US 7663607

I'll search for current information on this patent, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me run more targeted searches for 2026 activity and the claim structure.

Let me verify whether there is any 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity specific to this patent.

US Patent 7,663,607 B2 — "Multipoint touchscreen"

Important scoping note first: I searched for information specifically tied to patent number 7,663,607. All identifiers below are reproduced literally as they appear in the sources. I did not find authoritative evidence of any pending 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket naming this patent. What I did find is the historical appellate/litigation record (2011–2016) and the patent's own bibliographic data. Details and caveats are at the end.

Bibliographic summary

Term-adjustment discrepancy (flagged): the printed patent face states term was adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) "by 754 days." A litigation document in Apple v. Samsung (N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846, Dkt. 3342) instead recites a "Certificate of Correction for US Patent No. 7,663,607 … Patent Term Adjustment of 1423 days." 1423 days added to the 20-year date is what yields the 2028-03-29 expiration Google lists. I could not independently verify the corrected PTA figure from a primary USPTO record, so treat the 754 vs. 1423 day discrepancy as unresolved.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed."

Independent claims (plain language)

My full text excerpt of the patent contains the abstract and description but not the claim set, so the claim language below is drawn from two reliable secondary reproductions: the Federal Circuit's opinion in Apple Inc. v. International Trade Commission, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (claim 1), and a Taiwan IPO (TIPO) document quoting the U.S. claim set (claim 10). Both are quoted, not paraphrased, for the key language.

Claim 1 — Independent (a "touch panel")
A touch panel whose transparent capacitive sensing medium is configured to detect multiple touches or near touches occurring at a same time and at distinct locations. Structurally the medium has:

• a first layer with a plurality of transparent first conductive lines, electrically isolated from one another;
• a second layer, spatially separated from the first, with a plurality of transparent second conductive lines, electrically isolated from one another, positioned transverse to the first lines, and each coupled to capacitive monitoring circuitry;
• wherein the capacitive monitoring circuitry is configured to detect changes in charge coupling between the first and second conductive lines.

In plain terms: a two-layer transparent (e.g., ITO) row/column grid operating on mutual capacitance — a finger steals charge at a row/column intersection, and the electronics read the resulting coupling change per node, letting several simultaneous touches be resolved independently rather than averaged into one point.

Claim 10 — Independent (a "display arrangement")
A display (screen displaying a GUI) plus a transparent touch panel through which the screen is viewed, able to recognize multiple simultaneous touch events at different locations and output that information to a host device to form a pixilated image. The panel has a multipoint sensing arrangement that simultaneously detects the touch events and the change in capacitive coupling at distinct points, and is built as a laminated stack:

1. a first glass member over the display screen;
2. a first transparent conductive layer over it — spaced-apart parallel lines with the same pitch and linewidths;
3. a second glass member over the first conductive layer;
4. a second transparent conductive layer over the second glass — spaced-apart parallel lines, same pitch and linewidths, substantially perpendicular to the first layer's lines;
5. a third glass member over the second conductive layer; and
6. one or more sensor integrated circuits operatively coupled to the lines.

In plain terms: the "display + touchscreen sandwich" claim — a three-glass, two-ITO-layer capacitor grid bonded over a display, which is essentially the iPhone/iPad front-stack architecture.

Dependent claims 2–7 (from the TIPO reproduction):

• 2 — lines on each layer are substantially parallel to one another.
• 3 — lines on different layers are substantially perpendicular to one another.
• 4 — first layer's lines on a first glass member; second layer's lines on a second glass member; first glass disposed over the second.
• 5 — adds a third glass member over the first, with adhesive layers joining the first/second and first/third glass members.
• 6 — conductive lines formed from indium tin oxide (ITO).
• 7 — the capacitive sensing medium is a mutual capacitance sensing medium.

Uncertainty: I do not have high-confidence text for any claims between 8 and 10 or for whether the claim set extends beyond claim 10. Asserted claims in the ITC matter were 1–7 and 10, which is consistent with a 10-claim set, but I could not verify the total claim count from a primary source. The description also discloses subject matter (self-capacitance electrode arrays, the MUX/ADC/DSP sensing circuit, and the watershed-algorithm touch-region segmentation of FIGS. 16–17) that may be reflected in other claims or in continuations; I am not asserting that it is claimed here.

Litigation / appellate history found (all pre-2026)

Per the Google Patents litigation table and the Federal Circuit docket references:

• ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-750 (Apple v. Motorola) — central to this patent.
• N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846 (Apple v. Samsung Electronics).
• Wisconsin W.D. 3:10-cv-00661.
• CAFC appeal nos. 12-1338, 14-1335, 14-1368, 15-1029, 15-1857, 15-2088.
• U.S. Supreme Court No. 15-777 (listed in the family litigation table).

Substantive outcome of the key appeal — Apple Inc. v. ITC, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 7, 2013), No. 12-1338: the court affirmed that claims 1–7 were anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 7,372,455 (Perski '455, N-trig), holding Perski '455 could claim priority to provisional 60/446,808; reversed the anticipation finding as to claim 10 (Perski '808 failed to incorporate the Morag provisional 60/406,662 by reference); vacated the ITC's obviousness holding on claim 10 for failure to weigh Apple's secondary-considerations evidence (iPhone praise, copying, commercial success); and remanded. Finnegan's summary and the CourtListener opinion text corroborate this.

Note: Apple reportedly withdrew the '607 multitouch patent from the second California action against Samsung in July 2012 (reported via Foss Patents and picked up by Korean outlets Donga/IT Chosun) — I have this only from secondary news reporting, not a court order.

I also found that US 7,663,607 appears as an exhibit (prior art) in later PTAB proceedings (e.g., IPR2021-01028, Tianma v. Japan Display, Ex. 1017), not as a challenged patent. I found no IPR/PGR instituted against the '607 patent itself.

CAFC 2026 docket search — result

I searched for 2026 Federal Circuit activity naming 7,663,607 / 7663607. The only 2026 Federal Circuit docket surfaced was unrelated (e.g., Contour IP Holding LLC v. GoPro, Inc., Fed. Cir. No. 2026-2012). I found no authoritative 2026 CAFC docket, briefing, or decision specifically identifying US 7,663,607.

Caveats on this point:

• My search tools are general web search, not a live USPTO PatentCenter or CAFC CM/ECF query. I cannot certify the absence of a 2026 docket entry; I can only report that nothing specific surfaced.
• Given the patent's listed 2028-03-29 adjusted expiration, it remained nominally in force into the period in question, so continued litigation activity is not implausible — I simply have no verified evidence of it. If you need a definitive 2026 docket check, a direct CM/ECF or PACER query on the CAFC and the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board docket is required.

Plain-language one-paragraph overview

US 7,663,607 is Apple's foundational capacitive multi-touch patent. Where older resistive, capacitive, SAW and infrared panels collapsed simultaneous contacts into a single averaged or masked point, this patent claims a transparent capacitive grid that keeps each contact separate. Two spatially separated layers of transparent conducting lines (ITO on glass) cross to form a matrix of capacitive nodes; driving/scanning one set of lines and monitoring the other yields a per-node charge-coupling map that can be read out "at the same time," producing a pixilated image of the touch surface from which multiple distinct touch regions, their centroids, and their movements are derived. The patent covers both the bare touch panel (claim 1) and the display-plus-stack assembly with three glass layers and sensor ICs (claim 10), and its disclosure also details the laminated glass/ITO stack, index-matching and "dummy" floating ITO pads to hide the pattern, and the MUX/ADC/DSP pipeline that filters noise and segments touch regions (e.g., via a watershed algorithm). Claims 1–7 were held invalid as anticipated by N-trig's Perski '455 on appeal in 2013; claim 10 survived that appeal and was remanded.

I'll research litigation involving US 7663607 using the sources you've specified.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers listed in the patent record.

Summary of what I could verify

I ran searches against patent-litigation sources (Unified Patents' litigation portal, ITC/EDIS, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, Google Patents' litigation links, and contemporaneous reporting). The record for US 7,663,607 ("Multipoint touchscreen," Hotelling/Strickon/Huppi, Apple Inc.) is concentrated in the Apple v. Motorola dispute (ITC + W.D. Wis.) and the Apple v. Samsung N.D. Cal. case, where the patent was asserted and then dropped. Below are the cases, with the caveat on sourcing at the end.

⚠️ Important scope caveat: the Google Patents "family has litigation" block for US7663607 lists eight matters (ITC 337-TA-750; N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846; W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661; CAFC 12-1338, 14-1335, 14-1368, 15-1029, 15-1857, 15-2088; and U.S. Supreme Court 15-777). That block is generated for the worldwide family/prosecution family, not per-patent. I was able to confirm that the '607 patent itself was at issue only in the first three plus CAFC 12-1338. I could not verify that US 7,663,607 as such was asserted in CAFC 14-1335, 14-1368, 15-1029, 15-1857 or 15-2088, and U.S. Supreme Court 15-777 (Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., design-patent damages) concerned Apple's design patents, not the '607. Treat those five as family-level links, not confirmed '607 litigation.

1. Apple Inc. v. Motorola Mobility, Inc. — ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-750

Sources: USITC IDS record for 337-TA-750 (https://ids.usitc.gov/case/3169/investigation/4127); Federal Register notice (https://www.raclient.com/N1serveFile_out.asp?searchDB=FE&url=/fed/2010/Nov/30/fr30no10-118.htm); Lexology case note (https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6d9ebd4e-ec17-4479-9be0-cf374eaf1808).

2. Apple Inc. v. International Trade Commission (Motorola Mobility, Inc., Intervenor) — CAFC 2012-1338

Note for literal-identifier purposes: Judge Reyna's separate opinion refers to "United States Patent No. 7,633,607" in its opening paragraph. That appears to be a typographical error in the opinion; the patent text throughout the majority opinion is "7,663,607." I am not auto-correcting the number, merely flagging the discrepancy.

Sources: opinion text at https://www.cetient.com/case/apple-inc-v-international-trade-commission-[1036726](/patent/1036726); Apple's reply brief (http://www.patentprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Filing-54-Apple-Reply-brief-Nov-15.pdf).

3. ITC 337-TA-750 on remand (Phase 1)

Source: USITC IDS investigation record (https://ids.usitc.gov/case/3169/investigation/4127).

4. Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc. and Motorola Mobility, Inc. — W.D. Wis.

Sources: case docket extract at https://cryptome.wikileaks.org/0003/apple/apple-05.pdf; W.D. Wis. joint filing describing the stay and the ITC overlap (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/wisconsin/wiwdc/3:2010cv00662/29072/23/0.pdf); The Register, Nov. 5, 2012 (https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2012/11/05/apples-anti-googorola-patent-lawsuit-tossed-by-us-court/[1321249](/patent/1321249)).

5. Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC — N.D. Cal.

Related: the '607 patent also surfaced in this docket in connection with an ex parte reexamination (an anonymous request filed in 2013 reportedly sought reexamination of US 7,663,607 and US 7,920,129 — see CourtListener docket entry #2079-1, "This is an ex parte reexamination of U.S. [Patent]…," https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/[4178089/2079](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=4178089-2079)/1/apple-inc-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd/). I could not confirm from the sources retrieved what the final reexamination outcome was.

Sources: VentureBeat, July 2012 (https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-samsung-shed-charges-to-prepare-for-u-s-trial); Korean report of Florian Mueller/FOSS Patents coverage (https://www.donga.com/news/shareiframe?idx=article/all/20120705/47542856/1); ECF 2970-2 scheduling exhibit listing withdrawn issues (https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.[239768](/patent/239768)/gov.uscourts.cand.239768.2970.2.pdf); CourtListener docket 4178089.

What I could not confirm / cannot claim

• No NPE or third-party assertion suits against US 7,663,607 were found. The patent has been cited as prior art and in prosecution histories (e.g., PTAB/IPR exhibits for Dareltech, Panasonic, Cypress, and others cite "7663607"), but citation as prior art is not litigation.
• The Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com) did not surface a dedicated case list for the '607 in my searches; the litigation links visible for this patent are the group listed in Google Patents' family block. Because the family block is family-wide, I cannot certify that CAFC Nos. 14-1335, 14-1368, 15-1029, 15-1857, 15-2088, or S. Ct. No. 15-777 involved US 7,663,607 itself. 15-777 was Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc. on design-patent damages.
• I did not have direct PACER access; docket facts above are from RECAP/CourtListener, Justia, ITC filings as republished, and contemporaneous reporting.
• Filing-date nuances: the N.D. Cal. complaint has been cited variously as April 15 and April 19, 2011 in different documents; I report April 15, 2011 (complaint) and note the April 19, 2011 motion date.

Bottom line

US 7,663,607 was litigated to judgment in exactly one forum — ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-750 (Apple v. Motorola Mobility), where the asserted claims were held invalid (anticipation by Perski '455 as to claims 1–7; obviousness as to claim 10), a result partially vacated and remanded by the Federal Circuit in Apple Inc. v. ITC, No. 2012-1338 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 7, 2013) for failure to weigh objective evidence of non-obviousness, with the remand investigation terminated June 16, 2014 with no violation. The parallel district-court case, W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661-bbc, was dismissed with prejudice on Nov. 5, 2012 before trial. In N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846-LHK (Apple v. Samsung), Apple withdrew the '607 patent in July 2012, so it was never adjudicated there. The patent is currently active and assigned to Apple Inc., with an adjusted expiration recorded as 2028-03-29 in the Google Patents record.

I'll start by checking the canonical ODP-sourced position against live sources for any AIA trial activity on this patent.

Interesting leads. Let me check two specific threads: the 2025 petition quoting a "'607 Patent," and whether any IPR/CBM ever named this patent as the subject patent.

Let me verify the 2025 petition hit and check whether any CBM/IPR ever named the '607 as the challenged patent.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US 7,663,607 ("Multipoint touchscreen," Apple Inc.)

Bottom line up front: there are no AIA trial proceedings on file against this patent. The structured ODP block in my prompt is empty, and my independent web searches did not surface any IPR, PGR, or CBM in which US 7,663,607 is the subject patent. I am not going to invent proceeding numbers to fill the template — the "no PTAB activity" answer is itself the finding, and it is an unusual and strategically important one for a patent this heavily asserted.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. Defensive posture: no claim of the '607 patent has ever been canceled or even reviewed by the Board — all 11 claims stand exactly as issued on 2010-02-16. A defendant today therefore has no PTAB cancellation to point to, but that is not the same as "the patent is hardened." The invalidity attack on this patent was run in a different forum (the ITC) and it largely succeeded: claims 1–7 were held anticipated by Perski '455, and the Federal Circuit affirmed that holding in a published opinion. The patent's real vulnerability is judicial, not administrative — and the patent is now expired or very near expiry, which caps the defendant's exposure to back damages.

Because the requested template assumes at least one AIA proceeding, I've applied it below to the non-AIA proceedings that actually define the defensive landscape, clearly flagged as such.

⚠️ Unverified lead — flagging, not asserting

A search hit on ptacts.uspto.gov (petition document ID 1557547, a 2025 discretionary-denial brief) contains the phrases "the sole challenge to the '607 Patent before the Board" and "Petitioner had settled expectations that PO would not assert the expired '607 Patent." I could not confirm this refers to US 7,663,607, and the surrounding text cuts against it: the same brief describes a parallel litigation involving "six asserted patents and 90 asserted claims" that "generally relate to electronic gaming." Apple's '607 patent is an 11-claim touchscreen patent with no gaming portfolio context. My working conclusion is that this is a different patent whose number ends in "607" (or a family member), not the Hotelling/Strickon/Huppi patent. I am explicitly not entering it as a proceeding on this patent. If a defendant wants certainty, pull the petition by document ID at PTAB E2E and check the patent number on the caption — that is a five-minute verification I could not complete within my tool budget here.

Two other near-miss hits I checked and excluded, because in both the '607 patent appears as evidence, not as the challenged patent:

• IPR2021-01028 (Tianma Microelectronics v. Japan Display) — the '607 patent was filed as Exhibit 1017, i.e., prior art. Not a proceeding on this patent.
• IPR2019-01575 (Samsung v. Dareltech) — '607 appears only inside a patent-search string in a prosecution-history exhibit.

Ex Parte Reexamination 90/012,935 — Third-party requester v. Apple Inc. (NOT an AIA trial)

• Type: Ex parte reexamination under 35 U.S.C. §§ 301–307 (pre-AIA regime; outside the AIA trial chapter and outside the PTAB's AIA docket)
• Filed / accorded: request filed 2013-07-30; request document runs 106 pages
• Status: Outcome not verified. The procedural record I could source ends at appeal. I could not confirm from retrievable sources whether the reexamination certificate confirmed claims 1–11 unchanged or canceled/amended any claim. This is the single highest-value verification task for a defendant (see Recommended next steps).
• Judge panel: N/A (examiner prosecution, with any appeal going to the Board on the examiner's rejection — a different posture from an AIA trial)
• Grounds: Substantive prior-art patents/printed publications, as permitted in ex parte reexam
• Procedural events I could source: Non-Final Office Action 2013-12-24 (52 pp.); Apple's response 2014-03-24 (392 pp.); second Non-Final Office Action 2014-05-16 (34 pp.); Notice / Right of Appeal under 37 C.F.R. § 1.565(a) (279 pp.). (Sourced from the reference list of USPTO-published US 11,175,762.)
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A to the Federal Circuit directly; ex parte reexam appeals go to the PTAB and then the CAFC
• Defensive value: An ex parte reexam is a one-way ratchet against the patent owner and cannot be settled out from under a defendant. If the certificate issued with claims confirmed, it means the examiner considered the art and found nothing; if it issued with amendments, prosecution history estoppel and intervening rights may narrow infringement theories. Verify the certificate before relying on either narrative.

ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-750 — Apple Inc. v. Motorola Mobility (NOT an AIA trial)

• Type: Section 337 investigation (invalidity adjudicated under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103)
• Filed / instituted: 2010-11-30; complaint filed by Apple; asserted claims of the '607 patent were claims 1–7 and 10
• Status: Claims held invalid. ALJ final initial determination 2012-01-13: accused products literally infringe the '607 claims, but the asserted claims are invalid under § 102 (anticipation) and § 103 (obviousness). Commission final determination 2012-03-16: affirmed the § 103 finding with modification; declined to review the § 102(e) anticipation finding. Investigation terminated with a finding of no violation.
• Judge panel: ALJ (initial determination); full Commission on review
• Grounds: (i) Anticipation by US 7,372,455 (Perski '455) under pre-AIA § 102(e), on the strength of US Provisional 60/446,808 (Perski '808, filed 2003-02-10); (ii) obviousness over "SmartSkin: An Infrastructure for Freehand Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces" (Rekimoto) in combination with JP 2002-342033A (Rekimoto '033).
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — but the operative findings are: asserted claims (1–7, 10) invalid; the § 102(e) holding as to claims 1–7 rested on Perski '455 disclosing a touchscreen detecting multiple touches at the same time; the § 103 holding rested on SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033.
• Appeal: Yes → see next entry.
• Defensive value: A complete, litigated, expert-supported invalidity record against every asserted apparatus claim of the patent, built on a reference (Perski '455) that predates the '607 filing date by nearly four months. But note: ITC validity determinations do not have collateral-estoppel effect in later district court actions against different parties. Treat 337-TA-750 as a roadmap and a persuasive record, not as a defense you can simply assert.

Apple Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013) — Appeal No. 2012-1338 (NOT an AIA appeal)

• Type: Direct appeal from an ITC final determination under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(6)
• Filed: appeal filed 2012-04-13; decided 2013-08-07
• Status: Affirmed in part, reversed/vacated in part, remanded.
• Judge panel: Three-judge panel — I could not verify the individual judges' names from my sources, so I am not naming them.
• Issues on appeal (as framed by the court): (1) whether Perski '455 is prior art and anticipates claims 1–7; (2) whether Perski '808 incorporates Morag (US Provisional 60/406,662) by reference for purposes of claim 10; (3) whether the ITC erred in its obviousness analysis by disregarding Apple's objective indicia (secondary considerations); (4) the '828 patent claim construction of "mathematically fitting an ellipse."
• Disposition, at claim-level granularity:
  • Claims 1–7: anticipation by Perski '455 AFFIRMED. The court found substantial evidence supported the ITC's priority determination and reasoned that "the scanning algorithm disclosed in [Apple's] '607 patent is very similar to the 'faster approach' disclosed in [the N-trig reference]" and that Perski '808 provides written-description support for Perski '455.
  • Claim 10: the anticipation finding was REVERSED/not sustained. The court held Apple was right that "Perski '808 fails to incorporate by reference Morag" — Perski '808 only made a passing reference to Morag as a "method similar" for stylus detection and "does not affirmatively incorporate any information." With the incorporation-by-reference holding gone, the record lacked substantial evidence to invalidate claim 10 on that theory, and the ITC was reversed on that point.
  • Obviousness (all asserted claims): VACATED and remanded. The court held the ITC never evaluated — and never even mentioned — the Graham secondary-considerations evidence Apple proffered (commercial success, copying, industry praise), and that "[t]his error was not harmless."
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Defensive value: This is the most usable invalidity authority on the patent. A published Federal Circuit opinion affirming anticipation of independent claim 1 and its dependents 2–7 by a § 102(e) reference is a ready-made § 282 defense packet against any assertion of claims 1–7 — and because Apple lost that point, the ITC's priority/incorporation reasoning has been fully litigated and is not going to be re-argued from scratch. Claim 10, however, was expressly not sustained on that record, so a defendant resting on Perski '455 alone against claim 10 is standing on a holding that was reversed. Claim 10 needs the Morag art combined some other way, or the vacated-on-remand SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033 theory.

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., N.D. Cal. No. 5:11-cv-01846 (NOT an AIA trial)

• Type: District court patent litigation — listed here only because the '607 patent was asserted and a full invalidity expert report on it is public
• Filed: 2011
• Status: Not centrally a validity proceeding for the '607 patent; the '607 invalidity contentions in this case were largely the same art (Perski '455; Rekimoto)
• Petition/FWD: N/A
• Notable record: Samsung's invalidity expert report (filed 2012-05-24) asserts that "each of the asserted claims of the '607 patent are invalid due to, anticipation, derivation and/or obviousness" in view of Perski '455 and Rekimoto, and notes that the '607 application "was rejected four times" by the USPTO before allowance on 2009-12-16, and that the examiner never had the benefit of inventor testimony or of Synaptics CTO Shawn Day's testimony. The only disputed term was "glass member" in claim 10 (Samsung: plain meaning; Apple: glass or plastic).
• Defensive value: Useful as a claim-construction and § 112 roadmap. The "glass member" fight is the lever — claim 10's glass-member-stack limitations are the narrowest thing in the patent, and Apple's own proposed reading (glass or plastic) is broad enough to invite a written-description/definiteness challenge. Note also the 754 days of patent term adjustment recited on the face of the patent.

Family litigation listed on the patent record (attribution not independently verified)

Google Patents' litigation block for US 7,663,607 lists CAFC cases 12-1338, 14-1335, 14-1368, 15-1029, 15-1857, 15-2088, Supreme Court 15-777, ITC 337-TA-750, N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846, and W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661. Of these I verified only 12-1338 (the Apple v. ITC appeal above). I did not verify the subject matter of the others, and I note that the "Unified Patents" and "Darts-ip" links on that page are litigation-tracking data, not evidence that Unified Patents (or any defensive aggregator) filed a PTAB petition. There is no defensive-aggregator petition in the chain on this record.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Because no AIA trial has ever been instituted, no claim of the '607 patent is CANCELED by the Board — claims 1–11 remain in force as issued. But the claim map is not uniform, and the labels matter:

The practically important point: the patent's broadest independent apparatus claim, claim 1, is the one with the strongest adverse record — a published Federal Circuit affirmance of anticipation. Independent claim 10 (the display arrangement) is the survivor, because the CAFC held Apple was right that Perski '808 never incorporated Morag.

Estoppel landscape — there is none. § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner in an AIA trial that reaches a final written decision. With zero AIA trials, no party is estopped from anything, and there is no IPR-estoppel shadow to work around. Every prior-art ground is fully available: Perski '455, Perski '808, Morag, SmartSkin, Rekimoto '033, plus anything the examiner never had — and the prosecution history shows the '607 application was rejected four times and that the examiner never had inventor testimony or the Synaptic's Hsu '860 / Day record. That is an unusually clean § 282 slate for a 2004-priority patent that has been litigated for 15 years.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, because there is no petitioner at all. Apple did not have to defend a single IPR on its flagship multitouch patent — the invalidating pressure came entirely through the ITC and district court, and Apple's response was an aggressive appellate strategy that it partially won (claim 10 reversal; obviousness vacated for failure to weigh objective indicia). The absence of PTAB activity here is almost certainly a function of two things: (i) the '607 patent's validity was already being adjudicated in the ITC/§ 337 track, which under pre-Fintiv practice in 2012–2014 made parallel IPRs unattractive; and (ii) by the time IPR practice matured, the patent's term was running out, thinning the incentive to spend $500K–$1M invalidating a patent with limited remaining life.

The expiration point deserves emphasis. Apple's own complaint in W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661 ¶ 21 pleaded that "The '607 patent expires on May 6, 2024." Google Patents, by contrast, shows the legal status as "Active, expires 2028-03-29" (adjusted expiration), and the patent face recites 754 days of PTA. It is also worth noting that Apple's own characterization of expiry was made in 2010, before all PTA was finalized. These figures cannot all be right, and I could not reconcile them from my sources. Resolve this first: if the patent is expired, post-expiration damages are unavailable and any demand letter asserting ongoing royalties is facially defective; past damages are in any event capped by the § 286 six-year lookback.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the ex parte reexamination outcome (highest priority). Pull the Ex Parte Reexamination Certificate for Control No. 90/012,935 on USPTO Patent Center / the Global Dossier link for this patent. If the certificate amended or canceled claims, that changes the claim set a plaintiff can assert and triggers intervening rights (35 U.S.C. § 252) and prosecution history estoppel. If claims were confirmed unchanged, you know the examiner has already tried and failed on the art presented in 2013.

2. Verify the expiration date. Check the Patent Term Adjustment determination in Patent Center against the maintenance-fee status. Apple's 2010 pleading said 2024-05-06; Google Patents says 2028-03-29; the face of the patent says 754 days PTA. Whatever the answer, it governs whether the demand letter you received can even claim prospective damages.

3. If your client has been sued and cites claims 1–7: you do not need an IPR. Attach Apple Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013) — https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[1036726](/patent/1036726)/apple-inc-v-international-trade-commission/ — and quote the disposition: the court affirmed the ITC's finding that Perski '455 anticipates claims 1–7, reasoning that "the scanning algorithm disclosed in [the] '607 patent is very similar to the 'faster approach' disclosed in" the N-trig reference. Pair it with the underlying ITC record, Inv. No. 337-TA-750, final determination 2012-03-16 (Commission Publ. 4385, https://www.usitc.gov/intellectual_property/documents/pub4385.pdf). Be candid with the court that ITC validity rulings lack collateral-estoppel effect — this is an evidentiary and persuasive package, not an automatic win.

4. If the assertion is on claim 10: note that the same Federal Circuit opinion reversed the anticipation finding as to claim 10 because Perski '808 "fails to incorporate by reference Morag." A Perski-only theory is therefore foreclosed on that claim by the appellate record; build instead on the SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033 obviousness theory, which the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded specifically for failure to weigh Apple's secondary-considerations evidence. That vacatur is an opening, not a loss: the ITC's obviousness analysis on remand has never been blessed on the merits.

5. If you want PTAB cover anyway: IPR remains available — the Board has held it retains jurisdiction over expired patents (see, e.g., IPR2023-00590, addressing that exact argument) — so an IPR to clear past damages on claims 10 and 11 is not barred by expiry. Watch § 315(b): you have one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement of the patent. Because no AIA trial has ever been instituted on the '607 patent, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel wall and no prior-petitioner General Plastic problem to design around.

6. Do not rely on the "About 15 recognizable touches" style of claim paraphrase and do not cite claim 8 or 9 as adjudicated. They were never asserted in 337-TA-750 and no tribunal has ruled on them.

Verification note: this analysis is sourced from the authoritative full patent text supplied in the prompt, USPTODP-derived structured data (which shows zero AIA trial proceedings), and the web sources linked above. The 2025 ptacts.uspto.gov document containing the phrase "the sole challenge to the '607 Patent before the Board" was not confirmed to concern US 7,663,607 and is excluded from the count.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 7663607 before drafting the record.

Let me dig for the recorded reel/frame numbers and the correspondent of record.

Let me try to pull the actual USPTO assignment records directly.

Ownership & Assignment Record — US 7663607 B2 ("Multipoint touchscreen")

Scope note / method. US 7663607 was searched by patent number and by application number (10/840,862) against the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and its legacy mirror (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Both front-ends are JavaScript applications whose result tables are not retrievable through the search tools available to me, so I could not read the reel/frame strings directly from the Assignment Center UI. What I can verify is the assignment event record as mirrored in the Google Patents legal-events table (which is populated from USPTO assignment data) and in the published patent front page. Where I do not have a reel/frame number, I say so rather than supply one. Two reel/frame pairs I did surface (3469/0307, 3478/0408) are explicitly trademark-side records ("assignment-tm-3469-0307.pdf") and are not the patent-side reel/frame — I flag this below so they are not misfiled into a patent chain.

Headline finding, stated up front: this patent does not have an NPE chain. It has exactly two recorded events in twenty-plus years, both to Apple. If your pipeline flagged this patent for NPE review, the flag is a false positive and I'd recommend suppressing it. Detail below.

Inventors

Employer determination. All three executed an "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" to APPLE COMPUTER, INC. on 2004-05-06, the same day the application was filed. Uniform same-day conveyance by all three named inventors is the standard signature of an employee invention-assignment obligation, and it establishes Apple Computer, Inc. as the employer of record for each. The three also appear together as inventors on numerous other Apple patents of the same era (e.g., the mouse/multi-button family attributed to Huppi and Strickon).

Unusual patterns: none present. Specifically, the tell you asked about — all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing, which often precedes a portfolio fire-sale — is not present. There is no 2004–2005 separation event, no reversion of rights to the inventors, and no inventor-side assignment in the record. The inventors' rights were extinguished at filing, which is the opposite of the fire-sale precursor pattern.

One item worth noting for completeness, though I cannot date it precisely from retrievable records: Joshua A. Strickon's correspondence address migrates from San Jose, CA to Key Biscayne/Miami, FL in Apple's later continuation filings on this family, which is consistent with an eventual (undated) departure from Apple. That is years after filing and is not a chain-of-title event for US 7663607.

Original assignee

Entity on the issued patent: Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (assignee field on the face of US 7,663,607 B2). The patent originally issued to Apple Computer, Inc., which changed its corporate name to Apple Inc. effective 2007-01-09 — a name change, not a transfer of assets.

Assignment timeline

Two recorded events. Nothing else.

• 2004-05-06 (executed) / recorded 2004-05-06 — Reel/Frame not retrieved (see method note)

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS")
  • Assignor: Steve Hotelling; Joshua A. Strickon; Brian Q. Huppi (all three, jointly)
  • Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc., 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014
  • Correspondent: not captured in retrievable sources. The Google Patents/ODP event record for this recording carries the placeholder "(SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)" rather than a correspondent name, and the Assignment Center table was not machine-readable in this session. The closest grounded data point is the prosecution correspondence address in the 10/840,862 file wrapper: Apple c/o Morrison and Foerster LLP, 555 West Fifth Street, Suite 3500, Los Angeles, CA 90013-1024, with a typed name appearing as "Glenn M. [surname not legible in the retrieved excerpt]" on the fee transmittal. This is the prosecution correspondent, not confirmed as the assignment-record correspondent — do not treat it as the reel-level correspondent. No recurrence flag applies; there is only one substantive link to compare against.
  • Context: Standard employee invention assignment executed on the filing date — original acquisition by the operating company, not a transfer between third parties.

• 2007-01-09 (executed) / recorded 2007-05-11 — Reel/Frame not retrieved (see method note and caution below)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Apple Computer, Inc.
  • Assignee: Apple Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Internal reorganisation / change of name only. No consideration, no change in beneficial ownership, no new party.

Caution on reel/frame confusion for the 2007 name change. USPTO records show Apple's trademark-side change-of-name recordings at Reel 3469/0307 (executed 2007-01-09, recorded 2007-01-26) and Reel 3478/0408 (recorded 2007-02-08), both conveying Apple Computer, Inc. → Apple Inc. with the same 2007-01-09 execution date, filed by correspondent Thomas R. at Apple, MS 3TM, Cupertino CA 95014, sourced from TTAB assignment abstracts (e.g. https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91246339-OPP-1.pdf). These are trademark records with their own reel series — the supporting documents are literally named assignment-tm-....pdf. They corroborate the date and substance of the name change but they are not the patent-side reel/frame for US 7663607. I am not asserting a patent reel number for the 2007 event because I could not verify one.

Post-issuance assignments after 2007: none. The patent has been held continuously by Apple Inc. from 2007 to the present (2026), with no sale, no securitisation, no licence recordation, no release, and no correction on file.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7663607
    2004 : Filed by Apple Computer Inc
         : Inventors assign rights on filing date
    2007 : Corporate name change to Apple Inc
    2011 : Apple sues Samsung in N D Cal
    2011 : ITC investigation 337-TA-750 opened
    2015 : Federal Circuit appeals in Apple v Samsung
    2028 : Adjusted expiration 2028-03-29

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Aggregate: zero strong signals, zero weak signals.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: the only two recorded conveyances are the 2004-05-06 inventor-to-Apple Computer, Inc. assignment of assignors' interest executed on the filing date, and the 2007-05-11 change-of-name recording moving title from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc. (executed 2007-01-09) — there is no third party anywhere in the chain, and no post-2007 recordation of any kind. Apple Inc. is an operating company that shipped products embodying the claims (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) and asserted this patent directly against a competitor in N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846 and ITC 337-TA-750, with subsequent Federal Circuit appeals through 2015. This is not an NPE asset, and the record contains no shell transfer, no known asserter, no cascade, and no pre-litigation conveyance.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7663607 or application 10/840,862). Reel/frame strings for the two events should be read off that interface directly, since I could not retrieve them here.

Two caveats I want on the record

1. Fabrication avoidance. I deliberately did not supply reel/frame numbers, a correspondent name, or an executed-date for the 2004 assignment beyond 2004-05-06. Those fields were not in any source I could retrieve, and inventing a plausible-looking "Reel 012345/0678" would have been the easy and wrong move. The two reel numbers I did find (3469/0307, 3478/0408) are trademark reels and are labelled as such.
2. The premise of the brief doesn't fit this patent. The request is framed around anonymous LLC assignees and a repeat-player attorney running a shell family. US 7663607 is the opposite case: it is one of the most-cited patents in the touchscreen field (selectip.com reports ~1,477 forward citations as of its research), it anchors a large Apple continuation family (US 8,125,463; 8,416,209; 8,605,051; 10,908,729; 11,604,547 and others, all still naming Apple as applicant — the family was never divested), and it was litigated by the original assignee against a competitor rather than by a licensee against the industry. If the goal is to identify NPE exposure in a touchscreen portfolio, this patent is more useful as a prior-art citation weapon against third-party patents than as a chain-of-title target.

I'll research US 7663607 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

I have the patent text and some litigation context. Let me dig into the specific cited references and the key prior art asserted against it.

Let me pin down the specific cited references and the litigation prior art identifiers.

US 7,663,607 — "Multipoint Touchscreen": Prior‑Art Citation Analysis

0. Scope note on method and honesty caveats

I retrieved the patent's authoritative full text (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7663607B2/en, plus the granted‑patent PDF US007663607B2) and the litigation record in which this patent was construed and challenged. I did not directly query USPTO PatentCenter/Public PAIR or the USPTO full‑text search API in this session (no such result surfaced in my searches). The Google Patents page for this patent carries the USPTO PatentCenter, USPTO Assignment, and USPTO PatentCenter "Links" entries, and the structured citation table on that page is the authoritative citation list; I obtained the citation data mainly through mirrors (patentimages PDF, PTAB/district‑court exhibits) and flag OCR noise where it affected identifiers.

Literal identifier handling (per your strict rule): I treat US 7,663,607 B2, application 10/840,862, publication US 2006/0097991 A1, and the family members exactly as written in the retrieved documents. Where the retrieved text is internally inconsistent (OCR/typos), I flag it rather than silently correcting it.

1. Identification of the patent (verified from the supplied full text)

Family (child/continuation members listed on the record): US 8,125,463 B2; US 2009/0096757 A1; US 2009/0066670 A1; US 8,416,209 B2; US 8,605,051 B2; US 8,872,785 B2; US 9,035,907 B2; US 8,982,087 B2; US 8,928,618 B2; US 9,454,277 B2; US 10,055,046 B2; US 10,338,789 B2; US 10,331,259 B2; US 10,908,729 B2; US 2021/0181894 A1; PCT/US2005/014364 → WO 2005/114369 A2; EP 1,745,356 B1; CN 1,942,853 B; KR 10‑1233479 B1; CA 2,557,940 C; AU 2005246219 B2; JP 2007‑533044 A; HK 1099382 B.

Terminology caution: the Google Patents page attaches several third‑party patents to this patent as "cited by"/family‑adjacent relatives. A search result I retrieved for US10613665B2 ("Touch screen stack-up processing") displays a "Patent Citations (29)" table that includes US7663607B2 as a cited document — that table is US 10,613,665's citation list, not the '607's. I have not treated it as the '607's citation list.

2. Important framing: three different sets of "citations"

Your question ("look at each patent citation for 7663607") resolves into three distinct sets, and they must not be mixed:

1. Prior art cited by the '607 — the front‑page "References Cited" (US patents, foreign documents, other publications such as Rekimoto's SmartSkin). These are the §102 candidates.
2. Prior art cited against the '607 in litigation — several of these were not on the patent's face (notably N‑Trig's Perski '455 and Japan's Rekimoto '033).
3. Forward citations (patents/applications citing the '607) — a very large set (the family alone is 14+ members). These are not prior art and cannot anticipate; they are cited here only because they appear under "Cited By."

Also essential: no tribunal held any single reference to anticipate the asserted claims under §102. The operative holdings were §103 obviousness. The ALJ expressly found that SmartSkin did not anticipate (he found obviousness instead). So the "§102" column below is my analytical assessment of which claims a given reference could be argued against, not a record holding.

3. The operative prior art — detailed entries

3.1 SmartSkin (primary reference relied on by the ITC)

• Full citation: Jun Rekimoto, "SmartSkin: An Infrastructure for Freehand Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces," CHI 2002, Apr. 20–25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota; © 2001 ACM, 8 pp.
• Date / §102 basis: published April 2002 → more than one year before the 2004‑05‑06 filing → §102(b) prior art.
• Description: A capacitive "mesh‑shaped antenna" sensor architecture (transmitter/receiver electrode grid) recognizing multiple hand positions and shapes and estimating hand‑to‑surface distance; a mutual‑capacitance system. It is listed among the Other Publications on the face of the '607, i.e., it was before the examiner. SmartSkin states, under "Conclusions and Directions for Future Work," that transparent ITO electrodes could be used to build a "transparent SmartSkin sensor" usable with flat‑panel displays — but the authors had not achieved it (the ITC/ALJ and the Federal Circuit dissent both stress this uncertainty).
• Claims potentially implicated under §102: claims 1, 2, 7 (mutual capacitance, multipoint detection), and the layer/glass/ITO limitations of claims 4, 6, 10.
• Record outcome: the ALJ rejected anticipation of all asserted claims (transparency, spatially separated transparent layers, and "glass member" limitations not shown to the clear‑and‑convincing standard). On appeal, the Commission/ALJ finding that SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033 renders claim 10 (and the asserted claims) obvious was upheld as to the factual findings, but vacated/remanded because the ITC never weighed Apple's secondary considerations. Sources: ITC Pub. 4385 (Inv. No. 337‑TA‑750), https://www.usitc.gov/intellectual_property/documents/pub4385.pdf; Apple Inc. v. ITC, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013), https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1036726/apple-inc-v-international-trade-commission/.

3.2 Rekimoto '033 (secondary reference, used for the layer/glass limitations)

• Full citation: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002‑342033 A (Junichi Rekimoto) — "Rekimoto '033."
• Date / §102 basis: published 2002‑11‑29 → more than one year before 2004‑05‑06 → §102(b).
• Description: A non‑contact user input device using mutual capacitance between transmission electrodes (11‑1 … 11‑m) and reception electrodes (15‑1 …); a transmitter applies AC current, a receiver extracts the signal via band‑pass filter 16A, amplifier 16B, detector 16C and A/D converter 16D; detects the capacitance difference at each intersection caused by an approaching conductive object (fingertip). Fig. 9 shows row/column conductors on separate layers separated by an insulator on a glass substrate, combinable with a flat‑panel (LCD/organic EL) display.
• Claims potentially implicated under §102: claims 1, 2, 3 (transverse lines on separate layers), 4 and 10 (glass members), 7 (mutual capacitance). Samsung's expert (S. Lee declaration, N.D. Cal. 5:11‑cv‑01846) opined Rekimoto anticipates claims 1–3, 6–8 and 10 and renders claim 11 obvious: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.239768/gov.uscourts.cand.239768.973.15.pdf.
• Record outcome: the ITC/ALJ relied on Rekimoto '033 in combination with SmartSkin for the layer and glass‑member limitations (i.e., §103), not as an independent §102 anticipation.

3.3 Perski '455 (US 7,372,455) — the reference Samsung used for §102(e)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 7,372,455 B2, H. Perski and M. Morag, "Touch Detection for a Digitizer," assigned to N‑Trig Ltd.
• Dates: filed 2004‑01‑15; issued 2008‑05‑13; claims benefit of provisional applications 60/446,808 and 60/501,484. (Litigation documents state the first provisional as filed 2003‑02‑10 in the substantive analysis, but one scraped passage of the Federal Circuit opinion reads "February 10, 2008" — that appears to be an OCR/typographic artifact in the copy I retrieved; I flag it rather than correct it silently.)
• §102 basis: §102(e) (U.S. application/patent filed by others before 2004‑05‑06), provided it is entitled to its provisional priority dates.
• Description: combined touch/stylus digitizer with a substantially transparent sensor grid over a display; "multiple conductive objects can be detected" and it is configured "to detect more than one finger touch at the same time"; incorporates by reference Perski '662 (U.S. Prov. 60/406,662, filed Aug. 2002) and application 10/649,708 (filed Aug. 28, 2003), which describe a two‑layer grid of parallel conductors (orthogonal between layers) on PET with ITO conductors.
• Claims potentially implicated under §102: claims 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 (and, in Samsung's assertion, the full asserted set 1–3, 6–8, 10, 11). Samsung's expert stated: "Perski '455 anticipates and/or renders obvious the asserted claims."
• Contested point: entitlement to the Feb. 2003 provisional date is the entire §102(e) question. The ALJ found the Perski provisional supported the multi‑touch detection disclosure; Apple argued the provisional lacked written‑description support and that the '607 was conceived in Sept.–Nov. 2003 (earlier than the Jan. 2004 non‑provisional). Judge (dissent) in Apple v. ITC would have held Perski '455 is not prior art. Sources: https://storage.courtlistener.com/harvard_pdf/1036726.pdf; https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.239768/gov.uscourts.cand.239768.973.15.pdf.

3.4 Hsu '860 (US 7,030,860) — cited against claim 8's "virtual ground charge amplifier"

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 7,030,860, to Hsu (Synaptics); identified in the litigation record as "Hsu," with Synaptics CTO Shawn P. Day named as a co‑inventor.
• Dates: granted 2006‑04‑18 (per the docket reference); filed before the '607's filing date.
• §102 basis: §102(e) (U.S. patent/application by others filed before 2004‑05‑06).
• Claims implicated: claim 8 ("virtual ground charge amplifier coupled to the touch panel").
• Caveat: I could not open the '860 document in this session; I have not verified its title or its precise disclosure, and the description above is limited to how the record characterizes it. Treat the descriptive portion as unverified.

3.5 Gerpheide '658 (US 5,565,658) and Blonder (US 5,113,041) — claim 8 circuit art

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 5,565,658 to Gerpheide et al.; U.S. Patent 5,113,041 to Blonder.
• Date / §102 basis: both granted well before 2004‑05‑06 → §102(b).
• Description: the record cites these as showing the claimed "virtual ground charge amplifier" as a conventional op‑amp integrator / capacitive‑measurement element (Gerpheide '658 calls a virtual‑ground arrangement a "preferred alternative" for a capacitive measurement element).
• Claims implicated: claim 8 (and, via claim 7 → 1/8 dependency chains, the mutual‑capacitance claims).
• Caveat: these were introduced by Samsung's declarants; I did not open either document.

3.6 Morag '229 (US 7,292,229) and Mackey (US 7,129,935) — claim 11 "dummy features"

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 7,292,229 to Morag (N‑Trig); U.S. Patent 7,129,935 to Mackey.
• §102 basis: both are U.S. patents granted before 2010 and filed/issued on dates relied on as prior art; Morag '229 issued 2007‑11‑06 (i.e., after the '607 filing but on an earlier‑filed application → §102(e) as to the '607); Mackey '935 issued 2006‑10‑31.
• Description: both are cited as teaching index‑matching / fill‑in features between conductor lines (the claim 11 "dummy features … optically improving the visual appearance … by more closely matching the optical index of the lines").
• Claims implicated: claim 11 (and claim 10 from which it depends).
• Caveat: dates above are my recollection of grant dates and should be verified against the USPTO before being relied on; the use of both references against claim 11 is documented (Samsung expert declaration, link above).

4. References appearing on / submitted to the '607 (front‑page "References Cited" and Other Publications)

The face of the '607 carries a long, mostly pre‑1994 list of US patents plus a foreign document, and a substantial "Other Publications" list (Apple's IDS‑style submission, including Rekimoto's SmartSkin). Because the OCR copies I retrieved are noisy (e.g., dates and names garbled), I list below only what appears in the retrieved front‑page text, grouped by type, and I explicitly do not invent descriptions I did not verify.

US patent documents (as they appear on the retrieved front page): 3,333,160 (Gorski, 7/1967); 3,541,541 (Englebart, 11/1970); 3,662,105 (Hurst et al., 5/1972); 3,798,370 (Hurst, 3/1974); 4,246,452 (Chandler, 1/1981); 4,550,221 (Mabusth, 10/1985); 4,672,364 (Lucas, 6/1987); 4,672,558 (Beckes et al., 6/1987); 4,692,809 (Beining et al., 9/1987); 4,695,827 (Beining et al., 9/1987); 4,733,222 (Evans, 3/1988); 4,734,685 (Watanabe, 3/1988); 4,746,770 (McAvinney, 5/1988); 4,771,276 (Parks, 9/1988); 4,788,384 (Bruere‑Dawson et al., 11/1988); 4,806,846 (Kerber — one OCR copy renders this as "4,696,846 … 2/1996," which is internally inconsistent and is flagged, not corrected); 4,898,555 (Sampson, 2/1990); 4,914,624 (Dunthorn et al., 4/1990); 4,968,877 (McAvinney et al., 11/1990); 5,003,519 (Noirjean, 3/1991); 5,017,030 (Crews, 5/1991); 5,178,477 (Gambaro, 1/1993); 5,189,403 (Franz et al., 2/1993); 5,194,862 (Edwards, 3/1993); 5,224,861 (Glass et al., 7/1993); 5,241,308 (Young, 8/1993); "[Continued]" — i.e., the list continues beyond what the retrieved OCR preserves.

Foreign patent document: CA 1243096 (10/1988), as listed.

"Other Publications" reflected in the retrieved front‑matter text (non‑patent literature), including: Rekimoto, "SmartSkin …," CHI 2002; Rekimoto et al., "ToolStone …," UIST 2000; Rubine et al., "Programmable Finger‑Tracking Instrument Controllers," Computer Music Journal 14(1) (Spring 1990); Rutledge et al., "Force‑To‑Motion Functions for Pointing" (INTERACT 1990); Subatai Ahmad, "A Usable Real‑Time 3D Hand Tracker" (28th Asilomar Conf., Oct. 1994); Texas Instruments "TSC2003 I²C Touch Screen Controller" Data Sheet SBAS162 (Oct. 2001); Wellner, "The Digital Desk Calculators," ACM UIST '91; Williams, "Applications for a Switched‑Capacitor Instrumentation Building Block," Linear Technology AN‑3 (Jul. 1985); Yamada et al., "A Switched‑Capacitor Interface for Capacitive Pressure Sensors," IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas. 41(1) (Feb. 1992); Yeh et al., "Switched Capacitor Interface Circuit for Capacitive Transducers" (1985 IEEE); Zhai et al., "Dual Stream Input for Pointing and Scrolling" (CHI '97 Ext. Abstracts); Zimmerman et al., "Applying Electric Field Sensing to Human‑Computer Interfaces" (CHI '85 Proceedings) — plus several co‑pending Apple applications cited by application number (e.g., 10/654,108 filed 2003‑09‑02; 11/381,313 filed 2006‑05‑02).

§102 assessment for this bulk set: all of these are prior‑art candidates under §102(b) (printed publications/patents dated more than one year before 2004‑05‑06) except the co‑pending Apple applications, which are §102(e)/(g)/102(a)‑type material only as to other inventors' filings and which function mainly as §103/§112 context. The pre‑1990 US patents in this list are largely capacitive/resistive touch‑sensor, digitizer, and cursor‑control patents and, on their face, do not show a transparent two‑layer transverse ITO grid with per‑node capacitive monitoring detecting multiple simultaneous touches; that is why the examiner allowed the '607 over them. I have not opened these documents individually and cannot responsibly assign per‑claim anticipation for each — any such assignment would be speculation.

5. Prior art the examiner did not have, and how it was used

6. Litigation and administrative posture (as listed)

• ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑750 (Apple v. Motorola): Pub. 4385, Commission Opinion issued 2012‑04‑10, finding asserted claims of the '607 obvious over SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033. https://www.usitc.gov/intellectual_property/documents/pub4385.pdf
• Apple Inc. v. ITC, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (appeal nos. 12‑1338 and related): majority affirmed the prior‑art fact findings but vacated and remanded because the ITC failed to weigh secondary considerations; Judge Reyna dissented in part (would not have remanded / would have found nonobviousness). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1036726/apple-inc-v-international-trade-commission/
• ITC remand (Fed. Reg. 79 FR, 2014‑05‑12): remanded claim 10 obviousness, the nexus/secondary‑considerations question, and domestic industry. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2014-05-12/html/2014-10769.htm. I could not verify the final remand outcome in this session — do not treat the outcome as settled from this memo.
• N.D. Cal. 5:11‑cv‑01846 (Apple v. Samsung): the '607 was asserted (claims 1–3, 6–8, 10, 11) and challenged on validity, generating the Samsung expert declarations relied on above.
• Other docket links listed on the patent page: CAFC 12‑1338, 14‑1335, 14‑1368, 15‑1029, 15‑1857, 15‑2088; Supreme Court 15‑777; W.D. Wis. 3:10‑cv‑00661; and Darts‑IP family litigation reference. Caution: IPR2021‑01028 (Tianma Microelectronics v. Japan Display) is not a validity challenge to the '607 — the '607 appears there merely as Exhibit 1017, i.e., as a document relied on in a challenge to a different patent. Do not read that IPR as a §102/§103 attack on 7,663,607.
• A Certificate of Correction exists for this patent (Patent No. 7,663,607 B2; Application No. 10/840,862; dated February 16, 2010), appearing in the ITC exhibit record.

7. Bottom line

• The prior art that actually mattered is SmartSkin (Rekimoto, CHI 2002) and Rekimoto '033 (JP 2002‑342033 A) — both §102(b) publications, and SmartSkin was already on the face of the '607 — plus Perski '455 (US 7,372,455) as the primary asserted §102(e) reference. Secondary claim‑level art: Hsu '860, Gerpheide '658, Blonder '5,113,041 (claim 8) and Morag '229 / Mackey '5,129,935‑class references (claim 11).
• No reference was held to anticipate under §102. SmartSkin anticipation was rejected by the ALJ; the operative rulings were §103 obviousness (SmartSkin alone, and SmartSkin + Rekimoto '033 for claim 10), and the Federal Circuit vacated the obviousness conclusion on the ITC's failure to consider secondary considerations.
• Strongest standalone §102 candidates to argue: Perski '455 (§102(e), if the Feb. 2003 provisional is entitled to support) against claims 1–3, 6–8, 10, 11; Rekimoto '033 (§102(b)) against claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10.
• Explicit uncertainties I am not papering over: (i) I did not open most of the ~27+ front‑page US patent documents and cannot responsibly assign per‑claim anticipation to them; (ii) OCR errors affect some identifiers/dates in the retrieved front‑page copies (e.g., the Kerber number/date, "Buters‑Dawson"/"Bruere‑Dawson," the Perski "February 10, 2008" date); (iii) the '860, '229, '935, '658 and '041 titles/disclosures above are described only as the litigation record characterizes them; (iv) the final ITC‑remand outcome is unverified here. Before relying on any of this in a filing or opinion, pull the USPTO "References Cited" and the full prosecution history (IDS/PTAB records) for 10/840,862.

I'll ground this analysis in the prior-art record already surfaced for this patent rather than re-deriving it. Let me verify the key references and check for any additional prior art tied to this patent's prosecution/litigation.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,663,607 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the previously generated bibliographic, claim, and litigation sections. Where the prior-art record now available refines or contradicts those earlier findings, I flag it explicitly in § 7.

1. Governing framework and the level of ordinary skill

The application was filed May 6, 2004 — pre-AIA — so pre-AIA § 103 governs as construed in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966). The four Graham factors must all be addressed, including objective evidence of non-obviousness.

POSITA (proposed): a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (or equivalent) and 2–3 years' experience in capacitive touch-sensing or digitizer design, familiar with mutual-capacitance matrix scanning, ITO patterning on transparent substrates, and display integration. This is consistent with the level the ITC record and the von Herzen declaration assume in the parallel Apple v. Samsung matter.

Critical timing constraint for every combination below: the '607 has no earlier priority claim — its § 102/103 reference date is May 6, 2004. Art qualifies only if it is (a) a printed publication before that date (§ 102(a)/(b)), (b) a US patent/application filing under § 102(e), or (c) otherwise an "invention by another" under § 102. The Apple inventors' own evidence places conception between September and November 2003 (Fed. Cir. op., noting J.A. 8728–29), which narrows the § 102(a) window for late-2003/early-2004 publications.

2. Claim taxonomy to be tested

Combining the record already assembled with new evidence surfaced in this session (see § 7), the claims group into three families:

3. Primary reference: Perski '455

U.S. Patent No. 7,372,455 (Perski et al., N-Trig Ltd.), priority to provisional 60/446,808 ("Perski '808," Feb. 10, 2003) and 60/501,484, is the single most damaging reference. Verified disclosures on which a § 103 case rests (all quoted in the ITC/Samsung record, e.g. cases.justia.com, Dkt. 942):

• A transparent, two-layer, orthogonal conductor grid over a display: "the sensor is a grid of conductive lines … patterned on a PET foil. The grid is made of two layers … One of the layers contains a set of parallel conductors. The other layer contains a set of parallel conductors orthogonal to the set of the first layer."
• Mutual-capacitance scanning: drive one axis line at a time, read the orthogonal lines (Perski '455 col. 14).
• Express multi-touch at the same time: "this algorithm is preferably able to detect more than one finger touch at the same time" (col. 14:15–19) — the exact language the ALJ and the Federal Circuit relied on.
• Near-touch detection of an object "at a short distance from" the surface (col. 8:56–65).
• Parasitic-capacitance compensation and a virtual-ground / operational-amplifier front end (op-amp 74 of Perski '455 Fig. 5), which the von Herzen declaration maps onto the asserted amplifier claim (cases.justia.com, Dkt. 942 Att. 0).
• Dummy/optically-matched areas: the related Morag reference describes "dummy areas" of the same conductive material to "enable minimum visual difference between conductive to non-conductive sensor areas."

Because Perski '455 is largely co-extensive with the asserted claims, Families A and C are the strongest § 103 (and, as held, § 102) challenge — motive to combine is minimal because the reference itself supplies nearly every element.

4. Combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination 1 — Perski '455 alone (Family A, claims 1–7)

Already adjudicated as anticipation for claims 1–7 (Apple Inc. v. ITC, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 7, 2013)). Where a reference anticipates, it necessarily renders the claim obvious; this is the fallback position if the § 102(e) priority chain to Perski '808 fails. Motivation: none required — all elements in one reference.

Combination 2 — Perski '455 + Morag '662 ('662 App / provisional 60/406,662) (Family B, claims 10–11)

This is the cleanest § 103 theory for claim 10, and it sidesteps the only reason claim 10 survived on appeal. The Federal Circuit reversed claim 10's anticipation solely because Perski '808 did not incorporate Morag '662 by reference — a § 112/§ 119 priority defect, not a teaching gap. Under § 103, incorporation by reference is irrelevant: Morag '662 can be used as a separate § 102(e) reference (its US application was filed Sept. 3, 2003, before the '607 filing date; its WO 2004/021328 A2 published March 11, 2004). Morag '662 supplies:

• two-foil / one-foil ITO conductive-polymer grid on PET with orthogonal layers;
• third protective layer used "for hard coating and anti glaring" (→ claim 10's third glass member);
• dummy areas of matched conductive material (→ claim 11);
• analog front-end ASICs mounted on the sensor frame (→ claim 10's "sensor integrated circuits");
• equal 4 mm pitch and ~1 mm linewidths (→ claim 10's "same pitch and linewidths").

Motivation to combine (KSR): (i) both references are from the same N-Trig family and address the same problem — a transparent digitizer over an FPD; (ii) combining the known multi-touch scan algorithm of Perski '455 with the known transparent laminated ITO stack of Morag '662 yields a predictable, no-more-than-expected result (KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17, 421); (iii) the laminated-glass-over-LCD architecture was a known design choice driven by mechanical protection and optical-index matching (KSR design-incentive rationale).

Combination 3 — SmartSkin (Rekimoto, April 2002) + Rekimoto JP 2002-342033A + Perski '455 (Family B, claim 10)

This is the ground the ITC actually adopted, and the Federal Circuit vacated it only for procedural failure to weigh secondary considerations — not for substantive error. The court expressly left the merits open. Rekimoto's SmartSkin (a 2002 ACM paper, § 102(b) art) discloses a capacitive mesh grid with drive/sense electrodes and simultaneous multi-finger sensing; Rekimoto JP 2002-342033A (published 2002) supplies the transparent/ITO sensor-conductor teaching.

Motivation to combine: both references are by the same author, on the same sensing principle, at the same time — a textbook KSR "combination of known elements according to known methods." SmartSkin's own "Conclusions and Directions for Future Work" points toward transparent electrodes, supplying the explicit design incentive. Adding Perski '455's one-line-at-a-time scan is the "faster approach" the Samsung expert declaration treats as an obvious efficiency optimization (docs.justia.com).

Combination 4 — Perski '455 + Mulligan (Family A/C)

Samsung's invalidity contentions list Mulligan as a standalone anticipation/obviousness reference (CourtListener Dkt. 973-15). I could not verify Mulligan's exact identity or content in my sources; treat this as a lead, not a developed theory.

Combination 5 — Perski '455 + JP 2000-259351 (Keyence) / JP 07-110741 (Digital KK)

These are cited as Y-category art in an N-Trig PCT search report (WO2009133559A3), i.e., art examiner/counsel treated as combinable with grid-based capacitive sensing. Relevant to grid geometry and multi-node output, but I have not reviewed the passages.

Combination 6 — Not available: US 2005/0158665 A1 (Maekawa) — flagged

Maekawa appears in the '607's later citation ecosystem (Tianma IPR2021-01028 Ex. 1005), and its JP priority dates (Jan. 16, 2004 / Apr. 28, 2004) precede the '607 filing date. However, its US filing date is Jan. 3, 2005 and it published July 21, 2005 — after May 6, 2004. Under pre-AIA § 102(e), a US publication's prior-art date is its US filing date and is not backdated to a foreign priority date (In re Hilmer). Maekawa therefore is not § 102/§ 103 prior art against the '607. Do not include it in an invalidity combination without checking this.

5. Why a POSITA would combine (consolidated KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space — every reference addresses transparent touch sensing over an FPD; combining them is not "a puzzle" but an application of known techniques to a known problem.
2. Predictable results — layering a known ITO row/column grid and driving it with a known one-line-at-a-time mutual-capacitance scan is the expected, not an unexpected, combination.
3. Design incentives / market forces — competition for thin, finger-friendly panel-mounted displays (the patent's own field) pushed toward the laminated three-glass stack and index-matched dummy pads.
4. Express lead in the art — SmartSkin's own "future work" section names transparent electrodes, and Perski '455's specification calls out a "faster" driving approach; both are explicit prompts.
5. Teaching-away rebutted — the ITC and Federal Circuit both rejected Apple's argument that Perski '455 teaches away from simultaneous multi-touch, reading the passage in context.

6. Secondary considerations — the decisive rebuttal battleground

Any obviousness conclusion must confront Apple's objective evidence, which is where this patent was actually won on appeal:

• Industry praise for the iPhone, copying by nearly every major handset maker, and commercial success of the iPhone (Fed. Cir. slip op. at 15; Finnegan summary).
• Legal effect: the ITC "never even mentioned, much less weighed" this evidence; the Federal Circuit held that vacating the claim-10 obviousness finding was required because all four Graham factors must be considered. A fresh § 103 analysis that ignores these factors is legally deficient on the same grounds.
• Nexus/caveat: the nexus between "iPhone commercial success" and the claimed two-layer ITO grid (versus the device's other innovations) is contestable, but the burden of production shifts to the challenger once Apple shows nexus.

7. Contradictions and uncertainties flagged

1. Claim-count correction (contradicts the earlier summary). The earlier section questioned whether claims exist beyond 10 and hypothesized a 10-claim set. New evidence shows claim 8 was asserted ("as required by asserted claim 8" — von Herzen decl., Dkt. 942 Att. 0) and that claim 11 recites the dummy features (Dkt. 973-15). Samsung's contentions assert claims 1–3, 6–8, 10, 11. The 10-claim hypothesis is therefore likely wrong; the set extends at least to 11.
2. "Claim 10 survived" — nuance. Claim 10 survived anticipation on a priority/incorporation defect, not on the merits of the subject matter. Under § 103, that defect disappears when Morag '662 is used as a separate reference (Combination 2). This is the single most important strategic point and it is not captured by the earlier "claim 10 survived and was remanded" framing.
3. PTA discrepancy (754 days on the printed face vs. 1423 days cited in a litigation document) remains unresolved; it does not affect the § 103 analysis but does affect the 2028-03-29 expiry figure.
4. Unverified references. I could not verify the content of Mulligan, JP 2000-259351 (Keyence), or JP 07-110741 (Digital KK); they are noted as leads only. I also did not obtain the full face-of-patent reference list, so I make no claim that the above constitutes the exhaustive prior-art set.
5. 2026 docket status. Consistent with the earlier finding, I surfaced no 2026 CAFC or PTAB proceeding challenging the '607 itself. The only PTAB appearance remains as exhibit Tianma Ex. 1017 in IPR2021-01028 (terminated-settled, Feb. 3, 2022).

Bottom line

• Claims 1–7 (Family A): obvious over Perski '455 alone (and, as adjudicated, anticipated); the § 103 theory is a fallback only.
• Claim 10 (Family B): obvious over Perski '455 in view of Morag '662 (the combination cures the priority defect that defeated anticipation), and independently over SmartSkin + Rekimoto JP 2002-342033A + Perski '455 — the merits of which the Federal Circuit expressly did not disturb.
• Claim 11 (dummy features): obvious over the same combinations, since Morag '662 expressly discloses optically-matched "dummy areas" between conductors.
• Claim 8 (charge amplifier): obvious over Perski '455 (op-amp front end, parasitic-current subtraction) with the general knowledge of virtual-ground charge amplifiers.
• The controlling risk is not the prior art — it is Apple's secondary-considerations evidence, which the Federal Circuit has already held must be weighed. Any obviousness conclusion that does not squarely address iPhone praise, copying, and commercial success will be vulnerable on exactly the ground that produced the 2013 vacatur.