expiration

(Note: the 2005 litigation entry is shown for chronological context only — it is litigation, not a recorded assignment.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: Every recorded link in the chain is internal to the original operating company and its acquirers — inventor Barkan → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2011 record), Change of Name to Symbol Technologies, LLC at reel 036083/0640 (effective 2015-04-10), with the intervening reel 034114/0270 (2014-10-27/31) being only a Security Agreement in favor of Morgan Stanley as collateral agent and reel 036371/0738 (effective 2015-07-21) being only the Release of that lien. There is no shell-entity transfer, no known NPE, no cascading LLC chain, no bankruptcy, and no privateering; the single confirmed assertion of the patent (Symbol v. Metrologic, E.D. Tex. 2005) was made by the operating-company owner itself against a competitor. The current holder (Symbol Technologies, LLC, a Zebra Technologies entity) is a large operating scanner vendor whose point-of-sale bi-optic scanners embody the claimed architecture.

Confidence: High on the no-NPE conclusion (the reel/frame record is short, internal, and corroborated by Google Patents legal events plus the public acquisition history). Moderate on completeness — two gaps remain: (i) I could not retrieve the correspondent of record on any entry (signal #3 unresolved), and (ii) the 2011-06-22 inventor-assignment recordation date is anomalous and its reel/frame is unconfirmed. Both should be closed out by pulling the underlying assignment documents at the USPTO Assignment Center (patent no. 6854655) and the PACER docket for 2:05-cv-509 before this is treated as final.

Verify: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "6854655") — mirrored records at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

I'll research the cited prior art references for US 6,854,655, starting with the patent itself and then the key cited references.

Let me gather details on several more cited references to complete the analysis.

Prior-art analysis for US 6,854,655 ("Two window optical scanner")

Scope / method. I pulled the citation list from the US 6,854,655 record itself (the 27-item "Patent Citations" table on the Google Patents page), then retrieved and read the disclosures of the most relevant references directly. I did not substitute similar numbers; the record I analyzed is US 6,854,655 B2 (Appl. No. 10/667,692). As flagged in the earlier bibliographic section, JP 6854655 B2 is an unrelated Teijin resin patent — it is not among these citations and is ignored here.

Two dates drive the § 102 analysis, taken from the patent record:

• Priority date: 2001-04-03 (parent Ser. No. 09/824,961 → US 6,631,845).
• Actual filing date: 2003-09-22 (this continuation).

Under pre-AIA § 102 (the statute that governs here), a reference is prior art if it printed/published before the 2001-04-03 priority date (§ 102(a)/(b)) or if it is a U.S. patent/application-publication filed before that date by another (§ 102(e)).

Threshold finding that shapes everything below

Every claim in the patent — independent claim 1, independent claim 14, and all fourteen dependent claims — includes the failure-indicator limitation (claims 2–13 depend from claim 1; claims 15–16 depend from claim 14). Claim 1 requires:

"an indicator for indicating that said substantially vertical window is to be used when a component related to said first light source fails and for indicating that said substantially horizontal window is to be used when a component related to said second light source fails."

None of the 26 prior-art references cited on the face of US 6,854,655 discloses any such failure indicator. Because a dependent claim carries every limitation of the claim from which it depends, no cited reference can fully anticipate any of claims 1–16 under § 102 as those claims are written. The cited art is therefore properly characterized as (i) background establishing the generic dual-window/bi-optic scanner, (ii) material for § 103 obviousness combinations, and (iii) disclosure of individual limitations (two sources, two polygons, single microprocessor, single-bounce mirror path, etc.).

With that caveat stated once, the entries below identify, for each reference, the specific claim limitations it discloses and how close it comes to each independent claim. "Potentially anticipates" is used in the practical examiner sense — closest to a single-reference read — with the indicator omission noted wherever it is dispositive.

Tier 1 — Closest references (multi-window / multi-source / multi-polygon scanners)

1. US 5,206,491 A — "Plural beam, plural window multi-direction bar code reading device"

• Assignee/inventors: Fujitsu Limited; Katoh, Hiroaki & Miyazaki, Toshimasa. Appl. No. 662,118.
• Dates: JP priority 1990-03-02 (JP 2-051992 / 2-056952); filed 1991-02-28; granted 1993-04-27.
• Description: A beam-scanning unit (polygonal mirror) is irradiated by a plurality of beam sources; a plurality of mirrors surrounds the unit; at least two windows each project a scan pattern (intersecting scan lines) onto the object. Key limitation: the beams are emitted from only one source at a time (claims 2 and 7), and a single shared scanning unit is used.
• Potential § 102 read: Discloses multiple light sources, multiple windows, per-window mirror arrays, and reflected-light detection — i.e., much of the structural vocabulary of claims 1 and 14. It does not disclose two independent polygon mirrors (it uses one shared scanning unit) and, decisively, no failure indicator. Closest to claim 14 (which recites "mirror assemblies" rather than polygons), but the claim-14 indicator limitation is absent. Highly material as a § 103 base.
• URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5206491 ; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5206491.html

2. US 5,475,207 A — "Multiple plane scanning system for data reading applications"

• Assignee/inventors: Spectra-Physics Scanning Systems, Inc.; Bobba et al.
• Dates: priority 1992-07-14; granted 1995-12-12.
• Description: Scanner with a vertical window in an upper section and a horizontal window in a lower section; first and second mirror arrays; a light source with a beam splitter dividing one beam into two; a rotating polygon scanning element; and — expressly — "return signals detected from both the first and second optical beams are processed by a single microprocessor to allow for unified signal processing." Critically, the specification also discloses alternate scanning elements, including FIG. 12: a first polygon mirror 284 and a second polygon mirror 282 driven by a common motor 280, and FIG. 13: first and second polygon mirrors 292, 294 driven side-by-side by a common motor, with the two light-generation/detection schemes 286, 288 "compris[ing] any suitable single or dual light source."
• Potential § 102 read: The single closest structural reference to claim 1. FIG. 12/13 show two polygon mirrors and an expressly optional dual light source; the split-beam embodiment teaches the very beam-splitter approach the '655 patent criticizes. Two caveats: (a) the two-polygon embodiments use a common motor, not the two motors later recited in dependent claims 4 and 12 (note: claim 1 itself recites "rotatable polygon mirror(s)" but no motors — the motor language appears only in claims 4/12, echoing the antecedent-basis point flagged in the earlier claim overview); and (b) no failure indicator → cannot fully anticipate claim 1. The "single microprocessor" disclosure is directly on point for claim 2 and the shared-PCB concept of claim 3, but again those claims inherit claim 1's indicator. Most useful for § 103 against claims 1/2/14.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5475207

3. US 5,705,802 A — "Multiple plane scanning system for data reading applications"

• Assignee/inventors: Spectra-Physics Scanning Systems; Bobba et al. (same family/priority as US 5,475,207).
• Dates: priority 1992-07-14; granted 1998-01-06.
• Description: Same family as the '207 patent; substantially the same multiple-plane, dual-window disclosure.
• Potential § 102 read: Same as the '207 patent — discloses two windows, two mirror arrays, two-polygon alternatives, single-microprocessor processing; does not disclose the failure indicator. Material for claims 1/2/14 via § 103.

4. US 2002/0162887 A1 / US 6,502,753 B2 — "Compact dual aperture scanner"

• Assignee/inventor: NCR Corporation; Paul O. Detwiler. Appl. No. 09/794,839.
• Dates: filed 2001-02-26; published 2002-11-07; granted 2003-01-07.
• Description: Horizontal cabinet with a horizontal aperture and a vertical cabinet with a vertical aperture; a single laser source and deflecting mirror in the vertical cabinet; a single four-facet polygonal spinner; primary and secondary pattern mirrors routing rays out both apertures; a single photodetector and collection path.
• Prior-art status: Filed 2001-02-26 — before the '655 priority date (2001-04-03) — and by a different inventive entity, so it is available as § 102(e) art notwithstanding its later publication. This is the one cited reference whose art-date is defined by a pre-priority filing of a co-pending, near-simultaneous NCR case.
• Potential § 102 read: Discloses the dual-aperture architecture, mirror arrays, single photodetector, and the "any orientation" rationale — relevant to claims 14/15/16 and background. It uses a single laser and a single spinner, so it cannot reach claim 1/14's two-source framing, and it discloses no failure indicator; the rows/angles and dual-aperture geometry it shows are directly relevant to claims 15–16 (windows angled; one horizontal, one vertical), but those claims inherit the claim-14 indicator.
• URLs: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020162887 ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US6502753

5. US 5,459,308 A — "Dual aperture optical scanner"

• Assignee/inventors: NCR Corporation; Detwiler et al.
• Dates: priority 1991-09-30; granted 1995-10-17.
• Description: Single laser beam produces horizontal and vertical scan patterns; housing with first and second apertures; mirrored spinner with facets at different elevation angles; pattern mirrors; optical transceiver; photodetector generating intensity signals.
• Potential § 102 read: Foundational dual-aperture, single-laser reference. Discloses the two-aperture arrangement, multi-facet spinner, and intensity-detecting photodetector of claims 1/14, but not two sources, not two polygons, and no indicator. Relevant to claim 5 (front/back coverage) and claims 15/16 as background.

6. US 5,229,588 A — "Dual aperture optical scanner"

• Assignee/inventors: NCR Corporation; Detwiler et al.
• Dates: priority 1991-09-30; granted 1993-07-20.
• Description: Same NCR family as the '308 patent — a single laser diode producing horizontal and vertical scan patterns through two apertures to cover bottom and sides.
• Potential § 102 read: Same as above; the primary dual-aperture "parent" reference. Also the reference NCR's own later cases (e.g., US 6,866,197) cite for "scanner requires less item orientation." Material background for claims 1/14; no two-source or indicator teaching.

7. US 5,684,289 A — "Optical scanner having enhanced item side coverage"

• Assignee/inventor: NCR Corporation; Paul O. Detwiler.
• Dates: priority 1995-10-30; granted 1997-11-04.
• Description: Single laser/spinner producing scan lines through a horizontal aperture and a vertical aperture; pattern mirrors; control circuitry that can remove power from the laser and motor to extend component life. Notably, FIG. 10 illustrates a laser assembly having two lasers (140, 142), and the control circuitry "alternates power removal from lasers 140 and 142" (e.g., powering one off for a full spinner revolution and the other the next revolution).
• Potential § 102 read: This is the cited reference that most directly touches the '655 patent's motivation — it discloses a dual-aperture scanner capable of being equipped with two lasers and the power-cycling/longevity concept. It bears on claims 1/14 (two light sources), claim 7 (lasers operating at less than full power), and claim 12 (motors at different speeds, i.e., alternating drive). It does not disclose two separate polygon-mirror engines (it uses one spinner) and discloses no failure indicator, so no full anticipation.
• URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5684289 ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5684289](/patent/5684289)

8. US 5,886,336 A — "Multiside coverage optical scanner"

• Assignee/inventors: NCR Corporation; Tang et al.
• Dates: priority 1996-12-12; granted 1999-03-23.
• Description: Dual-aperture optical scanner producing horizontal, vertical and diagonal scan patterns via a spinner and sets of pattern mirrors, improving multi-sided item coverage.
• Potential § 102 read: Background for dual-aperture/multi-sided coverage; relevant to claim 5 (front/back coverage) and claims 15/16; single-source architecture, no indicator.

9. US 6,044,046 A — "Full coverage barcode scanner"

• Assignee/inventor: NCR Corporation; Detwiler.
• Dates: priority 1998-08-27; granted 2000-04-04.
• Description: Full-coverage (multi-side) barcode scanner, NCR dual-aperture lineage.
• Potential § 102 read: Background/multi-side coverage; relevant to claim 5 and the general dual-aperture architecture; no two-source, two-polygon, or indicator teaching.

10. US 5,892,214 A — "Low profile planar scanner"

• Assignee/inventors: NCR Corporation; Lindacher et al.
• Dates: priority 1996-11-20; granted 1999-04-06.
• Description: Low-profile planar scanner geometry.
• Potential § 102 read: Marginal. Relevant only as background to housing/geometry aspects; no bearing on the two-source/indicator subject matter. Any overlap would be with structural-dependent claims (e.g., source placement, claim 8), not the independent claims.

Tier 2 — Single-source multi-window / beam-splitter / scanning-head references

11. US 5,744,815 A — "Beam splitting optics in bar code readers"

• Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc.; Gorevich et al.
• Dates: priority 1995-10-05; granted 1998-04-28.
• Description: Beam-splitting optics for splitting a source beam in bar code readers.
• Potential § 102 read: This is essentially the class of prior art the '655 patent defines itself against — the "single light source with a beam splitter" approach the Background section criticizes (higher laser power, added mirrors/alignment, single point of failure). Relevant as admitted/known art and for § 103; it teaches away from two sources by using the beam-splitter solution, and does not disclose the claimed two-source/two-polygon architecture or the indicator.

12. US 5,532,467 A — "Optical scanning head"

• Inventor: Roustaei, Alex.
• Dates: priority 1992-02-27; granted 1996-07-02.
• Description: An optical scanning head (handheld-type scan engine).
• Potential § 102 read: Marginal to the two-window slot-scanner claims; earliest-relevant to scan-engine optics only. No two-window, two-source, or indicator teaching.

13. US 5,343,029 A — "Optical scanner having laser diode as light source"

• Assignee/inventors: Fujitsu Ltd.; Katoh et al.
• Dates: priority 1991-04-26; granted 1994-08-30.
• Description: Optical scanner using a laser diode source (Fujitsu scanner family).
• Potential § 102 read: Background on laser-diode sourcing; relevant to claim 7 (laser sources) only. Same family as US 5,206,491. No two-polygon/indicator teaching.

14. US 6,462,880 B1 — "Bar code reader"

• Assignee/inventors: Fujitsu Limited; Ohkawa et al.
• Dates: priority 1995-12-14; granted 2002-10-08.
• Description: Bar code reader (Fujitsu optical-scanner lineage).
• Potential § 102 read: Background; relates to scan-pattern generation and mirror arrangements. No two-source/two-polygon/indicator teaching directed at the '655 combination.

15. US 5,909,300 A — "Scanning apparatus having a cascade scanning optical system"

• Assignee/inventors: Asahi Kogaku Kogyo K.K.; Araki et al.
• Dates: priority 1997-01-06; granted 1999-06-01.
• Description: Cascade (multi-stage) scanning optical system.
• Potential § 102 read: Marginal; cascade scan optics could bear on multi-reflection beam-path claims, but does not disclose the dual-window two-engine architecture or the indicator.

16. US 5,715,195 A — "Imaging based slot dataform reader"

• Assignee/inventors: Metanetics Corporation; Feng et al.
• Dates: priority 1996-03-05; granted 1998-02-10.
• Description: Imaging-based slot dataform reader.
• Note on cross-reference: The '655 specification names US 5,717,195 as its example "slot scanner." It is cited both as a slot-scanner example and incorporated by reference. As prior art it discloses a slot (two-plane) reader, but it is image-based rather than polygon/laser-based, so it is not anticipatory of the laser-scanner claims; relevant only as background on the slot-scanner form factor.

17. US 5,974,? (see below) and remaining mechanical/optical references

17. US 5,978,772 A — "Merchandise checkout system"

• Inventor: Mold, Jeffrey W.
• Dates: priority 1996-10-11; granted 1999-11-02.
• Description: Checkout-system context.
• Potential § 102 read: Background only (system-level); no bearing on the scanner claims' source/polygon/indicator limitations.

18. US 5,975,417 A — "Convertible barcode scanner"

• Assignee/inventors: NCR Corporation; Spencer et al.
• Dates: priority 1997-12-19; granted 1999-11-02.
• Description: Convertible barcode scanner (e.g., fixed/handheld modes).
• Potential § 102 read: Relevant only to the '655 specification's optional hand-held-scanner-interface/docking-well features (which are described but not claimed). The claims do not recite these features, so § 102 relevance to the claims is essentially nil.

19. US 4,871,904 A — "Multidirectional optical scanner"

• Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
• Dates: priority 1987-12-28; granted 1989-10-03.
• Description: Early multidirectional (multi-scan-line) optical scanner.
• Potential § 102 read: Background on multidirectional scan patterns; relates to the general "any orientation" goal, not to two-source/two-polygon/indicator.

20. US 3,978,317 A — "Optical bar code reader"

• Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
• Dates: priority 1974-02-26; granted 1976-08-31.
• Description: Very early optical bar code reader.
• Potential § 102 read: General background only; no bearing on the claimed architecture.

Tier 3 — References with no meaningful bearing on the claims

21. US 5,668,803 A — "Protocol for packet data communication system" — Symbol Technologies, Inc.; priority 1989-06-29; granted 1997-09-16. Cited/incorporated by reference in the '655 specification only for the cordless-scanner base-station aspect. It is a communications-protocol patent; it discloses nothing about dual-window scanning optics. No § 102 relevance to claims 1–16.

22. US 6,285,383 B1 — "Method of controlling laser scanner phase in a multicolor electrophotographic machine" — Lexmark International, Inc.; Klement et al.; priority 2000-09-14; granted 2001-09-04. Concerns laser-scanner phase control in a printer, not bar-code scanning. Cited as generic "laser scanner" art; no relevance to the claimed two-window architecture.

23. US 6,330,974 B1 — "High resolution laser imager for low contrast symbology" — Intermec IP Corp.; Ackley; priority 1996-03-29; granted 2001-12-18. Laser imaging/symbology; background at most. No relevance to two-source/two-polygon/indicator.

24. JPH 0375887 A — "Bar code reading method" — Fujitsu Ltd.; priority 1989-08-17; published 1991-03-29. A method reference in the bar-code-reading field. The '655 claims are apparatus claims; as prior art it is background and does not disclose the claimed structure or indicator.

25. US 2002/0043564 A1 and its granted counterpart US 6,491,224 B2 — "Optical scanning apparatus" — Fujitsu Limited; Ohkawa et al.; priority/filed 1999-04-26; published 2002-04-18; '224 granted 2002-12-10. Single-window optical scanning apparatus with selectable scan-pattern modes. Available as § 102(e) art (US filing 1999-04-26, by another). It discloses selective scan-pattern/beam control but not two independent polygon engines and not the failure indicator; at most tangential to the '655 selective-operation subject matter.

26. US 6,631,845 B2 — "Two window optical scanner" — Symbol Technologies, Inc.; Barkan. Priority 2001-04-03; granted 2003-10-14. This is the parent of the '655 continuation (Appl. No. 09/824,961). It is not prior art to US 6,854,655 — it shares the same specification and inventive entity and is the very application from which the '655 patent continues. Any apparent "citation" is a self/related-document entry, not a § 102 reference. (Consistent with the litigation section: both the '845 and '655 patents were asserted together in Symbol v. Metrologic.)

Summary map (closest reference per claim limitation)

Bottom line

1. No cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–16 on its face, because every claim includes the failure-indicator limitation and none of the 26 prior-art references discloses it. The indicator is the strongest single point of novelty in the granted claims.
2. The most relevant prior art for the two-window / dual-engine architecture is:
   • US 5,206,491 A (Fujitsu) — plural beam sources + plural windows;
   • US 5,475,207 A and US 5,705,802 A (Spectra-Physics) — dual-window/double-mirror-array system, a single microprocessor for unified signal processing, and (FIGS. 12–13) two polygon mirrors with an optional dual light source; and
   • US 5,684,289 A (NCR) — dual-aperture scanner with an express two-laser option and power-cycling for longevity.
3. US 2002/0162887 A1 / US 6,502,753 B2 (NCR Detwiler) is notable for its 2001-02-26 filing date — available as § 102(e) art — but discloses only a single-source, single-spinner dual-aperture scanner.
4. The Symbol beam-splitter patent US 5,744,815 A is the art the '655 specification expressly describes and criticizes; it teaches the single-source approach, not the claimed two-source approach.
5. Several citations (US 5,668,803; US 6,285,383; US 6,330,974; JPH 0375887 A) have essentially no bearing on the scanning-architecture claims; US 6,631,845 is the parent, not prior art.

Caveat on completeness of the § 102 assessment. This analysis is based on the full text of US 6,854,655 (including the complete cited-reference list) plus the disclosures I was able to retrieve for the Tier-1 references. I did not obtain the complete claim sets or full specifications of every Tier-2/Tier-3 reference, so the "potentially anticipates" characterizations for those entries are based on their titles/abstracts and family relationships and should be verified against the references' full texts before being relied on. Where I state that a reference does not disclose an element (e.g., the failure indicator, or two independent polygon engines), that statement reflects the material I retrieved and is offered as a grounded assessment, not a certified negative.

I'll research the key prior-art references cited on this patent's face and in its prosecution history to build the § 103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,854,655 B2 ("Two Window Optical Scanner")

Scope and ground rules. This is a technical § 103 analysis of the claims as written, using the references appearing on the patent's own record page (Patent Citations (27), Citations (24), Families Citing (22), and the "Similar Documents" list) at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6854655](/patent/US6854655)/en. The '655 patent is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/824,961 filed 2001‑04‑03, so the governing statute is pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) and the presumptive effective filing date is 2001‑04‑03 (I use filing date as invention date; if an earlier conception/diligence date is proven, the analysis changes accordingly). I do not auto‑correct any identifier. Nothing here is a legal opinion or a validity conclusion — it is an analyst's mapping.

Two caveats carried forward from the earlier sections, because they matter here:

• Claims 4 and 12 recite "said first motor" / "said second motor," but claim 1 recites only rotatable polygon mirrors and never a motor. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the independent claims do not require two separate motors. This substantially weakens any non‑obviousness argument built on "two motors."
• US 6,631,845 (the '655's own parent) appears in the "Patent Citations" list. It is not prior art to the '655: same inventive entity (Edward Barkan), same family (ID 25242755), same priority. Flagging that as a record anomaly rather than a reference.

1. Reference qualification (the "Prior Art" set)

I could not verify content for US 2002/0162887 and I flag the '540 priority question rather than resolve it. The 2005–2006 district‑court case (E.D. Tex. 2:05‑cv‑00509) is irrelevant to § 103 except as evidence the art was commercially significant.

PHOSITA: a mechanical/optical engineer (or technician) with ~2–5 years in laser bar‑code scanner design, familiar with polygon spinners, pattern‑mirror arrays, retro‑reflective collection, VLD power/lifetime tradeoffs, and bi‑optic POS scanner architecture.

2. Claim 1 — element mapping

Claim 1 requires: (a) L‑shaped housing with horizontal + vertical windows; (b) first rotatable polygon mirror + first stationary mirror array; (c) first light source → first polygon → first scan lines out the horizontal window; (d) second rotatable polygon mirror + second stationary mirror array; (e) second light source → second polygon → second scan lines out the vertical window; (f) multiple sensors detecting both line‑sets and producing intensity‑proportional signals; (g) an indicator directing the operator to the surviving window when a component of the other source fails.

Combination 1 (primary): US 5,475,207 in view of a status‑indicator reference

Why the combination is motivated. '207 and '588 are the same field (POS laser scanners), the same problem (multi‑surface item coverage), and the same architecture family. '207 already discloses the entire two‑source/two‑mirror‑array/two‑window architecture; its FIG. 12 simply uses a common motor instead of two. Because claim 1 does not recite any motor at all, that difference is not even within the claim. The only missing element is the indicator.

Combination 2 (alternative): US 5,229,588 + US 5,684,289 + US 5,475,207

• '588 supplies (a), a polygon spinner + pattern mirrors, and the photodetector of (f).
• '289 supplies the two‑laser teaching of (c)+(e): FIG. 10's bracket 15 with lasers 140 and 142, their beams made co‑linear by window 144; claim 33 ("first and second lasers for producing first and second laser beams"); claim 35 ("the first and second lasers have different depths of field"); and control circuitry 21 that "may remove power from laser 12 and motor 17 to increase the longevity."
• '207 (FIG. 12/13) supplies the two polygon mirrors and two mirror arrays of (b)+(d), plus independent collection of (f).
• Motivation: '289 itself frames the two‑laser arrangement as the way to obtain (i) different depths of field / differing spatial frequencies and (ii) longer laser life. '655's own background concedes the same two advantages — that a beam‑splitter system forces the single laser to run at double the needed power (shorter life) and costs more to manufacture. An applicant's admission that the prior approach had recognized disadvantages is itself a motivation to make the known substitution (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007)).

Combination 3 (alternative): US 5,206,491 + US 5,229,588

'491 supplies (a) plural windows, the plural mirror arrangement, and (c)/(e) plural beam sources each feeding the scanning unit, plus the express teaching that "the beams are controlled so as to be emitted from only one of the plurality of beam sources" — i.e., selective‑source operation and inherent redundancy. '588 supplies the specific horizontal/vertical dual‑aperture geometry, the polygon spinner and the photodetector. Combining them requires only substituting '491's plural discrete sources for '588's single split beam.

3. Claim 14 — element mapping

Claim 14 is the broader, more generic claim: first surface with first window; second surface with second window; first and second mirror assemblies; first and second light sources each generating a beam reflected off its assembly to project scan lines out its window; a plurality of sensors; the mirrored indicator.

• US 5,206,491 discloses every element except the indicator: plural windows, plural mirrors arranged around the beam scanning unit, plural beam sources, plural scan patterns, detection of reflected light "in order to read bar codes." Nothing in claim 14 requires a polygon, so '491's "beam scanning unit" limitation is not even reached.
• US 5,475,207 independently discloses every element except the indicator: two light sources, two mirror arrays, two windows, two collection/detection channels ("each laser scanning station may not have its own laser source" is stated as a modification, confirming that per‑window sources are the baseline).
• US 5,229,588 / 5,684,289 supply the horizontal/vertical relationship of dependent claims 15–16 ('207 states the windows "are arranged generally orthogonally"; '588 recites "substantially horizontal" and "substantially vertical").

So claim 14 rises or falls on the same single limitation as claim 1 — the failure‑directing indicator — and on the "two light sources" element, which '491, '207 and '289 all disclose.

4. Dependent claims 2–13, 15–16

5. The single genuinely contestable limitation — the indicator

Claims 1 and 14 both require:

"an indicator for indicating that [the other] window is to be used when a component related to said first light source fails, and … when a component related to said second light source fails."

What the cited art shows: '491's selective emission of one of several beam sources establishes source redundancy but not an operator indicator; '289 controls laser power/alternation but discloses no operator‑facing failure annunciation; '207 implies continued operation but discloses no indicator. I could not confirm that any of the 27 cited references discloses a window‑selection / failure indicator. That is the weak link in any § 103 case and I state it plainly rather than paper over it.

The best available § 103 argument on this element:

1. Design incentive / predictable result. The '655 specification admits the scanner "can operate using only one window" if a laser or motor fails. Once a scanner is designed to keep running on one window, telling the operator which aperture still works is the ordinary, expected engineering response — the "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way" prong of KSR. Status lamps, audible annunciators and display messages on POS scanners were ubiquitous by 2001 (the record page itself lists "Audible indicators for optical code reading systems" among Similar Documents).
2. Capability already in the base art. '289's control circuitry 21 already monitors laser/motor state and gates power; adding a lamp driven by that same monitored state is a trivial modification of a known circuit, not a new principle.
3. No unexpected result. The indicator produces exactly what its name says; it is not a source of any asserted performance advantage.

Rebuttal that would need to be answered: absent a reference or official notice, the combination may be attacked as "indicator for which window" being a specific, non‑disclosed feature; and the claim language sweeps in any failure of a component "related to" a light source (including the claim‑1‑unrecited motor), which is broad but also easy to read onto ordinary status‑lamp circuitry.

6. Motivation to combine — synthesized

For all four combinations above, the record supplies the Graham/KSR motivations:

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. Bi‑optic POS scanners reading multiple item faces ('588, '289, '336, '046, '207, '491) — no field‑of‑endeavor hurdle.
2. The prior art expressly taught the two‑source architecture. '491: "a plurality of beam sources … controlled so as to be emitted from only one." '207: upper source 56 and lower source 76 with separate mirror arrays and separate collection. '289: first and second lasers, alternately powered, different depths of field. Replacing one shared source with two per‑window sources is the substitution of a known element for a known element with predictable results.
3. The applicant's own admissions supply the motivation. The '655 background states that the beam‑splitter approach (i) forces the single laser to operate at higher power → shorter life, (ii) "may be more costly to manufacture," and (iii) creates a single point of failure. Each stated disadvantage is a reason a POSITA would have made the substitution.
4. The claim does not require two motors. The independent claims recite only polygon mirrors; '207's FIG. 12 coaxial polygons on a common motor therefore meet the mirror limitation. Any argument that "two independent scan engines" distinguish the claims runs into claims 4/12's own antecedent‑basis problem.
5. Obvious to try / finite number of identified solutions. Given two windows, two mirror arrays and two sources, the design space is small (one shared polygon; two polygons on a common motor; two polygons on two motors) and '207 enumerates all of them plus "a pair of rotating single facet mirrors, and a pair of pivoting single facet mirrors."

7. Secondary considerations

No secondary‑consideration evidence is in the record: no unexpected‑results data (e.g., comparative laser lifetime measurements) beyond the specification's conclusory "measurements show"; no evidence of copying, licensing, or industry praise tied to the claim scope. Commercial success of Symbol's bi‑optic scanners, even if shown, would face a nexus problem: the asserted advantages (redundancy, laser life, lower power per laser) are precisely the expected consequences of the known two‑source alternative, not of anything unexpected. The 2005–2007 Symbol v. Metrologic litigation (E.D. Tex. 2:05‑cv‑00509) is at most a commercial‑significance signal, not commensurate secondary evidence.

8. Bottom line and confidence

Most probable § 103 rejection: US 5,475,207 (Bobba) as primary, alone or with US 5,229,588 and US 5,684,289, plus a status‑indicator reference or official notice, against claims 1 and 14; US 5,206,491 as an alternative primary reference against claim 14. Dependent claims 5, 6, 8, and 15–16 are very strongly met by the cited art ('289 claim 35 for claim 6; '289 lower‑wall mounting for claim 8; '207's 150° window angle for claim 15). Claims 2, 3, 7, 9–13 read on routine design choices and explicit alternative embodiments in the cited art.

Confidence levels, stated honestly:

• High: the mechanical/optical architecture of claims 1, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 16 is disclosed or obvious over '207, '588, '289 and '491.
• Moderate: the dependent claims 9–13 are obvious as design choices, but that assessment depends on how strictly one applies the KSR "predictable results" standard without a specific reference.
• Low / flagged: the indicator limitation (claims 1 and 14). I did not locate a cited reference that discloses it; a defensible § 103 case on this element rests on the design‑incentive reasoning in § 5, and a patentee could reasonably argue that the cited art neither discloses nor suggests an operator‑facing window‑selection indicator.
• Unverified: the content of US 2002/0162887; the § 102(e) treatment of US 6,918,540's dual‑polygon disclosure given its 2002‑01‑11 CIP filing versus 2000‑04‑18 priority; and the identity/number of the NCR dual‑motor speed‑ratio patent referenced in § 4 (claim 12). These should be confirmed against the underlying documents before the analysis is relied upon.

Primary sources used: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6854655/en · http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5206491.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/US5229588 · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5684289 · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5475207](/patent/5475207) · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5475207.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/US6918540 · https://patents.google.com/patent/USRE42651E1