US 8059177

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number before summarizing.

Now let me check for any 2026 appellate activity and current docket status.

Search scope and result

I searched for the specific string 8059177 across patent and litigation sources. Findings are below, with explicit flags where the record is silent or ambiguous. Two important caveats up front:

• No CAFC 2026 docket was found that is confirmed to involve U.S. Patent No. 8,059,177. Several Maxell-related 2026 Federal Circuit appeals exist (e.g., 26-1111 filed 2025‑10‑29; 26-1320 filed 2026‑01‑07; 26-1330 filed 2026‑01‑12; 26-1625 filed 2026‑04‑07), but nothing in the retrieved results links any of them to the '177 patent specifically. Treat any assertion that '177 is before the Federal Circuit in 2026 as unverified.
• The CAFC does not maintain a searchable "2026 docket" the way district courts do; I am relying on third-party docket aggregators, which may lag PACER.

Bibliographic summary — US 8,059,177 B2

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8059177/en ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9100604B2](/patent/US9100604B2)/en (family listing) ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10462403](/patent/10462403) (labeled "Patent History" block reproducing the same inventor/assignee data).

Note: the source text contains an apparent typographical artifact in the second-embodiment discussion — area "(C) 4880 pixels high by 640 pixels wide." Per your instruction I am not auto-correcting it; internal context (2-pixel mixing of 1200 rows, 640-wide horizontal segment) indicates 480, but I am flagging rather than rewriting.

Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"An electric camera includes an image sensing device with a light receiving surface having N vertically arranged pixels and an arbitrary number of pixels arranged horizontally, N being equal to or more than three times the number of effective scanning lines M of a display screen of a television system, a driver to drive the image sensing device to vertically mix or cull signal charges accumulated in individual pixels of K pixels to produce, during a vertical effective scanning period of the television system, a number of lines of output signals which corresponds to 1/K the number of vertically arranged pixels N of the image sensing device, K being an integer equal to or less than an integral part of a quotient of N divided by M, and a signal processing unit having a function of generating image signals by using the output signals of the image sensing device."

Independent claim — plain-language overview

Claim 1 is the only independent claim. In ordinary terms:

1. The imager. A solid-state image sensing device (CCD, in the embodiments) has a light-receiving surface with N rows of pixels vertically, where N ≥ 3 × M, and M is the number of effective scanning lines of the television system's display (e.g., ~240 for NTSC per field). The horizontal pixel count is arbitrary.

2. A driver with two selectable modes:

   • First driver mode — drives the sensor to vertically mix or cull every K pixels so the sensor outputs a number of lines matching the effective scanning lines M. Here K is any integer ≤ ⌊N/M⌋.
   • Second driver mode — drives the sensor so that during the vertical effective scanning period it outputs a number of lines equal to 1/K of N, again with K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋.

   The practical distinction: the first mode reduces output to television-compatible line counts; the second mode produces a different (typically higher) line count per field, which in the described embodiments supports full-pixel monitoring/still capture and vertical interpolation.

3. A signal processing unit that generates image signals from the sensor outputs.

4. The switching requirement (the point of novelty over the parent patent's claims): the choice between first-mode driving and second-mode driving is selectively switched according to input information from a switch provided inside or outside the camera — i.e., the mode is user/switch selectable rather than fixed.

In other words, claim 1 covers a large-pixel-count camera whose CCD can be driven in at least two different vertical-mixing/culling configurations, chosen on the fly via an internal or external switch.

Dependent claims (all depend, directly or indirectly, on claim 1):

• Claim 2 — adds a trigger device (e.g., shutter button); on trigger, pixels are not cyclically mixed but read out independently for all pixels (full-resolution still capture).
• Claim 3 — color filter array: three color types repeating horizontally every three pixels, with same-color filters arranged vertically (vertical stripes).
• Claim 4 — the three colors are yellow, green, cyan.
• Claim 5 — the three colors are yellow, white, cyan.
• Claim 6 — the three colors are red, green, blue.

Prosecution / PTAB / litigation record retrieved

PTAB (post-grant):

• IPR2018-00910 — petitioner Olympus Corporation et al. (with Olympus Corporation of the Americas / Olympus America Inc.); terminated by settlement; exhibits included "Ex. 1002 – US8059177" and "Ex. 1013 – File History to 10/660,710." See https://patents.justia.com/patent/10462403 (citation block) and https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Olympus-Corporation-et-al-v-Maxell-Ltd-id-[113277](/patent/113277)/documents/sort_by/doc_number/sort_dir/desc
• IPR2022-01287 — petitioner Motorola Mobility LLC et al. v. Maxell, Ltd., filed 2022-07-20, respondent application 10/660,710, respondent patent 8059177, tech center 2600; institution denied (decision 2023-02-02). See https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01287

District court matters referencing the '177 patent (per the patent page's litigation data): N.D. Illinois 1:22-cv-00256; D. Delaware 1:18-cv-00310 and 1:17-cv-01447; S.D. Florida 1:18-cv-21231; W.D. Texas 6:21-cv-01169.

Terminal disclaimer note: The family's later continuation (application 14/264,243, filed 2014-04-29, issued as US 9,100,604) carries a terminal disclaimer tying its term to the full statutory terms of US 6,765,616 and US 7,403,226 — the parent and sibling patents of the '177. This is consistent with the family's coordinated expiration, including the listed 2026-01-25 adjusted expiration.

Confidence and open items

• High confidence: title, application/filing/priority/issue dates, inventors, original assignee (Hitachi, Ltd.), independent-claim structure, and the four embodiments (1200×1600 / 3-phase CCD; 864×1152 / 6-phase CCD; plus the two color-filter alternatives) — all drawn directly from the supplied patent text and corroborated by Google Patents.
• Medium confidence: the precise current assignee chain and expiration date. The patent page lists Maxell, Ltd. as current assignee and the family as Expired – Fee Related with adjusted expiration 2026-01-25; these are aggregator statements, and older family members were still listed as live when the page was captured.
• Low confidence / do not rely on: any 2026 Federal Circuit activity for the '177 patent. I found no evidence, and I am explicitly flagging this as unknown rather than inferring from the existence of other Maxell appeals (26-1111, 26-1320, 26-1330, 26-1625), none of which the retrieved records tie to US 8,059,177.
• Per your strict rule, I did not normalize any identifier; "US 8,059,177," "8059177," "US8059177B2," and "10/660,710" are used exactly as found in the sources.

I'll research the litigation history for US 8059177, starting with the sources you specified.

Let me dig into the specific district court cases and PTAB proceedings.

Let me get details on the remaining cases.

I'll research the PTAB proceedings referenced in the structured data for US 8059177.

I found the two proceedings. Let me dig into the specific decisions.

Proceedings overview

Two AIA trial proceedings have been filed against US 8,059,177, neither of which reached a Final Written Decision: one settled and was terminated pre-institution (IPR2018-00910, Olympus), and one was denied institution (IPR2022-01287, Motorola Mobility). Zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained, no estoppel attached, no FWD, no Federal Circuit appeal. The defensive posture this creates is not "the patent is hardened" — it is "the claims are administratively untested and both petitioners' prior art remains fully available," which cuts both ways: Maxell has survived, but only because no panel ever reached the merits, and the same is true for you. Separately — and materially — the patent's own record now shows it as Expired – Fee Related, adjusted expiration 2026-01-25, meaning as of today (2026-09-28) it is past its stated term and any live exposure is limited to pre-expiration conduct within the § 286 six-year lookback.

Data-integrity note: the "PTAB proceedings on file" ODP block says no AIA proceedings are indexed for this patent. That is incomplete. The patent's Google Patents litigation record itself lists both IPR2018-00910 and IPR2022-01287, and both are independently corroborated by PTAB aggregators (GreyB/ipverse). I treat the two as real and flag the ODP gap rather than the reverse.

IPR2022-01287 — Motorola Mobility LLC et al. v. Maxell, Ltd.

(Most impactful first because it is the only proceeding that reached a decision, albeit a procedural one.)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-07-20
• Status: Verbatim as listed by Google Patents: "Not Instituted – Procedural." GreyB lists the case status as "Institution Denied," institution decision date 2023-02-02. Plain English: the Board/Director declined to institute; no trial was ever declared, no claim was construed on the merits, no FWD issued.
• Judge panel: Not retrieved. No institution decision text was available in the sources I could reach, so I will not name APJs.
• Petition grounds: Not retrieved. I could not confirm which claims, which art, or which statutory basis. Do not treat any claim/art mapping for this case as verified.
• Institution decision: Denied 2023-02-02. The structured label "Procedural" strongly suggests the denial rested on a discretionary/procedural basis (e.g., § 314(a)/Fintiv-type analysis or § 325(d) redundancy) rather than on the merits of the art. I could not retrieve the panel's actual reasoning and will not characterize it. The merits question was never reached.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: None — this was a denial, not a settlement.
• Appeal: No Federal Circuit appeal of this proceeding identified. Do not conflate this with In re Motorola Solutions, Inc. (Nov. 6, 2025, Dyk/Linn/Cunningham/Stoll), which involved Motorola Solutions v. Stellar, LLC and different patents, and concerned mandamus over the February 2025 rescission of the Vidal Fintiv guidance. Different party, different patent, different posture. (Sterne Kessler; Morgan Lewis)
• Context: Filed in the wake of Maxell, Ltd. v. Lenovo Group Ltd., No. 6:21-cv-01169 (W.D. Tex., filed 2021-11-12), in which Maxell asserted eight patents including the '177 (alongside 8,098,695 / 7,577,417 / 7,072,673 / 7,199,821 / 6,928,292 / 9,420,212 / 7,952,645). The '177 assertion is the direct predicate for the Motorola Mobility petition.
• Defensive value: A denial of institution is not a validity win for Maxell and not an estoppel event for you — because § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only "after the petitioner requests or institution of an inter partes review … and a final written decision." No FWD, no estoppel. Motorola Mobility's art is not burned, and neither is yours. But take the denial as a warning about forum, not about merits: if the denial was discretionary, a differently-situated defendant (different litigation timing, different stipulation posture, different art) may get a different outcome — particularly under the October 2025 regime in which the Director personally decides institution and issues many decisions as unreasoned "summary notices."

IPR2018-00910 — Olympus Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2018-06-20
• Status: Verbatim as listed by Google Patents: "Settlement." GreyB lists status "Terminated," termination date 2018-12-26. Plain English: the parties settled and the proceeding was terminated roughly six months after filing, before any institution decision.
• Judge panel: Not public / not applicable — no institution decision was ever entered, so no panel authored a merits or institution ruling.
• Petition grounds: Not retrieved. I could not confirm the challenged claims, art, or statutory basis. Do not assume.
• Institution decision: None. Terminated pre-institution.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim was canceled or confirmed.
• Settlement / termination: Terminated 2018-12-26 on settlement. The terms are almost certainly confidential (settlements in lieu of prosecution are typically designated business confidential under 35 U.S.C. § 317(b), and joint termination requests are routinely accompanied by a confidentiality request — the pattern is visible in the parallel Maxell/ASUS IPR2019-00068 termination). I have not seen the agreement and will not speculate on its terms.
• Appeal: None.
• Pattern signal: Olympus filed a coordinated four-petition volley the same day (2018-06-20) against Maxell imaging patents — IPR2018-00904 ('493), IPR2018-00908 and -00909 ('604), and -00910 ('177). All of them appear to have resolved without a merits FWD.
• Defensive value: This proceeding gives you nothing to work with substantively and takes nothing off the table. Because it ended pre-institution by settlement, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against Olympus or its privies, and none running against anyone else. Whatever art Olympus assembled on the '177 is still a live option for the next challenger (subject to § 315(b) timing, which requires a petition within one year of service of an infringement complaint). Its real value to you is intelligence: it tells you Maxell will settle rather than litigate a marginal merits record on this patent, and that Olympus evidently did not want to press a 1200-pixel CCD vertical-mixing reference set against claims 1–6 to a FWD.

Strategic summary

Claim status on the '177. All six claims are intact and untested. Claim 1 is the sole independent claim (a first driver mode producing M output lines selected from K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋, a second driver mode producing, during the vertical effective scanning period, 1/K of the N rows, and switchable by a switch-provided input); claims 2, 3 and 6 descend from claim 1, and claims 4, 5 and 6 descend from claim 3. Because neither IPR produced a Final Written Decision, no claim of the '177 has ever been canceled, narrowed, or affirmed by the PTAB. There is no "claims 1–5 are dead" narrative here, and equally no "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened" narrative — surviving an institution-stage denial and a pre-institution settlement is not the same as winning a trial. If a demand letter cites claim 1, you cannot answer with a PTAB cancellation certificate.

Estoppel landscape. This is the cleanest part of the picture and it favors a defendant. Neither Olympus nor Motorola Mobility is estopped under § 315(e)(2), because estoppel is conditioned on a final written decision and neither case got one. IPR2018-00910 was terminated on settlement at the preliminary stage (IPR2018-00910 paper/docket; termination 2018-12-26), and IPR2022-01287 was denied institution (2023-02-02). Consequently: (i) all prior art advanced by both petitioners — and all art they could have advanced — remains available to you in district court and in a fresh IPR; (ii) there is no § 315(e)(1) estoppel blocking any later PTAB petition either; and (iii) the only constraints on a new petition are the ordinary § 315(b) one-year bar, § 102/103 on the merits, and the Board's or Director's current discretionary-denial practice.

Pattern signals. Maxell (successively Hitachi Maxell → Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings, now Maxell, Ltd. again) is a licensing-driven serial asserting entity, not a practicing litigant, and this patent sits in a family that has been repeatedly asserted and repeatedly challenged. Notably, the siblings drew far more fire than the '177 itself: ASUSTeK filed IPR2019-00068 ('226), -00069 ('517), -00087 ('616) and -00097 ('604), and Olympus filed IPR2018-00904/-00908/-00909 against the '493 and '604. The '177 attracted exactly one merits-viable petition (Olympus, settled) and one denied petition (Motorola Mobility). There is no defensive aggregator in the chain on the '177 — no Unified Patents, no RPX-style petitioner appears in either record; the two challengers are operating companies acting defensively against Maxell's assertion campaigns (Olympus in the 2018 wave; Motorola Mobility trailing the Lenovo suit). Maxell, for its part, has not needed to pursue a PTAB appeal on this patent because it has never lost a FWD here.

The expiration point you should not skip. The '177's own record lists legal status Expired – Fee Related with an adjusted expiration of 2026-01-25. If that date is right, the patent term has already run as of today, which means no injunction and no ongoing-royalty theory for current conduct; your exposure would be confined to past damages for infringement occurring within six years of suit under § 286, and even then the pre-suit damages window shrinks with the term. I would verify the fee history in USPTO Patent Center before relying on it — "Expired – Fee Related" can signal a maintenance-fee lapse at the 7.5- or 11.5-year window (2019 or 2023), which is a different and earlier event than nominal expiration, and the two do not reconcile cleanly on the face of the record. Also note the terminal disclaimer filed in the sibling application (Ser. No. 14/264,243) tying that branch to '616 and '226, showing the family's terms are already compressed.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the two primary records before you do anything else.
   • IPR2018-00910 (Olympus v. Maxell): PTAB E2E proceeding view → https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ (search IPR2018-00910). Look for the joint motion to terminate and the termination decision; the settlement agreement will almost certainly be filed with a § 317(b) confidentiality request, so expect redaction. There is no institution decision or FWD to read.
   • IPR2022-01287 (Motorola Mobility v. Maxell): same portal. Get the 2023-02-02 institution denial and read the panel's actual basis. That paper is the single most valuable document in this file for you, because it tells you why a well-funded operating company's challenge died — and whether the reason was art-specific (good for Maxell, bad for you) or discretionary/Fintiv-style (art-neutral, potentially fixable by you). I could not obtain its text and have deliberately not characterized it.
2. Verify the patent's term and enforceability status. Check maintenance-fee payment and any lapse/revival in USPTO Patent Center for 8,059,177. If the patent lapsed for non-payment (as "Expired – Fee Related" implies), confirm the lapse date, because it brackets your damages window independently of the nominal 2026-01-25 date.
3. Build your invalidity case from scratch, not from the PTAB record. Because there is no FWD and no estoppel, you are free to run any § 102/§ 103 ground, including art either petitioner used or could have used. Practical targets worth testing against claim 1's "first driver mode / second driver mode" pair and its switch-based selection: JP-A-9-270959 (cited on the face of the '177 for in-sensor mixing/culling) and JP-A-11-187306 (cited for memory-based time-axis transformation). Maxell distinguished the former on the ground that it still required field memory for time-axis transformation and a special-purpose sensor structure for mixing/culling — that distinction is your roadmap, and claim 1's second-driver-mode limitation is where a reference showing mode-switchable in-sensor mixing would land hardest.
4. Calendar § 315(b). If you have been served with a complaint asserting the '177, your petition window closes one year from service. Given the Director's October 2025 assumption of personal institution authority and the unreasoned-"summary-notice" practice now in place, file early and build the discretionary-denial record (Sotera-type stipulation, diligence timeline, non-overlap with any parallel litigation) inside the petition itself, rather than waiting for a POPR fight.
5. Treat the absence of further PTAB activity as a signal, not a shield. A patent in a family that drew IPR2019-00068/-00069/-00087/-00097 and IPR2018-00904/-00908/-00909 on its siblings, yet only one settled petition and one denied petition on this member, is either (a) genuinely narrow at claim 1, (b) hard to build clean art against, or (c) simply not worth the fight to prior challengers. Determine which by running the JP-A-9-270959 and JP-A-11-187306 combinations yourself. Do not read "no FWD, no cancellation" as "strong patent."

Sources: Google Patents US8059177B2 (claims 1–6; litigation block listing IPR2018-00910 "Settlement" and IPR2022-01287 "Not Instituted – Procedural"; legal status Expired – Fee Related, adjusted expiration 2026-01-25); GreyB ipverse IPR2018-00910 (Olympus Corporation et al. v. Maxell, Ltd.; filed 2018-06-20; Terminated 2018-12-26; petitioner counsel William McCabe, respondent counsel Robert Pluta); GreyB ipverse IPR2022-01287 (Motorola Mobility LLC et al. v. Maxell, Ltd.; filed 2022-07-20; Institution Denied; institution decision date 2023-02-02; petitioner counsel Jennifer Nall, respondent counsel Robert Pluta); Maxell, Ltd. v. Lenovo Group Ltd., 6:21-cv-01169 (W.D. Tex.) (asserting the '177 among eight patents); Justia Patent 10,397,507 family citation list (Olympus IPR2018-00904/-00908/-00909/-00910 wave and ASUSTeK IPR2019-00068/-00069/-00087/-00097); Sterne Kessler on In re Motorola and Morgan Lewis (distinguishing Motorola Solutions v. Stellar from the Motorola Mobility petition here).

Verification flags — do not rely without checking primary documents: (1) I could not retrieve petition grounds, judge panels, or the reasoning of the IPR2022-01287 denial; treat those as unknown, not as favorable. (2) The ODP block's "no AIA proceedings" statement conflicts with the patent's own record — the ODP ingest for this patent appears stale. (3) The expiration/fee-lapse status is internally ambiguous in the record and should be resolved against USPTO Patent Center before it is used in any demand-response or damages analysis.

I'll research the assignment record before writing anything. Let me run targeted searches.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,059,177 B2 ("Electric camera")

Methodology note and a limitation you need to know

I could not complete a live query of the USPTO Assignment Center for this patent number. Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the legacy Assignment Search (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) are JavaScript single-page applications that do not return parseable record content to automated retrieval; my searches against them returned no assignment-abstract records for US 8,059,177.

Everything below therefore comes from corroborating primary/secondary records: (a) the Google Patents legal-events block on the patent page itself, and (b) USPTO assignment reel/frame citations that appear verbatim inside PTAB exhibit file histories for sibling members of the same family (IPR2024-00867 Ex. 1003; IPR2024-00906 Ex. 1005/1006), plus Espacenet INPADOC. Where I could not confirm a reel/frame, I say so rather than supplying one. Do not treat any unmet reel/frame below as recorded.

Verification links: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/US8059177/en

Inventors

Pattern assessment — no unusual inventor behavior detected. The instruction asks specifically about inventors departing within 12 months of filing as a fire-sale precursor. That pattern is not present here, and the record actually shows the opposite: the same three inventors are named on every member of the "Electric Camera" family across ~18 years — US 6,765,616 (parent), 7,403,226 (sibling divisional), 8,059,177, 8,339,493, 8,736,729, 9,100,604, 9,544,517, 10,554,917, 10,462,403, and 10,397,507. That consistency, combined with a chain of assignments running through Hitachi-affiliated entities rather than to third parties, is the signature of a corporate-sponsored invention held inside a corporate family, not an inventor-owned asset.

Caveat: Google Patents/Justia list only a city of residence ("Tokyo") — a residence, not a work address. Employer attribution is inferred from the assignment to Hitachi, Ltd. and from the family's shared "c/o Hitachi, Ltd. IP Group" correspondence address. I did not find independent employment-history records confirming where each inventor worked in 2000, and I am not asserting departure dates I could not source.

Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) — the assignee named on the issued patent and on the JP priority application JP 2000-006064 (JP 3991543 B2).

• Primary line of business: diversified Japanese electronics conglomerate. The relevant internal unit was its Consumer Business Group — camcorders, televisions, optical disc and display products — which is why this patent (a CCD camcorder architecture) landed in Hitachi's consumer-electronics IP, not its industrial IP.
• Did Hitachi ship a product embodying the claims? Highly likely yes, historically. The specification is written around NTSC camcorder/camcorder-derived "electric cameras" with complementary-color CCDs, and the family's prosecution docket prefix ASA-9606-xx is a Hitachi-side file. However, I did not verify a specific commercial Hitachi model that practices claim 1, so treat "shipped a product" as probable-but-unverified rather than established. (Note: I am deliberately not treating the portable-plug-adapter table hit for "8059177" in a 2017 ESCHA catalog as relevant — it is a coincidental part number.)
• Current status: operating, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Hitachi, Ltd. remains a large listed conglomerate. Its consumer-electronics IP was moved out through the intra-group chain described below. Hitachi and Maxell have no publicly reported bankruptcy, so the "Kodak/Nortel-style fire-sale" branch is closed off here.

Assignment timeline

The chain has five recorded post-issuance links. I confirmed reel/frame for two of them and could not confirm it for three; that is stated per entry.

1) 2000-03-08 — original filing (inventor → Hitachi, Ltd.)

• Reel/frame not retrieved. The parent application 09/520,836 was filed 2000-03-08 naming Hitachi, Ltd. as assignee-applicant, which implies a separate inventor-to-corporate assignment exists in the reel series around 2000. I could not locate its reel/frame and am not inventing one.
• Context: initial corporate ownership — employment-based invention assignment to the operating parent.

2) 2013-06-12 (executed) — Reel/frame NOT CONFIRMED

• Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
• Assignor: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal corporate reorganization — carve-out of Hitachi's consumer-business IP into a dedicated affiliate.
• ⚠️ Flagged discrepancy: Maxell's own infringement complaint (E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036, First Amended Complaint ¶4) states that "in 2009 Hitachi, Ltd. assigned much of its intellectual property to Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd." The Google Patents legal-events block for this patent shows 2013-06-12. These are not reconcilable on their face; the difference may be execution-date vs. recordation-date, or the complaint may be describing the business spin-off (2009) rather than the IP assignment. Unresolved — flagging rather than choosing.

3) 2014-09-08 (executed) — Reel 033685/0883

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Assignee: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: internal corporate reorganization — second leg of the consumer-IP realignment into the Hitachi Maxell joint-venture vehicle.
• Basis: Reel 033685/0883 is cited verbatim as the document "To: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD." in the 37 CFR 3.73(c) statement filed in IPR2024-00867 (Samsung v. Maxell), Ex. 1003 — a file history exhibit for sibling patent US 10,176,848, which is in the same Hitachi→Maxell transfer. The same document batch is what produced the Google Patents 2014-09-08 event. I confirmed the reel for the transfer, not a distinct per-patent frame for '177 — under USPTO practice a single multi-patent assignment document receives one reel/frame and every patent in it reports the same cite.

4) 2017-10-01 (executed) / recorded 2018-01-25 — Reel 045142/0208

• Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
• Assignor: Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: NADEEN NSOULI, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606. Recorded document is 141 pages, evidencing a mass multi-patent portfolio transfer recorded in a single batch.
• Context: internal reorganization concluding in a name/organization change, executed approximately three weeks before Maxell's first assertion wave against Apple, Huawei and ZTE (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01447 is the earliest listed case naming this family).
• Basis: Reel/Frame 045142/0208 appears verbatim in (i) the Patent Assignment Abstract of Title reproduced in IPR2024-00906 Ex. 1006 (for US 10,129,590) — which shows Assignor HITACHI MAXELL, LTD., Exec Dt 10/01/2017, Received/Recorded 01/25/2018, Pages 141, Correspondent NADEEN NSOULI 71 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE CHICAGO IL 60606; (ii) IPR2024-00867 Ex. 1003 ("To: MAXELL, LTD. … Reel 045142, Frame 0208"); and (iii) Espacenet INPADOC ("FURTHER INFORMATION: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD., JAPAN … MAXELL, LTD., JAPAN … 20171001 … REEL/FRAME:045142/0208"). This is the same portfolio-wide document that would cover '177, but I did not see '177's own abstract page for this reel — the frame is asserted as the transfer's reel/frame, and '177 is a member of that transfer by the Google Patents 2018-01-25 event.
• Correspondent recurrence flag: Nadeen Nsouli is the only correspondent I could retrieve anywhere in this chain, so I cannot show recurrence on multiple links. Separately, Robert Pluta is identified as Maxell's respondent counsel in IPR2022-01287 (the Motorola IPR against the '177). Pluta is associated with the same Chicago firm whose address matches the 71 South Wacker correspondent block. This is a consistency observation, not a confirmed repeat-correspondent finding — I could not verify Pluta's firm affiliation or registration number from a primary source, so I am flagging it as inference only.

5) 2021-11-29 — Reel/frame NOT CONFIRMED

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: Maxell, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: change of corporate structure only — holding-company reorganization.

6) 2021-12-03 — Reel/frame NOT CONFIRMED

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: Maxell Holdings, Ltd.
• Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: change of name only — the entity now called "Maxell, Ltd." is the former Maxell Holdings, Ltd. Net effect: no change in ultimate owner; today's "Maxell, Ltd." is a different legal person from the 2017 "Maxell, Ltd."

Terminal disclaimer / common-ownership note: The family's continuation application 14/264,243 (issued as US 9,100,604) was filed with an electronic terminal disclaimer naming HITACHI MAXELL, LTD. as 100% owner, disclaiming term beyond US 6,765,616 and US 7,403,226, with attorney docket ASA-9606-06 and signatory registration number 30293. This confirms Hitachi Maxell's 100% ownership as of that filing and independently corroborates the common ownership that made the family's coordinated 2026-01-25 expiration possible.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8059177
    2000 : Priority filed in Japan
         : US parent filed by Hitachi Ltd
    2011 : Patent issues to Hitachi Ltd
    2013 : Assigned to Hitachi Consumer Electronics
    2014 : Assigned to Hitachi Maxell Ltd via reel 033685
    2017 : Executed transfer to Maxell Ltd
         : Maxell assertion campaign begins
    2018 : Maxell Ltd assignment recorded reel 045142
    2021 : Merged into Maxell Holdings Ltd
    2021 : Renamed back to Maxell Ltd
    2026 : Term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
There is no recorded transfer to a licensing-only vehicle. Every assignee in the chain is an operating corporation in the Hitachi/Maxell corporate family: Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd. → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. → Maxell Holdings, Ltd. → Maxell, Ltd. No assignee carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Ventures" suffix; no assignee address is a registered-agent service; no single-member Delaware or Texas LLC ever takes title to the '177. Reel 045142/0208 runs between two named operating companies, not to a shell. This is the single most important negative finding and it caps the verdict below.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PARTIALLY PRESENT (hybrid, not a list NPE).
Neither Hitachi, Ltd. nor Hitachi Consumer Electronics appears on any standard NPE list, and Maxell, Ltd. is not an Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Converso / Vringo / Pendrell / Innovatio / MPHJ / Lumen View / Round Rock / Spangenberg entity. What is present is high-frequency-plaintiff status: Maxell, Ltd. is the named patent owner opposing at least two IPRs on this very patent — IPR2018-00910 (Olympus, terminated 2018-12-26) and IPR2022-01287 (Motorola Mobility, filed 2022-07-20, institution denied 2023-02-02) — and it is the plaintiff in a multi-year, multi-defendant campaign naming Apple, Huawei, ZTE, Hisense, VIZIO and Motorola across D. Del. 1:17-cv-01447, D. Del. 1:18-cv-00310, S.D. Fla. 1:18-cv-21231, W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-01169 and N.D. Ill. 1:22-cv-00256. Maxell also stood up Maxell Research and Development America, LLC in Marshall, Texas (E.D. Tex. complaint ¶6) — a venue-and-presence vehicle. So: assertion-vehicle status present; classic-NPE-list membership absent. I am explicitly not treating "Maxell" as an NPE merely because its name recurs in my searches.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (insufficient data).
Only one correspondent was retrievable: Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606, on Reel 045142/0208 (recorded 2018-01-25). Per your rule, a single appearance is not a finding, and I cannot show recurrence because I could not retrieve correspondent fields for reels 033685/0883 or the 2021 recordings. I will not upgrade this to "present" on the strength of the Pluta/71-South-Wacker coincidence alone.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Transfers span 2013, 2014, 2017/2018, and 2021 — roughly one movement every 1–3 years across 21 years, with no two consecutive transfers inside 24 months and no shared anonymous address among assignees. That is the tempo of periodic corporate restructuring, not of an LLC daisy-chain. (Contrast: two LLC hops inside 24 months with a shared correspondent would be a strong hit.)

5. Pre-litigation transfer — WEAK / PRESENT IN TIMING ONLY.
Reel 045142/0208 was executed 2017-10-01 and recorded 2018-01-25, immediately before and during the opening of Maxell's assertion campaign (earliest listed case D. Del. 1:17-cv-01447). The timing fits a pre-assertion clean-up of standing. But character matters: the transferee is the same corporate family's operating entity, not a newly formed plaintiff LLC, and the transfer is portfolio-wide (141 pages), which is inconsistent with bespoke pre-suit venue engineering. I mark this present-but-benign and give it only partial weight.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 for Hitachi, Ltd., Hitachi Consumer Electronics, Hitachi Maxell, Maxell Holdings or Maxell. No 363 sale, no stalking-horse, no court-approved patent sale appears anywhere in the record.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Maxell is not an unrelated third-party NPE asserting on Hitachi's behalf against Hitachi's competitors. Hitachi's consumer IP went to its own affiliate chain (HCE, then the Hitachi Maxell JV, then Maxell), and Hitachi Maxell's own name appears as the terminal assignor. If anything the direction of travel is the reverse of privateering: the operating parent kept the assets inside the family while shedding the business unit.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates at Maxell, Ltd., an active litigant. No neutralization.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Why: Two signals carry the call and neither reaches "strong" on its own. First, the asserted technology is no longer practiced by the owner — Maxell exited the camcorder/consumer-camera business, so Maxell, Ltd. does not ship a product embodying claim 1, while it monetizes this family purely through licensing and litigation (Reel 045142/0208, executed 2017-10-01, recorded 2018-01-25; IPRs 2018-00910 and 2022-01287; five listed district-court campaigns). Second, the transfer to Maxell, Ltd. was executed within weeks of the campaign's opening (D. Del. 1:17-cv-01447), a weak pre-litigation-timing signal. Against that, the decisive counterweight is that Signal 1 is not present in any form — no anonymous LLC, no licensing-vehicle suffix, no registered-agent address, no single-purpose entity ever took recorded title — which is exactly why the confidence is moderate and not high.

Alternative reading, stated for completeness: if you insist on the strict definition requiring the current assignee to ship products practicing the claims, the correct label would be Operating-company assertion (Maxell, Ltd. is a real, publicly traded Japanese manufacturer of batteries, media and projectors suing genuine competitors). I did not choose it because Maxell does not practice this patent's subject matter, which is the operative question for the '177.

Confidence caps and open items:

• High confidence: the five post-issuance conveyances and their parties/dates (Google Patents legal events, corroborated by Espacenet INPADOC and by PTAB exhibits); reel 045142/0208 and its correspondent; reel 033685/0883; the absence of any shell-entity transfer; the terminal disclaimer confirming Hitachi Maxell's 100% ownership.
• Medium confidence: that reel 045142/0208 and reel 033685/0883 are the operative recordings for this patent specifically (confirmed for sibling family member US 10,176,848 and for US 10,129,590, inferred for '177 from the matching Google Patents event dates).
• Not confirmed — do not cite as fact: any reel/frame for the 2013 Hitachi→HCE recording, the 2021-11-29 merger recording, the 2021-12-03 name-change recording, or the original 2000 inventor→Hitachi assignment; the identity of the 2013/2014/2021 correspondents; Nadeen Nsouli's and Robert Pluta's firm affiliations. The 2009-vs-2013 Hitachi→HCE date conflict is unresolved.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search "8059177" or application "10/660,710"; the reel cites above can be independently confirmed against https://patents.google.com/patent/US8059177/en (legal events) and the E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036 First Amended Complaint ¶4.

I'll run targeted searches for the specific patent number and its cited prior art.

Let me pull the specific "Patent Citations" and "References Cited" sections for US8059177 and check the USPTO record directly.

Let me get the Justia and Google Patents citation tables for US8059177B2 directly.

Scope note and a required caveat before the citations

I searched for US 8,059,177 B2 by its literal identifiers ("8059177," "US8059177B2," "10/660,710," "8,059,177"). Two things you must know before using what follows:

1. The authoritative full text you supplied does not include the "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" table. The fetched Google Patents text ends mid-family-list ("Families Citing this family (42) … EP1494465A4 …"), and the face-of-patent citation table was not captured. So I could not retrieve the '177 patent's own IDS/references-cited table in isolation.
2. What I could retrieve are the citation records for the '177 patent's immediate family — principally the parent, US 6,765,616 (Ser. No. 09/520,836), and the later continuation US 9,544,517. Because the '177 is a divisional of 09/520,836 (per the patent's own Cross-Reference and Google Patents), the art cited in the parent is the best available proxy for the art cited in the '177. I label every source below and flag the one reference set that is not confirmed as being the '177's own.

This means: the list below is documented-but-family-derived, not verified against the '177's face. Treat the "which claim it anticipates" column as candidate §102 ground, not an examiner's final position.

Set A — References cited in the parent US 6,765,616 (divisional parent of the '177)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6765616 (Patent Citations table).

Source URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6765616 (Patent Citations list, items dated 2001–2003).

Set B — Cumulative "Referenced Cited" list of family continuation US 9,544,517

Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9544517](/patent/9544517) ("Referenced Cited" block). Flag: this is the '517's list, not independently confirmed as the '177's list. It is provided because it is the only full table I recovered that spans the family's art.

U.S. patent documents

Foreign patent documents

Set C — References discussed within the '177 specification itself (self-identified prior art)

These are cited in the Background/Summary of the patent text you supplied:

• JP-A-9-270959 — "discloses an apparatus which mixes together or culls the pixel signals inside the image sensing device to reduce the number of signals to be read and therefore the read cycle." The patent criticizes it as still needing field memory for time-axis transformation and a special sensor structure.
• JP-A-11-187306 — camera in which "signals from all the effective pixels are read out taking two or more times the field period… stored in a memory means such as a field memory, and then subjected to interpolation processing… into signals conforming to the field cycle and horizontal scan cycle of television."
• U.S. application Ser. No. 09/520,836 (filed 2000-03-08, now US 6,765,616) — the parent by division; not prior art.

§ 102 analysis — which claims each reference could anticipate

Because the '177 has a pre-AIA priority date of 2000-01-11 (and a parent filing date of 2000-03-08), the relevant prongs are §102(a)/(b) (printed publications before the invention) and §102(e) (U.S. patents/applications by their earlier filing dates). Claim 1 is the only independent claim, and it requires four things in combination: (i) N ≥ 3M vertical pixels; (ii) a first driver mode producing M lines by mixing/culling every K pixels, K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋; (iii) a second driver mode producing N/K lines during the vertical effective scanning period, K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋; and (iv) switch-selected switching between the two modes.

Bottom line and honest confidence

• No single retrieved reference appears to anticipate independent claim 1 as a whole. Claim 1's novelty is the combination of (a) N ≥ 3M, (b) two mixing/culling driver modes with the K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋ constraint, and (c) switch-controlled selection between them. The nearest art touches pieces: US 2001/0043276 (Ueno) for dual thinned/all-pixel modes, and JP-A-9-270959 for in-sensor mixing/culling — but neither is confirmed to disclose the full combination.
• Dependent claims are more exposed. Claim 2 (all-pixel readout on trigger) is the clearest §102 candidate against references showing full-resolution still readout (Ueno; JP-A-11-187306). Claims 3–6 (color-filter arrays: Ye/G/Cy, Ye/W/Cy, R/G/B) are the classic target for the family's early CCD/CFA art.
• Highest-value gaps to close: obtain the '177's actual face-of-patent "References Cited" table (from USPTO PatentCenter/Public PAIR for app. 10/660,710, or the printed patent front page) and the file history (Ex. 1013, "File History to 10/660,710," referenced in IPR2018-00910 at https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10462403](/patent/10462403)). That file history will show exactly which references the examiner applied and against which claims — which is the definitive answer to your question, and which I could not reconstruct from the aggregators.

Low confidence / do not rely on: any §102(e) qualification for the post-2000-issuing U.S. patents in Set B until their filing dates are confirmed; and any description of the Set B references whose subject matter I could not verify (I have deliberately not invented titles).

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the actual prior-art references identified on the patent page before reasoning about combinations.

The second search surfaced PTAB petition text naming several prior-art references by short names. Let me identify them and locate the specific IPR grounds against the '177 patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,059,177 B2 ("Electric camera")

Governing law: The application (US 10/660,710) was filed 2003-09-12 and claims priority to 2000-01-11 (JP 2000-006064 through parent US 09/520,836). It is therefore governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103, with prior art measured under pre-AIA §§ 102(a), (b), and (e). Claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.

Important framing point up front: the '177's claim 1 is a divisional claim whose only substantive difference from the parent (US 6,765,616) and sibling (US 7,403,226) claims is the final "wherein" clause — selective switching between two driver modes based on a switch inside or outside the camera. Everything else the claim recites (N ≥ 3M; mix/cull every K pixels; K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋) is admitted in the '177's own Background as conventional, or is a bare numerical design choice. The obviousness question therefore collapses to: would it have been obvious to give a large-pixel-count CCD camera two switch-selectable vertical mix/cull configurations?

1. Element-by-element chart of claim 1

Every limitation is met by Misawa '607 alone, with the possible exception of the "mix" alternative (Misawa is described in the record as a line-skipping/culling reference). That is why the grounds below pair Misawa with the two references the '177 itself cites as its starting points.

2. The prior art references actually available on this record

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8059177](/patent/US8059177)/en ; https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200903029109299328 ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2019-00068/doc/1007 ; https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5705037](/patent/5705037)/FID2512/OG/html/1274-5/us06628328-20030930.html ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00087/BlackBerry_Corporation_v._Maxell_Ltd/docs/10-15-2018-Petitioner/Exhibit-1004-Exhibit_1004.pdf

3. Grounds of rejection

Ground A — Claim 1 obvious over Misawa '607 in view of the knowledge of a POSITA

Misawa '607 supplies each limitation of claim 1 in a single electronic camera:

• N ≥ 3M. 1280 × 960 sensor; N = 960 = 4 × 240.
• First driver mode. Normal image-capturing mode reads 1/4 of the photoelectric elements vertically → 240 lines, matching M; K = 4 equals the integer part of 960/240 = 4.
• Second driver mode, TV-rate. The macro/external-output mode reads 1/2 or all of the photoelectric elements → 480 (= ½·N) or 960 (= 1·N) lines, and Misawa expressly ties the sensor refresh rate to "the frame frequency of a color television signal format … adopted for the display on the LCD 40," i.e., the vertical effective scanning period.
• Switch. A macro key and a central part enlargement button select between the modes; a shutter release button triggers all-pixel readout.

Motivation. Misawa's own stated problems supply it: reading fewer pixels gives a higher refresh rate for composition/AF/AE (the "rough but satisfactory" preview image), while reading more pixels is needed to "accurately confirm whether an image is focused" in macro mode and to display "a precise image … on the monitor with a large screen." A POSITA seeking one camera that both previews at TV rate and captures detail at full resolution would have selected between two culling ratios (K = 4 and K = 2 or 1), all within the finite set K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋ = 4. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (finite number of identified, predictable solutions; design incentive).

Ground B — Claim 1 obvious over JP-A-11-187306 (Noboru '306) in view of JP-A-9-270959

This is the combination the '177's own Background describes and then attempts to distinguish, which makes it the most probative ground.

• Noboru '306 provides: (i) a solid-state imager with effective pixels beyond the standard-TV pixel area, additionally serving as a blur-correction area — establishing the N ≫ M premise; (ii) a camera operable in two modes: a normal readout mode with blur correction that extracts only the pixel count corresponding to the standard TV signal, and a high-resolution photographing mode using "maximum effective pixel area including the blur-correction pixel area" to output high-resolution digital still data (JPEG), with simultaneous VTR-format moving output; and (iii) mode selection between normal and high-resolution photographing modes.
• JP-A-9-270959 provides the missing mechanism: performing the mixing or culling inside the image sensing device so that a reduced number of lines is read out per field, thereby shortening the read cycle.
• Result. Substituting '959's in-sensor mixing/culling for Noboru '306's read-everything-then-interpolate architecture yields a camera in which the normal mode produces M lines by mixing/culling every K pixels (K = 2 or 4, ≤ ⌊N/M⌋) and the high-resolution mode produces (1/K)·N lines during the vertical effective scanning period — with the two modes selected by the camera's mode switch.

Motivation. Both references attack the same two problems the '177 identifies as its own objects — (1) the cost of field memory and (2) degradation of dynamic resolution from a readout cycle of multiple field periods. '959's express purpose is to "reduce the number of signals to be read and therefore the read cycle." Noboru '306 is the camera that suffers from exactly that. Combining them is the natural, expected engineering step, with a predictable improvement and no change in the principle of operation of either reference. There is no teaching away: the '177 does not show that in-sensor mixing of Noboru '306's blur-correction pixel area is inoperable for blur correction — indeed the '177's own FIG. 5 shows the blur-correction margin being handled by shifting the extracted area, which is what Noboru '306 already does via the high-speed transfer pulse count in the vertical direction.

Ground C — Claim 1 obvious over JP-A-9-270959 in view of Misawa '607 (and, optionally, US 6,628,328)

• JP-A-9-270959 supplies the in-sensor mix-or-cull driver and the "reduce the number of signals to be read and therefore the read cycle" motivation.
• Misawa '607 supplies the switch-selected plural-K readout (K = 4 versus K = 2/1), the N = 4M sensor, the TV-rate synchronization, and the camera/user switch.
• US 6,628,328 (Yokouchi/Kijima) independently confirms that placing an all-pixel read mode and a vertical thinning read mode in the same image pickup apparatus under CPU control — together with a device-shutter function — was routine in this art well before the '177's priority date (filed 1998-09-28).

A POSITA starting from either reference and looking for a sensor with "a large enough pixel number even for still images" (the '177's stated object) would have arrived at the claimed combination by routine experimentation over the disclosed range of K.

Ground D — Claim 2

Claim 2 adds "a trigger device such as a shutter button, wherein, when a trigger is produced …, the signal charges … are not cyclically mixed but are read out independently for all pixels."

• Misawa '607 discloses a shutter release button producing an image-recording start signal, and teaches that "the signals are read from all the photoelectric elements 12" in normal driving for still capture. Fully met.
• Noboru '306 discloses the same shutter-selected high-resolution all-pixel still mode.
• Kijima '503 is cited in the family's PTAB papers as disclosing a shutter button (element 46, Fig. 1) whose trigger causes pixels to "not be cyclically mixed but … read out independently for all pixels" (Figs. 6 and 9).

Ground E — Claims 3–6 (color filter arrays)

Claim 3 requires three color types (1st, 2nd, 3rd) repeating horizontally every three pixels with same-color filters aligned vertically (vertical stripes).

• Misawa '607 discloses that its pixels "can be arranged in a 'G-stripe arrangement in which every one horizontal line includes R, G and B color information' to facilitate interlaced readout" — a three-color, three-pixel-period repeating horizontal arrangement with color continuity in the vertical direction.
• Noboru '306 discloses complementary-color signal processing (paragraph 0011 of that reference as cited in the family's petition papers).
• The '177 itself admits in its description that "if the image sensing device has an array of vertical stripes of yellow (Ye), green (G) and cyan (Cy) color filters, … the color signals for Ye, G and Cy are obtained as a series of color points from one line of output signals at all times no matter how many pixels are vertically combined." The claimed advantage of the vertical-stripe architecture is thus an admitted, inherent consequence of the arrangement — a predictable result, not an unexpected one.

Claims 4–6 are the three specific color sets:

• Claim 4 (Ye, G, Cy) — the standard complement of the NTSC single-chip stacked-CFA art; expressly the '177's own primary embodiment.
• Claim 5 (Ye, W, Cy) — the '177 states the substitution of white for green "can obtain a higher sensitivity." Substitution of a panchromatic (W) element for a green element in a complementary stripe filter to raise sensitivity is a routine, results-expected modification; note also that W/Ye/Cy stripe CFAs are classified under H04N25/133 ("including elements passing panchromatic light, e.g. filters passing white light") in the '177's own classification set, confirming the arrangement was a recognized category in the art.
• Claim 6 (R, G, B) — primary-color stripe filters, the other conventional option; the '177 concedes they "can directly produce the primary color signals" with "good color purity and good color S/N."

Selection among Ye-G-Cy, Ye-W-Cy, and R-G-B is selection among a finite set of known, commercially available CFA configurations with predictable trade-offs (sensitivity vs. color purity/S/N), which is quintessential obviousness subject matter.

4. Why a POSITA would have combined these references (KSR factors)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution family. All references are in camera/CCD readout (the '177's own classifications H04N23/68, H04N25/70). The problem — "read a high-resolution CCD fast enough to produce TV-conforming signals without a field memory" — is stated identically in JP-A-9-270959 and in the '177.
2. Finite number of identified, predictable solutions. With N fixed, the only freedom is the integer K ≤ ⌊N/M⌋. A POSITA has a small menu (K = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …), and each choice has a known, predictable effect on line count, sensitivity, and vertical resolution. There is no unpredictability or inoperability in the claimed combination.
3. Market pressure toward convergence of still and video cameras. The '177's own Background concedes: "In recent years, video cameras with a still image taking function and digital still cameras with a moving image taking function have become available." Demand for one camera doing both is the classic KSR "design incentive."
4. The "switch" limitation is met by any mode selector. Noboru '306's normal/high-resolution mode selection, Misawa '607's macro key and enlargement button, and the '177's own mode selector switch 14 are the same trivial control mechanism. Claim 1's language — "a switch provided inside or outside the electric camera" — is broad enough to read on a menu setting, a button, or an external command.
5. Admissions in the specification. The '177's Background admits (a) that interlaced scanning is achieved by "changing the combinations of pixels to be cyclically mixed together … from one field to another," with about 480 rows for NTSC; and (b) that "the number of vertically arranged pixels for static image photographing needs only to be three or more times the number of effective scanning lines on each field of the television system." These are applicant's own admissions that the numerical ranges and interlacing-by-mixing techniques recited in claim 1 were conventional. Under In re Nomiya and the "applicant's own admission" line of authority, such admissions can be used as prior art and as evidence of obviousness.

5. Anticipated counter-arguments and responses

a) "Noboru '306 requires field memory; the invention eliminates it."
True as to Noboru '306 standing alone — which is exactly why one combines it with JP-A-9-270959. '959's stated purpose is to eliminate the need for large memory by reducing the amount of data read from the sensor. The combination is therefore a designed improvement, not an impermissible hindsight assembly. Cf. In re Keller; In re Merck.

b) "The '177 avoids degradation of dynamic resolution."
The '177 attributes that degradation to the conventional architecture it criticizes (multi-field readout). Grounds B and C remove that architecture from the combination; the resulting device is at least as fast as the prior art, so there is no unexpected result to support patentability.

c) "Interlace phase correction via vertical interpolation (½ pixel, 36° deviation) is a special feature."
The phase-correction feature is described in the specification but is not recited in any of the six claims. Claim 3 of the '177 as issued contains no interpolation limitation. Unclaimed advantages cannot rebut a prima facie case of obviousness. (Note: sibling family members such as US 10,462,403 do include interpolation-type limitations — I did not locate an interpolation limitation in the '177's six claims.)

d) Ambiguous claim scope cuts against the patentee.
Claim 1's second mode requires "a number of lines of output signals which corresponds to 1/K the number of vertically arranged pixels N." In the '177's own embodiment, the moving-video mode mixes 4 pixels but produces 240 lines, which is 1/4 of the 960-pixel effective area, not 1/4 of N = 1200. The claim text and the disclosed embodiments do not cleanly line up. A claim whose metes and bounds cannot be determined from the intrinsic record is construed narrowly or is vulnerable under § 112(b) — either way, a broader reading makes the Misawa/'959/'306 combinations squarely anticipatory/obvious.

6. Evidentiary posture (what actually happened in the tribunals)

Sources: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01287 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10397507](/patent/10397507) ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2019-00068/doc/1007

Reading this record honestly:

• The 2018 Olympus IPR settled, so the '177's claims were never adjudicated on the merits at the Board.
• The 2022 Motorola IPR was denied institution. I do not have the text of the 2023-02-02 decision, so I cannot state whether the denial rested on the merits (no reasonable likelihood) or on discretion (§ 314(a) Fintiv, § 325(d), procedural defect). A denial of institution is not a holding of non-obviousness and has no preclusive or stare-decisis effect. If anything, the surrounding family history cuts the other way: ASUSTeK obtained institution on the sibling '226 using Misawa '607 as the sole primary reference against a claim requiring vertically mixing/culling to the effective scanning line count.
• Misawa '607 is reportedly cited on the face of at least one Maxell family member, and one petition paper states it "was presented to the Office during prosecution and is cited on the face." I could not confirm that Misawa '607 appears on the face of the '177 itself from the supplied text. If it does, a § 325(d) discretionary-denial argument becomes available to the patentee; it does not affect the substantive § 103 analysis.

7. Confidence, limitations, and identifiers I did not normalize

High confidence:

• The element-by-element mapping of claim 1 to Misawa '607, including the 960/240 → K = 4 arithmetic and the switch (macro key / enlargement button).
• That JP-A-9-270959 and JP-A-11-187306 are prior art by more than a year and are the two references the '177 itself identifies and distinguishes.
• That the "selective switching" wherein clause is the only feature distinguishing claim 1 from the parent/sibling claims in this family.

Medium confidence:

• The motivation analysis under Grounds B and C — persuasive but resting on the complementarity of the references rather than an express "combine these" teaching.
• Whether "Kijima '503" is US 6,882,366 (Kijima, issued 2005-04-19) or another document. The short-names "Noboru '306," "Kijima '503," "Misawa '607," "Egawa '985," "Matsuzaka '013," and "Juen" are reproduced exactly as found in the PTAB petition text; I have verified the substance of Misawa '607 and Egawa '985 from petition quotations but have not resolved the full bibliographic identity of Kijima '503, Matsuzaka '013, or Juen. Per the operating rule, I am not auto-correcting any of these.

Lower confidence / flagged:

• Claim 5 (Ye, W, Cy) is the weakest of the dependent claims on this record. I identified the W-for-G substitution as a recognized category via the '177's own classification under H04N25/133, but I did not locate a specific pre-2000 reference disclosing a Ye/W/Cy vertical-stripe CFA. If such a reference exists in the Japanese CCD art, this claim falls cleanly; absent one, claim 5 is supported more by the "finite set of known CFA options" rationale than by direct disclosure.
• The PTAB petitions I retrieved (ptacts.uspto.gov documents 1510597 and 1510599) discuss "claim 3" and "claim 13." The '177 has only six claims, so those petitions cannot be directed at the '177 as issued — they likely address a later family member (e.g., US 9,544,517 or US 10,462,403). I have used their content only as evidence of what the references teach, not as evidence of what any tribunal held about the '177.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8059177/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10462403](/patent/10462403) ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01287 ; https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200903029109299328 ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1510599/download-documents ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1557188](/patent/1557188)/download-documents ; https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/5705037/FID2512/OG/html/1274-5/us06628328-20030930.html

⚠️ Cross-reference flags against the previously generated sections

1. Expiration. The earlier section reports an adjusted expiration of 2026-01-25. Note that today's task date is April 26, 2026 — i.e., after that date — meaning the '177 would already be expired even though the Google Patents capture (fetched 2026-09-25) still shows "Expired - Fee Related." This is consistent, not contradictory, but it means any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal involving the '177 would have to concern past damages or the '616/'226 patents whose terms the continuation family is terminally disclaimed against (see the terminal disclaimer for App. 14/264,243 disclaiming to 6765616 and 7403226).

2. PTAB outcome discrepancy. The earlier section characterizes IPR2022-01287 as "institution denied (decision 2023-02-02)." My searches confirm the same. However, the earlier section does not flag that IPR2018-00910 (Olympus, '177) settled, which I have added above. It also does not surface that ASUSTeK's IPR2019-00068 used Misawa '607 alone against the sibling '226 — the single most probative item of family-wide validity evidence and one that should be weighed against any suggestion that the family's claims survived prior-art challenge unscathed.

3. No contradiction found on title, application numbers, filing/priority/issue dates, inventors, assignee chain, or the four disclosed embodiments.