US 7537370

US Patent 7,537,370 — Verification Summary

Search scope: Google Patents/PatentsView full text (US7537370B2), Unified Patents PTAB/litigation portal, Darts-IP family data, and open-web queries for Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 dockets. The patent record itself was retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7537370](/patent/US7537370)/en (fetched 2026-09-08).

Bibliographic data (as recorded on the face of the record)

Continuity (literal, from the specification): This application is a division of Ser. No. 10/784,527, filed Feb. 23, 2004 (issued as US 7,160,015), which is a division of Ser. No. 09/256,275, filed Feb. 23, 1999 (US 6,712,481), which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 08/778,089, filed Jan. 2, 1997 (US 6,079,838), which is a division of Ser. No. 08/495,176, filed Jun. 27, 1995 (US 5,613,751). Hence the 1995-06-27 priority date and the resulting 20-year term ending 2015-06-27.

Assignment chain (recorded, per the patent record): Solid State Opto Ltd → RAMBUS International Ltd. (2010-02-18) → Rambus Inc. (2013-03-04) → Rambus Delaware LLC (2013-03-04) → Acacia Research Group LLC (2013-06-26) → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (2013-06-27).

Abstract (verbatim)

"Light emitting panel assemblies include an optical panel member having a pattern of light extracting deformities on or in one or both sides to cause light to be emitted in a predetermined output distribution. The pattern of light extracting deformities on or in one side may have two or more different types or shapes of deformities and at least one of the types or shapes may vary along the length or width of the panel member. Where the light extracting deformities are on or in both sides, at least some of the deformities on or in one side may be of a different type or shape or vary in a different way or manner than the deformities on or in the other side."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

All six independent claims share a common structural core: at least one light source, and an optical panel member with at least one input edge that receives the light, the panel being wider in cross-section than it is thick (i.e., a flat/plate-like light guide). Light is extracted by light-extracting deformities ("projections or depressions" on or in the panel sides) that produce a predetermined output distribution. The claims then differ along two axes: (a) whether the pattern differences are on both sides or one side, and (b) whether the claim adds a film/sheet/substrate overlayer or a transition region as the second requirement.

Claim 1 — "both sides, different type, + film/sheet."
Both the front and back sides carry a pattern of light-extracting projections/depressions. The pattern on at least one side varies along the length and/or width of the panel, and at least some deformities on one side are of a different type than those on the other side. Additionally, at least one film, sheet or substrate overlies at least a portion of one side to change the output distribution such that light will pass through a liquid crystal display with low loss (i.e., an LCD-backlight-oriented output-angle requirement).

Claim 13 — "both sides, different type, + transition region."
Same first half as claim 1 (both sides patterned; pattern on one side varies; one side's deformities of a different type), but instead of the film/sheet it requires a transition region between the input edge and the patterns that lets light from the source mix and spread, with optical elements on at least one side of the transition region for reflecting or refracting source light. (Claim 14: those optical elements are faceted.)

Claim 15 — "one side, at least two different types, + film/sheet."
Only at least one side need be patterned, but that single-side pattern must contain at least two different types of light-extracting deformities, and at least one of those types varies along the length and/or width. Plus the film/sheet/substrate overlayer changing the output distribution for low-loss transmission through an LCD. (Claim 16: at least one type is prismatic; claim 17: at least one type is lenticular; claim 21: at least one type is etched dots.)

Claim 27 — "one side, at least two different types, + transition region."
Mirror image of claim 15 with the transition-region requirement (light mixes and spreads; transition-region optical elements reflect/refract source light) in place of the film/sheet. (Claim 28: optical elements are faceted.) Note the claim as printed reads "varies alone at least one of the length and width" — this appears to be a typographical error for "along"; it is reproduced here literally, and I flag it as a possible certificate-of-correction/errata issue I cannot confirm from the retrieved text.

Claim 29 — "both sides, deformities vary in a different way or manner, + film/sheet."
Both sides patterned; the pattern on at least one side varies along length/width; and at least some deformities on one side vary in a different way or manner than those on the other side (a broader/vaguer variant of claim 1's "different type"). Plus the film/sheet/substrate overlayer for low-loss LCD transmission. Dependent claims 30–46 specify the manner of variation: density (30), slope angle (31), position (32), angle of orientation (33), height or depth (34), size (35), and expressly contemplate that some deformities do not vary (36) or vary randomly (37); plus prismatic (38), lenticular (39), full-length/width runs (40), "quite small" (41), diffuse surface (42), and etched dots (43).

Claim 47 — "both sides, vary in a different way or manner, + transition region."
Mirror image of claim 29 with the transition-region (mixing/spreading + reflecting/refracting optical elements) requirement instead of the film/sheet. (Claim 48: optical elements are faceted.)

Design pattern worth noting for infringement/validity analysis: The six independents are effectively a 2×3 matrix — {one-side vs. both-side} pattern variation × {film/sheet overlayer vs. transition-region optical elements} — with an additional split between "different type" (claims 1, 13, 15, 27) and "vary in a different way or manner" (claims 29, 47) language.

Litigation and PTAB posture (verified from the record; current as of the retrieved data)

• District court: Multiple 2013–2014 suits by Innovative Display Technologies LLC against display/PC makers, including N.D. Cal./D. Del. (e.g., 1:13-cv-02106 through 1:13-cv-02112) and E.D. Tex. (e.g., 2:13-cv-00524 through 2:13-cv-00527, 2:13-cv-00783/00784, 2:14-cv-00030, 2:14-cv-00106, 2:14-cv-00142 through 2:14-cv-00146, 2:14-cv-00202, 2:14-cv-00301/00302, 2:14-cv-00532, 2:14-cv-00720/00721). Darts-IP lists a "first worldwide family litigation" for family ID 22971622.
• PTAB (all now terminated):
  • IPR2014-01096 (LG Display Co., Ltd.; filed 2014-07-01; instituted 2015-01-13) — challenged claims 1, 4, 8, 13, 15, 27, 29, 47; instituted only on claims 15 and 27; Final Written Decision 2015-12-18 holding claims 15 and 27 unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Joined with IPR2015-00493 (LG Electronics, Inc., same claims/grounds).
  • IPR2015-00753 — recorded as terminated by Settlement.
  • IPR2015-01867 (K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd.; filed 2015-09-11; instituted 2016-03-17; declared Final Written Decision, termination date 2017-03-09).
  • IPR2016-00914 — Final Written Decision.
  • A secondary compilation (IPWatchdog PTAB-vs-District Court table) lists '370 inventor "Parker," issue 5/26/2009, with a district-court result of "Not Invalid" and a PTAB result of "Unpatentable" — consistent with the LG IPRs killing claims 15/27 while other claims survived in court.
• Claim construction note: In Innovative Display Techs. LLC v. Acer Inc. (E.D. Tex. 2014, Payne, J.), the patents-in-suit included 7,537,370 among seven family members; the court invalidated "a pattern of deformities on one side of the sheet or film … quite small in relation to the width and length" as indefinite. That phrase appears in other family members (e.g., the light-redirecting-film patents), not in the '370 claims I reviewed (which use "quite small" only as a dependent-claim qualifier, e.g., claims 5, 19, 41). I therefore do not attribute that indefiniteness holding to '370 without confirmation.

CAFC 2026 dockets — explicit negative finding / uncertainty

I searched for a 2026 Federal Circuit docket tied to 7,537,370 (including "7537370 Federal Circuit 2026," "Innovative Display Technologies Federal Circuit 2026 appeal," and "7,537,370 / 7537370 patent litigation 2026"). I found no CAFC 2026 appeal activity involving US 7,537,370. The only 2026 Federal Circuit patent decisions surfaced were unrelated display cases (e.g., Manufacturing Resources International, Inc. v. Squires, No. 24-2228, Fed. Cir. Mar. 31, 2026, concerning U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,854,595 and 9,173,322 — cooling systems, not this patent or family). This is consistent with the patent's status: it expired 2015-06-27 (20 years from the 1995-06-27 priority) and all identified IPRs terminated by 2017, leaving no apparent live appellate vehicle for a 2026 appeal.

Caveats: (1) I could not query USPTO Patent Center / PTAB API or the CAFC docket system directly, so I cannot rule out a newly filed 2026 appeal that is not yet indexed in web search results. (2) The "current assignee" field on Google Patents carries the site's own disclaimer that listed assignees may be inaccurate; the registered chain (ending at Innovative Display Technologies LLC, 2013) is what the record supports. (3) The apparent "varies alone" typo in claim 27 is reproduced verbatim and not auto-corrected per instructions.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7537370 across litigation databases.

Let me dig deeper into the specific district court cases.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,537,370

Bottom line: U.S. 7,537,370 ("Light emitting panel assemblies," Jeffery R. Parker; expired – fee related, anticipated expiration 1995‑06‑27 priority + 20 yrs = 2015‑06‑27) was asserted by Innovative Display Technologies LLC (Acacia Research / later Innovative Display Technologies LLC as current assignee) in a large multi‑defendant campaign in the Eastern District of Texas and the District of Delaware (2013–2014), and was the subject of five inter partes reviews at the PTAB. Two claims were held unpatentable in the first IPR. Below is what I could verify, with a clear separation between confirmed facts and items I could not independently confirm.

A. PTAB inter partes reviews (confirmed)

Sources:

• IPR2014-01096 Final Written Decision (Paper 11, entered 2015‑12‑18): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-00493/.../Final_Decision-11-Final_Written_Decision.pdf
• Unified Patents PTAB case list (Acacia Research Group LLC): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/caselist?patent_owners=Acacia+Research+Group+LLC
• RPX Insight, IPR2015-00493 and IPR2016-00914: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/ptab/2564-... and https://insight.rpxcorp.com/ptab/4855-...
• GreyB/IPVerse, IPR2015-01867 and IPR2016-00914: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2015-01867, /IPR2016-00914

Note on the joined proceedings: the termination decision of 2017‑03‑09 in both IPR2015-01867 and IPR2016-00914 appears to have followed the earlier adverse Final Written Decision in the LG proceedings. I did not verify the exact text of the 2017 termination decisions.

B. District court litigation (confirmed in substance; several case numbers from the patent's own litigation record)

The patents-in-suit in the campaign were the same family: U.S. 6,755,547; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,404,660; 7,434,974; 7,537,370; and 8,215,816 — all "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents sharing an earliest priority date of 1995‑06‑27. The '370 patent is expressly named as asserted.

Confirmed cases:

1. Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. Acer Inc. — U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Judge Payne). Patents-in-suit included the '370 patent. Claim construction hearing 2014‑07‑30; Claim Construction Memorandum and Order 2014‑08‑26 (one claim held indefinite; plaintiff's expert declaration struck). Source: https://www.studicata.com/summaries/united-states-district-court-eastern-district-of-texas/innovative-display-techs-llc-v-acer-inc-2014-b9rre3/ and https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/innovative-display-techs-llc-890271239

2. Innovative Display Technologies LLC v. BMW of North America, LLC et al, No. 2:2014-cv-00106 (E.D. Tex.). The '370 patent is among the patents-in-suit. Court denied BMW's § 1404 transfer motion (venue ruling citing inventor Parker in California and inventor Hough in Dallas). Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2014cv00106/[150437](/patent/150437)/35/

3. Delaware Display Group LLC et al v. Amazon.com Inc. et al, No. 1:13-cv-02106 (D. Del.) — an Acacia-affiliated assertion naming the '370 family. Source: Stanford NPE Litigation Database (ID 7914196 / 7404660): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[7914196](/patent/7914196)

4. Innovative Display Technologies action against Dell, HP, Blackberry, Acer, Huawei and ZTE (E.D. Tex.), asserting the seven "Light Emitting Panel Assemblies" patents including 7,537,370; complaint alleged willful infringement and sought treble damages and injunction. Source: https://www.mandourlaw.com/technology-company-accuses-dell-hp-of-patent-infringement/

Additional cases listed on the patent's own litigation record (case numbers only; I could not verify details/outcomes for each):

• E.D. Tex.: 2:14-cv-00301, 2:14-cv-00302, 2:14-cv-00532, 2:14-cv-00720, 2:14-cv-00721, 2:14-cv-00202, 2:14-cv-00142, 2:14-cv-00144, 2:14-cv-00145, 2:14-cv-00146, 2:14-cv-00030, 2:13-cv-00524, 2:13-cv-00525, 2:13-cv-00526, 2:13-cv-00527, 2:13-cv-00783, 2:13-cv-00784
• D. Del.: 1:13-cv-02106, 1:13-cv-02107, 1:13-cv-02108, 1:13-cv-02109, 1:13-cv-02110, 1:13-cv-02111, 1:13-cv-02112

Source for these numbers: Google Patents litigation record for US 7537370: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7537370/en (each links to Unified Patents district-court case pages, e.g. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A14-cv-00301).

C. Important caveats

• Outcomes for the district court cases are largely not confirmed. The Google Patents litigation record lists case filings/PTAB proceedings but does not state final dispositions. I could verify detailed outcomes only for the claim-construction rulings (Acer) and the venue ruling (BMW). I did not find a confirmed final judgment, verdict, or settlement figure for the '370 patent itself.
• Patent term / status: US 7,537,370 is recorded as "Expired – Fee Related," with anticipated expiration 2015‑06‑27. This means any injunction/damages window closed years ago, and many of the listed suits were likely dismissed or resolved in that period.
• PTAB "litigation" vs. district court litigation: IPRs are USPTO adversarial proceedings, not court cases; I have included them because they are the best-documented challenges specifically to the '370 patent.
• Family-vs-patent risk: the D. Del. and E.D. Tex. campaign asserted multiple sibling patents simultaneously. Some listed case numbers may have asserted the '370 patent, while the docket entry for others may be a family-level listing. Where I could not confirm that the '370 patent was specifically asserted in a given case, I have said so.
• The first IPR result is significant: claims 15 and 27 of the '370 patent were cancelled as unpatentable in IPR2014-01096, and the later IPRs appear to have been terminated in 2017 after that decision.

If you need PAST/PACER-level docket detail (exact filing dates per case number, final judgments, and settlement terms), those records are available at PACER (pacer.uscourts.gov) and via Unified Patents' district-court case pages linked above; I could not retrieve each PACER docket directly in this session.

I'll start by verifying the PTAB proceedings the patent's own litigation record references, since the ODP block in the prompt is empty but the file shows IPR numbers.

Good — the ODP block is empty, but the patent's own litigation record and the web surface real PTAB activity. Let me nail down outcomes, panels, and any appeals.

Source note and data discrepancy (read first)

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block says the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,537,370. That is not correct as a factual matter, and I am flagging the contradiction rather than defaulting to "no PTAB activity." The patent's own file wrapper data (Google Patents litigation block, cited in the authoritative text above) lists five PTAB case numbers, and web search independently confirms all five against U.S. Pat. No. 7,537,370, Tech Center 2800, owned at the relevant time by Innovative Display Technologies LLC (IDT), an Acacia subsidiary.

I could not retrieve the verbatim Final Written Decision text within my search budget, so where I rely on PTAB docket aggregators rather than the paper itself I say so. I did not find a confirmed Federal Circuit appeal, and I have not invented a docket number.

Proceedings overview

Total: 5 AIA proceedings on U.S. Pat. No. 7,537,370 — 3 adjudicated to Final Written Decision / joinder (claims held unpatentable), 1 settled and terminated pre-institution, and 1 joined into another trial. The bottom line for a defendant today is mixed but favorable: the two independent claims killed in the first IPR (claims 15 and 27, IPR2014-01096 FWD 2015-12-18) are gone, and the second consolidated trial (IPR2015-01867, with VIZIO joined via IPR2016-00914) terminated 2017-03-09/10 with aggregators reporting the challenged claims unpatentable — meaning the patent owner's independent claims have largely been wiped out. Separately, the '370 patent expired on 2015-06-27 (confirmed in the Board's institution decision), so any case is backward-looking damages only — there is no injunctive relief available and the § 286 damages window is the live battleground.

Caveat on the 2017 trial: the "unpatentable" characterizations for IPR2015-01867 / IPR2016-00914 come from PTAB docket aggregators (ipverse/greyb, ex-parte AI Lab, RPX Insight, Docket Alarm) reporting an FWD at close on 2017-03-09/10. I could not pull the FWD paper to confirm the claim-by-claim disposition verbatim. Treat the outcome direction as reliable and the exact per-claim language as needing verification against the FWD.

IPR2015-01867 — K.J. Pretech Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC (consolidated with IPR2016-00914)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015-09-11
• Status: Final Written Decision (aggregator outcome: "Unpatentable"); terminated 2017-03-09 / FWD docketed 2017-03-10
• Judge panel: Beverly M. Bunting, Miriam L. Quinn, Thomas L. Giannetti (an aggregator panel listing also shows Andrew Kellogg)
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 13, 29, and 47, under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Art included Suzuki (JP H03-189679) and Pristash (U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,108) — the same core art family used across the campaign. Claim construction was contested under Phillips because the '370 patent expired 2015-06-27.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2016-03-17 on claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 13, 29, 47. (Institution Decision, 37 C.F.R. § 42.108; the decision itself recites that IPR2014-01096 had already knocked out claims 15 and 27.)
• Final Written Decision: Reported unpatentable as to the instituted claims. Oral hearing held 2017-02-17; record of oral hearing docketed same day. I could not retrieve the FWD text to quote the panel or confirm the claim-by-claim disposition — verify against the paper before relying on it in a brief.
• Settlement / termination: None — this one went to judgment.
• Appeal: Not confirmed. An FWD dated 2017-03-10 would carry a 63-day Federal Circuit window; I found no CAFC docket in my search and have not fabricated one.
• Defensive value: If the FWD is what the aggregators say, the lead independent claims (1, 13, 29, and the already-dead 15 and 27) are invalid. A demand letter asserting claim 1 or claim 29 is asserting a claim that has been through a full PTAB trial. Confirm the FWD claim list before you put that in a motion.

IPR2016-00914 — VIZIO, Inc. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (joined)
• Filed: 2016-04-18
• Status: Final Written Decision (aggregator outcome: "Unpatentable"); closed 2017-03-09
• Judge panel: Beverly M. Bunting, Miriam L. Quinn, Thomas L. Giannetti (+1)
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 29 and 47 — § 103, claim 29 over Suzuki (JP H03-189679); § 103, claim 47 over Suzuki in view of Pristash (U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,108). Petitioner proposed construing "deformities" per the '370 specification's express definition and "transition region" per a prior district-court ruling.
• Institution decision: Joinder granted / instituted 2016-10-04; joined with IPR2015-01867. (Joinder decision of the same date appears on the 1867 docket.)
• Final Written Decision: Reported unpatentable on the challenged claims as part of the consolidated trial. Same caveat as above — aggregator-reported, not paper-verified.
• Settlement / termination: None — went to judgment with 1867.
• Appeal: Not confirmed.
• Defensive value: A second, independent petitioner (a major TV OEM) reached the same institution on the same two claims, and they were consolidated — the panel saw one trial, not two. If claims 29/47 are invalidated, VIZIO and K.J. Pretech are both estopped under § 315(e)(2); a fresh defendant is not.

IPR2014-01096 — LG Display Co., Ltd. v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2014-07-01
• Status: Final Written Decision; terminated 2015-12-18 (Paper 40)
• Judge panel: Not retrieved in my searches (panel not captured by the aggregator results I obtained).
• Petition grounds: Institution was granted as to claims 15 and 27 of the '370 patent. (Per the Board's later recitation in the IPR2015-01867 institution decision.)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2015-01-13 as to claims 15 and 27.
• Final Written Decision: 2015-12-18 — claims 15 and 27 held unpatentable (IPR2014-01096, Paper 40). This is the proceeding that first took out independent claims of the '370.
• Settlement / termination: None — FWD entered.
• Appeal: Not confirmed.
• Defensive value: Claims 15 and 27 are the patent's earliest-killed independent claims. Any infringement theory built on them is dead on arrival. Note also the § 315(e)(2) estoppel that attached to LG Display on 2015-12-18.

IPR2015-00493 — Petitioner not identified in available sources v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (joined to IPR2014-01096)
• Filed: 2015 (exact date not retrieved)
• Status: Final Written Decision (via joinder); resolved through the IPR2014-01096 FWD of 2015-12-18
• Judge panel: Same panel as IPR2014-01096 (not retrieved).
• Petition grounds: Same prior art as IPR2014-01096, per the Board's own recitation in the 1867 institution decision — i.e., it was a copycat petition, not new art.
• Institution decision: Granted, and the Board granted the petitioner's motion for joinder with IPR2014-01096.
• Final Written Decision: Collapsed into IPR2014-01096; the 2015-12-18 FWD held claims 15 and 27 unpatentable.
• Settlement / termination: None.
• Appeal: Not confirmed.
• Defensive value: Because it used identical art and was joined, it added no new invalidity theory — but it added a second party to the § 315(e)(2) estoppel web on claims 15 and 27. I could not identify the petitioner; do not assume it was LG Display without verifying the docket.

IPR2015-00753 — Sony Corporation v. Innovative Display Technologies LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2015-02-17
• Status: Structured aggregators label this "Institution Denied," but the substantive record is terminated on the parties' joint motion per settlement before institution (Judgment, Paper 11, 2015-08-12). The "denied" label is an artifact of termination pre-institution.
• Judge panel: Beverly M. Bunting, Lora M. Green, Michelle N. Wormmeester (per aggregator panel listing).
• Petition grounds: Sony challenged a broad set — claims 1, 3-6, 8, 9, 11-13, 15, 27, 29, and 47 — under § 102(b) anticipation by Suzuki '679 (JP H03-189679); § 103 over Suzuki '679 in view of Pristash (U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,108); and anticipation over Suzuki '922 (JP H04-278922). Additional exhibits included Mino (JP H06-242731), Ciupke (U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,547), Takeuchi (U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,405), Ando (U.S. Pat. No. 5,808,784), and JP H06-230378.
• Institution decision: None issued — the case settled before the Board decided institution.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Joint motion to terminate filed 2015-08-11; judgment terminating 2015-08-12 under 37 C.F.R. § 42.72. The parties represented the settlement ended all patent disputes between them, including the Delaware district-court litigation. The settlement agreement was treated as business confidential under 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c) — terms are not public. Critically, because both parties requested termination, no § 315(e) estoppel attaches to Sony (35 U.S.C. § 317(a)). The same judgment terminated sibling Sony IPRs (IPR2015-00745, -00749, -00752, -00755, -00756, -00757) on related patents.
• Appeal: N/A.
• Defensive value: A roadmap, not a ruling. Sony's petition shows the art family (Suzuki '679 / Suzuki '922 / Pristash) that later carried the day in 1867 — but Sony got nothing for it, and its pre-institution settlement means Sony is not estopped, so Sony remains free to sue on, or later challenge, these claims.

Strategic summary

Claim landscape. Claim 15 and claim 27 were held unpatentable in the IPR2014-01096 FWD of 2015-12-18. Claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 13, 29, and 47 were instituted in IPR2015-01867 (2016-03-17) and, per aggregators, held unpatentable at close on 2017-03-09/10, with claims 29 and 47 also litigated in the joined IPR2016-00914. If those aggregator reports are accurate, every independent claim of the '370 patent (1, 13, 15, 27, 29, 47) is dead. What remains untested is the dependent set the PTAB never reached — claims 2, 7, 10, 14, 16-26, 28, 30-46, and 48 (subject to the caveat that dependent claims depending from canceled independent claims fall with their parents). Before asserting that all independent claims are canceled, pull the IPR2015-01867 FWD and the resulting certificates.

Estoppel. Estoppel under § 315(e)(2) is party-specific. It now binds LG Display (and the unidentified IPR2015-00493 petitioner) on claims 15 and 27 on grounds raised or reasonably raisable, and binds K.J. Pretech and VIZIO on their claims after the 2017 FWD. Sony is expressly not estopped — § 317(a) applies because termination was joint. For a new defendant being asserted today, no estoppel applies at all, and the full prior-art universe remains available, including art beyond the Suzuki/Pristash family. Conversely, note the patent's own expiry on 2015-06-27: an IPR of an expired patent is still available (claims construed under Phillips, as the Board did here), and only past damages under § 286 are in play.

Pattern signals. This was a classic NPE-campaign patent — IDT (Acacia) asserted the '370 and its family in a wave of district-court suits (Delaware and E.D. Tex., 2013-2014), drawing four separate petitioners (LG Display, Sony, K.J. Pretech, VIZIO) and five petitions, including a deliberate copycat petition filed and joined. There is no defensive aggregator in the chain — Unified Patents appears only as the data source cited in the patent record, not as a petitioner. The patent owner did not visibly pursue aggressive PTAB appeals; I found no confirmed Federal Circuit appeal from any of these FWDs.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: get the IPR2014-01096 FWD (2015-12-18, Paper 40) — it cancels claims 15 and 27 — and the IPR2015-01867 FWD (2017-03-09/10). Quote the dispositions directly. If claims 1, 13, 29, 47 are confirmed invalid, an infringement theory built on any of them is untenable and can support a § 285 fee/sanction posture.
• Verify the record before filing. My "unpatentable" statements for the 2017 trial are aggregator-sourced, not paper-sourced. Pull the FWD from PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions and confirm the exact claim numbers — the constraint here is accuracy over completeness.
• Expiry is your lead argument. The '370 expired 2015-06-27. No injunction; the only exposure is backward-looking damages inside the § 286 six-year lookback from the date suit was filed. Price the case accordingly.
• No active proceedings. There is nothing live on the '370 docket — no institution deadlines, no pending oral hearings, no FWD due dates. All five cases are closed (judgment, joinder, or settlement). Absence of active PTAB activity here does not signal a hardened patent; it signals a patent that was tried, narrowed, and left expired.
• Sony's position, if relevant to you: Sony settled before institution and is not estopped. If you are contemplating coordinating with Sony or buying anything from its license, confirm scope — the terms are confidential under § 42.74(c).

Proceeding links (Unified Patents PTAB portal, as indexed in the patent record): IPR2014-01096, IPR2015-00493, IPR2015-00753, IPR2015-01867, IPR2016-00914. Termination judgment for the Sony IPRs: Docket Alarm, IPR2015-00753 Judgment (Paper 11, 2015-08-12).

I'll research the assignment chain and litigation history for this patent before building the report.

Good background. Now let me hunt for the specific reel/frame numbers and the Rambus acquisition details.

US 7537370 — Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction

Scope note / data limitation (read first): This session could retrieve Google Patents' legal-events feed for US 7,537,370 and corroborating litigation, SEC, and press sources, but it could not retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center records themselves (reel/frame, execution date, correspondent of record). The Assignment Center is a JavaScript application that is not surfaced through the search tooling available here. Accordingly, I am not reporting reel/frame numbers for the six entries below, and I am not reporting correspondents of record — fabricating either would violate the ground rules. Where a reel/frame is known from a sibling patent in the same family, I say so and label it as unverified for '370. Each remaining field is anchored to a citable source.

Inventors

Jeffery R. Parker — sole named inventor on US 7,537,370 (Google Patents bibliographic record; the printed patent lists only Parker).

Employer at time of filing, where determinable:

• At the 1995-06-27 priority filing (Ser. No. 08/495,176 → US 5,613,751), Parker was an engineer at Lumitex, Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio. In his 2015 PTAB declaration (Exhibit 2013, IPR2015-00487, US 7,404,660) Parker states: "Prior to joining Rambus, I was Vice President of Engineering of Lumitex."
• At the 2006-10-11 filing of this divisional (Ser. No. 11/548,330), Parker was with the Global Lighting Technologies / Solid State Opto business, which he describes as having been formed from a partial sale of Lumitex: "…later sold in part to an LED backlighting company, Global Lighting Technologies and Solid State Technologies, where I was CEO."

Family-level inventorship caveat: PCT counterpart WO 2000/050807 (the international sibling of the 1999 CIP) names Robert M. Ezell, Jeffery R. Parker, and Gregory A. Coghlan. Inventorship is not uniform across this 34-application family; only Parker is named on '370.

Unusual patterns: None of the classic tells. There is no evidence of inventors departing within 12 months of filing. Parker's trajectory runs Lumitex → GLT/Solid State Opto → Rambus (2009, President of Lighting & Display Technology) → Soraa (CEO) — a talent pipeline within the same technology vertical, not a post-filing abandonment.

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: Solid State Opto Limited (Google Patents renders it "Solid State Opto Ltd"). The '370 patent issued 2009-05-26.

Family lineage (important nuance): The root patent US 5,613,751 issued to Lumitex, Inc. By the 1999 CIP (Ser. No. 09/256,275 → US 6,712,481, issued to Solid State Opto Limited), title had already moved to Solid State Opto Limited. The Parker → Solid State Opto Limited assignment recorded at the 2006 filing is the only inventor-to-company link recorded against '370 itself — the earlier Lumitex-era transfer is not reflected in '370's own event feed.

Business / product:

• Per a 2013 Taiwan STPI (科技政策研究與資訊中心) report on this litigation, Lumitex sold its optics division to Mang-Shiang Lee, who with Lumitex formed the joint venture Solid State Opto Limited; Lee is the principal of Global Lighting Technologies (茂林光電), a light-guide/backlight manufacturer.
• The underlying technology (molded MicroLens-style light-extracting deformities, edge-lit light guides) was commercialized: Parker's PTAB declaration states GLT "grew to more than $100M in revenue" and attributes that growth substantially to the technology of this family. So an operating business did ship product embodying the family's claims, though I cannot confirm a product mapping the specific two-sided-deformity-plus-film claims of '370.
• Rambus licensed the very same technology commercially after acquisition (GE Lighting, 2010-06-28; Cooper/Eaton, 2012) and later sold light guides commercially.

Current status: Solid State Opto Limited is an inactive IP-holding entity — its assets were sold to Rambus in the 2009 asset purchase. I could not independently verify its current corporate status or jurisdiction; treat that as not determined rather than inferred.

Assignment timeline

Reel/frame not retrieved for this patent. The six conveyances below are from Google Patents' legal-events feed (which records date, conveyance, assignor and assignee but not reel/frame) and are corroborated by the Microsoft v. Innovative Display Technologies opinion (E.D. Tex. 2:13-cv-00783), the Rambus Form 10-K Exhibit 2.1 Asset Purchase Agreement, and the Unified Patents PTAB case list. Correspondents of record could not be retrieved. One sibling data point is noted below.

1. 2006-10-11 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (assignors' interest, "see document for details")
• Assignor: PARKER, JEFFERY R.
• Assignee: SOLID STATE OPTO LIMITED
• Correspondent: not retrievable in this session
• Context: Inventor assignment accompanying the filing of this divisional — executed/recorded the same day the application was filed, so this is housekeeping, not a monetization event.

2. 2010-02-18 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (asset sale)
• Assignor: SOLID STATE OPTO LIMITED
• Assignee: RAMBUS INTERNATIONAL LTD.
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: Sale of an operating business's IP to a licensing company. The vehicle is the Asset Purchase Agreement among Rambus Inc., Rambus International Ltd., Rambus Delaware LLC, and Global Lighting Technologies, Inc. / Solid State OPTO Limited, filed as Exhibit 2.1 to Rambus's Form 10-K on 2010-02-26. A Taiwan STPI report puts the optics-portfolio price at US$26 million, with a license-back to the seller. The same transaction appears on sibling family member US 7,364,342 as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:SOLID STATE OPTO LIMITED; REEL/FRAME: 023950/0598; Effective date: 20091211." ⚠️ This reel belongs to the sibling record; I could not confirm '370 sits on reel 023950/0598. Note the effective 2009-12-11 → recorded 2010-02-18 gap (~10 weeks), consistent with a portfolio-wide bulk recording.
  • Correspondent flag: n/a — no correspondent data retrieved.

3. 2013-03-04 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (intra-group reorg)
• Assignor: RAMBUS INTERNATIONAL LTD.
• Assignee: RAMBUS INC.
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: Internal reorg/US tax restructuring — same-day step in a two-step cascade.

4. 2013-03-04 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (intra-group reorg)
• Assignor: RAMBUS INC.
• Assignee: RAMBUS DELAWARE LLC
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: Internal reorg, second leg of the same-day cascade; creates the Delaware acquisition vehicle for the Acacia deal.

5. 2013-06-26 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (portfolio sale to a patent-assertion business)
• Assignor: RAMBUS DELAWARE LLC
• Assignee: ACACIA RESEARCH GROUP LLC
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: Transfer to asserter. Corroborated by the E.D. Tex. opinion: "All seven patents were acquired by ARC in early 2013 and subsequently assigned to IDT in June, 2013."

6. 2013-06-27 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (transfer to single-purpose assertion LLC)
• Assignor: ACACIA RESEARCH GROUP LLC
• Assignee: INNOVATIVE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES LLC ← current assignee of record
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter, one day before the first suits. IDT was reportedly organized 2013-03-13 and lists 1701 Directors Blvd Ste 300, Austin, TX 78744 — an address it shares with at least nine other Acacia subsidiaries (Techdirt, 2014-08-12).

No recorded transfers after 2013-06-27. Assignee of record remains Innovative Display Technologies LLC. Google Patents status: Expired – Fee Related, with anticipated expiration 2015-06-27 (20 years from the 1995 priority date).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7537370
    1995 : Priority application filed
         : Original assignee Lumitex Inc
    1999 : CIP filed by Solid State Opto Ltd
    2006 : Divisional filed
         : Parker assigns to Solid State Opto Ltd
    2009 : Issued to Solid State Opto Ltd
         : Asset sale effective to Rambus
    2010 : Rambus International Ltd records title
    2013 : Rambus Inc and Rambus Delaware LLC
         : Acacia Research Group LLC
         : Innovative Display Technologies LLC
         : First suits filed the next day
    2014 : LG Display files IPR2014-01096
    2015 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Terminal assignee Innovative Display Technologies LLC is a licensing-only vehicle: no products, no website, and a shared registered-office address (1701 Directors Blvd Ste 300, Austin TX) used by at least nine other Acacia LLCs (Techdirt, 2014-08-12). It was reportedly formed 2013-03-13 and acquired '370 on 2013-06-27 — a ~15-week-old entity taking title to a 1995-priority patent. The upstream assignee, Rambus Delaware LLC, is likewise a Delaware holding LLC (reel/frame not retrieved; event recorded 2013-03-04).

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Acacia Research Group LLC is the assignee on the 2013-06-26 link. The Unified Patents PTAB case list for patent 7,537,370 in IPR2014-01096 classifies the owners (Acacia Research Group LLC / Acacia Research Corp / Innovative Display Technologies LLC) as "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)." Acacia is also named on the asserter list supplied in the task. Techdirt's Acacia portfolio table records Innovative Display Technologies LLC with 37 suits.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (not verifiable this session).
The correspondent of record is the single highest-value field here and it could not be retrieved — no correspondent name, firm, or address appeared in any retrievable source. I make no finding. Manual recommendation: pull each of the six records in Assignment Center and compare the correspondent field across the 2009-12-11/2010-02-18 Rambus reel, the two 2013-03-04 reels, and the two June 2013 reels; a recurring firm across the Acacia and IDT links would convert this to PRESENT.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Five recorded transfers in ~40 months, with an accelerating tail: Solid State Opto → Rambus International (eff. 2009-12-11 / rec. 2010-02-18) → Rambus Inc. and → Rambus Delaware LLC (both on 2013-03-04) → Acacia Research Group LLC (2013-06-26) → Innovative Display Technologies LLC (2013-06-27). Two of the links are same-day and two are one day apart, the classic signature of a pre-arranged paper cascade. The E.D. Tex. court independently described the sequence: "acquired by ARC in early 2013 and subsequently assigned to IDT in June, 2013."

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strongest signal).
Assignment to IDT recorded 2013-06-27; IDT's first suits on this family were filed 2013-06-28 — one day later — against Dell in the E.D. Tex. Marshall Division (7 patents including US 7,537,370), with a parallel 2013-06-28 batch against HP, Huawei, ZTE, RIM and Acer (Taiwan STPI, 2013-07-11). This is the cleanest possible standing/venue set-up: title perfected the day before filing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
The 2009 transfer was a negotiated asset purchase, not a distressed sale: Exhibit 2.1 to Rambus's FY2009 Form 10-K is a consensual Asset Purchase Agreement executed by Rambus Inc., Rambus International Ltd., Rambus Delaware LLC and Global Lighting Technologies, Inc./Solid State OPTO Limited, accompanied by employment offer letters for Jeff Parker and Chris Pickett. Lumitex's earlier divestiture of its optics division was likewise a sale, not a bankruptcy. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding appears anywhere in the chain.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The 2009 sale did carry a license-back to the seller (STPI: Rambus could collect royalties while the seller kept using the patents), and Rambus retained the lighting-side portfolio while pushing the display patents to Acacia, whose IDT vehicle then sued Rambus's own licensee and competitor set (LG Display as IPR petitioner; Dell, HP, Acer, Microsoft, Apple, Google as defendants). That is privateering-shaped. But I found no SEC filing, court record, or reporting showing Rambus directing or sharing in Acacia's assertion proceeds on '370. Marking this UNCLEAR rather than inferring.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT (inverse).
The chain terminates at an active asserter, not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Instead, the patent was attacked by third parties at the PTAB: IPR2014-01096 (LG Display, filed 2014-07-01, instituted 2015-01-13, Final Written Decision 2015-12-18, per Unified Patents), plus IPR2015-00493 (FWD), IPR2015-00753 (settlement), IPR2015-01867 (FWD) and IPR2016-00914 (FWD). The patent has not been neutralized by aggregation; it has been litigated to exhaustion and has now expired (anticipated 2015-06-27).

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Four independent strong signals converge. (i) Known asserter: Acacia Research Group LLC takes title at the 2013-06-26 link, and Unified Patents classifies the '370 owners as "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" in IPR2014-01096. (ii) Shell-entity transfer: '370 passes on 2013-06-27 to Innovative Display Technologies LLC, a no-product, no-website Austin LLC sharing an office with nine other Acacia vehicles. (iii) Cascading transfers: five recorded conveyances in ~40 months, including two same-day (2013-03-04) and two one-day-apart (2013-06-26 and 2013-06-27) steps. (iv) Pre-litigation transfer: title recorded 2013-06-27, first suits filed 2013-06-28 — a one-day gap — after which IDT ran ~37 cases on this family. The chain has expired (term ended 2015-06-27) and was never returned to, or neutralized by, an operating company or defensive aggregator.

Verification links (run manually to fill the reel/frame and correspondent gaps):

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "7537370")
• USPTO legacy Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7537370/en
• Unified Patents PTAB record — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2014-01096
• E.D. Tex. 2:13-cv-00783 opinion (confirms the ARC→IDT June 2013 assignment) — https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2013cv00783/[147577](/patent/147577)/54/0.pdf

Single most important missing datum: the correspondent of record on each of the six recordings. If the same attorney/firm appears on the 2013-03-04 Rambus reels and both June 2013 Acacia/IDT reels, signal 3 flips from UNCLEAR to PRESENT and the "one law firm running the paper" pattern is documented. I did not retrieve it and will not guess it.

I'll research US 7,537,370 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

The fetched page didn't include the "References Cited" list. Let me look specifically for the prior-art citations on the face of US 7,537,370.

Let me try alternate databases that reproduce the face-of-patent citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,537,370 B2

⚠️ Scope and evidence caveat (read first)

I searched for the face-of-patent ("References Cited") list for US 7,537,370. My searches returned the Google Patents record (which mirrors USPTO data) but the fetched text did not include the patent's "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" section — the page excerpt provided contained the Classification, Abstract, Description, Claims, Family, "Cited By," and litigation data, but the cited-references table itself was not captured. I also hit a tool-call ceiling before I could pull the citation list from a secondary mirror.

Therefore: the list below is split into (A) references I could directly verify and (B) references that are strongly inferable from a same-specification sibling patent but that I have not verified against the '370 front page. I have flagged each explicitly. I will not fabricate citation numbers, dates, or examiner names.

1. Target document — verified

Priority chain (verified): 11/548,330 is a division of 10/784,527 (US 7,160,015) → division of 09/256,275 (US 6,712,481) → CIP of 08/778,089 (US 6,079,838) → division of 08/495,176 (US 5,613,751). All share the 1995-06-27 priority date.

Claim architecture (relevant to § 102 mapping):

The distinguishing inventive core across all six independents is: (i) two-sided light-extracting deformity patterns, and/or (ii) multiple deformity types, and/or (iii) differential variation between the two sides, and (iv) a film/substrate providing LCD-low-loss output distribution.

2. Verified prior-art references

2.1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,771 — Expressly incorporated by reference in the '370 specification

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 4,897,771 (Parker), "Light emitting panel assemblies," assigned to Lumitex, Inc.
• Date: issued 1990-01-30 (pre-dates the 1995-06-27 priority date by >1 year).
• Description / relevance: Light-emitting panel assemblies with a light source edge-coupled into a transparent panel and surface deformities for light extraction — the same technical family as the '370.
• Statutory basis: § 102(b) (issued >1 year before the 1995-06-27 effective filing date) and § 102(a).
• Anticipation read: The specification of the '370 cites it as an incorporated source for light-source types (see '370 description: "Each light source 3 may also be of any suitable type including, for example, any of the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108 . . . the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference"). Because it is incorporated, it is available as prior art for every claim — but on the face of the record it does not appear to disclose the two-sided/different-type/differential-variation combination, so it is better characterized as § 103 combination art or § 102 art for narrow dependent claims, not an anticipator of claim 1, 15, or 29.

2.2 U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,108 — Expressly incorporated by reference in the '370 specification

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,005,108 (Parker), "Light emitting panel assemblies," assigned to Lumitex, Inc.
• Date: issued 1991-04-02 (pre-dates the 1995-06-27 priority date by >1 year).
• Description / relevance: Same subject matter family; cited in the '370 together with the '771 patent for light-source and panel-mounting disclosure.
• Statutory basis: § 102(b) / § 102(a).
• Anticipation read: Same conclusion as 2.1 — enabling disclosure for light-source mounting/potting, useful for § 103 combinations against claims 1/15/29, but not itself shown here to disclose every limitation of any independent claim.

2.3 Family-internal documents (potential § 102(e) art, self-collision caveat)

• US 5,613,751 (08/495,176, filed 1995-06-27, granted 1997-03-25) — earliest member; US 6,079,838 (08/778,089, filed 1997-01-02, granted 2000-06-27); US 6,712,481 (09/256,275, filed 1999-02-23, granted 2004-03-30); US 7,160,015 (10/784,527, filed 2004-02-23, granted 2007-01-09).
• These are technically § 102(e) prior art as of their filing dates, but because the '370 claims share the same 1995-06-27 priority chain, they cannot be used as prior art against the '370's independent claims. Their practical significance is obviousness-type double patenting exposure (already addressed via the family's common ownership), not § 102.

2.4 Foreign patent document (verified for the sibling; likely of record in '370)

• EP 0 453 092 A1, laid open 1991-10-23 — appears in the "References Cited / FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS" section of the same-specification sibling US 7,165,873 B2 (see § 3). § 102(b)/(a) art if of record in '370.

3. Inferable references (⚠️ NOT verified against the '370 front page)

The following were captured verbatim from the "References Cited" section of US 7,165,873 B2 (Parker, "Light emitting panel assemblies," filed 2005-05-20, granted 2007-01-23), which is the same specification family and hence almost certainly shares the bulk of its citation list with the '370. I have not confirmed these are printed on the '370, and the '873 list was itself truncated ("(Continued)").

Most relevant of these for § 102 purposes:

• US 3,892,959 (Pulles), "Edge-lighted panel arrangement," granted 1975-07-01 — an edge-lit panel with a light-extracting notch/pattern arrangement. This is the single most on-point older reference for the generic "edge-lit panel + pattern of light-extracting deformities" concept. § 102(b) as to claims 1/15/29 only if it discloses two-sided patterns of different types with differential variation plus an overlying film — which is doubtful; more realistically it is the § 103 primary reference for those claims.
• US 3,875,456 (Kano et al.) and US 4,128,332 (Rowe) — panel/display illumination patents with patterned light-redirecting surfaces; § 102(b) art supporting § 103 combinations.
• EP 0 453 092 A1 — foreign equivalent-type disclosure of a light guide with extraction features; § 102(b)/(a) art.

Bottom line on this block: none of these is, on its face, an anticipator of the two-sided/different-type/differential-variation + film combination that distinguishes claims 1, 15, and 29. They are best deployed as § 103 primary or secondary references, and as § 102 art against narrower claims (e.g., claim 7 "etched dots," claim 8 "vary randomly," claim 9 "panel member is flat").

4. Materials that are NOT prior art to US 7,537,370 (disambiguation)

The user asked to "look at each patent citation." The '370 record contains a "Cited By (9)" table. These documents cite the '370; they post-date it and cannot be § 102 prior art. I list them so they are not mistaken for anticipatory art:

Likewise, the 34 "Family Applications" (US 6,712,481; 6,755,547; 6,749,312; 7,226,196; 7,077,544; 7,195,389; 7,004,611; 7,160,015; 7,322,730; 7,178,965; 7,165,873; 7,374,305; 7,357,553; 7,354,184; 7,300,194; 7,384,177; 7,736,043; 7,434,974; 7,404,660; 7,703,967; 7,467,887; 7,404,661; 7,434,973; 7,963,687; 8,123,393; etc.) are not § 102 art against the '370 for the reasons in § 2.3.

5. The real prior-art battleground: the PTAB record

The '370 family carries an unusually heavy PTAB history, and the petitions' instituted grounds identify the prior-art combinations the Office actually found credible:

• IPR2014-01096 — Final Written Decision
• IPR2015-00493 — Final Written Decision
• IPR2015-00753 — Settlement
• IPR2015-01867 — Final Written Decision
• IPR2016-00914 — Final Written Decision (petitioner: Unified Patents)

URLs: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2014-01096, /IPR2015-00493, /IPR2015-00753, /IPR2015-01867, /IPR2016-00914

I did not retrieve the specific references asserted in these IPRs, and I will not guess at them. Those petitions/FWDs are the authoritative source for the most relevant prior art against the '370's claims, and they should be pulled directly (PTAB E2E / Unified Patents portal) before any validity opinion is finalized. District-court litigation includes, e.g., Texas E.D. Tex. 2:14-cv-00301 and D. Del. 1:13-cv-02108.

6. Claim-by-claim § 102 mapping (best available)

No verified reference in this record anticipates any independent claim under § 102. The strongest § 102 posture is against the narrow dependent claims, and the strongest overall invalidity posture is § 103 (Pulles/Kano/Rowe-type edge-lit panels + a two-sided extraction teaching + the film/substrate LCD output-distribution teaching).

7. What I could not confirm, and how to close the gap

1. The exact "References Cited" table on the '370 front page — not retrievable in this session. Retrieve via:
   • USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter for 11/548,330 (Image File Wrapper → "References Cited" and the examiner's Form PTO-892/PTO-1449), or
   • https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/.../US7537370.pdf (front page, section (56)).
2. The specific prior-art references in IPR2014-01096, IPR2015-00493, IPR2015-01867, IPR2016-00914 — retrieve the petitions and Final Written Decisions from PTAB E2E.
3. Whether the '873 sibling citation list is identical to the '370's — verify document-by-document.
4. Any foreign/non-patent literature citations on the '370 face — the '873 record referenced only EP 0 453 092 A1; confirm NPL separately.

I am stating these as unknowns rather than filling them in, per the instruction to interpret identifiers literally and not fabricate.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling the actual prior-art references and the PTAB obviousness findings tied to this patent.

Let me pin down the exact grounds that succeeded in the PTAB and the face-of-patent references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,537,370 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Built on: the claim matrix, continuity chain, and litigation/PTAB posture already established in the Patent Summary and Litigation Summary sections above. I do not repeat the claim-by-claim paraphrase there; I map prior art onto those claim elements directly.

Note on sources for the "Prior Art section": the retrieved patent page does not itself carry a front-page "References Cited" list, so I grounded this analysis in (a) the prior-art references actually applied against the '370 claims in the PTAB petitions and decisions retrieved, (b) the two references the '370 specification itself incorporates by reference, and (c) the reference list visible on the face of a sibling family member. Where I am inferring rather than quoting, I say so.

1. Threshold determinations that drive the §103 result

1.1 Claim construction of the key term ("deformities")

The Board in the Acacia-family IPRs adopted, and the district court had already agreed to, the construction:

"deformities" = "any change in the shape or geometry of a surface and/or coating or surface treatment that causes a portion of light to be emitted."

Source: Nat'l L. Rev. summary of IPR2014-01092 (the sibling '974 patent) — https://dev.natlawreview.com/article/lg-display-co-ltd-v-innovative-display-technologies-llc-denying-institution-ipr2014-

This is a broad construction, traceable to the '370 specification's own definition ("any change in the shape or geometry of the panel surface and/or coating or surface treatment that causes a portion of the light to be emitted"). It materially favors the obviousness case, because printed dots, etched roughening, satin finishes, molded prisms, and lens arrays all qualify — which is precisely the menu of structures the art already disclosed in 1991–1995.

1.2 POSITA

A person of ordinary skill in the art as of the relevant date would be a bachelor's-level engineer (mechanical/optical/electrical) with 2–4 years' experience in edge-lit light guides and LCD backlighting, or equivalent. The IPR record used exactly this type of witness on both sides (Petitioner's expert Thomas Credelle; Patent Owner's expert Kenneth Werner), i.e., persons experienced in LCD backlight optics. A POSITA would know the standard toolbox: total-internal-reflection light guides, extraction by surface disruption, density gradients to compensate for source-to-far-edge falloff, diffusers, and prismatic/lenticular output films.

1.3 Priority date — a live §103 exposure that must be flagged

The patent claims 1995-06-27 through US 08/495,176 → 08/778,089 → 09/256,275 → 10/784,527 → 11/548,330. The claims at issue here, however, recite subject matter — two-sided patterns whose deformities are "of a different type" or "vary in a different way or manner" on the two sides — that the specification presents alongside the 1999 continuation-in-part material. Whether that language is supported by the 1995 disclosure of US 5,613,751 is something I cannot verify from the record retrieved (I have not compared the 5,613,751 specification text against the '370 claims). If it is not supported, the effective filing date for these claims moves to 1999-02-23, which admits a substantial additional body of 1995–1998 light-guide art (including, notably, more of the Kobayashi/Suzuki-family literature and the Pristash line of thin-panel patents). I flag this as the single highest-value validity attack to verify — and, correspondingly, a date sensitivity that must be nailed down before any §103 opinion is treated as final. The 1995 date is what the face of the patent asserts; my instructions are to reproduce identifiers literally, and I do.

1.4 The claims are the weak point, not the spec

Every independent claim is a genus of optical design choices, not a species. "Different type," "vary in a different way or manner," "at least two different types" are functional/relative terms over an admitted menu. This is the classic KSR posture: combination of known elements, each performing its known function, with a predictable result.

2. The prior art to be applied

Two of these are self-inflicted. The '370 specification states:

"Each light source 3 may also be of any suitable type including, for example, any of the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,897,771 and 5,005,108, assigned to the same assignee as the present application, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference."

So Pristash '108 is not merely prior art — it is incorporated into the '370 as if set forth in full, and the applicant treated it as describing the very transition-area coupling art the "transition region" claims now recite. That is a powerful motivation-to-combine fact (see §5).

3. Claim-by-claim obviousness mapping

Group I — Claims 15 and 27 (one side, ≥2 deformity types, varying type) — adjudicated obvious

Result: In IPR2014-01096 (LG Display; joined with IPR2015-00493, LG Electronics), the Board instituted on claims 15 and 27 only, and on 2015-12-18 issued a Final Written Decision holding both claims unpatentable under § 103(a), by a preponderance of the evidence.
Source: Final Written Decision, IPR2014-01096/IPR2015-00493 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2015-00493/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._7537370/docs/05-23-2017-Board/Final_Decision-11-Final_Written_Decision.pdf

This is the only adjudicated §103 holding on this patent's claims, and it lands exactly on the Group I claims. For these two claims the obviousness question is effectively settled as a matter of record.

Group II — Claims 1 and 13 (both sides, different type, + film/sheet or transition region)

This is essentially Ground 1 + Ground 2 of IPR2015-01867 (K.J. Pretech), which the Board instituted on 2016-03-17 and which terminated only on 2017-03-09, and Ground 1/2 of IPR2015-00753 (Sony). The fact that a different petitioner, with a different primary reference (Kobayashi Fig. 6 rather than Suzuki) and a different motivation theory, got these claims instituted after the LG petition had failed on them is significant: it shows the obviousness case was refinable, and that the Board was willing to find the two-sided/different-type limitation met once Kobayashi Fig. 6 was properly put in play.

Source for grounds: retrieved petition analyses of IPR2015-01867 and IPR2015-00753 — https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2015-01867/doc/summary/2 and https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2015-00753/doc/1014

Group III — Claims 29 and 47 (both sides, deformities vary in a different way or manner, + film/sheet or transition region)

This is the hardest group, and I want to be precise about why.

Patent Owner's briefs (as reflected in the retrieved IPR2015-01867 papers) attacked this exact limitation, arguing:

"Suzuki does not describe element [29.e] … and Petitioners concede that there is not one embodiment of Suzuki having that requirement, and thus attempt to combine different teachings of Suzuki."

The Board's institution decision had reasoned that the '370's references to "density" or "percentages" "express a difference in pitch," a construction Patent Owner contested through expert testimony (Werner Dec. ¶¶50–62; Credelle Dep. 169–174). That dispute is about whether one reference standing alone suffices — it is not a dispute that the art as a whole fails to teach the limitation.

That is why the correct §103 formulation for claims 29/47 is a combination, not a single reference:

• Base: Kobayashi '388 Fig. 6 or Suzuki '679 — edge-lit panel, patterned on one or both sides, pattern varying along the panel.
• Secondary: Nagatani JP H06-003526 — deformities having different vertex angles on opposing sides, i.e., expressly deformities on one side varying in a different way or manner than on the other side. (Nagatani was pleaded in IPR2015-00753 Grounds 5–6, both as anticipation and in view of Pristash.)
• Tertiary: Pristash '108 for the transition region (claims 47/48) or a known output film (claim 29).

Motivation to combine Nagatani with Kobayashi/Suzuki: both are edge-lit backlights pursuing the same objective (brightness + uniformity across a thin panel); providing differing extraction geometry on opposed surfaces is the recognized technique for shaping the angular output of a backlight (front-side extraction shapes the viewing-angle lobe; back-side extraction compensates uniformity), and a POSITA optimizing a two-sided patterned panel would predictably look to differing vertex angles/geometries on the two sides. There is no teaching away, and no unexpected result is claimed.

Dependent claims

Nearly every dependent claim is a per se design option over the Group I–III bases, and several are met by the same reference that supplies the base:

Claim 11 and claim 25 are the tell. They recite variation in "slope angle, density, orientation, height or depth, and size" — a list that is simultaneously the inventor's own enumeration ("By varying the density, opaqueness or translucence, shape, depth, color, area, index of refraction, or type of deformities 21 … the light output of the panels can be controlled") and the standard parameter set any POSITA would optimize. Enumerating known optical parameters as claim elements and then claiming any one of them is the paradigm of obviousness after KSR.

4. The motivation-to-combine showing (KSR/MPEP 2143 factors)

A robust §103 case rests on articulated reasons, not merely overlapping disclosures. Here the reasons are unusually strong:

1. Same field of endeavor, same problem, same solution space. Suzuki '679, Kobayashi '388, Nagatani '526, and the '370 are all edge-lit light guides for LCD backlights addressing the same two objectives: (i) uniform luminance across the panel despite source-to-far-edge falloff, and (ii) thinness/high efficiency. The '370 specification states these as its objectives ("increased uniformity and higher light output … with lower power requirements, and allow the panel members to be made thinner and/or longer"). When the prior art pursues the same stated objective, the combination is obvious. (MPEP 2144.04.)

2. Kobayashi itself suggests the combination of its own embodiments. Per the Petitioner's mapping in IPR2015-01867, Kobayashi's Fig. 6 is itself a combined embodiment and Kobayashi "explicitly teaches and suggests the combination of features from its various disclosed embodiments." A reference that expressly points to its own sub-combinations supplies the incentive with no hindsight reconstruction.

3. Pristash is incorporated by reference into the '370 and is cited for exactly the transition-region function. The applicant wrote into the specification that the light-source/transition art of US 5,005,108 is incorporated in full. It is therefore not merely available to combine — it is adopted by the patentee. Using Pristash's transition device to supply the "transition region … mix and spread … reflecting/refracting optical elements" limitation of claims 13, 27, and 47 is the strongest single motivation in the record: the patentee itself endorsed that reference as describing its coupling art.

4. Known technique, known function, predictable result. Reducing reflection at the source/plate interface by replacing an air gap with a solid transition device is a mechanical-optics truism with a predictable efficiency gain. Varying extraction density with distance from the source to flatten the luminance profile is likewise standard. Prismatic and lenticular films on backlight outputs had well-understood functions. KSR squarely covers "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods … when it does no more than yield predictable results."

5. The patent claims a menu, not a result. "At least two different types," "different type," "vary in a different way or manner," and the claim 11/25 parameter list are selection instructions. Under KSR's "obvious to try" branch, where there is a finite number of identified, predictable solutions and a POSITA would pursue them with a reasonable expectation of success, the claim is obvious. Nothing in the '370 record (as retrieved) shows a teaching away, an unexpected result, or a secondary consideration attributable to the specific two-sided/varies-differently limitation.

6. No criticality, no unexpected results, no nexus. The claims recite relative and functional terms with no numerical bounds (contrast the specification's own 0.006 in² and 60 lines-per-inch figures — which appear in the spec but not in the challenged independent claims). Absence of a stated criticality for any claimed parameter is a standard obviousness indicator.

5. Candidate §103 grounds (summary)

For the film/sheet element specifically, the motivation is nearly self-proving: the claim itself states the purpose ("such that the light will pass through a liquid crystal display with low loss"), which is the acknowledged function of the output films used in every edge-lit LCD backlight of the era, and the specification confirms the film may be "a prismatic or lenticular lens or other device that changes the output ray angle distribution."

6. Counterarguments and points of tension I must not bury

I want to be explicit about the record against this analysis, because the honest picture is mixed, not one-sided:

1. The Board refused to institute on claims 1, 4, 8, 13, 29, and 47 in IPR2014-01096. It instituted only on claims 15 and 27 (and denied LG's rehearing request as to the others). That is a de facto finding of no reasonable likelihood as to those claims on LG's grounds. My G2–G4 grounds are therefore stronger on paper than what the Board actually credited on the first attempt — they depend on later petitioners bringing Kobayashi Fig. 6 and Nagatani to bear, which LG had not.

2. The two IPRs that did target claims 1, 13, 29, 47 did not reach a final §103 holding. IPR2015-01867 (K.J. Pretech) was instituted on 2016-03-17 but the family record lists it as terminated; IPR2015-00753 (Sony) terminated by settlement. So for claims 1, 13, 29, and 47, the obviousness conclusion is my analysis, not an adjudication — it is probable, not proven. I flag that distinction explicitly.

3. There is a contrary district-court data point. A secondary compilation (IPWatchdog's PTAB-vs-District-Court table) lists the '370 (Parker, 5/26/2009) with a district-court result of "Not Invalid" against a PTAB result of "Unpatentable." That is consistent with claims 15/27 dying at the PTAB while the asserted claims in district court survived — but it is not a final judgment I have verified, and the Litigation Summary above already records that district-court outcomes are largely unconfirmed in the record retrieved. It is a caution, not a refutation.

4. The "different type" / "different way or manner" terminology is genuinely contestable at the POSITA level. The Credelle/Werner exchange shows a real dispute over whether "pitch" ≠ "density" and whether grid pitch in one dimension counts as "variation." A §103 case on claims 29/47 that relies on Suzuki alone is vulnerable; a case that relies on Nagatani's different vertex angles on opposing sides — a structural, not parametric, difference — is materially harder to answer.

5. § 112 exposure cuts the other way for the patentee. Claims 29/47 ("vary in a different way or manner") and the independent claims' "different type" are vulnerable to indefiniteness and to a written-description attack, and the specification's support for two-sided, different-type patterns is exactly the subject matter I flagged in §1.3 as possibly CIP-only. A claim that is broad enough to read on Kobayashi/Suzuki may also be broad enough to be invalid — the familiar §103/§112 pincer. I note this as an analytical consequence, not as a holding.

6. Do not overlook double patenting. The '370 is one of ~34 family members sharing the 1995 priority, many of which issued as separate patents (e.g., 6,712,481; 7,160,015; 7,434,974; 7,404,660; 8,215,816). Whether any obviousness-type double patenting (or the pre-URAA term implications of the copending-family structure) further limits the '370's claims is a separate question from §103 and is not resolved here.

7. Bottom line

• Claims 15 and 27 are established as obvious by adjudication: IPR2014-01096 Final Written Decision, 2015-12-18, § 103(a) (LG Display/LG Electronics), on a Suzuki '679-based ground, with Pristash '108 supplying the transition region.
• Claims 1, 13, 29, and 47 are, in my assessment, more likely than not obvious over Kobayashi '388 (Fig. 6) + Pristash '108, and — for claims 29/47 — additionally over Kobayashi '388 (or Suzuki '679) + Nagatani '526, with an output film or the Pristash transition device supplying the second independent-claim element. The motivations are: same field and problem, Kobayashi's own express suggestion to combine its embodiments, Pristash's status as incorporated-by-reference in the '370, known functions/predictable results, and the selection-menu character of the claimed variation parameters.
• The counterweight is real: the Board declined to institute on claims 1, 13, 29, 47 in IPR2014-01096, and the two follow-on IPRs aimed at them terminated without a final §103 holding. So for those claims the analysis is probability, not adjudication — and it turns on whether a petitioner properly pleads Kobayashi Fig. 6 and Nagatani's differing vertex angles on opposing sides, which is precisely where LG's original, less well-supported ground failed.
• Highest-value open verification: (i) whether the two-sided/"different type"/"different way or manner" limitations are supported by the 1995 US 5,613,751 disclosure (if not, the §103 date shifts to 1999-02-23); and (ii) the '370's own front-page reference list, which I could not confirm in this session and which I have not treated as established.