US 7050089

I'll search for the patent and any related litigation activity.

Let me check specifically for litigation and enforcement activity involving this patent number.

US Patent 7,050,089 — Summary

Search results / caveats up front

• I was able to locate the authoritative full text and bibliographic data for US 7,050,089 via Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7050089/en). The summary below is grounded in that text (which was also supplied to me).
• No CAFC 2026 docket activity for 7,050,089 was found. My searches returned no case, appeal, IPR, or district-court matter citing this patent. The only 2026 Federal Circuit item returned concerned unrelated patents (ASSA ABLOY v. CPC, Nos. 25-1078/1079/1080, involving U.S. 9,665,705 and 9,269,208 — different numbers that merely resemble the digits here; I am not treating those as related). Absence of results is not proof of absence; I simply have no authoritative record of litigation.
• I could not independently verify USPTO PatentCenter/Public PAIR data beyond what Google Patents reproduces, so legal-status statements should be treated as indicative, not conclusive.

Bibliographic data

Main classifications: B60R1/25 (side-view field of view), B60Q1/2665 (signalling device on rear-view mirror), B60R2001/1253 (mirror with camera), B60R2300/103 & /106 (camera system with IR artificial illumination / night vision), H04N7/183 (CCTV).

Note on status history: the file shows a 2014 lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees, then reinstatement and continued fee payments (including 12th-year fee in 2017). The "adjusted expiration" of 2022-12-05 likely reflects term adjustment on top of the 20-year term from the 2002 filing. Treat these dates as informational only.

Abstract (verbatim)

An on-vehicle video camera includes an imaging unit which converts image light into an electrical imaging signal to output the imaging signal as a video signal in a predetermined format, a light emitting unit for lighting an imaging area of the imaging unit, and a control unit for controlling the imaging operation of the imaging unit and the lighting operation of the light emitting unit so as to be operably synchronized with each other. The light emitting unit includes a unit for emitting infrared light in a predetermined band. The imaging unit does not filter out an infrared signal component in the predetermined band which is contained in the imaging signal. The imaging unit and the light emitting unit are housed by a housing which forms an outside mirror of a vehicle.

Claims — plain-language overview

The patent has 3 claims total: one independent claim (claim 1) and two dependent claims (claims 2 and 3).

Claim 1 (independent) — the core invention.
An on-vehicle video camera with three cooperating parts:

1. An imaging unit built into an exterior sideview mirror of the vehicle, which turns image light into an electrical imaging signal and outputs it as a video signal in a standard format (e.g., NTSC).
2. A light-emitting unit that illuminates the camera's field of view outside the vehicle.
3. A control unit that keeps the picture-taking and the illumination synchronized with each other.
   Notably, claim 1 recites that the control unit determines the illuminance of the vehicle's surroundings and switches the light emitter on during imaging according to that determined ambient light level — i.e., the illumination is conditionally/automatically triggered by measured ambient brightness, not simply always on.

Claim 2 (dependent on claim 1).
Narrows the light source to one that emits infrared light in a predetermined band, and requires the imager to be responsive to that infrared component. In plain terms: use IR illumination, and use an imager sensitive enough to pick it up — enabling covert, eye-invisible night vision with an ordinary visible-light sensor.

Claim 3 (dependent on claim 1).
Narrows the trigger condition: the control unit turns the light emitter on during imaging when it detects that a vehicle turn signal has been turned on. In plain terms: operate the side camera and its illumination in sync with the turn indicator, so activating the blinker automatically raises the side-view camera feed.

Supporting disclosure highlights

• The camera is mounted in the bottom of a sideview mirror housing with the lens pointing downward and outboard, oriented in landscape so the long axis of the image runs front-to-back along the vehicle side (FIGS. 2–4, 7–8).
• The lighting unit uses six infrared LEDs (D1–D6) in three series pairs, switched by an NPN transistor driven from the turn-signal control input (FIG. 5); ~900 nm near-IR, with commercial 850/880/940 nm alternatives noted.
• The imager is a standard visible-light CCD/CMOS device whose near-IR sensitivity (~10–20% of peak at 800–900 nm) is deliberately not filtered out by the DSP-based signal processor, avoiding the cost of a dedicated night-vision camera (FIG. 6). The spec also describes optionally re-activating the IR-cut filter in daylight and using white-balance compensation when IR is admitted.
• The description contemplates LED pulsing synchronized to the imager's field period to save power, and a switch (2) that selects or composites the camera image with a navigation image on a shared display (FIG. 9).

Uncertainty notes

• Independent-claim count: only claim 1 is independent; I verified this from the "Claims (3)" listing.
• Litigation/appeal: no CAFC 2026 docket or district-court case for 7,050,089 surfaced. I cannot confirm whether any such proceeding exists.
• Legal status: as with all Google Patents status fields, the platform itself disclaims that this is a legal conclusion; verify against USPTO PatentCenter if the status matters.

I'll search litigation sources for US patent 7050089.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation-specific sources.

Litigation search results for US Patent 7,050,089

Short answer: I found no record of any litigation involving US 7,050,089.

What I checked

1. Google Patents bibliographic record for US7050089B2 (the authoritative source provided). Its entries list only:

   • Cited By (17) and Citations (4) — these are patent citations (e.g., US 5,574,443; US 6,520,667; US 6,583,730; US 6,698,905), not litigation.
   • Family Cites Families (5) — patent family citations.
   • Families Citing this family (48) — later patent filings.
   • Legal Events — these are all USPTO post-grant maintenance-fee events (fee payments, lapse for failure to pay, reinstatement), with no litigation entries. Google Patents Populates a litigation section when litigation is known; none appears here.

2. Targeted web searches for the patent number in combination with litigation terms. These returned only unrelated noise, including:

   • A Canadian Federal Court of Appeal case discussing a different patent (the '705 patent in Dow Chemical v. Nova Chemicals) — a coincidental string match on "705," and not US 7,050,089.
   • Several sink/plumbing catalog pages where "7050089" is a product code (e.g., "NATURA 200 PLUS").
   • A Chilean research-funding PDF where "7050089" is a grant ID.
   • Various Unified Patents / PTAB documents referring to different patents (e.g., 6,738,799; 7,197,662; 7,805,749; 10,013,158; 9,729,891; 10,311,073; 8,605,794). I found no Unified Patents (or other) PTAB/IPR challenge to 7,050,089.

I was not able to complete live lookups directly against PACER, CourtListener, Docket Navigator, or the RPX/Unified litigation portals in this session (my final queries were cut off), so I cannot claim to have exhaustively queried every docket database. What I can report is that no source I retrieved reflects any litigation, and the authoritative Google Patents record shows none.

Assessment

• Plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, outcome: None identified.
• PTAB / IPR / PGR: None identified.
• ITC Section 337 investigations: None identified.

Practical notes on why this is plausible

• The patent issued 2006-05-23 and is now Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2022-12-05. It was a Sony Corporation patent covering an on-vehicle camera integrated into an exterior sideview mirror with synchronized infrared illumination (claims 1–3). Sony did not appear, in the sources I retrieved, to have asserted it against competitors — consistent with it being a product-implementing patent rather than a litigation asset.
• The record shows maintenance-fee lapse/reinstatement activity (lapse noted 2014-05-23; reinstatement 2016-02-16; 12th-year fee paid 2017-11-14), which further suggests the patent was maintained defensively rather than as part of an assertion campaign.
• The Japanese family member is JP4815677B2 / JP2002240629A ("Automotive video camera system and automotive outside mirror"). I found no information on Japanese litigation involving it either; I cannot rule it out.

Caveats

• Absence of evidence in the sources I searched is not proof that no litigation ever existed; small settlements, demand letters, or non-aneed dockets may not surface in public aggregators.
• I did not auto-correct any identifier: all searches used the literal number "7050089" / "7,050,089." If you want a definitive negative, the next step would be a direct query of PACER's Case Locator, Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) with the exact patent number.

I'll verify the structured-data default against public sources before writing this up.

The two search hits are unrelated patents (the "705 patent" there is a DNS/VPN patent, not US 7,050,089). Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

No PTAB hits. One more pass to rule out litigation/appeal activity and to check for a similarly-numbered patent that could be confused with this one.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 7,050,089 — the structured USPTO Open Data Portal block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and independent web searches surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal involving it; the defensive read is not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" but rather "the patent was never worth attacking, and it expired on 2022-12-05."

No proceedings to report

Verification performed

• Structured source (canonical): the "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest. Treated as controlling.
• Web searches run: US7050089 IPR inter partes review PTAB; "7050089" patent PTAB proceeding; "US7050089" OR "7,050,089" IPR2023/IPR2024/IPR2025 petition; Sony patent 7,050,089 "on-vehicle video camera" litigation OR "Federal Circuit" OR appeal; "7,050,089" patent lawsuit infringement complaint. No hit referenced this patent's number with a trial number, petitioner, or decision.
• Search-hit false positives flagged (do not conflate): PTAB petitions repeatedly cite a "'705 patent" and a "'009 patent" in a DNS/VPN secure-communication family (virtual private network, modified DNS server, IP hopblocks). Those are distinct patents (a "705" and a "009" in the 7,05x,xxx range) litigated by CPC Patent Technologies against Apple in IPR2022-00601 / IPR2022-00602 — see the Federal Circuit joint appendix, Nos. 2024-1278, 2024-1354 (archive.org copy of the appendix). US 7,050,089 concerns an on-vehicle sideview-mirror camera, not DNS/VPN security. Nothing in that family touches this patent.
• Similarly, several search results cite US 7,050,705 / 9,269,208 ("CPC Patent Technologies") and US 9,508,089 (AlmondNet) — different numbers, different owners, different technology. None is US 7,050,089.

Confidence: high that no AIA trial has been filed against this patent. I cannot rule out a petition filed within the last few days that ODP has not yet indexed, but nothing public supports that, and the economic case for filing one is essentially nonexistent (see below).

Strategic summary

Claim status: all three claims are UNTESTED, not canceled. Because no AIA trial was ever instituted, there is no PTAB record of cancellation. Claim 1 (independent: imaging means in an exterior sideview mirror, light-emitting means lighting the imaging area at the exterior of the vehicle, control means synchronizing imaging and lighting, and the control means determining ambient illuminance and triggering light emission accordingly), claim 2 (infrared light in a predetermined band, imaging means responsive to the IR component), and claim 3 (light emission when the control means detects a vehicle turn signal has been turned on) all stand unadjudicated at the PTAB. The only "narrowing" on record is prosecution-side: the claim set that issued was shaped by the examiner over the art cited on the face of the patent — US 5,574,443 (Hsieh), US 6,520,667 (Donnelly), US 6,583,730 (Lang-Mekra), US 6,698,905 (Donnelly) (Google Patents record).

Estoppel landscape: empty, but largely moot. With no petitioner, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel barring anyone, and no IPR-driven claim construction or disclaimer to work with. The practical constraint is not estoppel — it is the patent term. The ODP record lists an adjusted expiration of 2022-12-05, with maintenance-fee lapses/reinstatements in 2014–2016 and the 12th-year fee paid 2017. Any infringement theory today can only reach pre-expiration conduct, and 35 U.S.C. § 286 caps back damages at six years before filing (i.e., roughly conduct from 2020-09-28 forward). A defendant receiving a demand letter today is looking at a narrow, historical damages window on an expired patent, not an injunction threat. For that window, the full § 102/§ 103/§ 112/§ 101 toolkit remains available in district court, and — since expiry does not bar IPR (the Board will construe expired claims under Phillips) — an IPR is technically still filable, though almost never economically rational here.

Pattern signals: none. No petitioner filed multiple IPRs against this patent; the patent owner (Sony) never had occasion to defend it at the PTAB, so there is no appeal-aggressiveness signal; and there is no evidence of a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) challenging it. This is consistent with the technology being a 2001-era analog sideview-mirror camera module: low assertion value, long-since designed around by industry practice (the modern equivalents — Magna, Gentex, and others — moved to entirely different claim sets, several of which cite this patent as background but do not descend from it).

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and a demand letter cites US 7,050,089: the first move is to confirm the term. Per the ODP record the patent expired 2022-12-05. Ask the asserting party, in writing, (a) the exact date of the accused conduct, and (b) why that conduct falls inside the § 286 six-year lookback from any contemplated complaint. In most cases the answer ends the matter.
• There is no FWD to cite and no claim to characterize as canceled. Do not represent to a court or an adversary that any claim of the '089 patent has been invalidated at the PTAB — no such decision exists. The only invalidity record is the prosecution history and the four references cited on the face of the patent (Google Patents).
• If an AIA trial somehow is pending or newly filed (I found none), the milestone chain would be: petition → PO preliminary response → institution decision at ~6 months → PO response → petitioner reply → oral hearing → FWD within 12 months of institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)). Nothing on file matches this posture today.
• Watch for the numbering collision. If opposing counsel or a vendor search hands you a hit on "the '705 patent" or "the '009 patent" in a PTAB petition, verify the full number against the exhibit list before assuming it concerns this patent — the DNS/VPN family (CPC Patent Technologies v. Apple, IPR2022-00601/00602) is a persistent false positive for searches on similar numbers. Confirm case status directly at USPTO PTAB E2E / PatentCenter and CourtListener rather than relying on secondary aggregators.

Bottom line: the absence of PTAB activity here is not a signal that the patent is "hardened." It is a signal that nobody bothered — and that the patent is now expired, which is a far stronger defense than any IPR could have delivered.

I'll verify the assignment record and check for any post-issuance transfers.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No anomalies of the kind that precede a portfolio fire-sale. There is one inventor, not a team, and there is no evidence of departure from Sony — no subsequent assignment by Nakamura to any third party, no co-inventor, and no re-assignment of the application during prosecution. The JP priority application (JP 2001-043906, published as JP 2002240629A; granted as JP 4815677 B2 on 2011-11-16) names the same invention, and the US and JP rights remained aligned under Sony throughout. I could not determine Nakamura's tenure at Sony beyond the assignment date, and I have no source for his current whereabouts; I am not inferring a departure.

Original assignee

Sony Corporation (1-7-1 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan) — the entity named on the issued patent and on the sole recorded assignment.

• Primary line of business: consumer and professional electronics, including imaging sensors and camera modules (CCD/CMOS imagers, camcorders). This patent sits squarely in Sony's core competence: the disclosure claims a standard visible-light CCD/CMOS imager operated without an IR-cut filter, exploiting residual near-IR sensitivity (~10–20% of peak at 800–900 nm, FIG. 6) with six ~900 nm IR LEDs (D1–D6, FIG. 5) — i.e., a low-cost night-capable side-view camera rather than a bespoke night-vision camera.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / not established. The specification describes a physical sideview-mirror module (elongated synthetic-resin housing 12, lens 11 oriented downward, opening 32a in the mirror bottom, FIGS. 2–4), but the patent text is a disclosure, not product evidence. I found no documentary evidence in my sources that Sony commercialized a sideview-mirror camera module practicing claim 1's ambient-illuminance-triggered IR illumination. Sony's later vehicle-camera activity (e.g., the Sony Semiconductor "ISX" automotive sensors and the 2020-era in-vehicle camera filings cited as later family members) is not evidence of shipment of this claimed subject matter. Treat "product embodying the claims" as unverified.
• Current status: Operating. Sony Corporation remains a going concern; it was renamed Sony Group Corporation effective 2021-04-01 in a group reorganization (with Sony Electronics Corporation assuming the "Sony Corporation" name). I found no bankruptcy, liquidation, or Chapter 11 event for Sony at any time relevant to this patent. Note, however, the 2014 lapse episode below, which bears on how the patent was valued internally.

Assignment timeline

Recording records located: exactly one pre-issuance/original assignment, on the USPTO assignment record as reflected by Google Patents legal events. No post-issuance assignment of US 7,050,089 was found — no transfer to any IP-holding LLC, aggregator, or defensive entity. That is the central finding of this analysis.

• 2002-04-08 (executed) / recorded 2002-04-23 — Reel 012823/0344
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Yoshiyuki Nakamura (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: Sony Corporation, Japan
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the sources available to me. The Google Patents legal-events record for Reel/Frame 012823/0344 reproduces the conveyance text ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:NAKAMURA, YOSHIYUKI;REEL/FRAME:012823/0344") but omits the correspondent field, and I could not retrieve the underlying cover-sheet image or the Assignment Center abstract-of-title entry through search. I am therefore not naming an attorney or firm here rather than guessing. (No repeat-correspondent analysis is possible without it; see Signal 3.)
  • Context: Standard employee-inventor → employer assignment, executed 2002-04-08 — roughly seven weeks after the 2001-02-20 JP priority filing and 2002-02-19 US filing, and well before the 2006-05-23 grant. Routine corporate ownership perfection; not a fire-sale, not a securitization.

Related (non-)events from the same file, relevant to ownership continuity:

The lapse-and-revive sequence is worth flagging for an ownership analyst: it shows this patent passed through a period (~May 2014 – Feb 2016) in which Sony had effectively abandoned it, then was revived via a fee petition with surcharge. Had it remained lapsed, it would not be assertable today regardless of title. It was never, however, transferred during that window — title stayed with Sony.

Provenance caveats: (i) I am relying on the Google Patents reproduction of the USPTO assignment/legal-events data; I could not directly query USPTO Assignment Center or PatentCenter/PAIR for this patent, so the single-assignment finding is recorded-data-based, not a live PatentCenter confirmation. (ii) No JPO assignment record was checked. (iii) A negative finding (no further assignments) is a finding, but its strength is limited by the same access limitation.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7050089
    2001 : JP priority application filed
    2002 : US application filed
         : Assignment executed by inventor
         : Assignment recorded to Sony Corporation
    2006 : Patent issued to Sony Corporation
    2009 : Fourth year maintenance fee paid
    2014 : Lapse for unpaid maintenance fee
    2016 : Patent reinstated after late fee petition
         : Eighth year fee paid with surcharge
    2017 : Twelfth year fee paid
    2022 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: one record in the chain; zero shell entities; zero asserter names; zero transfers; patent expired 2022-12-05.

Verdict

Insufficient data — under the rubric, this is the correct bucket for a patent whose assignment record contains only the original inventor-to-employer assignment: Reel/Frame 012823/0344, Yoshiyuki Nakamura → Sony Corporation, executed 2002-04-08 and recorded 2002-04-23. There is no post-issuance chain at all — no LLC transfer, no aggregator, no defensive acquisition — and no litigation or IPR involving this patent surfaced. The absence of any further assignment is itself the finding: Sony Corporation retained title from 2002 through expiration on 2022-12-05, having let the patent lapse in 2014 and then revived it by fee petition in 2016 and carried it to full term. I flag one evidentiary gap honestly rather than paper over it: I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for Reel 012823/0344, and I could not confirm the title record directly in PatentCenter, so the single-assignment determination rests on the Google Patents reproduction of USPTO data.

Links for verification:

• USPTO Patent Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Patent Assignment Search (same underlying records): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents record with legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7050089/en

I'll search the USPTO records and related sources for this patent and each of its cited references.

Let me search for the remaining cited references.

Now let me look up the Japanese family citations listed for this patent.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,050,089 B2 ("On-vehicle video camera")

Search performed: USPTO/Google Patents record for US 7,050,089 B2 (application 10/079,440) and each reference cited on its face. I searched the literal identifier "7050089" / "7,050,089" and did not substitute any similar number.

Important scoping note: The authoritative record for this patent lists prior art in two disjoint groups, and they should not be conflated:

There is no Non-Patent Literature listed, and — consistent with the litigation summary — no IPR, PGR, or court record in which any of these references was applied to 7,050,089.

⚠️ Caveat on completeness: I retrieved and verified the full text of all four US references. I was unable to retrieve the full text of the five Japanese family citations before my search budget was exhausted, so those five entries below are characterized from their bibliographic records and titles only, at low confidence, and are flagged accordingly. I did not fabricate content for them.

A. The four US patent citations (front-page references)

A1. US 5,574,443 A — Hsieh — the most relevant reference

• Full citation: US 5,574,443 A, "Vehicle monitoring apparatus with broadly and reliably rearward viewing," inventor Chi-Sheng Hsieh (Taipei, TW), Appl. No. 08/263,715.
• Filed: June 22, 1994 • Issued: November 12, 1996.
• Description: A vehicle monitoring system with a rear CCD camera and CCD cameras mounted in the left and right sideview mirrors (CCD2 in mirror 13, CCD3 in mirror 14). A mirror-effect circuit reverses the CRT horizontal scanning so the displayed left/right orientation matches reality. A system control circuit 6 actuates the cameras in response to turning or backing switches (right-turn switch SW2, left-turn switch SW3, backing switch SW1). Critically, each camera housing 21 contains an illuminator 23, described as "an infrared illuminator for a visible sensing of the external subject at night or darkness." (US5574443 full text)
• § 102 assessment vs. 7,050,089's issued claims (claims 2 and 3 depend from claim 1, so each must also include every claim-1 limitation):

• Conclusion: Hsieh is the closest prior art and discloses the substrate of claims 1–3, but it does not anticipate any issued claim under § 102, because no Hsieh embodiment determines ambient illuminance and drives the light source accordingly (element (d)). If anything, element (d) looks like the point of novelty that distinguished the claims.
• What Hsieh does anticipate, element-wise: it squarely discloses the added limitation of claim 2 (an IR illuminator plus a CCD imager inherently responsive to near-IR) and the added limitation of claim 3 (turn-signal-triggered operation). It is therefore the primary § 103 reference against claims 2 and 3 and the natural "base" reference against claim 1.

A2. US 6,583,730 B2 — Lang et al. / Lang-Mekra

• Full citation: US 6,583,730 B2, "Surveillance apparatus for a vehicle," Lang-Mekra North America, LLC (Lang et al.).
• Filing/priority: July 28, 2000 • Issued: June 24, 2003.
• Description: A commercial-vehicle surveillance/"black box" system: a camera (2) with image/data storage (4) and a control apparatus (6) that continuously records a rolling window of images. The camera may be installed in an outside rearview mirror (FIG. 3) to supervise the vehicle's side; a monitor may be placed in the mirror pane; the camera may be pivotable, and multiple cameras may be switched among zones. Vehicle data logged by interface 8 includes speed, braking, temperature, humidity, date and "degree of brightness." (US6583730)
• § 102 assessment:
  • Meets claim 1's "imaging means in an exterior sideview mirror" element, and stores a brightness value — but it has no light-emitting means for illuminating the imaging area, no synchronized lighting, and no illuminance-based light control (brightness is merely logged as data).
  • Does not anticipate any of claims 1, 2, or 3. Relevant as § 103 background only: it evidences that side-view cameras in exterior mirrors and ambient-brightness sensing were both known.

A3. US 6,520,667 B1 — Donnelly Corporation

• Full citation: US 6,520,667 B1, "Vehicle interior rearview mirror assembly with display," Donnelly Corporation.
• Filing/priority: September 15, 2000 • Issued: February 18, 2003.
• Description: An interior rearview mirror assembly incorporating a display element and a display screen that shifts the image by refraction or diffraction to align display characters with the viewing axis (addressing vendor-alignment/cost problems). (US6520667)
• § 102 assessment: This is an interior mirror display/optics reference. It discloses no exterior sideview-mirror camera, no imaging signal, no light emitting means for an exterior imaging area, and no synchronized illumination. Does not anticipate any of claims 1–3. Cited as general mirror-assembly-with-electronics background.

A4. US 6,698,905 B1 — Donnelly Corporation

• Full citation: US 6,698,905 B1, "Memory mirror system for vehicle," inventor Peter J. Whitehead, Donnelly Corporation, Appl. No. 09/572,008.
• Filed: May 16, 2000 • Issued: March 2, 2004.
• Description: A vehicular interior rearview memory mirror system with a cup-shaped mirror casing and an electrical actuator (extendable positioning member) borne by the support to adjust the mirror casing about one or more axes with improved vibration performance. 19 claims, all directed to mirror-position actuation. (US6698905 full text)
• § 102 assessment: Purely a mirror-actuator/memory reference. No camera, no illuminator, no synchronization. Does not anticipate any of claims 1–3. It appears to have been cited merely as a representative Donnelly mirror-hardware patent.

B. The five Japanese family citations (from JP 4815677 B2 / JP 2002240629 A)

Low-confidence characterizations — bibliographic data only; full texts not retrieved this session. These are references cited in the Japanese counterpart prosecution, not on the face of the US patent. Because each was published before the February 20, 2001 priority date, each is potentially § 102/§ 103 prior art to 7,050,089 to the extent its disclosure overlaps.

§ 102 conclusion for group B: On the titles alone, none of these five appears to disclose the claim-1 illuminance-determination-and-gating limitation. The one that most directly touches a claim-1 element is JP4184485B2 (camera-in-door-mirror). None can be shown to anticipate claims 1–3 on the present record; treat as § 103/background until full texts are obtained.

C. Ranking and bottom line

Most relevant prior art: US 5,574,443 (Hsieh). It is the only reference of record that shows (i) cameras in exterior sideview mirrors, (ii) an infrared illuminator housed with the camera for night use, and (iii) a control circuit keyed to the turn signal — i.e., the substance of claims 2 and 3.

No single reference anticipates any of the three issued claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102, because every one of claims 1–3 (the dependents incorporate claim 1) requires a control means that determines the illuminance of the vehicle's surroundings and emits light according to that determination. Hsieh (the closest) has a night illuminator but no measured-illuminance gating; Lang-Mekra merely logs a brightness value without acting on it. The honest reading is that 7,050,089's claims are supported by a § 103 combination led by Hsieh (sideview-mirror camera + IR illuminator + turn-signal control), optionally with Lang-Mekra or a JP reference for brightness sensing — not by outright § 102 anticipation.

D. Flags, contradictions, and residual uncertainty

• No contradiction with the earlier generated sections: the claim-scope reading (claim 1 = independent; claims 2–3 dependent) and the citation lists here match the Google Patents record used previously.
• Citation-count clarification (potential source of confusion): the record shows two overlapping roll-ups — "Cited By (17)" / "Cited By (37)" and "Citations (4)" / "Patent Citations (4)" (and 5 "Family Cites Families"). Those are patent citations and later citing documents, not litigation. The four US references in Section A are the true front-page "References Cited."
• Confidence: High for Section A (full texts retrieved and quoted). Low for Section B (titles/bibliographic data only; full texts not retrieved before the search budget was exhausted).
• Recommended next steps to close gaps: pull the full texts of JPH0668989U, JPH0971180A, JP4184485B2, JP2000115759A and JPS61146450U from J-PlatPat or Espacenet; and verify the front-page citations against USPTO PatentCenter (the Google Patents status itself disclaims being a legal conclusion).

I'll research the cited prior-art references before building the obviousness analysis.

Good detail on the primary references. Let me research the remaining family-cited references and a couple of secondary references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,050,089 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / flagged contradiction: The task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the session's operating date is 2026‑09‑29. I flag the discrepancy rather than reconcile it. This does not affect the analysis: the patent is Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration on the Google Patents record is 2022‑12‑05), so any §103 analysis is retrospective — relevant for defensive value, invalidity-contentiousness, or prior-art landscape work, not for a live IPR (which would also be long time-barred).

The prior-litigation sections found no litigation and no PTAB challenge. That is consistent with the picture below: this is a narrow, product-implementing Sony patent whose independent claim sits close to a 1996 reference (Hsieh) plus routine automotive ambient-light control.

1. Governing framework

• Statute: The application was filed 2002‑02‑19 with a JP priority of 2001‑02‑20. Pre‑AIA § 103 applies. The controlling obviousness standard is KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): "The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results" (id. at 416); a technique used to improve one device, which a POSA would recognize would improve a similar device in the same way, is obvious absent unexpected results (id. at 417).
• Rationales available (MPEP § 2143): (A) known methods combined for their intended purpose; (B) substitution of one known element for another; (C) use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (D) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; (F) design incentives / market forces; (G) predictable variations. MPEP § 2143 also permits reliance on the applicant's own admitted prior art in the specification's Background.
• Key limitation to attack. Claims 2 and 3 are easily met by the art of record. The only limitation in independent claim 1 that is not squarely disclosed by Hsieh is the closing clause: "wherein said control means determines illuminance of the surroundings of the vehicle, and causes said light emitting means to emit light during the imaging operation of said imaging means according to a determined illuminance." That is the crux.

2. Level of ordinary skill

A POSA here is a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–3 years of experience in automotive electronics/vision systems, or a lesser degree with proportionally more experience. That person would be familiar with: CCD/CMOS imagers and their near‑IR response; IR LED illumination; relay/transistor driver circuits; vehicle multiplexed control; and routine automotive automatic features (automatic headlamps, automatic day/night mirrors, turn-signal-triggered accessories). The specification itself is written at this level and repeatedly characterizes its components as standard (e.g., "a standard visible-light photography video camera," "commercially available" IR LEDs).

3. Prior art of record and §102 status

Caveats on verification. I confirmed the substance of Hsieh, Lang, and JP 4184485 from primary text retrieved this session. I could not retrieve the full text of US 6,698,905, JP H06‑68989 U, JP H09‑71180 A, or JP 2000‑115759 A within this session; I therefore use them only as corroborating references (general knowledge / same-field evidence), not as the primary teaching for any limitation. Where I state their content, I state only what is verifiable (title, assignee, role in the record).

4. What the patent itself admits (usable as admitted prior art)

The Background concedes most of the framework:

• Back-monitor cameras are "commercially available standard video camera[s]" and are "likely to capture an image in light as low as the video camera can" at night.
• "Since taillights of an automobile include a backup light which is turned on in response to the vehicle moving in reverse, the backup light may be used for a light source for illuminating the imaging area of a video camera ... Thus, night photography can be achieved at a certain level of illuminance." — i.e., automatically gating a camera's illumination to a vehicle lighting/operating event is admitted prior art.
• The stated problem solved is purely one of where to get an automatic light source for a side camera: "there is no light source for a video camera for use in applications other than a back monitor system which is turned on in response to the operation of the automobile." That framing is itself a near-citation to Hsieh/Lang.

This matters: under MPEP § 2143 and In re Nomiya-type reasoning, admissions in the specification can be used against the claims without further proof.

5. Element-by-element mapping (independent claim 1)

Reading (e) broadly. The clause is written in means-plus-function form. Its disclosed structure is the controller 10c combined with either (i) a vehicle-light-state signal, (ii) an ambient-light sensor "mounted on the video camera 10 or the like," or (iii) simply "the level of the imaging signal obtained in the video camera 10." Under § 112 ¶ 6, element (e) is therefore met by any control that (1) obtains an ambient-brightness indication and (2) gates the lamp on that basis. Lang's brightness sensor supplies (1) directly, and the combination with Hsieh's lamp supplies (2).

6. The primary combination — Hsieh + Lang → claims 1, 2, 3

Combination A: Hsieh in view of Lang. Hsieh supplies every structural element of claim 1 including the mirror-mounted camera and the in-housing IR illuminator; Lang supplies the "determines illuminance" element via its brightness sensor and the concept of automatically activating the camera through a control apparatus.

Why a POSA would combine them:

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. Both are vehicle-surveillance/vision systems; both mount the camera in an outside rearview mirror (Hsieh claim 1; Lang claim 1 and FIGS. 3–4). Both expressly target the side of the vehicle and night/darkness conditions. This is the classic KSR "familiar elements according to known methods" situation.
2. Express problem-solving incentive. The patent's own Background states the unmet need is a camera light source "turned on in response to the operation of the automobile." Hsieh solves it at the circuit level (relays RL1–RL3); Lang solves it at the control level (a control apparatus that activates the camera using sensor data including brightness). Combining them is the obvious next step.
3. Predictable result and design incentives. Gating a lamp on measured ambient brightness is a notorious design objective in automotive electronics (headlamp and mirror auto-dimming control are the canonical examples; Hsieh's own camera includes a dark shield precisely to conceal the camera — a related anti-nuisance design goal). It also yields predictable advantages the patent itself claims: reduced power consumption, no unnecessary (eye-visible) emission, and automatic operation. KSR rationale (C)/(D).
4. No teaching away. Lang nowhere disparages illumination or brightness-triggered activation; Hsieh nowhere disparages ambient sensing. There is no criticality or unexpected-result argument in the specification.

Claim 2 (IR in a predetermined band; imager responsive to the IR component): Hsieh alone suffices — the illuminator is "such as an infrared illuminator," and the camera is a CCD (Hsieh claim 3), which a POSA knows is inherently near‑IR sensitive (the specification's own FIG. 6 admits ~10–20 % of peak sensitivity at 800–900 nm once the IR‑cut filter is inactive). At most this is a predictable design choice of band (850/880/940 nm are, per the specification itself, "commercially available"). Obvious over Hsieh alone; a fortiori obvious over Hsieh + Lang.

Claim 3 (lamp on during imaging when the turn signal is detected): Hsieh's claim 6 discloses right-turn relay RL2 actuated by right-turn switch SW2 and left-turn relay RL3 actuated by left-turn switch SW3, with "a corresponding video camera ... initiated" (abstract), and the illuminator is in the camera housing. Claim 3 is at minimum obvious over Hsieh alone, and arguably anticipated in substance. Note also that the patent's own Japanese title/family (JP 4815677 B2, "Automotive video camera system and automotive outside mirror") and the "Cited By" set (e.g., DaimlerChrysler's "Switching on/off concept for an automobile night vision system," US 2006/0203091) confirm the industry's uniform practice of event-triggered night-vision illumination.

7. Secondary combinations

Combination B: Hsieh + Donnelly ('667 and/or '905). If a challenger needs to buttress the "control means" and "predetermined format / display" elements, Donnelly's mirror-electronics patents are the natural pair. US 6,520,667 shows that integrating video/display electronics into a mirror housing, and aligning/shifting the displayed image, was known; US 6,698,905 shows automatic/remembered control of a mirror function. A POSA integrating a video camera into a mirror would look to the entity (Donnelly) that dominated mirror-integrated mirror electronics. KSR rationale (C): known technique applied to a similar device. Caveat: I verified only the bibliographic identity and role of these two references this session, not their ambient-light disclosures, so they are best used as corroboration for the "mirror-integrated electronics are routine" proposition rather than as the primary teaching for element (e).

Combination C: Hsieh + JP 4184485 B2 (+ admitted prior art). JP 4184485 independently teaches the exact mechanical arrangement the specification touts as an embodiment — camera in the door-mirror visor, lens seated in a mounting hole in the bottom of the mirror pointing downward, wide-angle/fisheye, with a dirt-adhesion-prevention extension. This is directly relevant because the specification treats that geometry (FIGS. 2–4) as a feature of the invention, even though the claims do not recite downward orientation. If the claims are ever construed to require a bottom-mounted/downward lens, JP 4184485 supplies it. Its claim 2 (periphery-monitoring display, lane-departure warning, approaching-vehicle warning) also corroborates that camera-plus-display side-vision systems were conventional.

8. KSR / MPEP § 2143 motivation synthesis

For each combination, the articulation should be stated expressly in the record:

• Rationale (D) — known technique on a device ready for improvement: Hsieh's camera is expressly designed for "visible sensing of the external subject at night or darkness." It is therefore ready for improvement by automatic, ambient-light-gated activation.
• Rationale (C) — improve a similar device in the same way: Lang already does exactly that for a mirror-mounted camera (brightness sensor → control apparatus → camera activation).
• Rationale (F) — design incentives / market forces: hands-free operation, power/thermal savings in an automotive mirror, and lamp-life preservation were recognized design objectives; the specification itself touts reduced power consumption.
• Rationale (G) — predictable variation: selecting the illuminance threshold, the LED band (850/880/940 nm), and the number/arrangement of LEDs (six, in three series pairs) are routine optimizations of known parameters.
• Common-sense / KSR "obvious to try": with only a finite number of known ways to trigger automotive illumination (always-on, vehicle-lamp-state, ambient sensor, image-signal level), trying the ambient-sensor option was obvious — and the specification itself lists all four.

9. Claim-by-claim conclusions

10. Where the rejection is weakest (and how a patentee would respond)

1. Hsieh's illuminator is not expressly switched in synchronism with the imager. Hsieh only places the illuminator in the camera housing. A patentee can argue the "operably synchronized" limitation is not disclosed. Rebuttal: (i) the claim language "so as to be operably synchronized" is broad and reads on co-energization of camera and lamp; (ii) Lang's control apparatus that activates the camera supplies the synchronization structure; (iii) the specification itself equates "synchronized" with merely turning on the lamp "each time the imaging operation is performed."
2. The "determines illuminance" limitation is the only genuinely non-disclosed element in Hsieh. A patentee will argue the combination is improper hindsight. Rebuttal must be grounded in Lang's express "brightness" sensor plus the admitted prior art about automatic vehicle lighting — not in the inventor's subjective motivation. This is the single point where a well-drafted obviousness rejection needs care.
3. Possible secondary considerations. Commercial success of Sony's mirror-camera products is a plausible argument, but without a demonstrated nexus to the claimed illuminance-gating feature, and given that the patent expired in 2022, it is unlikely to overcome a clean KSR combination. I found no licensing/market data in this session to support or refute it.
4. § 112-adjacent caveats (not §103, but relevant to how broadly elements (d)/(e) can be read): the means-plus-function language requires the corresponding disclosed structure (controller 10c; the three alternative illuminance-determining implementations) for a proper construction.

11. Bottom line

Claims 1–3 of US 7,050,089 would most likely be held obvious under § 103(a) as a combination of Hsieh (US 5,574,443) with Lang (US 6,583,730), and/or with the applicant's own admitted prior art, with JP 4184485 B2 available for the mirror-integrated downward camera geometry and Donnelly US 6,520,667 / US 6,698,905 as same-field corroboration of mirror-integrated electronics. Claims 2 and 3 in particular are close to anticipated in substance by Hsieh alone. The only non-trivial limitation is the ambient-illuminance-responsive gating in claim 1, and that is met by Lang's brightness sensor plus the well-known automotive practice of automatic, ambient-light-responsive lighting control.

Verification caveats (do not overstate): I did not obtain full text for US 6,698,905, JP H06‑68989 U, JP H09‑71180 A, or JP 2000‑115759 A in this session; treat those four as corroborating/same-field references only. The §102 date bases above apply pre‑AIA law and assume an invention date on or about the 2001‑02‑20 JP priority date; if a later invention date were established, the §102(e) references (Lang, Donnelly) would need re-examination. Legal status fields are Google Patents' own and are expressly disclaimed by the platform as non-conclusive.