US 7480088

I'll search for information on US patent 7480088, including any litigation history.

Let me verify the litigation status and assignee details more specifically.

Let me do a final check for any litigation or CAFC activity involving this patent.

US Patent 7,480,088 — Analyst Summary

Important identifier caution: "7480088" appears in the wild as several unrelated identifiers — e.g., a JP7480088B2 (Canon K.K., an image-processing/neural-network patent granted 2024), a Lithuanian business-register code, an Oregon survey coordinate, and an institutional holding figure. None of those are this patent. Everything below refers only to US 7,480,088 B2 (the US grant of application 11/330,178). The full patent text you supplied is treated as authoritative.

Bibliographic Data

Abstract (as issued)

A displaying method includes forming nuclear crystals of a metal on an electrode, and depositing a metal on a surface of the nuclear crystals from a solution including a metallic ion, so as to form particles having a particle diameter corresponding to a display color.

Claim Set at a Glance

10 claims total; three independent claims — 1 (method), 4 (display element), 10 (display device). Dependent claims: 2, 3 (on 1); 5–9 (on 4).

Independent Claim 1 — Displaying Method (plain language)

A two-step electrodeposition method:

1. Nucleation step: apply a first voltage between a first electrode and an opposing second electrode so metal crystal nuclei form on the first electrode out of a metal-ion solution.
2. Growth step: apply a second voltage to deposit more metal onto the surfaces of those nuclei, forming particles whose diameter corresponds to the display color (color arises via localized plasmon resonance of the metal nanoparticles).
3. Number control: the number of nuclei — and thus display density — is controlled by the duration of the first applied voltage.
4. Size control: the particle diameter — and thus the displayed color — is controlled by the duration of the second applied voltage.

Independent Claim 4 — Display Element (plain language)

A single-pixel electrodeposition cell comprising:

• a transparent front substrate bearing a transparent first electrode;
• a back substrate facing it, bearing a second electrode;
• an electrolyte containing metal ions sealed between the electrodes;
• a voltage-applying section; and
• a control section programmed to drive the voltage source to (i) apply the first voltage to nucleate, (ii) apply the second voltage to grow the metal, (iii) set the number of nuclei by the first voltage's application time, and (iv) set the particle diameter by the second voltage's application time — yielding particles sized to produce a display color on the first electrode.

Independent Claim 10 — Display Device (plain language)

An array of display elements, each element being the claim-4 structure (transparent front electrode / facing back electrode / metal-ion electrolyte / voltage-applying section / control section), with the same four-part two-pulse nucleation-and-growth control scheme (i)–(iv) applied pixel-by-pixel to produce color.

Dependent Claims

• 2 / 8: the metal is gold or silver.
• 3: the second applied voltage is smaller than the first (i.e., growth pulse at lower overpotential than the nucleation pulse).
• 5: the element includes a reference electrode used as the potential reference for the first or second electrode.
• 6: the electrolyte contains dispersed white colloidal particles that scatter light.
• 7: the element includes a white reflecting plate between the first and second electrodes.
• 9: a metal sputtered layer is disposed on the second electrode.

Key Supporting Disclosure (for context)

The specification's working examples use silver: a nucleation pulse of −1,550 mV vs. reference for 60 ms followed by a growth pulse of −700 mV for 90 s → yellow (≈10 nm average particles, absorption peak ~533 nm) and for 180 s → blue (≈40 nm, peak ~651 nm). Comparative single-pulse tests failed: the nucleation pulse alone gave black, and the growth pulse alone gave no change — supporting the claimed two-pulse requirement. The reference electrode/potentiostat (Seiko EG&G Model 1263A in the examples) and the white TiO₂ colloid are the specific implementation of claims 5 and 6.

Prior Art Cited on the Face (relevant to validity narrative)

• JP H11-101994 A (Sony, 1999-04-13) — "Electrodeposition type image display" (the color-filter approach the patent criticizes for reduced white reflectance/contrast).
• EP 1507164 A1 / US 2006/0038799 A1 (Sony, Tanaka) — "Display device drive method."
• Non-patent: G. Sandmann et al., J. Electroanal. Chem. 491, 78–86 (2000) — silver nanoparticle preparation on ITO by a double-pulse method (the direct technical forebear); Sun, Yugang et al., Analyst 128, 686–691 (2003) — gold/silver nanoparticles as chromophores tunable 400–750 nm.
• Later cited-by includes Konica Minolta US 7,760,413 / US 2009/0237769 A1 and numerous Canon/Sharp/Konica Minolta family members.

Litigation / CAFC Check (as requested)

• USPTO database: The patent is recorded as expired for non-payment of maintenance fees (effective 2017-01-20); the 4-year fee was paid 2012-06-20, and no further maintenance was paid.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no appeal, IPR appeal, or other Federal Circuit proceeding involving US 7,480,088 in the dockets I searched (courtesy docket listings for Feb 4, May 8, and June 8, 2026, plus keyword searches). Searches for district-court complaints asserting "7,480,088" returned only unrelated matters (e.g., unrelated patents numbered 7,892,088 and 6,488,088, and other parties' complaints).
• I could not verify this negatively with certainty — I did not query PACER/CAFC's docket system directly, and no litigation-history section appears on the Google Patents page for this number. Conclusion: no evidence of infringement litigation or CAFC/Federal Circuit activity for US 7,480,088; treat "no litigation found" as my best available finding rather than a certified absence.

Confidence Notes

• Bibliographic data, abstract, claim text, and status are drawn directly from the authoritative patent text you supplied — high confidence.
• Current assignee (Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp., the post-2021 rename of Fuji Xerox) is Google Patents' flagged, possibly-imprecise listing — moderate confidence; the 2006 record assignment to Fuji Xerox is certain.
• Absence of CAFC/2026 litigation is a search-based negative that should not be over-read.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7480088 across litigation-tracking sources.

Let me search more specifically on litigation-tracking sources.

Let me try a few more targeted searches to be thorough.

Based on my searches across litigation-focused sources (Unified Patents portal, PACER/court records indexed by third parties, Justia, CourtListener, and Google Patents), here is my finding:

No litigation identified for US Patent 7,480,088

I found no known patent litigation involving US Patent 7,480,088 ("Displaying method, display element and display device," assigned to Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., now Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp.).

Plaintiff(s): None identified
Defendant(s): None identified
Jurisdiction: N/A
Case number: N/A
Filing date: N/A
Outcome/current status: N/A — no case found

Supporting context for this conclusion

• No district court or CAFC records referencing US 7,480,088 appeared in any of my searches. Queries returned unrelated patents and cases (e.g., other '988 patents in PTAB petitions that concern different technologies — including one HiKE/XP8 semiconductor matter and a Uniloc '908 patent matter — neither of which involves this patent number).
• PTAB: No IPR/PGR/CBM proceedings were found asserting this patent.
• The patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees. Per the legal events: a maintenance-fee reminder was mailed 2016-09-02, lapse for failure to pay on 2017-01-20, and the patent is recorded as "Expired - Fee Related" (adjusted expiration listed as 2027-01-27). This status is consistent with (though not proof of) there having been no enforcement campaign.
• The only "citations" activity in the record is backward/forward citation relationships (e.g., JP-A-11-101994, EP 1507164 A1, and Konica Minolta's US 7,760,413/US 2009/0237769 citing it) — these are patent citations, not litigation.

Important caveats

• I was unable to also run a final confirming set of queries because I hit the tool-step limit; my conclusion rests on the searches actually completed.
• Litigation data can be incomplete in free/public sources. If you need certainty, I recommend a paid docket search (LexisNexis Docket Navigator, Westlaw Litigation Analytics, or Unified Patents' litigation portal at portal.unifiedpatents.com) and a Darts-ip/Orbit litigation lookup, plus a PACER search across all districts. Given the patent's small, expired, and niche subject matter (electrolytic-deposition color display), it is unsurprising that no enforcement suits are recorded.

If you have a lead suggesting a specific case or technology (e.g., a known accused product), let me know and I can refine the search.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against public sources before drafting.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,480,088: zero (0). Breakdown by status: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block reports no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest, and my independent checks of PTAB/public sources surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent. I did not find any Federal Circuit appeal of a PTAB decision because there is no PTAB decision to appeal. Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened-through-IPR patent — it is an unattacked patent that lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees on 2017-01-20 (Google Patents legal events: "LAPSE / LAPSE FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES," "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362," status "Expired – Fee Related"). The practical defensive posture is therefore driven far more by expiration than by any PTAB outcome.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding template does not apply. I am not going to manufacture proceeding numbers or panels to fill it; below is what the record actually supports, plus the strategic read.

What was checked (and what was not found)

Important disambiguation — do not confuse this patent with similarly numbered ones. My searches repeatedly returned other "’088" patents that do have PTAB histories, none of which is US 7,480,088:

• U.S. Patent No. 8,752,088 (Personalized Media Communications) — subject of IPR2016-00751 (Apple).
• U.S. Patent No. 9,745,088 (Medline) — subject of IPR2019-00035 / -00036 (C.R. Bard).
• U.S. Patent No. 10,013,088 (BOE-related display patent) — IPR petitioner BOE.
• U.S. Patent No. 9,503,627 and U.S. 7,842,088 — unrelated.

The specific identity checks for the patent at issue are:

• US 7,480,088 B2, "Displaying method, display element and display device," inventors Jun Kawahara, Yasuo Yamamoto, Kei Shimotani; original assignee Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. (current listed assignee Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp.); filed 2006-01-12, priority 2005-09-20, granted 2009-01-20.
• Family: US20070063964A1, JP2007086188A, EP1764645A1 (EP proceeding withdrawn).
• Citations of record during prosecution: JP-A-11-101994 (Sony) and EP 1 507 164 A1 (Sony), plus non-patent literature (Sandmann et al., J. Electroanal. Chem. 491, 78–86 (2000)).
• No reissue, no reexamination, no AIA trial located.

If you have a docket or demand letter pointing at a proceeding number for this patent, treat it with suspicion until you pull the paper from PTAB E2E — the number is very likely being mis-cited (a real and recurring error with "’088" patents).

Strategic summary

Claim status: all claims UNTESTED at the PTAB, and now expired. Claims 1–3 (method), 4–9 (display element), and 10 (display device) were never challenged in an AIA trial. There is no FWD, no certificate canceling or confirming any claim, and therefore no "surviving claims" list to give you. Independent claim 1 recites the two-step method (forming nuclear crystals; depositing metal on the nuclear crystals to a particle diameter corresponding to a display color), with first/second applied voltages and control of nucleus number via the first application time and particle diameter via the second application time (the double-pulse teaching, characterized over the Sandmann reference). That is the scope you would be analyzing if the patent were live — but see the expiration point below.

Estoppel landscape is empty — but so is the patent. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone; a defendant today would face no estoppel bar, but conversely gains no benefit from anyone else's canceled claims. The real gate is patent term: the record shows the patent expired 2017-01-20 for failure to pay maintenance fees (maintenance-fee reminder issued 2016-09-02; lapse recorded 2017-01-20/2017-02-17; "information on status: patent discontinuation" under 37 CFR 1.362). Note the trap: Google Patents also displays an "Adjusted expiration" field of 2027-01-27, which reflects a nominal 20-year-plus-adjusted term and does not override the fee-lapse events. Anyone asserting this patent past 2017-01-20 needs to explain the lapse. (If fees were later paid to reinstate, that would not appear in the data I have — verify at USPTO PatentCenter before relying on either date.)

Pattern signals. There is no petitioner, no serial filer, and no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) anywhere in the chain — the patent simply never attracted an AIA challenge in the roughly five years IPRs were available to it (IPR availability for a 2006-filed patent began 2012-09-16; the patent lapsed ~4.3 years later). That absence is a meaningful signal in the opposite direction from what it usually means: this was never a sufficiently asserted or commercially threatening patent to draw a petition. It is also consistent with the narrow, date-sensitive subject matter (a display-driving method) and the short remaining term.

Recommended next steps

1. Check liveness first, before anything else. Pull the fee history in USPTO PatentCenter / Global Dossier for US 11/330,178. If the maintenance-fee lapse stands, the patent's enforceability window closed in 2017 and there is likely no live right to assert. Compare the "Expired – Fee Related" status and the 2017 lapse events on the Google Patents record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7480088/en) against the "Adjusted expiration 2027-01-27" field, which is a nominal-term artifact, not a reinstatement.
2. If a demand letter cites a PTAB proceeding for this patent, demand the paper. There is no such proceeding on file. Ask the sender for the PTAB E2E proceeding number and the FWD; if they cannot produce it, that is a strong signal of either a citation error or assertion over an already-expired patent.
3. Confirm the assertion target is not a similarly numbered patent. U.S. 8,752,088, 9,745,088, 10,013,088, and 9,503,627 all have real PTAB histories. A defendant should verify which patent number is actually asserted; the "’088" family is a common source of confusion.
4. Because no AIA trial exists, there is no FWD to link and no pending-trial milestones to track. If you nonetheless want a validity fallback on the merits (for a hypothetical live patent), the natural IPR art would center on the prosecution record's own references — JP-A-11-101994 (Sony electrodeposition image display) and EP 1 507 164 A1 (Sony display drive method) — combined with the Sandmann double-pulse paper, and on the pre-AIA § 102/§ 103 framework applicable to this 2005-priority, 2009-granted patent. That is a strategy memo, not a filed § 311 challenge.

Bottom line: No PTAB activity exists for US 7,480,088 — the default "no proceedings on file" is correct and I found nothing contradicting it. The patent's real defensive story is not "hardened by surviving IPR" and not "claims canceled by the Board" — it is "never challenged, and expired for fee nonpayment in 2017."

(Caveat on precision: I did not find a public PTAB FWD, institution decision, or CAFC opinion for this patent because none appears to exist, so I have not attributed any claim-level holding, judge panel, or appeal docket to it. Any proceeding number you see associated with "7,480,088" should be verified against PTAB E2E before being relied on.)

I'll verify the assignment record for US 7,480,088 and check for any post-issuance transfers before drafting.

Let me confirm the specific assignment record details and check the inventors' affiliations.

Let me try to capture the correspondent of record and confirm no post-issuance transfers.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 7,480,088 B2

Patent: US 7,480,088 B2 — "Displaying method, display element and display device"
App. No.: 11/330,178 · Filed: 2006-01-12 · Priority: JP 2005-272505 (2005-09-20) · Issued: 2009-01-20
Status: Expired — failure to pay maintenance fees (lapse 2017-01-20)

Source-of-record caveat up front: The authoritative record I was able to reach is the Google Patents legal-events ledger for this patent plus corroborating coverage of the Fuji Xerox corporate name change. I was not able to open the USPTO Assignment Center record itself (http://assignment.uspto.gov / assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) within my search budget, so the reel/frame below is taken from the patent's own legal-events entry and the correspondent-of-record field is unverified — I flag this rather than guess. Everything else is grounded in the record reproduced in the patent text.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — negative. No inventor departed the assignee within 12 months of filing in any way visible in the record. All three are career Fuji Xerox researchers who appear together again on the follow-on display-medium family (e.g., US 7,852,314, filed 2006-11-20 — i.e., after this application), which is the opposite of a pre-fire-sale talent exodus. Shimotani in particular continued filing Fuji Xerox applications through at least 2012 (US 9,153,244). This is a classic employed-inventor, work-for-hire pattern, not a distressed one.

Original assignee

Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. (Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan) — named on the issued patent as assignee and the sole assignee in the recorded assignment.

• Line of business: Joint venture formed 1962 between Fujifilm Holdings and Xerox Corp.; document-management, copier, printer and imaging-hardware business. It grew into a ~US$10B enterprise and was a genuine operating company — not a holding vehicle.
• Product embodying the claims: Fuji Xerox was an active developer of electrolytic-deposition / electrochromic "electronic paper" (the patent's own working electrode/counter electrode/reference electrode architecture is a lab-scale demonstrator, not a shipped SKU). I found no evidence of a commercial product built on this specific patent. Its follow-on display-medium filings (US 7,852,314 and the Konica Minolta citations to this patent) suggest the technology was researched and licensed/ceded at the component level rather than productized under this number.
• Current status: Operating, but under a new legal name. Xerox sold its 25% minority stake in November 2019, making Fuji Xerox a wholly owned Fujifilm Holdings subsidiary. Effective 2021-04-01 the company renamed itself FUJIFILM Business Innovation Corp. Google Patents therefore shows "Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp" as current assignee — but that reflects the name change mapping, not a separate recorded asset transfer. Fuji Xerox did not go bankrupt and the patent was not sold in any proceedings.

Assignment timeline

The chain is short: one recorded assignment, executed pre-issuance, from the three inventors to their employer.

• 2006-01-11 (executed) / recorded 2006-02-23 — Reel 017284 / 0622
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Kawahara, Jun; Yamamoto, Yasuo; Shimotani, Kei (jointly)
  • Assignee: FUJI XEROX CO., LTD., Japan
  • Correspondent: Not captured in the sources I could reach. The legal-events entry for reel 017284/0622 does not reproduce the correspondent field, and I did not have a tool step left to pull the Assignment Center page directly. I will not fabricate a name here. (For verification, search patent number 7480088 at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — the correspondent appears on the reel-017284/0622 record.)
  • Context: Ordinary employment/work-for-hire assignment executed one day before the 2006-01-12 US filing, capturing the JP 2005-272505 priority. Filing-firm boilerplate; routine.
  • Correspondent-recurrence flag: Cannot be assessed — the field was not retrievable. No inference drawn.

Everything after that is maintenance-fee administration, not ownership:

Post-issuance assignment count: ZERO. There is no recorded transfer to any Acacia/Marathon/IV-style entity, no security agreement, no merger, and no change-of-name recording for the Fuji Xerox → Fujifilm Business Innovation rename. Per the task instruction, that absence is itself the finding: the original assignee (today, FUJIFILM Business Innovation Corp.) still owns the patent, and it died in the hands of the operating company that filed it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7480088
    2005 : JP priority filed
    2006 : Inventors assign to Fuji Xerox
         : US application filed
    2009 : Patent issued
    2012 : Maintenance fee paid
    2017 : Lapsed for unpaid fee
    2021 : Fuji Xerox renamed Fujifilm Business Innovation

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — effectively "Insufficient data / non-asserting operating-company ownership"

Justification: the entire ownership record consists of one employment assignment — executed 2006-01-11, recorded 2006-02-23, reel 017284/0622, from Kawahara/Yamamoto/Shimotani to Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. — and nothing else. There are no post-issuance assignments, the patent lapsed 2017-01-20 for unpaid maintenance fees (REMI 2016-09-02 → LAPS 2017-01-20), and the "Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp" current-assignee label is a 2021-04-01 corporate rename of the original owner, not a recorded conveyance. Zero of the eight NPE signals are present, so the NPE verdicts are unavailable; the task's rubric maps a no-record/original-assignment-only case to "Insufficient data," which is the honest call — though the affirmative finding here is that this is a non-asserting operating-company patent that died in its owner's hands.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html → search 7480088 (expect a single hit: reel 017284/0622, Fuji Xerox). Cross-check the expired status at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7480088B2](/patent/US7480088B2)/en under "Legal Events."

Residual uncertainty (stated, not hidden): (a) the correspondent of record on reel 017284/0622 was not retrievable — please read it off the Assignment Center page directly before relying on signal #3; (b) I could not run a final confirming pass against the Assignment Center UI, so a silent post-lapse record (e.g., a stray correction) cannot be 100% excluded — though no such event appears in the legal-events ledger.

I'll research each cited reference to provide full citations, dates, and anticipation analysis. Let me start with a batch of searches.

I found strong detail on the Sandmann reference. Now let me verify the remaining citations' dates and content.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,480,088 B2 ("Displaying method, display element and display device")

A. Scope and method note

• USPTO lookup: The number maps to US 7,480,088 B2, application 11/330,178, filed 2006-01-12, priority JP 2005-272505 (2005-09-20), granted 2009-01-20, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. I used the authoritative full text + front-page citation lists you supplied (which mirror the USPTO/Google Patents record). No results for other "…088" numbers (e.g., JP 7480088 B2, US 7,892,088, US 6,488,088) are included — those are unrelated.
• Statutory framework: Because this application was filed before 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 govern. The critical dates are the priority date 2005-09-20 (proxy for invention date for §102(a)) and the §102(b) one-year bar date of 2005-01-12 (one year before the 2006-01-12 filing).
• Anticipation standard: §102 requires a single reference to disclose every limitation, arranged as claimed. Where a reference discloses most but not all elements, I say so and note the likely §103 combination instead.
• Process caveat: I hit the tool-step limit before completing confirmatory searches on three low-priority family citations (JP 3446839 B2, JP 4433669 B2, JP 4587447 B2). Those three are flagged lower confidence below. Everything else is grounded in the fetched authority.

B. Master table of all citations in/around US 7,480,088

Not prior art, listed for completeness: EP 1764645 A1 and JP 2007-086188 A are the patent's own foreign family members (same priority), and US 2009/0237769 / US 7,760,413 are post-dating forward citations.

C. Per-reference analysis

1. JP H11-101994 A — Sony, "Electrodeposition type image display" / "Picture display device of electrodeposition type"

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application JP H11-101994 A (Sony Corp.). Priority 1997-09-29; published 1999-04-13.
  Google Patents record: https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH11101994A/en
• Description: An electrodeposition-type image display in which color is produced using a color filter. It is the very reference the '088 specification criticizes: "according to the technique described in JP-A-11-101994 … the use of a color filter lowers the reflectance in white color to lower the contrast." It discloses the general electrodeposition display architecture (electrodes + metal-ion electrolyte + driving arrangement) but achieves color by filtering white light, not by sizing metal nanoparticles.
• §102 mapping: No full anticipation of any claim. It does not disclose (i) forming nuclear crystals and growing them on the nuclei, (ii) the two-pulse sequence, or (iii) particle diameter → display color via localized plasmon resonance (claims 1, 4, 10's final limitation). Its structure may overlap the preamble of claims 4/10 (transparent electrode / counter electrode / electrolyte), but a preamble alone is not anticipation of the whole claim.
• Best role: §102(b) art; §103 background showing that filtered-white color in electrodeposition displays was known.

2. EP 1507164 A1 — Sony Corp., "Display device drive method"

• Full citation: EP 1507164 A1 (Sony Corporation). Priority 2002-05-20; published 2005-02-16. Family/priority corresponds to US 2006/0038799 A1 → US 7,483,014 B2.
• Description: A method of driving a metal-deposition (electrodeposition) display that is a matrix. It teaches use of the deposition threshold voltage Vth: when a voltage ≥ Vth is impressed, "deposition of the metal starts, and nuclei of crystals are formed"; a data-sustaining pulse is then impressed "immediately after the address pulse," and "the deposition of the metal proceeds."
• §102 mapping: This is the most structurally dangerous reference for the two-step concept and for the device claims.
  • Claims 4 and 10 (display element / display device): EP 1507164 discloses the claimed apparatus genus — transparent first electrode, facing second electrode, metal-ion electrolyte, voltage-applying section, and a control section that (i) applies a first pulse to nucleate and (ii) applies a second pulse to grow the metal. The strongest non-anticipated limitations are the specific control scheme: (iii) number of nuclei set by the first pulse's application time and (iv) particle diameter set by the second pulse's application time, plus the "particle diameter corresponding to a display color" limitation. EP 1507164 instead controls total deposited amount (gradation), not particle diameter for color.
  • Claim 1: Discloses forming nuclei and growing them, but not the time→number / time→diameter color control; not a clean §102 hit — better as §103 art (see NPL #4–5).
• Prosecution signal: In the EP equivalent (EP 1764645 A1) the European search report tagged EP 1507164 A1 as "[XY]" — i.e., EPO regarded it as relevant to novelty-if-taken-alone (X) and to inventive step (Y). That is meaningful evidence that a major patent office considered it anticipatory against at least the broader claims.

3. US 2006/0038799 A1 — Tanaka, Masanobu (Sony), "Display device drive method" (pre-grant pub. of US 7,483,014 B2)

• Full citation: US 2006/0038799 A1 (Masanobu Tanaka; Sony Corp.). Published 2006-02-23; US national stage of PCT/JP03/06154, filed 2003-05-16 (priority EP 2002-05-20). Issued as US 7,483,014 B2.
  Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060038799A1/en
• Description: Same disclosure family as EP 1507164. It expressly recites the mechanism: "deposition of the metal starts, and nuclei of crystals are formed. When a data sustaining pulse voltage Vsus is impressed subsequently to this, the deposition of the metal proceeds…" It also discusses that once Vth is exceeded, "even a voltage below the threshold voltage" continues deposition — i.e., a nucleation-then-growth paradigm.
• §102 date basis: Although its publication (2006-02-23) post-dates the '088 priority (2005-09-20), it is available as §102(e) prior art "by another, filed in the United States" as of its 2003-05-16 PCT filing, which predates the invention. The examiner apparently applied it under that footing (it is a front-page citation).
• §102 mapping: Same as EP 1507164 — powerful for the two-pulse deposition concept and the device architecture (claims 4/10), weaker on the "number-of-nuclei-by-first-pulse-duration" and "diameter-by-second-pulse-duration → display color" limitations of claims 1/4/10.

4. Sandmann, G., Dietz, H., Plieth, W., "Preparation of silver nanoparticles on ITO surfaces by a double-pulse method," J. Electroanal. Chem. 491(1–2):78–86 (2000) ← single most relevant reference for claim 1

• Full citation: Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, vol. 491, nos. 1–2, pp. 78–86, published September 2000 (Elsevier). DOI 10.1016/S0022-0728(00)00301-6. Examiner-cited NPL.
• Description (verified): A potentiostatic double-pulse method for depositing silver clusters on ITO electrodes from a cyanide-containing silver electrolyte. The abstract states: "The influence of pulse parameters of a potentiostatic double-pulse on the size distribution of silver clusters was investigated… on indium-tin oxide electrodes." The paper explicitly uses a nucleation pulse (E₁, t₁) followed by a growth pulse (E₂, t₂) with |E₂| ≪ |E₁| and t₂ ≫ t₁, and reports size control as a function of pulse durations.
• Critical correspondence: The experimental parameters of Sandmann — E₁ = 1550 mV, E₂ = −700 mV, growth durations t₂ = 90 s and 180 s — are numerically identical to the parameters in '088's Working Examples 1 and 2 (nucleation −1,550 mV/60 ms; growth −700 mV for 90 s → 10 nm/yellow; 180 s → 40 nm/blue). In other words, the patent's own examples reproduce Sandmann's setup.
• §102 mapping:
  • Claim 1: Sandmann discloses forming nuclear crystals on an electrode (pulse 1), depositing metal onto the surfaces of those nuclei from a metal-ion solution (pulse 2), and — because both pulse durations t₁ and t₂ control cluster size/number — the "control the number by t₁" and "control the particle diameter by t₂" limitations. It therefore reads on every mechanical/process step of claim 1 except the phrase "so as to form particles having a particle diameter corresponding to a display color." Sandmann's purpose is nanoparticle synthesis, not display.
  • Claim 2 (metal is gold or silver): silver is disclosed.
  • Claim 3 (second voltage smaller than first): expressly disclosed (|E₂| ≪ |E₁|).
  • Claims 4/10: Does not disclose the display element/device structure (transparent front substrate, sealed electrolyte, control section for a display color). Not anticipatory as a whole.
  • Bottom line: Sandmann is the strongest §102 reference against claim 1 if the "display color" clause is treated as a non-limiting statement of intended use; otherwise it is the anchor of a §103 attack on claims 1–3 in view of Sun et al. (below). It also independently anticipates claims 2 and 3.

5. Sun, Yugang et al., "Gold and Silver Nanoparticles: A Class of Chromophores With Colors Tunable in the Range From 400 to 750 nm," Analyst 128:686–691 (2003)

• Full citation: The Analyst, vol. 128, pp. 686–691, published 2003-04-04 (RSC). Examiner-cited NPL.
• Description: Establishes that gold and silver nanoparticles act as chromophores whose color is tuned by particle size across the visible range (≈400–750 nm) — i.e., the physical basis for the '088 claim language "particle diameter corresponding to a display color" (localized plasmon resonance).
• §102 mapping: Not anticipatory alone (it is not a display and discloses no electrode/electrolyte/pulse scheme). It supplies exactly the missing element of Sandmann/EP 1507164, making it a classic §103 combination ("size-tunable Ag/Au chromophores" + "double-pulse Ag deposition on ITO" → "electrodeposition display where color is set by nanoparticle diameter").

6–8. Family citations (cited in the '088 JP/EP family; lower confidence — not re-verified)

Confidence on #6–8 is moderate/low: they appear as family citations but I could not complete independent content verification before the step limit; treat the §102 conclusions for these three as provisional.

9. US 2009/0237769 A1 / US 7,760,413 B2 — Konica Minolta

• Not prior art. Priority 2006-06-02, i.e., after '088's 2005-09-20 priority and after its 2006-01-12 filing. Listed only as a forward (citing) reference; usable for state-of-the-art context, not §102/§103.

D. Synthesis — strongest §102 pairings

Single most-likely anticipatory reference: Sandmann et al. (2000) for claim 1 (and claims 2–3), subject to the "display color" caveat. The EPO already classified EP 1507164 A1 as "X/Y" against the family, confirming that reference's novelty-level significance.

E. Caveats and limits

1. USPTO source: Front-page citation sets were taken from the authoritative full text; I did not independently pull the US PatentCenter "References Cited" image page. The three examiner-cited patents/pubs (JP H11-101994, EP 1507164 A1, US 2006/0038799 A1) and two NPL items (Sandmann; Sun) are as listed on the face.
2. Incomplete verification: I ran out of search steps before confirming the full text of JP 3446839 B2, JP 4433669 B2, JP 4587447 B2 and the exact EP 1507164 A1 publication date (I have 2005-02-16 from the family/priority record). Treat the §102 conclusions for refs #6–8 and the EP date as provisional.
3. Anticipation vs. obviousness: Only Sandmann presents a plausible single-reference §102 attack (on claim 1, if the "display color" clause is not limiting). Every other mapping is properly a §103 combination and should be pleaded as such.
4. AIA/pre-AIA note: All analysis assumes pre-AIA §§102/103 (correct for this pre-2013 filing). If validity were assessed in an ex parte reexamination today, the same pre-AIA framework applies to the original claims.

If you want, I can next (a) pull the full EPO search-report categorization for EP 1764645 A1 to see exactly which claims each X/Y reference was mapped to, or (b) retrieve the complete text of the three unverified family citations.

I'll ground the prior-art references before building the §103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,480,088 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Pre-AIA analysis (application filed 2006-01-12; priority 2005-09-20). Framework: Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The patent is expired (fee-related, eff. 2017-01-20), so this is a retrospective/paper validity assessment — not an IPR posture.

1. The references relied on, and their § 102 status

Critical caveat on the US publication: US 2006/0038799 A1 published 2006-02-23 — after both this patent's priority (2005-09-20) and its filing (2006-01-12). A petitioner relying on it must use § 102(e) and prove entitlement to the 2002-05-20 priority. EP 1507164 A1 (published 2005-02-16) is the cleaner reference for the identical disclosure and should be the citation of record.

Applicant admissions (MPEP 2129): The specification itself concedes (a) Sandmann = "the applied voltage is controlled to control the particle diameter of silver particles in nanometer order," and (b) "it has [been] known that nanoparticles of gold or silver exhibit different colors depending on difference in particle diameter." These are admissions that two of the three key limitations were known art.

2. Claim construction points that matter for § 103

• "particle diameter corresponding to a display color" — the spec ties this to localized plasmon resonance of the Ag particles (533 nm → yellow at ~10 nm; 651 nm → blue at ~40 nm, Examples 1–2). This is precisely the phenomenon Sun & Xia document across the visible band.
• "nuclear crystals" / two-step deposition — the spec's FIGS. 3A–3B and the double-pulse program (E1 = −1,550 mV/60 ms; E2 = −700 mV/90–180 s) are function-for-function the potentiostatic double-pulse of Sandmann.
• Claim 3 tension: claim 3 recites "the second applied voltage is smaller than the first." The spec's own values are E1 = −1,550 mV and E2 = −700 mV, i.e. E1 is algebraically smaller. The claim is only satisfiable on a magnitude/overpotential reading. Flagged as a § 112 wrinkle; it does not change the prior-art mapping, which teaches a higher-magnitude nucleation pulse followed by a lower-magnitude growth pulse.

3. Ground A — Claim 1 obvious over EP 1507164 + Sandmann + Sun & Xia (optionally + JP H11-101994)

Why the combination is motivated (KSR rationales):

1. Same field, same problem, same elements. Each reference concerns electrodeposited metal on a transparent electrode in a display cell (ITO is used in both Sandmann and the display art). The combination is a textbook "arranged prior art elements according to known methods … yield[ing] predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.
2. One reference explicitly supplies the gap the other leaves. Sandmann gives size control by double pulse but no display rationale; EP 1507164 gives nucleation-then-growth in a display but no color rationale; Sun & Xia supplies the size→color mapping. That is not "hindsight" — the applicant itself admitted the "different colors depending on particle diameter" known relationship in its own Background.
3. Design incentive created by the primary display reference itself. The artisan knew the color-filter route (JP H11-101994) cost white reflectance. The patent says so at col. 1. The recognized deficiency of the filter approach supplies the motivation to seek a filterless color mechanism — the metal particles themselves.
4. Known technique, similar device. Applying Sandmann's double-pulse to the metal-deposition display electrode is "the use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way." KSR, 550 U.S. at 417; MPEP § 2143.
5. Finite, predictable set of solutions / obvious to try. The only free variables are pulse amplitude and duration, and Sandmann established they map monotonically to cluster size on ITO; optimizing them to hit a target plasmon wavelength is routine optimization of known parameters.

Expected success: high. Sandmann's technique produces isolated Ag clusters directly on the ITO electrode — the same surface that functions as the display pixel electrode. Surface plasmon resonance is a property of the metal particle's size/composition/environment, not of how the particle was made, so the colloidal-chemistry color-size relation (Sun & Xia) was reasonably expected to carry over.

4. Ground B — Claim 1 obvious over Sandmann + JP H11-101994 + Sun & Xia

This alternative primary-reference framing avoids the § 102(e) complication of US 2006/0038799:

• Sandmann teaches every physical step of claim 1 (double-pulse, electrodes, solution with metal ion, size control by pulse parameters, ITO electrode used in displays), missing only the display color intent;
• JP H11-101994 teaches the electrolytic-deposition display that colors an image (via a filter) and thus supplies the field and the objective; and
• Sun & Xia teaches the size→color relationship needed to substitute plasmonic particle color for the filter.
• JP 2004-170850 independently reinforces the "two-step, lower-second-pulse" and "control deposition time" limitations, and the same patentee (Sony/Tanaka) lineage shows the concept was in the air well before the 2005 priority.

5. Independent claims 4 and 10 (display element / array)

Claims 4 and 10 are the apparatus counterparts of claim 1 and add nothing beyond (i) a transparent front substrate with transparent first electrode, (ii) a facing back electrode, (iii) metal-ion electrolyte sealed between them, (iv) a voltage-applying section, and (v) a controlling section programmed to perform the four-part two-pulse scheme (i)–(iv).

• (i)–(iv) are disclosed in EP 1507164 (transparent substrate 1 / ITO column electrodes; facing row electrodes; polymer electrolyte layer; driving circuit; control of address and sustaining pulses). WO 2003/102684 is to the same effect.
• (v), the four-step control program, is the same subject matter analyzed for claim 1 — obvious over Sandmann's pulse-parameter control plus JP 2004-170850's voltage-application-time control (and JP 2004-170850 claim 8's emphasis-pulse-then-write-pulse).

Motivation is identical (same field; known elements performing established functions; predictable result), and the array/matrix limitation of claim 10 is expressly conventional — EP 1507164 and WO 2003/102684 both drive metal-deposition displays in passive/active matrix form.

6. Dependent claims — claim-by-claim

7. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and responses

Objective indicia (§ 103 secondary considerations): I found none in the record — no evidence of long-felt need, failure of others, licensing, praise, or commercial success. The patent is a small, niche electrodeposition-display filing that lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2017-01-20 (noted in your prior sections), which — cautiously — cuts against any commercial-success narrative. This is weak evidence at best and should not be pressed as a dispositive factor.

8. Evidentiary caveats and what I did not verify

• EPO search report signal (interpret with care). An EPO/PISE record for the family member EP 1764645 A1 (which is withdrawn) appears to tag EP 1507164 A1 as "[XY]" and JP H11-101994 as "[DY]", with Sandmann as a D-document (EPO PISE PDF). If that notation is a search-report category, it indicates the EPO considered EP 1507164 the most relevant document, alone and in combination — corroborating Ground A. I have not obtained the full search report text, so treat this as a lead, not proof.
• I read abstracts, claim excerpts and English translations, not the full specifications, of EP 1507164 A1, JP 2004-170850 A and WO 2003/102684 A1. Whether EP 1507164 expressly ties the number of nuclei to the duration of the address pulse is the one limitation I cannot confirm from the sources retrieved; if it does not, that element rests on Sandmann plus common potentiostatic-nucleation knowledge. If it does, claim 1 edges toward § 102 anticipation — a question outside this § 103 brief.
• JP 2004-170850 A and WO 2003/102684 A1 are not on the face of US 7,480,088; they surfaced through the Sony/Tanaka family. Cite them as art that was available, not as record art.
• My earlier sections found no litigation/enforcement. Given expiration, an IPR/PGR challenge would be largely academic; the practical value of this analysis is as a validity opinion and as a template for analyzing later electrodeposition-display patents (Canon, Konica Minolta, Sharp) that cite this one.

9. Bottom line

The claimed invention is the predictable application of a known electrodeposition technique (Sandmann's potentiostatic double pulse) to a known device (the Sony electrodeposition display of JP H11-101994 / EP 1507164), using a known physical relationship (Sun & Xia's size-dependent plasmonic color of Ag/Au nanoparticles that the applicant itself admitted as known). That is the paradigm case for § 103.