US 7161616

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me check specifically for any CAFC 2026 docket activity and the USPTO record.

Let me verify the claim structure and check for any additional litigation record.

Summary — US Patent 7,161,616 B1

Source of record: Google Patents full text, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7161616](/patent/US7161616)/en (fetched 2026‑09‑24). The full specification, abstract, and claim language below come from that authoritative text.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A synthetic image viewed from a virtual point of view above a vehicle is generated, using images captured by a plurality of cameras shooting surroundings of the vehicle. In the synthetic image, an illustration image or an actual image of the vehicle is displayed in a vehicle region in which the vehicle is present. The area around the vehicle that is not shot by any of the cameras is displayed as a blind spot region."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The published claim set is not displayed as a numbered list on the page I retrieved; Google Patents' "Definitions"/summary reformats the claims by aspect. Based on that text, the independent claims fall into roughly ten independent aspects (claim numbers not independently verified — treat the numbering as approximate, the substance as reliable):

1. Running-state-adaptive virtual viewpoint (apparatus). An image-processing part receives images from multiple vehicle-surround cameras and builds a synthetic image seen from a virtual viewpoint; it changes the viewpoint's position, line-of-sight direction, and/or focal length based on the vehicle's running state (e.g., speed, steering angle, or obstacle-sensor output).

2. Control of out-of-view-range image capture (apparatus). Same multi-camera synthesis, but the processing part controls capturing of imagery outside the view range of the virtual viewpoint according to the vehicle's running state (e.g., by switching the synthesis model between a flat road-surface model and a cylindrical/quasi-cylindrical model).

3. Running-state-adaptive monitoring system. A system comprising the cameras + image-processing part + display, with the same viewpoint-adaptation feature as claim 1.

4. First image + second image composite (apparatus). The synthetic image contains a first image from a virtual viewpoint and a second image that differs from the first either in viewpoint parameters (position / line-of-sight direction / focal length) or in the underlying model — e.g., a close "downward" bird's-eye view plus surrounding distant/panoramic views, or a narrow view with an enlarged sub-region.

5. Monitoring system version of aspect 4.

6. Vehicle-region + attention-drawing-region display (apparatus). In the synthetic image, the processing part shows at least part of the vehicle region (typically an illustration or actual image of the vehicle, often from a viewpoint above) and an attention-drawing region covering at least part of the surroundings — e.g., the blind-spot ring not covered by any camera. The blind-spot/vehicle region range can be derived from region data (mask data) showing the vehicle's projection in each camera image.

7. Monitoring system version of aspect 6.

8. Mapping table with non-camera pixel data (apparatus). The synthetic image is built from a mapping table that has (a) first mapping data correlating synthetic-image pixels to camera-image pixels and (b) second mapping data containing an identifier indicating a pixel corresponds to pixel data other than the camera images — e.g., an illustration/actual image of the vehicle or a blind-spot fill. The second mapping data may store coordinates into a stored image, or the pixel values themselves.

9. Weighted multi-source mapping data (apparatus). Mapping data correlates each synthetic-image pixel to multiple pixel-data sources (camera and/or non-camera) and specifies a "rate of necessity" for each; the processing part weights the sources accordingly to compute the pixel value (enabling blending and semi-transparent overlays).

10. Cut-out mapping table (apparatus). The processing part holds one original (large) mapping table and, for each displayed frame, cuts out a sub-region to use as the mapping table — enabling pan, zoom and rotation of the virtual viewpoint by changing the cut-out offsets/step without storing many tables.

US District Court / litigation check

• No CAFC 2026 docket activity involving 7,161,616 was found. Searches of Federal Circuit 2026 docket references and patent-litigation databases returned zero hits tying this patent number to any 2026 appeal.
• The patent's legal status is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2020‑04‑17), which is consistent with its apparent absence from current infringement/appeal activity — though expired patents can still appear in damages-period cases, so this is not dispositive.
• A search surfaced a 2026 case caption, IoT Innovations LLC v. Panasonic Corporation et al, E.D. Tex. Case No. 2:26‑cv‑00772 (patent infringement, 35 U.S.C. §271). I could not verify that US 7,161,616 is among the asserted patents in that case, and I would not assert a connection — the docket entry did not list any patent numbers and is against Panasonic generally. Treat this as unconfirmed and unrelated unless verified in the complaint.

Uncertainty notes

• I do not have an authoritative numbered claim set for this patent (the source page's "Definitions" section paraphrases the claims by aspect). The count of ~10 independent claims and the specific claim numbers are therefore my best reconstruction, not a verified citation. The technical content of each aspect is quoted/paraphrased directly from the patent text.
• Bibliographic fields above (filing date 2000‑04‑17, issue date 2007‑01‑09, priority 1999‑04‑16, assignees, expiry) are taken from the Google Patents record and are consistent across the search results I retrieved (e.g., Justia's citing-patents tables list "7161616 | January 9, 2007 | Okamoto et al.").
• I found no evidence of patent-term extension, reissue, or PTAB proceedings specific to 7,161,616 in the retrieved material; I did not exhaustively search PTAB for this number, so that remains an open item if you need certainty.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7161616.

Let me search litigation-specific databases.

Let me try the litigation-specific databases and other search angles.

Summary

I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,161,616. Based on the searches I was able to run, there is no evidence of any district court action, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appeal, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or ITC Section 337 investigation asserting or challenging this patent.

What I searched and what came back

I searched for the patent number in combination with litigation terms and litigation-aggregator sources (Unified Patents portal, Docket Alarm, Justia, PACER-style docket phrasing). Every hit referencing "7161616" fell into one of these categories — none were litigation:

No case caption, court, docket number, or complaint involving 7161616 appeared.

Caveats (important for an attorney relying on this)

• My searches hit a step limit before I could exhaustively probe PACER, Docket Navigator, RPX Insight, Lex Machina, or Westlaw/Lexis. Free web indexing is not a complete substitute for those databases, and PACER requires authenticated access I could not reach here.
• Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. A case could exist that is (a) not well indexed by free search engines, (b) sealed, or (c) filed under a patent-family member rather than the exact number (see below).
• Family-member litigation is a real risk. US 7,161,616 B1 is the U.S. member of the family that includes WO 00/64175 A1, EP 1179958 A1/B1, JP 3300334 B2, CA 2369648 A1, and CN 1344470 (per the family tables above). A dispute might have been pleaded on a sibling patent or on the Japanese counterpart rather than this exact U.S. number.

Patent context (for your diligence)

• Patent: US 7,161,616 B1 — "Image processing device and monitoring system"
• Inventors: Shusaku Okamoto, Masamichi Nakagawa, Kunio Nobori, Atsushi Morimura
• Original assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; current listed assignee Panasonic Holdings Corp.
• Application: US 09/807,654 (PCT national phase, filed 2000-04-17); priority 1999-04-16
• Grant date: 2007-01-09
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2020-04-17 (per the Google Patents record)

The 2020 expiration date reduces (though does not eliminate) the likelihood of any currently pending assertion, since damages would be limited to pre-expiration conduct.

Recommended next steps to confirm

To make a definitive statement, check these authenticated/paid sources directly for "7,161,616" (and its family members EP 1179958, JP 3300334):

1. PACER (Civil cases) — search patent number in the docket text field.
2. Unified Patents Portal – Litigation caselist (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and PTAB caselist for any IPR/PGR/CBM on this number.
3. RPX Insight / Docket Navigator / Lex Machina — these index patent-to-case mappings directly.
4. USITC EDIS (for Section 337) and CAFC oral argument/opinion databases.

If you'd like, I can run those targeted searches now that we're past the tool-call limit issue, starting with the Unified Patents litigation caselist and PTAB caselist.

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

PTAB proceedings on file

Result: no AIA trial proceedings exist for US 7,161,616. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns zero AIA trials. I ran independent searches to catch anything ODP might not have indexed (PTAB petition documents, ptacts.uspto.gov, IPR/PGR/CBM docket write-ups, CourtListener, and general web) and found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no associated Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent as the challenged patent. Nothing is being flagged as an "older or recently-filed proceeding the ODP hasn't indexed yet," because nothing surfaced.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,161,616: 0 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 with institution denied. There is no proceeding to break down by status, no panel to name, and no FWD to quote. The bottom line for a defendant: the absence of PTAB activity is not a hardening signal — it is a staleness signal. The patent's statutory term ran out on 2020-04-17 (the "anticipated expiration" entry in Google Patents' legal-status table, keyed to the 2000-04-17 filing of US 09/807,654), so there is no live claim to institute an IPR against and no meaningful estoppel or invalidity record to inherit. A demand letter citing US 7,161,616 has to contend with § 286's six-year damages lookback from an enforcement suit filed today, which cuts off everything before roughly 2020-09-29 — i.e., the last several months of the term, at most. That is the real defensive posture, and it is an accrual-limitations problem for the patent owner, not an invalidity problem you need the PTAB to solve.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding template does not apply. I am not going to invent docket numbers, panels, or dispositions to fill it out.

What I checked, and what it establishes

• Canonical source (authoritative here): the USPTO Open Data Portal block supplied in the prompt — zero AIA trials.
• Patent record: US7161616B1 on Google Patents — priority date 1999-04-16, filed 2000-04-17, granted 2007-01-09, anticipated expiration 2020-04-17, legal status "Expired – Lifetime." Original assignee Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; current assignee listed as Panasonic Holdings Corp. Inventors Okamoto, Nakagawa, Nobori, Morimura.
• Public-source sweep for adversarial filings: searches against PTAB petition documents on ptacts.uspto.gov, the phrase "7,161,616" combined with IPR20xx, CourtListener, and general web produced only forward-citation usage of the patent (it is cited as prior art in later Panasonic, Harman, Magna, and various foreign search reports) and its JP/EP/WO family members — never as the subject of a trial. The pattern of hits is classic for an old, widely-cited, expired patent: everyone cites it, nobody challenges it.

Confidence/caveats. I have high confidence in the zero-count finding, because it comes from the ODP structured data and my independent searches corroborated it. What I could not verify with the tools available is whether a subscription docket service (Docket Navigator, RPX Insight, Lex Machina) would reveal a district-court case that was filed and settled so quickly that no petition followed. I found no evidence of such litigation, but I cannot rule it out, and I am flagging that as an open item rather than asserting it doesn't exist.

Why there is no PTAB activity — the structural explanation

Three reasons, all of which a defendant should understand:

1. The patent expired before the AIA trial regime matured. US 7,161,616 issued 2007-01-09 and expired 2020-04-17. IPR/PGR/CBM practice took hold from 2012–2014. The window in which the patent was both commercially valuable and IPR-eligible overlapped with the early, low-volume years of the Board — and 360-degree surround-view camera systems were only becoming a mass-market OEM feature in that same window.
2. A CBM petition was categorically unavailable. CBM review was limited to patents claiming a "covered business method" — a method or apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service. A multi-camera image-synthesis apparatus for vehicle situational awareness is a technological invention, not a financial one. Whatever the merits of the claims, this patent was never CBM-eligible subject matter. Don't let anyone tell you a CBM was "available and missed."
3. An expired patent is a poor IPR target. By the time any competitor had a live commercial dispute, the patent was near or past expiry. The Board has consistently treated IPRs against expired patents as problematic — a patent owner cannot amend expired claims, so the usual claim-amendment safety valve in an IPR is gone, and the proceeding's practical value (freedom to operate for sales going forward) evaporates. That is a rational reason for a would-be petitioner to walk away, even where the art is strong.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. There is no PTAB-driven carve-up of the claims. No claim of US 7,161,616 has been canceled by the Board, none has been sustained through an FWD, and — critically — none has been adjudicated by the Board at all. Every claim in the patent is untested in the AIA-trial track and, since 2020-04-17, expired. Whatever narrowing or disclaimer happened did so in prosecution and in the original 2000-2002 PCT/US national-stage phase (the WO 00/064175 family, EP 1179958, CN 1344470, JP 3300334), not in an IPR. Practically, the claims that appear in later-art citations to the "1-17" claim set (the WO 2011/048716 search report cites the JP 3300334 family member against claims 1-17) are the ones you would be facing — but I have not verified the exact current claim set from the printed patent, so treat the claim numbering as something to confirm against the granted document and any certificates of correction before you build a chart.

Estoppel landscape — effectively irrelevant, which is the good news. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against anybody. No petitioner is barred from raising any § 102 or § 103 ground, because no petitioner ever existed. There is also no § 325(e)(1) estoppel to worry about, and no FWD findings that a court would have to respect. For a defendant today, the entire prior-art universe is still open — both in a district court invalidity defense and in any available post-issuance proceeding, subject to the expiry point below. The absence of estoppel is a small but genuine tactical advantage: unlike a defendant facing a patent that survived two IPRs, you are not litigating against a Board-endorsed validity finding.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner). No patent-owner appeal strategy (there is nothing to appeal). No defensive aggregator in the chain — I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar filing, which is consistent with the patent never having been asserted against a member-funded campaign.

The real defense is time, and it is stronger than an IPR would be. The term expired 2020-04-17, per the Google Patents legal-status table. Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, damages are recoverable only for infringement occurring within six years before the complaint is filed. If a suit is filed on or about today (2026-09-29), the recoverable window is only from roughly 2020-09-29 through 2020-04-17 — a negative interval, i.e., nothing. In other words, on the dates I can verify, the § 286 lookback window opens after the patent term closes, so there is no compensable infringement period at all. The first thing you do with any demand letter on this patent is (a) confirm the expiry date against the USPTO Patent Center maintenance-fee and term records, including any terminal disclaimer, § 154(b) term adjustment, or § 156 extension, and (b) if it holds, hand the demand back with the § 286 math. Note also that laches is no longer an available defense at law after SCA Hygiene v. First Quality Baby Products, 580 U.S. 328 (2017), so you do not get to say "you sat on it" — the § 286 limitation, and the expiry itself, are the arguments.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm expiry before doing anything else. Pull the full prosecution history and the maintenance-fee/term records from USPTO Patent Center. Verify: filing date 2000-04-17; any § 154(b) patent term adjustment; any terminal disclaimer affecting term; maintenance-fee payments (Google Patents shows 4th- and 8th-year payments as large entity, which is consistent with the patent running its full term); and whether any certificate of correction or reexamination certificate alters the claims. The 2020-04-17 anticipated-expiration date is the single highest-value fact in this entire analysis and it deserves primary-source confirmation.

2. Run the § 286 arithmetic explicitly. If the patent expired 2020-04-17 and suit is filed now, the six-year lookback under 35 U.S.C. § 286 reaches back only to a date after expiry. Document the computation. If the patent owner points to pre-expiry sales, confirm whether those sales were of the patented system itself and whether they fall inside the (empty) window.

3. Do not petition for IPR, and be prepared to explain why that is the right call. An IPR against an expired patent is generally not worth the filing fee and attorneys' fees: the patent owner cannot amend, the Board may view the proceeding as moot, and you gain nothing you don't already have from the § 286 and expiry arguments. If you nonetheless want an invalidity record, a district-court § 102/§ 103 defense — or, in the right posture, a declaratory-judgment action — preserves the full art universe without the § 315(b) one-year bar and without creating estoppel that could constrain you later.

4. Verify whether any district-court assertion exists. The tools I have could not query subscription docket databases. If a demand letter is in hand, identify the plaintiff and check the docket (CourtListener, courtlistener.com, for the Federal Circuit and district-court coverage; the relevant district's PACER/CM-ECF for the full trail). If a case was filed and no IPR followed, that absence is itself informative — it usually means the parties resolved the matter or the defendant concluded the art did not support institution.

5. Treat the "no PTAB activity" finding as provisional. My search and the ODP block agree, but if you find a proceeding number I could not, do not assume the ODP block is right — search results that contradict prior data win, per the operating rules here. Any proceeding you locate should be verified against the PTAB E2E docket at ptacts.uspto.gov before it goes into a brief.

6. If you are the patent owner or a licensee here: the expiry date and the absence of any PTAB record cut the other way. Damages reach is materially limited, and the lack of an IPR is not a validity endorsement — it reflects that no one had a reason to file. Plan enforcement and licensing around the accrual window, not around the patent's claim scope.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 7,161,616, starting with USPTO assignment records and cross-references.

Let me probe specific assignment-record sources and the Google Patents legal-events trail.

Let me try the assignment-specific databases and Justia's assignment records for this patent number.

Ownership-chain reconstruction — US 7,161,616 B1 ("Image processing device and monitoring system")

Sourcing caveat up front. I was able to retrieve the patent's bibliographic/legal-event record (Google Patents) and general Panasonic corporate-IP context, but I hit the tool-call limit before I could open the USPTO Assignment Center record page (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) for this specific patent. That means I can confirm that an inventor-to-company assignment was recorded, but in most entries below I cannot supply the reel/frame, execution date, or correspondent of record from primary USPTO data. I have flagged every such gap rather than filling it in. Where I rely on closely parallel Panasonic assignment records (which may or may not be the identical recording covering this patent), I label them unverified for this patent.

Inventors

Notes / patterns.

• All four inventors are co-assignors on the same recorded assignment conveying to Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. ("MEI") — the classic single-employer corporate-ownership pattern (employee inventors → employer). There is no evidence of an inventor retaining a personal interest, and no secondary assignment from any individual inventor.
• I found no evidence of any of the four departing MEI within 12 months of filing, nor of any individually held rights later sold. (Equally, I could not affirmatively verify their tenure — this is an absence-of-evidence statement, not a clean bill of health.) No fire-sale precursor signal here.
• Because the U.S. case is a PCT national-phase entry (PCT filed 2000-04-17; priority 1999-04-16), the inventors' rights were almost certainly assigned contemporaneously with the Japanese/PCT filing; the U.S. recordation on 2001-04-13 is the U.S. capture of that transfer.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., 1006 Oaza Kadoma, Kadoma-shi, Osaka 571-8501, Japan.
• Primary line of business: Consumer and industrial electronics manufacturing — the parent of the Panasonic brand (audio/visual, appliances, automotive electronics, semiconductors). Vehicle camera/monitoring systems fall squarely within its automotive-electronics and imaging businesses.
• Product embodying the claims: The patent claims multi-camera surround-view synthesis with a virtual viewpoint, vehicle-region rendering and blind-spot/attention-region display — i.e., the around-view / surround-view monitor category. Matsushita/Panasonic is an operating manufacturer in exactly this product space (vehicle camera and driver-assistance systems), so an operating-product nexus is highly plausible. I could not, within the tool budget, pin a specific Panasonic product SKU to these claims, so treat the product-embodiment statement as strong-but-unconfirmed rather than documented.
• Corporate status / name history (well documented):
  • Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. → renamed Panasonic Corporation effective 2008-10-01 (confirmed in Panasonic's own press materials; the name change was formally a change of name, not a sale).
  • Panasonic Corporation → reorganized into Panasonic Holdings Corporation (top holding company) around 2022; Google Patents currently lists the assignee as "Panasonic Holdings Corp."
  • Status: operating company, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

Confirmed by the patent's own legal-events record:

• 2001-04-13 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not exposed by the source I could reach
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST, "see document for details")
  • Assignor: MORIMURA, ATSUSHI; NAKAGAWA, MASAMICHI; NOBORI, KUNIO; OKAMOTO, SHUSAKU
  • Assignee: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from the sources reached (this is exactly the field the primary USPTO record would supply)
  • Context: Initial acquisition — the four employee inventors convey the entire right to their employer. Not a fire-sale, securitization, or asserter transfer.

Closely parallel Panasonic recordings that may be the identical records covering this patent (UNVERIFIED for 7161616):

• 2008-10-01 (executed) / recorded ~2008-11-14 — Reel 021835 / Frame 0421 (seen on multiple other Panasonic U.S. patents)
  • Conveyance: CHANGE OF NAME
  • Assignor: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
  • Assignee: PANASONIC CORPORATION
  • Context: Internal corporate renaming. Because the same reel/frame appears across many different Panasonic patents, 021835/0421 appears to be a single omnibus change-of-name recording listing a very large block of patents/applications — which makes it likely (but not proven here) that 7161616 is on it.
• A 2014 Panasonic → "Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America" recording (reel/field string 033033/0163) surfaced in the same source, again on other Panasonic patents. Unverified whether it reaches this patent. If it does, it would be an intra-group IP-holding reorganization, not a third-party sale.

Bottom line for this section: the record I could verify is thin — one inventor→employer assignment (2001-04-13). Every post-2001 ownership change for this patent is a name-change / intra-Panasonic reorganization on the available evidence, and I found no record of any transfer to a third party, NPE, or aggregator. I state that as "no such record surfaced," not "no such record exists."

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7161616
    1999 : Priority date Apr 16
    2000 : PCT filing Apr 17
    2001 : Four inventors assign to Matsushita
    2007 : Patent granted Jan 9
    2008 : Matsushita renamed Panasonic
    2020 : Patent term expires Apr 17
    2022 : Parent renamed Panasonic Holdings

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data (only the original assignment).

The only ownership record I could actually verify is a single inventor-to-employer assignment recorded 2001-04-13, conveying the patent from Okamoto, Nakagawa, Nobori and Morimura to Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. No third-party, NPE, LLC, or aggregator assignment appears anywhere, and no litigation has ever asserted the patent (per the prior section). The post-2001 events visible for the Panasonic patent estate — the 2008-10-01 Matsushita→Panasonic change of name and a possible 2014 intra-group IP-holding reorganization — are corporate-identity events, not asset sales (and I could not confirm either reaches this patent specifically). Every NPE signal is therefore not present on the evidence available; the residual uncertainty is a records-access gap (missing reel/frame and correspondent fields), not a suspicious pattern.

Because only the original assignment is verified and I could not complete the primary-source pull, the correct verdict bucket is Insufficient data — with the strong qualifier that what is visible points to operating-company (Panasonic) ownership, zero NPE signals.

To close the gaps (verify before relying):

1. USPTO Assignment Center, patent-number search "7161616": assignmentcenter.uspto.gov — capture reel/frame, execution date, and correspondent for the 2001 record and confirm/deny the 2008 (021835/0421) and any 2014 (033033/0163) entries.
2. USPTO Patent Center / PEDS "Patent Assignment Abstract of Title" for application 09/807,654.
3. Espacenet INPADOC legal status for US7161616B1 (event codes AS = assignment, FPAY = fees) to confirm the name-change events.
4. Since this is a family member (WO 00/64175; EP 1179958; JP 3300334 B2; CA 2369648; CN 1344470), cross-check the Japanese and EP registers if any ownership dispute is suspected.

Explicit disclaimer: I did not fabricate any reel/frame, letter-of-record, correspondent, or execution date. Fields marked "not retrievable," "unverified," or "unclear" are genuine gaps caused by hitting the tool-call limit before reaching the primary USPTO Assignment Center record. Treat the 2008-10-01 / Reel 021835/0421 and 2014 / Reel 033033/0163 entries as corroborating context from sibling Panasonic patents, not as confirmed records for US 7,161,616.

I'll search for the specific patent 7161616 and its cited references.

Let me get the front-page "References Cited" list for US7161616 specifically.

Let me try to pull the actual "References Cited" front-page list for this patent.

Prior-Art Analysis for US 7,161,616 B1

Note on tool access: I hit my search-step limit mid-investigation. I was able to confirm the patent and retrieve the references cited in the specification text, but I was not able to fully retrieve or verify the front‑page "References Cited" list (the examiner-cited U.S. and foreign patent documents) from the provided authoritative text or from USPTO/Google Patents within the budget. I flag that gap explicitly below rather than manufacture entries.

1. The patent (verified, exact number match)

This is the correct, exact-number match. No similar-number record (e.g., US 7,161,616 vs. any adjacent number) is substituted here.

2. References cited in the patent (applicant-cited in the specification)

The authoritative full text I have contains exactly two prior-art references, both in the "BACKGROUND ART" / "Definitions" discussion. These are the only citations I can ground with confidence.

Reference A — Japanese Patent Publication No. 2696516

• Full citation: Japanese Patent Publication No. 2696516 (JP 2696516). Cited in the specification as disclosing a monitoring-screen divider.
• Dates: I could not confirm the exact publication/grant date from the sources retrieved. JP 2696516 is a Japanese registration number (特許第2696516号), not a laid-open number, so it does not encode a year in the same way a Kokai number does. Verify date directly — this matters for § 102(b) vs. § 102(a).
• Brief description (as characterized in the patent): Displays images on a divided monitoring screen depending on gear or car speed. In halt/low-speed state the screen is divided into three sections showing images from cameras on the right side, left side, and a lower portion of the vehicle, synthesized and reproduced; in forward running, the screen is divided into two sections using right-side and left-side cameras.
• Potential § 102 applicability: Weak. It discloses the trigger concept (gear/car-speed-dependent display) that underlies claim 1's "running state" and claim 2's "running speed" limitations. However, claim 1 requires generating "a synthetic image viewed from a virtual point of view" and changing "the position, the direction of the line of sight, or the focal length of the virtual point of view." A screen-division/switching scheme that tiles discrete camera feeds does not, on the face of the patent's own characterization, generate a virtual-viewpoint synthetic image or vary virtual-viewpoint parameters. Anticipation of independent claim 1 is unlikely on this disclosure alone; it is better characterized as a background/A-type reference bearing on the "running state" trigger and on the motivation to adapt displays to driving state (relevant to § 103, not § 102).

Reference B — Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-78692

• Full citation: Japanese Laid-Open (Kokai) Patent Publication No. H11-78692 (JP 11-78692 A). Cited in the specification.
• Dates: Publication is in the Heisei 11 year, i.e., 1999 (the "11" prefix in a Japanese Kokai number denotes the publication year 1999; I state this as a numbering-convention inference, not a verified date). This is after the 1999-04-16 priority date and before the 2000-04-17 PCT filing. That timing is critical: it likely cannot be § 102(b) art (not more than one year before the critical date) and would have to be analyzed as § 102(a)/(e) art if it predates the applicant's actual invention.
• Brief description (as characterized in the patent): A video presenting apparatus for vehicles in which "precise videos for each encountered scene are synthesized and displayed." Camera images are transformed and synthesized depending on the driving state — specifically backward parking, forward parking, parallel parking, or entering an intersection with an obstructed view.
• Potential § 102 applicability: This is the closest of the two cited references. It squarely discloses (per the patent's own description) transforming and synthesizing camera images as a function of driving state — reaching the general inventive concept. Whether it anticipates claim 1 turns on whether its disclosure renders the "virtual point of view" and the changing of its position/line-of-sight/focal length. The patent distinguishes itself on exactly this point (viewpoint-parameter change based on running state), which implies the applicant regarded H11-78692 as not disclosing that feature. Anticipation is possible but not established from the text I have; it is the reference most worth obtaining in full (Japanese original + any machine translation) to test claims 1–3.

Both references above are the applicant's own characterizations as they appear in US 7,161,616. They are drawn from the specification's background discussion and should be verified against the Japanese originals.

3. Important trap: citations that are NOT prior art to this patent

Several numbers surface when searching "7161616" but are not prior art against it and should not be listed as such:

Family members (same invention, other jurisdictions) — not prior art:

• WO 00/64175 A1 (26.10.2000) — the PCT publication of this very application
• JP 3300334 B2 (19.04.2002) — Japanese counterpart
• EP 1179958 A1 / B1 (13.02.2002 / 08.08.2012) — European counterpart
• CA 2369648 A1 (26.10.2000), CN 1344470 A (10.04.2002) — counterparts

These appear together in Korean and Japanese search reports (e.g., JP2015507386A / PCT-KR2012-007781 family annex) precisely because they are one family, not because one cited the other as prior art.

Forward citations of 7161616 (later documents) — not prior art:
The patent is cited as prior art by numerous later filings, e.g., US 8,593,519 B2, US 9,077,861, US 9,679,359, US 9,824,587, US 2021/0174100 A1, and it is an "X" reference in WO 2011/048716 A1 / EP 2 487 908 A4. These are all subsequent to 7161616 and cannot be prior art against it. They are useful only as evidence of the field's development.

4. Requests I could not complete (flagged honestly)

1. Front-page "References Cited" list (examiner-cited U.S. patent documents and foreign patent documents). The authoritative text supplied to me does not contain the numbered "References Cited" block, and my searches reached the step limit before I could extract it from the Google Patents "Patent Citations" section or the granted-patent front page. I therefore cannot enumerate the examiner-cited U.S. patent references for this patent, and I will not fabricate them.
2. Confirmation of the JP 2696516 date (needed to fix the § 102(b) vs. § 102(a) category).
3. The parent PCT search report (PCT/JP00/02493, published as WO 00/64175) — the ISR for the parent application would list the examiner-cited prior art and is the single best source to complete this analysis.

Recommended verification steps to finish the job:

• USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) → open US 7,161,616 → "References Cited" (front page), including the 1449/892 forms in the file wrapper.
• The granted PDF front page at patents.google.com/patent/US7161616B1/en (Images tab) — the "U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS" / "FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS" lists are printed there.
• The PCT international search report for WO 00/64175 A1.
• JPO (j-platpat) for JP 2696516 and JP 11-78692, to confirm dates and get the originals.

5. Bottom line

• The exact patent US 7,161,616 B1 is confirmed as "Image processing device and monitoring system," Matsushita/Panasonic, priority 1999-04-16, filed 2000-04-17, granted 2007-01-09.
• The only two prior-art references I can ground from the authoritative text are JP 2696516 (gear/speed-dependent divided display) and JP H11-78692 (driving-state-dependent camera-image transformation and synthesis).
• Of these, JP H11-78692 is the most relevant / closest and is the candidate to test against independent claims 1 and 2 (and dependent claims 3–4) under § 102; JP 2696516 is at most an "A"-type background reference and is more relevant to § 103.
• Neither, on the patent's own characterization, plainly discloses the virtual-point-of-view parameter change that distinguishes claim 1 — so anticipation by either is doubtful on the present record, and the strong disclaimer is that the examiner-cited front-page references (still unretrieved) may include closer art.
• Do not treat the family members (WO 00/64175, EP 1179958, JP 3300334, CA 2369648, CN 1344470) or the later citing documents (US 8,593,519, US 9,679,359, etc.) as prior art — they are counterparts and forward citations, respectively.

If you want, I can target the remaining three gaps (USPTO front-page citations, the parent PCT ISR, and JPO date confirmation) in a follow-up once the tool budget resets.

I'll research the prior art landscape for this patent's key independent claims before building the § 103 combinations.

Let me look for the specific prior art references cited on the face of US 7,161,616 and in its family, plus key contemporaneous references.

Let me get details on the key multi-camera prior art references and the cited Japanese references.

I've reached the research limit. Below is my § 103 obviousness analysis, built on the patent text you supplied plus the prior-art material retrieved in the searches above. I flag verification limits explicitly rather than overstating.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,161,616 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Source of record (specification/claims): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7161616/en (fetched 2026‑09‑24).
Effective filing date: 2000‑04‑17 (PCT national stage); earliest priority 1999‑04‑16 (JP). Pre‑AIA § 103 applies (application filed before 2013‑03‑16).
§ 102(b) critical date: 1998‑04‑16 if the 1999‑04‑16 JP priority is perfected; otherwise 1999‑04‑17.

⚠️ Threshold caveat (carried forward from prior sections): the Google Patents record does not expose a numbered claim set; it paraphrases the claims by "aspect." I therefore analyze the ~10 independent aspects identified earlier rather than claim numbers. The technical scopes quoted are verbatim from the patent text. Where I characterize a reference I could only see through a search snippet or a third party's citation, I say so.

1. Legal framework applied

Under Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), the analysis asks: (1) scope/content of the prior art; (2) differences between prior art and claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. Where the difference is a combination of known elements, the question is whether there was an apparent reason to combine — the KSR rationales ((A) known elements/known method/predictable result; (B) simple substitution; (C) known technique improving similar device in same way; (D) known technique applied to a device ready for improvement; (E) obvious to try; (F) design incentive/market pressure — or the classic TSM).

Level of ordinary skill (proposed): a bachelor's degree in EE/CS (or equivalent) plus ~2–3 years in vehicle vision or image processing, with working knowledge of camera geometry, projective transformation, and real‑time video compositing. This is a routine-skill art by the 1999 priority date.

2. The prior art of record and its relevance

Important date discipline: every reference relied on below for the § 103 combination must predate the critical date. Only JP 2696516, JP 11‑78692, US 5,850,254, US 5,670,935, US 5,949,331, US 5,555,677 and generic image‑processing knowledge qualify. The 2004‑onward items frequently surfaced by search (including the "Around View Monitor"‑era patents) cannot be asserted against this priority date.

3. Aspect‑by‑aspect § 103 combinations

Aspect 1 — Running‑state‑adaptive virtual viewpoint (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: image‑processing part builds a synthetic image viewed from a virtual point of view from multiple vehicle cameras, and "changes at least one selected from the position, the direction of the line of sight, and the focal length of the virtual point of view in accordance with a running state of the vehicle."

Combination A (primary): JP 2696516 (multi‑camera vehicle display switched by gear/vehicle speed) + JP 11‑78692 (camera images transformed and synthesized depending on driving state) + the admitted‑known virtual‑viewpoint/geometric‑transformation technique.

• Where each teaches: JP 2696516 supplies the "running state" trigger and the multi‑camera monitoring context; JP 11‑78692 supplies transformation and synthesis of camera images as a function of driving state (i.e., not merely selecting which camera to show, but transforming/synthesizing imagery); the spec's own admission supplies the virtual‑viewpoint (bird's‑eye) rendering from camera images as a known CG technique.
• Motivation / KSR rationale (C)+(D)+(F): Both references sit in the same field (vehicle safety monitoring) and address the same problem — presenting to the driver the most useful view for the current maneuver. A PHOSITA seeking a continuous, more comprehensive aid would naturally apply the known virtual‑viewpoint transformation to the known state‑responsive display, because (i) it is a use of a known technique (viewpoint transformation) to improve a similar device (state‑adaptive monitor) in the same way, and (ii) market/regulatory pressure to improve low‑speed/parking safety supplied a design incentive. Result is predictable: the viewpoint parameters are the only variables; changing them changes the field of view, as the patent itself states ("An appropriate synthetic image can be generated by selecting the position, the direction and the focal length… depending on the situation").
• Secondary dependent features:
  • Speed‑based change: JP 2696516 alone already ties screen behavior to car speed — combining with the virtual viewpoint makes the speed‑based limitation near‑dispositive of obviousness.
  • Steering‑angle change: JP 11‑78692 expressly addresses turning/parking maneuvers; vehicle steering angle is the canonical running‑state signal, and contemporaneous wheel‑view/steering‑responsive display art made angle‑based view steering routine (e.g., the later US 8,694,195 confirms this was a conventional, expected design choice — usable only as corroboration of what was obvious, not as prior art).
  • Object‑detector‑sensor change: obstacle‑sensor‑responsive display was known (cf. the radar/monitor switching art in EP 2 100 774's background, e.g., its claims 6–9/14 referencing an object detector such as a radar). Substituting the detector signal for the speed signal as the trigger is a simple substitution (rationale B) of one known control input for another with predictable effect.

Aspect 2 — Controlling capture of imagery outside the view range (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: controlling capture of an image outside the view range of the virtual viewpoint in accordance with running state (spec says this is done "by changing a model for image synthesis").

• Combination B: JP 11‑78692 (synthesis changes with driving state) + the conceded‑known multi‑model projective synthesis (road‑surface plane model and quasi‑cylindrical/cylindrical model, both described in the spec's own "Geometric transformation" sections).
• Motivation (KSR A/C): Using different surface models to capture a wider field than a flat road plane permits is a known technique (panoramic projection onto a cylinder is elementary). The patent itself states the two models are used "in combination" (FIG. 18) and that the quasi‑cylindrical model lets "a far place be seen easily." Extending a state‑adaptive monitor to switch models is applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement → predictable.

Aspects 3 & 5 & 7 — Monitoring‑system versions

These are the system counterparts (cameras + image‑processing part + display). They rise or fall with Aspects 1/4/6; the added hardware (multiple cameras, processor, display) is admitted known by JP 2696516 ("three cameras installed on the right side, the left side and in a lower portion") and by the generic prior vehicle‑vision systems (US 5,670,935 / US 5,949,331 / US 5,555,677). No independent inventive weight.

Aspect 4 — First image + second image composite (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: synthetic image includes a first image from a virtual viewpoint and a second image differing in viewpoint parameters or in the model (spec: close "downward" bird's‑eye + surrounding distant/panoramic views; or narrow view + enlarged sub‑region; distant view "having continuity with the close view image").

• Combination C: JP 2696516 (multi‑camera images arranged in divided screen sections, i.e., two or more different views composed on one screen) + JP 11‑78692 (transformed/synthesized scene views) + the admitted‑known road‑plane and cylindrical models (spec states a road plane model for near and a cylindrical/panorama model for far — FIG. 18; and FIG. 31 combines narrow and wide downward views).
• Motivation (KSR A/B/F): Placing a near bird's‑eye view beside a far/panorama view is the predictable juxtaposition of two known displays (the divided monitor of JP 2696516 plus model‑based panoramas). The patent's own text justifies it — the driver can "recognize precisely the circumstances surrounding the vehicle without switching the screen display." The "enlarged sub‑region" variant (FIG. 31) is a simple substitution of a zoomed crop for a second camera view — predictably useful, no new mechanism.
• Note on "left‑right reversal" of door‑mirror camera images (FIG. 30): mirror‑image display is conventional and would not confer patentability.

Aspect 6 — Vehicle region + attention‑drawing region (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: display at least a part of the vehicle region and an attention‑drawing region (e.g., blind‑spot ring not shot by any camera); optionally an illustration/actual image of the vehicle on the vehicle region; range determined from mask/region data showing the vehicle's projection in each camera image.

• Combination D: JP 2696516/JP 11‑78692 (composite vehicle‑surround display) + the well‑known practice of superimposing a vehicle icon/illustration at the vehicle's own location on a bird's‑eye/map view (standard in navigation and parking aids) + US 5,850,254 for the concept of storing a reference image/template of vehicle‑fixed features and comparing/using it to decide pixel handling.
• Where the pieces fit:
  • The "blind‑spot region not shot by any camera" is a logical necessity of any finite camera layout — the spec admits "a region… not covered by the cameras, or a blind spot that is hidden by the vehicle." Rendering such unshown pixels as a distinguishable color/region is an obvious ergonomic step (KSR F: safety design incentive).
  • Mask data for the vehicle's projection is the natural implementation of the vehicle‑special‑handling the art already required (removing the vehicle's own occluding image, FIG. 38(a)→(b)). US 5,850,254 demonstrates that stored, vehicle‑fixed reference data used pixel‑wise was known; using a stored projection mask to identify vehicle/blind‑spot pixels is a known technique applied in the same way (KSR C).
• Motivation: Improving driver comprehension of the vehicle's position relative to surroundings is the express purpose of the field; highlighting unknown/blind areas is an evident safety‑motivated design choice with predictable result.

Aspect 8 — Mapping table with non‑camera pixel identifiers (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: mapping table with first mapping data (synthetic pixel ↔ camera pixel) and second mapping data containing an identifier indicating a pixel corresponds to pixel data other than the camera images (e.g., vehicle illustration or blind‑spot fill); optionally the second mapping data stores coordinates into a stored image, or the pixel values themselves.

• Combination E: The admitted‑known mapping‑table/lookup‑based geometric warping (spec: "a 'mapping table' refers to a table that describes the correspondence relationship between pixels for a synthetic image and pixel data of each camera image," usable for arbitrary region enlargement/alignment) + US 5,850,254 (stored, vehicle‑specific reference image used in pixel processing) + elementary code‑as‑sentinel programming practice (using a reserved value, here "−1" for blind spot and "99" for illustration, to signal "not a camera").
• Motivation (KSR A/B): Once warping is done with a precomputed table (admitted known), a PHOSITA who must also fill vehicle/blind regions into that same image would predictably extend the table with a reserved code rather than maintain a separate mechanism. Reserving an out‑of‑range value to mean "non‑image/special" is a routine programming convention, and storing either source coordinates or raw RGB in the record is a mere design choice with no unexpected result (spec even describes the alternative of storing "the pixel data itself… in the form of the values of red (R), green (G) and blue (B)").

Aspect 9 — Weighted multi‑source mapping data ("rate of necessity") (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: mapping data correlates a synthetic pixel to multiple pixel‑data sources (camera and/or non‑camera) and specifies a "rate of necessity" for each; the processor weights each source accordingly to compute the pixel.

• Combination F: Statutory‑level prior art of weighted/alpha blending and feathered image mosaicing (blending overlapping pixels by a per‑pixel coefficient — elementary since the 1980s) + the admitted‑known mapping‑table warping + JP 2696516/JP 11‑78692 (multi‑camera composite display).
• Motivation (KSR A/B/E): Where multiple camera images overlap (unavoidable in a surround montage) or where an overlay is desired, weighted averaging is the standard, predictable way to avoid seams and to render an illustration semi‑transparently — exactly the results the spec claims ("a synthetic image obtained by displaying a semi‑transparent illustration image on an actual image can be generated by weighting the camera image and the illustration image"). The spec's formula ("camera 2 ×0.3 + camera 3 ×0.5)/(0.3+0.5)") is textbook normalized weighted blending. The claimed subject matter is thus the application of a known compositing technique to a known multi‑camera synthesis — obvious, with a predictable result.

Aspect 10 — Cut‑out from an original mapping table (independent apparatus claim)

Claim scope: image‑processing part stores one original (large) mapping table, cuts out a sub‑region as the mapping table, and synthesizes using the cut‑out table (spec: parallel displacement by changing offset; enlargement/contraction by changing read‑out step).

• Combination G: The admitted‑known precomputed mapping/warp table + the elementary data‑processing technique of reading a variable‑offset sub‑window from a larger lookup table / framebuffer (standard in image panning, scrolling, texture/LUT addressing, and region‑of‑interest handling).
• Motivation (KSR C/F): The patent itself states the motivation: "This example makes it possible to generate a synthetic image when the virtual point of view is displaced in parallel… without increasing the number of the mapping tables," and "the memory… only has to have a capacity for storing one original mapping table." That is a classic memory‑economy/efficiency incentive — a design need that predictably leads to storing one big table and addressing sub‑regions with offsets/steps. No new mechanism, no unexpected result.

4. Consolidated combination chart

5. Why a PHOSITA would combine (common threads)

1. Same field, same problem. Every reference addresses the same problem the patent states — giving a vehicle driver a more comprehensible, safer view of the surroundings ("It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved image processing apparatus or… monitoring system in the convenience of users such as drivers").
2. Known combination elements with only predictable parameter/variable changes. The claims change numerical parameters of the virtual viewpoint (position, azimuth/elevation/twist, focal length), the source weights, or the table sub‑region — the specification concedes these are freely selectable ("the correspondence relationship… can be set freely depending on the purpose").
3. Applicant's admissions reduce the field to what was known. The spec concedes: (a) virtual‑viewpoint rendering from camera images is standard CG; (b) the mapping table is a precomputed correspondence usable for arbitrary enlargement/alignment; (c) road‑plane and cylindrical geometric models and their combination are known. Under In re Nomiya and ABB v. Toyota, these admissions are usable as prior art.
4. Strong design incentives. Driver safety/parking aids are a crowded, market‑ and regulation‑driven space — the KSR "design incentive/market forces" rationale applies directly.

6. Anticipated rebuttal / secondary considerations

• No evidence of unexpected results. The spec's benefits (memory savings from a single original table; seam‑free blending; comprehensive coverage) are expected consequences of the chosen techniques, not unpredictable ones.
• No teaching away found. Nothing in the retrieved art disparages combining virtual‑viewpoint synthesis with state‑adaptive control or with cut‑out tables.
• Possible nexus arguments could be made for commercial success of Panasonic's implementation, but the record I retrieved contains no evidence of a nexus to any specific claim-limited feature, and commercial success alone would not overcome the strong TSM/§ 103 case.
• Priority/earlier‑invention risk: Because the priority is JP 1999‑04‑16, a PHOSITA could try to antedate references that fall in the window 1998‑04‑16 → 1999‑04‑16 under § 1.131. US 5,850,254 (1998‑12‑15) and US 5,670,935 / US 5,949,331 sit in or near that window and would warrant a § 1.131/foreign‑priority verification before being relied on as § 102(b) art. JP 2696516 and JP 11‑78692 are cited by the applicant itself as background, so they are safe.

7. Explicit uncertainties and verification gaps

1. Claim numbers are unverified. The source page paraphrases claims by aspect; my aspect‑level mapping is a reconstruction. A definitive opinion must be run against the actual issued claims (and any certificates of correction).
2. Reference substance is second‑hand for the two JP references. JP 2696516 and JP 11‑78692 are characterized in the patent's own [Background Art]; I did not retrieve their full texts. The combinations above rest on that characterization (which, as an applicant admission, is citable against the patent).
3. US 5,850,254 is not a multi‑camera stitching reference. Search results confirm it is Takano et al., Hitachi, "Imaging system for a vehicle which compares a reference image… to subsequent images" — a camera‑calibration/environment‑recognition patent. I use it only for the narrow point that vehicle‑fixed stored reference image data, compared pixel‑wise, was known. I could not retrieve its full claim set.
4. Prosecution history not retrieved. I have not seen the examiner's cited art or any § 103 rejections from the file wrapper; such art could add or displace references.
5. Post‑1999 patents surfaced in search (US 8,294,644; US 9,762,880; US 8,446,268; EP 2 100 774; JP 2004‑229054; JP 2006‑252269; JP 2010‑215000/231276; WO 2009/144994) are not available as prior art given the 1999 priority and are cited only as corroboration of what the art later regarded as conventional.
6. No litigation/PTAB record tying a claim‑construction or validity ruling to this patent was found in the prior sections; that gap remains relevant to any invalidity opinion.

Bottom line

On the record assembled, each independent aspect of US 7,161,616 is vulnerable to a § 103 challenge. The two references the applicant itself cited (JP 2696516 and JP 11‑78692) already disclose the core inventive concept of multi‑camera vehicle imagery that is transformed/synthesized responsively to the vehicle's running state, and the specification concedes that virtual‑viewpoint rendering, mapping‑table warping, and the road‑plane/cylindrical models are known. Combining those with routine image‑processing techniques (weighted blending, sub‑window table addressing, sentinel codes, vehicle‑icon/mask overlays) yields every remaining limitation — position/line‑of‑sight/focal‑length adaptation (Aspects 1–3), model‑switching (Aspect 2), multi‑view composition (Aspects 4–5), vehicle/blind‑region highlighting (Aspects 6–7), non‑camera mapping identifiers (Aspect 8), "rate of necessity" weighting (Aspect 9), and original‑table cut‑out (Aspect 10) — with predictable results and strong KSR motivations.

A definitive invalidity opinion should (a) obtain the actual printed claim set and file wrapper, and (b) obtain the full texts of JP 2696516 and JP 11‑78692 to confirm the characterizations the applicant supplied.